The Informant (38 page)

She smiled across gray carpet at the handsome Barth. “It’s nice. I never stay in no place like that before. I been in the hotel couple times, though.”

She meant as a prostitute, but no one in the room was going to throw it up in her face. Like it or not, Lydia was the most important person in the room at the moment; she could give them Mas Betancourt, and if she didn’t, the future was filled with hard rain for every man there. In the room were Oliver Barth, Saul Raiser, Walker Wallace, Neil Shire, along with four assistant regional directors from the New York office, two men from the bureau’s Washington office, and Detective Sergeant Edward Kates. Neil and Katey sat on either side of Lydia on Barth’s fifteen-hundred-dollar dark brown leather couch, bookends to a valuable piece of merchandise.

Barth exhaled expensive pipe smoke through lean nostrils. “Lydia, that’s going to be your safe house for the next three days. Then we’re moving you and Olga to another hotel. There’ll always be at least one man on guard around the clock. When it looks like Lonnie Conquest’s taken Cristina Reina and Neil here seriously, we’ll put you back on the street, but not before.”

She looked quickly at Neil, who smiled and nodded to tell her it was the best thing. Then she nodded across the room at Oliver Barth. Lonnie Conquest had sat in the back booth of a restaurant in Harlem on Lenox Avenue and 130th Street and looked across the table at Lydia and vowed to kill her.

“Yo’ ass, bitch! Gon’ burn you! Man, ain’t nobody grab my wife like that and get away with it!”

“You’re not going to touch her, Lonnie.” Cristina Reina’s voice was cold, soft. “We’re here to tell you to leave Neil’s friend alone. We don’t need a war now, we need customers. You overstepped yourself this time, especially at this time.”

“Woman, you in Harlem now. You don’t be tellin’ me
w
hat goes down up here. You and your white friends and your Cuban friends
—”

“Lonnie, I dislike dumb niggers.”

He frowned at her, not believing what she’d just said.

“What you say?”

“You heard me.”

He looked at her, at Carlos el Indio, who stood outside the booth near Cristina’s shoulder, at Neil and Lydia, who sat next to her in the booth across from him.

He turned to Julius Shelton, who sat on his left. “Say, bro’, you hear this woman?” Shelton, rolling an empty glass between his hands, had heard her and thought she was right. Too tall was one dumb nigger. Who else would have used his own mules, those bad-ass teenage couriers, to grab the Hundred Dollar Man just when the Hundred Dollar Man had something big happening with the Cubans? Who else but a dumb nigger, with so much at stake, would risk having the Italians go to war because one of their men …?

Shelton didn’t want no part of this, but he was under orders from Kelly Lorenzo to settle it quickly, without shooting, without any fuss, and whatever happened, don’t lose the Cubans. Be cool with those people. Kelly, on the run, in hiding, needed them to bring in the white that he could distribute in Harlem, Newark, Detroit, Cleveland, Washington. He could put it out on the street, but first he had to get it. So, no trouble. Cool out the Cubans, cool out whitey, and for God’s sake, cool out Too Tall before that nigger ended up costing everybody money.

Shelton now knew why Too Tall had such a large head. Had to be big enough to get all the dumb in.

Lydia held Neil’s hand under the table, squeezing it tight, almost sick to her stomach. Her life depended on what happened in this restaurant. Unreal. It was all unreal.

Lonnie Conquest said calmly. “Miss Ray-eenie, you be messin’ in somethin’ that don’t concern you. Now, my wife, she tell me nobody but this lady here, this Miss Lydia, come up and grab her. But I be thinkin’ that maybe somebody be tellin’ Miss Lydia what to do, how to handle this whole thing.”

Lydia closed her eyes. That was true. It was Cristina Reina who’d noticed the teenagers in the car with Neil. It. was Cristina who connected the teenagers to Conquest and told Lydia what to do and how to do it. Cristina had done that because Neil represented a lot of money to her.

Cristina stood up, tapping cigar ashes on the restaurant floor, her red ruby ring flashing in the dim light. Lydia’s heart threatened to shatter. Cristina had just got here. Why was she leaving? Had she abandoned Lydia and Neil?

Cristina said, “We’ve talked long enough, Conquest, and you bore me. Leave Lydia alone. Neil, I suppose, can take care of himself. His people have a reputation for vengeance. But I want these things put behind us until after our little business deal concludes. So now I’m leaving. If you bother Lydia, I’ll have you killed.”

Conquest sputtered. “You … you, what? Woman, you fuckin’ crazy? You gon’ have me killed? She-it. You lucky if I don’t—”

“Shut up, you black pile of shit!” Cristina’s voice was a sharp, high sound like a door buzzer. It was ugly, frightening. “You fool! Do you think we’re about to risk everything because of your vanity? Kelly and I have already talked this over, and we are in agreement. You back down, or you’re dead. There’s too much at stake otherwise. If you think Kelly would risk his money and men in a war with the Italians just for you, you’re crazy. Ask your friend Shelton. He’s been informed. If you don’t back off from this, you are dead. Neil, when do I see you in Miami?”

Lydia felt his hand squeeze hers tightly as he replied, “End of the week. Saturday or Sunday. Let you know.”

“Fine. We’ll meet you at the airport, show you around.”

Neil gently pushed Lydia out of the booth, but not before she saw a worried Lonnie Conquest look silently at Julius Shelton, who kept his eyes straight ahead.

Barth said, “Dávila’s driving Cristina Reina and her friends to Kennedy Airport. We’re keeping him around another week to make it seem like he’s got business here. Don’t want him following Cristina too closely. He’ll get back in her good graces sometime next week. Now, Lydia, you and Neil have one objective, and one objective only: find out the stash points. With twenty mules, they’ve got us beat. We don’t have the manpower to get them all, even if we did know who they are and when they’re coming in.

“But judging by the money put up in advance, and the way Cristina’s mouth started watering when she thought Neil here was going to buy twenty or thirty keys, it’s fairly obvious they want to sell it off in big lots. No spoons this time. Keys, and a lot of them. That means several stash points. I doubt if they plan to stack it all up in one neat pile. If they’re smart enough to bring it in in bits and pieces, it makes sense that they stash it in a half-dozen places, maybe more. That’s what we need to know. Just where is Mas Betancourt stashing five hundred kilos of very-hard-to-get white heroin?”

Lydia blew smoke across the huge office at Oliver Barth. “That won’t be easy, Mr. Barth. Won’t be many people who know that. I don’ think any of the buyers will be told that until the last minute.”

“I know, Lydia. You’re right. That’s why we want to keep you and Neil alive, to get close to the stash. You’ll be in a safe house for a few days, and Neil’s being moved into another apartment. Sorry ’bout that, Neil, you being separated from the family and all, but it’s best that way. Somebody might learn where you live, and we don’t want any cowboys out there on the street blowing you up at this stage.”

Neil nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Fine. Lydia, agents Holmes and Hammonds will take you back to your hotel. If there’s anything you and Olga want, just let them know. Neil, I want to go over your last report. Would you mind staying awhile?”

“No, sir.”

Who’s jerking who off, thought Neil, as he watched Lydia stop at the door, look over her shoulder at him, then disappear. Oliver Barth doesn’t want to talk about reports, any more than he wants to be ugly and poor.

Neil was right

“Shire, I don’t want Lydia to know about this, not yet. But this business about Rupert Logroño, the diplomat from Venezuela? If Dávila’s information is right on him, we’ve got problems.”

Neil waited. His stomach tightened, and from the silence in the room he knew that everyone else was already aware of what Oliver Barth was about to say, Neil was being told last, and he didn’t like it.

A suddenly quiet Oliver Barth began cleaning the bowl of his pipe with a tiny gold penknife, concentrating on the task as though he were alone in the room. Everyone silently waited until he finished. They also waited while he sucked food particles from between his teeth, and when Barth found he couldn’t delay any longer, he said it. “It’s like this, Shire. We’re about to make waves with this Betancourt thing. We’re running into opposition. Heavy opposition. It has to do with creating a disturbance. Call it a diplomatic incident I’m talking about Rupert Logroño.”

Barth didn’t look at Neil; he kept his eyes on a point two feet above Neil’s head. That was near enough.

Neil said, “I don’t understand, sir.”

“The bureau’s been asked to consider the possibility that it might be wrong about Logroño being a courier.”

“I don’t think we are, sir. Lydia and Dávila have been so righteous it isn’t funny. A few months back, a lot of people thought we were wrong to even
consider
working Lydia. Look what’s happened.”

Barth sighed, linking his fingers together in his lap. “The request to reexamine Logroño’s role in this comes from the top. And I don’t mean
just
the State Department.”

He wanted Neil to think, to make it easier on the both of them. Let Neil come up with the answers himself. Oliver Barth wasn’t in a position to wave a magic wand and make everything all right. Not now. Politicians were throwing shit in the game, and that meant the rules were changing.

Neil, seeing trouble, seeing his future slipping away, seeing a lot of hard work about to go down the drain, wanted answers. Barth was his superior, but Neil wanted answers. He cleared his throat “Sir, you said ‘from the top.’ You mean the CIA?”

Barth gently stroked his own firm, photogenic jaw with the back of his right hand, saying nothing.

Neil took that to mean yes.

After giving him a few seconds to think, Barth said, “Among others.”

Neil snorted and took another guess. “The White House?”

Barth began smiling, then stopped quickly. “It’s come down to us that going near Logroño means a diplomatic incident, straight trouble, especially if he’s not dirty when we arrest him. God forbid he’s carrying a Spanish shawl for his old granny instead of white. We’ve been told not only will Logroño’s country take a dim view of such an insult but arresting him just after he leaves that economic conference in Madrid would be a reflection on every Spanish-speaking country that attended the conference. Certain sensitive types in the administration feel we’d be saying all Latins are drug traffickers.”

Neil looked at Katey, who shrugged. Politics wasn’t Katey’s bag; he didn’t want anything to do with the CIA, the White House, the State Department. All he planned to do was listen and pass it on. Neil was doing a solo, far as Wily Coyote was concerned.

Neil leaned forward, elbows on his knees, reminding himself that Barth was the man, the head of the New York office, and getting pissed at him was the same as spitting up in the air. Only one person was going to get wet, and it wasn’t Barth. “Sir, that argument doesn’t hold water, I mean, I’m just thinking out loud. I mean, it sounds like some third-rate clerk got paranoid one morning while eating his cornflakes, and came up with this theory so he could look good with his boss. Dávila says Logroño’s been a mule for Kelly Lorenzo more than once. Okay, we’re taking an informant’s word, but this informant is—”

“Shire”—and now, even the usually controlled, contained Oliver Barth was squirming—“it’s their bat, their ball. It’s power, pure and simple. No one’s pulling the case from under us. No one’s telling us not to arrest people.
Suggestions
have been made, that’s all.”

Neil pushed it. He was fucking pissed, so he pushed it. “
Suggestions.
Maybe we should carry Logroño’s bags for him through customs. Let’s give him a real State Department welcome.”

The men in the room looked at the floor, at photographs of the president of the United States, the attorney general, and the top three men in the bureau hanging on Oliver Barth’s walls. They looked everywhere except at Neil Shire.

Barth took a deep breath. “Shire, you’re still needed on this case.” That was his way of telling Neil that getting out of line would be tolerated, but only up to a point.

“Shire, Logroño’s from Venezuela. We get oil from Venezuela. Can you make a connection between those two sentences?”

Neil leaned back against the dark brown leather couch.

Barth continued. “That conference is one of the few times in the past forty years that Spain’s opened up to the world on that high a diplomatic level. America has not been invited, but there’s a chance the State Department can send one or two people as observers. They would very much like to. And here’s something else for you. Cristina Reina. She’s got a contact at that conference, somebody close to Castro. Some people in Washington don’t even like the idea of us coming down on her. She gives them Castro tidbits every now and then, and her friends in D.C. would prefer her on the street and not in the joint.”

Neil was sick to his stomach. His voice was that of a beaten man. “Sir, do we stop? Is it finished?”

“No. We keep on keeping on. What can I tell you? It’s been
suggested
that we go with what we have, bust who we got now, make a conspiracy case with those names you’ve already given us. That would be one way of avoiding Logroño. Of course, it probably won’t keep the dope out of the country, but the people in Washington claim to be looking at the
big picture
, as they put it. To them, five hundred keys of white on the streets of America is not as big a problem as upsetting Señor Rupert Logroño.

“Now, Shire, hear this. I don’t want Lydia to know about any of this, because I don’t want her to worry and maybe go out and do something impulsive like she did in pulling your chestnuts out of the fire.
If
, I say
if
we knew when the load was coming in, where it was coming in, we’d be in great shape. There’d be no way anyone could stop us from doing our duty, which is to confiscate it. Get us those stash points. Consider yourself—you, Lydia, Dávila—consider
yourselves
on a tighter timetable. We want the dope. Give it to us.”