The Informant (40 page)

“Yeah, Katey’s coming. Two keys is a lot of bread. Sixty big ones.” He laughed. “Wasn’t for you being such a famous celebrity, we never would have met Donat.”

“Oh, Neil.” She smiled. The two of them had been in a Cuban nightclub on East Seventieth, when Israel Manzana had brought some people over to their table to meet Lydia, now well known because of what she had done to get Neil away from Conquest. The Cubans had kidded Lydia about “the great rescue,” but they had respected her for it, too. Israel had introduced Donat, who’d shaken hands with Neil, slipping him a note offering to do business with him anytime.

When Neil learned who Donat was, he decided the time was now.

Lydia watched one of the two agents guarding her pick Olga up in his arms and nuzzle her face. “Neil, we can talk, right? I mean, you’re outside.”

“Right. Same number as always. Same crappy drugstore that nobody ever cleans. What’s up?”

“Sometimes I have doubts, you know? I mean, we’re settin’ up people for jail. One day it’s easy. I can do it, and no sweat. Another day, it bothers me. When I’m with you, everything seems all right. By myself, I worry sometimes.”

“I understand,” he said. “My position is different from yours. With me it’s a job, and I don’t even think about it. I mean, I get off the plane in some city, and I might as well be walking right into a closet. I don’t see anything of the city, I hardly ever go anywhere that doesn’t involve dope. Hell, ask my wife, she’ll tell you. I been in New York over a year, and I don’t know anything about this town except after-hours joints, Cuban restaurants, shit like that, but it don’t bother me. I’m doing what I want to do, what I think’s important. For you, it’s keeping out of jail, staying with Olga, and I think … I think it’s right for you to do that. Look, your cousin René, he’s dead, OD. Street says he got a hot shot, but they don’t know for sure why. You were at a safe house, so you couldn’t even go to his funeral. Wouldn’t you like to get the people who did it, I mean, if he didn’t just OD?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I would like them to go down for doin’ that.”

“See, that’s what I mean by the right thing. Okay, so you’re doing a job on your friends, on people you know. But look at it this way. They would do
you
if it came down to that. Same way they would have done you
and
me if Cristina Reina hadn’t stepped in. And she did that because she thinks I’m a big-time Italian. I’m saying you can’t worry too much about it, ’cause in the long run, it’s dog eat dog. Eat or be eaten. Everybody’s out there using everybody else, and when they get tired of chewing on your behind, it goes into the trashcan.”

Olga knocked on the door, waved at Lydia, who waved back. “Neil, I know it’s your job to use me, but would you throw me away like them people you just mentioned?”

The telephone-booth door was yanked open quickly, and Lydia flinched, her heart leaping into her throat. It was one of the agents, a tall, thin man named Alan. “ ’Bout that time, Lydia.”

She was about to say “Neil,” then decided not to mention his name. He’d told her it was best if the bureau didn’t know they were speaking often, especially since they weren’t speaking on Neil’s tapped line. He’d also told her he didn’t want to talk about what happened to Dominic León and what Lydia believed Neil’s part in it was. More of her jungle religion, he’d told her. She was only guessing that he’d flaked Dominic. Neil didn’t want to talk about it

“Lydia?”

“Gotta go.” She hung up.

In the knife-sharp February cold that slashed at her face as she walked up the metal stairway leading into the plane, she suddenly remembered that Neil hadn’t answered her question about using her and throwing her away.

Elaine said, “You were only a guest here, Neil, and a guest usually knows when to leave. We saw each other only in passing.”

“You weren’t lonely.” Jesus, why did he say that? He wished he hadn’t. He didn’t want to hurt her. What for?

Over the phone, he heard her sigh, accept the pain, then try to struggle back. “Neil, your excuse for turning your back on me was your job. Whatever I did can’t be justified that way. I wish I could call what I did survival, but you probably won’t accept that either. What excuse am I allowed?”

“Elaine, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have … Look, I’m going down to Miami. Getting near the end of this thing, I—”

“It’s getting near the end of everything, Neil. How long will you be gone?”

“One or two days. The bureau will send my next check directly to you. Deposit it, then make withdrawals. Any problems, call personnel.”

“Yes.”

“How’s Courtenaye’s cold?”

“Better. It’s gone from her chest up to her head. Progress, I suppose. Is it dangerous, Miami?”

“Hope not. I’m supposed to convince them I’m ready to spend over two million dollars.”

Elaine chuckled. “Try buying coffee and fresh strawberries in winter. That’s one million right there.”

Neil relaxed. “Always told you this job wasn’t like any other.”

“Neither is our marriage. At the moment, it reminds me of a jewel that’s just been crushed. It’s pretty, but there’s only pieces left.”

“Elaine, I—”

“Talk to me when you get back, Neil, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Talk to you when I get back.”

When he hung up, he left the drugstore, got a pint of vodka, and headed back to his new apartment, remembering Katey’s remark that life is nothing but a shit sandwich and every day we take another bite. Aloud, Neil said, “Christ Almighty, how about a different menu for a change, okay?” In the cold, with people bundled up and leaning into the February wind, nobody paid attention to him.

“I
GET THOSE DAYS,”
said Katey, “when I just want to go in and tell Forster I can’t dance, the music’s too fast. Tired of getting my chops busted over this Lydia-Betancourt thing. I mean, who do you have to fuck to get
out
of this movie?”

“You’d quit?” Margaret sat up in her hospital bed, arms behind her to adjust pillows.

“Quit, she says.” Katey sighed, letting his head flop back against his chair. “Had any sense, I’d put on a tight dress and black garter belt and let some guy keep me. Get the hell out of this business. Jesus. Forster’s out of his tree over this case, and he’s got nobody to take it out on but me. Lydia’s turned out to be a gold mine of information, and now everybody in the department wants to know why Forster turned her over to the feds in the first place. Nothing but buck-passing, but that’s life in the big city. That’s how it goes; the department doesn’t trust the feds when it comes to sharing the credit.”

“Edward, I thought you said that was all taken care of. You both were to share the credit.”

He kept his head tilted back, peering at her through slitted eyes, seeing how thin she was now, with a face the color of week-old snow. First Russell Gormes, now Margaret. Katey was spending as much time in hospitals as he used to spend at porn movies.

Margaret was in the hospital because of her plumbing. A hell of a thing to happen to an ex-nun who had never gotten that much action anyway. God had his funny little ways, didn’t he? No wonder the world was a Technicolor shithouse.

After Margaret had noticed the bleeding, she’d gone to a doctor, who’d found the growths and told Margaret that a little cutting, some scraping, and she’d be all right But then another X ray had turned up more bad news, and that meant the knife would have to carve deeper, much deeper. To stop the growths from returning meant removing the uterus, a hysterectomy, and Margaret, who’d once planned to spend her life in a convent, had wept bitterly because now she’d never have children. Katey had sat and watched her weep, feeling confused and uncomfortable as usual whenever anyone around him shed tears. Today she wasn’t weeping. Thank God for that.

Katey turned his hands palms up. “Not a question of sharing the credit. It’s just that nobody trusts nobody in this business. Cops, agents, politicians, they all want to come out lookin’ good, standin’ tall. You do that by producing, by getting results. Arrests, convictions. That’s why you got all that plea bargaining goin’ down today. Results. And to get that, you got to watch out for number one.”

Margaret looked into a compact mirror, patting her short red hair with her hand. “You and Neil getting along any better?”

“Yeah, better. Like you said, it wasn’t his fault I didn’t go down to Miami. Feds were the ones with the two million, and they wanted their own men around that much money. Neil says when they showed Cristina Reina and René Ateyala the suitcase full of hundreds, both of ’em almost wet their pants.”

Margaret reached for a glass of water and a small vial of pills. “Two million dollars. And all they did was show it to the Cubans?”

“That’s all. A flash roll, something to impress the people so they think Neil’s a big dealer. Only the feds got that kind of green, believe me. Neil’s been down there two, three times, and Cristina’s all over him, takin’ him around, introducing him to people. Our boy Neil is hot shit in Miami.”

Margaret swallowed two pills. “Nothing for you to be ashamed of. You’ve done all they’ve asked of you. You couldn’t do more.”

The sun came through Venetian blinds, leaving yellow and black stripes across Margaret’s bed. “Money. Fucking money. That’s the name of the game, ain’t it? Feds got it so they get to work one hell of a snitch. Russell Gormes dies because he didn’t have enough, and you—”

“I’ll be fine, Edward, just fine.”

“That isn’t what you said yesterday. You said—”

“You’ve got enough to worry about. Now, I said the office is checking to see if I’m covered under their employee medical program; I may not have been there long enough to—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you’re not covered, you end up owing a fortune. You know what the feds are paying Lydia? She’s been averaging something like five hundred a week, for, Jesus, let’s see. This is almost the end of February and they’ve been working her since September. Christ, that’s almost six months. I’ve got nearly ten years in, and right now she’s making more a week than I do.”

“
Edward?
”

Katey shrugged. Margaret had that down-with-your-pants-and-spanky-spanky look.
Don’t be bitter, she had said. It’s all God’s will. What happens to you, to me, it is all God’s will.

God’s will my ass, replied Katey. God doesn’t have to worry about his pension or about something growing inside of him that could snuff out his life inside of a year. Let God do twenty with the NYPD, then come and talk to me.

“I’ll be all right,” she said, smiling at him. Her smile seemed worn, like a tattered Sunday best she still had some pride in. Christ, Katey thought, she must be hurting. The pain. What the fuck am
I
bitching about? She’s the one who just came out from under the knife.

He clapped once, leaning forward, aiming a forefinger at her. “Tell you what. After this thing goes down, you and me, we take a week and go somewhere. Would you like that? I’ve got mucho leave coming.”

She used the smile again, nodding, and Katey felt good seeing her do that. “Where’re we going?” she asked.

Katey, who hadn’t thought about going away with Margaret until now, had no answer. He was about to say we’re going where my ex-wife’s lawyers can’t find me, but he decided against it. Looking into the sun coming through the Venetian blinds, he frowned, shading his eyes with his hands. “Somewhere warm. That’s all I know. Just somewhere warm. All it takes is money.”

“And suitcases,” added a grinning Margaret.

That got a smile out of Katey.

I
T’S GOING DOWN TODAY.
Right now, this minute, the deal’s going down in Miami. Neil’s copping now, the biggest score of his life, and it’s almost over. Almost. God above, let him live, watch over him. The gods of Santería, protect us all.

A frightened Lydia, ignoring her promise to Neil to cut down on smoking, puffed twice on her fifth cigarette in minutes, frowning at its menthol taste before stubbing it out in the motel’s chipped, dirty ashtray. She stopped pacing to look down at Olga, who slept quietly in one of the twin beds, knees to chin, her back against the huge black-and-white panda given her by Neil. Lydia managed a small, quick smile; Olga had tied her own watch on the panda, using a thin blue ribbon to get it around the panda’s thick wrist.

The bureau had had Lydia under twenty-four-hour guard in a Queens motel since last night and would keep her here until the day after tomorrow, when she’d be moved to another safe house. She’d been pulled off the set, her part in the Mas Betancourt case finished. Neil was in Miami to make the biggest narcotics buy in federal-law-enforcement history: two million four hundred thousand dollars for the thirty keys of uncut white. With this buy the arrests would begin. The time for just taking names was over. The trail had come to an end.

Today, tomorrow, the next day, everybody on Neil’s list was getting popped, and it wouldn’t be long before people connected Neil to these arrests, and after Neil, Lydia. You couldn’t fool the street long. Sooner or later everybody you know, especially with a case this size. Lydia and Olga would have to leave New York, relocate in another city, under another name. The bureau would help, giving her money, a new identity. After today she’d need it, because this case was going to be dynamite.

Neil placed his hands on her shoulders, smiling. “Baby,
y
ou are some kind of talker. Three days down in Washington, and you come back and we get the word. We can go get Logroño, we can squeeze him if we want.”

She glowed with his pride in her, and touched his hand with hers. “All I did was tell the truth. They ask me, I tell the truth. Logroño is Kelly’s mule. I say there is a very good chance he is carrying.”

“Yeah, well, we’d better be right, is all. We can pop him, but he’d better be carrying white heroin and not a handful of picture postcards. We get him on top of forty-five, fifty people, Jesus, this case is gonna go through the roof.”

“Neil, don’ forget the dope. You get that, you doin’ okay.”

“Me doing okay? What about you? We have to pay you if we confiscate enough of it. Did you know that? You’re gonna have a nice piece of change coming.”