The Payback Game (22 page)

Boff called Wallachi on the drive home from the pub and told him what he suspected about Earl Bassett and his brothers.

“Pete,” he added, “I want to do surveillance tomorrow on the brother who’s a mechanic. I figure he’ll knock off work around four or five.”

What’s your interest in th
is mechanic?

“I want to see if I can pin down whether he’s a Hells Angel or not.” Boff glanced at his watch. “Let’s meet at the gym tomorrow. Say around three-fifteen.”

That night, Boff had too much on his mind to get to sleep. He slipped out of bed around two o’clock without waking his wife, poured himself a glass of Almaden Chablis in the kitchen, and took it into the living room. For the next hour, he played around with his new perspective on the case. It felt right, but he wanted to be sure. If he decided to go forward with it, then there were things he had to set in motion for his endgame scenario. Around
four o’clock, after his third glass of wine, he climbed back into bed and slept like a baby.

He was hardly awake in the morning, when Schlosberg called with news.

We’ve got a spike on the Quebec Gold! A pretty big one, Frank
.

“Let’s meet in the library park. Forty minutes okay?”

I’ll be there.

When Boff arrived at the park, Schlosberg was sitting on a bench in his usual spot eating a kabob. There was a grease-stained brown bag next to him.

“I stopped at a street vendor near the park,” he said. “The guy sells spicy chicken kabobs on a stick. I got three for each of us.”

As Boff sat down, Schlosberg reached into the bag, pulled out a kabob, and handed it to him. He took a bite and said, “This is terrific, Marty.”

“The vendor told me he marinates all the ingredients in a mix of garlic, ginger, orange zest, honey, and soy sauce. So maybe I should nominate him for a Vendy.”

After another bite, Boff nodded, then said, “Tell me about the spike.”

“The stuff’s all over Brooklyn. Happened virtually overnight, although the reality is it probably took several days to kick it in.”

“Do you know who’s distributing it?” Boff asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Come on, Frank, it just started.”

“What about your snitches?”

“All they could tell me is that distribution is widespread. You know how these operations work. The big dealer will have five or six sub-level dealers he trusts and will only use them to distribute. They’ll have smaller dealers under them they sell it to. It’s a large enterprise. Like a big corporation’s pyramid org chart.”

“Do you think the Hells Angels could handle such an operation?”

“Not on your life. I bet the Angels are using a well-established distributor with plenty of hired help.”

Boff thought about what Pedro had told him about Reggie Bassett. “I have an idea who that distributor might be. First, I’ve got to check some things out. If I’m correct in my suspicions, then I’ve got a fix on who’s the
real
brains and cash behind this whole operation. And it isn’t Galvani.”

Frowning, Schlosberg pointed his kabob at Boff and said, “Unless this new person fingers the Hells Angels, I don’t see how I can get them behind bars.”

“Not to worry. I’m going to have an old buddy of mine in the Brooklyn D.A.’s office flip Galvani and force him to testify against everybody involved in the op.”

Schlosberg looked surprised. “I thought you didn’t want to flip the cop,” he said.

“That was when I figured he was behind the killings. Now I feel differently.”

The DEA agent made a face. “As usual, you’re keeping me in the dark on a lot of things.”

Boff smiled. “That’s the way I play the game.”

“Well, as long as I get my collars—and hopefully another bump in pay grade—I guess I can live with it.”

After parking by the gym, Boff waited with Hannah and Cullen for Wallachi to arrive. Manny had refused to allow his boss to drive his car again, so they showed up in the old Crown Vic.

As everybody climbed into his car, Wallachi said in a sour voice, “I see the gang’s all here,” and turned to the trio in the back seat. “Is it possible to get through
one
day without you guys squabbling?”

“Pete,” Manny said, “
it’s not me who’s the instigator.” He pointed at Hannah. “She is.”

“That’s because you act so stupid sometimes
,” she said.

“Hey, don’t call me stupid!”

Wallachi shook his head and put the car in gear. He turned to Boff as he started down the street. “Frank, where does this brother of Bassett’s work?”

“At
Hank’s Auto Repair in Brownsville. Two-thirty-eight Junius Street. I looked it up on MapQuest. I’ll navigate you there.”

They parked across the street from the repair shop at three-thirty.

“Boff, do you have a picture of this guy?” Manny asked.

“No.”

“Then how will you know who he is?”

“See that bike?” Boff pointed to a big Kawasaki parked near the shop. “That’s his.”

“How do you know
that
?”

“I’m psychic.”

Wallachi glanced in the rear view mirror at Manny and shook his head. “Manny,” he said, “if Boff has the guy’s friggin’ name and knows he friggin’ lives in Brooklyn, how do you friggin’ think he found out what the guy drives?”

The crack op frowned. “He asked Damiano to run the guy through the DMV?”

“There’s hope for you yet,” Wallachi said, not really meaning it.

At four-thirty, a man resembling a younger Earl Bassett came out of the shop, put a helmet on, and got on the bike. They followed him west across Brownsville and into East Flatbush, where he turned onto Hamilton Avenue, took it to East 51
st
Street, and parked near a strip club called Mile High.

“I volunteer to go in,” Manny said as Bassett went into the club.

“No way,” Wallachi said. “You and Wally One-Eye will be watching the girls, not our biker here.”

Then Hannah leaned forward and tapped on Wallachi’s shoulder. “Who
is
this Wally One-Eye anyway?”

“A very close friend of Manny’s.” Wallachi looked at Cullen. “Danny, you’re up.”

Cullen spotted Bassett as soon as he came through the door. The biker was sitting at the bar watching a dancer on stage. Cullen sat several stools away and ordered a bottle of Bud Light from a topless bartender. She took his ten-dollar bill and returned with the beer and his change: two singles.
Eight bucks for a bottle of
beer?
he thought.
Jesus!
He slid the two bucks forward as a tip.

For lack of anything better to do, he turned around and watched the dancer do her wrap-around-the-pole thing. He didn’t find her terribly appealing. Long legs and artificial boobs weren’t his thing. Nor did he get why guys came here to watch this crap. Or pay eight bucks for a crummy beer. The only naked women he liked to look at were the ones he was in bed with.

Twenty minutes later, the stripper finished her routine. She put on a T-shirt and a short skirt and joined Bassett at the bar. They spoke for awhile, then she kissed him and disappeared into a back room.

The minute she walked away, Bassett finished his beer in one big gulp and left the club. Cullen waited a minute, then followed him out just in time to see Bassett jump on his bike and drive off with a roar. He hustled over to the Crown Vic and climbed back inside.

As Wallachi resumed tailing the biker, Boff asked, “What did you see in the club?”

“He was sitting alone at the bar. He had a beer and watched the stripper. When the stripper finished her show, she came over to the biker, sat down next to him, and talked to him for a couple minutes. Then she kissed him and walked away. Bassett left the club right after that.”

Manny’s interest in the club was predictable. “What’d the girls look like?”

“They looked like strippers.”

“Care to be more specific?”

“They had long legs and boobs that looked like they were inflated by a bicycle pump.”

The crack op grinned. “Just my type. I’ve been to Scores several times, you know.”

Hannah, who was shaking her head while they were talking, turned to him. “Don’t you realize you’re helping exploit these women when you go to strip clubs?”

Manny looked taken aback. Then he got angry. “What the hell are you talking about? I always tip the girls well. How is that exploiting—?”

Wallachi turned his head. “Manny, shut up!”

“She started it.”

“I don’t care. One more word out of you, and I’ll drop you and Wally One-Eye off at the next subway station.”

From the strip club, Bassett drove to a Burger King, parked his bike next to a couple of Harleys at the curb, and went inside.

“Manny,” Boff said, “get out your binoculars and look through the window. Who’s the biker with? What’s he doing in there?”

Manny trained the glasses on the window. “He’s sitting at a table. With a couple Hells Angels.”

Wallachi nodded. “Frank, this sounds promising.”

“Perhaps,” Boff replied. “But just hanging out at a Burger King with Hells Angels doesn’t prove he’s a member of the club.”

A half hour later, three bikers walked out of the restaurant together. The Hells Angels bumped fists with Bassett before driving off in different directions. As soon as Bassett pulled into traffic, Wallachi followed him to an apartment building in Brownsville, where he parked at the curb and disappeared inside. A half hour after that, he popped back out of the building.

Seeing what the biker was wearing now, Boff smiled.

Dwayne Bassett had changed into a pair of black jeans, shiny biker boots,
and
a Hells Angels’ vest over a white T-shirt.

Boff snapped his fingers. “Ahhh
, yes. It looks like Earl Bassett has an Angel in his family.”

They followed the biker back to the strip club, where he parked and went inside again. Five minutes later, he came back out with a tall, shapely blond wearing a black mini-dress.

“That’s the stripper he was with at the bar,” Cullen said.

Slipping on a spare helmet, the blond climbed onto the back seat of the bike and wrapped her arms around Bassett’s waist as he pulled away in a showy burst of speed. Wallachi tailed them to a Chipotle Mexican Grill near downtown
Brooklyn, where they went inside holding hands.

“Dinner date,” Wallachi said. “Well, Frank, do we wait some more?”

“No. We’ve got enough for today.”

As he put the car in gear and pulled back into traffic, Wallachi said, “Do you think this biker/mechanic is connected to Galvani?”

“We’d have to tail him more to find out,” Boff replied. “I’m not sure it’s worth the time. At the very least, we have a Hells Angels’ connection in Earl’s family. We also know one of Earl’s brothers is a big drug dealer in Brooklyn.”

Hannah leaned forward. “Are you trying to tie Earl Bassett to the Quebec Gold operation?”

Boff nodded. “I think Earl is the brains and the major money supplier behind this whole gig,” he said. “I believe funds from Nicky Doyle’s nonprofit have found their way into the Quebec Gold operation. I’m also pretty sure Earl used some of the money he stole from the nonprofit to bail out his drug-dealing brother, Reggie, when he had some big money problems. That’s what Pedro alluded to in the park.”

Hannah looked surprised. “Earl was embezzling?”

“Well, there’s good circumstantial evidence that he was.”

Wallachi looked at Boff. “What exactly is Earl Bassett’s motivation to get involved in something like this? I mean, the guy’s a corporate exec with no apparent criminal experience. If he was involved in
white collar crime,
then
I could see it. But
drugs?
”

“
Money
. That’s his motivation. The cash he was stealing from the nonprofit was apparently a nice piece of change. But there’d be a limit to how much he could swipe and still meet the charity’s various obligations. With the profits from the drug operation, he could replace the money he stole from Doyle and avoid any suspicion of embezzlement.”

Hannah still seemed confused. “But…but wasn’t the purpose of Galvani’s drug raids to raise the money to buy the Quebec Gold?”

“To an extent, yes,” Boff replied. “But what they were making on those phony raids wouldn’t have been nearly enough to buy mega-quantities of Quebec Gold. What you need to keep in mind, Hannah, is there are many levels of dealers. A few are big. Most are not. The big operators have tight security. That’s why I’m guessing the dealers Galvani chose to hit ranged from mid-level to small potatoes. Pushers with minimal security, if any. I believe the majority of the money for this operation was supplied by Earl from the get-go.”

Hannah nodded. “So…so, if we connect the dots…it would mean Earl ordered Nicky killed because the story he was going to write about the dead cop would endanger the drug operation?”

Boff shook his head. “I don’t think it’s that simple,” he said. “If Earl had your friend killed, the reason was because Doyle had hired a corporate accountant to audit the books to see if they were cooked. If the books were cooked, then Earl had to know it was only a matter of time before he was fired and indicted by the D.A. But with Doyle dead? Then Earl would have complete control of the charity. He could cut loose the accountant doing the audit. I asked Mike to see if he could get the accountant to sit down with me. If he agrees to do it, then I’m pretty sure he’ll be able to tell us if Bassett was embezzling or not.”

“In any event,” Wallachi cut in, “it looks like the game might’ve changed. Frank, do you make Earl Bassett for the hit on Maloney, too?”

Boff nodded. “If Earl felt Maloney was a threat to the op, then it’s likely he set the cop’s murder in motion.”

“But,” said Cullen, who had been listening carefully, “we haven’t gotten a handle yet on what threat Maloney might have been.”

“True,” Boff said. “When everything falls in place, I’m confident we’ll clean up that loose end.”

“Tell me this, Boff,” Hannah said. “Where does Earl find the hitman?”

“His brother, Carmelo is a well-connected mob lawyer.”

Cullen tapped Boff’s shoulder. “You’re forgetting something else about Earl,” he said. “The attempted hit on you.”

Boff turned around.

“I’m not forgetting
anything.”