Pipeline, page 11
“You stupid bitch,” she said in a low voice seething with the anger that burned in her eyes. “You really fucked things up this time, didn’t you?”
The waitress swung by and left us with another menu. Carmella ignored it.
“We have to get out of here and find someplace we can talk.”
“After your people tried to kill me?”
“You brought that on yourself. You and that dumb shit boy friend of yours.”
“If you want to talk, you might as well order dinner. I’m not going anywhere with you. And don’t call me bitch again.”
“You are not going anywhere until I say so.”
I took that to mean some of her father’s thugs were close enough to stop me if I tried. She must have had the hotel watched. Otherwise she wouldn’t have known I had returned. I didn’t like being spied on, no matter how big a bone she had to pick with me.
We were still staring daggers at each other when the waitress came back. I ordered something with enough fuel for tomorrow’s skate. Carmella ordered the same. That wasn’t good news. She guarded her figure like Fort Knox. If she was jamming carbohydrates, it meant she had a physically demanding schedule ahead of her. One that started with yours truly.
“I need to talk to the boy friend, too,” she said.
Over my dead body.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Can’t you find your own dates?”
Carmella was in no mood for snide remarks. “You better listen to me, Amiga. That stunt you two pulled, going to the funeral home, it raised holy hell. Someone is liable to get killed, and if I don’t talk to the boy friend, it could be him.”
No way was she going to get her claws into Philip, but I needed to know what she knew to protect both Philip and yours truly.
“Holy hell is pretty vague,” I said. “Can you be more specific?”
“Thanks to you and the boy friend we have got the American Federal Police up our ass. The Arabs are scared of losing their money. They are sending people to get it back. The people who hired the mercenaries are pissed because they missed stealing the first shipment. Now they have sent their own soldiers to do the job right. The mercenaries are pissed because they were fired. Now they have gone into business for themselves. Is that enough for you?”
I dug out my cell and hit the speed dial for Philip’s home. He was on in two rings.
“Hi, Mickey. How did you make out with the Strike Force?”
“Never mind that. Just listen. Carmella says you are in danger. I think it’s serious.”
“Where are you?”
“We’re having dinner in the hotel restaurant. Just watch out for trouble and stay away from here. I’ll call you when I can to explain.”
“Save me some dessert,” he said. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
He was gone just that fast.
“Call him back,” Carmella ordered. “Set up a meeting. Somewhere quiet. Don’t try to fuck with me again.”
That wasn’t going to happen. I needed to warn Philip away from Carmella. I hit redial. After ten rings I gave up and shook my head.
“He’s as hard headed as you are,” I told Carmella.
“Do you know how much work has gone into getting the money into this country?”
“I will after you’ve filled me in.”
“My father has invested months in planning and making the arrangements.”
“I imagine he was paid for his trouble. He didn’t strike me as the charitable type.”
“The Arabs have spent more than a million dollars. Special aluminum body containers to hold their money. Payment to the contract companies to provide remains. Costs of embalming and storage. Bribes to officials to prepare false documents. Bribes to more officials to look the other way. Fees to American law firms to set up investment companies and deal with banks.”
“You’re making me feel bad,” I said. “All I got was a lousy five large for risking my neck to carry your mother’s journal and decoy the Feds.”
“I should have my money back. Not only don’t you decoy them. You lead them straight to the funeral home. If they had been only a little earlier, we could have lost everything we have worked for. Right now they are turning San Francisco upside down trying to trace where the money was taken.”
“Is that what your toy boy T-Man told you?” I asked.
Her eyes got cagey. “What are you talking about?”
“His name is Nader. Come on, Mel. I know you like to flip them and forget them, but this is too fast even by your standards.”
“What do you know about it?”
“I know you, sweetheart. The guy struck out trying to pick me up in Mexico. He had better luck with you after the fashion event. You’ve been stringing him along ever since.”
Carmella just shrugged. “It is the same everywhere. The police need informants. We need to know what the police know. So we play each other.”
I didn’t think it was quite that innocent. “You fed him a line of crap about the first shipment of money. The trial run. You let it slip to the mercenaries I would be driving. They knew who I was, so they would believe the information. That’s why you needed me to drive. You were setting the Strike Force and the mercenaries on the same false trail. You thought the Strike Force would take the mercenaries off your back.”
“My father calls that using one problem to solve another.”
Like that was business as usual. Okay, for all I knew maybe it was.
“So what do you want from me now? I don’t imagine you went to the trouble to find me just to bitch me out. Are you planning to throw me under the bus again, or what?”
“Nader called me,” she said. “I think his bosses put him up to it. He fed me a line of crap. The Strike Force knew all about the money arriving at the funeral home. They knew how it was being distributed. It was only a matter of time before they intercepted it. It would be better if I told him the destinations.”
“You could be a confidential informant?” I asked. “Maybe escape prosecution?”
“I need to know how much the American Federal Police really know,” Carmella said. “I need to know how much you know. I need to know how much the boy friend knows.”
“The Strike Force knew several days in advance the shipment was coming this weekend.”
“How did they know?”
“They didn’t say. They just told me to watch for it.”
“What do they know now?”
“They have copies of the shipping documents. Surveillance footage of the delivery to the funeral home. You know better than I do that there are cameras all over the place these days. I’m sure they picked up something from those.”
“And you, Amiga. What do you know?”
The waitress showed up with a pot of coffee and a basket of bread. The interruption gave me a minute to think. Carmella and I had schlepped contraband in Europe. She knew that I knew how cut-outs and drop points worked. She was probing to see how secure her father’s distribution scheme was. My only defense was to try to change the subject.
“The Strike Force is closing in, Mel. You should forget the whole business. Get out of the country and find someplace to hide before it’s too late.”
“And what then? I am not getting any younger. I will not be La Senorita Linda forever.”
“Don’t tell me you’re seeing crows’ feet in the mirror?”
“For you it doesn’t matter so much. You are an American. I am a Mexican. Sometimes it is like I am not even human. I can either become rich or I can become garbage. This may be my only chance, Amiga. I will not pass it by. Even if it kills me, that is better than wasting away into nothing.”
“Okay. Fine. Go ahead and feel sorry for yourself. Just don’t get me killed in the process.”
“That’s up to you,” she said. “How much do the American Federal Police really know about where the shipment was distributed after it left the funeral home.”
“There is information floating around that you used antique hearses to distribute the money. That’s why you and your father went to the old car show.”
“How do they know that?”
Score one for Philip and yours truly. “They didn’t say.”
“Do they know where the money was taken?”
“If they did, they wouldn’t have asked your T-Man to ask you.”
“Do you know?”
“No.”
“If the Arabs think you know where their money was taken, they will kill you to silence you.”
“You can tell them I don’t,” I assured her.
“They would not believe me. My family is catholic. Infidels they call us. We are the devil in their eyes. And I am a woman. I am only a piece of property. No, Mi Amiga. You have made your bed. You will have to sleep in it.”
“Do you have any more happy news?” I asked.
“If the mercenaries think you know, they will kidnap you. They will torture you to make you talk and kill you as soon as they are sure you have told them the truth.”
“It’s getting so you can’t tell the players without a program,” I said.
It was a lame joke. Carmella didn’t appreciate it.
“You think life is simple, like some theater script? People are drawn to money like ants to sugar. They don’t care what they have to do to get it. If you help the American Federal Police, even my father’s people may kill you. I am sorry to be so blunt, but it is the truth. You have made yourself into the girl who knows too much.”
“Seriously, Mel, I’m the low broad on the totem pole. Nobody tells me shit.”
“What about the boy friend?”
“You’ll have to ask him when he shows up.”
I wasn’t looking forward to that. A hint of a smile crossed Carmella’ lips, wistful and fleeting.
“It is a shame it must come to this. We had some good times together, you and I. I have not had many real friends. But now everything has changed. Nothing is as it seems. No one can be trusted.”
Carmella didn’t have anything more to say. Normally silence didn’t bother me, but coming from Carmella it was scary. She liked to talk. English when she felt she was in control. Spanish when she was rattled. With Carmella, change was bad news. She was dangerous even when she was predictable. This was uncharted territory.
THE ICEMAN COMETH
Dinner might as well have been cardboard for all the enjoyment I was getting out of it. I ate because I knew I would need the fuel, in spite of the tension tying my stomach in knots. Carmella stopped a fork halfway to her mouth and put it down. She fished a cell phone out from under her jacket. I hadn’t heard it ring, so she must have had it on vibrate. She read and replied to a text message.
“The boy friend is right on time.”
She put the phone away and went back to eating.
Her spotters were on the job. The hostess arrived a couple of minutes later with Philip in tow. No dress-up this time. Strictly come as you are. Corduroys, Hush Puppies and a bulky sweat shirt. My case of nerves amplified the usual effect he had on me. I didn’t know what he had in mind, or why he had ignored my warning to stay away.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said.
I made room on my side of the booth and he slid in next to me. Beyond that I might as well have been on Mars for all the notice he took of me.
“I presume I have the honor of meeting the glamorous Carmella,” he said.
“So you are the Iceman,” she said,
She looked him over slowly, vaguely interested, and teased him with a smile that could be persuaded to be a lot nicer if the right man tried hard enough.
“I have heard a great deal about you,” she cooed. “You are not exactly what I expected.”
“I’ve been disappointing girls for years,” Philip said. “All the way back to junior high school, in fact. It’s kind of a hobby.”
Carmella was a quick study. She knew when her act wasn’t playing. She went from charming to dead serious in nothing flat.
“I must ask if you are carrying any concealed weapons. I hope you understand.”
“What would be the point?” Philip asked. “You and your shooters are armored against pistol fire.”
“And what about you?” Carmella asked. “That shirt is a size too big. Are you wearing armor under it?”
Philip just smiled.
Terrific. Yours truly was the only one without a flak jacket. At least Philip had taken my warning seriously enough to come prepared.
The waitress put in a predictable appearance. Philip declined dinner and asked for a slice of apple pie. He and Carmella were still sizing each other up after the waitress left.
“My turn to be disappointed,” he said. “I was expecting horns and a tail.”
Carmella knew where that had come from. The nasty look she gave me was no more than a glance. She was only interested in Philip.
“I need to know what you know of our plans,” she said. “Answer honestly and completely. Answer as if your life depends on it.”
Philip didn’t seem bothered by her threat. “Just so we’re clear, you are talking about the scheme to bring a large amount of United States currency into the country and distribute it for investment on behalf of Middle Eastern clients?”
“You have a cell phone?” Carmella asked.
“Yes.”
“You are using it to record what I say?”
Philip took out a smart phone, powered it off so Carmella could see and then put it back.
“San Francisco was selected because it is the western financial hub of the country,” he said. “It doesn’t have the level of scrutiny exercised in New York. Transport and customs avoidance was accomplished with sealed containers with the remains of United States contractors inside. Such shipments were not uncommon. They would arouse no particular interest. They would be treated with respect. They would have to be handled by forklift, so the additional weight of the currency would not be noticed.”
I didn’t know if Philip had sources of information he hadn’t told me about or if had come up with that on his own. Either way, it sounded like he had nailed it.
Carmella wasn’t impressed.
“You have told me nothing,” she said. “What do you know of the plan to distribute the money?”
“The currency was trucked from its point of arrival in the United States at San Francisco International Airport to a Bay Area funeral home where it was removed from the containers for distribution. Your father had previously gone to a concours where a number of old hearses were displayed. Some were similar in appearance and would be difficult to tell apart if they were turned out in the same livery. I expect the purpose of your father’s visit was to inspect them for capacity and roadworthiness before he signed off on using them to distribute the currency. I understand he was interrupted, so the inspection must have been made at a later date.”
I was glad he left yours truly out of the picture. Carmella would have been homicidal if she knew I was the one who spotted the hearse.
“Do you know the final destinations of the currency?” she asked.
“I’m guessing the hearses couldn’t have been used to move the currency to final destinations. They would have been too obvious. The hearses must have distributed the currency from the funeral home to intermediate transfer points where it could be put on nondescript delivery vehicles.”
“How did you know to go to the funeral home?” Carmella asked.
The waitress arrived with Philip’s pie. She refilled coffee cups and asked if Carmella and I wanted dessert. I couldn’t afford any large intake of sugar. I might have to skate as many as three bouts tomorrow. I didn’t want to know why Carmella couldn’t.
Philip started in on his dessert.
“The plan was logistically sound,” he told Carmella between bites. “The planners miscalculated the persistence of the relatives of the dead contractors in recovering their relatives’ remains.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
I took over while Philip was busy chewing. “Most contractors are former soldiers. Some of them served with Philip in the Army. Their relatives contacted him to see if he could look into the delay in shipping their remains to the United States for burial.”
“This is true?” Carmella demanded of Philip.
Best guess: She didn’t like the idea that daddy the Colonel had miscalculated. It there was one hole in his plan, there might be others.
“I was invited to a memorial service for a contractor who served in my company in Afghanistan,” Philip said. “I believe you used his remains to ship the first trial batch of currency. That can be checked, if you want.”
“You say that because you want me to check,” Carmella decided. “You have only suspicions. You want to know if they are correct. That is why you have been so free with your answers.”
“You know a great deal more than I do. I am certain to learn more from the questions you ask than you are from any answers I give you.”
I didn’t know whether it was Philip’s logic or his candor that caught Carmella off guard.
“Momento, por favor,” she said, caught herself and switched to English. “Do not leave the booth.”
She gathered her shoulder bag and slid out. She found a nearby alcove, out of earshot but close enough to watch the booth while she talked on her cell phone. I didn’t need to hear the conversation to get a sense that it wasn’t going well. She was tensing visibly by the minute. I tugged on Philip’s sleeve to get his attention. I kept my voice low.
“Be careful. Carmella is carrying a gun. She can go batshit crazy if she doesn’t get her way.”
“It’s too early for me to do anything to set her off,” he said. “We’re still in the reconnaissance phase.”
