House Justice: DeMarco 5, page 6
“Okay,” Tony said.
DeMarco could have simply placed an anonymous call to Langley and told the CIA that Crosby was Whitmore’s source and that Crosby had been in New York shortly before the story was published. But he figured it would be better if he could find someone who had actually seen Whitmore with Crosby because that way Crosby couldn’t deny having met the woman. But just placing Whitmore in the hotel on the same day Crosby was there might be good enough; that would at least give the CIA a starting point for breaking down whatever lies Crosby might tell his employer.
DeMarco looked down and saw a Manhattan magic trick had been performed: the five bills he had placed on the concierge’s lectern had disappeared and he had never seen Tony’s hands move.
“Give me until five,” Tony whispered out the side of his mouth. “That way, I’ll be able to talk to people on both this shift and the next one.”
The florist wondered why DeMarco had given the concierge money. DeMarco could be a guest at the hotel and he might be trying to get tickets for a show or reservations at a restaurant, but since he had gone directly from the jail to the hotel, it was possible that his business with the concierge had to do with Whitmore. While DeMarco was talking to the concierge, the florist used one of the hotel’s house phones, called the front desk, and asked if a Mr. DeMarco was registered at the hotel. The lady said no.
When DeMarco left the Hyatt, the florist followed. When DeMarco caught a cab, the florist caught one, too.
DeMarco ended up at a house in Queens that he entered without knocking. As the florist didn’t know how long DeMarco would remain at the house, he paid the cabdriver an outrageous amount of money to sit there as long as necessary. While he waited, he called the man who was making his new identity. The man wasn’t a hacker but he and the people that worked for him—all of them relatives— could use the Internet in the normal way to get information. He gave the ID maker the address in Queens and DeMarco’s name and twenty minutes later the man called him back. The house belonged to a Gino and Maureen DeMarco. Gino was deceased. The DeMarcos had one son named Joseph.
So DeMarco was visiting his mother.
“One other thing,” the forger said. “This man Gino DeMarco worked for the Italian mafia. He’s dead because they killed him.”
Now that was interesting: DeMarco had a blood link to a criminal, but he couldn’t imagine a connection between Whitmore’s story and organized crime. The more he learned about DeMarco, the more the man intrigued him.
As the florist sat there, he reflected again on what he was doing. Unlike his late brother, he wasn’t an intellectual or a philosophical man; he couldn’t articulate the correctness of the course of action he had chosen. All he knew was that his values—the values of his culture, the values of his family—demanded he act no matter the cost. It was the way it had always been and the way it always would be. They had selfishly and uncaringly destroyed someone he loved and he was the only one left to provide justice. And vengeance was justice.
He could have waited to see if the American legal system would punish the guilty but he had no faith in the courts, particularly not in a matter as complicated as this, one involving the press, the government, and wealthy people like Martin Taylor. He came to the United States twenty years ago because he figured the land of his country’s greatest enemy was the safest place for him to hide. At the time of his arrival, he’d been prepared to hate America but over time he began to love his adopted home: its freedoms, its opportunities, even its people. But what he never grew to appreciate was the American legal system. It operated too slowly and it bent over backward to favor the guilty. He had witnessed too often—although it was no different in other countries—the way rich, powerful people evaded punishment for their crimes.
So he would provide the punishment—and he would leave it to people smarter than him to debate the morality of his actions.
At four thirty, DeMarco left the house in Queens and took a cab back to the Hyatt. The florist watched as he spoke to the concierge again, and saw the concierge hand him a piece of paper. DeMarco then looked at his watch, rushed from the hotel, and caught the next passing cab. The florist had driven his own car to New York so he could bring his weapons with him but it was parked in a garage several blocks away. He looked frantically for another cab and saw half a dozen coming down Forty-second Street toward him but they all had passengers. It was rush hour and every cab he could see was occupied, and he realized that DeMarco had been very lucky to get one. He watched helplessly as DeMarco’s taxi disappeared from view.
He stood on the street for a moment pondering his next move, then looked back into the Hyatt.
The concierge was still at his post.
DeMarco told the cabbie to take him to JFK. There wasn’t anything else for him to do in New York and if the traffic wasn’t too bad, he might be able to catch the next shuttle to D.C.
Tony had struck out finding anyone who remembered seeing Sandra Whitmore at the Hyatt. He did, however, give DeMarco all the information the hotel had on Crosby. Tony said he’d keep looking for somebody who had seen Whitmore, but told DeMarco not to get his hopes up.
DeMarco’s parting words to the concierge had been, “No witness, no five-hundred-buck bonus. Keep looking.” Tony assured him he would, but DeMarco had a feeling that he just might have to make that anonymous phone call to the CIA and inform them that one of their employees had been in New York just before Whitmore’s article appeared—and let the boys from Langley take it from there.
He cursed when he saw the traffic jammed up in the Midtown Tunnel; he wasn’t going to make the next shuttle. He wondered how many poor slobs had died in this city because they had the misfortune to have a heart attack during rush hour—which these days lasted from two until seven. Having nothing better to do, he pulled out his cell phone and called a sly fellow he knew named Neil.
Neil called himself an “information broker.” What this meant was that he had a vast array of contacts in places that warehoused information on American citizens: Google, credit card companies, the IRS, et cetera—and if his paid informants couldn’t tell him what he wanted to know, Neil had a small staff with the talent to hack into computers or simply spy on people if that’s what a paying client required. The most terrifying thing about Neil was that while half his clients were people in the private sector—often lobbyists—the other half were folk in the American government, people who were disinclined to get the necessary warrants or just wanted a leg up on the competition. Washington was a very scary place, and Neil was one of its dark denizens.
DeMarco gave Neil the information he had on Derek Crosby, told Neil what he wanted to know, and an hour later—just as DeMarco was trying to get his shoes back on after passing through security at the airport—Neil called him back. Neil confirmed that Mr. Crosby of Fairfax, Virginia, per his tax returns, was indeed an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, a lowly GS-12, meaning that he was not a power player. He had used his Visa card to pay for a round-trip flight from D.C. to New York and for a one-night stay at the Hyatt. He had also charged a staggering bar bill to his card on the date Whitmore said she met with Crosby, and his beverages were purchased in the Hyatt’s bar. Great. That was all DeMarco needed to know.
He thanked Neil and promised he would mail his fee to him tomorrow.
Mail cash, Neil said.
DeMarco checked his watch; his plane didn’t board for half an hour. He decided he wanted to know one more thing about Mr. Crosby: he wanted to know exactly what he did at the CIA. Since LaFountaine had polygraphed everyone at Langley who knew about Diller’s trip to Iran, how did he miss Crosby? He could have asked Neil to find out Crosby’s job at the agency but he knew another person who could get what he needed to know and do so without hacking into a classified computer network.
Emma had worked for the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, a group of Pentagon spies. Although she was now retired—or so she claimed—she knew a lot of people who worked at the CIA. She helped DeMarco occasionally on his cases because he’d once saved her life— a deed that occurred more by accident than an act of bravery on his part. She was older than he was, considerably smarter, and her attitude toward him was usually that of an impatient, somewhat intolerant big sister. She despised John Mahoney.
Asking for her help, however, was going to be different than dealing with Neil. Neil had helped because DeMarco—or, to be accurate, the U.S. Treasury—paid for his services. Emma was different. She wouldn’t take money but she would demand to know why she should help DeMarco and, in particular, she would want to know why Whitmore would give DeMarco—a complete stranger —the name of her source. So he told her the truth, that Whitmore was blackmailing Mahoney, and that he was trying to identify her source in an under-the-table way so Whitmore could get out of jail.
“I’m not going to help you get her out of jail,” Emma said. “That woman should be shot.”
“This isn’t about getting her out of jail,” DeMarco said. “It’s about exposing the rat in the CIA who gave her the information in the first place.”
Emma didn’t respond.
“Look, all I want you to do is find out what Crosby’s job is at Langley. I’m just curious about the guy and it won’t kill you to make a phone call.”
“One phone call,” Emma said. But he could tell that at this point she was curious about Mr. Crosby herself.
He gave her Crosby’s description in case more than one Derek Crosby worked at Langley.
Tony walked out of the Hyatt, singing Dean Martin’s “That’s Amore” to himself.
It had been a damn fine day—he had almost two thousand bucks in his wallet. Five hundred from that guy DeMarco, one fifty from a man who said his wife was gonna divorce him if he didn’t get tickets to The Lion King, over a hundred from out-of-town schmucks who just wanted to know where to go for this and that—and the real prize: a grand from a private dick who needed access to a room registered to Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Tony didn’t know what the detective did in the room—he suspected he might have installed a video camera—and he didn’t really care. It wasn’t his problem that people named Smith kept screwing people they weren’t married to.
So what should he do with the money? His old lady had been bitching because the TV was on the fritz, and his girlfriend was bitching because he wouldn’t take her to Atlantic City. With the money in his wallet, he figured he might be able to make them both happy for a change. Yeah right, like that was possible. But he knew a guy who could get him a fell-off-the-truck deal on a Sony, and if he could get a cheap room in A.C., then maybe...
“That’s a gun pressed against your spine. It has a silencer on it. If it doesn’t kill you, you’ll be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. Now walk down the alley.”
Oh, fuck me. Why today of all days? Why did this have to happen when I’ve got so damn much money on me?
“Hey, look,” Tony said, “my money’s in my wallet. Come on. Just take it. Don’t hurt me.”
The guy prodded him in the back and Tony started down the alley. He didn’t want to go into that damn alley.
“Please. My wallet’s in my back pocket, the left-hand side. Just pull it out right now.”
The guy didn’t say anything. He just kept pushing Tony along. He hadn’t seen the guy’s face but he sounded big—and foreign. He had some kind of accent.
They reached a Dumpster that had three big black garbage bags on top, and the man pushed Tony behind the Dumpster so they were hidden by the bags. Tony was facing a brick wall and he was eye level with a line of graffiti that read: Jesus Loves You. His first thought was, If He loves me so much, why is there a gun stuck in my back? But his next thought was that he hadn’t been to confession in years and the last time he’d been to Mass was his nephew’s wedding. He was going straight to hell if this guy killed him.
“You talked to a man named DeMarco today. At five, you gave him a piece of paper. I want to know what you talked about and what was on the paper.”
Maybe Jesus did love him. The guy wasn’t a mugger.
Tony told him everything he wanted to know: that DeMarco was trying to find a witness who could place a man named Derek Crosby in the hotel with a reporter named Sandra Whitmore on a particular day. He couldn’t remember Crosby’s credit card number, only that it was Visa, but he remembered the address in Fairfax. Thank God he had a good memory for numbers.
“And that’s all we talked about and that’s all I know,” Tony said. “I swear to God. Please, just take my money and let me go.”
“How were you supposed to get ahold of DeMarco? Was he planning on coming back to the hotel?”
“He gave me his cell phone number. He told me to call him if I found anything else out.”
“Give me the number.”
Tony reached into his shirt pocket and handed the guy the yellow Post-it that he’d written DeMarco’s number on.
“That’s it,” Tony said. “That’s everything.”
The man didn’t say anything for what seemed an eternity, and Tony wondered if the guy was thinking about whacking him.
“I want you to stand here for two minutes,” he finally said. “Count to a hundred and twenty. Slowly. If you turn around or come out of the alley in less than two minutes, I’ll kill you. And if you call DeMarco and tell him we talked, I’ll also kill you. I know where you work.”
“I won’t call him,” Tony said. And he wouldn’t. No fuckin’ way was he going to get in the middle of whatever the hell was going on.
Tony heard the guy walk away. He didn’t bother counting. He wasn’t leaving the alley for at least five minutes. As he stood there, he stared at Jesus Loves You and wondered if maybe he should give up his girlfriend. He figured adultery was the biggest sin he was currently committing. Plus, the girlfriend was becoming more of a wife than a girlfriend the way she nagged his ass, and even the sex had gotten kinda stale. Yeah, it was time to fly straight.
After he figured five minutes had passed, he headed toward the mouth of the alley, reaching for his cell phone as he walked. He was going to call his girlfriend and say he couldn’t see her tonight.
Right now, he just wanted to go home and hug his kids.
The florist walked two blocks from the alley and stepped into a bar. He didn’t drink alcohol—he never had—but he needed to sit down for a minute and think, and he wanted to be someplace off the street.
He ordered an orange juice from the bartender and then his hand moved toward his breast pocket to pull out a cigarette and he almost laughed out loud. He hadn’t smoked in years. It seemed as if doing the sort of work he used to do—following people, intimidating and threatening them—was doing more than just bringing back memories he wanted to forget. He was turning back into the man he had wanted to forget.
Now what? DeMarco had told the concierge he wanted proof that Sandra Whitmore had met with a man named Derek Crosby who lived in Fairfax, Virginia. But why? Why would this Washington lawyer want to do that? It was possible DeMarco’s interest in Crosby had nothing to do with Mahata’s death or the reason why Whitmore was in jail. Yes, that was possible, but seemed highly unlikely.
So. He had three options. He could do nothing, just sit in New York and wait for Whitmore to be released from jail, but that could be weeks or maybe even months. The second option was to find DeMarco and talk to him, and since he had the man’s phone number and knew he lived in Washington, that shouldn’t be too hard to do. Or he could question this man Crosby in Fairfax, Virginia.
He decided to talk to DeMarco, although he knew doing so could cause him significant problems. It was one thing to question the concierge, a man who had no vested interest in whatever was happening and who was afraid the florist might kill him. DeMarco could be a different matter. If he had to persuade DeMarco to talk—and he suspected he would—DeMarco would most likely call the authorities. Unless he killed him.
Well, he would decide when the time came; all he knew was that he couldn’t stop now.
“Do you want another orange juice?” the bartender asked. “Maybe a shot of vodka in it this time?”
“No, but could I possibly purchase a cigarette from you?” the florist said. “Just one.”
As DeMarco was walking down the Jetway at Reagan National, he turned his cell phone back on and saw he’d missed a call from Emma. He went to the nearest bar, ordered a beer, and called her.
“Derek Crosby works at the CIA,” Emma said, “just as Neil told you.”
“Yeah, I know, but what does he do there? Anything related to Iran?”
“I didn’t finish,” Emma said. “Derek Crosby is five foot seven, bald, and wears glasses so thick he should be able to see the canals on Mars. And he’s the only Derek Crosby at the agency.”
“Uh-oh,” DeMarco said.
“Yeah, uh-oh. And he has nothing to do with Iran. He’s an analyst in the Cuban section, which means he probably monitors the cigar and sugar markets, Cuba being the big military threat that it is.”
“Aw, shit,” DeMarco said.
Chapter 12
When Yuri called, Ivan Dyachenko was in Escondido, a suburb of San Diego, eating breakfast with his Mexican mistress and their two children. He would eat dinner that night with his Russian wife and his other three children.
Ivan loved children.
Yuri told him what he wanted him to do and exactly how he wanted the job done. When he finished, Ivan tried to tell him that he could use a little extra cash because his wife’s car had broken down and one of the kids needed... but Yuri hung up. The man was a heartless bastard.
Ivan returned to the kitchen, almost tripping over a pudgy baby boy clad only in a diaper, crawling around on the floor. He picked the child up and bussed him on his bare stomach, which was not easy considering the smell coming from the little tyke’s diaper. His mistress asked if he wanted more huevos rancheros, more sausage, more juice, anything at all. When he said no, she got a look of concern on her pretty, plump face, as if worried that he might waste away if he stopped eating after his second helping.
