‘Tell me about the bunker, Levi. Describe it to me.’
‘The bunker’s where Bobby takes his ... I don’t know what to call ’em. Business associates? Co-conspirators? Customers? See, what with the sweeps and how hard it is to get in there, Bobby figures he can talk business and not worry the cops are listening to every word. The door, I swear it’s as heavy as the doors on the SUV.’
Carter’s smile is encouraging. ‘Go on.’
‘OK, let’s see. Bobby’s computer’s in there, the company computer, but it isn’t attached to the Internet. He’s got two phones, one for the carpet business and another one he never answers. When it rings, he goes outside to call back.’ Kupperman sits up and wraps his hands around his knees. ‘The phones are on his desk and there are three filing cabinets against the wall. Also a card table where Bobby plays rummy and poker with the guys.’
‘What else? Think hard.’
‘Shelves on the wall with office supplies, a liquor cabinet, a bathroom with a shower, a couple of closets.’
‘Do you sweep inside the closets?’
‘Yeah. I especially sweep in the closets.’
‘What’s in them?’
‘One is for clothes, the other for cleaning supplies. There’s a set of golf clubs in the clothes closet.’
‘What else?’ Carter taps Levi’s knee. ‘Think, Levi.’
‘The rug? I can’t think of anything else.’
‘Nothing? Nothing at all?’
‘Fluorescent lights overhead? The pictures on the walls? Wait, one more thing. Bobby keeps tropical fish. The tank’s on one of the filing cabinets. And that’s it. I swear.’
Carter responds to Kupperman’s oath by pulling a K-Bar knife from its scabbard and laying the blade alongside the man’s head so that the point rests alongside his right eye. Carter doesn’t intend to kill a hapless cocaine addict. Levi’s not a gangster and he’s not a threat. If worse comes to worse, Carter will call off the operation and Bobby Ditto’s big deal will go forward. But Levi Kupperman doesn’t know that and his suddenly diminished prospects have induced a state of near paralysis.
‘There are two surveillance devices in the Ford,’ Carter explains, ‘a bug installed through the floorboard and a GPS unit attached to the right rear fender. Are you listening?’
‘Yeah, two devices, one on the floor, one beneath the fender.’
‘You’re not gonna find either one of ’em.’
‘Bobby’ll kill me.’
‘Bobby’s day is done, Levi. And here’s something else to think about. If you cross Bobby, there’s a chance he won’t find out. If you cross me, I’ll know it by the end of the day. Unless you think I’m bluffing.’
Carter lays the edge of the knife across Levi’s throat and pulls the man’s head back. ‘Do you think I’m bluffing, Levi?’
With his head yanked back and his throat stretched, Kupperman finds it difficult to speak. He glances to his left and happens to meet Angel’s gaze. Her mouth is open, the look in her eyes wilder than ever.
‘No, no. I don’t. I swear.’
Carter pulls the knife away and sits back, the show definitely being over. From the look of things, Angel’s been royally entertained. Carter drops the little packet of foil-wrapped cocaine in front of Kupperman, who’s lying on his side, crying.
‘Do some of this,’ Carter says. ‘You’ve got to go to work.’
Drugs are nothing new to Carter. While still in Iraq, he’d entertained two offers, one to raid the coast of Africa in search of diamonds, the other to smuggle morphine through India to the port of Mumbai. He doesn’t flinch when Levi unfolds the packet and shovels cocaine into both nostrils. He’s not even put off when snot begins to run from those nostrils. He opens the door, half-tosses Levi Kupperman outside and signals Angel to pull away. Another job well done.
Carter slides into the front seat alongside Angel, who’s staring straight ahead, her expression grim. ‘Why’d you let him go?’ she asks, her tone blunt. ‘What if he spills his guts to Bobby?’
‘For one thing, if Kupperman doesn’t show up, Bobby will just hire someone else. There are hundreds of private security firms in New York with the expertise to sweep an office and a car.’
Angel turns from Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn on to Ninth Street and crosses the Gowanus Canal, an open-air sewer that passes for an industrial waterway. A moment later, they pass a complex of stumpy brick apartment buildings, The Red Hook Houses, that once sheltered the stevedores who unloaded ships docked at the nearby piers. The jobs are gone now, along with the ships, but the destitute endure.
‘Also,’ Carter continues, ‘you have to consider the risk you take when you transport a dead body. This neighborhood?’ He gestures to a wall covered with gang tags. ‘An undercover unit could easily mistake us for suburbanites on a drug run and decide to search the van. A body would be really hard to explain.’
Angel finds a halal food truck parked on Columbia Street a few blocks from the Benedetti warehouse. With the Expedition bugged, they no longer have to keep the vehicle in sight. Carter contents himself with an orange soda, but Angel loads up on the calories, ordering a deep-fried falafel platter with rice, salad and extra white sauce.
‘We’re going to know soon,’ she tells Carter as they return to the van. ‘One way or the other, we’re going to know.’
‘Are you worried?’
Angel doesn’t answer right away. She slides across the van’s back seat and stares for a moment at the equipment, the two receivers, one for the bug and one for the GPS unit, installed by Solly Epstein.
‘If we don’t pull this off,’ she finally says, ‘you’ll just go on doing what you’ve been doing. But me? I have nothing to go back to. When Bobby killed Pierre, he wiped out my past.’
TWENTY-FIVE
Bobby Ditto gets lucky. Elvino Espinoza shows up a few minutes after Levi Kupperman pronounces the bunker free of surveillance devices. Bobby’s skin has been crawling for hours, as if the imagined bugs in the wall were bedbugs out to feast on his blood.
Bobby serves the older man Cuban espresso in a demitasse cup imported from Italy, a matter of respect. Espinoza claims to be Cuban, though he represents a Mexican smuggling operation with outlets in a dozen American cities. He even dresses the part: off-white linen suit, skinny black tie, narrow-brimmed straw hat, brown sandals.
‘So, Bobby, how have you been?’ Elvino asks, his voice carrying the merest trace of a Spanish accent.
‘Except for the ex-wife and the kids makin’ my life miserable, I can’t complain. And you?’
‘My health is good. At my age, I ask for no more.’ Espinosa takes a photograph from the inside pocket of his jacket. He lays the photo on Bobby’s desk. ‘My latest granddaughter.’
Bobby picks up the photo and nods, though as far as he’s concerned, the infant with the scrunched-up eyes and nut-brown skin looks like just another wetback. ‘How many does that make?’
‘Eighteen.’
‘Nine children and eighteen grandchildren? Must be fun at Christmas.’
‘I have only begun, amigo. My two youngest girls are at university and still unmarried. But I have no complaints. La familia. It’s the reason we live.’
It’s not the reason Bobby Ditto lives, but he keeps his thoughts to himself while Espinoza replaces the photo with a slip of paper. Bobby unfolds the paper and reads the day, time and address listed. Essentially, he and Espinoza have identical aims – they want to hold product for as short a time as possible. Bobby is to appear, money in hand, at a trucker’s garage in Greenpoint at nine o’clock on Sunday night. He can bring two associates with him and they can be armed, but displays of firepower are unacceptable. That means no shotguns, no assault rifles.