He located Nicolazzo and marched up to him.
“Salvatore Nicolazzo,” he said, “you are under arrest.”
Nicolazzo chuckled, looked at the men on either side of him. “You can’t arrest me here. You can’t even be on board my ship. We are in international waters. You have no jurisdiction here.”
“You were,” Brooks said, “in international waters. Until about five minutes ago. You’re in U.S. waters now, mister.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Nicolazzo said calmly. “Check the instruments. I assure you my captain knows perfectly well where international waters begin and end.”
Tricia tried to see through the window of the pilot house, but the glare from the morning sun prevented it.
“Very well, let’s check the instruments,” Brooks said. He strode up to the door to the pilot house and swung it open. A man trussed hand and foot rolled out. He’d apparently been leaned up against the door. This was the captain, Tricia presumed, judging by the nautical cap on his head. A gag of some sort prevented him from making more than soft mewling sounds as he squirmed about.
Past him, inside the pilot house, Charley stood at the ship’s wheel, his hands gripping it tightly at the two and ten o’clock positions. His taped finger stuck out accusingly.
“What have you done?” Nicolazzo said. “What have you done?” He would have leapt at Charley but one of the feds, coming up behind him, restrained him.
Brooks checked the instruments, nodded. “U.S. waters. I assure you, Mr. Nicolazzo, we wouldn’t have come after you otherwise. The Bureau always operates by the rules.” And to Charley: “It’s just as well that it took us a little while to pinpoint Miss Heverstadt’s signal underwater. That gave you enough time to steer the ship here. Your government is grateful to you, mister...?”
Charley looked at Tricia.
“Stephenson,” she said.
“Borden,” he said.
50.
Fifty-to-One
The man the glazier had sent over was kneeling in the corridor, fine brush in hand, carefully painting gold letters onto the new pane in the door:
HARD CASE CRIME CHARLES BORDEN, PROP.
“I might ask him to change that,” Charley said. “Borden, I mean.”
“Why?” Tricia asked.
“Now that the feds are keeping an eye on me, it feels like maybe it’s time for a fresh start,” Charley said. “Anyway, too many people who know me by that name would like to do me harm.”
“Or you owe them money,” Erin said.
“That, too.”
“So what’ll you change it to?” Tricia said.
“Why?” Charley said. “You think you might have a personal stake in the matter some day?”
She found herself blushing again, damn it. “Anything’s possible,” she said.
He kissed the side of her head. “Don’t worry, I’ll pick something that sounds similar to Borden. Keep it easy to remember.”
“Gordon?” Erin said. “Arden?”
“Something like that.”
He opened the door to the chateau. Four faces turned their way. “That’s okay, don’t get up, girls. I just wanted to let you know I’m back.”
“You ever hear of knocking?” Annabelle said. She had nothing on but a towel—wrapped turban-style around her head.
“What, and miss seeing you like that? Never.” He pulled the door shut and they went on to Madame Helga’s at the end of the hall.
“What happened to you?” Billy Hoffman said as they entered, gesturing toward Charley’s black eye and taped-up finger.
“Long story,” Charley said. “Let us use your office, will you?”
“Of course.”
They went inside.
Charley handed the phone over to Tricia, who sat behind Billy’s desk. How long had it been since she’d walked through that door for the first time? Since she’d seen Hoffman sitting right here and Robbie Monge staring at her as she danced. Poor, unfaithful Robbie Monge.
She picked up the receiver and placed a call to Aberdeen. The phone rang and rang and she let it—mama might easily have been at the other end of the house when the ringing started, and she wasn’t as young as she used to be.
“Hello...?”
Tricia’s face lit up. “Mama! It’s me, Patricia.”
“Patricia? Are you coming home?”
“No, mama, I’m not. But guess what? Coral is.”
There was silence on the other end. Then: “Coral?”
Tricia thought about the scene down on Cornelia Street earlier that morning, when she’d accompanied Coral to her room. She’d finally gotten to see Artie. Damned if he didn’t have his father’s chin after all, and no doubt at all who the father was.
What are you going to do? she’d asked Coral, who’d had to think about it.
I’m going to go home, she’d said finally. Not for good—but for now.
“Yes, mama,” Tricia said. “Coral. And she’s bringing someone with her.”
“A man?” her mother said coldly.
“After a fashion,” Tricia said.
Charley got up then, waved at Erin to do the same. “We’ll be outside,” he said. “Take your time.”
When her call with her mother was finished, Tricia didn’t hang up the phone, just depressed the hooks with her forefinger and then released them. She placed another call, to a number written in a neat, straight hand on the back of a business card whose front only contained a man’s name, not the name of his employer.
“Brooks here,” the man answered. Over the phone he sounded, if anything, even more stiff and formal than in person.
“This is Tricia Heverstadt.”
“Oh, Miss Heverstadt,” he said, warming up just a little. “I want to express our thanks once more. You did an outstanding job this morning. And now with Royal Barrone turning state’s evidence against Nicolazzo—”
“I can’t take credit for that.”
“You put us in touch with him,” Brooks said.
“I made one phone call,” Tricia said.
“You did an outstanding job,” he repeated. “And that is the reason I asked you to call me. So that we might discuss in private the matter I alluded to in our first conversation.”
“What matter is that?”
“Your skills, Miss Heverstadt, could be of considerable service to your government. Salvatore Nicolazzo is not the only criminal who has eluded us for years. If you were able to get close to him and his confidants, perhaps you could do the same with others.”
“I don’t think—”
“Simply by way of example,” Brooks said, and she heard some pages flipping on his end of the phone, “there is a mister Jorge Famosa, living in New York now but a native of Cuba originally. He peddles narcotics in the northeast, smuggled in from his homeland. His operations have been disrupted recently by the fighting down there—you have heard of this rebel, Castro, and his guerilla forces?”
“I think I’ve seen the name,” Tricia said, “but—”
“Well, Miss Heverstadt, we have word that Famosa is recruiting criminals from New York’s Cuban community to travel to Cuba and kill Fidel Castro. And once they’ve done that, they intend to back a bid for power by the dead man’s brother, Raul Castro, whom they believe will be more sympathetic to their operations.”
“What does this have to do with me, Agent Brooks?”
“We thought you could infiltrate Famosa’s organization and help us bring these men to justice before they create an international incident.”