“Well he just got dirty,” Breem countered.
The Deputy U.S. Marshal slid the warrant back to Breem. “And Fiorello?”
“You get him, too. As soon as Jefferson has the cuffs on.”
Kasvakis shook his head once and left the office without another word. Passing the secretary’s desk, he gave the wall a solid punch and went off to make preparations for two warrant services that night.
Glasses off and set aside on the date blotter, Kudrow rubbed at his eyes and listened to Rothchild relate the latest information.
“Very good,” he said, and hung up the phone with Rothchild making some wisecrack at the other end. The day before he would not have done that, but the day before he had feared Rothchild. That was no more.
Kudrow slipped his glasses on and placed an internal call.
“Section Chief Willis.”
“Have the surveillance teams back off,” Kudrow directed. “Something will be happening this evening, and I want no exposure. Understood?”
“Yes.”
And that was it, Kudrow thought. The end was in sight.
His mistake was forgetting that with the culmination of most things, others quite easily began without warning, and in this case it wasn’t a true end at all by which circumstances could be measured. No, G. Nicholas Kudrow had ended nothing. He had done little more than toss a pebble onto a glassy pond, defining the center from which ripples were already spreading.
Chapter Fourteen
The Song and the Dance
Breem was impressed with the facade of the old brownstone and the window boxes expectant of spring. He spit into one and pounded on the door, ignoring the brass knocker. When it opened, an ugly man stared out at him.
“Agent Lomax,” Breem said in greeting.
Bob Lomax, in sweats and a pullover sweater, gave Breem a cursory glance, but seemed more intrigued by the man standing next to him. “Pete?”
Kasvakis tipped his head in a joyless greeting.
Past both Breem and Kasvakis, Lomax now saw the familiar dark vans, windows tinted. He knew what was inside, or rather, who was inside. But why were they here? “What’s going on?”
From inside his coat Breem removed the warrant, folded in half lengthwise, and passed it to Lomax. “I think you’ll want to come with us.”
The surveillance teams were gone as ordered by Kudrow, pulled back to locations sufficiently far from the neighborhood where Art and Anne Jefferson lived that there would be no chance of errant contact with the authorities closing in on the area.
The sun had long since set. It was getting late. The streets were quiet. Just a lady walking her dog, a diminutive Westie, enjoying the crisp night, circling the block repeatedly.
Each time around, she took special interest in the two story Tudor with the Volvo in the driveway. It was usually in the garage, she was aware.
On one particular trip past she slowed, making mental notes, and after she turned the corner at the end of the block she came back no more.
In the captain’s chair behind the driver’s seat of a van following those carrying the warrant service teams, Bob Lomax finished reading the warrant. When he looked up, Breem was smiling at him from the passenger seat.
“Where’d you get this crap?” Lomax demanded angrily.
“Bank records don’t lie, Bob.”
“Someone is lying, because this just ain’t true. Art Jefferson would no more get into bed with Kermit Fiorello than I would. Or you.”
Why was it so hard for them to accept it? Breem wondered. Did the Bureau boys think they were all beyond reproach, that they were genetically incapable of selling out? Well, sorry to rain on the parade, Lomax, but I have your man cold, in the bag.
“This is not right,” Lomax said, collapsing back against the resistance of the high backed chair, swiveling it left and right, his heels digging into the carpet. “No way.”
“Your cooperation here is expected,” Breem said, eyeing the warrant. “He is one of your people.”
“Are you enjoying this?” Lomax asked, satisfied that he knew the answer beyond what Breem might say.
“I’m doing what I have to do.”
“Making your name?”
Breem quieted, then said, “Jefferson has a weapon and a shield. You’ll take those.”
Out the side window, streetlights blazed by as whitish streaks. Lomax stared at them until his eyes hurt, and then he simply closed them.
This time, only Mr. Pritchard smoked, savoring a cigar that was nearing the end of its life. It glowed bright with each breath, a fat stub poking from between his teeth.
And as he smoked he read, eyes scanning the message given him just a minute before by Sanders, who had promptly and properly retreated from the room. When Pritchard was done reading he passed the message to a man on his right, Mr. Bellows, and watched it progress around the table with serious, contemplative eyes.
Bellows passed it to Muncy, who passed it to Yost, who passed it to Pike. Pike read it twice and laid it on the bare table they circled. All eyes tracked to Pritchard.
“This is not good,” Pritchard said, choosing an understatement over the actuality.
“And the expected result of this…glitch?” Yost inquired of the group.
“He’s an honorable man, by all accounts,” Pike said. They’d read much concerning the parties that day.
“He’s not our concern,” Pritchard said coldly. “We have an innocent to think about. How does this affect our efforts there?”
Silence ebbed from man to man, broken only by Muncy’s throat clearing, a wet, raspy product of the cancer assaulting his esophagus.
“It complicates anything we do tenfold,” Yost observed. There were no disagreements.
“So,” Bellows began, looking to Pritchard, “the question becomes, ‘Do we intervene?’”
“The situation has changed since we agreed to step in this morning,” Pike said.
“An extreme innocent is involved,” Pritchard reminded the boys.
Muncy leaned forward, coughed into his hand, and said, “And if something goes wrong, what about the next innocent? And the next one?”
Pike agreed with a nod. “Will we be in a position to help them?”
“I think,” Bellows began thoughtfully, sitting back, “that it all depends on one man. How he reacts.”
“To them, or to us?” Pike asked.
“To us,” Yost said. “Do you doubt how he’ll react to them?”
After a moment’s contemplation, Pike shook his head.
“Well, how do we determine one man’s reaction to something he has no knowledge of?” Pritchard asked the boys.
“He is an honorable man,” Yost observed, adopting Pike’s earlier point.
“Meaning?” Pritchard probed.
“He has to understand the big picture,” Yost explained. It was difficult to suggest what came next. “If it is presented to him.”
“Presented?” Pike challenged.
“That is not the way to do these things,” Muncy said. It is not the way. It’s dangerous.”
“Extremely dangerous,” Bellows had to agree.
Pritchard, though, was silent. After a moment the boys looked to him.
“You’re not considering this?” Pike inquired cautiously.
“It’s too early to say yes or no,” Pritchard responded. “How the next few hours play out will affect any decision on that point.”
Pike shot a derisive look Yost’s way before getting up from the table. He walked toward the door, saying directly to Pritchard on his way out, “One innocent we can’t save is not worth risking everything we’ve worked for.”