‘I can get them,’ said the girl impassively. They both knew it was a game. The girl had come across the border without permission to work. But Ramirez knew that, even in the old days, illegal immigrants he had deported were back at work within seven days. Now, since Mexico had discovered oil, the US immigration officials could seldom be persuaded even to start the paperwork. Ramirez snorted and called the girl a bad name. When he remembered the way in which his father had conscientiously gone through the process of getting his papers, so that Harry and his brothers and sisters could grow up as citizens, it made him angry that the authorities turned a blind eye to this generation of wetbacks.
‘You share his bed,’ said Ramirez. ‘Don’t tell me no, I say you share his bed-puta!’
The girl began to cry. Whether that was at the shame of being called a whore, or at the prospect of being deported, no one could be sure, not even the girl.
‘He’s dead,’ shouted Ramirez. ‘They cut off his head and we still haven’t found it. Maybe it’s here.’
The girl’s eyes opened wide in terror.
‘Now, tell me about the men,’ said Ramirez.
The girl nodded and sat down wearily. ‘It is true,’ she said sadly. ‘Once I go to bed with him. Just once. It was after his father died. He was crying. He was so sad… ’ Even with the girl’s full cooperation the description of the two men was sketchy.
The first lucky break the homicide officers got on the Lustig killing was a direct result of the killers’ haste. In order to prevent identification, they had removed the head and started to remove the hands. The forensic laboratory technicians stripped the lining from the luggage compartment and discovered, down under the tank, a very thin gold calendar wristwatch. A fresh cut in the leather strap confirmed that it had been worn by the victim (and the watch was identified as Lustig’s property by his housemaid). On the assumption that the dismemberment of the body would have taken place soon after the killing, the watch provided an indication of the probable time and date of the murder. The watch had stopped at 2.23 a.m. on May 24, following the visit the two men made to the house.
The second lucky break came several days later. Marilyn Meyer was one of the meter maids who patrolled the streets of downtown Los Angeles in specially built single-seat vehicles, from which they pounced to affix parking tickets upon cars parked in violation of local by-laws. Like so many pretty girls in Los Angeles, she had come to the city in search of a career in the movie industry and stayed to enjoy the climate.
It was this meter maid who remembered the black Porsche sports car parked outside Bernard Lustig’s office on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 23, and again on the following morning. She remembered that the ticket she had affixed to the car the previous day was still in position and she added a new one. It was not a tow-away zone so she took no further action, but the Porsche parked carelessly on the pavement stayed in her mind. She noted the Illinois licence plates and regretted that out-of-state ‘scoff-laws’ could get away with such traffic violations. She even told a friend that the city should find some way of collecting out-of-state fines.
Detective Ramirez passed a formal identification request to the traffic authorities in the state capital of Illinois, Springfield, where the computer revealed that the registered owner of a black Porsche 928 with that licence number was an Edward Parker. Further inquiries revealed that Edward Parker and his Japanese-born wife had lived in Chicago for nine years; previous to that he had lived for more than three years in Toronto, Canada, and before that he had resided overseas. These inquiries also extracted from the computer the triple-digit code that indicated that all police inquiries concerning Edward Parker must first be cleared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Identification Department) in Washington DC.
The bungled murder of Bernard Lustig, instead of resulting in a simple disappearance, had started a homicide investigation. In early June details of this became known to the KGB’s Moscow Centre. To what extent the reckless way in which Parker had risked becoming entangled in the investigation was also known to the Centre is unrevealed. Certainly by this time more than one meeting had taken place between officers of the First Directorate’s Illegals Section, who directly controlled Edward Parker, and specialists of the Communications Division, who would, if the worst came to the worst, arrange his escape route and temporarily close down his most vital networks.
Subsequent to these meetings in Moscow, one of the KGB’s most senior and experienced officers flew to Mexico City, where on Monday, June 11, there was a meeting at the Soviet embassy. This curious turreted building, looking like the sort of Gothic folly in which wealthy nineteenth-century industrialists installed their mistresses, crouches behind some tall, straggly trees and a high fence. It was a hot day and the unending traffic on the Calzada de Tacubaya could be heard through the double glass of the ambassador’s private study, in spite of the noise of the air-conditioning. His Excellency was not present; he had been asked to vacate the room, since it was the one most recently tested for electronic devices.
The short notice at which Moscow had arranged this meeting in Mexico City is evidenced by the documents the Technical Operations Directorate-which provides KGB documentation, both real and forged-gave to Moscow Centre’s representative. Described on his diplomatic passport as a consular clerk grade three, he was a KGB general.
He was a tall, grey-faced man, gaunt to the extent that the bones and ligaments of his face and hands were clearly discernible, like those of an anatomical model. General Stanislav Shumuk, a Ukrainian born in Kiev, was recognized by the American agents who photographed him entering the embassy that day in June.
Shumuk had made his reputation in the late 1960s when, using a computer, he had compiled details of thousands of Canadian residents who had relatives living in Poland, the German Democratic Republic or the USSR. A large proportion of such people were Ukrainians. Systematically, Shumuk enrolled many such Canadians into the service of the KGB by threatening reprisals on their relatives. Described as a masterly operation in the KGB Secretariat’s secret report to the Central Committee, it was used to justify the cost of the enormous computer which was provided for the KGB in April 1972. This was the largest computer-measured by information storage-in use in the USSR.
Stanislav Shumuk consulted the steel pocket-watch he kept in his waistcoat pocket. He was dressed in a grey flannel suit, its Moscow-style tailoring baggy compared with Edward Parker’s beautifully fitted, hand-stitched suit. Parker had arrived thirty minutes early for the meeting, having flown in the previous evening from a convention in Kingston, Jamaica.
Shumuk put his watch away. ‘What time was Grechko expected?’
‘Downstairs they said he was booked on the Branff nonstop flight that arrives at two o’clock.’
‘For a meeting arranged for 2.30,’ said Shumuk, ‘I regard that as inconsiderate.’
Parker nodded. He knew it was no use suggesting that they begin talking without Grechko. Shumuk had a reputation for keeping to the rule book.
It was Edward Parker’s first sight of the renowned general, whose mouth was turned down in a permanent sneer and whose face registered disdain for everything from the fine old engraving of Karl Marx to the jungle of potted plants which filled the sun-drenched windows. The only thing that won Shumuk’s approval was the tiny cups of strong black coffee that the Mexican kitchen maid brought to them every fifteen minutes or so.
It was after three o’clock when Yuriy Grechko arrived. Anticipating the mood of his superior, he was agitated and nervous. Mounting the stairs two at a time was rash: Mexico City ’s altitude forbids such exertions and Grechko came into the room gasping and red-faced. When Parker shook hands with him he noted the damp palm that Grechko offered, and there was no doubt that Shumuk noted it too.