Cut and Run (18 page)

“I don't know, Roland.” Uneasy.

Larson said, “You understand how this develops if my boss gets his way? A crime scene unit. Your place shut down. Your guests interviewed. Names taken down. Detectives asking to see your credit card records for the evening. You know how long it takes the federal government to let go of a bone? I need a name, Frank.”

Cunetto looked dazed. “A
kid
? A little girl?”

“That's what I'm saying,” Larson said, his gut turning over. “It's awful to make a kid a bargaining tool.”

A waitress pushed through the far door, walked down the long hall, and delivered Larson a beer, taking his empty.

She asked, “Everything okay, Mr. Frank?” She eyed Larson like she was ready to punch him out. Might have a good chance at it, judging by her shoulders.

“Thanks, Maddie,” Frank said. “Tommy put in a takeout. Make sure it's up as soon as possible.”

Maddie marched off, thighs like a hurdler. A body like hers didn't work in the short skirts Cunetto's mandated.

“You don't want to get on the wrong side of this,” Larson said. “That's all I'm saying, Frank. I held off my boss because I told him you'd help us out without a pile of warrants and a lot of flashing lights out front. But ultimately, that's gonna be your call.”

Larson swigged the beer. Jesus, it tasted good. He stifled a belch.

“Kathleen and Bridget,” Frank said. “My sister's twins. Six-year-olds.” He met eyes with Larson, his sad and tight with concern. “I'm not saying I actually
saw
him use the pay phone. You understand?”

“Who?” Larson's skin prickled. “The way we do it,” he explained, “is I sell whoever this is on the idea that we tracked his cell phone, that we placed him here in your place at the time the pay phone call was made. Most people—this kind of person—know we can do about anything when it comes to technology. They don't question something like that. There's no connection back to you other than his using your pay phone.”

Frank cocked his head to study Larson. They met eyes again. Larson remained unflinching, knowing this was the moment.

“Dino Salvo was in about the time you're talking about. Had a drink at the bar. Left for the can. I'm not saying one way or the other, but he never came back to finish that drink. Thing about Dino?” he asked rhetorically. “He
never
leaves a scotch half-full.”

Larson swilled the rest of the beer. On the way out, he handed the sweating empty to the waiter who delivered the bag of takeout. He reached for his wallet and Frank Cunetto said, “Gimme a break, Roland. It's on me.”

“And I'd like to accept. You know I would. But I'm afraid I can't.” He passed him two tens. “Will that cover it?”

Frank handed him back one of the bills. “We'll write you up a receipt. Nice and tidy.”

“And while you're at it,” Larson said, “I could use a home address for our friend, and a description of his ride.”

Dino Salvo turned out to be a known man to the local cops. One phone call to a detective friend and Larson knew him as a low-grade bagman, an errand runner who was connected up in a business arrangement to a former gangbanger-turned-rap-artist, Elwood Els, or LL, as he was called on the street. LL was currently serving time for a nightclub shooting.

Salvo was believed to be supervising LL's hip-hop club in East St. Louis. He was a regular at a Friday-night low-rent poker game that the cops knew about.

Larson stopped at a gas station convenience store and bought a disposable camera and a cup of black coffee.

Salvo was registered as owning a black Town Car carrying vanity plates that read:
LUV-NE
1. He lived ten blocks from Cunetto's, on the second floor of a walk-up. A drive-by found the place dark, so Larson asked the detective for a BOLO on Salvo and the Town Car.

The cop called him back twenty minutes later after Larson finished the takeout and was working on a second cup of coffee. A patrol had spotted Salvo's ride outside Guneros's Pizzeria, a joint that Larson knew because it served the best tapas in town.

The salsa music seemed in direct conflict with the aroma of Bolognese sauce. Larson chatted up the hostess, slipped her a twenty along with the disposable camera, and gave her specific instructions. He then worked his way through the cluster of overly tall cocktail tables and chairs toward the back. The music changed to percussive Moroccan. He recognized Salvo from the simple description supplied him by Frank Cunetto.

Salvo wore his arrogance in the form of an overly starched, oversized yellow collar poking out of a black leather jacket unzipped to below the table. A thick gold chain showed through a forest of chest hair. His watch had to weigh a couple of pounds. He had the lazy eyes of some killers Larson had interviewed and the broken nose of someone who liked to use his fists, but something about him said more bark than bite. Dino also looked younger than he'd hoped. He wore his black hair slicked back with too much mousse. It shined in the overhead lights.

One small plate contained rolled dolmas, another, some kind of dumpling, and a third, shish kebab. The dipping bowl's pool of black ink might have been responsible for the smell of cinnamon.

Without invitation, Larson sat down across from Salvo. He placed his identification wallet down next to the man's wineglass and left it there long enough for Salvo to read it. He then slipped it back into his pocket, making sure that in the process Salvo would see he was packing.

“You like dolmas?” Salvo asked, without so much as a flinch. “Best dolmas in the city, right here.”

“Pass,” Larson said, “Dino.”

Dino remained impassive.

“We both know you made a phone call from Cunetto's, and we both know who it was to, and that it came at the request of someone else like you: someone not worth my time.”

“If you don't like tapas, they do a pretty fair toasted ravioli as well.”

“There are jobs worth taking, and there are jobs that aren't worth taking, and this one falls into the latter category. You want to stay as far away from this one as possible. And all your friends do, too. You were put up to this because you're expendable, Dino. Plain and simple. What you want to do is play this smart and let the Romeros do their own business.”

Dino wanted to think he was good at this, but with mention of the Romeros his eyes fluttered. Larson decided he hadn't known who was behind the job he'd carried out. Just good money for placing a phone call.

“They told you what to say,” Larson said. “And chances are a man of limited intelligence, such as yourself, probably was dumb enough to write it down. And that means you threw a scrap of paper away, doesn't it, Dino? You want to think about that. Are we going to find it in a car, in a trash can at Cunetto's, tossed out on the street between here and there? It's not still in your pocket, is it? 'Cause that could be really embarrassing.”

The man's blinking and the tongue working told Larson he'd struck a nerve.

“The best thing you can do right now is get the word out that there's federal heat on jobs coming from out of town. Even these small ones, like making a phone call. Big heat. Do yourself a favor, and take the money you made on that call and take a long vacation.
Anyone
found cooperating with these people will be looking at accessory charges—
child kidnapping
. Federal charges, federal courts, federal prison. It took us less than ninety minutes to find you, Dino. You need to do a lot better next time.”

All this served a simple strategy. If Larson could force the Romeros to negotiate directly with Hope, he had a chance of locating the child. But it was highly unlikely his talking tough would have much effect—there were plenty of Dinos waiting in line.

He lowered his voice, leaned in across the table, and stole a dolma. He ate it as he talked, the food blurring his words. “Whoever's the first to provide information that connects to the Romeros is going to win a free Get Out of Jail pass as well as the daily number.” Larson wasn't being facetious. State lotteries had been used for years to pay off informants. Ten thousand here, five thousand there—a low-level winning ticket in hand for all to see so there were no questions asked about where the money came from.

“You like the dolmas?” he repeated.

Larson's BlackBerry rang. He finished chewing, swallowed, and as he took the call, he signaled the young hostess who carried his twenty.

He was told Salvo's cell phone had received a call two hours earlier from a pay phone in Plano, Texas. Another evidentiary dead end, no doubt, but Salvo didn't need to know that. He hung up and faced Salvo.

“So now I hear that the call that was made to you—the one giving you this job—came from Plano, Texas.” This much was the truth; the next part Larson invented. “We picked up your boy about a half hour ago.”

As the hostess arrived, Larson scooted his chair around right next to Salvo, who was mid-bite. He threw his arm around the man's shoulders and then tossed his head back and said, “Cheese.”

She clicked off two flash shots before Dino Salvo had the good sense to break the embrace. Larson stood and took the camera before Salvo was to his feet. Twenty dollars well spent.

“How long will it take LL to identify me in that shot?” Larson asked Salvo. “How about the Romeros? How long to figure you're hanging with federal heat?”

Concern creased Salvo's brow. Larson knew he'd hit a nerve.

The hostess moved off, sensing the trouble she'd caused. Several nearby patrons stopped eating and watched.

“How much of a scene you want to make, Dino? How deep do you want to wade into this?”

“LL has nothing to do with this.”

“Then you'll have no problem explaining to him a wave of new charges filed against him and the five thousand dollars—a cash deposit—that moved through your bank account the day after this picture was taken.”

“What five grand?” Dino Salvo wasn't the fastest on the uptake.

Loyalty was the only currency for guys like him. No matter what excuses he might make for the photograph, its very existence would plant seeds of doubt. Larson might not be able to pull off the money stunt, but Dino couldn't be sure of that.

Salvo told the waitress to leave his food as he followed Larson out of the restaurant. For a moment Larson believed the man stupid enough to start a fight. But as it turned out, he'd only sought to distance himself from the ears inside. Amid thick humidity and the distant hum of traffic, Salvo lowered his voice and warned, “You don't want to fuck with me.”

“I'm
already
fucking with you, Dino. Gimme a break. You get the word out, and you get lost, and I'll
stop
fucking with you. Make another phone call for whoever paid you to make that phone call, and you'll regret it for twelve to twenty.” Larson pointed at the man's yellow shirt. “You got a little spot there. Looks like sauce, maybe.”

He turned his back on the man and walked away, but used a parked car's outside mirror to see Salvo already scratching frantically at the stain.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“This is not an official review,” Scott Rotem began.
He faced Deputy Marshal Gilla Geldwig, an unusually attractive woman with dark, brooding features and haunting green eyes. Her body, a bit big and clunky by femme fatale standards, was nonetheless full at the top and lean in the leg, giving her an imbalanced look that would not have photographed well, but worked fine when she was sitting down, as she was now. It was her face, though, her eyes, that grabbed you, so Rotem tried his best not to look directly into her eyes, not to cave in to the compelling pull. He needed this interview—this interrogation—to be successful. For the sake of Markowitz,
Laena
, and his own career. Five protected witnesses had been executed in the past twenty-four hours. The bloodbath appeared to have started. Thousands of others were at stake. He hated her for what she represented.

It was dark outside now. Traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue slowed to a crawl, seen as two long streams of red and white lights from the one-window conference room.

They shared the oval table, Rotem sitting across from Geldwig, and to his left, Assistant United States Attorney Tina Wank, who possessed a mannequin's complexion and body type that complemented her somewhat nervous disposition.

“Do I need my representative present?” Geldwig asked.

“It's certainly your right to make such a request. You tell me: Do you need a rep present?”

“Not if there's a deal to be made beforehand.”

“You've been carrying on an affair with Assistant Marshal Bob Mosley,” Rotem said.

“Sue me.” She contained her body language well but could not prevent the scarlet blush that moved up from her fashionable suit's shirt collar to its hiding place behind her ears.

“Mosley came clean earlier this morning, and we've had the day to review your own activities, assignments, and your overall participation within the Service. You're a hard worker. You moved around a lot within WITSEC. Now you're here. You've moved through the ranks surprisingly quickly.”

“All legitimate promotions.”

“I'm sure.”

Tina, the attorney, took notes, her pen working furiously so that it looked as if she were a stenographer.

“What's your point?”

“Ms. Geldwig, this may have started out as some kind of game to you. I'm not sure. Maybe it was for the money, because God knows we'd all like more in this job. Maybe it was the secrecy or the joy of feeling so damn important to someone. Or maybe they—and in this case I'm specifically talking about the Romero syndicate—had collected some piece of information that they could use against you. Hold over you. Your sex life, your vices, your spending habits, your family. I mention these only because they are the most commonly seen in cases like this.”