Deadline (29 page)

Sutter smiled. Mayhew didn’t.

I may not be free to divulge this information, but nothing tells me I’m not free to act on it. And if at some point Ollie sees me act on it, well, that’s not the same thing as telling him, is it?

“I don’t suppose you’d let me consult my attorney before I sign this?” Actually, Jake didn’t have an attorney. The truth was, he’d started despising lawyers twenty years before it became popular to despise them.

“I am not authorized to divulge any information to your attorney, Mr. Woods. Chances are
you
don’t trust your attorney. Why should we? It’s the ‘need to know.’ As a former army officer you understand that, don’t you?”

The need to know.
The cornerstone of military intelligence and security. But why did these guys need
Jake
to know any of this? What was their angle? There was always an angle.

“All right.” Jake picked up Sutter’s pen and signed the paper on the line above his typed name, Jake Harvey Woods. “But I’m adding a little note.”

Jake scribbled out a final sentence at the bottom: “Agent Sutter and I have agreed this contract does not apply to any information which has already come to my attention, or which comes to my attention independently of that given to me by the FBI.” He handed it to Sutter.

Agent Sutter read it, smiled and mumbled, “Very good.” He initialed his approval, then set the document aside.

“I don’t suppose I get a copy of anything?” Jake pointed at the document and the tape recorder, still rolling.

Sutter looked at him to see if he was joking. “I’m sure you can understand we don’t make triplicates and run these things up flagpoles? If you had any documentation of today’s meeting it could compromise all of us.”

“Right, sure. I don’t suppose Agent Mayhew is a notary public?”

Mayhew made a point of not smiling.

“All right, Jake. Here’s our situation. We’re going to tell you certain things and ask you certain things. We’ll lay our cards on the table first. I hope our show of good faith will convince you full cooperation is in all our best interests.”

Jake gave his best you’ll-have-to-convince-me look.

“For fifteen years, my specialty with the FBI has been organized crime. The last two years Agent Mayhew has been my partner.”

Your silent partner
, Jake mused.

“For eight months we’ve been investigating a new strategy of organized crime in this city. It parallels similar movements in at least eight other cities, probably as many as fifteen. We have every reason to believe these movements will continue to grow. The more entrenched they become, the more difficult it will be to deal with them.”

Jake’s casual front vanished. He made no pretense of disinterest as Sutter continued.

“One of our divisions maintains constant surveillance at major airports. Simply by tracing arrivals and departures of known figures in organized crime, we can tell when and where something new is brewing. These guys don’t trust communication over the telephone. We’ve often got them tapped and they know it. Obviously, they can’t use letters or faxes or telegrams, because those are easily intercepted and copied. Besides, these are hands-on guys, not just figure heads. They maintain a legal distance from everything, which is why they’re not behind bars, but to keep in control they have to see their people working on site. That sends them the message they’re not in the dark, and they can herd them into line if necessary, remind them who’s boss. Anyway, eight months ago something new started brewing in this city. We didn’t know what, but departures and arrivals told us it was big. So big I’ve gotten a few calls from the director himself.”

The director of the FBI?

“We don’t know everything, obviously, or we wouldn’t be talking to you. But we do know it involves pharmaceuticals and medical facilities, including certain physicians. It appears to involve your friend, Dr. Lowell.”

Jake flashed a disgusted look at Sutter. “Doc? Organized crime? Come on, Sutter. What kind of fool do you take me for? Doc working for the Mafia? Give me a break!”

Sutter studied Jake’s reaction with some interest. He sat back as if preparing to give a lecture he’d had to give before.

“Mr. Woods, I thought with your background as an investigative journalist, you’d have a better understanding of organized crime. Perhaps I need to give you a thumbnail sketch to show you what we’re dealing with here.”

“Please do.” Jake’s voice carried more than a hint of sarcasm.

“The most common misperception of organized crime is the image of Al Capone or the Godfather. Guys who look like Marlon Brando, with raspy voices and Italian accents, surrounded by muscle men named Vito, carrying submachine guns and planting horse heads in people’s beds.”

Mayhew snorted, in apparent disdain for ignoramuses like Jake. Sutter sent Mayhew a stiff look intended to remind him they needed to show respect for their “guest.”

“What you have to understand about organized crime is that gangsters and racketeers of that sort are dinosaurs. They really existed, but now they’re nearly extinct. So people think organized crime is extinct too. Well, it isn’t. Organized crime isn’t a function of one place or segment or era in society, it’s a simple function of human nature. It goes where the profits are. And it does it in the most effective way, which today is quiet, low profile, infiltrating and expanding, never identifying itself as what it is. It never looks like Chicago in the twenties. If it did, it would be recognized and derailed.”

Sutter stopped, as if wanting Jake to show he was interested.

“Go on. I’m listening.”

“What it looks like today is just another money-making opportunity some entrepreneur came up with on his own, with no ties to anyone or anything else. It presents itself as a lucky chance to make some money on the side without really hurting anybody. It thrives on the guy in the opportunity seat thinking he’s been given the shaft by the system, that he deserves this break, that he’d be a moron to pass it up. Besides, he tells himself he’s
really
doing it for the wife and kids and grandkids, so he can give them what they want and retire earlier and spend more quality time with them.

“The point is, organized crime has diversified, and it doesn’t have one single kingpin nationally or even regionally. It has competing segments. And there’s all kinds of entrepreneurs that don’t have a long history in organized crime, maybe no history at all. They just see a money-making opportunity and organize what amounts to their own little syndicate with them in charge. So organized crime is really just an umbrella term for every attempt to generate and control profit in the context of legitimate enterprises, by moving out into fringe areas, gray areas, illegal or borderline legal involvements. The grayer the better.”

“So what does that have to do with—”

“I’m getting to your friend, Dr. Lowell. Bear with me. You need to hear this.”

“Okay.” Jake sounded skeptical, but not as skeptical as he was trying to sound.

“During prohibition, the profit was in bootlegging. But alcohol isn’t much of an opportunity now. Gambling and prostitution are still big bucks, so organized crime’s still there. There’s big money in professional sports, so they’ve managed to fix some fights, have an occasional game thrown, but it’s rare because sports are too much in the public eye. Drugs, now that’s been a real windfall. Easily processed, easily transported, tremendous value in small packages. But what you have to understand about organized crime is, these guys are always looking for something new, and something clean. They prefer to stay away from the illegal stuff. Some of them are community leaders, family men, church-goers. They just want the money and the power. They’d rather be associated with respectable stuff. These guys don’t wear pinstriped suits and call each other Bugsy and Babyface. They wear business suits and call each other Bob and Jim and work out next to each other at the health club.”

Jake looked at Sutter, wanting to challenge him, but realizing this agent knew a great deal more than he did in this area. It made him feel good to know he was being trusted with important information, that he was being “brought in” to an FBI investigation. Still, he wasn’t going to buy into it that easily.

“So, you’re saying these guys appear respectable enough that people can get involved without realizing who they are?”

“Exactly. It all goes back to Meyer Lansky. Know the name?”

“I’ve heard it.”

“Lansky was a businessman. He proposed a working agreement where territories were laid out so the gangs could stop hassling each other and there’d be more profits for everyone. That became the Syndicate. The Syndicate realized prostitution and gambling and bootlegging and other criminal activities were too confining and dangerous. So it moved into the labor movement. Then into food products, taverns and bars, restaurants, securities, real estate, vending machines, garment manufacturing, produce, garbage disposal, securities, the Waterfront, you name it. They’re always looking for something new where they can flex their muscles. Something where there’s big money.”

Sutter checked out Jake’s expression. The cockiness had melted. He was listening intently.

“So where you gonna go today that’s new, Jake? Where’s the big money? Big salaries, big facilities, big grants? Unlimited future, yet change and uncertainty that spells opportunity?”

Jake gave a questioning look and shrugged. Agent Sutter was in the driver’s seat and clearly knew where he was going. Jake didn’t.

“Medicine. Health care. Look at today’s upper class. I don’t just mean the really wealthy, I mean the country club set, the people who live in the three-thousand-square-foot houses in the suburbs and drive the BMWs and give their kids private tennis lessons. What do they have to worry about? Primarily, just their health, right? How do they spend their discretionary income? Health foods and vitamins and exercise equipment and health club memberships. And when they get sick, they’ll pay anything to get the best medical care. Everybody’s concerned about their health, right? I mean, your health is all you’ve got. That’s what opened the door to pharmaceuticals.”

“What do you mean?”

“Specialized drugs are big money. The latest medical technology is always big money. So, naturally, unscrupulous people are getting in on the edges, buying some research, manipulating some results, pumping up certain companies, deflating others. But the inroads in medicine didn’t used to be as strong as they were in other legit enterprises. There’s been something about the medical community that didn’t make it as vulnerable as the waterfront and trucking. It’s had kind of a moral wall protecting it. Sacred oaths to protect life and all that. And because health care’s been relatively uncorrupted in the past, it just leaves more room for the flood-tide.”

“Flood-tide?”

“The wrong kind of people moving in. Making some tempting offers. That’s where your friend comes in. He met with some people, outwardly respectable people, but with known links to the bad guys. We’ve been tailing them for months, seeing who they spent their time with. And guess what? One of them made at least three contacts with your friend.”

Jake started to say, “That doesn’t prove anything,” but instead asked, “What did they talk about?” He felt he’d betrayed Doc by his choice of responses.

“We don’t know yet. We were hoping you might be able to tell us.”

Sutter studied Jake’s face like a palm reader examining a palm. “First, we need to know if you’ve ever seen or heard anything that substantiates what I’ve just told you.”

“That’s easy. It’s all brand new to me. I don’t think I believe it, but I’ve certainly never seen anything that makes me think it’s true.”

Even as he said it, Jake realized he was lying. He was believing a lot of this, and he
had
been aware of what seemed like a large windfall of money Doc had been spending the past year. He’d wondered about it several times. Doc seemed under more pressure at work, often complaining about unfair medical regulations and health care revisions and how they were “trying to cut doctors off at the knees.”

“So there’s nothing you’ve come across related to the car wreck that points the finger to organized crime?”

“No.”

“Okay, I just have to be clear on this. Second, we know you’re working on this case too, and no one knew your friend as well as you. We’d like you to tell us what you know, or at least what you suspect.”

Here it was, finally. The FBI had a lot of puzzle pieces, but they just weren’t fitting together. They needed him.

“If you want anything official on the investigation, you’ll have to go to Detective Chandler.”

“I’ve already explained why we can’t do that.” Sutter looked exasperated. “Look, twice in the last year the FBI has talked with ranking police personnel in this city, and twice vital information has leaked to organized crime. There’s either a collaborator or somebody with an awful big mouth. We just can’t take the chance of them even knowing we’re on their tail. The director himself called that shot. No contact with the police. So, what can you tell me?”

“Well, maybe you can tell me what you know I know, so I don’t bore you.”

“We know about the yellow card. We know about the car, the tie-rods. We know a lot more, but please, bore us, will you? We want you to bore us.”

Jake hesitated, but figured they’d been honest with him and it couldn’t hurt to help them. This wasn’t like giving a scoop to another newspaper. He wanted Doc and Finney’s killer nailed, and these might be the pros to help nail them.

“Well, I can tell you there’s a lot of other people who could have had motives. A right-wing fanatic, opposed to Doc because he’s done abortions or promoted the abortion pill.”

Even as he said it he thought of “pharmaceuticals” and noted Sutter’s slightly raised eyebrow.

“It could be somebody else with a personal vendetta against him. You know, someone unhappy with a surgery he did on them.”

“They’d have to be awfully unhappy. I mean you don’t kill somebody because your stitches show.” Now Sutter was skeptical. “More likely because you’ve crossed them or threatened to squawk.”