Giri (39 page)

LeClair drummed on the newspaper with his fingertips. “Couple things I’d like to touch base with you on first. I mean that’s what a relationship is. Give and take on both sides.”

Robbie put away his nail clippers. “Come on. Save that shit for somebody else. You want to throw my ass in jail, be my guest. Truth is, you ain’t got that much of a case against me and you know it. No witnesses, no motive. Okay, so I talked to you guys some. I only did that to get you off my back, is all.”

A grinning LeClair shrugged. “What can I say. You’re right. When you’re right, you’re right. Nothing but circumstantial evidence and not too much of that.” He leaned forward. “Just enough of it to hold you for questioning in a dozen cities. That’s a lot of harassment, Robbie, my boy. Could last, oh, a few years.”

Robbie returned the grin. “Man, you don’t scare me. None of you clowns scare me. You think I didn’t learn nothing working for MSC and Major Sparrowhawk all these years? Information. That’s what matters. You want certain information from me more than you want to nail me for maybe,
maybe
killing a bunch of women. Hey, look, how come I’m not up on charges or anything? I mean cut the shit. Go play your games with somebody else.”

LeClair leaned back in his chair. Shrewd. The lady killer may not be an intellectual, but he’s definitely shrewd. He had something LeClair wanted and the prosecutor had to pay, that’s all there was to it. In law enforcement you were only as successful as your informants.

Three days ago a Manhattan press conference announcing that formal charges were being brought against Senator Terry Dent had drawn the largest crowd of reporters since ABSCAM. Justice Department officials had flown in from Washington to pat LeClair on the back and hang around long enough to get their share of the publicity before flying back. LeClair, however, had been the Justice Department spokesman. He had been interviewed by the New York
Times, Time
magazine and three television networks. Thanks to Robbie Ambrose, LeClair had found the path to the top of the mountain.

And thanks, too, to Decker and his partner for putting together what little case there was on Mr. Robbie. LeClair had taken the case away from them, done it behind Decker’s back, but rank did have its privileges. For the moment Robbie’s alleged killings were on hold. First, Mr. Robbie had some work to do for the task force.

Was the security guard guilty? LeClair thought, probably. Mr. Robbie was not quite right in the head, for one thing. And for another there was no problem placing him in a city where a woman had been killed by someone who knew how to use his hands real well. It took a cop like Decker, LeClair had to admit, someone familiar with karate, to get this far in the case.

And speaking of Decker, LeClair had expected to receive more in the way of protests from him after being dropped from the task force and having the case snatched from under his nose. But so far there hadn’t been a peep out of Mr. Manfred. Still grieving over the death of his lady in Paris. Some kind of a mess, thought LeClair.

LeClair would wait a while, give Decker time to get over his girl friend’s death, then find a way to punish him. Make him look bad for having been dropped from the task force. It was always a good idea to leave your mark on the people you left behind; punishing a man made him, not you, appear to be the guilty party. A cop accused was a cop convicted.

LeClair watched Robbie touch the fresh scars on the side of his face, then move his fingertips to a lip wound. When the two men had first met just days ago the lip wound had contained several stitches. The stitches were gone now.

LeClair said, “I think we’d better talk about your future. You still believe nobody at MSC knows you’re working with us?”

“Not unless you told them. You grabbed me in the middle of the night at my apartment, dragged me over here and gave me some shit about having killed women I don’t even know.”

“Don’t have to know them to kill them.”

“Then you threaten me with prison or a nut house unless I cooperate with you.”

“And you did cooperate, Robbie.”

“Just to get you off my back, is all. Doesn’t mean I’m guilty.”

“Means you’re still on the street, out here practicing your karate chops or whatever they’re called. But it’s the future I’m concerned with. Your future is with us, as a full-time informant under our protection.”

Robbie leaped up, knocking the card table and newspapers to the floor. One of the FBI agents hurriedly began to unbutton his overcoat to get at his gun. “That’s it,” yelled a wild-eyed Robbie. “I’m getting the fuck outta here and if your friends over there try to stop me, they’re gonna get hurt. You think I’m scared of guns?”

He pointed to the agent with his hand inside his overcoat. “I’ll pull his head through the door before he can fucking blink. Want to see me do it?”

A calm LeClair said, “I believe you, Robbie.” The prosecutor turned in his chair. “Lighten up,” he said to the agents. “No problem. Robbie and I understand each other.” He looked back at the security guard. “Robbie, just this one favor. Listen to this tape, that’s all I ask. Do this for me, please.”

A space cadet, thought LeClair. The man needs to be stroked and stroked and stroked. He won’t give his candy to anyone but daddy and daddy is me. LeClair snapped his fingers. “Dominic?”

The agent who had been holding an attaché case walked over to the card table, set it upright and laid the case on top. Thumbing open the locks, he removed a small tape recorder, laid that on the table, then backed away.

LeClair said, “Have a seat, Robbie. This won’t take long. One of the things you gave us was the location of three public telephone booths Sparrowhawk uses to talk to Molise’s people. We’ve got taps on all three, same as we did with LoCicero. Remember that time last month when you were down in the Caymans and Decker took the call?”

Robbie frowned. “Yeah, but I didn’t tell you nothing bad about the major and I ain’t about to, either.”

A smiling LeClair touched a finger to his lips, signaling for quiet. Then he pressed a button on the tape recorder, turned up the volume and leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. The smile remained in place.

Clicks signaling the dialing of a phone. Three rings. Hang up. Dime returns. Dime dropped into pay phone. Clicks. Dialing. Phone picked up on first ring.

Gran Sasso said, “Yeah?”

“Sparrowhawk here. Received your message. What’s the problem?”

“We’ve been talking, Alphonse and myself. And we have decided something.”

“Which is?”

“Which is we very carefully looked over the charges against the senator. Took all the newspaper stories apart, listened to all the rumors, got some information from some of our people and we came to the conclusion that somebody we all know gave up the senator. Somebody at this high-class organization you’re supposed to be running for us.”

“Preposterous. That’s the same as accusing me and I don’t like it.”

“We thought about you, but we couldn’t come up with a good motive. One reason we’re talking like this instead of meeting face to face is that we’re not too sure you don’t have people watching you. Or somebody in your office reporting your moves to the feds.”

Sparrowhawk was indignant. “Would you mind explaining yourself?”

“The Englishman wants explanations. Okay, Mr. Englishman. Somebody knew about Dent getting cash recently to buy that stock, the deal the Arizona senator’s pushing. Somebody knew he’s got points in the auditorium out on the island. Somebody knew that we put money in the senator’s campaign through Delaware holding companies, through real estate companies. All of these things that somebody knew have to do with how we move our money around. There’s a big financial columnist on a certain New York paper, who we’re paying to boost a certain stock for us. His name’s being linked with the senator’s.”

“I don’t see—”

“That’s the point. You don’t. And you should. We got two things here. The senator, who’s important to us, he’s in trouble. And too much is known about what we do with our money. How we change it over, who we give it to. See, Mr. Sparrowhawk, you’re too close to this problem to give it the kind of attention it deserves. Me, I’m an old Italian who likes to sit and think about problems. Work them out in my head. So I’m saying that it looks to me like somebody very close to you gave up the senator. That’s what I’m saying.”

Sparrowhawk’s voice was shrill. “Are you saying that my secretary
—”

“You stupid man.” Gran Sasso’s tone was lethal. “You insult me. You talk to me like I’m some schoolboy who can be given a shiny rock and told it is a ruby and who will believe it. Do not ever treat me with such disrespect again, do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“I am talking about your young friend, this Robbie fellow. He was the courier for certain things we did with our money. You chose him. He carried the stock money to the senator down in Washington and he carried the money to the newspaperman. He knew about the money going from the Caymans to the Delaware holding companies. Your young friend I’m talking about.”

Sparrowhawk pleaded. “That boy’s like a son to me. Don’t ask me to harm him. I can’t. I just can’t.”

“We got a problem here and it won’t go away by itself. What I want from you is that you should help us make the problem go away.”

“How?”

“Your young friend trusts you. You are the way to help us approach him.”

Silence.

Then Sparrowhawk said, “Not approach. Kill. You want me to help you kill him.”

“You got a nice house, nice job, nice family. I give you a
c
hoice. You can have all those things or you can have nothing. Either you help us to deal with your young friend or we get somebody else to do your job. And we see you don’t work in America no more. We see you don’t stay in America. You come here with nothing, you leave with nothing.”

Sparrowhawk’s voice broke. “Don’t ask me to do this. Don’t. I beg you.”

“You brought him to us. That makes you part of the problem. Now you become part of the solution or we solve it without you. And that means we don’t need you for
anything.
Let me tell you something. You think I don’t have people at your office watching you?”

“Spying on me? How dare you?”

“I know you. I know you better than you think I do. I know you sent your young friend to Paris and while he is there a woman dies.”

Sparrowhawk spat the word out. “Bastard. You’ve bugged my office. Have you bugged my home as well?”

Silence. The tape whirled.

Then Gran Sasso said, “If you ever talk like that to me again I have you killed before the sun sets. Before the sun sets.”

Silence.

Gran Sasso. “Maybe this all has something to do with Paulie, I don’t know. But I find out. Believe me when I tell you I find out. Paulie is the one thing I ask you to do and I do not get any answer. I wonder why. I ask you to do that.”

“It’s not easy,” said a chastened Sparrowhawk. “We’re working on it.”

“Working on it. For now you work on your young friend. Will you help us, yes or no?”

Robbie leaped from his chair, grabbed the tape recorder and hurled it across the room. An FBI agent took one step toward him, thought better of it and stopped.

LeClair, still in his seat, didn’t look up. “The answer was yes.”

Robbie began to sob. LeClair rose and patted him on the back. “Don’t think too badly of him, Robbie. He’s got a tough choice. The man tried. He didn’t want to do it. But—” LeClair dropped his hand. “He’s got a family to look after, a wife and daughter. Got to watch out for your women in this world.”

Robbie gave the prosecutor a look that made him instinctively lean away. But LeClair recovered and continued stroking.

“I won’t lie to you,” the prosecutor said. “I need you. I’ve done a lot better with you than without you, that’s for sure. You’ve got the power, dude, and I don’t want to see you hurt.”

LeClair touched his heart. An FBI agent looked down at the floor and shook his head. “Talking about in here,” the prosecutor said. “In here where it really counts. I’ve been straight with you. No arrest, no public hearing, no incarceration. Guy like you has to be free.”

Robbie sighed. “Free.”

“Guy like you has to run outdoors, work out, be his own man. But to do that you have to stay alive. You should be in protective custody.”

Like a petulant child, Robbie shook his head. “No way. I’ve seen what happens to guys in the federal witness program. They go crazy, or they end up with some shit life in some shit town or the mob finally catches up to them.”

“Robbie, I’m on your side. I’m your friend, maybe your only friend. You heard the tape.”

“Yeah, I heard the tape, but no custody and no prison. Especially no prison. Kill me now, but I ain’t about to be cooped up. I got to fight. Got to go to Paris in January for the
suibin
tournament.”

“Robbie, let’s work this out. Custody’s not what you think it is. Suppose, just suppose we were to set you up with your own dojo, your own karate club in another city. New name, all the money you need. No prison. How’s that sound?”

“I want to fight in Paris. You let me do that and I’ll cooperate with you all you want. I want to win the
suibin
and prove I’m the best in the world.”

LeClair bit his lip. Give and take. “When’s the fight?”

“Starts second week in January. Eliminations will run five, six days, then it’s down to the finals. Two guys. One on one. Nothing like it. It’s the fucking greatest.”

LeClair turned his palms up. “You got a deal. Last fight. Then you and I really get down.”

Robbie smiled a small grin of victory, despite his anguish. “I can deliver, don’t worry. Can I go now?”

“Watch yourself. You heard the tape. They know. Sparrowhawk’s on their side now, not yours.”

“I’ll be careful. I know they’re coming, remember? They won’t move until Sparrowhawk tries to set me up. That’s how they work, you heard them. Long as he doesn’t try anything, I’m safe.”