The Catch (22 page)

He watched her breathing, studying the movement of her breasts under the thin cotton, enjoying this moment to the point of not wanting it to end.

Except, of course, that it would have to.

Smoothly, conscious of how he’d look were he being filmed, Grega took several strides to the side of the bed, pulled the sheet back with a flourish, and laid the flat of his hand at the base of Jill Zachary’s throat, effectively holding her down.

Her eyes popped open and he waited for her to scream, ready to shut off the noise with a violent squeeze. Not that it really mattered, of course. They were alone in the house, Bob being dead and their son a ward of the state. But it was the principle of the thing, and Grega didn’t like loud noises.

But she didn’t make a sound. She did straighten abruptly, however, sliding up a few inches on the pillow, and pulled the hem of her T-shirt down as far as it would go.

Only then did she whisper in a voice shaking with terror, “What do you want?”

He sat on the edge of the bed, his hip pressed against hers, which she moved away ever so slightly, as if hoping he wouldn’t notice.

He took the time to add to her discomfort by studying
the length of her body, slowly cataloguing every detail. Her hands tightened on the bottom of her shirt as his gaze reached the top of her thighs. But he didn’t stop there and made no gesture to heighten her fear.

At last, he returned to her face and smiled. “You don’t like me, do you?” he asked softly.

A nervous twitch at the corner of her mouth suggested a failed attempt to smile politely. “I don’t know you.”

“That’s my point. But I saw it on your face when I was here with Bob.”

“All his friends make me nervous.”

He laughed, reached up, and tapped her cheek with his open hand. She winced as if being struck.

“You are a liar, Jill.”

“I’m sorry” was all she could say.

“I’m used to it,” he admitted philosophically. “All of us spics learn the look you give us, even as little kids. It never changes. Except,” he added, placing his hand where it had been, but a little lower, so that it rested between her breasts, “for times like these. You don’t dislike me now, do you?”

“I fear you.”

He raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Very good. Nice answer. You should.”

She took advantage of his reaction to risk repeating, “What do you want?”

His hand slid farther down, to just above her navel. He could feel her trying to control her breathing. “For now?” he answered. “I just want to talk.”

In the long silence that followed, she was forced to ask, “What about?”

“What you told the police, Jill.”

“Nothing,” she blurted out instinctively and then sucked in air as he suddenly pushed down with his palm, grinding into the pit of her stomach. In pain, she grabbed his wrist with both hands, writhing to get away.

He eased up slowly, cautioning, “Settle down, settle down.”

She did so, resting her hands by her sides, as if at attention, and struggling to catch her breath.

“Good,” he rewarded her. “Want to try that again?”

“I did talk to them,” she admitted plaintively, tears now in her eyes. “They took my kid away, and killed Bob.”

“What did you say about me?”

“They asked,” she said, her eyes widening, as if presenting a gift to an ever-critical elder. “But what could I tell them? That you were there. That Bob brought you home. You didn’t say anything in front of me, so I had nothing to tell them. That’s what I meant.”

Grega pushed out his lower lip thoughtfully and nodded slightly.

“But, here’s the problem, Jill,” he finally said. “I have a real good memory—places, people, faces.”

He leaned toward her, simultaneously slipping his hand up under her shirt, which again made her start.

He ignored her reaction as he added, “And especially conversations. I’m like a tape recorder.” He got even closer, almost face-to-face. “And I remember you walking in on us, asking if we wanted dinner. Does that ring a bell?”

She nodded silently, her head pushed back deeply into the pillow behind her.

“Tell me, Jill. Tell me what you remember, too.”

“Bernie,” she let out, almost in a gasp.

He smiled and straightened slightly. “Cool. What about Bernie?”

“Just the name, and that Bob got real mad at me after, for walking in when I did. I told the cop that’s why it stuck in my head.”

“And they found that interesting?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a touch of anger. “The cop didn’t seem to know him, either, if that helps.”

Grega’s expression changed slightly. Jill noticed something a little like relief there, if only momentarily.

“He said ‘him,’ when he talked about Bernie?”

“Yeah. ‘You ever see him?’ ‘You know who he might be?’—stuff like that. Why does that matter?”

He moved his hand off her bare stomach and worked it around to her side, sliding it up near her armpit, beside her breast. She began wondering if the dangerous part was over—if all that might be left was the sex she knew he’d force on her, and for which she began to brace herself.

“What else did he ask?”

“That was about it. He wasn’t real pushy. He was nice—said he wasn’t really with the others, whatever that meant.”

Grega stopped stroking her rib cage and pinched her skin slightly. “Jill,” he warned her, “I don’t want to hear, ‘That was about it,’ and then nothing else. What was the rest?”

She shifted away from his hand and he let go of the fold of skin he’d been kneading. “It was nothing. He asked if you’d ever been in Vermont.”

He was aware of the intensity in her eyes. She was fearful of what she was revealing. He slid closer to her on the bed and finally put his hand full on her breast, pressing it hard against her chest.

His voice was cold when he asked, “You know this is going to end one of two ways, right?”

She just stared at him.

“Answer me.”

She nodded.

“You tell me what he really wanted to know, and all you’ll have are nice memories, even if it’s with a greaser—or whatever you call us.”

Again, she didn’t respond.

“But, you play dumb,” he continued, “and I will cut you up.”

He left it at that, letting her imagination do the rest.

“He said you shot a cop in Vermont—that it was a federal case, and that a lot of people were after you.”

His reaction caught her totally off guard. He pulled his hand out from under her T-shirt and sat bolt upright, staring at her.

“Those fucking assholes,”
he burst out, all snaky lasciviousness gone. “I didn’t shoot the son of a bitch. Are they
still
stuck on that? That’s what he said? Word for word?”

Once more, she pulled her shirt down as far as it would go. “Yeah. He made it really clear.”

Luis Grega got to his feet and paced up and down a couple of times, kicking piles of clothes out of the way in the process.

“Jesus H. Christ,” he said. “That is so fucking full of shit. Dumb bastards should’ve figured that out by now.
Lazy pricks.” He thumped his chest. “I thought I was the one who was gonna get it next.”

He stopped abruptly and stared at her. “So the cop who grilled you was from Vermont?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

He ran his hand through his hair and shook his head. “Fuck me,” he muttered. “Why can’t they get it straight?” He then bent forward at the waist and asked, “Did he say who he was, at least?”

She nodded, now totally unsure of what to expect. “Gunther,” she said softly. “It was the same name as a doctor I used to have.”

That seemed to satisfy him. He absorbed the name, muttered, “Well, Mr. Gunther and I’re going to have to meet, ’cause he’s full of crap,” and then he was gone.

Stunned, Jill listened to his footsteps retreating down the hall, heard him take the stairs two at a time and slam the front door on his way out.

For a moment, she continued lying there, still clutching the hem of her shirt, and then she curled up into a ball and began crying from the pit of her stomach.

Spinney and Gunther knocked on the door and waited. They were in the darkened hallway of an old apartment building in Portland, Maine, on Fore Street, in the town’s historic port section. The place had probably once been a warehouse, but unlike most of the old, brick-clad, industrial-age buildings back in Brattleboro, this one and its brethren up and down the street had been carefully and expensively overhauled. Portland was benefiting from a renaissance of sorts, and monied interests had discovered it as they had never discovered Brattleboro.

The door opened to reveal silent Dave Beaubien, who simply nodded his greeting. Lester, the extrovert, was having none of that.

“Hey, Dave. How’s it going?”

But Dave merely stared at him and shook his head sorrowfully.

“That’s good, Dave,” Lester laughed, conceding temporarily. “You’re an eloquent man, in your way.”

Joe had already proceeded farther into the borrowed apartment, which belonged to the absentee owner of one of the street’s ubiquitous upscale restaurants. Beyond the
foyer and down a dimly lit, short hallway lined with expensive black-and-white photographs, he came to a living room, only half visible by the streetlights outside, that was stuffed with antique furniture, thick Persian rugs, overly dramatic wall decorations, and a small clutter of cops, gathered around a tripod-mounted digital movie camera aimed out of the room’s central window.

Cathy Lawless turned at his entrance and raised a cardboard coffee cup at him in greeting. “Hey there, Joe. Perfect timing for a fresh brew. Dede just made a run to Dunkin’ Donuts.”

Joe raised his hand and waved to both women, and to Michael Coven, who was the last person he expected to find there. Plainly, the MDEA director was a hands-on leader.

Coven was also seemingly good at reading minds. He rose from one of the ornate chairs by the tripod and shook Joe’s hand. “Figured I’d keep the troops company. Gets boring just pushing paper around all day.”

“I know the feeling,” Joe said.

Cathy snorted “Don’t believe a word of it. Mike has slave units to push his paperwork. He’s out here bugging us all the time.”

Coven laughed in turn. “I’m out strangling legislators all the time, Cathy, trying to justify your exorbitant pay.”

“There he goes,” Dede said suddenly, jutting her chin toward the street.

She turned to document the moment on the laptop hooked to the camera. Joe bypassed watching the screen and crossed to the window to glance around the curtain
and see what was going on. It was very late, and there weren’t many strollers out anymore. The skinny young man in a short leather jacket stood out, both for his hurried sense of purpose and his scrawny looks.

“Bernie’s runner,” Mike Coven told him. “Kid named Leon. Move over to the other window, and you’ll see where he’s going.”

Curious, Joe followed the advice and saw Leon duck into a large drugstore at the end of the block. He looked inquiringly at Coven, but predictably it was the talkative Cathy Lawless who answered the implied question.

“A TracFone,” she said, referring to a brand of disposable cell phone. “He buys them like other people buy M&Ms. In the half week we’ve been here, he’s probably bought half a dozen of them.”

“Five,” Dede corrected—the keeper of the log.

“He always goes to the same store?” Joe asked.

“Yeah,” Cathy said gleefully, “meaning that thanks to Leon’s lazy butt, Bernie’s sloppy supervision, and Lenny Chapman’s federal legal magic, we were able to record the electronic serial number of every unit they have for sale in there. As soon as Bernie turns on whatever Leon brings home, we can follow her on our GPS.”

Joe matched her smile and nodded appreciatively but had to ask, “And you’re sure he’s giving her the phones, how?”

“There are only the two of them in the apartment,” Dede answered. “And any time we’ve seen her, she’s using the same make and model that Leon’s been buying. Plus, we’ve never seen him use the things. It’s a calculated guess.”

Joe shrugged. “Works for me.”

He was still at the window and now saw Leon emerge back onto the street, a small bag in his hand. He returned to the building opposite theirs and vanished through the front door.

“Which apartment is hers?” he asked.

“Right across,” Coven told him, pointing.

Moments later, Joe saw the door of the apartment opposite open and Leon enter with his bag. Behind him, he heard Dede typing.

There was no sign of any woman, though.

“She’s got an office in the back,” Cathy explained, seeing him studying the bank of windows. “To be honest, you don’t really see much from here. Typical.”

That much was true, as Joe knew from a small lifetime of watching other people’s windows. Only in the movies did you catch more than the occasional glimpse of someone walking by. Surveillance was usually a frustrating, if time-honored, practice.

He stayed watching, with his back to the others, listening to their banter, and eventually saw Leon cross the room and go through a distant door, closing it behind him.

This small team had been in place since shortly after they’d learned of Ann DiBernardo—and after Lenny Chapman had received the go-ahead to finance it. Usually, there were just two people here, over twelve-hour shifts. Joe and Lester had taken advantage of the cycle to return to Vermont and—in Joe’s case—get a briefing from Sam and Willy about the late Brian Sleuter.

They were all here now, however, because of the trap they’d recently set with the disposable phones.

The advantage of now having Bernie’s own phone be part of the surveillance was clear, but the stimulus to make it happen had been born two days earlier, when she and Leon had gone for a drive and had displayed enough paranoia to make keeping a tail on them impossible. They hadn’t used Bernie’s own car, they’d kept switching from one transport mode to another, and the ICE team hadn’t been well enough manned to cover all the angles.

That had been an embarrassment Lenny Chapman had vowed would not be repeated.

“Stupid question,” Joe heard Lester ask in the darkness to his back.