Condemned (14 page)

“No drugs.”

“We find drugs around here, you're going to jail for twenty years. Even without any drugs, we got you on money laundering; you're going to get seven to ten. You're in a deep pile of shit unless you help yourself, your wife, the whole family.”

“My wife? She has nothing to do with this.”

“Yeah, who does then? You better start coming up with answers.” The other Task Force members were still rummaging through the apartment, opening every compartment, looking under every piece of furniture.

“I got it from some guy I met in the bar on Northern Boulevard watching Mexican football. He said I could make some money. What I have to do, I asked him. He said I had to pick up a package and give it to another guy. I didn't even know what was in the package.”

“Bullshit,” Mulvehill said bending down right into his face. “What bar?”

“
Los Gates.
”

“Yeah, and what was this guy's name?” said Castoro.

“I only know him as Flaco.”

“What's the rest of his name?”

“I don't know. I don't know the guy.”

“Where does he live?” asked Mulvehill.

“I don't know. I just meet him in the bar.”

“How do you get in touch with this guy Flaco?”

“I don't. He said he'd get in touch with me and tell me what to do.”

“Bullshit,” said Castoro, rummaging on the shelf in the bedroom closet. “You want us to believe that you met a guy who gives you a million, maybe two million bucks in cash, and you don't know who he is, or where he lives?”

“That's the truth,” the man said defiantly.

“How much is in there?” said Castoro.

The man shook his head and shrugged.

“You're lying to us again,” said Mulvehill. “You're only making it worse by lying.”

“I'm not.”

“You are!” said Mulvehill loudly, digging his face right up into the man's face.

The loud voices from the bedroom brought the wife into the room. She hung back, watching the police and her husband. The frightened children trailed after her, still snuggling against her, their wide eyes peering out at the scene.

“Anybody find anything else?” Mulvehill shouted out.

“Negative,” came a couple of voices from the front of the apartment. “Okay, let's take this lying piece of he glanced at the children, “—let's take him down to the office,” said Mulvehill. He hoisted the duffel bag onto his shoulder. “More than two mil in here, I'm sure. Take this guy into custody,” he said to Castoro.

“Where are you taking my husband?” said the woman in Spanish, trying to block their way out the bedroom door.

“Take it easy,
Senora
,” said Santiago.

“You won't be seeing him for a long time, lady,” said Mulvehill, “a long time.”

She began to cry with fright. “Where are you taking my husband. He don't have nothing to do with this.”

“Oh, really? You know something about this money?”

“Only what my husband told you. He told me the same thing. That's all we know about this money. You want it, take it. Leave my husband here.”

“We can't do that,” said Mulvehill. “He's in deep trouble. You won't be seeing him for a long time.” Mulvehill made sure the husband could hear what he was saying to the wife.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, as the Agents led the husband out of the bedroom.

Santiago came into the bedroom. “Listen,
Senora
,” he said speaking softly in Spanish. “You know anything about this money, where it came from, how we can get in touch with the people who gave it to your husband?”

She shook her head, sobbing. “Only what he told you. What's going to happen? I have two little kids, no money …”

“Don't say anything,” Santiago assured her, continuing to speak in Spanish. “Everything'll be okay. We're not going to do anything to your husband. My boss is just trying to frighten you. We have to take him down to the office. If he's telling the truth, which I think he is, we'll just take his picture, his fingerprints, and then he'll be home in a couple of hours.”

“You taking him to jail? You taking my husband to jail?” The woman started to writhe, trying to get past Santiago, to her husband. “Papi,” she screamed after him. The children began to cry, pushing against Santiago's legs.

Mulvehill and the other Task Force members had made it back to the kitchen and were almost clear of the entrance door.

“Papi, Papi!” the woman screamed toward the entrance. The children were crying hysterically. “Papi, Papi,” they chorused.

“
Meta, meta
,” Santiago said, turning to the woman, holding her by both shoulders, looking into her face. “Listen. They're Americans. I'm Spanish. I'm telling you, the
gringos
are only interested in the money. They'll take his picture, then let him go. Don't worry. I'm telling you the truth. Don't worry. He'll be back in a couple of hours. Here, here, take my card. So you know who I am. You know how to get in touch with me.”

The woman looked at the Detective's business card with the gold embossed shield of the D.E.A.

“You sure he's coming home, in a couple of hours?”

“
Seguro.
”

“Swear to Jesus Christ?” she said to him.

“I swear to Jesus,” said Santiago, making the sign of the cross.

The woman studied Santiago's eyes for a moment, then nodded. “
Bueno.
Quiet, children, quiet. Papi is okay. He'll be home soon.”

Mulvehill, Santiago, and the N.Y.P.D. detective were in a small, windowless room at D.E.A. headquarters on Tenth Avenue. They were seated around a desk on which there was a huge pile of currency. Mulvehill sent Castoro to join Geraghty in an in-progress surveillance of Senator Joe Galiber in the Bronx. He sent the other agents from the raiding party home.

“It takes a fucking long time to count this much money,” said Santiago.

“Yeah, and your griping don't make it any easier,” said Mulvehill.

“How much we have, so far?” said Santiago.

“A hundred twenty thou' over there,” said Mulvehill, pointing to the top of a file cabinet on which there were packages of currency that were already counted. “That's the snitch's share.”

“I thought he was getting ten percent of the seizure,” said Santiago.

“Fuck him. We seized less than they thought, right?” Mulvehill said, looking into the eyes of the other two Agents.

“Yeah, right,” agreed Santiago. The detective nodded.

“There's eight hundred thou' on the other desk, so far,” said Santiago, looking to packages that had been counted and placed on a second desk in the room.

“And look at the huge pile we still have to count,” said Mulvehill. “At least two mill.”

“We'll be counting here all night,” said the detective.

“We still have to put, let's say, twenty, forty, sixty,” Mulvehill was counting on his fingers, “seventy, eighty, ninety—for us.” He laughed mischievously. The others laughed with him.

“Let's get this thing finished, so we can tell the boss,” said Santiago.

“He already knows,” said Mulvehill.

“You called him?”

“He called me, on my cell, when you guys were putting the car in the lot. I told him what we had. He said he'd be right down.”

“Was he happy?” said Santiago.

“He was ecstatic,” said Supervisor Becker who had just opened the door to the small room.

“Hey, Boss,” said Mulvehill.

Becker nodded, his eyes transfixed on the pile of money on the desk. “Fabulous, fabulous,” he said, looking around at the various piles of counted bundles. “A couple of million?”

“Looks that way,” said Mulvehill. “There were no drugs.”

“As usual,” said Becker. “They never let the people with money have anything to do with drugs. As usual, it's just a private citizen—a dishonest one—like the hump who had this pile, picking up some extra spending money carrying the currency. Where's the money for the snitch?” said Becker.

“Up there,” said Mulvehill, nodding toward the top of the file cabinet. “A hundred and twenty.”

“How do we know that, when we haven't finished counting?”

“We didn't get as much as we thought,” said Santiago, smiling at Becker.

“No need to cheat our informant,” said Becker. “The money carriers know exactly how much money they have. They're responsible for every dollar. The little guy you took this from is going to have to make good for it—or they'll take the eyes out of his family back in Colombia.”

“How the hell is that guy going to make up two mil?” said Santiago.

“Who knows? That's the bargain they make going in,” said Becker, “and that's one of the reasons we hit them for the money only. If the people in Colombia couldn't get the money back there, they wouldn't be sending the junk up here.”

“Poor fuck is never going to make it,” said the detective.

Becker shrugged. “That's unfortunate.”

Santiago shook his head.

“Is there something for the boys?” asked Becker.

“The other three got ten apiece,” said Mulvehill. “This is for the three of us.”

“There's sixty here,” said Becker, brushing his hand through the pile separated for the Agents. “You weren't figuring that you'd take twenty each, and the others only ten?”

“It's hard work to count,” said Mulvehill.

“You're breaking my heart.”

“How about you take the difference, boss.”

Becker shook his head. “The others took ten, you three take ten each,” said Becker. “Everything has to be fair and square. You did good—no, great work, tonight,” Becker said to his Agents. “Go take a smoke,” he said to Santiago and the detective. He didn't even remember his name. “I'll count for a while. Don't take too long. I have an appointment in midtown with another snitch.” Santiago and the detective stood, each taking a small bundle of cash and stuffing it into their pockets.

When the door closed behind the other two agents, Becker turned to Mulvehill. “Don't be teaching your men to cheat each other.”

“I just thought—”

“Don't be teaching them to cheat each other,” Becker repeated. “They learn from your example. What is not corrected, is taught.”

“Sorry, Boss.”

“You give the guy a receipt for this?”

“Yeah, but I wrote ‘unspecified amount of currency' on it, no actual number.”

“Good,” said Becker. He picked up a handful of cash and began to count. “How much in each package?”

“Ten thousand.”

When Becker counted ten thousand, he put a rubber band around the packet and added it to the pile of counted cash. “Did you hear anything from Geraghty about his surveillance of Galiber?” he said to Mulvehill.

“I sent Castoro up to join him. They're both following him around the Bronx as we speak, political shit, fund raisers, rallies. They think they spotted the Senator's girlfriend, some twist who works on the campaigns with him.”

“Did they catch them kissy face?”

“Not really,” said Mulvehill. “They're still on top of it. Said they'd call in with more news in a little while.”

“Fine. Let me know when you hear anything. It's important we nail the guy with something. This stuff,” he pointed at the pile of cash, “the money that we take from these criminals funds a host of Agency activities that the politicians in Washington don't want showing up on any budget, you get me?”

Mulvehill nodded as he counted another packet.

“In a way, the drug business helps keep the U.S. of A. strong. The money Congress allocates for the drug war to the F.B.I., the D.E.A., the C.I.A. doesn't provide for all the manpower and equipment we need. These seized funds—millions, more every day—funds a lot of covert activities that we can't talk about or advertise, stuff in Iran, Iraq, to keep the infidels down. Galiber, thinking he's doing good, starting noise about legalizing drugs, might upset the whole scheme of things, a lot of schemes of things that are important to national security. He has to be knocked down, hard, fast, so there's no momentum generated.” Becker stopped talking as he counted. “We ought to have some of our bean-counters dig into his finances. If we can't find him hiding the weeny tonight, maybe we can find him on the take, socking away some cash.”

“You want me to do anything about it?”

“That's why I'm talking to you. Get some of those accountant types to start digging. If we can come up with something, I'll talk to Dineen, get him to do a white collar investigation. Get some of our people to start checking on his bank accounts. We ought to be watching him to see what he spends, what he owns—cars, a boat, maybe, a summer place.”

Mulvehill nodded as he placed another packet on the counted pile.

Becker picked up another handful of cash. “Meanwhile, I'm going to see some of our friends in the newspaper business, some of our politician friends in State government, maybe we can put some weight in the legislature to put the kibosh on this legalization nonsense from the other end.”

Someone knocked on the door. Santiago and the detective looked in.

“Come in, there's a lot more to be counted. I have to get uptown to speak to our Brotherhood snitch.”

“Have fun,” said Mulvehill.

“Oh, yes, really.”

The Bronx : June 18, 1996 : 9:50 P.M.

Marty Geraghty sat in the driver's seat of a sleek, bright red Pontiac TransAm, sipping coffee from a styrofoam container. Lou Castoro sat next to him, a similar cup on the top of the dashboard in front of him. The vehicle had been drawn from the 10
^th
Avenue pool of cars confiscated by the D.E.A. from drug dealers and the like; the Agency retained the flashiest and loudest for undercover operations. The TransAm was parked at a fire hydrant across the street from a Jehovah's Witnesses's Kingdom Hall.