Delta Ghost (11 page)

Venn sat back down. He didn’t look at Beth.

The kid seemed finally to collapse after that. His bravado disappeared, his posture changed to a huddle.

He said, in a dull monotone: “In San Antonio I met the businessman. Oscar Flowers. A Hispanic guy. I put his money into various bank accounts in the Cayman Islands, Geneva, Cyprus. I never asked where the money came from, and he never said. He set me up in a nice apartment, sent me a girl or two, paid me well. I put my studies on hold, and became a fully fledged employee.”

Clune stopped. His expression was distant. Fearful.

Venn said, “Then what happened?”

Clune’s eye rolled toward Venn.

“Then, one day, I decided to follow him on one of his business trips. I’d hacked his own email communications, of course, and I learned he was going to meet this Mexican, Salazar. The name had come up a number of times before, and I gathered Salazar was some kind of big shot. They never mentioned in their emails exactly what kind of business they were transacting, but I assumed it was illegal. Drugs, maybe, or guns. This meeting they were setting up, it sounded as though there was some hostility between them. I was curious. I thought that if I overheard something, got a sense that Salazar was asserting some kind of authority over Flowers, I might be able to take advantage of it. Jump ship, and join Salazar’s side.” He broke off, as if in wonder at his own stupidity. “I got greedy, I suppose.”

“Go on,” said Venn.

“So, I rented a car and followed Flowers and his entourage to some remote spot in South Texas. He took a bloody army with him, I tell you. Turned out Salazar had brought an army of his own. Sharpshooters with rifles. There was an argument between Salazar and Flowers. Then Salazar shot him dead, right before my eyes. Then all hell broke loose. The two sides went to war.”

He drew a deep breath, remembering.

“I decided enough was enough. I wasn’t going to stroll up to Salazar, introduce myself, and ask if he had a vacancy for a computer geek. Instead, I cut and run. But Salazar saw me.”

“Saw you.”

“Yeah.” Clune shuddered. “As I was running for the car. He yelled at his men to get me, but they were caught up in their shootout with Flowers’s men. I didn’t look back till I’d reached New York. Ditched the rental car along the way and swapped it for another. I was all set to arrange a flight back to Britain when I got mugged, and all my money and bank cards got taken. Now I’m stuck.”

“Hold on,” said Venn. “Back up a little. So you think this Salazar is hunting you? Because you’re a witness? Those guys who attacked you were Salazar’s men?”

“They must have been,” said Clune.

“How did he track you to New York?”

Clune raised his palms in a shrug. “They probably caught one of Flowers’s men and tortured him, got him to tell them who I was. I’d left a bit of a paper trail. The car rental firm, for one thing. Maybe they got my bank details, tracked the withdrawals I made from cash machines along the way.”

Venn said, “But what were you doing in Kruger’s place? When I found you?”

“Ah.” Clune looked shifty, as if he realized he could no longer claim he’d been there coincidentally, just looking for a place to bed down in. “I knew Flowers had a contact here in New York. A man called Stefan Kruger. I had a home address for him, as well as the address of his so-called furniture shop. I staked out his home, followed him on foot when he went out, trying to get up the courage to approach him. To tell him who I was, that I’d been an employee of Mr Flowers, and to ask if he could help me out at all. With money, protection, anything.”

“Let me guess,” Venn said. “You saw him get shot.”

“Yeah,” said Clune. “I was on the other side of the street from him, about to make contact. Then this car drove up. Tinted windows, so I couldn’t see who was inside, but there were several guys. Bam, bam. I got the hell out of there. Because I knew where his furniture store was, I decided to go there to see if he kept any cash on the premises. The killers, Salazar’s men, must have seen me at the scene of Kruger’s shooting, and tracked me to the furniture store. You and your partner turned up just in time.”

Venn said, “It doesn’t make sense. Why would they kill Kruger?”

“As I said, he was an associate of Flowers. Salazar might be eliminating everyone in his organization.”

Venn shook his head. It didn’t ring true to him. But he left it for now.

“So why’d you come here? To my house? Why not just turn yourself in at the nearest precinct house?”

“Because I need protection,” said Clune. “If I approach some police officer who doesn’t take me seriously, I’ll either be laughed at and sent away, or kept somewhere that isn’t secure, or something. I’ll be exposed. And those Mexicans will track me down and kill me.”

“But if this is all about a drug feud, the FBI or the DEA will get involved,” said Venn. “You’ll be under heavy guard. They handle people in your situation all the time.”

“No,”
said Clune, suddenly vehement. “I’m out of my depth here. I need my name to be kept well away from all this.”

“Then what do you expect me to do?” asked Venn.

“Hide me,” said Clune. “Find these Mexicans and stop them. Find Salazar, and stop him. Then help me get out of here, back to England.”

If he wasn’t still furious at the kid’s invasion of his and Beth’s territory, Venn might have laughed. “Son,” he said. “I’m a New York City detective. My jurisdiction begins and ends here, in the city. I’m not going to go and take down a drug baron, or whatever he is, all the way over in Texas. That’s the Feds’ business.”

Clune’s face collapsed on itself, his eyes darting about, looking dejected and terrified at the same time. Venn almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

“Come on,” said Venn, standing up. “I’m taking you in. They’ll keep you somewhere safe tonight, under armed guard.”

“Lieutenant,
please
.” The kid tried to stand, seeming to forget he’d hurt his ankle, and dropped back onto the couch with a yelp. “They’ll
kill
me. These people –”

“Venn,” said Beth.

He glanced at her.

“No,” he muttered.

“It’s gone midnight,” she said. “Let him stay.”

“No.”

She folded her arms, in a posture Venn recognized.

Damn it, this wasn’t his problem. Even if just half of what he kid had told him was true, it was still beyond his remit. A falling-out among thieves, with a semi-innocent bystander caught in the center. There was no political angle. Nothing that concerned Venn or his Division of Special Projects.

Except...
except
...

Sean O’Dell had very much been Venn’s business. O’Dell, with his connection to Councilman Marshall. O’Dell, who was linked with Kruger, just as Clune was. O’Dell, who’d died suddenly just after his release on bail, apparently by suicide.

Venn couldn’t make much sense of the tangle of connections and relationships. But he knew there was an interconnection. And if he was going to get to the bottom of what had happened to O’Dell, he needed to hang on to Clune. At least for now.

He said gruffly, “Just one night. In the morning I’m gonna dispose of you to a more suitable facility.”

Clune beamed in triumph.

Venn jabbed a finger at him. “But I wake up in the morning and find you’ve robbed the place, you’re through. If I have to search every inch of the British goddam Isles to find you, I will.” He took a breath. “Oh, and Clune?”

“Yes?”

“It’s LOOtenant. Not LEFtenant.”

C
lune lay awake in the darkness of the living room – Beth had suggested he take the spare bedroom, but Venn had drawn the line at that – and listened to the familiar ticking and creaking sounds as the house settled around him, its beams cooling after the heat of the day.

His relief had cooled similarly, and had been replaced by a gnawing sense of unease.

Was
he safe? He’d taken every precaution he could think of to make sure he wasn’t followed to Venn’s house. But could he be certain? What if Salazar’s men were at that very moment massing around the building, preparing for a full-on assault? He’d seen what they were capable of, back there in Maverick County in the showdown with Flowers’ gang, and the firepower they had at their disposal. Venn was a fighter himself, there was no question about it – Clune had seen him in action at the marketplace. But he’d be no match for a group of heavily armed opponents striking in the dead of night.

In the middle of his fear, Clune was aware too of a deep feeling of guilt. Not so much for Venn, but for his girl. Dr Colby. Clune was sensitive enough to appreciate just how close they obviously were, now that he’d seen them together. She seemed like a nice lady, and she’d shown Clune a kindness he probably didn’t deserve, given that he’d been trying to break into her house.

Clune wondered how much of his story Venn had believed, and which bits of it.

He’d never find the money now, he knew it. One million dollars in cash, and he’d had it in a suitcase in his hand, and he’d lost all of it. The single biggest opportunity he’d ever have in his life, and he’d blown it.

But it didn’t matter all that much now. What mattered was staying alive.

Clune pulled the thin blanket over his head, even though he felt uncomfortably hot, and tried in vain to sleep.

T
hrough the city they moved, Salazar’s men, scouring every bar and flophouse and sleazy dive.

They moved through Chinatown and the Villages and SoHo and NoHo. The joggers and strollers in Central Park were joined by legions of hard-faced men from out of town, whose menacing stare at every passing face quickened people’s steps and nudged their heartbeats up. The Meatpacking District, the Projects, Battery Park, all received the once-over, and sometimes more lingering, in-depth scrutiny.

Salazar himself prowled through the warrens of the city between the colossal buildings, an entourage of ten men surrounding him like a pack of wild dogs. He’d arrived two days earlier with twenty men. Since he’d gotten there, he’d been joined by reinforcements, sixteen more guys. After he’d lost four of them, the three shot dead by the cops and the fourth, Espinoza, who was as good as lost, Salazar had made a call on his cell phone, his cold fury held in check for the moment.

He reached out to a sometime rival, a fellow drug captain operating in New Mexico, with whom Salazar had clashed violently in the past but with whom he had for the past couple of years maintained an uneasy truce. He explained his problem, offered cash as well as the promise of some of his own territory. It hurt him to do so, but priorities were priorities.

The rival agreed to his terms, and to honor his own side of the deal. Which was to provide manpower.

And this he did, in the form of thirty bodies, veterans of the border drug wars against the other gangs and against the US Marshals and the DEA. Merciless killers who’d shoot a pregnant woman dead without breaking a sweat. They reached the city by midnight, arriving from Jersey and from out West, and joining Salazar’s own forces with a minimum of hostility expressed on either side.

Salazar had been at the top of his game for thirteen years. In the beginning, when he’d first assumed command of the cartel, he’d surrounded himself with advisors. Men who by dint of their experience and age he’d considered fit to guide him, a relative newbie, through the shark-riddled waters of the narcotics trade. He’d dispensed with his advisors, all of them, a few years later, when through bitter experience he’d come to learn that he was best served relying on his own counsel, on his own nous.

He thought now that if any of the advisors were still with him – if any of them were, indeed, still alive – they’d question his judgment in this matter. They’d suggest to him that his obsession with finding a man who’d run off with one million dollars, a measly
one million bucks
, chickenfeed in the grand scheme of things, was unjustifiable. Insane, even.

And that was exactly why Salazar had gotten rid of them. Because they failed to understand the essence of his success. The reason he was where he was, and who he was.

Respect.
That was key. You had to inspire respect, and you did that by doing things that inspired awe.

Throwing every resource at your disposal into tracking down a pipsqueak of a guy who’d robbed you of a trifling amount of money. That was awe-inspiring. It sent a message that no matter how small the slight shown to you, no matter how trivial the offense, you never,
ever
allowed disrespect to go unpunished.

Salazar would find the kid, Danny Clune. He’d given strict orders for the boy to be taken alive. He’d find him, and then he’d go to work on him, personally. He’d draw it out, allowing the boy to linger for days, or however long he was able to withstand the punishment. Eventually, Salazar would locate the money, every last penny, and reclaim it.

But first, he would get the boy. And anybody who stood in his way –
anybody
– would be taken down.

V
enn woke to the smell of frying bacon. For a moment he thought it was Sunday. Then he rolled over and looked at the bedside clock – 7:50 a.m. – and felt disorientation set in.

Beth’s suit was gone from the hanger on the closet door, which meant she’d already left for work. Yes, that was it – she had ward rounds this morning.

Then Venn remembered.

He groaned, hauled himself out of bed, felt the aches and twinges in his limbs from where he’d rolled and dived the day before. Quickly he dressed, without shaving, and made his way downstairs.

The kid was in the kitchen, and the kitchen was a mess. The entire contents of the refrigerator seemed to be spread out over the counters and the table. Just about every pan Beth and Venn owned was bubbling away, and in one of them he saw strips of bacon so charred and smokey he thought the fire alarm was about to go off.

Clune looked up brightly as Venn came in. “Lieutenant,” he said, pronouncing it wrong again. “Hope you’ve got a big appetite.”