Part 13 (1/2)

Seventeen.

WHEN I walked into the lounge of the Busted Flush my phone was ringing.

Millis said, ”Trav? My G.o.d, I bet I've called you thirty times. A friend of mine is here and he would like you to talk to him.”

”Put him on.”

”No. He wants you to come here.”

”Who is he?”

”He goes sailing in the mornings.”

”Oh. Well, sure. Give me a half hour.”

When she let me into the duplex, the sea through the great windows was a soft shade of gray and there were streaks of rose and pink in the eastern sky the afterglow of the unseen sunset behind us. They had not yet turned on the lights. Jornalero struggled up from a deep chair to shake my hand. He seemed to have lost the flavor of confidence and authority. His voice was softer, subdued. Millis brought drinks and turned on a low lamp on the table between our chairs. Our chairs were at right angles to each other. The light winked on the ice in his drink as he raised it to his lips. It left his face in shadow. Millis sat off to my left in darkness, sat yoga-fas.h.i.+on on a low square table surfaced in squares of ornamental tile. I had the feeling that she sat off to the side like that when Jornalero was keeping her, when he had asked men to come to the place he rented for her, to talk their business in safety.

”Was it what you hoped would happen?” he asked.

”I didn't know what would happen.”

”A craziness,” he said. ”Madness. Hatred. I have lost valued friends. Friends of many years. I've sent my wife far away, just in case. There isn't any meaning to it anymore. t.i.t for tat. That's all it is. You kill my friend, I kill your friend, you kill me, my brother kills you. Did you know it would be like this, McGee, when you told me about Ruffino's boy?”

”I didn't. Browder did.”

”Who is Browder?”

”An undercover agent with the DEA. He hoped it would be like this. He's dead.”

”Why would anybody hope for this? Fathers and sons. Husbands.”

”He said that if you shake the tree, the ripe fruit falls out. He told me the law can't touch you, Mr. Jornalero. He said you might possibly be indicted for violating laws about foreign currency exchange, but probably never convicted in any way that would stick.”

”Then he is the one who told you about the mules?”

”That's right.”

”I wondered. That was a long time ago. I am three and four times removed from any of that. I am a legitimate businessman.”

”But you launder the cash.”

He didn't answer directly. He seemed to be looking off into the distance, into the final fading streak of rose. ”Sometimes it comes in cardboard boxes,” he said. ”Thirty and forty at a time. Supermarket boxes. Lux soap. Shredded wheat. Grapefruit juice. Sealed with silver duct tape. Fives, tens, twenties, fifties, hundreds. Just thrown in and packed down and they had no idea how much was there. They take my word. My word is always good. I've got two girls who do nothing but sort it, count it and band it. They won't have much to do, for a while. Not for very long, though. Then it will start flowing again. It has to come somewhere. It has to come to a safe place.”

”Three percent?” I asked.

He sighed. ”Three to some. Four to others.” He turned toward me and his tone changed. ”My d.a.m.ned fool countrymen did a number on Tom Beccali last night.”

”Who is he?”

”A prominent area businessman. Like me. Like Ruffino. I told them enough was enough. It's over. Forget it. But they thought the scales were out of balance. He won't be missed for some time. He travels a great deal. He is at the bottom of the ocean. The police don't know that, and the news people don't know it, but they know it. And I'm the logical response. Millis said I have to have your permission.”

”For what?”

”He wants to be my house guest for a few days, maybe longer.”

”I have no say in the matter. It's up to you.”

”It was the only place I could think of,” he said.

”Why my permission?” I asked Millis.

”Arturo used the wrong word,” she said. ”I meant more like advice. Could it be a bad idea?”

”Who knows you're here?” I asked him.

”No one outside this room. And two men downstairs.”

”But there are people who know you two used to be friends?”

”Yes. Quite a few.”

She broke in. ”But the security here is good. I can tell anybody I'm alone here. He'll stay out of sight. What do you think, Travis?”

”It's up to you. But don't the security people downstairs know his name?”

”I used a different name.”

She stirred uneasily. ”Fortez,” she said. ”One h.e.l.l of a shock.”

He leaned toward me, putting his empty gla.s.s down. ”Mr. McGee, even if I had known it would all go this far, I still would have had to pa.s.s along your information about young Ruffi. There were some doubts about it for a time. But not after his friend Bobby Dermon was... interrogated. They flew down to the Keys in a float plane Ruffi borrowed from a friend. They both boarded that boat. The man who'd made the buy had hidden the money and the product and he tried to negotiate a better deal. They tied him up and questioned him. Dermon kept the women from trying to leave. Once they found the money and the s.h.i.+pment, they raped the women. Ruffi killed both the women. Dermon suffocated the man by jamming the money into his mouth. Her uncle in Lima now has the full story. I wanted to talk to you to tell you n.o.body wants you dead, not anymore.”

”How about Ruffi?”

”He will be found. Sooner or later. There is a reward. A big one. And so the interest is high. He is the rabbit in the forest with ten thousand wolves.”

”Nothing that happens is going to resurrect Billy Ingraham,” I said.

”Or many, many others,” Jornalero said.

”But Billy was an innocent bystander,” I told him.

”Innocent people and guilty people are killed every day Stray bullets in small wars. Fog on the Interstates. If innocence could keep us alive, my friend, we'd all be saints.”

”I'm sure Billy would be very comforted to hear that, Jornalero, especially from the lips of a man who's made it big in the world's dirtiest business, an unctuous, well-dressed, high-living son of a b.i.t.c.h who may have even convinced himself he isn't doing anything rotten. All you do is make all the rest of it possible by keeping it profitable.”

”Trav!” Millis said sharply.

”I do a lot of good in the world,” Arturo said. ”The rest of it is a small favor for old friends.”