The Bricklayer - Boyd Noah. Страница 48

“From what I’ve been able to read between the lines, he’s mainly responsible for putting this group out of business. Am I correct?”

She glanced at Kaulcrick and then carefully said, “A good deal of it, yes.”

“He’s too valuable to this organization to let go. I want you to offer him this permanently. He can go off anywhere he wants and work any case he wants. He can work directly for me.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Everything considered, it looks like you already have. You, too, have my appreciation. How are your injuries?”

“I’m fine, sir.”

“And tell Vail, even if we can’t figure out a way to keep him aboard, I will find some way to thank him.”

“I’ll threaten him with that.”

The director laughed. “How much longer will you and Don be out there?”

“I would guess we’ll be done with the evidence and reports in three to four days.”

“Come see me when you get back.”

TOM DEMICK had provided Vail with a rarely used alcove in a remote corner of the office’s technical services section. He was wearing evidence gloves and going through the trash container from the building on Ninth Street. It seemed too pat that the extortionists had advertised themselves as a pentad. Now five people, including Pendaran, had been identified, and everyone was assuming that because the body count had reached that number, there could be no one else involved. Why would they give away their strength up front?

He had started listing all the container’s contents on a pad of paper. Maybe he could, through content, fingerprints, or DNA, separate them by the person who had deposited them, allowing him to determine that there were more than five people. After processing a few items, he realized it would be an impossible task. It was time to cut the Gordian knot.

He reached in and shifted the contents around until he found the source of the garlic odor. It was an order of linguine with red clam sauce in a foil carryout container with a plastic top, which was in a paper bag stapled closed with the receipt attached. The top of the bag had been torn open and the lid pushed to one side. It appeared that the meal hadn’t been touched. Vail leaned a little closer and sniffed the sauce. There was far too much garlic in it for anyone’s taste. Now fascinated, he set it on a dusty desk beside him.

There was a good chance that whoever had set the meal in the trash did it so it would be noticed. But why? Would he have noticed it if he hadn’t smelled the odor of garlic so prominently the night before? Was this meant to lead the FBI away from something again? Or to something?

He dug around in the old desk and found a staple puller. He eased out the fastener and unfolded the receipt. Unbelievably, it was dated the afternoon before and was paid for with a credit card. It was for two orders of linguine. The restaurant, Sargasso’s, was located on Seventh Street, less than three blocks from the building where the shoot-out the night before had occurred, and less than two miles from the building they had searched this morning.

Vail wondered if he was supposed to follow another investigative chain from the staged meal. Then it occurred to him that every time he discovered one of these pieces of evidence—from the flamethrower car to the dead bodies to the burned money—another clue was left behind to follow up on, which in turn led Vail into another deadly situation. Was this another trap Radek had set in place before his death, or was someone else afraid Vail would discover his involvement and was trying to kill him? Like everyone else, Vail had assumed Radek was the mastermind behind the murders and extortion. But maybe he wasn’t. Vail’s cell phone rang.

It was Kate. “I thought you were taking me to dinner tonight.”

“What makes you think I’m not?”

“I haven’t heard from you in a while. I thought maybe you were hiding out on some rooftop in Chicago. You’re not, are you?”

“Let’s be European and eat late. Pick you up at nine?”

“You need time to fly back here, don’t you?”

“Something like that.” He hung up and thought about going upstairs and telling her what he was doing, but the night before he had given in to her and then she’d been shot. And if it had been the late Victor Radek who left the garlicky meal for him to find, Vail was chasing shadows. He put the credit card receipt in his pocket and headed for the garage.

SARGASSO’S WAS ONE of those small tucked-away restaurants that use crisp white linen tablecloths and hand-washed crystal that pulse in the low light to create quiet, intimate dining. A man stood with his back to the door inspecting the dining area with proprietary authority. “Excuse me,” Vail said, pulling out his credentials.

The man glanced at the identification but took a few more seconds to size up Vail. Then he held out his hand. “Armand Sargasso. I’m the owner, Agent Vail.” He had just a touch of an Italian accent left, as if he had come from Italy as a young boy. There was also a noticeable New York corruption of the hard consonants. “What can I do for the FBI today?”

Vail handed him the credit card receipt. “Yesterday, someone got carryout in the middle of the afternoon.”

“I’ll get my receipts. Would you like something? Espresso? No, no, it’s too hot. How about some nice gelato? I’ve got hazelnut.”

“Do you make it?”

“We even roast the hazelnuts ourselves.”

“Maybe a small dish.”

The owner disappeared into the kitchen. A few moments later a young man came out with the dish of ice cream topped with some kind of whipped cream and a waffle biscuit wedge, set it in front of Vail with a spoon, and nodded respectfully.

By the time Sargasso came back, Vail had finished all of the dessert.

“How was it?”

Vail pointed at the empty dish. “It was awful.”

The restaurateur laughed. “I’ve got a lot more stuff you won’t like. You should come back for dinner, my treat.”

“How about I come back, and it’ll be the government’s treat?”

“Even better.” He handed Vail the original credit card receipt.

It was signed “Andrew Parker.” “Who waited on him, do you know?”

“We do a pretty fair carryout business. It could have been any of my waitstaff. I was at the market yesterday afternoon.”

“This guy ordered both meals buried in garlic.”

“Oh, him. That would have been Nina. When she told the chef, he wanted to take a cleaver to the man. I heard about it when I got back.”

“Is Nina here now?”

“She’s working tonight. You come back for dinner. I got some beautiful veal this morning.”

“Then how about a reservation for two, nine thirty.”

As soon as Vail got in the car, he called Tom Demick. “Do you know who has the office contact for MasterCard?”

“I’m sure it’s on one of the white-collar squads. I could find out.”

Vail read him the information off the credit card receipt. “If you could verify the name as Andrew Parker and get the address on the account, I’d appreciate it.”

“Since you’re asking a lowly tech agent to do this, I assume the fewer who know about this, the better.”

“Notice how that isn’t even a question.”

TWENTY-FIVE

T HIS PLACE IS NICE,” KATE SAID. “HOW DO YOU KNOW THE OWNER?”

“Do you want a really nice dinner, or do you want the truth?”

“Pass the Chianti and start lying.”

“Let’s see…the concierge at the hotel recommended it. She said a date brought her here, so I stopped in this after-r noon. Armand is one of the guys who after a minute and a half treat you like they’ve known you their whole life.”

“What did she say about the food?”

“I don’t think she remembered.”

“Then why—in your little narrative—did she recommend it?”

Vail tilted his head suggestively. “I think, by the end of the evening, everyone was…satisfied.”