The Shadow Box (60 page)

Aaronson's body had been forced into a plastic drum marked
Acetic Anhydride, Bhatpara Chemical Company Ltd., Akra, India.

There were dozens of such drums filled with all differ
ent chemicals. Some were labeled
French Chalk
which one cop said was like a talc. He said he thinks it's what
you make pills out of, not counting the active ingredients.
He was more sure about acetic anhydride which he said is not illegal but which you need to make heroin.

The stuff looked like dirty sugar. There were several
plastic buckets of it, sitting open, and some of it had
spilled on the floor near one of the drums. It looked as if
someone had emptied that drum because he had another
use for it. This was how they found Aaronson's body.

Down by the loading dock, another cop found a pallet
stacked with plastic bags full of Halite. Halite was like
rock salt, used for melting ice on sidewalks. Hennessy
wondered why anyone would stock up on Halite in May
and also why a whole pallet of it had been shipped in from Tampico, Mexico, when the stuff was available at
any local hardware store. He cut a bag open and tasted
some. It turned out to be crystal meth, smokable metham
phetamines, worse than crack.

Another interesting find was a bunch of empty shopping
bags from Bloomingdale's and one from Peerless Camera.
They still had the sales slips in them for about a thousand
bucks worth of “cruise wear and casuals.” Hennessy
noted the report of the three who left the building earlier.
What the hell is this he wondered? They're going to skip
town on the
QE2?

They made forty-two arrests. The department of correc
tions had to send a bus. And interpreters. There was not one green card in the place.

He would have to call Doyle. Break the news about
Arnie. It was time they had another talk anyway.

Fat Julie, riding with Frankie,
his driver, was heading
back to Villardi's Seafood Palace. His mood was unsettled.
He did not feel at peace betting so much money that a
stock would go in the tank.

He had bet large sums before—although not this large—
and only on fighters and a couple of jockeys. And only
when someone reliable, like someone who owed him, had
given him the word that a certain horse would pull up
lame in the stretch or that a certain middleweight would walk into a hook in the sixth. There was no suspense. At
least not for long. And if it didn't go right, like the fighter
clocks the other guy instead, you always knew wbere to
find the guy who sucked you in.

But he had taken Doyle's advice because if it worked,
he could earn back in a week what he said he'd pay Parker
and have some seed money left over besides. If it didn't,
he knew, where to find Doyle.

And he did need Parker. Some people he'd talked to,
last night and this morning, all say they might want in but
not if it's just an idea. They want factories already in
place, already pumping out pills. And they had
trouble
grasping how we'd all make money just by making knock-
offs and selling them cheap.

“Sounds too much like Kmart,” one of them said.
“Kmart is not first class.”

“You want class, go watch a ballet. I'm talking
money here.”

“Yeah, but Kmart is a good simile,” said another.
“Give us like a Johnson & Johnson. You know, where
they already got all the pill-making stuff and they already
got customers. Get it like that and maybe we buy in.”

Simile, yet. Fucking morons.

What happened to the can-do attitude we used to have in this country? Where's the entrepreneurial spirit?

The hell with them. He'd do this himself.

Frankie spotted the vans outside Villardi's. The win
dows were darkly tinted, including glass panels on their
sides. “Taking pictures, it looks like,” said Frankie.

Julie nodded. They do this every so often. They video
tape who comes and goes but mostly nothing ever comes
of it.

Frankie pointed to a taxi parked at the curb. “Three
guys,” he said. “They're watching the door.”

“Drive past,” Julie told him.

He looked in at the three men. Minorities. From the
haircuts, they looked like Feds. He read where the Fed
was hiring more minorities so maybe . . . Oh, for Christ's sake . . . that's Yahya in behind the driver. Almost didn't recognize him.

“They're okay,” he told Frankie.

Parker must be in there already. Julie was afraid those
vans might have spooked him. It's not real polite to bring
backup, however. He made a mental note to mention that
to Parker.

“Drive around,” he said to Frankie. “I'll go in through
the back.”

I can't be seeing this, thought Julie Giordano.

There's Johnny, the guy he's with must be Parker, and
they're sitting at the bar. Parker's drawing something on
a napkin. Right there with them, elbows on the bar, is
fucking Jimmy the bartender who is hanging on their
every word.

Julie gave his brother the high sign as in “What the hell
are you doing?” Johnny just looks at him like, “Oh, Hi.”

Julie mouthed, “Can we talk? Like over here?”

His brother calls, “Julie, come say hello to Phil Par
ker,” which dashed all hopes that Parker was maybe in
the crapper and nowhere near Jimmy's wire.

Now having no choice, Julie crossed and shook hands
with him. He asked him how long he's been there. Parker
says about an hour. He asked Parker if he would care to
go sit at his private table, over there by the fish tank. Julie
would be with him in five minutes. First he needs to have
a little talk with his brother here.

Parker says yeah, sure. He goes over and sits.

“That was just getting interesting,” said Johnny G. “He
was explaining how the FDA works.”

“Hey, can we cool it here?” This is still in front of
Jimmy. Johnny doesn't seem to notice.

“They got moles inside,” he says. “You know, like
spies? They know everything the FDA's going to do be
fore they do it.”

“Johnny . . . will you shut your fucking mouth.”

“You want to know something else? The FDA kills
more people than bad drugs ever did. You know how
many people die because the FDA—”

He grabbed his brother by the arm, gestured toward the
men's room. “In there,” he said.

Johnny G. resisted. ”I know what you're going to tell
me. I think Jimmy should hear it, too.”

Julie looked at him. He looked at Jimmy. “He's jerking
me off, right? You're both jerking me off.”

”Um . . .” A helpless shrug from the young bartender.
“Mr. Giordano, I'm not real sure myself.”

“What you're going to tell me,” said Johnny G. “is
that our family has never dealt drugs and that you
wouldn't touch this shit with gloves on.”

Dumbfounded, he again looked at Jimmy. Jimmy is
mouthing, “Good idea. Say it.” He's practically pleading.

Julie's eye was drawn to the bar at Jimmy's elbow. On
it was a pad of bar checks, several sheets of which were
filled with notes and Jimmy's still holding a pencil. He's
taking notes? thought Julie. What, he had technical diffi
culties? His microphone went on the blink?

Julie pulled his brother off the stool. He dragged him
t
en feet away to the big potted fern by the entrance. The
entrance reminded him of something else.

“Those vans outside,” he said. “What's the story
with them?”

“Not just the vans,” said Johnny G. pleasantly.
“They're up on the roof, they have chase cars both ends,
and they also have two in here.” He hooked a thumb
toward two men at a window table. They had ordered iced
tea and were nursing it.

Julie didn't bother to look. “And Parker walked into this?”

“He thinks they're ours.”

He told his brother about the two o'clock meeting,
which he invented—although he had a hunch that Julie
had just come from a real one—and which he told Parker
about from the bar phone. He did that, he said, to make
sure he got their attention.

“Johnny . . . whose attention?”

“Whoever's been listening,” he said patiently. “My
guess is it's strictly FBI. If there were any Brooklyn cops
outside, someone we know would have called us.”

Julie could see what his brother had done. Believing it was another story.

“What about the cab? Parker brought shooters in a
cab.”

”I suggested it.”

“So the Fed would know what they look like?”

“So I'd know.”

“Yeah, well, Yahya's out there. You even set up
Yahya?”

Johnny grimaced. It was like, “Oops. Forgot.” But no
problem, he says. We'll handle that with Jimmy.

An exasperated sigh. “You know I'm going to kill you
for this, right?”

“Behave yourself. You're going to thank me. Moon
will kill
you,
you get into this shit.”

Fat Julie stared. “You heard from him?”

“Yesterday. We sat by Pop's grave.”

Julie was silent for a long moment.