Coffin was one of those rare characters who could drink and talk at the same time, as if the beer irrigated the vocal cords. He turned his bottle upside down to show me that it was empty. I padded into the galley and fetched him another.
“Where was I?” he demanded.
“You were being obliged to bring Salvatore back to stand trial for murder.”
“You’re a good listener, Gunn. The FBI was of two minds. The majority opinion believed the Wrestler’s testimony and felt that Salvatore was guilty and ought to be sent to prison for life. The minority view, represented by yours truly and a handful of my associates in the Albuquerque office, thought the Wrestler’s testimony stank. To us it was part of a Ruggeri plot to get even with the Baldinis for sending the youngest son up the river. For Marco Ruggeri, the godfather of the Ruggeri clan, it was a matter of family honor. If someone can betray one of theirs and get away with it, others might be tempted to do the same. Still, the law was the law, so we gift-wrapped Salvatore and delivered him to the courthouse in Flagstaff for arraignment. When Salvatore Baldini emerged from the courthouse an hour later, a sniper shooting from a roof a good half mile away put a 175-grain hollow-point boat-tail through the cornea of his right eye.”
“Blinded him,” I guessed.
Coffin appreciated my sense of humor. “Blinded him dead,” he said.
“I vaguely remember reading about that in the paper,” I said. “Which left you with Silvio ‘the Wrestler’ Restivo on your hands.”
“Which left us with the Wrestler. Our people grilled him for weeks but if his testimony was part of a plot to lure Salvatore out of the woodwork for a rendezvous with a sniper’s bullet, he never admitted it. His hotshot attorney insisted we stick to the terms of our signed agreement. We had no choice but to take him into the witness protection program.”
“I’m taking a stab in the dark—that was eight months ago.”
Coffin nodded. “Eight months ago we gave him a new moniker, Emilio Gava, and set him up in a condominium in East of Eden Gardens, Las Cruces. We kept close tabs on him—we tapped his phone, we tapped the public phones in and around this East of Eden that he might use—but we never discovered anything that would lead us to believe he was part of a plot to lure the late lamentable Salvatore out of hiding.”
“Were you able to identify Gava’s blonde girlfriend?” I asked.
He shook his head no. “He picked her up at an Italian block party off old Route 66. To the naked eye, she looked like a garden variety hooker.”
By now my beer bottle was empty, too, but I wasn’t in the mood for a refill. “Then you found out the Wrestler had been arrested for buying cocaine at the Blue Grass,” I said.
“Gava phoned me from the police station. We’re the ones who brought in R. Russell Fontenrose, from Fontenrose & Fontenrose, which is a firm we have worked with in the past—R. Russell takes care of the financial and legal affairs of people in our witness program. I reckon you know the rest of the story. The Wrestler had been caught in the act. R. Russell pleaded him not guilty and got the man you know as Emilio Gava released on bail. When I went around to East of Eden Gardens the afternoon of the arraignment, Gava had already skipped.”
“Why did you yank his photos from the Las Cruces Star morgue, and his fingerprints and photos from the Las Cruces police station?”
“That was done by FBI agents who came down from Washington. They confiscated all files and photos of Emilio Gava and made sure the Star didn’t publish his picture. I don’t even have one. The next-to-last thing the boys from Washington wanted was for the newspapers to splash a photo of a cocaine buyer over its front pages and have the caption identify him as someone in an FBI witness protection program. The last thing they wanted was a rehashing of the whole Clinch Corners affair. It would have led to a lot of embarrassing revelations about the FBI being manipulated by Mafia clans, so the Washington office reasoned.”
I took another stab in the dark. “To avoid embarrassment and unwanted publicity, you guys were going to offer the Wrestler another new identity so he’d never stand trial. You were going to see to it that Emilio Gava disappeared from the face of the earth.”
Coffin offered up a mocking grin. “Wrong by a country mile. I was going to lock him in a room and tickle the bejesus out of him until he admitted he had set up Salvatore for the sniper. I knew the cocaine thing was a phony from the word go. The Wrestler didn’t use cocaine. I’ll lay odds he set up the buy and then tipped off the Las Cruces cops to get himself arrested. He wanted out of the FBI witness protection program, but he needed to exit in a way that made it look as if he was running from a cocaine rap. If he’d just upped and run, those of us who thought he’d set up Salvatore for the sniper would have put him on our Ten Most Wanted list. Sooner or later we would have found him. But running out on a cocaine bust—shit, our people couldn’t have cared less.”
There was a long silence as I let Coffin’s tale sink in. I looked up. “When Silvio ‘the Wrestler’ Restivo, a.k.a. Emilio Gava, turned up in Flagstaff offering to turn state’s evidence against Salvatore, what reason did he give for doing it?”
“He said he was tired of running errands for the mob, tired of dealing five-card stud five nights a week. He said he’d met a woman and wanted out. The local FBI agents verified his story—there was a woman in his life by the name of Annabel. The problem was, with the mob you have a lifetime membership. You never retire. So the Wrestler said he was taking the only way out he knew. It sounded plausible. He was offering us a killer in exchange for a one-way ticket into our witness protection program and a new life.”
“Did this Annabel exist?”
Coffin nodded.
“What happened to her?”
“She disappeared from the radar screen when the born-again Emilio Gava disappeared into our program. When we asked him about it, the Wrestler intimated they had split up.”
I thought some more. “Why are you laying all this out for me?”
“Good question, Gunn. The Emilio Gava file has been officially taken out of my hands. The powers that be will be happy if they never hear of him again. But not me. I am a fossilized cop—I have a silent-screen mindset. I’ve been in the FBI twenty-seven years. My father was FBI before me. I was brought up to believe in an abstract principle called justice. Cops bring criminals to justice. That’s what we’re paid for. That’s how we get to kid ourselves we’re doing something useful for the planet. Chances are the Wrestler did lure Salvatore into the sniper’s sights. Chances are he’s gone to ground in a Mafia-run witness protection program. I want you to find him. I want you to bring him back for trial. I want twenty-four hours alone with him. When I’m finished with him, the cocaine bust will be the least of his worries. I want to charge him with being an accessory to the murder of Salvatore Baldini. I want to blow the Ruggeri-Baldini feud wide open.”
Coffin polished off his second beer and set the bottle down on the floor between his feet. “The place to start,” he said, “is Clinch Corners.”
Fifteen
Not counting the Hindu Kush, it was one of the longest nights of my life. We’d been pretending to be asleep for hours but the silence between us kept us both up—funny how you can lie next to someone not sleeping and know she’s not sleeping from her breathing. When all’s said, enchanting a woman is more satisfying than disenchanting her. When you disenchant her you wind up seeing yourself through her eyes. The image, to say the least, isn’t agreeably familiar.
It was still dark outside when the phone ringing in the living room roused me from my awful wakefulness. “I’d better get that,” I said, only too eager for an excuse to leave the bedroom. “It could be important.”
France-Marie sat up on her side of the bed. “I should be going,” she said. She snapped on the bed lamp and started collecting her clothing. I’ve noticed women have a lot of dressing to do before they can be described as dressed.
“Stay for breakfast,” I said so unconvincingly the words left a bad
taste in my mouth. I caught a glimpse of France-Marie’s vertebrae as she reached behind to fasten her brassiere. “I’m sorry about how things turned out,” I mumbled, pulling on sweatpants and a thick Afghan jersey I’d bought for a song in one of those tribal souks where they sell clothing and guns in the same stall.
“You’re not sorry,” she said. “You’re relieved.”
I didn’t contradict her. Padding past what I now thought of as the facilities, I plunked myself down on the yellow couch and lifted the receiver to my ear.
“Who’s this?” I demanded.
I must have come across as grumpy. “Who the hell is this?” the caller shot back. I recognized the gravel in Detective Awlson’s growl. “It’s me, Awlson,” he said. “You don’t sound none like that Allstate fellow I know,” he added. “What’d I do, interrupt a wet dream?”
“I don’t do dreams, wet or otherwise,” I said. “Don’t regret not. Dreams would probably put a damper on an otherwise all-right day.”
“You dream dreams, pal—everyone does. You only don’t remember them.” I could hear Awlson’s impatient snort on the line. “I got my hands on the phone company logs,” he said. “You curious to hear what I found?”
“For Pete’s sake,” I said.
“They were sure interesting,” Awlson said. “Someone made nine phone calls from Harriet Hillslip’s number to Nevada, to a bar in the town of Searchlight name of the Original Searchlight Speakeasy Saloon. That mean anything to you, Gunn?”
“It will,” I said. I settled back into the couch and told Awlson what I’d learned from Charlie Coffin the night before. “Your Emilio Gava is really Silvio ‘the Wrestler’ Restivo, a Ruggeri family member who turned state’s evidence to lure Salvatore Baldini out of the FBI’s witness protection program, at which point Salvatore was knocked off by a sniper.”
“I remember the hit,” he said. “I remember thinking the shooter was one hell of a good shot. The whole business didn’t strike me as kosher at the time, but local cops don’t score career points second-guessing the FBI.”
Inside the Once in a Blue Moon, a toilet flushed. A moment later the front door opened. I called out, “Let’s keep in touch.” France-Marie must have heard me because she called back, “Let’s” just before the front door slammed shut hard enough to stress-test the hinges.
“You talking to me?” Awlson said on the phone.
“I was talking to a passing fancy,” I said. “About the Wrestler,” I went on, “turns out he had a girlfriend name of Annabel. Could be that she was working at the Searchlight Speakeasy Saloon. Could be that Gava was keeping in touch with her from Harriet Hillslip’s kitchen phone.”
“Could be,” Awlson agreed. “What you figuring on doing next, Gunn?”
“I’m going to shower and shave and percolate up a pot of Maxwell House. Then I’m going to find Friday—”
“Come again?”
“Friday’s my nickname for Ornella Neppi, the lady bail bondsman who put up the $125K so Gava could get out of your jail. Stay tuned.”
“Tuned is my permanent state. Listen, next time I get you out of bed with important information try to sound halfway human when you come on the horn.”
I had to laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.
I dialed Ornella’s number in Doña Ana and let the phone ring a dozen, fifteen times but there was no answer. I put in a call to Ornella Neppi’s uncle, the Neppi in Las Cruces who was recovering from an ulcer operation. “I know who you are,” he said when I spelled my name—I get hot under the collar when people spell it with one n as in “weapon.” “Ornella told me all about you, including your trying to sweet-talk her into bed.”
“She said that!”
“Didn’t need to. Wasn’t born yesterday, Gunn with two n’s. I can spot your type a mile off.” He put a hand over the mouthpiece and said something to somebody about appreciating bacon with his French toast. He came back on the line. “Make no mistake, Ornella’s a fine girl. She’s had her ups and downs when it comes to men. Treat her nice-like or you’ll have me breathing down your neck.”
“I’ll treat her real nice,” I promised. “Now tell me where I can find her? She’s not answering her home phone.”
Turned out Suzari Marionettes was performing in a Pueblo youth club up north in Taos. I headed for my Studebaker parked in a stand of shady trees behind the Once in a Blue Moon, checked the oil and tire pressure. I threw my small canvas overnight bag into the backseat, fitted the key into the ignition, pulled out the choke and pushed the starter button. Remember cars when they had chokes and starter buttons? The car backfired only once before the motor coughed into life. I eased her down the dirt path and turned into the road—only to find myself sandwiched between a hulking black SUV and a sleek off-white vintage Cadillac. Car doors opened. Three goons appeared from the SUV and closed in on my Studebaker, walking with the lazy body language of professional bouncers. The fourth man, short, thickset, impeccably dressed in a double-breasted three-piece suit the same color as the Cadillac, approached from the other direction. He wore a fedora and thick, perfectly round glasses that magnified his eyes for anyone on the outside looking in. He gestured for me to roll down my window. I rolled it down partway. He leaned closer. “We hear you are looking for someone who jumped bail,” he said. “That someone has got friends. We are friends of his friends. We would like to convince you to stop looking. We would like to accomplish this without causing you bodily harm, if possible. If not”—he shrugged a fleshy shoulder—“not. Am I getting through to you, Mr. Gunn?”
“Five by five,” I said.
“Five by five is military jargon, isn’t it? We are not military. We are civilian.” He stepped back to take a better look at my Studebaker. “What year?”
“She’s a 1950 Starlight coupe.”
“Beats me which end is the front end,” one of the bouncers said.
“The Studebaker’s flat trunk was a distinctive feature,” I explained. “What about your Cadillac?” I asked the fedora.
“She’s a 1938 LaSalle coupe. The teardrop fenders went out of style after the war. Something like four thousand LaSalles were manufactured, maybe a hundred fifty, two hundred still rolling today.”
“Fine-looking automobile,” I said.
The short man with the fedora whistled through his teeth. “Your Starlight’s no slouch,” he said. He removed his hat and mopped his brow on the back of a cuff before carefully setting the hat back on his head, using both hands. “You need to be extra careful driving a vintage car. The last thing you want is to scrape her paint against a fire hydrant.”
“It’s the last thing,” I said.
Nodding as if we’d signed a verbal contract, the short man walked up to the Studebaker and, using the diamond on a pinky ring, scratched the left front fender from end to end. The sound was excruciating.
“Can I assume we understand each other?” he inquired.
“You didn’t need to do that,” I said. The heel of my right hand was on the molded grip of the Smith & Wesson semiautomatic wedged under my thigh. It could have gone either way.
“I didn’t, did I?” he agreed. He tugged down the brim of his fedora to shade his eyes. “Hopefully our paths won’t cross again.” He took another look at the car and angled his head in admiration. “Some beaut,” he said, “scratch notwithstanding.”
“You ought to leave me your business card,” I said.
“Why would I want to do that?”
“In case I decide to sell the Studebaker.”
The four of them exchanged looks. “He’s a comedian,” one of the bouncers said.
“A regular sit-down comic,” the short man in the fedora said.
Jesus Oropesa thought I should be writing movie scripts. These jokers detected a talent for comedy. Good luck in my civilian endeavors.
The four of them backed toward their respective cars, then backed the cars out and headed, with the Cadillac LaSalle leading the way, in the direction of
the interstate. I fitted the Smith & Wesson back into the holster attached by a magnet to the underside of the dashboard. It’d been an optional extra when I bought the Studebaker from an L.A. funeral parlor owner going to jail for aiding and abetting. I never asked what he’d been aiding and abetting. He never volunteered the information.
Sixteen
Keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, I drove north, skirting the urban mangle of Albuquerque and the rich-ghetto sprawl of Santa Fe. Taos, an hour and a quarter down the road north of Santa Fe, offers up a different moonscape than the rest of New Mexico. If you don’t count the artsy-craftsy crowd and their swank galleries and coffee shops, it still has the feel of a small frontier town, one part Pueblo Indian, one part descendants of frontiersmen who came out in Conestogas chain-smoking stogies to keep the gnats at bay. I passed the Kit Carson house on Kit Carson Road; it’d been turned into a museum celebrating the exploits of the Indian fighter who stood off beyond the range of arrows and shot warriors between the eyes with his Kentucky long rifle, then scalped them to collect the hundred-dollar bounty offered by the territorial government for dead Apaches. What can I say? Frontiers like the American Wild West or the tribal badlands of Afghanistan have been known to turn ordinary folks into ordinary killers.
I had trouble finding the Pueblo youth club, wound up asking directions from an Indian behind the cash register of one of those twenty-four-hour gas stations. I made it in time to catch the tail end of the marionette show. In the total darkness of the club’s theater, three puppeteers dressed in black—Ornella Neppi was one of them—were completely invisible as they worked the life-sized puppets with sticks. The illusion was eerily perfect. The puppets seemed so human I was taken aback when I went backstage after the show and saw them crumpled up in a straw hamper. You might have jumped to the conclusion they didn’t have a bone in their bodies.