I took it off a decade ago after the memorial service for Carrie. Rosamar took a generous sip and looked at me with a glint in her eye, something humorous occurring to her. I doubted it was my left hand.
“I once slept with an FBI agent who was married. This is when I was dealing blackjack and before I was married the first time. He wasn’t from your office, but honestly you all look alike.”
“People say that. It makes them feel better, I guess. How many agents do you see in the room?”
She looked around.
“Just you.”
“The agent I slept with was working on an interstate fraud thing and would come to my table every night and wait for my shift to finish. I knew he was married and it wasn’t going anywhere long term with him. While I was undressing, he would call his wife and talk to her in a low voice about the surveillance he was on. When he got tired of me, he told me about his moral compass. He said all FBI agents have one. How’s yours?”
“How about the drug business and who you and Juan worked with? Who wanted him killed? Did you get a call after the Alagara bombing and get told where to drop him? He phoned somebody else first. Did they phone you with instructions?”
“Why are you saying that?”
“We know where Juan got his new name and ID. Juan Gutierrez needed a new last name when he came out of prison. He’d made some serious enemies, but luckily the real Juan Menderes was willing to sell his identity to keep his family alive. So Juan Gutierrez became Juan Menderes. Of course a new name doesn’t mean people don’t recognize you, so after crossing the border, he went to work for the Sinaloa cartel. Probably figured that would protect him. He’s not your half brother. So if you want to make this a working lunch, let’s talk drug dealing. I think you need us, Rosamar. What happened to Juan could happen to you. You know too much, so let’s talk. Let’s figure something out.”
“I’m unemployed and looking for work. I did a tryout to deal cards again and I’m still good with them, but they won’t hire me because I look too old. These lines at my eyes and around my mouth, they’re a no-go. They said it was my card handling, but it wasn’t.”
“Try another casino.”
“I’ve tried them all.”
“I think you’re in danger. I think you should come clean with us. You do that, and I’m sure we can help you. Did Juan have any connection to the bombing?”
She answered that by reaching across the table and gripping my hand, and then pretending to jerk hers free just as the waiter approached with food.
She said loudly, “I just can’t do this with you. I can’t be in a relationship right now.”
She grabbed her purse and left. The waiter paraded a bemused smile as he returned with the check.
Midafternoon I sat down with Venuti and Thorpe.
“A lawyer called, not what’s-his-name, she’s got someone new. She intends to file a complaint against you for telling her that if she had sex with you, you’d make all the FBI questions go away. We talked to the lawyer and told him we had other agents there and the entire conversation is on tape, so no issue, but that’s it with you and her.”
“Works for me, and I’ve got a question for both of you. If Omar Smith knew about the Alagara bomb plot, then he knew the building could be destroyed or burned down. Would he risk letting the money get burned up or blown apart?”
Venuti shrugged. Thorpe said, “Maybe it’s his cover.”
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars? I don’t see that,” I said. “He likes having money.”
“He knew something,” Venuti said.
“You mean he’s not telling us everything? I agree, he knows more, but I don’t think he thought a bomb would detonate inside the Alagara.”
We left it there.
33
It was inevitable someone would post a YouTube video after a tour of Beatty’s trailer. When it happened, it went viral. The video was shot to make the trailer look like a creepy place, cracked wood at the deck steps, dead cactus in a planter, sliced-open garbage bags taped over the windows from the inside, dead flies on the floor, a door creaking open, and twilight gloom inside. A flashlight beam swept the tabletop and lingered on duct-tape repairs to the Barcalounger and Styrofoam trash no longer stacked neatly on the floor. A voice-over talked about confiscated computers targeting US cities.
The camera panned across stripped walls. It moved behind the tacked-up sheets to the bed and small bathroom still cluttered with clothes. The flashlight beam circled a vomit-caked bathroom sink. The video ended on the table and the open door. Eerie and nothing like the Jeremy Beatty I knew.
I walked into Venuti’s office soon after. He was in a clean suit and had a new haircut. Must have gone home. Good. He needed to.
“Shut the door, Grale, and let’s have that talk again.”
“What happened to forty-eight hours?”
“The Bureau will announce tomorrow evidence is conclusive that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula supplied the C-4 for the three attacks and that ISIS aided in its transport and built the cell here.”