The Guardians(69)

Adam does not have Mayhall’s phone number; has never had it. There is nothing to track until Mayhall calls, and he finally does. The FBI grabs the incoming number from Adam’s phone and follows it to another cell phone, also in Delray Beach. The puzzle is coming together. Monitoring the phone signal, the FBI picks up Mayhall’s scent as he buzzes along Interstate 95 headed north. The car he’s driving is registered to one Skip DiLuca of Delray Beach. White male, age fifty-one, four-time felon with manslaughter his worst sin, paroled three years earlier from a Florida prison, currently managing a shop selling used motorcycles.

DiLuca, aka Mayhall, arranges to meet Adam after work at a bar in Orange City, forty-five minutes from the prison. Adam says they always meet at the same place and have a quick beer as they talk shop. To avoid suspicion, Adam changes into street clothes. His handlers tape a small wire to his chest. He arrives first, selects a table, does a mike check, all bugs are working. An FBI crew is listening in the back of a van parked in the street behind the bar.

After a few curt pleasantries, the real conversation begins:

DiLuca: They didn’t kill Miller. What happened?

Adam: Well, several things went wrong. First, Miller knows how to fight and went crazy. Robert Earl Lane has a busted nose. Took a few minutes to subdue him, too much time. Once they had him down they couldn’t finish him off before another guard saw them. They didn’t cut him enough.

DiLuca: Where were you?

Adam: I was there, man, right where I was supposed to be. I know my turf. The ambush worked perfectly, just couldn’t get the guy down.

DiLuca: Well, he ain’t dead, and that’s a problem. We got paid for a job that’s not finished. The gentlemen I’m dealing with are not happy.

Adam: Not my fault. I did what I was supposed to do. Can’t you get him at the hospital?

DiLuca: Maybe. We’ve had a look, lots of uniforms in the way. His condition improves each day so our end of the deal stinks more and more. We were supposed to take him out, plain and simple. You tell Drummik and Lane that I’m really pissed about their lousy job. They promised me they could do it.

Adam: How much heat are you taking?

DiLuca: I’ll deal with it.

Their conversation is brief, and when they finish their beers, they step outside. DiLuca hands Adam a brown paper grocery bag with $1,000 in cash, two new cell phones, and a supply of drugs. He leaves without saying goodbye and hurries away. Adam waits until he is out of sight, then tells his handlers DiLuca is gone. He drives around the block and meets them on a side street.

Technically, legally, the FBI has the goods for an indictment against DiLuca, Adam, Drummik, and Lane for a contract killing, or an attempted one. But the two inmates are already locked up. Adam is too valuable as an informant. And DiLuca can lead them to the real catch.

Twenty minutes down the road, DiLuca sees blue lights in his mirror. He checks his speedometer and knows damned well he is not violating the law. He is on parole and treasures his freedom; thus, he sticks to the rules, or at least the rules of the road. A county officer takes his license and registration, and spends half an hour calling it in. DiLuca begins to squirm. When the officer returns, he asks, rudely, “You been drinking?”

“One beer,” DiLuca answers truthfully.

“That’s what they all say.”

Another county car with flashing lights arrives, and parks in front of DiLuca’s car. Two officers get out and glare at him as if he has just murdered some children. The three huddle and kill more time as DiLuca fumes. Finally, he is ordered out of the car.

“What the hell for?” he demands as he closes his door. He should not have. Two officers grab him and force him across the hood of his car while another slaps on handcuffs.

“You were swerving recklessly,” the first officer says.

“The hell I was,” DiLuca snaps.

“Just shut up.”

They search his pockets, take his phone and wallet, and toss him rather roughly into the back seat of the first patrol car. As he is taken away, an officer calls a wrecker, then calls the FBI. At the station, DiLuca is placed in a holding room where he is forced to pose for a mug shot, then left to sit for the next four hours.

A federal magistrate on standby in Orlando quickly approves two search warrants; one for DiLuca’s apartment, the other for his car. FBI agents enter the apartment in Delray Beach and go to work. It is a one-bedroom apartment with sparse, cheap furnishings and no evidence whatsoever of a woman. The kitchen counters are covered with dirty dishes. Laundry is piled in the hallway. The refrigerator has nothing more than beer, water, and cold cuts. The coffee table in the den is littered with hardcore porn magazines. A laptop is found in a tiny office and carried outside to a van where a technician copies the hard drive. Two burners are found, opened, analyzed, tapped, and put back on the desk. Listening devices are hidden throughout the apartment. After two hours the team is finished, and while normally it would be fastidious in rearranging things, DiLuca is such a slob it would be impossible for him or anyone else to notice that a surveillance team had spent the evening rummaging through his apartment.

Another team goes through his car and finds nothing important but another burner. Evidently, DiLuca has no permanent cell phone number. Digging through the cheap phone, the technician hits pay dirt in the Contacts file. DiLuca has only ten numbers in memory, and one is for Mickey Mercado, the operative who showed up in court to eavesdrop on our motion for post-conviction relief. In the Recents file, there are twenty-two incoming and outgoing calls from and to Mercado in the past two weeks.