Blow Fly (Kay Scarpetta #12)(75)
But the remote one-sided meeting must be on track. The senator walked out of a hearing that was probably being aired live on C-SPAN. He wouldn't do that without a good reason, and it would be coincidental, to say the least, if he just happened to step out at the precise time Benton let him know he would call the number in mode two.
Also, it occurs to Benton with relief, the senator obviously has set his phone on mode two. Otherwise, Benton could not overhear his conversation. Don't be stupid and so damn jumpy, he silently tells himself. You are not stupid. Senator Lord is not stupid. Think clearly.
He is reminded of how much he misses seeing his old friends and acquaintances in the flesh. Hearing the voice of Senator Lord, Scarpetta's trusted friend, a man who would do anything for her, tightens Benton's throat. He clenches his hands, gripping his phone so tightly that his knuckles blanch.
The man, probably a staff member, asks, "Can I get you something to drink?"
"Not now," Senator Lord says.
Benton notices a muscular, bare-chested youth casually moving closer to his rusting, dented Cadillac, a hunk of junk so caked with Bondo, the car looks as if it has pigment disorder. Benton stares him down, a universal warning, and the youth veers off in another direction.
"He's not going to get appointed, sir," the staff member replies, oblivious that every word he says is being broadcast to a Nokia cell phone in Harlem.
"I'm always more optimistic than you are, Jeff. Things can turn around, surprise you," says Senator Lord, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the most powerful politician in federal law enforcement, because he controls funding, and everything is about funding, even solving the most heinous crimes.
"I want you to leave and call Sabat." Senator Lord refers to Don Sabat, the director of the FBI. "Assure him he'll get what he needs for his new cyber-crime unit."
"Yes, sir." The staff member sounds surprised. "Well, you'll make his day."
"He's done all the right things and needs my help."
"I'm not sure I agree with you, Chairman, in the sense that we have some other pretty big issues, and this is going to set off a lot of..."
"Thank you for taking care of it," Senator Lord cuts him off. "I've got to get back in there and make these idiots think about people instead of damn political power games."
"And punishment. There are those who aren't too fond of you."
The senator laughs. "Means I'm doing something right. Give Sabat my regards, tell him things are moving along well now, are in the works. Reassure him, I know he's been unsettled. But we've really got to be diligent now, more than ever."
The line goes dead. Within hours, money will be wired into various accounts at The Bank of New York at Madison and 63rd, and Benton can begin withdrawals with bank cards issued in other fictitious names.
70
INSIDE LUCY'S OFFICE, a light begins to flash on a computer. The news has hit the wire service. The infamous trial lawyer Rocco Caggiano appears to have committed suicide in a hotel in Poland, his body discovered by a maintenance worker who noticed a foul odor coming from one of the rooms.
"How in the hell... ?" Lucy strikes a key to deactivate the flashing light. She clicks the mouse on Print.
Search engines are her specialty, and a posse of them have been dedicated to finding any information that might be related to Rocco Caggiano. There is plenty. Rocco loved to read about himself, was a news hog, and every time Lucy has scanned some article about him or a client he represented, she has felt an uneasiness she has never experienced before. She can't muster enough self-control to stop imagining Rudy helping Rocco shoot himself in the head.
Pointed up.
The barrel should be pointed up.
A tip she learned from her Aunt Kay, whose reaction Lucy can't imagine were she to find out what her precious niece and Rudy have done.
"Not even forty-eight hours?" Rudy leans over her shoulder, his breath on her neck smelling like the cinnamon gum he has a habit of smacking away on when he's not in public.
"Sounds like our luck has continued to turn bad in Szczecin. Thanks to a maintenance worker and a stuck drain." Lucy continues reading an AP report.
Rudy sits next to her and leans an elbow on the desk, his chin in his hand. He reminds her of a boy who has just lost his first Little League baseball game.
"After all that planning. Fuck. Now what? You pulled up the medical examiner's report? Christ, don't tell me it's in Polish."
"Hold on. Let me jump out of this..." She clicks the mouse. "Into something else... I love Interpol..."
The Last Precinct is a very select client, one of those entities considered part of Interpol's massive international web. For the privilege, Lucy must pass security clearance, of course, and pay the same yearly subscription fee as a small country. She executes a search, and Rocco Caggiano's death records are on the screen in seconds. Police and autopsy reports have been translated from Polish into French.
"Oh, no," Lucy says with a sigh as she swivels around in the chair and looks up at Rudy. "How's your French?"
"You know how my French is. Limited to my tongue."
"You're so vulgar. Just a single-tasking computer. You boys. One thing on the mind."
"I don't always think about only one thing."