Speak of the Devil (17 page)

He walked to the end of the bed, trailing his fingers down her leg as he did. He picked up her foot and kissed each toe, one by one. She giggled. He got on the bed, knelt between her feet, and began trailing slow kisses up her legs. His tongue traced circles on her calves, her knees, her thighs. The warmth of his lips sent ripples of electricity up to her belly. His hands skimmed upward, tracing her hip bones, traversing her stomach, drawing butterfly patterns across her breasts. “Please,” she whispered.

“Patience, love,” he said. His tongue kept circling higher along her inner thigh, ever so slowly, until she was crying out and straining her hips toward him. His mouth finally found the place she’d been guiding it to. She arched back as he circled her with his tongue. Every other thought left her mind. She closed her eyes, letting herself savor the pure sensory bliss of the man she loved lavishing her with his tongue and lips and fingers. She came with a shiver of happiness.

When she opened her eyes, he was kneeling between her legs, gazing down at her with tenderness. She sat up, smiled, and pushed him back against the bed. She swung a leg over him so she was straddling him. Twining her fingers with his, she held his hands above his head, then leaned down and kissed him, tasting herself on his mouth. Then she sat back slowly and lowered herself onto him. He groaned as his length slid into her, stretching and filling her. She arched her back and moved her hips, bringing him even deeper. He watched her with hooded green eyes. They moved together in a rhythm as intense as it was familiar. She held herself back for as long as she could, until she couldn’t take it anymore, and pushed herself over the edge. She felt Jack shuddering under her at the same time.

She stretched herself out, laid her head on his chest, and spread her fingers over his heart. He sleepily stroked her back. She drifted into sleep.

Sometime later, Anna was startled awake by the ringing of her cell phone. She almost let it go to voice mail, but worry drove her hand to fumble around the nightstand. She picked up the phone and squinted at the incoming caller. It was Steve Schwalm, Psycho’s attorney. She answered, and Schwalm apologized for interrupting her night.

“But I had to talk to you,” he said.

“What’s up?” She sat up in bed and glanced at Jack. His eyes were open, watching her. “Did my reverse proffer convince Psycho that he wants to cooperate?”

“Not quite. I’m withdrawing from my representation of Mr. Garcia. I’ll be filing something Monday morning.”

“Okay. Can we talk about this then?”

“No. It wasn’t easy to call you, Anna. I take my duty of confidentiality to my client seriously. But I consulted with an ethics attorney, and we concluded I can and should breach client confidentiality in light of the imminent danger of a future crime.” The way he was talking, Anna guessed that he’d already written this in a memo somewhere. “Mr. Garcia has ordered his gang to kill you. You’ve been greenlighted.”

“What?” She tried to shake the sleep and the wine from her head. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t go into details about how this was revealed to me. But it’s real. My understanding is that any MS member who sees you may attempt to kill you.”

Jack sat up and started putting his boxer shorts back on. Apparently, he could hear the other end of her conversation. Anna tried to get more details from Schwalm, but he said that was all he had to give her. By the time she hung up, Jack was fully dressed and had his cell phone in his hand.

“They put a hit out on you?”

She nodded.

“Christ,” he said, and began to pace the room. “I can’t believe this is happening again.”

Within minutes, Jack turned their charming room into a little command center, from which he called the Marshals, the D.C. police, the local police, and the acting U.S. Attorney. He set up his laptop and started e-mailing people as he spoke on the phone. Anna listened to his end of the conversation as she got dressed. He and a deputy U.S. Marshal decided the B&B was safer than being at home. The local police would drive by the inn throughout the night.

“I want a meeting about Anna’s protection first thing Monday morning,” Jack said.

“I’ve got Tierra Guerrero coming in for grand jury Monday morning,” she interrupted.

“Make that Monday afternoon.” He listened for a beat. “It’s definitely credible. Apparently, she really pissed one of them off in a reverse proffer yesterday.”

When he got off the phone, Anna poured the rest of the wine, now warm, into their glasses. They sank down on the couch.

“I guess I haven’t perfected the reverse proffer yet,” Anna tried to joke, although she felt shaky. “This was not the result I was aiming for.”

Jack didn’t laugh. The muscle in his jaw clenched and unclenched. He pulled her close and wrapped his arms tightly around her.

24

We gotta get a piece of this,” Ricardo said. “It’s the wave of the future.”

“Actually,” Victor said, “the Internet’s been around for a long time.”

“Yeah, but a brothel on the Internets! Now that’s something new.”

The timekeeper looked at him disbelievingly. “Are you kidding, old man?”

“Why would I kid?”

In fact, Ricardo rarely kidded these days. He spent most of his time worrying. He worried that the gang was going to find out he’d testified against them. He worried about money. It had been almost three weeks since the raid on his brothel. Three weeks without any income. The bills were piling up, and his wife was complaining even more than usual. She was going to be angry that he was out drinking with his friend instead of home helping with the apartment and the children. Too bad.

He ogled the ladies milling around the bars and restaurants of Tivoli Square. This was a neighborhood that knew how to do a Saturday night. It was good to be back in the city, to see women dressed like women, all different shapes and sizes and colors. Tall women in tight jeans, fat women in short skirts, curvy women in clingy blouses. He calculated their worth within seconds of seeing them.

“Hey, lady, I want a piece of that!” he shouted at a teenager in leopard-print leggings. She flicked him off. He laughed.

“See, Victor? That’s what makes this city great. You think you see that in Haver duh Grace, or however you fucking say it? No way. It’s full of fishermen and farmers.”

Ricardo was sick of Havre de Grace. He missed his friends here in D.C. He missed the action and the lights. He missed the food and the women. Most of all, he missed being a big man in town, the owner of a brothel. That’s why he’d come back to the District—despite the police warning him to stay away, despite his own fears. He had to see his old neighborhood and the people who knew he was
someone
. He and his old timekeeper were headed to their third bar of the night. Ricardo had seen friends and old customers and was feeling pleasantly buzzed. Seven Natural Lights had washed away many of his worries.

“Worst part is, I got no way to make a living out there. I’m not working on some damn chicken farm.”

“I got a job at that shoe store on Fourteenth,” Victor said.

“Cramming fat feet into sneakers for minimum wage? No offense, but that’s not for me.” In fact, Ricardo had no idea how to do anything but sell sex. He told that blond prosecutor that he’d run the Monroe Street brothel for three years. That was technically true—but he had been a brothel owner for almost twenty years. He’d operated in whatever cheap places he could find. When he had rent disputes, or too much competition from rival brothels, or—worst of all—gentrification, he just moved a few blocks and started up again.

But this was the first time the authorities were involved. He had pandering on his record now, and part of his plea deal was “no more brothel.” The prosecutor needed his testimony—but would she look the other way if he moved back to the city and started another brothel? He doubted it; she seemed like a bitch. He didn’t want to ask his attorney. He wanted his attorney to believe in him.

“That’s why I’m thinking about the Internets,” Ricardo explained. “You don’t need a place. You just advertise online, drive the girl to the customer. Collect the money. No rent, no utilities, no police watching the johns come and go. I got an AOL account. I just need a young kid like you who knows about computers to set the shit up. We’d be partners. Eighty–twenty.”

“Yeah, Ricardo, you’re the next Steve Jobs.”

“What kind of jobs?”

“Never mind.”

They turned onto Fifteenth Street, then hopped a low stone wall into Meridian Hill Park. As they walked into the large green space, the noise of the city receded. Tall trees surrounded the park, providing so much foliage it almost felt like the country. Without the distractions of the streetlights and flashing signs, Ricardo noticed the moon: a huge orange circle hanging low in the sky.

“You know, Victor, you should get a plea deal,” Ricardo said. “Get this thing behind you, move on with your life.”

“Fuck that. They can charge me with whatever. I ain’t never saying a word about MS-13 in no courtroom. You see what they did to Jaime? They took his
head
off, man. Took it clean off.”

Ricardo nodded. He tried hard not to think about that. He knew that if he hadn’t taken the deal, he’d be in jail right now. But once he testified against MS-13 in open court, he could never come back to this neighborhood. If they knew he was snitching, he was dead.

Maybe those assholes would plead guilty, too, and he wouldn’t ever have to take the stand. Maybe, if he took the stand, he could claim he forgot everything.

Their shoes crunched on the gravel path. The perimeter of the park was heavily wooded, and it was dark in here, the streetlights blocked by trees. As they walked through, Ricardo heard the crunching of gravel behind him. He glanced back. Several men were walking in the same direction as them. He and Victor walked a little faster.

But the crunching got closer. Were those guys following them? He didn’t want to turn and look at them again. But he had to. He twisted his neck, saw that there were five or six men, several tatted up. They’d spread out, so some were behind him, some coming up on either side, like a pack of wolves moving to cut off their prey. Something flashed in one of their hands. A machete? The scar across his chest started to throb. “Victor!” he said.

A man materialized in front of them.

“Hello, Ricardo.” It was the devil-man. Horns pointed, sharpened teeth flashing a sharklike smile. The machete made a silky sound as he pulled it from its sheath.

Ricardo ran. He zigzagged through the park without a plan, just the desperate instinct to flee. He tripped over a branch, skinning his chin on the ground. Got up again, bumped right into a man. Felt a blade slice through his shoulder. Thrashed wildly, felt his knee connect with a groin, heard the grunt, kept running. He could hear more of them running behind him, crashing through the brush. His shoulder was on fire, his arm dangling painfully at his side, but he was running scared and running fast.

The end of the park was right ahead of him. On the other side of the trees he could see lights, buildings, people. Safety. There was a large retaining wall where the park bordered Sixteenth Street. He just needed to make it down the wide stone steps and he’d be okay. The staircase was close—he was only a few strides away. His legs pumped at full speed. He was going to make it.

Something heavy slammed into his chest, knocking him down. His palms burned as the gravel tore through skin. He tried to breathe but couldn’t; his lungs were stunned by the impact. He hoisted himself to his hands and knees, desperate for air, his chest convulsing ineffectively. He didn’t see anyone near him. What had hit his chest?

Then he saw it, rolling away from him like a soccer ball. Victor’s head. No longer attached to his body. It thudded to a stop against a stone, tilting to one side, as if asking a question.

Ricardo tried to scream, but nothing came out. His lungs were frozen, his shoulder throbbed, but he hauled himself to his feet. He could see the lights of Sixteenth Street twinkling beyond the trees. So close. He forced his feet to move, although it felt like they were going through water, slow and heavy.

The Devil’s face was in front of his. He was no longer smiling. Ricardo stared into the monster’s deep black eyes. This couldn’t happen now. He had plans. The Internets, the online brothel. His wife. She would . . . well, she might not be too sorry if he didn’t come home. But his children! He opened his mouth to plead for his life. Diablo raised the machete above his head. The blade flashed orange, reflecting the light of the harvest moon.

25

Anna stood outside the grand jury witness room, pacing. Although the Constitution imagined the grand jury as a check on the government’s power—for no federal criminal charges could be brought unless they were approved by a panel of citizens—in practice, this right was more valuable to the government than to a suspect. The standard for obtaining a grand jury indictment was notoriously low, and the rules of evidence notoriously permissive. But the grand jury was a powerful tool for a prosecutor to build a case. Anna had used the grand jury to lock in Ricardo’s testimony, to subpoena surveillance video from surrounding shops, and to obtain medical records of the victims.

Now Anna wanted to lock in Tierra Guerrero’s testimony. There was just one problem: Tierra was late. And Anna couldn’t reach her.

Anna glanced at her watch: 10:20
A.M.
She felt the same worry every time a witness was late, despite how common it was. Tierra was supposed to arrive at 9:30, and they were supposed to go into the grand jury at 10:00. She had already lost her reserved grand jury time. If Tierra showed up now, Anna would have to bargain with other prosecutors to get another time that day.

Anna had called Tierra’s cell phone twice—it went to voice mail. She tried the hotel room—no one answered. In light of the threats to her own life, Anna’s imagination was conjuring terrible pictures of what might have happened to the witness.

“Sit,” Sam said. The FBI agent reclined in a chair outside the grand jury room, and didn’t even look up from her BlackBerry as she admonished Anna. “You’re making me nervous.”