Double Espresso (A Loretta Kovacs thriller) Page 12

  “Well, then I guess you know what a prickly character Rispoli is.”

  “We know,” Loretta said, nodding again and getting more and more uncomfortable with this chitchat.

  “Well, this is my suggestion,” Darcy said, “and you can take it or not, I don’t care. But from what I’ve seen, Rispoli is a lot more cooperative when you don’t gang up on him. It’s better to deal with him one-on-one. He’s more comfortable with that. I’d suggest just one of you meet him initially.”

  Both Loretta and Marvelli were nodding. Loretta was waiting for Marvelli to volunteer. This was his idea, after all. He should be the one to go into the lion’s den. Anyway, Loretta wanted to keep her involvement limited to “accomplice.”

  “I’ll go,” Marvelli finally said, and Loretta relaxed a little.

  “I’ve noticed that he seems to trust Agent Springer more than any of male agents he deals with,” Darcy quickly pointed out. “He may respond better to a woman.” He was looking at Loretta.

  Loretta stopped breathing. “Well, if that’s what you recommend,” she said, glancing at Marvelli. “Of course, Agent Tarantella is more familiar with this particular aspect of the investigation than I am.…” She was waiting for Marvelli to pick up on her cue, but he was just staring out the window at the great view of the sound, nodding to himself.

  “What do you think, Mike?” she said. “Mike?”

  “Hmmm?” Marvelli was slow to snap out of it. “What do I think about what?”

  Loretta wanted to brain him. “I was saying you’re more familiar with the investigation, so maybe you should go in and meet Mr. Rispoli first.”

  “Oh, sure. No problem.”

  Loretta was dying inside. Feebies don’t act like this. Darcy was going to see right through them.

  But Darcy was grinning at them as if he were anticipating the punch line to a joke. “You undercover people are really something,” he said. “You really are a breed apart. Not like regular law-enforcement personnel at all. I don’t know how you people do it.”

  “Neither do I,” Loretta said, forcing herself not to smack Marvelli in the head.

  Darcy stood up. “I’ll take you down to see Rispoli,” he said to Marvelli. “Agent Gibson, you can wait here if you’d like.”

  “Fine,” Loretta said. She was anxious to get on with this thing.

  Darcy came around his desk. “Make yourself comfortable … Charlotte? May I call you Charlotte?” “Please.”

  “This may take a while,” he said to her as he led Marvelli toward the door. “Rispoli doesn’t warm up easily to new people. My assistant should be back shortly if you need anything. His name is Bob.”

  “Thanks,” Loretta said as they left. She hoped Marvelli had come up with a plan for sneaking Rispoli out of here because she sure as hell didn’t have one.

  She scanned Darcy’s office, thinking hard. Tall pines were swaying in the breeze outside the window behind his desk. The entire island seemed tranquil, almost deserted, but she was sure there were guards posted everywhere. Even if they could get Rispoli out of the building, it would be suicidal to make a run for it.

  She stared at the phone on Darcy’s desk and considered calling in a bomb threat or something, anything that would create a distraction. She went over and picked up the receiver, listening for a dial tone. She started pressing buttons, trying to get an outside line, but nothing worked. She knew from her days as an assistant warden that all prison phones have special codes so that sneaky prisoners can’t call out.

  Suddenly she heard someone entering the outer office, and she hung up the phone. Must be Bob the assistant, she thought. She quickly returned to her seat as the doorknob turned. She looked over her shoulder, expecting to see the clean-cut young man in the ill-fitting suit.

  The door swung open, and what stared back at Loretta was as surprised to see her as she was to see him. He was as big as a heavyweight, with a lantern jaw and a greasy black pompadour. He was wearing jeans and a blue work shirt, the sleeves cut off at the shoulders to show off his pumped-up biceps. A broad smile slowly bisected his face, revealing wide gaps between all his top teeth.

  “Hi,” he said. He was carrying a vacuum cleaner and a plastic bucket full of cleaning supplies. “Mind if I clean up?” He had a soft southern accent with a lot of twang. East Texas, she guessed.

  “You have to do that now?” she asked, trying not to stare at his massive chest.

  “They told me to finish up before lunch.”

  Loretta shrugged. “Okay. If you have to.”

  He came in and closed the door behind him. As he bent over to plug in the vacuum cleaner, she noticed that he was staring at her. “Name’s Buddy,” he said.

  “Hi,” she said, but didn’t offer hers. This wasn’t the place to make friends.

  “I been in for a long time,” he said. “A long time.”

  She nodded politely to show that she’d heard him.

  “Ain’t been with a woman since I don’t know when.” A tongue bulge rolled across his bottom lip.

  He stood up slowly to his full height, his eyes locked on hers. Loretta’s eyes widened. He looked like a great big erection.

  15

  “Something I can do for you?” Loretta asked, trying to be cool.

  A low, growly laugh seeped through the spaces between Buddy’s teeth. His smile looked like a bear trap. His stare was unwavering.

  “You want me to move so you can vacuum?” she asked.

  His eyes pointed to the sofa against the wall.

  Loretta’s temples started to throb. Suddenly she was back at Pinewood, trapped in the laundry with Brenda Hemingway, about to be forced into that clothes drier. Her jaw was set, but her heart was screaming.

  Buddy stepped toward her, dragging the vacuum cleaner by the hose like a caveman dragging his club. She immediately stood up, not wanting to be in a submissive position, but he came right up to her anyway. The top of her head was even with his chin. He dropped the hose. It hit the carpet with a dull fwap, flopped over, and slowly uncoiled between her feet.

  “Been a long time,” he mumbled. His breath was overpoweringly minty.

  Loretta moved back, pushing her chair with the backs of her calves.

  Buddy kept coming. “Been a real long time,” he said. He spoke in a low purr.

  “I suggest you back off, pal,” she said.

  He just grinned at her, showing all his spaces.

  “Don’t make me repeat myself,” she said. “I’m an officer of the law … FBI.”

  “Ooouu,” Buddy said, puckering up and blowing mint in her face. “I’ve always wanted to do a feebie”—his face suddenly went dead—“for all the times you people did it to me.”

  Loretta’s blood turned to ice.

  Buddy quickly flashed that big grin of his. “Just kidding, darlin’.”

  He stooped down and picked up the hose, standing up again real slow. Suddenly he looped the hose over her head and around her waist, pulling her so close she had to press her palms against his rock-hard chest to keep away from his face.

  “Release me,” she ordered, trying her damnedest not to think about Brenda Hemingway. But the more she tried not to think of Brenda, the more she thought about her, imagining the worst happening all over again.

  He started nudging her over toward the couch, his black eyes glinting through the slits of his lids.

  “I said, let me go,” she said.

  He just laughed, a deep growl bubbling up from his muscle-bound throat. “I’ll let you go, darlin’ … when I’m through.” He nudged her again, this time with his groin, which was harder than his chest.

  “Stop!” she said, but she hated the sound of her own voice. She sounded like a desperate female, and he was probably getting off on that.

  “Come on, darlin’. Don’t fight the inevitable. Y’all want it as much as I do.”

  “I doubt it,” she said as she snatched the end of the hose and jammed the nozzle into his eye socket.

 
; “Hey!” he squealed. “Get that thing outta my—”

  “My foot’s on the vacuum cleaner, pardner. Think it’s got enough suction to take your eye out? Let’s find out, buckaroo.”

  “Hey, hey! Hold on there, girlie.” He let go of the hose and raised his hands to his shoulders. “Don’t be doing nothing crazy now.”

  “Why not?” she said. “I thought men always wanted women to suck things for them.”

  “Not my eye!”

  “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.” She kept the nozzle pressed to his eye, forcing him backward. She held it like a six-shooter, blinded by a lust for revenge. This may have been some mook named Buddy standing in front of her, but the rage she was feeling was all aimed at Brenda Hemingway.

  She tapped the foot pedal on the vacuum cleaner with the top of her shoe. “How about just a little bit? Just to see how it feels?”

  “No!” Buddy roared as he backed away and crashed into a wall. Three pictures fell to the floor, including a photo of the president who now had a spiderweb crack centered on the tip of his nose. “Don’t do it, lady,” Buddy pleaded. “I’ll just go away. I swear.”

  “What the hell’s going on in here?”

  Loretta’s head swiveled toward the voice that came from the doorway. Two men rushed into the room—one in a khaki guard’s uniform, the other in a blue blazer, gray slacks, and a burgundy tie. The stocky guard got between Loretta and Buddy, spinning the convict around and getting him in an arm lock from behind. The other man grabbed Loretta’s wrist and wrenched the nozzle out of her hand. He had a blond-going-to-gray crew cut, blunt features, and a protruding belly that hung over his belt.

  “Hey!” she protested, but the man ignored her, keeping a grip on her wrist.

  “Come on, Buddy. Let’s go,” the guard said as he steered Buddy toward the door.

  Buddy didn’t resist, but he did manage to give Loretta a smoldering look before he left. The message his expression conveyed flickered between “I still want you, darling” and “I want to kill you, lady.”

  “Do you know who that guy is?” the man in the blazer scolded, finally letting go of her wrist.

  “Am I supposed to care?” Loretta was glowering at him. “That’s Buddy Henley. He’s seven for seven, for chrissake.”

  “He’s what?”

  “Seven for seven. His testimony in seven consecutive trials has resulted in seven convictions. Good ones.”

  “Well, hooray for him.” Loretta straightened her collar.

  The man scowled at her, pointing at the doorway Buddy and the guard had just gone through. “That man is going to put away the current leadership of the Mexican Mafia. Big-time heroin dealers. Killers. We need Buddy.”

  “Don’t try to make him sound like some kind of hero. He tried to rape me.”

  “He’s no hero, but he is necessary.”

  Loretta did not agree, but she held her tongue. Buddy Henley was probably as scummy as all the scum he’d testified against. The only difference was he’d made his deal with the feds first. Eventually he was going to get a reduced sentence, a new identity, and a split-level in the heartland while his old muchacos were going to rot in prison like a band of mariachi cock-a-roches. She knew it was the only way to put these dirtbags away, but somehow it didn’t seem fair.

  The man straightened his tie and cleared his throat. “I apologize if I got a little sharp with you, ma’am.” He offered his hand to her. “Carl Dibler,” he said, “U.S. Marshals Service.”

  Loretta didn’t miss a beat. “C. Gibson, FBI,” she said, shaking his hand.

  Dibler squinted at her. “You sound like you’re from back East. You don’t work out of the Newark office in Jersey by any chance?”

  She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “You the only Gibson at that office?”

  Loretta had no idea, but she didn’t dare hesitate. “Yup,” she said. “Just me.”

  He dropped his chin and looked her in the eye. “I worked a case once with a Special Agent C. Gibson from the Newark office. The C stood for Claude. He was a guy.”

  Loretta could feel the blood draining out of her face.

  “So how can you be the only Gibson at the Newark office?” Dibler asked. He was staring at her like a state trooper who’d just stopped her for speeding.

  She stared back, thinking hard, sweating more, “I guess you don’t remember me, do you?” she said.

  He furrowed his brow and shook his head.

  “I guess you haven’t heard. I’m surprised. I was the talk of the town when I came back.”

  He looked puzzled. “Came back from where?”

  “Baltimore,” she said. “Johns Hopkins? The hospital?”

  “Were you sick?”

  “Well, in a way, yes.”

  “What was wrong with you?”

  “I was a woman trapped in a man’s body,” she said absolutely straight-faced. “I wasn’t meant to be Claude. I was meant to be Charlotte.”

  Carl Dibler leaned away from her.

  “Hey, come on, Carl. It’s still me.” She reached out and touched his arm, which stiffened on contact.

  He lowered his voice. “You telling me you had a sex-change operation?”

  She looked down and nodded. “I had to, Carl. And not just because I was living a lie. I had to do it for work,” she said.

  “For work? What’re you talking about?”

  “I had been undercover so many times as a man, I was useless. I felt like a spent bullet. There were just too many bad guys out there who knew my face. The only way for me to keep going undercover was to become someone else.”

  She waited for him to say something, but he just stared at her, his face blank as he tried to process all of this. Finally he tilted his head and flashed a little grin. “You know something—Charlotte, is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know something, Charlotte?” He took her wrist and squeezed it hard. “I think you’re full of crap.” He reached under his jacket to the small of his back and pulled out a set of handcuffs.

  16

  A vein on Loretta’s temple started to throb, like a worm having a heart attack. She tried to pull away from Deputy Dibler’s grip, but he was too strong.

  But Loretta was no pushover. Dibler struggled to position her wrist so that he could attach the handcuffs. “It’s useless to resist, ma’am. You’re under arrest.”

  “For what?”

  “Impersonating a federal officer of the law, being on restricted federal property without authorization—”

  “Carl,” she said, suddenly relaxing her arm, “how can you do this to me?”

  “Very easily,” he grunted.

  She reached over with her free hand and stroked his cheek. “Carl,” she said. “Come on. We have history.”

  His head snapped back. “What’re you talking about?”

  “Remember that night we were together on that case?”

  “What case?”

  “Come on, you remember.”

  “You mean, Cleveland? At the motel?”

  “Right.” She had no idea what he was referring to, but she had to improvise. “I remember looking at you from behind and thinking to myself, If I weren’t a man, Carl Dibler would definitely be the one. Well, Carl … I’m not a man anymore …” She slowly circled his shiny pink ear with her finger.

  Dibler shook his head to shoo her away. He moved back a half step but didn’t let go of her wrist. “We shared a room that night. You were in the next bed, you sick son of a—”

  “I never touched you, Carl. I sure thought about it, but I never acted on my impulses. I just watched you sleep.” She heaved a forlorn sigh.

  He dropped her wrist and moved farther away from her. “You’re sick, Claude. Sick. You ought to retire before you disgrace yourself.”

  Loretta moved toward him and touched his sleeve. “You must have your twenty years in, Carl. We can both retire and live off our pensions. I bet you’d love Key West—”

 
; He slapped his hands over his ears. “Stop talking. I don’t want to hear it.”

  She gripped his shoulders, her face inches from his. “But, Carl—”

  Suddenly Special U.S. Marshal Ron Darcy walked into the room, followed by Marvelli and a crabby-looking guy in faded black jeans and a blue work shirt. “What’s going on, Carl?”

  Dibler threw up his arms to get Loretta off him. His face was lobster red. “Nothing,” he muttered as he stalked out of the room in double time.

  Darcy and Marvelli stared at Loretta, expecting an explanation.

  “We go way back,” she said with a girlish grin and left it at that. She hated using so-called feminine wiles, but in this case she had no choice. She gave Marvelli the hairy eyeball, trying to yell at him telepathically: Can we get the hell out of here, Marvelli? Like right now?

  “Agent Gibson,” Ron Darcy said, extending his arm and drawing the crabby-looking man into their circle, “let me introduce you to Gus Rispoli. Gus, this is Special Agent Charlotte Gibson.”

  Loretta extended her hand, but Rispoli just deepened his frown and looked at her as if she were offering him a handful of dirt. He was very thin with terrible posture. He had a beak nose, and his neck crooked at the Adam’s apple like a buzzard’s. After scrutinizing her for a few moments, he finally took his hand out of his pocket and shook hers, but very briefly as if he didn’t want to touch her. His hands, feet, and head were unusually large and out of proportion with the rest of him, which made him look like a living stick figure.

  “Nice to meet you,” Loretta said curtly, not knowing exactly how she should respond to him.

  “Yeah, hi,” he croaked. He refused to look at her.

  Mr. Charm, Loretta thought.

  “I know you have a lot to discuss with Gus,” Darcy said. “I can set you up in the conference room if you’d like. Or you can go outside and roam the grounds. You’ll find benches all over.”

  Marvelli smiled at him in disbelief. “You’re joking, right?”

  Darcy shook his head. “The grounds are quite secure. You may think you’re alone out there, but you’re not. Far from it. Right, Gus?”