Jungle Of Steel And Stone Part 9

"Neither do I. Believe me, it's not by choice."

Veil shrugged. "As far as I'm concerned, we're not enemies."

"I came to ask you a question, which I hope you'll answer."

"Let's hear the question."

"I'd like to know what you said to my partner."

"Oh, that. I told Nagle I knew he was a Mafia enforcer, rapist, child molester, and all-around s.a.d.i.s.t. I also mentioned, in pa.s.sing, that he had executed Vito Ricci, that he was on the Mafia's s.h.i.t list for his somewhat excessive behavior, and that for an act of penance he's supposed to make sure that the Nal-toon is delivered safely to any one of the remaining five families. I very politely asked him to decline the Mafia a.s.signment and request transfer to another case, since the K'ung obviously need the idol more than the Mafia does. That's about it. Is he still upset?"

Vahanian seemed stunned as he stared at Veil, his mouth slightly open, his breathing rapid and shallow. "You got anything here to drink?" he said at last.

"Scotch or bourbon?"

"Bourbon."

"Water? Ice?"

"Neat. A big one, if you don't mind."

Veil went into the kitchen, removed a bottle of bourbon from a cabinet, and poured a heavy tumbler half full. When he returned to the other room, he found Vahanian sitting on the floor, back braced against one of the support pillars that ran down the center of the loft.

"Cheers, Lieutenant," Veil said as he handed the drink to the detective. "You'll excuse me if I don't join you. It's still early, and I've got things to do."

Vahanian downed the drink in three quick swallows, then set the gla.s.s down on the polished hardwood floor. "I'm with the New York State Police, Kendry, on special a.s.signment to the NYPD. I've been investigating Nagle for close to a year, and I only know maybe half of what you just told me."

"So the NYPD is on to Nagle?"

Vahanian nodded. "They've suspected for some time, especially since the last big problem he had. But it's tough to nail him down. He's very good at what he does, Kendry, and he covers his tracks well."

"Oh, he has great technique. It's called terror."

"Are you sure of your information?"

"Yes."

Vahanian studied Veil for a few moments, then nodded. "I can see that you are. Will you give me the name of your informant?"

"No. I won't even confirm that I got the information through an informant."

Vahanian sighed with resignation. "One of the biggest problems we've been having is getting anyone to testify against him. Terror isn't the word for what Nagle instills in his victimsa"and we suspect there are a lot of them. Do you know of anyone who might be willing to come forward?"

"I might. But I wouldn't even think of mentioning this person's name until you have Nagle nailed down tight. Sorry, Lieutenant, but Nagle's your problem."

Vahanian rose to his feet, straightened his sport jacket. "Judging from the presence of those bodyguards downstairs, I'd say he's also your problem."

"I don't think of Nagle as a problem."

"You know, the att.i.tude of the police department in this city toward you is very ambivalent."

"I don't consider that a problem, either."

"May I ask what your interest in this matter is?"

"I don't really have an interest. I'm just a friend of Reyna Alexander's."

Vahanian grunted with disbelief, then headed toward the door. "Thanks for the drink."

"Lieutenant?"

The detective turned, raised his thick eyebrows slightly. "What is it, Kendry?" "Information for information? Now I'd like to ask you a question."

"Let's hear the question," Vahanian replied with a thin smile.

"I know that Nagle was ordered to execute Vito Ricci, because it was Ricci who was responsible for trying to squeeze the Nal-toon through an otherwise secure smuggling pipeline. Do you know why Ricci did it?"

Vahanian shook his head. "Not really."

"Not really?"

"No. To tell you the truth, wea"or I, at leasta"don't really care what Ricci was up to. My a.s.signment is to help the NYPD get Nagle. As far as the city and state are concerned, we'd just as soon all those Mafia b.a.s.t.a.r.ds shot each other out of existence. Still, for what it's worth, Intelligence did pick up rumors that the heads of the other five families were planning to shut him downa"forcibly retire him, you might say. h.e.l.l, he was pushing ninety. Maybe he went senile."

"Thanks, Vahanian."

The detective hesitated a moment, then came back across the loft and extended his hand to Veil, who gripped it. "You watch your a.s.s, Kendry."

"I have some very skilled friends watching my a.s.s for me, Lieutenant. You're the one riding the back of the tiger. You watch your a.s.s."

"I will. See you."

"See you."

"Veil!"

Veil turned off his flashlight, crossed the width of the empty boxcar in two long strides, and leapt through the open door. He hit the ground in full stride, darted between two uncoupled cars, and ran toward the sound of Reyna's voice. He rounded a car, slowed when he saw that Reyna was not in danger.

Reyna was thirty yards farther down a stretch of empty track, crouched down beside the rails and staring at something on the ground. Veil jogged down the tracks, squatted beside Reynaa"and winced.

Two broken teeth jutted from the middle of a pool of dried vomit that was marbled with streaks of blood. More blood had stained the surrounding gravel a dull brown.

"Toby's sick," Reyna said, her voice catching. "And he's hurt."

"Take it easy," Veil whispered, taking Reyna into his arms. "We don't know for sure that it's Toby's."

"It's Toby's," Reyna said, her voice thick with grief and anxiety. "I know it's his. It's on the route." She drew a deep, shuddering breath. "The vomit isn't that old. Toby was here."

Veil led Reyna a few yards away from the spot, then held her until she stopped trembling. He gently sat her down on a rail, then slowly walked up and down the tracks, studying the ground. Fifteen yards to the right of the vomit he found wood splinters and a streak of white powder.

"Reyna," Veil said evenly, "please come here."

Reyna rose and walked unsteadily to Veil, who handed her a few of the wood splinters. "What do you think?" he continued. "Could these be from the Nal-toon?"

Reyna studied the splinters, turning them in her fingers, asmelling them. "Three of them are," she said tightly. "You can still smell the campfire smoke, and they're bleached from heat, sand, and wind. The other two aren't."

Veil wet the tip of his index finger, touched it to the white powder, then put his finger to his tongue. Instantly the tip of his tongue went numb, and the back of his throat was filled with a bitter, medicinal taste. "Well, I'll tell you what this is," he said, spitting out the taste. "It's pure heroina"top-quality white stuff, not the Mexican brown." When Reyna didn't respond, Veil turned and looked up at her. The woman was standing very straight, eyes closed, hands curled into fists at her sides. "Reyna?"

"What?" the woman responded through clenched teeth.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes," she said, turning away.

Veil rose and brushed off his jeans. "Vito Ricci's old-age pension award to himself," he said absently. "This certainly shows the old man wasn't senile. He wasn't about to be dependent upon the kindness of strangersa"or his former business partners. He was just a little bit stupid and a big bit unlucky."

"What are you talking about?" Reyna asked in a subdued voice.

"Vito Ricci is the man who tried to slip the Nal-toon through the Mafia's smuggling pipeline."

"Because of the heroin inside." Reyna's voice now sounded haunted.

"Of course. He cared nothing for the idol; in fact, he probably didn't even know what it was. What he did care about was the fact that he was being pushed out of the organization. These people eat their own. Ricci was justifiably afraid of not only losing everything he had, but also of being killed in the bargain. So he made a private deala"a huge onea"on his own, enough in itself to get him killed if it were found out. Ironically, whoever was handling things for him on the other end must have thought that a statue like the Nal-toon was a perfect item in which to send the heroin to Ricci; after all, the Nal-toon was just another piece of primitive art. Who would even notice it, much less bother to try to trace it? Just hollow out the statue, fill the s.p.a.ce with a few million dollars' worth of pure heroin, drop it in the pipeline as a 'personal' item for Ricci, and forget about it."

"Lord knows what Toby will think when he sees that stuff trickling out of the Nal-toon," Reyna said in the same haunted voice. She swallowed hard, rubbed her eyes. "He'll die if he eats it, won't he?"

"If he eats enough of it, yesa"which might not be too much. It's incredibly pure." He watched as Reyna bowed her head and clasped her hands in prayer. He waited a few moments, then stepped close to her and touched her shoulder. "Reyna," Veil continued quietly, "I don't mean to be insensitive, but prayers aren't going to help Toby now."

"That isn't true, Veil," Reyna whispered without opening her eyes. "Toby is sick, he's badly injured, and the Nal-toon is filled with death that Toby is almost certain to think is something else, some gift sent to him by the Nal-toon. G.o.d's intervention is Toby's only hope now."

Veil gripped Reyna's wrist and gently but firmly pulled her back along the way they had come. "Pray on the way to the cemetery," he said curtly.

It was dark when Veil drove the rented car back over the Queensborough Bridge into Manhattan. He glanced sideways at Reyna and could see that she was barely able to hold back tears. "Tomorrow's another day," he said softly. "We'll go into the other cemeteriesa"New Lutheran and Zion. We'll just keep at it until we find him."

The tears finally came, and Reyna brushed them away with the back of her hand. "What haunts me is the possibility that we could have pa.s.sed within a few feet of him, and Toby was pa.s.sed out or too sick to respond."

"It's possible, surea"but it's just as possible that he's farther to the southeast, gone to ground in one of the other cemeteries. Or he's simply ignoring us because he's not ready to come out yet. The good news is that if we can't find him, it's not likely that anyone else will, either."

"Until he comes out below the golf course," Reyna replied hoa.r.s.ely. "Somebody will be sure to spot him, and he'll be trapped. I told you he won't be taken alive, Veil."

They drove in silence for almost ten minutes before an accident in the center and outside lanes of the FDR Drive brought traffic to a crawl. Veil looked at Reyna, who was sitting bolt-upright in her seat, staring straight ahead. In her face was a terrible fear, and Veil suspected that it was more than fear for Toby. He said, "Let's talk about a gutsy friend of mine by the name of Reyna Alexander."

"Thank you for calling me your gutsy friend," Reyna mumbled in a flat monotone, "but let's not talk about me."

"I think it's time, and I think you want to. Let's you and I exorcise a few of your ghostsa"and I'm thinking of a big, fat, ugly one in particular."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Veil reached across the seat and plucked at the left sleeve of Reyna's beige, long-sleeved blouse. "There are needle tracks under there, right?"

Reyna's head snapped around, and her eyes were wide in terror before an old haunt. "Yes," she breathed, and in the sound of that one word was a universe of guilt, shamea"and relief.

Veil edged over into the inside lane where traffic had slowly begun to move past a cordon of blinking lights from a patrol car and tow truck. "Jesus, Reyna, I hope they're not fresh."

Reyna shook her head. "They're not. It's been years."

"How did it happen?"

"Veil, I really don't want to talk about it."

"Yes, you do. Tell me about it."

There was a prolonged silence. Veil waited, certain that the words would eventually comea"and they did.

"I told you I was twelve when my parents died," Reyna said in a low voice. "It was in the Kalahari, with the K'ung. A warrior party of Bantu attacked. It was . . . horrible. My parents went down in each other's arms while they were being . . . poked to death by Bantu spears. Poked to death. All over."

Veil reached out for Reyna's hand and squeezed it tightly.

"I escaped by running into the desert," Reyna continued. "By that age, I was at home almost everywhere in the desert. I had enough lore to find my way backa"except that I didn't want to find my way back. I was out of my mind with terror and horror, and all I wanted to do was die. I almost did. I had no water, and after a while I just lay down in the trough of a dune. Toby came after me and found me. He'd brought a water-egg for me. They carry water in ostrich eggs, you know."

"I know," Veil replied softly. "It was in the newspaper articles."

"Toby half dragged, half carried me back to the camp. By then the battle was over. The Bantu had been driven off, and the K'unga"out of respect for my feelingsa"had already buried my parents. They'd even . . . even . . ."

"Reyna?"

Reyna sobbed once, then brought herself back under control. "They'd even made a cross out of firewood and put it up over my parents' grave. In all the timea"the yearsa"that my parents had spent with them, with all the subtle and not-so-subtle proselytizing they'd done about Jesus Christ, this was the first time the tribe had shown even the slightest interest in the meanings or symbols of Christianity. They'd loved my parents, Veil, even as my parents had loved them."

"Yes. It doesn't surprise me."

"The wireless in the Land-Rover was broken, so there was nothing to do but wait. After two call-ins were missed, the Missionary Society had the South Africans send out a helicopter to check on things. They found me and took me back to Johannesburg." Reyna paused, sniffed. "Toby saved my life, Veil. It's so terribly important to me that I save his."

"I understand. What happened to you after they took you out of the desert?"

"It's pretty much as I told you. I became a ward of the Missionary Society. I was given the best schooling, then brought back here to attend college. But I couldn't get those . . . images out of my mind. Always, night and day, I would have these flashes of memory, see my parents holding on to each other while they went down under the spear thrusts . . ."

"It's okay, Reyna. It's over now."

"Yes. Except . . . like you, I guess, I was an extremely troubled adolescent. I'm ashamed to say it, but G.o.d wasn't enough solace for me in those days. Nothing seemed to be able to block the memoriesa"except drugs. Eventually I became hooked on heroin."

"And you were eventually arrested by Carl Nagle."

Reyna uttered a sharp cry, then doubled over in her seat and clutched at her stomach, as if a knife had been plunged into her. "It was horrible, Veil. Horrible. He did things . . . I don't think I'll ever feel clean again."

"You're clean, Reyna," Veil said gently as he stroked her back. "The sin and the filth are his, not yours. Know that and accept it."