James Grippando - Need You Now

“What could she have possibly passed along to you that was of any value?”

“Exactly what your inept security experts couldn’t: Patrick Lloyd is Peter Mandretti. Tony Mandretti’s son.”

The news didn’t shock him. Barber’s own intelligence was not as inept as Mongoose thought. But in some situations it was best to play dumb. “What do you want me to do with that information?”

“I want you to be very nervous. I want you to think about what could happen if I made a copy of the memo you wrote at Treasury and gave it to Tony Mandretti’s son.”

That thought chilled him. Mongoose laughed, clearly enjoying that Barber had gone cold.

Barber said, “I’ve done everything you’ve told me to do. You don’t have to kill innocent park rangers. You don’t have to bring Mandretti and his son into this. It’s enough that you have the memo.”

Mongoose smiled with his eyes. “You wish you had never written it, don’t you?”

Barber didn’t answer. But it was true: of all his regrets from his service at Treasury, the biggest was the classified internal memorandum he’d written about the Cushman Ponzi scheme.

Mongoose said, “That’s one tough spot you put yourself in, Joey. You talk about me killing innocent people. What about you? Letting all those investors lose their money to a thief like Abe Cushman. Someone the government knew was a fraud. How do you justify that?”

Barber had no answer.

“It’s the same old line, isn’t it?” said Mongoose. “Every war has collateral damage-even a financial war, like this one. The investors who lost their money to Cushman are collateral damage. Pawns like Lilly Scanlon, who don’t even know they’re pawns, are collateral damage. A dedicated undercover agent whom you hang out to dry and who ends up with a bullet in his spine from Manu Robledo is collateral damage.”

The antique chair was becoming more uncomfortable. Barber did not deny any of it.

Mongoose said, “It all comes back to you, Little Joe. Your name is on the classified memo. And it’s crystal clear that Operation BAQ was your idea.”

Again, no denial. Barber had even come up with the abbreviation, BAQ.

“Let’s get on with it,” said Barber.

“I’m tired,” Mongoose said, rising. “We’ve covered enough ground for one night. I’ll let myself out.” He started for the door, then stopped. “Oh, by the way. I’m sure you don’t have any delusions of stabbing me in the back or, more your style, hiring someone else to do it. But just in case, I wanted you to know: I have a safety valve.”

“Meaning what?”

“Every blackmailer needs one. It’s a way to make sure that if something happens to me, the trigger gets pulled. Everything I’ve threatened to do to you will come to pass.”

Barber showed no reaction, not sure if he was bluffing or not.

Mongoose studied his expression, then said, “I’m not sure you believe me. But it’s real. Your memo on Operation BAQ is mixed in with the BOS files you handed over today.”

That was more than Barber could take quietly. “You son of bitch, if Patrick doesn’t know enough to connect the dots, his father sure does.”

“Relax,” said Mongoose. “It’s still encrypted. They don’t have the key, and they don’t have the resources to crack the code. But here’s how my safety valve works. If I don’t log on to my computer every day and deactivate my safety valve, an e-mail will automatically go to Patrick and Lilly. The decryption key is in the e-mail.”

There was no gun to his head, literally speaking, but Barber suddenly felt as if there were.

Mongoose said, “So unless you want your memo decrypted, unless you want the world to know about Operation BAQ and the role you played in it, then you need to be very concerned about my health. Understood?”

Powerlessness was a foreign feeling to him, but Barber knew who was holding all the aces. “Understood.”

“Good. Now, stay on top of those two jokers,” he said, meaning Patrick and Lilly.

“I will let you know as soon as I hear back from them.”

“No. Don’t wait. Follow up in the morning. Mandretti’s son is going to crack. I can feel it. Even though Lilly doesn’t know enough to make heads or tails of his data, Patrick has to be nervous that she might be able to make some sense of it. That’s your leverage. I want a complete road map to the money.”

“He isn’t going to just knuckle under overnight.”

“He will if you push the right buttons. That would make me very happy. In fact, if you get me an answer by tomorrow night, I might make you a partner. Wouldn’t that make you happy, Joey?”

Barber was silent.

“Good night, partner.” Mongoose laughed to himself. Then he turned, opened the door, and left the room. Barber listened as the footfalls of a blackmailer echoed in his own hallway. He heard the front door open, then close.

Mongoose was gone.

A gent Henning agreed to meet me at eight A.M. It was her idea to get out of Manhattan, in case I was being watched or followed. By default, that meant Position Four on my list of meeting spots, a thirty-minute train ride to my old stomping grounds on the other side of the East River.

I grew up in Queens, lived there till I was fifteen-until Peter Mandretti became Patrick Lloyd. I accepted the fact that Queens has its critics; I didn’t accept the criticism. Yes, Brooklyn has more interesting housing, and there can be only one Manhattan, one Gotham-like center of the universe. The Bronx has the Yankees, and Staten Island has… well, as I might have told my friends in Queens, I’ve never had no freakin’ reason to go there, so who the hell cares what they got? But I do know this: only Queens has the Lemon Ice King of Corona.

Trips to the Ice King on warm summer nights hold a special place in my memory. Rainbow was my favorite flavor, notwithstanding my sister’s blunt reminders: “It’s the Lemon Ice King, moron.” The line could be long, but that was part of the experience, and with Shea Stadium a bike ride away, it was possible to snag a couple of last-minute seats for a Mets game on the cheap. Or you could just walk across the street to the park, where old Italian men played bocce ball for hours. The Ice King had no dining area-it was a tiny joint on the corner that served only ices-so benches by the bocce courts were the primo spot for scooping out chocolate or fruity slush from a cup. In summertime, you were lucky to find a seat.

On a cold morning in January, I had no such problem.

Andie glared at me, arms folded, her breath steaming as she fought off the cold. “You know, Patrick, it would have been perfectly acceptable for your list of designated meeting places to include one or two indoor locations.”

“My bad,” I said. “I’ll bring you back for a cherry ice in July.”

It was nearly an hour past dawn, but the sun was nowhere to be seen in the gray winter sky. Andie wasn’t getting any warmer, so I did a quick follow-up on the park ranger mentioned in the Daily News . Not surprisingly, the FBI was already aware that the victim was the same ranger who had found me unconscious and had sent me to the ER just a few hours earlier. Andie assured me that there was no need for me to speak directly to the detectives handling the homicide investigation-she had it covered-and then moved on to another subject.

“I met with your father last night,” she said.

Her mention of Dad was a funny coincidence. Just moments earlier, my gaze had drifted to the tuxedo shop across the street where, according to my mother, Dad had rented a hideous, yet stylish, powder blue tuxedo for their wedding.

“How is he doing?” I asked.