Christopher Buckley - Wet Work

"Not to worry, Frankie. My hand to God."

Diatri went looking for Gubanovich to kill him. After all that, he goes and tells Taccarelli. Jesus Christ. Now everyone will be coming up and asking, "Yo, Frankie, how's the bowel?"

All that, to keep the SAC from finding out, driving himself to the VA instead of riding in an ambulance to a city hospital, where at least you stood a 50-50 chance, sweat pouring off, shouting out Sinatra songs to keep from passing out from the Red Meteor in his gut. Then when he could finally stand up, staggering with the rolling IV stand and a quarter down a corridor full of Korean War vets, calling the SAC on the pay phone and asking if he could take his back vacation now, effective right away. The SAC saying, "Jesus, Frank, we're up to our tits here. Plus we got the Bennett dog and pony show next week. It's a lousy time." Just then the loudspeaker blasting out, "Dr. Deaver, please report to surgery, Dr. Deaver…" and the SAC suspicious, saying, "Are you in a hospital , Frank?"

Diatri bending over from the Red Meteor, holding on to the IV stand. "Yes, I am, Jim. I'm here… I'm here looking after my baby sister."

"Jesus, Frank. What's wrong?"

"We're not sure at this point, Jim. But it doesn't look real great. They're going to be doing an exploratory. I just need to be with her right now."

"Of course, Frank. I'm sorry. Why didn't you say? Let us know what you need. Anything."

"Thank you, Jim. That means a lot to me."

Then after they finally release him-looking like hell on toast-it occurs to him to get under the tanning machine to get a little color back so the SAC won't wonder. Falls asleep and wakes up looking like Kid Hiroshima. Terrific. Now on top of all that, Gubanovich is going around telling people.

"Hey, Frank. How's your sister?"

"A lot better, thanks, Juanita."

"I woulda sent a card but I didn't know what hospital."

"I appreciate that."

"You lose weight?"

"Just a few pounds. I've been doing a lot of jogging."

"Take care, Frank."

He felt badly lying to people like Juanita. The phone rang. It was Liestraker, in Miami.

Liestraker… yeah, right, Liestraker. "So how's it going?" Diatri tore open a packet of chocolate powder and mixed it with the baby formula they had him drinking. Baby formula. He stared glumly at the dirty-looking bubbles.

"Reason it's taken so long," Liestraker was saying, "is there's 467 hotels in the Greater Miami area. We had to get grand jury subpoenas from the AUSA to look at their registers, and the subpoenas kept expiring, and I had to keep going back and…"

"Uh-huh." Diatri drank. It wasn't so bad.

"Then there's the Catholic churches. There's 118 of them. We didn't need GJSs for those, but just calling all of them, that took time. Also…"

What was his first name? Mike?

"Michael," Diatri interjected. "Let me explain my situation up here. The sixty days is up on my case, the Raid Jacket case I told you about. I had to file a Status Rep with my AUSA, and he didn't give me Concurrence to Continue. The reason for that is, I don't have anything. What I do have is an inbox that looks like Magilla the Gorilla used it for a toilet. Okay? So what do you got, Mike?"

"I've got five names. Hispanic males, medium height, strong build, mid to late forties, no distinguishing characteristics, occupying rooms in area hotels between December 7 and December 22."

"Okay. Now, I assume you already ran them through NADDIS."

"Affirmative and negative."

"How's that, Mike?"

"Yeah, I ran them through NADDIS, and no, none of them are in it. They're all NADDIS negative."

"Okay, shoot."

The names on Liestraker's list consisted of a Docal, Bollines, Quintaro, Velez and Ravines, respectively a United States Information Officer, a magazine ad salesman, a food wholesaler, a security consultant and a stockbroker. Liestraker gave him what he had on each. He said, "Ravines was busted in San Diego two days ago."

Diatri sat up. "Yeah?"

"He assaulted a contractor. He had this new roof put on his garage and it fell on his Mercedes and crushed it and he beat the shit out of the guy apparently. He's out on a bond. You want to talk to him?"

"No. Maybe. What about the churches?"

"One got a call about a demonic possession but it turned out to be D.T.s. Plus the usual stuff. No requests for confessions over the phone."

"Anything on Barazo?"

" Nada. His people have been pretty busy killing each other. We heard one group of them killed another group on a hot drop on Andros."

"Okay, Michael. That's good work. I'm gonna mention it to the Administrator if I ever see him."

Diatri stared at the five names on his list. Docal was in Bucharest, Bollines was in Tulsa, Quintaro in Chicago, Velez in Rosslyn, Virginia. He worked for a company named Becker Industries.

He got through to someone in Personnel at Becker and identified himself as a credit checker with Macy's department store. Mr. Velez had put them down as a reference, just checking… Right. Previous employer?… New York Police Department? Right, that's what it says here.

He dialed the main number again at Becker and asked for Security.

"Yeah," he said, "my name is Mariatri. I'm with the Policemen's Benevolent Association in New York and-"

"I'm sorry, we don't handle charitable contributions. You'll have to talk to Mr. Zahn, in Public Relations. I'd be happy to transfer you-"

"No, it's okay. I'm not calling for money, but I get that all the time. You say you're from the PBA and everyone is happy to transfer you. We're just updating our files here and I see one of our former members, Felix Velez, works there."

"Oh, fine. Yes, that's correct."

"Is he there, by any chance?"

"No."

"Does he have a title or anything?"

The voice was amused. "No, not really."

"See, we're doing a special issue in our magazine, a kind of 'Where Are They Now?' feature, you know, like the ones in Parade magazine? I was wondering how we should list him."

"He's in charge of personal security."

"Personal security?"

"For Mr. Becker."

"A bodyguard."

"Security specialist."

"Right." Diatri thought: Just what I'm going to end up as, security specialist. Holding doors open for rich people. If I'm not holding a specimen cup and telling people to go wee-wee in it. "Well, that must be interesting work, especially for someone like Mr. Becker. I guess he travels a lot. As a matter of fact, a friend of mine saw him in Miami a couple months ago."

"That's possible. I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?"

"I guess that about covers it. Listen, thanks."

Diatri dialed the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, where Velez had registered, and asked for the manager.

"Yes, this is George Diatriola, with the Miami Herald? Good morning. We're doing this story on where major executives and the like, you know, your basic captains of industry, stay when they're in town and it just came to our attention that Mr. Charles Becker of Becker Industries stayed with you a couple of months ago?… Uh-huh. What was the nature of his visit?… He didn't say. Well, a man in his position doesn't really have to say, does he?… Uh-huh. Eastern? Is that a fact? Well, you win some, lose some, right? I kind of wish someone would come along and take it over. It's a crying shame, to run an airline like that. I kind of miss Frank Borman. I don't know if he was a good manager, but I liked those commercials. Something about an astronaut, I guess. Well, Mr. Becker must think very highly of your hotel down there-here. We oughta do an article on the Biltmore… We did? Well, sure we did, but there was some feeling around here that it was a little, I don't know, superficial, so I was thinking that we should do another article. I'd certainly like to feature your name prominently in the article, if that's okay by you. Could you spell it for me?… I never would have been able to spell that. Is that a German name?… Swiss. That's a really beautiful country you have there. I like those, what do you call them, the chocolates come in that triangular tube?… There you go. I used to be able to eat three of those at a sitting. So did you grow up near the Matterhorn?… I'm sorry? An umlaut over the u . Uh-huh, two dots side by side. I'm not a hundred percent sure we can do umlauts, but I tell you what, I'm going to check personally downstairs with the printers and see what we can do… Thank you ."