“Size, for one thing. You couldn’t possibly maneuver a tanker and two trucks in Scanlon’s yard. It’s small to begin with and he shares it with other companies. Frank’s yard is big enough to accommodate a tanker and two smaller trucks. Besides, it’s got a layer of crushed concrete which would stand up to all that weight in bad weather.”
“How’d he get access to the yard?” Healy asked.
“That’s easy-Dixie. We all had keys to the yard in case Frank was sick, wanted a day off, or if we had to work the odd Sunday. Dixie resented the fact that Frank wouldn’t put him on his own truck full time and he probably jumped at the chance to make extra cash and stick it to Frank at the same time.”
“It’s a long way from screwing your boss to murder. Black market oil, is it really worth killing over?”
“Let’s say the rack price of oil-”
“Rack price?”
“That’s how much an oil company pays wholesale at the loading terminal,” Joe explained. “Okay, so let’s say the rack price is a buck a gallon and you’re charging your customers a buck twenty-nine-nine per gallon at two hundred gallons, that’s almost sixty bucks gross a stop. You got three trucks out averaging twenty stops a truck, that’s thirty-six hundred bucks a day. Multiply that by six days a week. That’s over twenty-one grand a week. And that’s legitimate.
“Now let’s say I can buy oil at fifty or sixty cents a gallon and I’m still charging my customers a buck twenty- nine-nine a gallon at two hundred gallons. So even if it’s a warm winter, you can make out like a bandit if you’re buying way below rack. Plus, think of how much cash you can launder given the price difference between rack oil and black market. Is it worth killing for? You do the math. I’ve known crackheads to kill for a roll of Canadian pennies.”
Healy was still skeptical. “So if this is such a great scam, why hasn’t anyone done this before?”
“They have, but a steady supply of black market oil is almost impossible to come by. Oil is one of the most regulated businesses on the planet. From the time it’s pumped out of the ground, every gallon of it’s got to be accounted for. Frank used to have to be able to account for every gallon he loaded and pumped. The shipping and pipeline companies, the refineries, the companies that pump the oil all have to account for every gallon they pump. Oil companies get audited all the time and you have to have bills of lading to cover every drop of oil you deliver. That’s how people get caught. Even if you can get oil on the black market, you can’t get legit bills of lading.”
“So you think Scanlon has a way to get black market oil and bills of lading?”
“Yes and no.”
Healy was confused. “Yes and no what?”
“I think Scanlon is fronting for someone else. I think Black Gold Fuel was a trial balloon, a test to see if the system was workable. When his partners saw the system worked, they tried to have Scanlon buy Frank out. When he wouldn’t sell, they tried blackmailing him into it. When he still wouldn’t sell, that’s when the shit hit the fan and things got out of control.”
“If the system worked, why not go in big?” Healy asked.
“No, these guys are too smart. They want to stay below the radar screen. Once they get noticed, they’re dead. My guess is they plan to follow a model of starting very, very small and buying out slightly bigger sized companies. Instead of having one big operation that makes a nice fat juicy target for the feds, they’ll have five or six small operations that will pump just as many gallons, but won’t get noticed. We’re talking millions and millions of dollars a year here.”
“I’m sold, Joe. Wait a second.”
Bob Healy got up from the table and retrieved some papers from the kitchen counter and sat back down. First, he showed Serpe the newspaper article about the dead woman found at JFK.
“Holy shit! That’s the blond from the blackmail video. That’s her tattoo. Slave, huh?”
“Wait, it gets better,” Healy said, sliding a handwritten note in front of Serpe. “Look who the black Lincoln Navigator is registered to.”
“Black Sea Energy.”
“Yeah, I think we just found Steve Scanlon’s silent partner. But I wonder how some city fireman got hooked up with these guys?”
“Leave that to me,” Serpe said. “There’s more.”
“There’s more?”
“Reyes.”
“What about him?”
“George called me just before you got here,” Healy said. “And they did find someone else’s blood in the splatter samples at the murder scene, but they weren’t Pete Jr.’s. They’re from a John Doe of Slavic descent.”
“From Mr. Kazakstan and Ilana at the Blue Fountain, to Tatiyana, to the dead whore, to Reyes’ murder, to Black Sea Energy on Brighton Beach Avenue, this shit screams Russian mob.”
“So, should we bring it to the-”
Serpe slammed his hand on the table. “No! Not yet. You ever work a task force with the feds?”
“One.”
“Did they take all the credit?” Serpe asked.
“There was no credit to take. We didn’t make the case.”
“Who got the blame?”
“We did. I guess I see your point,” Healy admitted.
“Well, take my word for it, the feds’ll fuck everything up. They can’t help themselves, because even if their intentions are good, their priorities are always different than yours. Their focus is always the big picture. The second they’d get a hold of this, they’d make a deal with Scanlon to flip on his partners and we’d never find out what happened to Cain, the Reyes kid, or to Frank. And those are things I need to know.”
“But-”
“But nothing, Bob,” Joe said, waving the article about the dead prostitute in Healy’s face. “Look, these guys are already starting to cover their tracks. This chick is dead. My bet is Tatiyana will be soon-if she isn’t already. They probably had a hand in what’s going on with Frank and they tried to run me off the road and they killed my cat. If they get even a whiff that this is anything more than two washed-up ex-cops stumbling around in the dark, they’ll slash and burn any ties they have to this. No, we have to move ahead the way we’ve been going. It’s coming to a head, anyway. You go talk to that Schwartz guy today and I’ll try and find out how Scanlon went from retired fireman to oil magnate in three easy steps.”
“All right,” Healy said. “I’m willing to give it another few days, but that’s it. At some point, we’re going to need the cavalry.”
“Agreed.”
Healy excused himself, went upstairs and came back down in less than five minutes. He had a bag in his hand.
“Take this,” he said, handing it to Serpe. “I bought it for my son years ago when I hoped he might take the test to get on the job. He didn’t want any part of it or the job.”
Serpe knew what it was before he took it out of the bag.
“You know I’m not licensed to carry anymore.”
“I know better than anybody. Just take it and be careful. There’s a box of cartridges in there too.”
“Thanks, Healy,” he said placing the Glock back in the bag and tucking it under his arm. “I’ll return it when this shit is over with.”
“Keep it. If anyone catches you with it, I’ll just say you stole the damn thing.”
“Fuck you.” But Serpe was laughing when he said it.
Healy was laughing, too, as he shook Joe Serpe’s hand. “Let’s talk tonight and see where we are, okay?”
“You got it. Good luck.”
“Yeah, same to you.”
Joe Serpe pulled onto the service road along Sunrise Highway in Bayshore. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find at the Blue Fountain Motel. Somewhere in the back of his mind he guessed he hoped he’d have the good fortune to find Tatiyana working her special brand of video magic in room 217. He’d pay for her time and explain to her about what had happened to the blond. Then he’d offer to protect her in exchange for her help. But he knew it
