“And you don’t know the name of Hassan’s boss?”
“Of course not.”
“But you would tell us if you knew it? “she asked.
“Of course not,” he said, with a big smile. “I am not stupid.”
“Then,” she asked, “why did you tell us the name of your old boss?”
“He is husband of my sister,” said Skripkin. “Everybody knows I work for him for years.”
“Then are you really a U.S. citizen?” I asked. I thought I could get away with the question because I was asking it for verification purposes for a prior statement.
He sighed. “No, I am not U.S. citizen.”
“Okay.” Lies were piling up. Now we had to determine if we were actually getting closer to the truth of the matter, or if we were just getting more lies. Filtering can be a real pain in the butt. I looked at my notes. “So, back to this Hassan and his boss…”
“This is first time boss of Hassan asks for favor. I am to come with Hassan and be his guard, and be his strong right arm if there is to be trouble.”
“And this is the first time you met Hassan?”
“To be truthful, yes. I never met Hassan before then.”
It’s amazing how many times the people we interview say things like ‘to tell the truth’ or ‘to be truthful.’ It’s a dead giveaway that they’ve been lying to you. That’s the easy part. The hard part is determining just where and why.
“Just what was it that this Hassan was supposed to be doing? “asked Hester.
“He did not tell me, so much as I figure it out.” That’s how Skripkin began, but I thought he’d figured it out very well, indeed.
First, he said that Hassan was supposed to do some “contamination” in the meat plant. Skripkin had thought, originally, it was to “make the meat bad,” and to force a recall.
“Why did he want to do that?”
“To hurt the jews who run the plant,” he said. “This is what I think. This is the…impression I get. From him. He tells he hates Jews. I figure it out.”
He said then that as time passed, and things happened, he began to think that something more was being planned.
“You know, of course, that Linda, she and I are lovers.” It was a statement, not a question.
“When did that start?” asked Hester.
“From the moment she sees my eyes,” he said, with a completely straight face. “We start to be with the other that same time, only one day after we meet.”
That surprised me, but considering where Harry said he’d found them, it did fit.
“You started bagging her the day after you met her, then? “I asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, okay,” I said. “So you’re sleeping with Linda almost right away, then?”
“We never sleep together until last night.” He smiled in a friendly way. “That is how we find ourself caught. Never sleep together, just screw together. Hard to catch you.”
I imagined Harry was rolling on the floor by now. I tossed one in for the audience when I said, “I’ll make a note of that.”
“So, then what happened?” Hester brought us back into line.
As it happened, Linda, at some point, had told Skripkin that Rudy was getting worried about just what was up, and that Hassan and company were asking him to do something he objected to.
“Why didn’t he just walk away? “asked Hester.
“Agent lady,” said Skripkin, “Rudy had been bought like me. They had…hired him, out of Colombia, to do a job for them, and he had agreed to do it. This man who was boss of Hassan? He was, too, boss of Rudy, but Hassan was boss of Rudy too. Same man. Do you understand? Very important man.”
“Okay,” I said. “So you have this boss, and under him you have Hassan, and under him you have Rudy, right?”
“Absolutely correct,” he said.
“So…?”
“Rudy got very mad because Hassan and me, we also…ah, recruit…the Orejas man who is friend of Rudy. Rudy cannot get to the right place in the processing line, okay, to put the stuff on the meats. Rudy said he would not take a-what do I want to say-lesser job to do that. You know many Colombians? No? They are that way. I do not know. But Rudy was higher than the meat carrier, and he also said that there would be suspicion if he asks for a lesser duty. So, then, we do not ask Rudy, we ask Orejas. Orejas carries meat into trucks, and is very often having privacy for a several seconds as he is in the truck. He is in right place to do this deed.”
Ah-ha. “Just what deed?”
“He was to use this substance, this white stuff, and…what is this word…place it on, like butter you place on bread. Only this it was on the meat. Spread! That is it, spread. At first.”
“At first?”
“Yes. We do experiment for spread, we see it cannot be done…well…with a plastic bag and a rubber spreading tool. Hassan telephones his boss, and a few days later, the ups,” he said, pretty clearly meaning United Parcel Service, “they deliver a very nice package, and in the package we have cans that spray.”
“No shit?” I said.
“No shit, yes. And we give cans to Orejas, and Rudy gets very mad.”
“Why was he so mad? “asked Hester. “Orejas worked for him, didn’t he?”
“Rudy says that when this Orejas was very small, he gets very bad injured in his head. Orejas is made to be very easy to persuade. Rudy takes care to see Orejas stays out of trouble from that day. Rudy says that Orejas, he is ‘too fucking dumb to know if he wants to do it or not,’ and Hassan should leave Orejas alone.” Skripkin shrugged. “I know for a fact that Orejas, he is not smart. He does it because Hassan tells him that it will help Rudy. I was there.”
“Okay…”
“Then Rudy finds out that Orejas is supposed to use a mask and gloves, and he gets a lot worried. He says that Orejas cannot do things like that the right way.”
“Just a second,” I said. “Orejas just wasn’t quick enough to follow the procedures?”
“That is correct. Rudy is very mad, and Rudy is making talk like he is going to tell Orejas to stop. So we take Rudy to the old farm, and we have talk with him.”
“Who’s we?” I asked.
“That would be me, and Hassan, and the one they call Chato, and Rudy.”
“Chato? “Another unknown.
“Yes. Chato, he was the driver. He works at the plant, he knows Rudy and Orejas, and everybody there.”
Hester and I exchanged glances.
“You know his real name?” asked Hester.
“I do not, lady agent. I swear.” And he gave her another wink.
“So, what happened? First, why did you pick the old Dodd place? “I asked.
“What is this ‘old Dodd place’? I do not know it.”
“Sorry. The old farm where you took Rudy.”
“Ah. Dodd? That is funny name, Dodd. We take Rudy there because we know where it is. We go there sometimes, to do private meeting and talk about plan. Hassan, he is very worried that FBI listens in at walls of apartment.”
“How did you ever find that place? “I asked.
“I do not know this. This Rudy would know.”
“Okay. But you’d been there before?”
“Oh yes,” said Skripkin. “Four, five times.”
“Okay. So, when you got to the farm, what happened?”
“I am sorry to say that Rudy knows by then about Linda and me. He is very angry at that. Hassan is very
