Dead on Arrival

‘The DEA’s arrested Pugh,’ DeMarco said.

‘Yeah, but is that-’ Mahoney said.

‘And we got something else,’ he said. He told Mahoney how Anisa Aziz had admitted to Emma that she’d been kidnapped before her uncle tried to blow up the Capitol. ‘The girl said that one of the guys who kidnapped her had some tattoos on his knuckles, and one of the yahoos they caught at Pugh’s place has the tattoos. The problem is, the girl never saw the guy’s face.’

‘So can you tie Pugh to the damn terrorist attacks or not?’ Mahoney said.

‘Probably not,’ DeMarco said. ‘I mean, not based on any evidence that the DEA has found so far. Hall’s guys-’

‘Who’s Hall?’ Mahoney said.

‘The DEA agent in charge down here, the one who arrested Pugh. Anyway, Hall’s guys will search Pugh’s place and if they find anything that ties him to the attacks they’ll let me know, but I wouldn’t count on it. This guy Pugh, he owns four hundred acres, and it’s gonna take a long time to search the place.’

‘Goddammit!’ Mahoney yelled. ‘I don’t have time for that. You gotta make Pugh admit he was involved.’

‘I know,’ DeMarco said. ‘And this is what I’ll have to do. …’

When he finished telling Mahoney what he planned, he said, ‘Hall’s gonna go nuts. She might even go to the press.’

‘I’ll take care of her,’ Mahoney said.

‘She’s good people, boss.’

‘Yeah, well, sometimes good people get screwed too,’ Mahoney said.

DeMarco waited impatiently for Patsy Hall to get off the phone. As he was waiting, Danny walked over to him and said, ‘I just finished giving a statement to the DEA guys and a lawyer. They videotaped it. They said they won’t need me again until they start prepping for the trial. Any reason I can’t go back to New York?’

‘You better check with Hall,’ DeMarco said, motioning toward the office where Hall was sitting, ‘but as far as I’m concerned you can leave. But you better understand something, Danny. You’re not done with this thing until those guys are in jail. You got it?’

‘Yeah, but I’m okay with the Queens D. A. Right?’

‘Yeah. You can go back to fencing for Tony Benedetto until they catch you for doing it.’

Danny shook his head. ‘Look, man,’ he said, ‘it wasn’t like me and Marie planned to fall in love. It just happened. One of these days, maybe you’ll find it in yourself to forgive us both.’

DeMarco stared at his cousin for a minute.

‘Go fuck yourself,’ he said and walked away.

‘I need to talk to Pugh alone,’ DeMarco told Patsy Hall.

‘Sorry,’ she said, shaking her head sadly, as if she meant it. ‘But I can’t allow that. Anytime anybody talks to Pugh, I want his lawyer and our lawyer in the room.’

One of Hall’s agents stuck his head into her office at that moment. ‘Patsy, Dick Garner’s on the phone. Line four. He wants to talk to you.’

Richard Garner was the top man at the DEA, and Hall was several rungs on the ladder below him. She had heard Garner speak a couple of times when he gave one of his sappy pep talks to motivate the troops, but she had never spoken to him.

‘I didn’t know catching Jubal Pugh was that big a deal,’ the agent said.

Patsy Hall punched a button and picked up the phone on her desk. ‘Mr Garner, this is Agent Hall.’

All DeMarco heard was Hall’s side of the conversation, which consisted mostly of yes, sir.

At one point, while she was listening, she looked over at DeMarco.

‘Yes, sir,’ she said again. ‘May I ask why? …

‘Yes, sir,’ Hall said one more time before hanging up.

Looking at DeMarco she said, ‘Mr Garner says I’m supposed to let you do anything you want. You wanna tell me what’s going on here?’

‘Sorry, Patsy, I can’t,’ DeMarco said. ‘At least not yet.’

Hall stared at him. ‘You screw up my case against Pugh, and I’m gonna get a nightstick and beat you to death. I swear to Christ I will.’

Pugh was dressed in an orange jumpsuit. At DeMarco’s request — at this point, all DeMarco’s requests were being granted — the manacles were taken off Pugh’s hands. They were seated in an office, not an interrogation room. DeMarco was seated behind the desk of whoever normally occupied the office; Pugh was in a chair in front of the desk. A DEA agent was posted outside the door, and the door was closed.

‘Who the hell are you?’ Pugh said. ‘And why wasn’t my lawyer allowed to be here?’

DeMarco didn’t say anything for a moment. He just stared at Pugh’s unshaven face. With his pointed nose and weak chin, Pugh reminded DeMarco of a badger or a wolverine — one of those critters that makes up for its lack of bulk with pure viciousness.

‘I’m the guy who set you up, Jubal,’ DeMarco said. ‘I’m the guy that got Danny DeMarco and Tony Benedetto to cooperate with the DEA. And I’m the guy who’ll make Danny DeMarco testify against you.’

Pugh didn’t say anything.

‘You’re going to be convicted for manufacturing meth, and the judge is going to give you the maximum sentence permitted by the sentencing guidelines. He’s going to do this because he’ll be pressured by some people in Washington. Those same people in Washington are also going to promise to make him a federal judge with a lifetime appointment if he does what they want. So it doesn’t matter if you’ve got the ghost of Johnnie-fuckin’- Cochran for a lawyer, Jubal, you’re going to jail.’

Pugh blinked once.

‘You’re fifty-eight years old right now,’ DeMarco said. ‘If you’re not killed in prison, you’ll be seventy-eight or eighty years old when you get out. By then you’ll most likely have prostate cancer or colon cancer or whatever diseases afflict old men. You’ll be on death’s doorstep when you get out of prison.’

Pugh blinked again.

‘Now look around you,’ DeMarco said. ‘You’re not in an interrogation room. There’s no one-way mirror, no video camera in the ceiling, no tape recorder. It’s just you and me.’

‘Maybe you’re wired,’ Jubal said.

DeMarco shook his head. ‘I don’t want what I’m going to tell you recorded.’ He paused. ‘If you can give me what I want, I can keep you out of prison. Your property’s going to be auctioned off and your bank accounts are going to be frozen and all the money you have will be placed in the U.S. Treasury. But you get to stay out of jail — if you can deliver.’

‘So what is it? What do you want?’

‘I know,’ DeMarco said, though he really didn’t, ‘that your people forced three American Muslims to commit acts of terrorism. I know your guys — Donny Cray and that asshole Randy with the prison tats on his knuckles — killed Reza Zarif’s family, his wife and his two kids, and made him fly that plane at the White House. I know your people abducted Mustafa Ahmed’s niece to force him to blow up the Capitol. Mustafa’s niece saw the tats on Randy’s hands. And I know your guys also killed the Capitol police officer who shot Mustafa, to make sure he wouldn’t talk.’

‘That’s all bullshit.’

‘No, it’s not all bullshit, but if it is … well, then too bad for you, Jubal. You go to jail for twenty years. You see, you’re a malignant piece of shit but right now you’re a small problem. Because of what you’ve done, Muslims in this country are being persecuted and a very bad law is about to be passed. So right now, getting you to admit that al-Qaeda wasn’t behind these attacks is more important than putting your ass in the slam.’

Pugh tried to keep his face immobile but his lips twitched. Like a badger in a cage, he’d just seen a way out.

‘And we’re pretty sure you didn’t personally kill anybody,’ DeMarco said, ‘which is the reason you’re getting a break, but you have to testify against the people who did.’

DeMarco didn’t really know that Pugh hadn’t killed anyone, but he was guessing that Pugh wouldn’t have taken the risk. And even if he had killed someone — even if Jubal Pugh had pulled the