The Deliveryman Page 3

  A pointless glance at his phone. He put it away.

  Just as impatience got the better of him and he pushed off his perch to find a greasy spoon to duck into for lunch, the Samsung hummed. The sound announced an arriving text.

  'Bout time.

  Ah, great! The punk had come through. Bless him. The text reported the location where Ecco, well, Echi, Rinaldo had picked up the delivery yesterday at eleven thirty in the morning. No more details about where he might've taken it for safekeeping. But the transfer point was a good start. He texted back, acknowledging the info.

  The location was only about three blocks away. Coelho turned in the direction and made his way over the sidewalks, which here ran in front of car dealerships and repair shops, graphic design studios, small ad agencies, warehouses, apartments and what he'd been checking out earlier--the oiliest of greasy spoons. It was changing, though, and maybe someday soon the 'hood would be the new chic, now that most of the rest of Manhattan--even Harlem--was getting too cool, too hipster for words.

  In ten minutes he spotted the building that he sought.

  The West Side Armory was quite a piece of work. Two stories high, resembling a redbrick castle. Downright ugly, Coelho thought, though who was he to talk? He'd never bothered to pitch out the pink flamingos that had been standing one-legged in front of his Queens bungalow when he'd moved in two years ago. (And the color of his brick--dried blood red--was the same as the armory's.)

  Looking about, making sure no one was paying him any mind, he walked to the entrance of the place on Eleventh Avenue. The graffiti-marred doors were locked and chained. They were ten feet tall and solid oak--the place was, after all, an armory, and presumably had once contained weapons of mass destruction (for the time), which the National Guard or army wished to keep out of the hands of assorted bad guys.

  No entrance this way.

  He circled around the building and finally noticed, on 50th Street, a small door whose lock just didn't look right. He eased up to it and, again making certain that no one was watching, tested the knob. Yes, the lock and deadbolt had been jimmied--some time ago, to judge from the rust--and with effort he muscled the panel open. He was greeted with a smell of mold and mildew and urine that nearly took his breath away. He forced down the cough, and nausea, and slipped inside.

  The door let into a storeroom of some kind, now empty, except for evidence that revealed why the door was still in use: needles and crack pipes and tubes that had once held rock. The den was empty now, thank God, so Coelho did not have to crack heads with his Glock.

  He eased into a hallway and then made his way to what seemed to be an archway. The place was huge--the corridor disappeared a block away into darkness. No, Rinaldo wasn't stupid at all. This was the perfect place to make the transfer. Coelho wondered: Did he hide it here? Were there basements? Hidden rooms? It might take days to search and find it.

  And if he'd merely taken delivery here in the armory what clues could he or anyone possibly find that might suggest where the shipment was now?

  Hopeless. Well, here he was. So he'd have to--

  A noise.

  Freezing, Coelho realized he wasn't alone.

  It had been a tap or snap, coming from inside but some distance far away--on the other side of the archway, which opened presumably to the main arena of the armory. Drawing his pistol, he started forward, keeping close to the walls and watching carefully where he placed his feet to avoid both tripping and giving away his presence.

  Heart pounding, the two hotdogs churning in his gut, he swapped his gun to his left hand, wiped his right palm on his slacks and then took the gun again in his other grip. Closer to the archway, he paused. Then: a quick look out. At the far end of the open area--it really was huge--he saw a figure, fifty yards away, standing with arms crossed. The man was looking around. Because a doorway was open behind him, the back light made it impossible to see any details.

  But then the person stepped slightly to the side, and he decided this was probably a woman. Something about the stance, the size of the hips. Though her hair was up, or under some kind of cap.

  Apparently satisfied with whatever she'd been doing, she picked up a large suitcase, it seemed, and turned, walking to the doorway.

  Was this a coincidence? Was she a building inspector or real estate developer? Or was this about Rinaldo? And the delivery? And, if so, had she found something important?

  Keeping the gun in his hand, finger near but not on the trigger, Coelho jogged as fast as he dared to the open doorway she'd just vanished through.

  But just as he got close, the first side of the double door, then the second, slammed shut. And he heard it lock.

  Goddamn it. He tried to push it open but the panels were sealed fast.

  He sprinted back, his bulk ramping up his heart rate and breathing. Don't let me die here, he thought. Christ, it might take months to find my body.

  And don't let me puke.

  But, no coronaries, or regurgitation, today. He made it back to the jimmied door through which he'd entered and eased out, pushing it shut again. Once on the sidewalk, his gun still in hand but hidden under his jacket, he continued along the sidewalk fast, circling the building. As he turned the corner, he slowed and caught his breath.

  The intruder was standing at the curbside, beside the large suitcase he'd seen. She was a tall redheaded woman. She looked around, with suspicious eyes, and he ducked behind one of the armory's abutments, but she wasn't gazing in his direction. She was focusing on the street near her. Her posture suggested that she was armed; as she studied the area her right hand was near her hip, fingers curled slightly, as if ready to draw. Coelho knew this because it was the pose he often adopted if a gunfight loomed.

  Who the hell is she? Working for a rival gang? Working for the shipper? A cop?

  He'd have to find out.

  Get close, as soon as she got into her car he'd leap into the passenger seat and press a gun against her side. Then make sure she didn't buckle up, though he would. And he'd force her to drive to some deserted spot. Then get answers.

  Hand gripping his pistol, still hidden, he crossed the street and moved east, in her direction, using parked cars and trucks for cover. Ahead, at the intersection, was a large McDonald's, under a big billboard advertising the place--a sign of the gentrification he'd been thinking of earlier.

  The hour was lunchtime and the sidewalk here was crowded. He was lost in the throngs of people entering and leaving the restaurant.

  As he approached he saw she was quite pretty. What the hell was she up to? Some hot babe in a muscle car, poking around the place where a half million dollars of very illegal shit had been transferred. She could be a skirt working for a gangbanger, who'd picked her to minimize suspicion, in his search for the mysterious delivery.

  Hell, that was a sexist thought. The bitch might be an OG herself, some rival to Morales. The world was changing. It was only a matter of time until a woman rose up high in the organized crime scene of New York and was crowned an Original Gangster.

  Gangsterette? Coelho allowed himself the humorous thought.

  She set the suitcase into the trunk, slammed it and pulled out her phone to make a call.

  As soon as she finished and got into the front seat, he'd make his move.

  He now broke through the crowd and started across the street toward the Torino.

  But she moved fast. Yanking open the door and tossing the phone onto the passenger seat. In seconds, the car fired up and she was skidding--actually laying a patch of rubber as she sped away.

  Shit.

  Well, at least he'd had some confirmation that the arsenal had a connection with Rinaldo and the infamous delivery. Why else would an armed woman, who drove like that, be interested?

  A connection...What the hell was it?

  He glanced at a Greek diner behind him, smelling the garlic and grilling fish.

  Then he thought about his boss and told himself: No, get to work.

  "Wh
at's this discovery you're so excited about?" Mel Cooper asked Amelia Sachs as she walked quickly into Rhyme's parlor.

  "Gloves."

  "Really?" Cooper asked, enthusiastic.

  "I'll give you the whole story," she said. "In addition to the oil operation and the stable--that told you Rinaldo'd been to the armory--there're two restaurants across from the back entrance to the place. A McDonalds and a Greek diner. I found two witnesses who're pretty sure that--"

  "Pretty sure--"

  "Rhyme," she warned.

  He shrugged. "Pray continue."

  "Who're pretty sure that two white trucks drove through back entrance about eleven thirty yesterday morning."

  "How'd they get in?"

  "Locks were picked, I'm pretty sure. Scratch marks. The doors closed and nobody saw what happened then or when they left. The state owns the place and I called their real estate division and they had the maintenance service let me in. Creepy place. If you're ever inclined to make a horror film, that's the set for it. The place basically has a dirt floor, so I took soil samples. I found treads that even without comparison I recognized as Rinaldo's. The other truck there? The treads were pretty bad. It'll be impossible to get any ID'ing tread marks from them."

  "You were mentioning gloves." Rhyme was growing impatient.

  She held up a plastic bag. "Latex."

  "Ah, that is good news." Latex gloves, unlike cloth, pick up fingerprints quite well (on the inside) and have adhesive properties that retain trace. Smart criminals burn them into nothing, the not-so-smart throw them out, for police to find and, soon thereafter, make all sort of helpful discoveries to aid in arrest and conviction.

  "Friction ridges first."

  Wearing his own set of gloves--a similar shade of blue--Mel Cooper extracted and tested them. There were two, a right and a left. Rhyme hoped they belonged to whomever Rinaldo had met in the armory, as they already had Rinaldo's identity.

  They did not, as it turned out. Only the victim's prints were inside the gloves.

  Rhyme was frowning. "Curious. He left them in the armory after the meeting. He wasn't that concerned that they'd be found so he wasn't particularly troubled about leaving his prints there."

  "But," Sachs continued his thought, "he was worried about prints on whatever he was holding--something that either he or the other driver had with them."

  "He was a deliveryman," Rhyme pointed out. "And since the truck was empty when he was killed, and locked, he either transferred something to the other driver or took delivery and then dropped it off at another location." He frowned. "What the hell was the shipment?...Mel," Rhyme ordered, "find out what trace there is on the outside of the gloves."

  He prepared the sample.

  As he did, Rhyme's computer dinged with the sound of an incoming email. He read the subject and the sender. "Ah, it's from Rodney."

  Rodney Szarnek, their computer crimes expert down in One Police Plaza.

  "He cracked Rinaldo's phone," Rhyme said, reading. "It was a burner, naturally."

  Prepaid mobiles with no link to the purchaser or his or her actual address had made cops' lives far more difficult.

  Rhyme continued. "It had only four texts. And five incoming calls from the same number--also an untraceable burner, now out of service. The calls weren't answered. Voice mail wasn't set up."

  She walked around behind him and he could feel her gloved hand on his shoulder, just north of the DMZ where all sensation stopped.

  They read the messages. The first one, from Rinaldo's burner, was sent at eleven forty.

  Have package. Will hide. Have good place. Will meet U @ 7, where planned, with details. Tonight, you'll be the king of the dead.

  And the below was the simple response

  K

  At four thirty there, Rinaldo had texted the other phone:

  All hidden. We're good. No tails. Seems safe.

  The answer again:

  K

  The incoming calls, Rhyme observed, were all made a few minutes apart and they started at 7:05 p.m., presumably his client calling with increasing agitation to inquire as to why Rinaldo was not at the delivery site. He had been murdered, Rhyme recalled, at 6 p.m.

  Sachs said, "So, that answers the question. Rinaldo took delivery at the armory and then hid it somewhere, in anticipation of taking it to the final consignee that night."

  King of the dead, Rhyme reflected. He had a thought. "Mel, do you have the results of the trace on the gloves?"

  "I do." The tech said, "Present are--"

  Rhyme said, "Lead, antimony, and barium, calcium, silicon...and, I'll go out on a limb, rubber."

  "Well, no silicon, but yes, everything else. And in significant amounts. How on earth did you figure that out?" He was smiling.

  But the expression faded as he regarded Rhyme's grim face. "King of the dead," he mused. "The chemicals're gunshot residue. And the rubber from a silencer of some sort. I said 'out on a limb.'" He scowled. "But of course there had to be rubber. From baffles of a silencer. Rinaldo tested the product he was picking up to make sure it worked...and he could hardly fire off a gun in Midtown without using a silencer."

  Sachs said, "And given the amounts of the residue you mentioned, it's automatic weapons?"

  "I hadn't thought of that. But yes, of course. There's our answer: Mr. Echi Rinaldo was taking delivery of machine guns. And I'd imagine quite a few of them, given the size of the trucks involved. The good news, I suppose, is that he didn't deliver them to the purchaser."

  The bad, which went unstated, was that a large number of deadly weapons were loose in the City of New York, free for the taking to whoever found them first.

  The mantle of King of the Dead was apparently up for grabs.

  As head of the 128 Lords, Miguel Angel Morales was largely oblivious to politics.

  Oh, there were Harlem councilmen and the occasional cop who had to be paid off (the NYPD was a lot less receptive to bribes than it used to be, though). But at levels higher than city hall and various administrative bureaus, politics didn't much come into play for an OG like Morales.

  He had, however, made a study of one political matter: NAFTA, the free trade agreement between Mexico, Canada and the United States, which eased trade restrictions--and the physical movement--of products over the borders.

  Everyone knew it was politically correct to decry the flow of drugs moving north and the ebb of guns going in the opposite direction, and politicos and administrators made certain that loosened border controls, thanks to NAFTA, didn't facilitate this terrible commerce.

  Who could argue? Morales certainly didn't.

  But listening to an NPR segment about the trade agreement a year ago, an idea had occurred to him. After some research he learned that while drugs were still interdicted enthusiastically going north and guns going south, the customs system under NAFTA had grown careless when it came to these commodities going in the opposite directions. Resources, after all, were limited.

  Could one, Morales asked, make money smuggling guns north?

  On one of several trips to Mexico that he and Connie made, he learned that it was very hard to get good weapons of American or European make over the border. Fifteen thousand pesos for Cuernos de Chivo, "goat horns," as AK-47s were known in Mexico, and six thousand pesos for a Glock. Even realistic toy guns--used in the many of the one hundred armed (or seemingly armed) robberies in Mexico City alone every day--were expensive. Oh, you could negotiate some when you went to buy weapons in the pungent, filthy Tepito district of Mexico City--the drug and weapon bazaar--if you survived the experience (which a lot of people did not).

  To fill this gap and bring prices down, an innovative cartel boss in Chihuahua had come up with an idea. He bought high-end guns--H&Ks, Glocks, Rugers--and he had them reverse engineered, created the tools and dies necessary for their manufacture and went into business, manufacturing quality firearms under the guise of creating auto parts. There were so many American manufacturers shifting jobs to Me
xico that nobody noticed that his operation did not, in fact, have a connection with Ford or GM or Toyota.

  The cartel head's main market was Mexico and points south. Morales, though, saw an opportunity and decided to go into partnership with Senor Guadalupe. He commissioned an order and paid for it, then arranged for transport north. The NAFTA-sanctioned trucks, the partners reasoned, would proceed largely unimpeded into the United States and, if they were stopped, it was to check for drugs; those Labradors and Malinois were certainly clever but also scent-blind when it came to stocks and receivers of deadly weapons. They smelled after all just like car parts.

  The shipment that Echi Rinaldo had picked up in the armory yesterday was Morales's first purchase and its disappearance was a real problem. He had buyers lined up, true, but more troubling: his reputation. He wanted to be, as he'd said in all seriousness to Rinaldo and his compadres, New York's King of the Dead, and anything that diminished that reputation was not acceptable. He certainly had the product: These weapons were among the most sophisticated in the world, some with laser and radar sights, some so silent they were--as Guadalupe had told him--no louder than a hiccup de un bebe.

  Bullets too. Special ones, engineered by the cartel man's best gunsmiths.

  But having such fine merchandise made this failing, this glitch, all the more embarrassing.

  He debated once more the question of whether or not he should have trusted Rinaldo with this assignment. Well, that wasn't quite the right inquiry. Echi Rinaldo had done many jobs for him and trust was not an issue. Where he questioned his judgment was the caution with which he'd approached the delivery. Morales had delegated to Rinaldo the job of collecting the half million dollars' worth of machine guns solely in case the feds or someone else had tipped to the shipment. Rinaldo had been told of the risk and had willingly taken it on--for a substantial fee. They agreed he wouldn't transfer the goods immediately, either. He would drive around all day and make his regular deliveries and, if no one appeared to be following or if he sensed no other threat, then he would meet Morales and tell him where the guns were stashed.

  At the time, these precautions made sense.