“Don’t remind me,” Angelo said. “Of course, working with Tony was like carrying around a bucket of sand.”
Emerging into the backyard, which was a dark warren of neglected gardens, Franco and Angelo carefully moved away from the building far enough to see up to the fifth floor. The windows were all dark.
“Looks like we have time to prepare a nice homecoming,” Franco said.
Angelo didn’t answer. Instead, he took his lock-picking tools over to the metal fire door that led to the back stairs. He slipped on a tight-fitting pair of leather gloves, while Franco readied the flashlight.
At first Angelo’s hands shook from sheer anticipatory excitement of coming face-to-face with Laurie Montgomery after five years of smoldering resentment. When the lock resisted Angelo’s efforts, he made a point to control himself and concentrate. The lock responded, and the door opened.
Five floors up, Angelo didn’t bother with the lock-picking tools. He knew that Laurie had several dead bolts. He used the Halligan bar. With a quiet splintering sound, it made short work of the door. Within twenty seconds, they were inside.
For a few minutes, the two men stood motionless in the darkness of Laurie’s pantry so that they could listen. They wanted to be certain there were no sounds suggestive that their forced entry had been noticed by any of the other tenants.
“Jesus Christ!” Franco forcibly whispered. “Something just touched my leg!”
“What is it?” Angelo demanded. He’d not expected such an outburst, and it caused his heart to flutter.
“Oh, it’s only a goddamn cat!” Franco said with relief. All at once, both men could hear the animal purring in the darkness.
“Aren’t we lucky,” Angelo said. “That will be a nice touch. Bring it along.”
Slowly, the men made their way from the pantry through the dark kitchen and into the living room. There they could see significantly better with the city night light coming through the windows.
“So far so good,” Angelo said.
“Now we just have to wait,” Franco said. “Maybe I’ll see if there’s any beer or wine in the refrigerator. Are you interested?”
“A beer would be nice,” Angelo said.
At police headquarters, Laurie and Jack had to get ID badges and go through a metal detector before they were allowed to go up to Lou’s floor. Lou was at the elevator to welcome them.
The first thing he did was take Laurie by the shoulders, look her in the eye, and ask what had happened.
“She’s okay,” Jack said, patting Lou reassuringly on the back. “She’s back to her old, rational, calm self.”
“Really?” Lou questioned, still giving Laurie a close inspection.
Laurie couldn’t help but smile under Lou’s intense scrutiny. “Jack’s right,” she said. “I’m fine. In fact, I’m embarrassed I made us rush down here.”
Lou breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, I’m happy to see both of you. Come on back to my palace.” He led the way to his office.
“I can offer you coffee, but I strongly advise against it,” Lou said. “At this time of day the janitorial staff considers it strong enough to clean out sink drains.”
“We’re fine,” Laurie said. She took a chair.
Jack did likewise. He glanced around the spartan quarters with an unpleasant shiver. The last time he’d been there about a year ago, it had been after he’d narrowly escaped an attempt on his life.
“I think I figured out how Franconi’s body was taken from the morgue,” Laurie began. “You teased me about suspecting the Spoletto Funeral Home, but now I think you’re going to have to take that back. In fact, I think it’s time that you took over.”
Laurie then outlined what she thought had happened. She told Lou that she suspected that someone from the medical examiner’s office had given the Spoletto people the accession number of a relatively recent, unidentified body as well as the location of Franconi’s remains.
“Often when two drivers come to pick up a body for a funeral home, one of them goes in the walk-in cooler while the other handles the paperwork with the mortuary tech,” Laurie explained. “In these instances, the mortuary tech prepares the body for pickup by covering it with a sheet and positioning its gurney in a convenient location just inside the cooler door. In the Franconi situation, I believe the driver took the body whose accession number he had, removed its tag, stashed the body in one of the many unoccupied refrigerator compartments, replaced Franconi’s tag with that one, and then calmly appeared outside the mortuary office with Franconi’s remains. All the tech did at that point was check the accession number.”
“That’s quite a scenario,” Lou said. “Can I ask if you have any proof of this or is it all conjecture?”
“I found the body whose accession number Spoletto called in,” Laurie said. “It was in a compartment which was supposed to be vacant. The name Frank Gleason was bogus.”
“Ahhhh!” Lou said, becoming much more interested. He leaned forward on his desk. “I’m beginning to like this very much, especially considering the matrimonial association between the Spoletto and the Lucia people. This could be something important. It kind’a reminds me of getting Al Capone on tax evasion. I mean, it would be fantastic if we could get some of the Lucia people on body theft!”
“Of course, it also raises the specter of an organized crime connection to illicit liver transplantation,” Jack said. “This could be a frightening association.”
“Dangerous as well,” Lou said. “So I must insist on no more amateur sleuthing on your part. We take over from here. Do I have your word on that?”
“I’m happy to let you take over,” Laurie said. “But there is also the issue of a mole in the medical examiner’s office.”
“I think it’s best I deal with that, too,” Lou said. “With the involvement of organized crime, I’d expect some element of extortion or criminal coercion. But I’ll deal directly with Bingham. I shouldn’t have to warn you that these people are dangerous.”
“I learned that lesson all too well,” Laurie said.
“I’m too preoccupied with my end of the mystery to interfere,” Jack said. “What did you learn for me?”
“Plenty,” Lou said. He reached over to the corner of his desk and hefted a large book the size of a coffee-table art book. With a grunt, he handed it to Jack.
With a look of confusion, Jack cracked the book. “What the hell!” he commented. “What’s an atlas for?”
“Because you’re going to need it,” Lou said. “I can’t tell you how long it took me to scrounge one up here at police headquarters.”
“I don’t get it,” Jack said.
“My contact at the FAA was able to call someone who knew someone who works in a European organization that doles out landing and takeoff times all over Europe,” Lou explained. “They also get the flight plans and store them for over sixty days. Franconi’s G4 came to France from Equatorial Guinea.”
“Where?” Jack questioned as his eyebrows collided in an expression of total confusion. “I never even heard of Equatorial Guinea. Is it a country?”
“Check out page one hundred fifty-two!” Lou said.
“What’s this about a Franconi and a G4?” Laurie asked.
“A G4 is a private jet,” Lou explained. “I was able to find out for Jack that Franconi had been out of the country. We thought he’d been in France until I got this new information.”
Jack got to page 152 in the atlas. It was a map labeled “the Western Congo Basin,” covering a huge portion of western Africa.
“All right, give me a hint,” Jack said.
Lou pointed over Jack’s shoulder. “It’s this little tiny country between Cameroon and Gabon. The city that the plane flew out of is Bata, on the coast.” He pointed to the appropriate dot. The atlas depicted the country as mostly uninterrupted green.
Laurie got up from her chair and looked over Jack’s other shoulder. “I think I remember hearing about that country one time. I think that’s where the writer Frederick Forsyth went to write Dogs of War.”