The Borzoi Killings

24.

Always quietly watchful, Juan sensed that Raquel Rematti was uneasy. Usually she was a woman who looked steadily into people’s eyes. Instead, when Juan sat at the plastic table across from her and Theresa Bui, Raquel was staring at a sheet of paper in front of her.

“Raquel,” he said, “is something wrong?” He glanced at Theresa. Over the last few weeks he had become comfortable with her presence at these meetings. He was an instinctively smart man: he knew Raquel could not defend him all by herself and recognized that Theresa brought skills that could help Raquel and him. But Theresa’s face, usually conveying compassion and sympathy, was at this moment blank, her eyes unblinking.

“I’ve always said, Juan, that you need to tell me the truth. I have to know what the truth is to help you.”

Juan gazed steadily at her, nothing evasive in his expression. “I have, Raquel.”

“I’m not sure, Juan. A knife was found in New York City. The fingerprints and DNA on it match your fingerprints and DNA.”

“I washed dishes in a restaurant in New York before I come out here.”

“You told me that, I know that already. But listen to me: a large knife, almost the size of a sword, was used in an attack in the city. It has your fingerprints. And it has your DNA. The victim’s injuries were like those Brad Richardson sustained, although the man didn’t die.”

“Raquel, one night a waiter who didn’t like me told me he was going to get me after my shift. Why does he say this? I don’t know. I didn’t do anything to him. He said, ‘I’ll get you outside.’ I was afraid he had friends, because he say he did. I don’t have any friends, no one to help me. So I took a knife with me. The place is uptown, it was dark. I was on the sidewalk. I had to go to the subway, long walk. The man was across the street. Two guys with him. They run at me, and I run away. Then they all around me. They have knives. I take out my knife. That’s how it happened.”

“What happened, Juan?”

“I hurt them, Raquel. And then, I don’t know, I ran away.”

“What did you do with the knife?”

“The guy cut my hand. I couldn’t hold onto it.” He held up his right hand. On the web between the index finger and the thumb was a white scar. Raquel hadn’t noticed it before.

“What happened then?”

“I didn’t go back to the restaurant ever again. The cops were all over the place. I was afraid.”

“How did you get out here?”

“In a car. There are men who drive us from the city out here. I asked, I paid them money, and they took me.”

“Did you know the police were looking for you?”

“I know they were looking for me, Raquel. People tell me the cops know who I was. But all I do is protect myself.”

“Juan, they kept the knife and then, when you were arrested out here, your fingerprints and DNA matched the ones on the knife.”

“I understand. Those men, Raquel, they were trying to hurt me. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“The man who was stabbed with the knife wasn’t someone who worked in a restaurant. He was a police captain’s son out for the night for fun with friends.”

Juan said, “The guy who came after me was called Chico. He worked in the restaurant.”

“Are you sure? Really sure? None of the three guys worked in the restaurant. They were all brats who were looking for a good time, for a thrill.”

“I don’t know, Raquel. It was dark. I thought it was Chico, the waiter.”

“The cop’s son spent four weeks in the hospital, Juan. He’ll never be able to move his arm again. All the nerves and muscles and tendons are cut. When a cop’s kid is hurt, they never stop looking for the guy who did it.”

“They were trying to hurt me, Raquel. They wanted to kill me.”

“That doesn’t matter. The police and now the prosecutors out here have a knife you used in New York in the way someone out here used a knife on Brad Richardson and the Borzois.”

“I didn’t hurt Mr. Richardson. I hurt those people, not Mr. Richardson.”

There was a pause in the room. “Why didn’t you ever mention this before?” Theresa asked.

Without any hostility, Juan looked from Theresa to Raquel. “I wanted you to like me. Both of you. So I didn’t tell you that.”

“And there’s something else, Juan,” Raquel said.

“What?”

“I need to know your name.”

“Juan Suarez.”

“Are you sure?”

“Juan Suarez, Raquel.”

“Is that your name?”

“Juan Suarez.”

“Is your name Anibal Vaz?”

“No, Raquel.”

“Didn’t you once tell Joan Richardson that your name was Anibal?”

“Did she tell you that?”

Theresa repeated Raquel’s question: “Did you tell Joan Richardson that your name is Anibal Vaz?”

He was still calm. “No.”

Raquel was totally focused on him. “Did you ever sell drugs?”

“I did, a little.”

“Where?”

“In New York.”

“Only there?”

“No, Raquel, a little out here, too.”

How disarming he is, Raquel thought, how much like one of those men whose simplicity and attractiveness and sincerity were so compelling-men like the engaging Ted Bundy who was so successful in persuading so many women to go to private places with him before he killed them. A deadly charmer.

Normally skeptical about the stories most of her clients told her, Raquel wanted to believe him. “When did you do that?” she asked.

“Why are you asking me these things, Raquel?”

“Because one of the things I have to do to protect you is to see whether there is information you can give to the prosecutors about other people. I do that because if you have information about other people that’s valuable to Harding then she might give you some kind of break.”

“What kind of break?”

“We’re not there yet. She and I haven’t talked about that yet. I can’t get there unless you have information about crimes other people did. They won’t give you any kind of break, whatever it might be, until I tell them what you might know about what other people have done. It’s a step at a time. We go first.” She paused. “Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“So talk to me.”

He held her gaze. “Tom Golden, the guy I used to work for before the Richardsons ask me to work, paid me in cash. I don’t think he’s supposed to do that. So did the Richardsons.”

“That kind of thing is not important, Juan. Not at all. What you need to know is something, anything, far more important.”

“I’m not sure, Raquel.”

“Let me try this, Juan. Who gave you the drugs to sell?”

“Some guy named Jocko.”

“Jocko,” she repeated. “How about some guy named Oscar?”

“Oscar?”

“Was there a man named Oscar?”

Juan leaned backward in the small, cafeteria-style plastic chair. “Oscar?” he said.

“They know about someone named Oscar. Oscar runs a big drug gang, in the city and here. They think you know Oscar.”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t? They have a tape of you and this Oscar they’re interested in at the Starbucks on the Montauk Highway.”

“I do know that Oscar, Raquel.”

“How much do you know about him?”

“Raquel, please listen to me. What I know about Oscar is that he had his men try to kill me here and that he’ll do it again if he thinks I talk about him. I don’t want to die here.”