Upside Down

79

Harvey Suggs sat at a small table in a private dining room at a family-owned restaurant he frequented. The police captain had decided that he needed a sit-down meal and a stiff drink or two so he could calmly examine this mess and figure out his escape opportunities.

Suggs wasn't in the catbird seat, but neither was he dumb enough to be standing around at the bottom of the hill waiting to catch whatever rolled down.

If he played this right, handled it himself, nobody could point a finger at him when Bennett vanished. He remembered the words of the famous Louisiana gangster Sam Manelli: “Three people can be trusted to keep a secret… if two of them are dead.”

Manseur was going to have to cover a lot of ground before he could trace anything back to Bennett, which would be a dead end. The Feds had compiled a lot in a short time, but suspicion and proof were different animals. Suggs had never banked one dime of the money he'd gotten under the table from Bennett or anyone else. The waiter brought his scotch, interrupting Suggs's worried train of thought.

“Ten minutes on the trout,” he said.

“No hurry, Angelo. If you have any steak scraps…”

“Of course, Captain Suggs. A bag for Heinzie.”

When the door opened a minute after the waiter left, Arturo Estrada and his girlfriend, or wife, or whatever she was, came in.

“What are you doing here?” Suggs demanded.

“We need some information,” Arturo said.

“Meeting is not a good idea.” Suggs was annoyed.

“Mr. Bennett says you won't take his calls.”

Marta made Suggs very nervous. The woman was remarkably beautiful, and that was part of it, but he knew that she was as cold and as proficient a killer as any creature Nature had ever designed. Her big brown eyes were like wet river stones, and when she stared at him he was sure she was reading his mind.

“I can't talk to Bennett. Didn't Tin Man explain that?”

“Tin Man doesn't have the gift of explaining things,” the woman said. “He is a dumb son of a bitch, who sees only his own small part of things. He mentioned two federal officers showed up to make trouble. Tin Man told Mr. Bennett that you put someone else in charge of the lawyer's and Amber Lee's deaths. Mr. Bennett isn't sure this is a good thing. He is a little bit nervous. He liked it better the way it was.”

“Mr. Bennett doesn't get to decide how things are done. The Feds are all over this now. I had no choice. They know certain things that they shouldn't know. Remind Jerry that I had it all under control until that little hit-and-run. You shouldn't have run over the deputy marshal and his wife.”

“What are you talking about?” Marta asked. “What deputy and his wife?”

“Uptown last night is what I mean. Your stupid hit-and-run brought in the FBI and Deputy U.S. Marshal Winter Massey. It turns out that Deputy Trammel and his wife were related to Kimberly and Faith Ann Porter. And the child was a close friend of Massey's son. She called the son and told him that cops killed her mother. That was how the Feds showed up at Canal Place.”

“Cops?” Arturo said. “How did she think that? I knew she wasn't in her mother's office.”

“ The Winter Massey?” Marta asked, smiling.

“Tell Jerry I can't talk to him about this or anything else for a while.” When Suggs said that, he had it all. His mind played out the scenario, ending with patting down the dirt over Bennett's grave. “Tell him that I have to talk to him face-to-face. Tell him to make sure he doesn't have a tail. Tell him to meet me at his lake house tonight at ten.”

“Tell me more about the Feds,” Marta said. “Winter Massey.”

“Winter Massey is about the worst possible man to have on your ass. Ask Sam Manelli about it.”

Marta nodded impassively. “What else?”

“What do you mean, what else?”

“Tell me everything you know about Massey and the agent. Where they are staying, what weapons they have, how they communicate. Everything.”

“Why?” Suggs said.

“Because I asked,” she said.

It didn't take long for Suggs to tell the killers everything he knew about Massey and the FBI agent.

Marta said, locking eyes with Suggs, “Sometimes I wonder about things. Like why would the spying FBI agents all stay out of sight after Agent Adams told you about them watching? And I wonder why you would have Mr. Bennett go all the way out to the boathouse when you could meet closer?”

“Sometimes I wonder about things too,” Suggs shot back. “Like what has Bennett done to get rid of any incriminating evidence? He did tell you that the Feds came to ask him questions? He must have told you that he didn't do very well in the interview. He mentioned my name to them. I am sure he would never give them your names.”

Marta held Suggs's eyes for a long time. Icily, she smiled. “Maybe near the lake is the safest place for Mr. Bennett to meet you. We should all be thinking about our safety. And our futures.”

“Maybe we'll see each other again real soon,” Suggs said. “I like the way you”-he tilted his glass to her in salute-“think.”