“I heard that he plans to retire after his term is up,” pointed out Puller.
“He’s also planning to join this big-ass lobbying firm to fund his golden years. Anything messes that up, he’s SOL.”
“I thought members of Congress had to wait before they could lobby the government,” said Pine.
“The way it was explained to me, he won’t be directly lobbying anyone. But a wink, a nod, a phone call, a whispered word. That shit’s easy to get around. It’s why they wrote the law that way. To make it look like they were doing something positive, only there are holes in it big enough to drive a semi through.”
“You seem to have checked that out pretty thoroughly,” noted Puller.
“I like to know what I’m dealing with,” said Sands.
“Meaning what exactly?”
“Meaning exactly what I just said.”
“So would drug dealing qualify as besmirching the family’s reputation?” asked Pine.
“Who says I’m dealing drugs?”
“You say you’re not?”
“No, I’ll just sit here and confess to two feds. You want it in writing or is verbal okay?”
Puller leaned in even further. “I’m going to tell you something and I want your opinion, all right?”
Sands looked surprised by this but nodded. “Okay.”
“Tony Vincenzo is a pill maker. That’s beyond doubt. I’ve got two of his stooges cooling their heels in the stockade at Fort Dix. Plus, we found a ton of evidence at his dad’s old home. That’s the first point. The second point is we have encountered extraordinary opposition from both state and federal platforms to our investigation. My question to you: Why would a run-of-the-mill drug op trigger so many players on the other side with the intent of burying the truth?”
Sands took a sip of coffee before answering. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s not a run-of-the-mill drug operation.”
“So is that penthouse on Billionaires’ Row a heroin silo or what?”
“No, that’s just a playpen, a perk for the faithful.”
Pine noted that Sands’s despair had faded and his confidence bolstered as the conversation had veered to this topic. But his features betrayed that maybe he had said too much.
“Then you must be one of the faithful. So tell us, where do you direct that faith?” asked Pine.
Sands leaned forward. “I don’t want any part of this, okay?”
“Do you want part of prison?” said Puller.
“You have no proof of anything.”
“I’ve got witnesses ready to rat your ass out, Sands.”
“Who?”
“You really think I’m going to tell you that?”
“You’re bluffing. You’ve got nothing.”
“Then walk out of here right now,” said Pine. “There’s the door. Keep in mind, they got to a guy in a federal prison. Keep in mind they got to your friend, Sheila. Keep in mind that Lindsey is in on it and she strikes me as a ‘survive at all costs’ kind of gal. So now that you’ve been seen with us, how long do you think you have?”
“You’re trying to scare me.”
“I’m giving you facts. If the facts scare you, so be it.”
Sands glanced at the door. “You’d really just let me walk out of here?”
“Sure,” said Puller. “But before you go, you have any idea where Tony Vincenzo is?”
“No. I haven’t seen him in about a week.”
“And how do you know him? You didn’t say.”
“We met a while back. Hung out. He’s cool.”
“And why do you have access to the penthouse if you’re not contributing to the cause?” said Pine. “It didn’t strike me as a freebie sort of place. What’s the price of admission?”
Sands shrugged and stared down at his coffee.
“You can understand our skepticism that you’re clean, Jeff, right?” said Puller. “Do you know who owns that penthouse?”
“No.”
“Who told you about it? Who said you could go there?”
“Some guys. I forget their names.”
“I doubt they’ll forget yours. Well, I think we’re done here, Jeff. Have a nice life, however short it might be.”
Puller rose, and Pine did likewise. Sands looked up at them.
“You’re just going to leave me here by myself?”
Puller looked at Pine and then said, “You said you’re clean, we have no grounds to hold you. What do you expect us to do? You said before you had someplace to go. So go.”
They moved toward the door.
“Look, hey, guys.”
They turned back.
A pale Sands, the jauntiness struck clean from him, rose and joined them. “I don’t want to die, okay?”
“So what do you do about it?” said Pine. “Because the only way we can help you is if you help us. You’re a college boy. You’re smart enough to grasp that concept.”
Sands glanced nervously around. A few of the customers were staring at him. “Can we go somewhere and talk about this? Maybe we can figure something out.”
“Sure,” said Puller as he laid some cash down for their coffees. He gripped Sands by the arm and nodded at Pine. “Check the back. We can’t take any chances with him.”
Pine cautiously exited out the back door, and did a recon of the area behind the restaurant. Her gaze took in all sectors, sight lines, and hiding places. Satisfied, she crept back to the door and called out, “Clear.”
Puller came out with Sands.
“We can go back to my place,” said Pine.
Sands said, “Where’s that—”
He didn’t finish due to the rifle round slamming into his head. It passed through the back of his skull and plunged right into Puller. Both men dropped to the ground.
“John!” cried out Pine.
Sands was clearly dead.
And it looked like John Puller might be, too.
Chapter 44
PINE HAD NEVER LIKED HOSPITALS ever since she nearly died in one as a child back in Georgia. She had been in and out of consciousness in the ambulance that had taken her there. Bright lights, masked people, tubes and lines being inserted in her.
Her anguished and sobbing mother.
The race down the hallway on the gurney, the white, antiseptic room, strangers hurtling around her, machines beeping, overhead lights like a cluster of suns, so intense they hurt, so she closed her eyes and then there was a prick of something, another something covered her mouth.
Dark.
Then she rose again, like Jesus, or at least her tired mind had remembered this little tidbit from vacation Bible school.
Her mother had been there. Her father. Others. A man with a white coat, a smiling nurse.
She would live, it seemed.
Now she sat in the visitors room at the hospital where the ambulance had taken Puller. She had ridden over with him, every memory of her own frantic ambulance ride coming back to her in waves conjured from thirty years ago.
She held his hand, whispered encouragement into his ear, unsure if he could hear her, whether he was actually conscious. But she had felt him squeeze back, however weakly. And then he was whisked off for emergency surgery.