Lassiter 03 - False Dawn by Levine Paul

Author:Levine, Paul [Levine, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780553565041
Google: 0CkNAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 0553565044
Publisher: Crimeline
Published: 1993-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

15

THE POISON IS IN THE TAIL

But I don’t like Washington in the summer …” I said.

Robert Foley didn’t seem to care.

“… or the rest of the year, for that matter.”

He sat on the vinyl sofa, reading a newspaper, ignoring me. His tie was at half mast, and his white shirt wrinkled. His creased face was pale and drawn. Maybe baby-sitting for me was a tiring job. Around us, a potpourri of government agents went about their tasks. There were customs inspectors in uniform, DEA agents in plainclothes, one with a German shepherd, and a variety of federal employees wearing photo ID badges and toiling at various secretive tasks in that governmental tempo that is somewhere between slow motion and a dead halt. In the center of the room, a dozen cubicles each contained eight miniature television monitors. Bleary-eyed women scanned the screens, occasionally whispering into their headsets. We were deep in the bowels of the airport in a restricted federal area. The sign on the door said simply, SPECIAL SERVICES.

I was watching the inside of the door when Foley said, “You don’t have to go with me. Leave now if you want. I’ll get you a cab.”

“Uh-huh. Only the cab driver has a different kind of license, right?”

“What?”

“A license to kill.”

“Lassiter, you see too many movies. We haven’t done that sort of thing in years. At least not domestically.”

On the wall was a panel with numbers one through fifty. Four or five numbers were blinking at once. Another lighted panel showed arriving and departing international flights with a matching number from one to fifty.

“Okay, I think I’ll leave now,” I told him. “I need to put some ice on this knee.”

Foley went back to his newspaper.

I stood, straightened my bum leg, and said, “Well, I guess this is good-bye. Next time you’re in Miami, do me a favor. Don’t call me.”

“Oh, you’ll be seeing me at the trial.”

“What trial?”

Foley put down the newspaper, creasing the folds as if it were the flag at Arlington. “Yours, pal. For the murder of Francisco Crespo.”

The board showed a flight arriving from Bogota. Three numbers started blinking. Had I heard him right? He couldn’t have said what I thought he said.

“Your prints are all over that trailer, Lassiter. You tell us a cock-and-bull story about a man dressed in brown running away. There were a hundred people in that park, and nobody saw your mystery man.”

“A hundred people from south of the border, but not one green card in the bunch. Of course nobody saw anything.”

Foley beamed. He looked genuinely happy. “Oh, I wouldn’t put it that way. Three witnesses saw you go into Crespo’s trailer and heard two muffled popping sounds maybe a minute later.”

“Bullshit! It was the other way around. I went in after—”

“That’s not what the witnesses say.”

I sunk back into the sofa. My knee throbbed. “I take it back. There’ll be three green cards in that park by next week.”

“Sorry, Lassiter, but you’ll be indicted for second-degree murder. As the English say, a nasty bit of business.

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