Chapter 44
A good job as always, sweetheart,” Allen Busby said to the makeup artist as he admired his reflection in the lighted makeup mirror. “But a little more spray right here,” he said, indicating the top of his hair.
He’d gotten the idea for this unusual Saturday recording session last evening before going to the meat locker. He’d called his new ad man, whom he’d terrorized earlier in the week, and instructed him to reserve the studio and assemble the crew.
“Guarantee them overtime. Two new commercials. It shouldn’t take more than an hour. I want to be in and out. I have plans for the evening.”
That taken care of, he’d gone to the meat locker to watch the butchering of Malone.
Then, standing unseen in the background watching silently, he’d made certain that El Paso did as he’d been instructed.
He had, and Oz had left reassured that he’d made a good choice on the matter of Roland Malone.
He’d been too old school, too old, period.
And it was bad enough that he’d been seeing a therapist secretly, but having her in the restaurant had been the final straw.
He’d lost tens of millions today in that DEA raid. The entirety of the product had been seized. The three men he’d lost had been reliable in the past. But, in hindsight, they couldn’t have been all that good or they wouldn’t have been ambushed by either the feds or the Caballeros.
He’d had to alert his customer in St. Louis of the fiasco. Naturally, he’d been furious, but he would get over it, because he wanted to remain in Oz’s good graces.
Oz himself had learned of the debacle while winding up a gin rummy tournament at his country club. After reading the text from one of the survivors who’d escaped capture, he hadn’t let his outrage show. Instead, he’d invited several of the card players to join him for lunch.
Following that convivial meal, he’d gotten a massage, then had gone from the club to a fitting with his tailor. Now he was about to record a couple of new commercials.
Allen Busby had deliberately spread himself thin this rainy Saturday, in places where he’d been seen by many people. What would he know about a drug raid and the grisly murder of a known gangster except for what he’d seen on TV news?
Hair now perfect, he leaned in to the makeup mirror and peeled back his gums to check his teeth for trapped food, then pronounced himself ready. He strode down the hallway and into the studio, where the crew was double-checking camera positions and making last-minute adjustments to the lighting.
“Ready to roll,” Busby called up to the control booth, which was on an elevated platform. He gave a jaunty little wave to those behind the tinted glass.
The director’s voice boomed through the studio. “Mr. Busby is on set. Sound?”
“Here.”
“Ready to mike him?”
“Ready.”
Busby, who’d been adjusting his cuffs so that the jeweled cuff links would show, looked up as a man with a thin, stringy Fu Manchu mustache sauntered out of the shadowed perimeter of the studio.
As the man got closer, Busby saw that his eyes were bloodshot. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Where’s the regular guy?”
“He’s got the trots. Norovirus, I think they said.”
“Who said?”
“The agency. They called me at the last minute. I was available to fill in.” He ended on a take-it-or-leave-it shrug. “Ready? I’ll thread this up under your tie.” He was holding a lavalier mike and its battery pack.
Busby gave him a critical once-over, then looked up toward the control booth. “Does he know what he’s doing? He looks higher than a kite.”
“The agency said he was qualified. And this Saturday session came up so suddenly, we had to take who we could get.”
“Look, dude,” the mustached guy said, “I get paid just for showing up. If you don’t like me, call the agency and they’ll send somebody else, but it is Saturday, so…” Another I-don’t-give-a-fuck shrug.
Busby ground his molars, first for being addressed as “dude,” and second, because he hadn’t wanted to appear rattled over anything on this day of all days.
So, rather than make a big deal over this scruffy sound man, who no doubt was a user of the products he peddled, he said, “Get the mike on, please, and let’s get started. I’ve got a schedule to keep, you know.”
“You look taller on TV,” the man said as he stepped around him. He lifted his suit jacket in order to attach the battery pack to his belt, but then he jerked both Busby’s hands behind his back. “Hey! What are you doing?”
A metal bracelet snapped shut around his right wrist, then his left, and he realized with dismay that he’d been handcuffed. “What is this?”
From behind him, the man said, “Your schedule just got trashed, Oz.”
Upon hearing his moniker, every blood vessel in his body swelled and began thrumming. Was this a rival? Had the Caballeros sent an assassin? How had they learned his identity? El Paso? No, no, he didn’t know his identity.
If his flustered reaction was obvious, he hoped it appeared to be from indignation rather than fear. “You’ve made a big mistake. Do you have any idea who I am?”
“Allen Busby, the King of Cash. Everybody knows you.”
“Right. So you had better explain immediately just what the hell you think you’re doing.” He looked toward the control booth and yelled, “Who is this guy? Who hired him? If this is a prank, it isn’t funny.”
“Oh, I couldn’t agree more,” the guy said. “Felonies are no laughing matter.”
“Felonies?”
“Yeah, you know. Murder, conspiracy to commit murder, drug trafficking, probably insurance fraud, too, but it’s been a long day, and I’m tired.
Suffice to say that you’re in a world of hurt.
In fact…” The scraggly mustache brushed against his ear as the man added in a whisper, “Life as you know it is over.”
Busby’s heart began to pound. His mouth went dry. “Drug trafficking? Murder? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeeessss, you do,” he said in a soft sing-song. “Randy Nelson, Paul Adler, Mandy Adams, Roland Malone. All dead because you ordered it. And those are just the ones I know about.”
“You’re insane. Get these things off me,” Busby said through gnashing teeth. Struggling with the cuffs only made them bite into his flesh. He balled his hands into fists and punched the man behind him in the stomach, but, though he gave a soft whoof, the blow didn’t have much effect.
“Why isn’t somebody doing something?” he shouted into the studio. “Call my bodyguard.”
When none of the crew came to his rescue, he began to wrestle in earnest. The man stepped around to face him. Busby dipped his shoulder and continued shoving it into the man’s chest until he produced a pistol, aimed it at him, and said in a low, calm, voice, “Don’t move.”
Busby froze. “He’s got a gun!” His shrill, panicked voice echoed through the studio, and still no one rushed to help him. “I’m not armed. There are witnesses. Release me now, and whatever your beef is, we’ll work it out like gentlemen.”
“My beef? You gave the order for Roland Malone to kill my wife. Her name was Angela.”
Angela. With dawning realization and mounting fear, he watched the man peel off the mustache and drop it to the floor. He then popped out contact lenses that had made his eyes look bloodshot, leaving him with an unwavering, glacial stare rife with enmity.
“I’m Mitch Haskell. And you’re under arrest.”
“You’re Mitch Haskell?”
“I am. And you’re dead meat. However, you do have the right to remain silent.” All through the spiel, Busby was shouting questions and demands to the studio crew. When Mitch finished, he asked politely, “Do you understand your rights as I’ve recited them to you?”
“Of course I understand them. I’m a lawyer, remember. You’re going to be sorry for this. Very sorry. I’m going to sue your ass to high heaven. I haven’t done anything, certainly not murder. Drug trafficking? Like I have time for that.”
Mitch laughed. “See, I knew you weren’t really listening to the Miranda. You just said something that could be used against you in a court of law. You lied to police officers and federal agents.”
“Federal agents?”
Throughout the studio, crew members began removing their headsets and deserting their cameras and lights and other production equipment. Several came down the metal stairs from the control booth. All converged to form a semicircle around Busby.
Mitch said, “DEA, FBI, New Orleans PD narco unit.” As he named the various agencies, men and women in plainclothes raised their hands.
To them, Mitch said, “I’ll let y’all sort out who’s going to lock him up and charge him first. But I get dibs on booking him for my wife’s murder. That was in my jurisdiction.”
“Hey, Mitch? Tucker asked to talk to you.” An agent who’d been up in the director’s booth approached and extended a phone to him. Mitch took the phone and said into it, “I told you not to call me at work.”
Tucker snorted a laugh. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks. Your people were great. They hustled. Everyone was in place by the time he got here. Glad I caught you before you sent them to the FBO.”
Once Tucker had agreed to let him be in on the arrest, he told him that Busby had reserved the studio. Tucker had rerouted the agents he’d sent to the airfield and helped alert the other agencies while Mitch was making the mad drive to the city.
Tucker said, “I haven’t had time to ask how you knew he would be here.”
“I called the twenty-four/seven hotline he brags about, pretended to be a grateful client who wanted to thank him in person. I was told that Mr. Busby was getting ready for a recording session at five o’clock, but that my thanks would be passed along to him.
However, to trap a mole in our department who was on Malone’s payroll, I did make up some bullshit story about his jet taking off at six this evening. ”
“Did the ruse work?” Tucker asked.
“She’s in our jail.”
“Well, I heard you had Busby scared. You put on one hell of a performance.”
“Wasn’t a performance. Believe me, for a moment there, with that pistol in my hand…”