Chapter Fifty-Nine
WALT KIMBEL STEPPED out of the elevator, the polished soles of his Ferragamos clicking against the marble.
Much of his job was simply acting, and right now he had to act like he was not concerned about four dead cops, two dead dealers, a stack of Cuchillo’s Salvadoran hit men, and a terrorist attack at Dorado Freight, all of which had connections to Genyra Pharmaceuticals.
He adjusted the cuff on his tailored shirt sleeve, letting the gold Cartier peek out just enough to catch the light. He liked the heft of it. He liked the heft of everything these days: his watch, his car, his title. He wore them well.
He nodded once at the cluster of employees he passed—research scientists, marketing staff, the VP of sales—acknowledging them without slowing.
His expression was calibrated: confident, detached, just enough warmth to suggest leadership, not enough to invite conversation.
He wasn’t the CEO, but he moved like one.
Genyra Pharmaceuticals was surging. The messaging was back on track, thanks to Carolyn Boyle’s human-interest piece in The Times on life expectancy gains in Genyra’s Tulane wing.
Matheson was pleased enough to stop micromanaging for a few days.
The stock was up. The board was quiet. Kimbel had delivered.
He had kept the logistics humming, the DEA distracted, and the cartel’s product flowing through Dorado and Nectar like clockwork. The NOPD was taking hits, but Icy was managing the optics. That five mil was paying off.
And what of the killings? The attention was bad for business.
Too many unknowns; second- and third-order effects that were impossible to predict.
And the dead cops? That was regrettable, but in the end they were disposable.
Much like busboys in a Michelin-starred restaurant, they were necessary but forgettable. Bates would replace them.
He walked through the revolving door at the main building on the Genyra campus in Metairie, the building’s glass facade reflecting the late-afternoon sun.
The executive section of the parking lot was nearly empty.
Kimbel slid into the driver’s seat of his Mercedes AMG GT Coupe and tapped the infotainment screen to get Spotify blasting.
The smooth jazz of Chuck Mangione seemed appropriate this evening.
The drive was familiar. Eastbound on I-10, then north toward the exclusive acreage outside New Orleans.
Horse country. Old money. The kind of place where neighbors kept to themselves.
His home sat on twelve acres, tucked behind an iron gate and a line of cypress trees, ringed with security cameras and guarded by a neighborhood patrol force that carried serious firepower.
He passed the exit for Kenner, and eventually Lake Pontchartrain shimmered to his left. The Mercedes glided over the asphalt, the suspension absorbing every bump. He turned up the volume and let David Sanborn’s sax, mellow and smooth, fill the cabin.
His exit came up fast. He signaled out of habit and veered off the freeway onto a two-lane country road. The trees thickened. The houses grew farther apart. He passed a white-fenced pasture where a pair of chestnut horses grazed lazily.
He liked the quiet of this world.
He glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed an old-model station wagon with large tires behind him. It looked like a giant had stepped on an old Wagoneer. Vintage American. Maybe the beefed-up station wagon was a rare classic.
He turned onto a narrower road that dipped toward a culvert where the drainage ditch ran beneath the asphalt. The unfamiliar vehicle followed. He hadn’t seen it before. Probably belonged to a spoiled kid whose parents owned property out here.
The road narrowed over the culvert into a single lane.
But suddenly, there was no culvert. There was no road. There was only smoke, flying grit, and asphalt slamming into his windshield. Fumes filled the cabin and he felt his body surge against his seat belt as the airbags deployed with a brutal hiss, exploding into Kimbel’s chest and face.
A bout of nausea overwhelmed him and he vomited down the front of his suit and deflating airbag, confused by the realization that his Mercedes was half-submerged in a smoking crater. Reality had yet to seep in. David Sanborn was still playing his sax.
Before Kimbel could realize that his vehicle had been hit by an IED, a man was at the window pulling him out.
Kimbel’s wrists were zip-tied, then his ankles.
Moments later, he was thrown into the sturdy station wagon.
He was vaguely aware that someone had pressed what felt like an adhesive bandage to his neck.
The AMC Eagle’s tires crunched over gravel and pine needles as Walker turned off the county road and onto a narrow dirt track that wound through the woods.
The sun was low, bleeding orange through the canopy, casting long shadows across the windshield.
Behind him, Walt Kimbel slumped in the rear seat.
Walker wondered if the fentanyl patch would kill him.
The former SEAL drove deeper into the trees, past a rusted gate and a collapsed hunting blind, until the road ended in a clearing surrounded by cypress and oak. He killed the engine and stepped out. The air smelled of moss and spring rain.
He opened the rear passenger door and yanked Kimbel onto the dirt.
Kimbel blinked at him, face pale, lips cracked. “You’re making a mistake,” he croaked.
Walker dragged him to his feet and zip-tied his hands to the rack on top of the Eagle.
“Who the hell are you?” Kimbel asked, his speech slurred from the patch.
“I think you know,” Walker said.
Kimbel nodded slowly. “You’re the one they said was dead.”
“And you’re the chief commercial officer for Genyra Pharmaceuticals.
You oversee all business operations, including logistics, including certain pallets that arrive at your facility through Dorado, coming in with sugar and Snowball.
The cops get a cut to not just look the other way but to help transport and distribute. How am I doing so far?”
“I’m a businessman,” Kimbel said. “I don’t move anything. I manage distribution.”
Walker’s voice was low. “You move poison.”
Kimbel looked away. “You don’t understand how this works.”
Walker paced, scanning the woods. He turned back. “Then tell me how it works and you might just survive the day. I want names, places, process, all of it. You may even be able to work a plea deal or turn state’s evidence and avoid prison time, if you have something of value to trade.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Let’s talk about Nectar,” Walker said. “The sugar company.”
Kimbel hesitated.
“You’ll let me live?”
“Depends on your answers.”
“Did you give Dupuis and Gormley the same option?”
Walker remained silent, unholstering his Staccato.
“You can take solace in the fact that you really don’t have a choice.”
“Fuck! Okay, okay, just don’t fucking kill me. Nectar’s a partner. A sugar company. We combine certain pharma shipments coming up from Central America.”
Walker stepped closer, boots crunching on damp leaves. “I saw the pallets. I saw the codes and have the manifests. Don’t lie to me.”
“There’s more to it.”
Walker stepped in so that his face was just inches from Kimbel’s. “Tell me. Or you’ll die right here.”
Kimbel hesitated. “We have a deal, right? I tell you, and I live. Like a protected witness.”
“Just like that.”
“I can help you take these people down. I’m only a manager. You want the higher-ups, not me.”
“Let’s hear it.”
Kimbel cleared his throat. “I’m dying here. Can I get some water?”
“No.”
The executive swallowed and went on. “Nectar’s been around forever. It’s owned by a man named Fulgencio Vargas, but people call him Cuchillo. It’s a legit company with a major sugar refinery downriver.”
“What about them?”
“They bring product in via ship. It offloads at Dorado. They offload our product, separate it from the sugar.”
“By product you mean Snowball?”
A nod. “Pills from his factories down south.”
“Who moves it at Dorado?”
“Cops.”
“Their names?”
“Detective Gormley heads up that part of the operation.”
“Not anymore.”
“Fuck.”
“What about Bates?”
“Bates, I never should have listened to that guy.”
“Why?”
“He said he could handle it and now look at me.”
“I want to know about Genyra.”
“I make sure the pallets end up in our warehouse in Metairie and are coded into the system for distribution.”
“To where?”
“To pharmacies run by Vargas.”
“Real pharmacies?”
“Yes, but they are set aside and picked up by Vargas’s associates. He has people all over the country. That’s the genius; using a legitimate distribution network to transport illicit product.”
“And then, those Snowball pills go to dealers?”
“I don’t know. I lose sight of it at that point.”
“But you get paid for your distribution.”
“That’s the part where I can help you. As a protected informant.”
Walker stood, pacing again. “You’re responsible for the death of my friend’s son.”
“That’s what this is about? That Staub kid?”
“It’s about more than that now.”
“Listen, I’m responsible for keeping Genyra profitable. That’s my job. I do what Derek Matheson, our CEO, tells me to do. He partnered up with Vargas. My job is to pad the books. I can be a hell of a witness for you when you take this to law enforcement.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, law enforcement isn’t a lot of help around here.”
“The feds, then. The FBI.”
“Are they in on it too?”
“What? No! Fuck, they are just a pain in the ass.”
Walker stopped.
“What about the Afghan?”
“The who? What are you talking about?”
“Before I sent your buddy Gormley over the edge of the pier, he told me about a man they hire when they want more separation between law enforcement and someone they need removed from the board.”
“I don’t know shit about that, man. I swear.”
“But you knew about Connor Staub.”
“Oh shit, I didn’t know they were going to kill him. There were supposed to just scare him off.”
“They went for a more permanent solution.”
“That fuckin’ kid has caused us so many problems. Hey, I’ve told you everything I know. Let me live and I’ll go with you to the DA.”
“Isaacson? She’s in on it too, isn’t she?”
Kimbel paused and gathered his thoughts.
“I really don’t know. That’s between her and Matheson. They had an affair. Ruined both their marriages. I stay out of that part.”
“I think I’ve got what I need from you.”
Walker held up a plastic bag and stood over Kimbel. He removed a handful of plastic-wrapped drugs. “I got these from that trap house in the Ninth.”
“Where you killed Rayne and Hendrick?”
“The white ones in the plastic wrap are Snowball.”
Kimbel looked away.
“That trap house had boxes of drugs. I grabbed these fentanyl patches when I was in there. I didn’t know at the time that I’d actually use them.”
“I can give you more.”
“Yeah?”
“They know who you are.”
“Who does?”
“The cops, the FBI, Matheson.”
“Who am I?”
“Some kind of commando or CIA or whatever. Some kind of mercenary. That’s what the cops think.”
“If I’m a mercenary, then who hired me?”
“They think it was the cartels. That’s from the DA. They think this is some rival cartel beef with you taking out the competition.”
Walker opened the fentanyl derma pack.
“What did you call Connor again?”
“What?”
“You called him ‘that fuckin’ kid.’ That’s just what he was, a kid. Just like thousands of other kids who die because of what you call a ‘product.’ I want you to experience that same sort of high.”
Walker ripped Kimbel’s shirt open and slapped the fentanyl derma pack over his heart.
“Wait, goddamn you!” he yelled. He thrashed against the side of the Eagle in a vain attempt to knock the patch off.
Walker stuck another one on his stomach.
Kimbel screamed, but the scream quickly turned to a whimper, his voice slurring in a way that made it hard to decipher. “They don’t get it… the cops. But, I do. You aren’t a mercenary. But you are a killer.”
Kimbel stopped thrashing. His legs had given out, and he hung against the side of the vehicle, hands stretched over his head to where they were connected to the roof rack.
Walker put another fentanyl patch under Kimbel’s left armpit, then his right. He began to convulse and foam from the mouth.
“How’s the customer experience?” Walker asked.
Kimbel gagged on the fluid bubbling up from his lungs and attempted to mumble something.
“What?”
“Have you no honor?” the dying man asked.
“I left honor behind a long time ago, friend.”
“You…”
“I what?”
“You have no idea what you’re up against.”
Kimbel’s head slumped forward.
Walker felt for a pulse and looked for signs of breathing.
He let Kimbel hang from the rack for a few minutes as he went over all of what he had just learned.
Then he cut the Genyra executive from the rack and let him fall to the ground.
“One step closer.”
Walker shut the rear passenger door and got back behind the wheel, leaving Walt Kimbel to rot on the forest floor.
I left honor behind a long time ago.