Greg Iles - The Devils Punchbowl

“So, what now? Is this the end of it?”

“Oh, no. Today’s a big day, my friend. A red-letter day. I'’ll be in touch about what I need from you.”

Shad rises behind his desk as I move toward the door.

“Whatever you want, Penn. You can count on me one hundred percent.”

“Oh, I know that.”

He clears his throat. “What about the original of that photo? The negative, or the disc or whatever?”

“Let’s see how things go. I'’ll make my decision later.”

I turn and walk through the doorway, then stop and poke my head back through it. Shad is studying the photograph like a man being forced to peer into the darkest corner of his soul.

“One more thing,” I say quietly.

“What?” he says without looking up.

“Soren Jensen. You just pled him down to probation and a drug treatment program. He doesn’'t spend one more day in jail.”

“He’s out on bail now.”

“Say it,” I tell him.

“Done. Probation.”

“Stay by your phone. I'’ll be in touch.”

CHAPTER

66

Caitlin is sitting at the kitchen table, poring over the Po file like a novel she can’t put down. One hour ago, Kelly sent a copy of the data on the USB thumb drive to his Signal Corps friend, who warned us that it could take longer to crack than the SD cards. In the meantime, Kelly and I have been discussing how best to use the results, should they prove to be as incriminating as we believe they will be.

“Let’s just assume,” Caitlin says, abruptly dropping the file and joining our conversation, “that the thumb drive is what you think it is. Conclusive proof of systematic money laundering by Golden Parachute Gaming Corporation, and that it incriminates both Sands and Po.”

“Okay.”

She smiles like a woman with a secret. “Proof is no longer our problem. Chief Logan could arrest Sands at that moment for money laundering. He could arrest him right now for dogfighting based on Ben Li’s pictures, and the district attorney to boot.”

“Keep going.”

“The problem is Edward Po.”

“How so?”

“What is your worst fear at this point?”

I think about this for a few seconds. “Legally, I guess the worst

scenario would be for Po to actually show up for the sting, and for Hull to grant Sands immunity in exchange for his testimony. Hull might grab Sands and keep him out of our reach for a long time using national security as a justification.”

“Hull has made that deal already, right? I mean, would Sands lure Po here without a signed plea agreement? Something Hull can’t renege on?”

“No. You’re right.”

“On the other hand, if Po doesn’'t show up for this Roman-spectacle freak show they have planned, Hull will likely take down Sands as a consolation prize, right?”

“If he can. Hull has tolerated enough of Sands’s crimes that Sands may have significant leverage over him.”

“Can Hull stop the State of Mississippi from pursuing murder charges against Sands?”

“Hard to imagine,” I say thoughtfully.

“Not for me,” says Kelly. “Post-9/11? Hull’s task force is part FBI, part Homeland Security, remember?”

“Yes.”

“What if they designate Sands as some kind of special informant to the task force? Hell, they could put him on the payroll of the CIA. They could say he’s been working for them all along. You’ve got to think about how the world has changed, Penn. I mean, Sands could disappear, and you’d never even know where he was. They could do it.”

“

That'’s

my worst fear. Sands walks away from both murders and never suffers a day for all the hell he brought down on this town.”

Caitlin threads her fingers together, then twists her arms inside out to stretch. Through a grimace of pain, I see the gleam of satisfaction in her eyes. “So the person you really need to be able to control is—”

“William Hull,” I finish. “The real architect of this clusterfuck.”

“How do you get that?”

I sigh heavily. “Hull has definitely pushed the envelope, but given the nature of his target, the government may sweep a lot of that under the rug. You have to get guys like Hull to hang themselves.”

“By?”

“Wearing a wire. You get them somewhere they feel safe, lead

them into saying things, and let them convict themselves. But he won'’t do that with me.”

“So, what’s your plan?”

“Hull is probably in town already, prepping for tonight’s sting. I'm going to demand a meeting with him and find out the details of his plea agreement with Sands.”

“Using the thumb drive for leverage?”

“If it’s what I think it is. I can threaten to arrest Sands based on that evidence and blow Hull’s Po operation, unless he modifies the plea agreement.”

“But if he calls your bluff, and you blow the operation, Po walks away. Right?”

“Right.”

“And you told me yourself he’s the bigger target. The greater of two evils.”

“Yes. I just want Sands more.”

Caitlin’s smile vanishes. “So do I.”

“I'm also going to demand that two Natchez plainclothes detectives remain in Sands’s presence right up until the moment of the sting. That way, if Po doesn’'t show, we can bust Sands before he has a chance to flee.”

“But if Po does show—and the plea agreement remains unchanged—you have your original problem. Sands vanishes into the federal system, and we might never see him again.”

“Right.”

Caitlin sets aside the file in her lap and lets the blanket fall away from her shoulders. She’s wearing one of my dress shirts and nothing else, but at this moment, even Kelly is looking only at her eyes, which gleam with intensity.

“What if I could tell you a way to get both Sands and Hull on tape, discussing all the shit that Sands has pulled this past week?”

“Is this a trick question?” Kelly asks.

Caitlin shakes her head, then picks up the stack of pages she’s been reading the past few hours. “There’s a direct pipeline into the heart of Sands’s operation. One that’s never even crossed his paranoid mind.”

“Quinn?” says Kelly. “We’'ve thought of that. Hull certainly has too. If Po doesn’'t show, he’ll flip Quinn against Sands.”

“Not Quinn,” she says, smiling with supreme confidence. “Jiao.”

“Jiao?” Kelly echoes. “The girl?”

“Yes.”

“The one who let Walt live?”

“Exactly. Jiao Po.”

“You think she’d turn against Sands?” I ask.

Caitlin leans over and holds up a printout of Sands giving Linda Church oral sex. “Don’t you?”

Kelly sucks his bottom lip, thinking hard. “Okay, I get it. But still…”

“Jiao has been living in New Orleans the whole time Sands has been in Natchez. Even before that, when he was opening other casinos along the river. She only moved up here after Hurricane Katrina forced her out of her house down there. I don'’t think she has any idea what Sands’s been up to all that time. Not as far as the women, anyway. The dogfighting she may not mind, since her uncle’s always done it.” Caitlin looks at me. “You talked to her the morning your balloon was shot down, right? You saw them together. How did they seem?”

I think back to that morning in Sands’s drug-lord-style mansion. “She walked in on her own. He wasn'’t expecting her. He let her do some of the talking, but he seemed annoyed that she’d come in.”

Caitlin nods knowingly.

“She threatened me too, though. Subtly, but she left no doubt about what she meant.”

“That doesn’'t surprise me. Women will go to amazing lengths to protect their family unit, or what they perceive as that. When women kill, it’s usually to protect. Right, Mr. Prosecutor?”

“You’re right.”

“I’'ve seen that in war zones,” Kelly says. “Okay, I'm buying it. If Jiao got angry enough at Sands, that same instinct might make her try to take him down.”

“I think this girl is very confused,” Caitlin says. “She’s only twenty-seven. And she’s about to stand by while her lover delivers the uncle who practically raised her to the American government. If I can shake her faith in Sands, I think we might be surprised at what she might do.”

“Whoa,” I say, seeing where this is going at last. “What do you think you’re about to try?”

“I'm just going to talk to her. Face-to-face. A little girl talk.”

“Caitlin—”

“I like it,” says Kelly. “Shit, where’s the harm?”

“Are you serious? Caitlin would be risking her life. The sting’s tonight. What can we really hope to get this girl to do, even if you turn her?”

Caitlin smiles. “Wear a wire, of course.”

Now Kelly shakes his head. “That, I can’t see. Jiao’s been around these guys a long time. She knows what would happen if they caught her wearing a wire.”

“But they won'’t! They won'’t even

check

her. That'’s the beauty of this.”

I hold up both hands, trying to calm Caitlin down. “You’ve got a good idea, but it won'’t work that way. Jiao won'’t know how to steer the conversation. She doesn’'t know what we need in a legal sense.”

“A discussion of murder? What’s hard about that?”

“Between Hull and Sands? How does she engineer that? I think I’'ve got a better idea. Thanks to your inspiration.”

Caitlin looks skeptical. “What is it?”

“I knew this cop in Houston. He told me about a sting they pulled on a mob guy once. Superparanoid. Nobody could get close to him with a wire, swept his houses all the time. But they took their time and got an informant close to him, and he got a feel for the guy’s habits. Based on that, they prewired several outdoor spots he liked to visit when he needed to talk to somebody. And the night before they knew a big discussion was going down, they wired them all. They used two dozen recorders, all told, but they got him.”

“How does that relate to Jiao?” Caitlin asks.

“We don'’t need two dozen recorders. We only need two.”

Caitlin is shaking her head, but Kelly is nodding, his tactical sense kicking in.

“I'm going to demand the meeting I told you about a few minutes ago. But not just with Hull. I'm going to demand that Sands be there too. He won'’t want to come, but if the thumb drive is what we think it is, I can make it happen. I pressure Hull, Hull pressures Sands.”

Caitlin’s listening now.

“There’s only one place Sands is going to feel safe in a meeting like that,” Kelly says.

She blinks in silence. “The

Magnolia Queen

?”

“You got it,” I say. “And so far as I know, there are only two places on that casino boat not being recorded by surveillance equipment twenty-four hours a day. The first is Sands’s office, where Kelly and I talked to him. And the second is—”

“The torture room,” Caitlin says. “The Devil’s Punchbowl. Jesus.”

“If Jiao will hide voice-activated recorders in those two rooms, I can do the rest. Fifteen minutes alone with Hull and Sands, and I'’ll have them both by the balls.”

“And you know what happens then,” Kelly says, watching Caitlin like a hopeful teacher.

She smiles. “Their hearts and minds will follow.”

Kelly laughs and looks at his watch. “Right now, Jiao Po is taking a PiYo class at Mainstream Fitness.”

“Are you kidding?” I ask.

Kelly shakes his head. “Hell, no. She’s like a Mafia wife. People are dying left and right, and she’s worried about her cellulite.”

“She doesn’'t have any,” Caitlin says. “I’'ve seen the pictures. Is that where I approach her?”

Kelly shakes his head. “She likes to go down to the coffee bar on Franklin Street after her workout, for green tea and a bran muffin.”

“That'’s it,” I say, squeezing my right hand into a fist.

“I have a feeling,” says Caitlin, “that her muffin won'’t be going down so well today.”

CHAPTER

67

Caitlin is sitting at a small, round table in the Natchez Coffee Bar, a long, narrow space downtown, not far from the club where Jiao Po takes her PiYo class. Jiao sits across the table, not an arm’s length away, her eyes deep and remote. People have often told Caitlin that her skin resembles porcelain, but Jiao’s skin is perfect, without blemish. She radiates a self-possession that Caitlin finds intimidating, and her light eyes seem startlingly alive in the Chinese face. The coffee bar is almost empty, but when Caitlin asked to sit with Jiao, the woman did not object. Only when Caitlin identified herself did Jiao’s eyes rise to take her in.

“Is anyone watching you?” Caitlin asks. “Any of Sands’s men, I mean?”

Kelly has already assured Caitlin that Jiao isn’t being tailed, but Caitlin wants to make sure.

“What do you want?” Jiao asks, regarding her coolly. “A human interest story for your newspaper?”

“No. I want to show you something. A photograph.”

Jiao rises from the table.

“You stayed in New Orleans too long,” Caitlin says quickly. “I know you must suspect about the women.”

The girl slows almost imperceptibly.

“I know you went to Cambridge, Ms. Po. I know you don'’t miss

much. But sometimes we blind ourselves intentionally to things we don'’t want to see.”

Jiao stops and looks back, her body utterly motionless. “What does this photograph show?”

Caitlin shakes her head. “You have to see it. Either you have something to fear or you don'’t. I'm not here to hurt you. Only people you trust can do that.”

Jiao steps back to the table with regal poise and gives Caitlin an impatient look. “Well?”

“Will you sit down?”

Jiao sighs lightly, then takes her seat again. “Show me.”

Caitlin takes a five-by-seven manila envelope from her bag and removes the bathroom-mirror photograph of Sands screwing Linda Church. With an eerie sense of detachment, she slides the photo across the table, just as Penn told her he did with Shad Johnson.

Jiao doesn’'t flinch or even blink. After a few seconds, Caitlin can’t tell if the woman’s breathing.

“Is this the only one?” Jiao asks at last.

“No.”

“Show me.”

Caitlin removes five more photographs, each showing Sands having sex with a different woman, every one an employee on the

Magnolia Queen.

Jiao must have seen many of these women over the past few weeks. The final photo shows only a male organ entering a woman’s anus, but Caitlin is sure that Jiao knows whose penis she’s looking at. Her doll-like lips purse for a few seconds, then without lifting her eyes from the top image, she says, “Do you have money?”