David checked the time. He just needed to refill the grave, drive a few blocks, and drop Melanie off at her new resting place, until such time as he needed her found.
EIGHT
TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 2002
THE SALTON SEA, CA
IT WAS 102 DEGREES AND THE SALTON SEA SMELLED LIKE A CORPSE, THE result of a spring heat wave that pushed the temperature in California’s low desert and southern Nevada above one hundred for three days. In Matthew Drew’s experience, the Salton Sea smelled worse than a corpse, an otherworldly wretchedness that came over him in waves—as the water crashed, as the wind blew, as birds flapped by, something new got stirred up. Maybe it was the coastline of dead tilapia. Maybe it was some new cancerous gas rising from the salt basin’s unique mixture of water, sludge from Mexico, World War II–era nuclear-test residue, valley fever parasites, and the fresh round of meth being cooked out at Slab City. He never could tell.
It wasn’t Matthew’s first time at the Salton Sea, the vast ecological disaster of California’s low desert, about three hours south of Las Vegas. He’d come out years ago, as a kid, with his late father, Conrad, driving in from Disneyland one afternoon, his dad mentioning his brother Morris once lived in these parts in the 1960s, ironically working corporate security, had lost his wife here, and Conrad wanted to drive out and see the place again, even though he and his brother had lost touch. Or maybe because of that.
He’d parked the car, gotten out, walked to the edge of the Sea, and sobbed out a verse from the mini New Testament he kept in his back pocket. “This is a ruined place,” he’d told Matthew that day. “Don’t ever come back here.”
And yet here was Matthew Drew dressed in a smart linen suit he’d picked up at the outlet stores in Cabazon, flowered shirt opened at the collar, a panama hat shielding his face, his sunglasses, long hair, and five months of heavy beard doing the rest of the work. He felt like he should be going to a nice dinner before a Jimmy Buffett concert, not trying to figure out how he was going to shake information out of Kirk Biglione, set to be one of the featured speakers at Gold Mountain Mining’s ground-breaking ceremony that morning. He wasn’t sure Biglione would recognize him or not, but it didn’t matter.
Matthew needed to know where the FBI might have hidden Jennifer Cupertine. He just needed a location, not even an exact address. And only someone like an ex–station chief would know operational details like that. If he could just find Jennifer and William, he was confident that Sal Cupertine would help him. A part of him knew that was madness—depending on a mob hit man to exonerate him from a series of murders didn’t seem legally sound—but it was all he had. And thus far, Sal hadn’t flipped on him. He’d half expected Marvin to set fire to the trailer he was living in, or just shoot him in the back of the head while he slept, but even those fears had dissipated over time. There was more honor among these crooks than there had ever been in the FBI. If Biglione was as corrupt as Sal believed him to be, Matthew and Hopper never stood a chance.
Matthew spent four years fantasizing about hurting Kirk Biglione, not just for being crooked, but for being reckless with the life of Jeff Hopper. He let him get killed. And if Sal was right, Biglione also abetted the death of the men Sal killed in the Parker House. Sal Cupertine did his job, but it was Biglione and Ronnie Cupertine who made it all possible.
Matthew parked his rented Sebring—Marvin signed for it, using whatever identity still had good credit—under a billowing white tent and made his way to the seating area. There was an unmanned table filled with “Hello, my name is” nametags—probably a hundred—so Matthew filled in his with the name of his childhood dog and the street he grew up on, and Bruce Appleton, freelance reporter, was born.
The area was covered by a portable pergola that provided some shade from the heat, along with the misters and high-powered fans. It still smelled fucking terrible. After a few minutes, Biglione took the stage in a semicircle behind Glenn Gold, vice president of western development for Gold Mountain Mining—sweat rings pushing through his navy-blue suit—before Glenn finally introduced the full team. “You’ll be seeing a lot of us in and around the Imperial and Coachella Valleys these next several months,” Gold said. “We aim to become a big part of the community. Fix some of the mistakes of the past with an eye toward our vibrant future!”
There was a smattering of applause, followed by a young woman with a huge pair of scissors bounding onto the stage . . . and then fifteen minutes later, it was all over. The vice president of western development was whisked off in a helicopter, and the assembled masses—in this case, a dozen journalists, a film crew from the local ABC station, officials from one of the local Indian tribes, a bloviating city councilman from Indio, the head of the Coachella Valley’s chamber of commerce, and then every middle manager Gold Mountain had flown in—retired back to the tent filled with shrimp and wine and handshakes. Matthew waited until he saw Biglione alone at the buffet.
“Pick your brain for a second?” Matthew said to Biglione, who was rummaging through the last of the meats and cheeses. No one was touching the shrimp. It was too fucking hot. Matthew had only met Biglione once in his life: when he started his assignment at the Chicago field office. He’d been prepared to testify anonymously at the corruption trial—Matthew getting in as a whistleblower—his ass sitting in a Ramada Inn in Springfield for a month, but Biglione had bitched out before Matthew had the chance to help nail him. So he wasn’t surprised that Biglione didn’t appear to recognize him. Gone was the twenty-five-year-old recruit. Matthew was heavier now, pushing thirty, and his beard had come in speckled with gray, his long hair the same.
“Sure thing,” Biglione said. He didn’t look up from the buffet right away, his focus on a platter of tiny sausages. He was a big guy, over six foot two, probably pushing 275 pounds, the kind of guy who played small-college football but talked about it like it was the NFL, and knees like anvils. “What can I do you for you?”
“What’s the chief security concern out here? Seems like Gold Mountain is bringing in an awfully big gun for a drilling op.” Matthew took a reporter’s notebook from his pocket, poised his pen, all any stuffed shirt needed to believe someone was a journalist these days.
Biglione “uh-huh’d” through Matthew’s question, eyes on his plate. “That’s a good question,” he said when Matthew finished. “Who is this for?”
“Freelance journalist,” Matthew said. “Working on a feature about the new developments out here in no-man’s-land.”
“Uh-huh,” Biglione said again. He finally glanced at Matthew but betrayed no recognition. “Okay. First, there’s a local element. This is tribal land. Now we’ve leased it from the Chuyalla, good people, good people. No problems there. But there’s a real sense that if this works, who owns the metals found a mile under the surface? Is that Indian land, too? We’ve got some litigation going about that. So there’s natural concerns about sabotage and the like. It’s been like that out here since the 1950s when companies first started mining this area. We’re monitoring that. There’s sensitive technology that we’re using that could be of some use to our enemies around the world, so there’s a terror nexus, which is my specialty. And then there’s just letting people know what we’re doing out here is safe, so a little bit of public relations. People still remember the toxic waste the government left after all the weapons testing. But I’m here to tell you, people are going to fall in love with lithium batteries. You’ll be able to drive across the country for the same cost you pay to keep your kitchen lights on overnight.”
“What about organized crime?”
“Not a concern,” Biglione said a little too quickly. He picked up another paper plate. Loaded it up with pieces of ham and a couple olives, an array of crackers. “I mean, there’s nothing here but sand, stench, and lithium. What’s John Gotti gonna do with lithium?”
“I thought this whole area was built by crime families.”
Two men in blue suits that looked right off a rack at Brooks Brothers walked up. Both wore earpieces and were clearly uncomfortable in their shoes, shined to a spit gloss. Both also had sidearm bulges. They helped themselves to some bottled water and pretzels while Biglione shoved ham in his mouth and waited for them to disappear before he responded, Matthew thinking it was a ploy to give him time to think.
“Back in the day?” Biglione said. “Everything from Palm Springs to Las Vegas was crooked. But this place? More military than mob. We paid millions getting the area cleaned up for human life.” He pointed lazily into the distance. “Got some Mexican Mafia couple miles east. Some Native Mob, but I tell you, these are not players. We’re talking rigged bingo games and stealing golf carts. Different world out west.”
“Yet your two associates are packing Glocks for a press conference,” Matthew said.
“They don’t work for me,” Biglione said.
“No?”
“Tribe has their own private security when their big shots roll out,” Biglione said.
“To do what?”
“Prevent kidnappings,” Biglione said. “Cartel wants to take one of these executives and start ransoming fingers and toes, they can be across the border in ninety minutes.”
“You’re not worried about yourself?”
“Not a situation that has anything to do with me.”
“What hotel are you staying at?” Matthew asked.
“Sorry?”
“Oh, it’s just that, in fact, the mob is still prevalent out this way. Depending upon where you’re staying, you might be putting money right into their pockets. Or yourself in harm’s way. Go to bed, wake up with some mob hitters in your bathroom.”
“I’m staying at the Château,” Biglione said. He pointed across the parking lot, to three double-wide trailers set up near the construction site for the administrative offices.
“Only the best,” Matthew said. If he did this right, taking care of Biglione was going to be easy. He wasn’t a pussy—Biglione was a legit agent, even if he was crooked, worked his way up from an assault team to hostage negotiation to the organized crime division head, and that meant he knew how to use a gun, could use those hands, too. Didn’t matter much if someone put one in both your knees, tied you to a chair, interrogated you, and then set fire to the trailer you were living in, which was the fantasy Matthew was operating under now.
“Well,” Biglione said, “off the record? This whole place is cursed. You couldn’t pay me to live here.”
“But you’re happy to drill it out?”
“Off the record? All it’s good for,” Biglione said. “I think this place will be safe from any real problems, that’s on the record.”
