“Didn’t even take any notes,” Matthew said.
Biglione held up a finger, pulled out a mini digital recorder from his pocket. “I’m always recording, just in case.”
“I think that’s a felony,” Matthew said.
Biglione hit the stop button.
“Then it’s a good thing neither one of us is an FBI agent anymore.” Matthew could have pulled out his gun and ended Biglione right then. One between the eyes. But then the Brooks Brothers would probably light him up or he’d spend the rest of his life in a federal prison. Neither option sounded terrific. By the same token, Biglione surely didn’t want to have to explain the presence of someone on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. “I’m getting a drink. You want a drink, Agent Drew?”
That answered that.
Biglione stepped away from the buffet, headed over to the bar, ordered a scotch and water, the bartender sweating through his tuxedo shirt.
“Vodka and Red Bull,” Matthew said.
The bartender made Matthew his drink, slid it over. Biglione ducked out of the tent and walked down toward the shore, Matthew a few steps behind him. Biglione stopped a few feet from the water. The sand here wasn’t as smooth as a real beach. It was covered in fine pebbles and the desiccated corpses of tilapia. The smell was oppressive.
“What’s with the dead fish?” Matthew asked.
“The salt water doesn’t get oxygenated enough when the heat jumps up like this,” Biglione said. He put on a pair of sunglasses, took a sip of his scotch, motioned out to the sea. “What do you see when you look out this way?”
The Salton Sea was surrounded on both sides by sun-scorched mountains and desert. If the government hadn’t let this desolate salt pan flood a hundred years earlier, they’d be staring at the neolithic past. Nothing was fit to live out here. “A boondoggle.”
“We start pulling the lithium out, there’s money to be made.” He turned and looked at Matthew. “I know you’re not a murderer, Agent. I know you’ve been set up. And so I know you understand my situation. Gotta be a way we can work together.”
“Your boss had my sister killed.”
“What did you think was going to happen, Agent? You think you can maim the head of The Family and just walk away?”
“What happens when he wakes up and finds out that the Native Mob waxed his wife and kids just to set me up?”
“He ain’t ever waking up,” Biglione said.
“Why didn’t you take this as your out?” Matthew said. “All these years and you’re still standing here shit-scared of Ronnie Cupertine.”
“You think you know me?” Biglione said. “I was a good FBI agent. A fucking great one. I didn’t get there because of the Cupertines; I got there despite them.” He shook his head. “You know what Hopper’s problem was? He didn’t leave good enough alone. All he had to do was be a shitty FBI agent for two weeks, a month, go get some therapy for his fuckup, take a desk job, pile on those pension years. And instead, he goes looking for a dead man.” Matthew didn’t respond. Biglione took down the rest of his scotch, tossed the tumbler into the water. “What are you looking for, Agent Drew? What brought you back into my fucking life?”
“Sal Cupertine’s wife and kid. The FBI got them into a safe house. I need to know where.”
“You think I just keep a list?”
“You still have friends in the agency,” Matthew said. “I’m sure you’ve still got friends with the Marshals, too. Just get me a town.”
“And then what? You’re gonna use them as bait, hope he comes looking for you?”
“I catch him, it would help clear my name.”
“And what do I get from this?”
“You keep this cozy job,” Matthew said, “and I don’t tell every newspaper in America how long you’ve been on the payroll of The Family.”
Before Biglione could respond, a young reporter in a red dress along with the local ABC camera crew came tromping down to the beach.
“I need a couple days,” Biglione said. “Make some calls.”
“That’s fine.”
Biglione said, “You’ve got big balls, kid.” He took a business card from his breast pocket, handed it to Matthew. “Call me on Saturday.”
Matthew put out his hand. Biglione shook it, and for a moment—more than a moment, really—Matthew thought about snapping his fucking wrist right there, popping his radius into three parts, getting all of them to stick out of his skin at right angles, like how they taught at the Academy, put a man into instant shock, bleed him out if you’re alone. But he let go, or tried to. Biglione kept hold.
“I shouldn’t have fired you,” Biglione said.
“No.”
“I should have had you killed.”
“You could have tried,” Matthew said. He’d call in a few days. Give him time to get some gas and zip ties and find a good, lonely place in the desert to dump his fucking body.
NINE
TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 2002
PALM SPRINGS, CA
THE FIRST FEW DAYS PEACHES POCOTILLO SPENT IN PALM SPRINGS WERE all about getting the lay of the land, meeting the players, understanding just how badly the mere presence of his nephew Mike had managed to fuck things up. Mike was twenty-six but of the opinion he’d only live to his midthirties, based on something some fortune teller told him, and so his understanding of consequence was not so developed. He ended up killing many more people than needed, just as a general way of doing business. Someone disagreed with him, he killed them. It made less people disagree with him, for sure, but also limited the number of those interested in doing business with him. Peaches was about relationships. What was life without people who understood you?
Today, Peaches had a lunch meeting at a restaurant called Melvyn’s. He and Lonzo rolled up in their new Caddie at 12:27, hung a handicapped placard from the rearview, and parked in a blue space, close enough that they could make sure there wasn’t a bunch of FBI agents changing out of their windbreakers and Kevlar into resort wear. The restaurant was attached to a hotel called the Ingleside Inn, one of those places that looked like it had been cut and pasted from the 1950s, all sun-dappled patios, Spanish-style bungalows, croquet lawns, square pools, and little nooks where celebrities could fix heroin into their necks.
