The Kill Room

oil company job, the demanding hours, and the woman’s eventual suicide.
    “The boy, it seemed, made friends with a family living in Panama City. Roberto and the two brothers became close. Enrico and José, I think were their names. About his age, to hear him tell it.”
    Tash Farada’s voice faded.
    Sachs could see where the narrative was headed.
    “The brothers were killed in the invasion?”
    “One was—Roberto’s best friend. He doesn’t know who actually fired the shots but he blames the Americans. He said the government changed the rules. They didn’t care about people or freedom, like they said. They were happy to support Noriega and tolerate the drugs until he grew unstable and they were worried the canal would close and the oil tankers could not get through. That’s when they invaded.” A whisper now. “Mr. Moreno found his friend’s body. He still had nightmares about it, he told the woman Lydia.”
    Although the evidence might point to Moreno’s being less than a saint, contrary to what Nance Laurel would have liked, Sachs couldn’t help but be moved by the sad story. She wondered if Laurel would have been. Doubted it.
    The driver added, “And when he was telling this story, telling it to Lydia, his voice grew broken. But then all of a sudden he laughed and gestured around him. He said he was saying goodbye to America and was happy about that. This would be his last trip here. He knew he couldn’t return.”
    “ Couldn’t return?”
    “That’s right. Couldn’t. ‘Good riddance,’ he said.” Tash Farada added darkly, “ I thought good riddance to him . I love this country.” A pause then he added, “I’m not happy he’s dead, you understand. But he said many bad things about my home. Which I think is the best nation on earth and always has been.”
    As they approached Wall Street, Sachs nodded toward the site of the September 11 attacks. “Did he want to see ground zero?”
    “No,” the driver said. “I thought he might. I thought possibly he wanted to gloat, after all he had said. I would have asked him out of the car at that point. But he didn’t. He’d grown quiet.”
    “Where did you take him down here?”
    “I just dropped them at this place.” He’d pulled over on Fulton Street, near Broadway. “Which I thought was odd. Just on this street corner. They got out and he said they would be several hours. If I couldn’t wait here they would call me. I gave him my card.”
    “What did you think was odd about that?”
    “In this area of the city we limo drivers can get almost anywhere if there’s no construction. But it was as if he didn’t want me to see where they were going. I assumed to one of the hotels, the Millenium or one of the others. That’s the direction they walked in.”
    For a tryst with his voluptuous friend? But then why not just stay at the hotel uptown?
    “Did he call you?” Sachs was hoping to get Moreno’s phone number, which might still be in the driver’s log.
    But the man said, “No. I just waited here. And they returned.”
    She climbed out of the Lincoln, then walked in the direction that the driver had indicated. She canvassed the three hotels within walking distance but none had a record of a guest under Moreno’s name on May 1. If they had checked in, Lydia might have used her name though that lead wasn’t going anywhere without more information about her. Sachs also displayed a picture of Moreno but no one recognized him.
    Had the activist paid her to have sex with somebody else? she wondered. Had they met with someone in one of the hotels or an office here? As a bribe or to blackmail him? Sachs walked back outside into the congested street from the last hotel, looking around her at the hundreds of buildings—offices, stores, apartments. A team of NYPD canvassers could have spent a month inquiring about Robert Moreno and his companion and still not scratched the surface.
    She wondered too if Lydia might have received her cash for another reason. Was she part of a cell, a terrorist organization that Moreno was working with? Did they meet with a group that wanted to send another violent message in this financial hub of the city?
    This conjecture too, while reasonable to Sachs, was surely something that Nance Laurel would not want to hear.
    You mean, you can’t keep an open mind…
    Sachs turned around and walked back to the limo. Dropping into the front seat again, she stretched, winced at a burst of arthritic pain and dug