14 - J. T. Ellison [110]
Eldridge looked at Callahan, nodding as he took a sip of water. Her show to run. Callahan cleared her throat and launched.
“Okay. L’Uomo has been around for about twenty years now. We don’t know much about him, only get a string of murders that crop up with his signature every once in a while. Businesses fail, storefronts close, and three or four bodies show up. People who cross him don’t get to hang around for long. He runs an import/export business, but he’s quiet and quick. He floats people around, has a lot of money, and has never been caught. He’s got deep pockets and a lot of people on the payroll.”
“How does Burt Mars fit in?” Taylor asked.
Callahan handed a file across to Taylor. “Mars. He’s a stool. But smart. He was the single biggest reason the Tartulo family went down. He’s L’Uomo’s bank. Here’s some reports you may find interesting. Mars has been shuffling L’Uomo’s money around for quite a while. Uses that Manderley REIT hedge fund. Only we can’t find it. Every time we get close to the source of the funding, it literally disappears. One of the better money-laundering schemes we’ve come across. The feds are working it, too. Dr. Baldwin, you could probably find some more information from your end.”
Taylor handed the file to Baldwin. He flipped it open, glanced through it, then said, “I’ll do that. Thanks for the heads-up.”
“But there’s one little problem. We found Burt Mars dead in his apartment last night. Shot at close range. Looked like a typical home invasion.” Callahan shook her head. “Right down to the computers being stolen.”
Taylor met her eye. “Let me guess. All of his business information was on those computers.”
“That’s what we suspect. He had a huge office—the master suite of the apartment had been converted. There was enough wiring to send up the space shuttle. Just nothing left to plug in.”
Taylor felt disappointment roll off Callahan in waves. “You’re sure it was Mars?”
Callahan pushed another file across the table. Taylor opened it without picking it up. There was a photograph of a small man with blond hair and Buddy Holly glasses, a hole where his chest should have been. She recognized him at once. Her dream flooded in, vivid and raw. A sandy-haired man clapping her dad on the shoulder. “Your own little Manderley.”
Eldridge brought her back. “One lead gone. But there’s still Delglisi. Like we said yesterday, no one has ever seen him before—he’s like a mythical legend around these parts. We’re not even certain Delglisi is his real name. It’s one of many that he’s assumed over the years, but the one that’s been the most consistent, the deepest in the files.”
Taylor sat back in her chair. “What does he import? Drugs?”
Callahan shook her head. “No. Something much more valuable. People.”
“From where?” Taylor asked.
“Everywhere. It’s been mostly Hispanic lately, from what we’re hearing. He did a stint of Chinese, and some other Asians, but it seems he’s switched solely to Mexican and South American immigrants lately. As you can imagine, he’s really popular with Homeland Security.”
“What happens when they get here?”
“They go to work. In the shops, in the sex trade, wherever they’re needed. They need to work off their passage.”
Baldwin looked at Taylor. “He’s just a plain old slave trader.” Taylor snorted through her nose.
“Some plain old slave trader. Things are making a little more sense now.”
“How’s that?” Eldridge stopped everything.
“We had a case in Nashville last week. A Guatemalan girl by the name of Saraya Gonzalez was found in the woods, injured, in pretty bad shape. She’d run away from a ‘massage parlor’ where she was being forced to have sex with men on camera. They were making sex tapes. There’s just one problem. The same day we found her, Saraya was murdered in the hospital. She was shot by a man who fled the scene. He actually took her from her room,