The Midnight Club_ A Novel - James Patterson [32]
So many lessons; all of them vivid and horrible and premeditated.
That was why the street law had been so effective.
But now somebody didn’t want or need the old laws. Who could that be?
What had changed so dramatically?
Solve the murder of the Grave Dancer, and all the other mysteries would solve themselves. Stefanovitch was almost certain of it.
Meanwhile, Sarah McGinniss’s files went on and on.
When the French/Marseilles Connection had been temporarily broken, the Sicilian Mafia headed up the flow of most heroin trade into the United States. There had been incredible violence against the Italian judiciary and members of Parliament who interfered with the mob. The street law.
More than a hundred policemen, but also magistrates, had been murdered in Sicily during the past decade alone. Italy continued to have the world’s largest black economy, the economia sommersa, or submerged economy.
In recent years, the Midnight Club had opened up negotiations between the Sicilians and the Marseilles group. The Club had connected the mobs with legitimate businesses in France and Italy. An Italian labor official announced on television that it was becoming impossible to tell the good guys from the bad guys.
Stefanovitch read on through the source material:
By agreement of the international crime leadership, presumably the Club, the Colombians had cornered the cocaine pipeline into the United States. A justice minister and twelve judges were murdered in 1985 for their efforts to help control drug traffic in Colombia and Peru. Another dozen drug policemen, trained by Americans, were murdered up-country.
In November of 1985, a band of Colombian assassins had actually assaulted the Palace of Justice in Bogotá. They went to the fourth floor, where judges were hearing requests for ex-tradition of drug traffickers to the United States. The assassins killed a dozen of the judges right there. In total, 95 people were killed during the bloody siege. The street law once again.
The Yakuza, in Japan, had recently joined with the international cartel, working outside of their own country. Alexandre St.-Germain had been involved in effecting the negotiations. It represented the first time the Yakuza had ever worked with outsiders. At the same time, the Midnight Club had become heavily involved with buying and trading in the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
* * *
According to page after page of Sarah’s notes, crime was truly organizing this time.
Taiwan’s United Bamboo gang was currently operating successfully in Houston, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Hong Kong, and Japan. United Bamboo had reportedly completed an agreement with Alexandre St.-Germain, just before his death.
At about three o’clock, Stefanovitch checked his wristwatch. He finally collapsed against the back of his chair.
Sarah saw him, and she laughed. “I’m really sorry. Some hostess, right? I’m conditioned to grunt work behind a desk. Reading tomes of stuff like this. I’ll bet you’re starving. I’ve got deli food hidden away in the kitchen. Bought for just such an occasion. Where would you like to eat?”
Stefanovitch stared up at the thin streak of ocean blue, visible just over the luminous white of the sand dune.
“How about on the deck there? That looks pretty good to me. I’ll help with the food.”
“All right, sure. That’ll be great. If you’re interested, there are extra bathing suits, towels and things inside the house. I’m going to change into something myself.”
Sarah smiled at Stefanovitch.
“Please make yourself at home. Okay, Lieutenant? End of amenities.”
She went off to change and to fix lunch. As instructed, Stefanovitch showed himself around the spacious and open downstairs of the beach house.
He found a changing area with a selection of cabana jackets and swimsuits, a couple of them obviously for Sarah’s little boy, Sam. He appreciated the way Sarah hadn’t found it necessary to show him around, or to tend to him too much. The single largest complaint about being “handicapped” was people always trying to