Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 23:20:55 +0200
From: Andrej Koymasky <andrej@andrejkoymasky.com>
Subject: Infamous Trade 03/17

----------------------------

INFAMOUS TRADE
by Andrej Koymasky
(C) 1998 - 2002
written the 20th of July, 1995
translated by the author
English text kindly revised by Jer

-----------------------------

USUAL DISCLAIMER

"INFAMOUS TRADE" is a gay story, with some parts containing graphic scenes
of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion, family, opinion and so
on this is not good for you, it will be better not to read this story. But
if you really want, or because YOU don't care, or because you think you
really want to read it, please be my welcomed guest.

-----------------------------

THIRD

Manhattan - December 1988

At four thirty two p.m. detective Kevin Black entered the almost empty
restaurant on Columbus Avenue. He approached a lonely woman sitting at the
bar. Kevin observed the woman who was nervously smoking and looking at her
wrist watch. Then she became aware of Kevin's presence. Making an effort to
smile, she got down from her bar stool and threw herself into the
detective's arms.

While he was holding her tight against himself, a thousand buried memories
flooded Kevin's mind. The woman was Grace Dos Santos. Once they planned to
marry, but this was before he returned from Vietnam, a completely changed
man. Kevin confessed to her that he was Gay. Told her that the man who made
him understand that, was now dead, but that he could still not marry her.
Grace, disappointed, married another man, Peter Dos Santos. A man of
Spanish origins he kept just the name, but he was completely American.

"Eight years, eight long years... I can't believe how much time has passed
since the last time we met, Kevin."

"You are more and more beautiful."

"Liar! But thank you. God, you are always hard like rock. Do you still
practice karate?"

"Always. My old man always told me that physical exercise was a waste of
time. He said that if you are healthy, you don't need it, and if you are
not, it is useless..."

"A wise man, your old man. I was afraid you wouldn't show up, after our
fight... Thank you for coming."

Her head bowing down, Grace was silently crying. Kevin tenderly put his
hand on her arm. He regretted that fight, but he had forgiven her, since he
knew she was right -- he really looked with desire at her husband, even if
he had denied it. And now, two days ago, she called him at the district --
her adolescent son Terence, Terry, left home as always to go to the private
school he was attending on 73rd street, but he never reached school. Grace
was in complete panic, she wanted Kevin to find him.

Kevin Black was thirty five years old, slender and muscled, a mane of dark
brown hair and a smile that made him seem an obliging man, which he really
wasn't. Back from Vietnam, he obtained his detective's badge in less than
two years. He also succeeded in hiding his being gay. During those two
years the memory of Juan's body torn to pieces was still too vivid and he
had no desire for sex. Afterwards, reaching again a good psychic balance
and feeling again sexual desires, he had been very careful to keep well
separated his professional and his sexual life. At karate training he met a
quiet twenty four year old boy. The young man name was Dan, and was a TV
cameramen at the CCB. They became closer and closer friends, until they
discovered both were gay and mutually attracted. So, from time to time,
they met at the home of one or the other, to make love. Quietly, without
being in love, like two good friends giving each other mutual relief,
without sentimental complications, but with affection, tenderness and
virility.

Kevin, besides the official tasks he carried out for the police district,
had also secretly been hired by the Internal Affairs Division, and he had
been directly hired when he attended the police Academy. The agents in the
field had the task of reporting directly to General Headquarters all cases
of incorrect behavior by the policemen, a task which made them the most
detested men in the Corp.

If they were discovered, they were isolated, menaced, at times even
physically attacked by their colleagues who nicknamed the agents in the
field "cock sucker agents". A risky job, that at times implied real
dangers, which Kevin liked.

To reduce their risks, the agents in the field had at General Headquarters
only one contact. They normally dealt with a lieutenant or a captain. They
used code names and the meetings happened in out of the way places. Kevin
insisted that he and his contact, he knew him only as Ron, never meet
directly. They always communicate by phone, and it was always Kevin called
first, and always from public phones.

Kevin pulled off his hat putting it on the counter near a Christmas wreath,
the kind that normally hung outside the house on the front door, and
unbuttoned his coat. He had difficulty catching the attention of the young
bartender, engrossed in watching a baseball game on the TV, and ordered two
black coffees.

Grace seized his hand. Small, brunette, she too was thirty five years old,
but looked older than that. She wore an elegant black dress and had white
shoes and hat. He saw her wither after her marriage to Peter Dos Santos, a
slender and elegant adman, owning a prosperous TV publicity firm. During
her call to Kevin, Grace told him also that her life was about to change.
After fourteen years, a few days before Terry's disappearance, her husband
told her he wanted a divorce. He fell in love with another woman, so,
suddenly... But Grace surprised him telling him that she too was tired of
their relationship, as it had less and less appeal. Peter was ready to
grant her everything she wanted, alimony, money, even part of the publicity
firm, Terry's custody, if only she agreed at once to the divorce, in order
to marry at once his new flame. Grace accepted without batting an eyelash.
Getting rid of Peter allowed Grace to dedicate full time to the publishing
company of children books where she worked, and this was important even
more, now that Terry was growing up. She liked her job, her salary was
really good, and she was about being promoted to assistant director. The
future seemed to smile again on Grace, who felt relieved by that decision.
Moreover, the fight between father and son would end. Peter was closed,
scarcely demonstrative, hypercritical with everybody but mainly with his
son. On the contrary Terry was independent, impulsive, extroverted and had
no problem to say what he thought, felt.

The last time Kevin saw the child, he was five years old, but he liked the
description that his mother gave of the boy. A picture that Grace gave him,
depicted him as a blond kid of uncommon beauty, showing a touching mixture
of insecurity and a desire to challenge the world. His eyes were in
particular very beautiful, fascinating. Kevin thought that this boy when
adult would have all the women at his feet. And not just women, he added to
himself with a smile.

When Terry knew his parents wanted to divorce, he said he was glad, and
that anyway he wanted to stay with his mother. Peter became angry, took
that as a personal offense so the couple fought for the umpteenth time.
Terry went to shut himself in his room, declaring that he would not come
out until his father left their home. Peter, furious, started to hit the
door of his son's room with his fists, and it was then that Grace quarreled
with him. He slapped her, and she chased him out of the house, slapping him
at her turn. A painful scene but at last, Peter gone, the peace was back.
The day after Terry left home to go to school and since then nobody saw him
any more.

"Have you received a ransom request?" Kevin asked Grace.

"If only one came! At least I would have a proof he is still alive..."

"I contacted the roving squads of the police, hospitals, morgues... there
is nobody corresponding to Terry's description."

"And the FBI? You hinted at the possibility of contacting them too..."

"I did. Sadly, unless it is a case involving two different States, they do
not look after missing people. We don't know where Terry could be. We hope
he is still in New York, as we would have better chance of finding him. A
colleague in the FBI promised me they will send a note about him to their
General Headquarters in Washington. This is all they can do."

"I don't want words, I want my son back!"

"Listen, Grace. My colleague at the FBI says there is a problem -- there is
no proof Terry has been kidnapped, no ransom request, no telephone call, no
one who saw him abducted against his will. He says that all we can do is to
work together with the local police and hope all goes well. Look, I deal
with drugs, sex, dirty money and all the other filthy things I don't even
want to talk about. But unhappily I know nothing about missing boys, and
not even my informers. I'll maintain all the contacts I can. I'll try all
the old ones, but we need all the help we can get included that of the
policemen in your neighborhood..."

Grace let her chin fall on her chest: "Peter is busying himself, he too. He
feel guilty because of the bad fight. He went to the school, phoned Terry's
friends, their parents..."

Kevin put his arm around her shoulders: "Grace, ninety per cent of the
missing kids return to their parents in twenty four hours after they run
away. I know well that at least two days have elapsed, but Terry could be
on his way back right in this moment."

He didn't tell her that the biggest part of run away kids returned after
being, sexually molested, quite often raped. Or that thousand of them never
returned home at all, because they were killed, victims of the growing wave
of ritual homicides, or by serial killers who preferred children as
targets. Ken shuddered to himself.

"I told the police about Terry, as you advised me..."

"Yes, I know. I contacted them to alert them that I'm involved in the
investigation as a family friend. They said that there is no problem at
all, if just I keep them informed. They will investigate at his school, the
neighborhood and along the way from your house to school."

Kevin knew why the district policemen didn't see Terry's case as urgent.
Urgent was the case of the eight Dominicans slaughtered, the youngest one
eight years old, the oldest seventy two, because one of them tried to cheat
on a drug pusher. An urgent case was the twenty two year old policeman who
was shot in the head because some big trafficker wanted to warn the
neighborhood it was not convenient to collaborate with the police. A
thirteen year old run away from home and who would possibly be back as soon
as he felt hungry or scared or cold, was not an urgent case.

"Peter also published two ads on the front page of the Time. One says --
Terry, come back home, we love you. The other offers a reward of twenty
five thousand dollars to who ever returns him to us..."

"That money will attract mad men and mythomaniacs, profiteers -- they will
swear they have information they really don't have. But we can't help it.
Drink your coffee."

"I don't know how one feels when someone he loves is killed... But I know
how one feels when a loved one disappears and you don't know what happened
to him -- it is horrible. Jesus, and I'm sitting here and don't know if my
son went away forever or..."

Kevin squeezed her lightly, affectionately -- yes, she was really his
sister, Grace. For her, he would do everything he could. He prayed in his
heart that nothing irreparable happened to Terry... that he was still
alive. He could have been killed. He could be dead in an accident. He could
even have killed himself. Possibly he was already at home, sacking the
fridge, while thinking of an alibi to justify his absence. Or he was
chained in the cellar of a mad man, who was doing to him things that would
shake the most hardened policemen... Kevin asked Grace if Terry had ever
taken drugs.

"Good Lord, no! Not my son. Terry would never touch that disgusting stuff!"

Kevin nodded to the barman for the same. Now the young man was watching an
episode of the serial "Magic Love Island". He thought that, leaving Grace,
he had to eat something. And fast.

His district commander, vice-inspector Donald Stanford was a man of few
words. He wouldn't allow Kevin to officially work on the Terry Dos Santos'
case. Only on his own time. And he didn't have that much free time. So
Kevin busied himself with official duties, and while he was doing other
investigations, he profited to get up the nose of the patrol policemen at
the bus station, showing them Terry's picture. He threatened the boys
hanging around the slot machines, he menaced the tramps who lived by
stealing from the trucks on the West Side docks, he showed Terry's picture
to prostitutes, girls and boys, to pimps, to the con men playing three
cards and to the owners of porno shops.

He also contacted several swindlers and people dealing in illegal betting,
the owner of a twenty-four hour bowling alley, and the bouncers at the
discos for young boys. He pushed on as far as places where a policeman was
more disliked than a black pest, places where one needed to move with
prudence, but where one could learn interesting facts.

He came back from his tours empty handed.

No witness, no rumors, no hint in any place. Apparently nobody saw or heard
about Terry Dos Santos. On one side Kevin accepted reality, but on the
other hand he never liked to lose and so he couldn't resign himself to
defeat.

"Tell me he is alive..." Grace almost whined while he was helping her put
on her lambskin jacket.

"He is alive." Kevin said asking himself if he fell once more into his own
trap -- he lied to her as he lied to other people since he was a policeman.

Soon he was watching Grace leave in a taxi. He ordered a bite to eat -- he
felt uncomfortable eating in front of his friend in anguish, a kind of odd,
delicate reserve. But he was hungry.

Then, back to work. He had other cases to follow. For at least ten days he
had been investigating the murder of two of their infiltrators; killed
during investigations into the drug world. One of the agents was Danny
Masterson, a twenty four year old boy hired from the Academy as he had
been. The other, Steve Shallow, twenty five, had been hired from outside.
They were strangers, unknown to the drug traffickers, perfectly trained,
strong yet prudent, and still it had not been enough. Both had been found
dead in Kevin's district between 59th and 86th West, between Central park
and Riverside Drive. Both shot dead with a 22 caliber. Danny had been a
karate student under Kevin, since he was seventeen. Kevin was affectionate
to the boy. At first, Kevin thought that the two boys had been killed by a
blockhead who thought it was worth taking away from those two presumed
pushers drugs and money. Or that they committed some rash act. But the
rumors circulating in the streets were that the two men had been sold away.
Sold by policemen and killed by policemen. So people kept silent, feeling
scared.

Kevin didn't belong to the homicide squad but when he asked to be assigned
to the case, because of his long friendship with Danny and his family, to
his amazement the case was given to him. For sure, for this case, the
competence and experience of Kevin could be an advantage.

First thing, he phoned his contact, Ron: "Yes, the Internal Affairs
Division is also convinced that there is a leak some where and until we
stop it, all the operations are compromised. Though more were killed just a
little before your two boys. Catch the bastard selling our men, before the
media begins to suspect, or we will be in serious trouble -- the police do
not a good reputation now days."

"I'm centering on Danny -- with whom he had business, who sold what to who,
who were his enemies..."

"Start with his reports."

"A very good idea."

"If you need anything, I really mean anything, just call me. Ah, one last
thing..."

"Yes?"

"The one, or those we are looking for, could be very close to us.
Understood?"

"Perfectly."

"Don't trust anybody."

"I would trust not even my mother, who died fifteen year ago..." Kevin
answered.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Next morning Kevin went to the Decs, the data bank used by the federal
agents of the narcotic section, to avoid repeating efforts looking for
things that others had already found. There flowed in from all the States
reports of all the agents. The agents working at Decs were the managers of
the traffic, avoiding conflicting information that appeared to touch the
same field, and supplying all the stored information to who ever needed it
for his investigations.

Kevin was interested in all the profiles of traffickers that Danny passed
to the Decs. The profiles contained a physical description of the
trafficker, his family and personal history, eventual aliases and names of
previous offenders he frequented.

Before starting his work, Kevin spent some time doing his usual exchange of
gossip about his colleagues, agents and secretaries. Coming to know about
who had been transferred, who went on retreat to become the body guard of
some TV preacher, who was planning to rear dogs in his free time and who
during a raid in a brothel got a kick in his balls from a furious
prostitute.

The item that Kevin told and which was a real success, was about a boss of
the Pescia family. The judge had practically buried him in prison -- first
charge thirty years, second charge fifty years, third ten years and so on
for a total of three hundred twenty six years of prison.

The boss, exasperated, stood up suddenly and asked aloud: "What do you
think I am, a sequoia?"

Forty minutes after telling this episode, Kevin was entering the Decs
archive. He hugged and kissed Susan Decker, a thirty four year old woman
needing affection who collected all the profiles. In the last years, Kevin
had passed her a great number of them, they knew each other well. She was a
hard worker, three times divorced and with a reputation to be really erotic
and always on the hunt. She was perpetually mixed up in love stories,
usually with black policemen, starting and ending with the same speed.

Susan loved to travel. The bulletin board behind her was filled with
pictures shot of her in the Caribbean, during week-long skiing holidays in
Aspen, in Las Vegas. On her breaks Susan only wanted to talk about her
trips to Miami or to the Bahamas. She was an eternal chatterbox, a source
of gossip.

He was about to ask her for all the profiles turned in by Danny when
Felicia, a young assistant of Spanish origin, told her that there was a
call for her on line two. The way how she barely arched an eyebrow on her
childish face meant that it was a personal call. When Susan took the line,
she transformed in another person. With her hand she instinctively caressed
her breast and her face softened. She turned her back to Kevin and Felicia
and whispered in the telephone. She burst in laughter with a sound so full
of lusty promises that Kevin wished that some man laughed like that for
him.

"Is she still with Russell?" he asked Felicia.

"You know how it is... A shame they had to closed his shoe store..."

Kevin nodded, it was really a shame. Russell Fort was a black ex-policeman,
the same age as Kevin, with his head shaved and a deep and seducing voice.
Kevin saw him once in the showers and thought that he had something else
seducing, besides his voice, a pity he was a famous womanizer. He left
active service when he got a permanent disability from the collapse of
scaffolding during a pursuit. So he started his own business, opening a
sport shoe shop in the elegant neighborhood of Columbus Avenue. Nothing he
sold was cheap, just the wealthy yuppies could allow being pickpocketed in
that way from Russell. But he always offered his former colleagues a good
thirty per cent rebate, then it became convenient. Italian shoes,
incredibly soft and well finished, really strong. Kevin liked Russell's
shoes, but less the ex-policeman. Fort was the guy who in front of his
clients laid the blame on the underpaid boys who worked as his shop
assistants. And then, when they left the shop, laid the blame on the
clients. He was the guy who answered you before you finished your question.
The guy who thinks he is being witty, clever, better than you. He had to
close his shop as he for the umpteenth time dodged taxes, both State and
local.

Susan was continuing her telephone conversation, whispered and apparently
indecent, forgetting about Kevin and Felicia.

"I'm somewhat busy. Can you please photocopy for me all the profiles made
by Danny Masterson?"

The detective and Felicia talked briefly about Danny's death. But when the
girl told him how Danny was so handsome and how she would have loved having
dates with him, Kevin cut things short remembering he was in hurry. A few
minutes later Felicia gave him a big envelope with the requested copies.

Right then Susan exclaimed: "Hurrah! Really they will send a limousine to
take us this time too? It's fantastic! I am so excited that I feel wet... I
have my luggage with me, what time do I need to come down?"

"What's up?" Kevin asked in a low voice to Felicia, nodding toward Susan.

"Russell. He's taking Susan to Atlantic City for the week end. They often
go there. She always talks about it. She likes to be envied. Russell likes
shows and games, and she too, I think. The hotel always sends a limousine
to take them."

Kevin's eyes moved forth and back from Susan to Felicia. Trying to have a
natural, casual tone, he asked the girl: "Do you know in what hotel they
stop?"

"The Gold Castle, if I remember rightly. You know, I don't really listen to
her when she starts to brag. I just let her talk..."

Kevin winked her and made a salutation gesture: "I understand you. Well,
thanks for the copies. I have to run, now! Bye!"

Leaving the Decs, Kevin went in a telephone box and called Ron. Told him
about the failure of the commercial activity of Fort, and about his
relationship with Susan. About his next trip to Atlantic City on board of a
limousine sent from the Gold's Castle Hotel. The hotel offered rides only
to big gamblers. Fort's shop was closed. Where did he find the money to
gamble there? The curious mind of Kevin wanted to know the truth. He wanted
to discover who gave the money to Fort and why -- was not by chance that
trough the girl he could have access to information that the traffickers
would pay for its weight in gold? And about girls, was Fort faithful to
Susan or did he soak his long cookie also in other bowls?

Thirty six hours later he came to know from Ron that the Gold's Castle
supplied Fort with lot more than a few rides with the limousine -- meals,
drinks, tickets for all the shows and a suite overlooking the main
boulevard of Atlantic City. He moreover had a credit of fifty thousand
dollars and the use of a car each time he was in town. In short, the
treatment reserved to the very best clients. And all that for a man clearly
lacking in means.

Fort was a inveterate gambler -- two months before he won a hundred and
ninety thousand dollars. The following night he lost all of them and
fifteen thousand dollars more. His ex wife asked and got the divorce, as he
forced her to have sex with two men with whom he had a poker debt.

Fort opened his shop with a loan from the Li-Mac Associates Inc., a finance
company of New Jersey dealing in commercial proprieties and loans on
mortgage. The Li-Mac was a cover activity of the Mafia and belonged, not
officially but practically to the Pescia family. When Fort was forced to
close, the Li-Mac took over the shop.

"Fort borrowed the money from Paulie Pescia but couldn't give them back.
The bastard has been lucky he had something that Pescia wanted -- they
expanded the shop and now use it to wash dirty money." Ron concluded.

"Yes, but... how it comes that Fort is still alive? That a bit fishy..."

"Because he is protected by a man with whom neither you or I and nor
Pescia's men, like the men of four more families, want never have nothing
to do. Fort is protected by Dan Firestone."

"Oh Christ! This is the last straw! Dan Firestone?" Kevin said shuddering
with a chill worst than that of the coldest winter.

Dan Firestone was a stout forty year old man. He had been a shrewd and
violent policeman, before leaving the corp in nebulous circumstances. He
always talked in a gentle, calm, monotonous tone and always behaved with
perfect manners. It was whispered that when he was in the corp he made a
large amount of money extorting money from drug peddlers, owners of night
clubs and managers of gay pubs, all people who were not in a condition to
complain. Doing it would have been dangerous -- Firestone was known as one
who shot before asking for the papers, he had an appropriate name. He was
known in service as the bully of the bullies.

His career as a defender of law and order ceased when he was accused of
trying to sell, for fifty thousand dollars, a ten year old Porto Rican boy
to a Belgian businessman who was suspected to manage an international
racket of small boys for prostitution. But everything came to naught when
the mother and the little boy left for South America and the Belgian man
committed "suicide" jumping from the twenty eight floor of a London hotel.
No witness, the case had been closed. And Dan Firestone gave notice.

Now Firestone lead Dan Firestone Associates, a company of private
investigators with suspicious fame. Firestone hired only ex-policemen who
had been kicked out of the corp for their violent methods and for
infringing on the rules. It was suspected that Dan and his men carried out
activity as killers for organized crime. But there were no proofs. They
were able to work in a clean way, as they all knew the police methods.

Dan Firestone was a mystery for the largest part of people, including
Kevin. The man had gathered not a few mentions for valor. He got a gold
badge after a shooting where his companion lost his life -- he shot dead
all eight of the opponents! And he had a IQ. decidedly above average. So
then, how to explain his choices? Madness, sadism or simply bored? The fact
was that the mafia and organized crime also feared and respected Dan
Firestone -- being against him meant to have one's days numbered.

And he was protecting Fort. Why? He possibly, through Susan came to know
about the infiltrators and... If you let a trafficker understand that you
are able to identify an infiltrator, you have only to fix the price.

Kevin asked Ron one last thing -- did Fort have other women?

"If he's a pig? For each time he goes to Atlantic City with Susan, he goes
there four more times with different women. And all of them younger and
prettier than our Susan. I'm afraid you're right, Susan to him is just the
goose that lays golden eggs."

Ron was laughing, but Kevin's thoughts were elsewhere. If Dan Firestone was
his opponent, he could not allow himself mistakes or fast moves. That
fucking bastard Dan Firestone! That afternoon, while he was reading the
profiles written by Danny, he received a call from central -- had to go
immediately to an office of the Treasure Department, on Church Street. He
again had to deal with the Federals. A direct order of his highest
superior, Kevin Black had to assist the Treasure agent Silvan York, until
he received new orders. He couldn't allow himself to refuse. They said, at
the Treasure, that this new task would not interfere with the other cases
he was following.

He had worked before with the Federals, very seldom of his own spontaneous
will, and each time he had been cheated. They were real professionals in
getting all the credit for investigations reaching a good end. Moreover
they had the means and authority that the local policemen could only
daydream of.

Silvan York was in his forties, big, or let's just say impressive, a
prominent chin, a massive neck and a snub nose. He must weight about thirty
pounds more than Kevin who weighted one hundred and sixty pounds. Three
quarters of York weight were all muscles and he alone was enough to fill a
room.

He had written on his face and in the way he dressed that he was a Texan
and if one could have any doubt, it was enough to hear him talk to become
sure. He was talking to Kevin, outstretched on his desk, a steaming cup of
coffee in his hand, and he underlined what he was saying with an
extraordinary gesture. Kevin thought he was one of the best actors he met
in all his life. The Treasure agent was interested in the investigation
that Kevin was starting about Dan Firestone.

"I've heard you are tightening a nice noose around the neck of that turd."

"Yes, I can say we are working to that goal..." Kevin answered feeling bad
foreboding.

"I like the way you are keeping your hands on the problem. Yes sir, I
expect you will raise a good stink. Am I wrong, or your direct chiefs know
nothing about this investigation?"

"No, nothing. For the moment I am centering on the relations between Dan
Firestone and Russell Fort. Something tells me that you already know what
it's about."

"Don't play smart with me, shrimp! I know what I know, the rest is not
important. And that takes us to the reason of our meeting. I'm not here to
prevent you from doing your investigation, I am just charged with fixing
you some limits concerning something that we at the Treasure are carrying
out. Let's say that we don't want you to waste your time."

"To infilter agents, and possibly even four, had been killed and we think
that Firestone could have a hand in that. Don't tell me that the Department
wants to shelve an inquiry for the murder of two agents!"

"Calm down, son! Nobody wants to shelve any thing. If you are able to lay
bare Firestone's dirty tricks, go on -- we too want that fucking bastard
framed."

York explained him that Dan Firestone was suspected to pass information to
some forgers that the Department was hunting down. A certain forger boasted
to his clients he had a sixth sense about the police. But in reality his
sixth sense could be named Dan Firestone and the information gathered by
several systems, one being to be able to lay hands on the police computers,
a thing very difficult to prove.

Firestone was also suspected to trade in human flesh for the prostitution
market, but this didn't concern the Department. But also in this activity
he had another way to issue counterfeit dollars. York wanted Kevin to carry
on with his inquiry, but to pass on to him all the information he acquired.
York was really skilled in the interpersonal relations. But Kevin, always
on alert, was not easy to cheat.

And finally York got to the point: "Firestone has a big client, most
important, with whom he exchanges huge amounts of money. This client is
about to come to New York. Firestone is the eyes and ears of this client
here in the States, he keeps him informed about everything, and I mean
really everything. This client is on our black list from... 1975. He is a
Korean, he shot dead some of our men that year, and also for that we want
him to pay, but... but first we have to understand how his movement of
tax-free dollars works... And we don't want you..."

"Yung Chem!" Kevin exclaimed widening his eyes and feeling his heart
jolting inside his chest: "And you think I can mess up the thing putting
spokes in Yung's wheels, possibly even doing him in, right?"

"Let's say that we heard a rumor about you having a personal thing to
square up with him, and that you are a guy with a lasting memory and that
we are afraid you could bite more than you can chew. This must not happen,
understood? Ah... I've heard also that you aren't lucky in your
investigation about that kid... Terry Something. You will do better
forgetting about it, stop it, at least for a while. Center just on Dan
Firestone and on the two moles who were killed and see if you can solve the
problem. If we frame Firestone, just to start, we will cut Yung's legs.
Christmas is nearing. Did you already do your shopping for presents?"

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Like what?"

"When do I have to swear?"

"What bullshit are you talking about?"

Kevin explained to him. He insisted on being named a Marshal's assistant.
Experience taught him that it was the only way to survive if you have to
work with the Federals. So Kevin could accede to the federal warrants and
also to the results of the investigations among State and State. He could
carry with him a weapon through the boundaries and on a plane. And if
problems arouse, the Federals could not get rid of him so easily. The
Federals were not used to conceding these privileges to a state agent, and
York didn't seem an exception.

"We are not asking you to invade Grenada, right? You have just to stay in
touch with me and remember to stay away when Yung enters the scene."

"Or you can enroll me as a regular, or you will have to wait for a very
long time for my reports. And I mean a really long time..."

"A small blackmail, isn't it? It seems like you want me to realize at once
with whom I have to deal with. Well. then. Tomorrow morning at nine thirty.
We will meet at the office of the District Attorney. Ah, Sergeant Black?"

The detective who was already at the door, turned towards the federal
agent. The smile, that died out at his request, was back on the man's face:
"I don't like you to force me doing something. You arrived on my path like
stinky dog's shit. I want you to remember in future that it is you the one
who has to lower his voice in our conversations. Stay well!"

Kevin didn't give a shit having tread on a Federal's toes. And he didn't
intend at all to stop his search for Terry -- he promised it to Grace and
that was that. Anyway, he would try to stay away from Yung, and would pass
to York all the information he could find investigating on Fort and
Firestone. All considered, tomorrow he will swear and so he too would have
the means and power, much more than now.

-----------------------------

CONTINUES IN CHAPTER FOURTH

-----------------------------

In my home page I've put some of my stories. If someone wants to read them,
the URL is

http://andrejkoymasky.com

If you want to send me feed-back, please e-mail at

andrej@andrejkoymasky.com

PLEASE NOTE THE NEW URL AND E-MAIL ADDRESS

---------------------------