The Inside Man Read online

  “I just need the truth. Tell me about the bomb that you set.”

  The man looked panicked, and he glanced from side to side. Levi was contemplating what he’d need to do to get the man talking, when Ishikawa’s eyes opened wide with recognition.

  “I was just trying to break into the building,” he said. “I didn’t know it had a gas leak. They shouldn’t have died—that wasn’t my intent. The kids were—”

  “Hold on. What kids?”

  Ishikawa tilted his head. “The school. It was late when I tried to break in, and there must have been a spark and the whole place blew. I didn’t know there was anyone still in the building.”

  Levi frowned and studied the man’s expression. “Where was the school?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Where was the school?” Levi barked loudly.

  “In West Virginia. A small town called Chelsea.”

  Levi stood and began pacing back and forth in front of Ishikawa. “Tell me more.”

  “I received a lead that there was cash being stored in the office of the elementary school. Over ten thousand dollars from some school fundraiser. I smelled something as I approached the building—it had to be the gas. I should have known better. But—”

  “Was this the only explosion you were involved in?”

  A look of genuine surprise was plain on Ishikawa’s face. “Y-yes.”

  “What time was it when you broke into the school?”

  Ishikawa furrowed his brows. “It was definitely night time. I think after ten, but before midnight. And when I broke through the door, it must have set off a spark…”

  Levi walked away from Ishikawa, hit a number on his speed dial, and put his phone to his ear.

  Denny picked up after one ring. “Hey, Levi, what’s up?”

  “I need you to follow up on something. Can you do it right now?”

  “Sure, just give me a second—I’m behind the bar. Hey, Rosie, I’m going in the back. One second, Levi.”

  Levi muted the call and yelled across the room at Ishikawa. “How long ago was this explosion?”

  “A few months ago. Early September, I think.”

  Levi walked back to the stairwell, where his two escorts had been waiting. “Does Ishikawa have any children?” he asked.

  One man nodded. “Two. One boy, one girl. Both are young, one is five, the other is seven years old.”

  “Bring them here.”

  The man paused for only a second before responding with a nod. “They are close by, visiting their grandfather. I will be back in a few minutes.”

  As the man departed up the stairs, Denny came back on the line. “Okay, I’m at my terminal. What do you want to know?”

  “Check on a school explosion. Natural gas is likely. It was in Chelsea, West Virginia, sometime around September. I need to know everything you can find out about it, ASAP.”

  “One second.”

  Levi put the call on mute, stepped back into the basement, and pointed at the two men who’d softened Ishikawa up. “Clean him up and untie him.” He narrowed his gaze at Ishikawa. “I’m sure he’ll behave.”

  By the time Levi got off the phone with Denny, having gotten the information he needed, the guard had returned with Ishikawa’s kids. The kids ran to hug their father, who’d been cleaned up as much as possible. His nose was bandaged, and a towel was draped around his shoulders. He maintained a brave face for their sake, but Levi saw the terror in his eyes. And he had reason to be worried. His kids weren’t part of any equation he’d have prepared for.

  “Father, what happened to your nose?” the little boy asked.

  Ishikawa smiled and cupped both of his kids’ faces in his hands. “I accidentally fell. This American man is a doctor, and he’s helping fix it.”

  The little girl broke away from her father and hugged Levi around the waist. “Thank you, Mister. Thank you so much.”

  Levi patted the girl on her head and motioned for the guard to escort the child out once more.

  Ishikawa’s eyes followed his kids out the door. He waited until they were gone before speaking, his voice trembling. “Please, please don’t do anything to them. Anything you do to me, I accept. I don’t know what I did wrong, but—”

  “Enough!” Levi yelled, his voice a slap across the face. He squatted so that he was eye level with Ishikawa, who was still sitting, though unbound, on the chair. “You cannot even imagine what I’ll do to your kids if you lie to me again. I just talked to someone who said there have been no explosions at any school in Chelsea, West Virginia. So, what explosions have you been involved in? What bombs have you set?”

  “Bombs?” Ishikawa blinked, a plain expression of surprise etched on his face. “I’ve never… I don’t know anything about bombs. I’ve never even been close to one, I don’t think. Nobody in our station is a bomb-maker, I’m sure of it. I swear to you, I have no idea about any other explosions or anything about bombs.”

  Levi studied the man’s face. The pale clamminess of his skin was obvious, but the reaction he’d had. He’d seen it hundreds of times. It was the reaction of a man who was confused and surprised. Levi didn’t need a polygraph to know that Ishikawa was telling the truth.

  He hadn’t set the bomb that had killed Nguyen and Wei.

  “Ishikawa-san, the explosion wasn’t in Chelsea. It was just over the city line in the town of Ghent.” Levi patted the man on the knee and stood. He turned to the two men watching over Ishikawa. “Let’s bring Ishikawa-san back to the boss. It is up to him what’s to be done, but I believe Ishikawa has done nothing wrong.”

  Upon hearing this, whatever had kept Ishikawa upright in his chair gave way, because the man pitched forward and would have smashed face-first onto the floor if Levi hadn’t caught him.

  The two men grabbed Ishikawa by the arms and half carried half escorted him toward the exit.

  Levi patted Ishikawa on the shoulder and whispered, “Don’t go back to the US yet. You are being looked for.”

  As Ishikawa began to thank him, Levi’s mind was already thousands of miles away.

  The only lead he had to the two agents’ deaths had just fallen apart.

  O’Connor still wanted his pound of flesh, but this time, Levi was going to disappoint him.

  Chapter Eight

  Levi was met in the lobby of the Helmsley Arms by the head of security for the Bianchi family.

  “Hey, Frankie. What’s up?”

  Frankie motioned toward the apartment building’s entrance. “Let’s go take a walk. You and I need to talk.”

  Levi studied Frankie’s grim expression, and with a sigh of frustration, he followed Frankie back onto the streets of New York City.

  As the two men walked along East 86th Street, Levi’s breath came out in warm jets of mist. Frankie was bundled up in a winter jacket, while Levi was wearing the same suit he’d just spent the last two days in.

  “Come on, Frankie, I’m freezing my ass off out here. What’s going on?”

  “One of our guys was rubbed out.” Frankie said it bluntly, giving Levi a sideways glance. He continued walking at a brisk pace.

  “Shit.”

  Levi hated the risks of their business. More and more, the Bianchis had been involving themselves in legal ventures, but even then, nothing was without risk among people who stretched the laws. Sometimes personalities between the different families clashed, and other times it was just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The city could be a dangerous place, even for a connected guy.

  But this wasn’t he kind of thing Levi usually dealt with; this was the kind of thing Frankie was usually all over.

  “Who was it, Frankie? And why are you telling me about it?”

  “You probably never met him—a working stiff named Jimmy Costanza. He was one of our connected guys. We got a note delivered, along with two pieces of him: his finger and his manhood.”

  “What?” Levi stare
d at Frankie in disbelief. It was one thing to have someone shot. It was very old school to have souvenirs delivered to a man’s family. Levi didn’t think that happened anymore.

  Frankie dug a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “Here, take a look.”

  Levi opened it and scanned the text.

  Stay out of Flushing and our business.

  There was a reddish-brown smear on the paper. Dried blood.

  Flushing? The family didn’t have any business in that area that Levi was aware of. But—

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Ya, oh shit. Vinnie asked me to ask you to stop whatever it is you’re doing there. I don’t want to know any more than I have to, but Paulie told me about those kids you’ve been lifting. He said Jimmy was doing favors for him and probably got spotted by one of those Chinese bastards. Well, whatever it was you had them doing, he died because of it.”

  A chill ran up Levi’s back. If Paulie had used Costanza to take care of that girl he’d spotted, that meant the Chinese may have been following him. And if so, they might know where she’d been taken. His blood turned to ice.

  He stopped and faced Frankie. “I’ll take care of this with Vinnie, but right now I have to go!”

  He raced back to the apartment building, dialing a number on the way. As soon as the call was answered, he yelled into the phone, “At the Helmsley, I need a car, no questions. Get there ASAP.”

  ###

  Levi broke all sorts of speed limits to get to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in two and a half hours. He called Paulie repeatedly on the way, but didn’t even get voicemail—either the man’s cell phone was off or it had no signal.

  As he drove up the path to his family’s farm, he spied another car—a black Toyota Camry with New York plates. His heart thudded heavily. Cars were a rare thing in this out-of-the-way Amish community.

  He hopped out of his borrowed vehicle and began trudging up the icy path. It had snowed recently in the countryside.

  Levi’s mom walked out of the barn up ahead, looking to see who had arrived. Her face lit up when she saw Levi. “Lazarus!” she called, using his given name. Though she was in her late sixties, she hustled over quickly and wrapped him in a tremendous hug. “It’s been so long! You should visit more often.” She admonished him in Pennsylvania Dutch, the language he’d grown up with.

  He kissed her on both cheeks and nodded toward the other car parked nearby. “Whose is that?”

  She tucked a stray lock of her fading blonde hair back under her white prayer cap. “You don’t know? It’s the translator you sent for the new girl. She seems very nice.”

  Levi felt the blood draining from his face. “Where is this translator?”

  Mom pointed off into the distance, toward the one-room school building that Levi had attended in his youth. “They’re in school, of course. The kids are doing really well. They’ll be thrilled to see you.”

  Levi kissed his mom on the forehead and said, “I’ll be right back. I just want to check on things.”

  As he jogged the quarter mile to the school, he patted his suit, checking to make sure his weapons were where they should be.

  He hadn’t sent any translator.

  He hopped up the steps to the school and opened the door, ready for anything.

  He was greeted with a scene that could have come from a Normal Rockwell painting. A dozen kids ranging from five to ten years old, were at their desks, writing in their notebooks. A woman, her back to him, was talking to a girl at the far end of the classroom.

  “Daddy Levi!” shouted one of the kids in delight. Heads turned, and several kids hopped out of their chairs and rushed over. As they encircled him, hugging him from all directions, they tugged at his heartstrings. He remembered where he’d found each and every one of them. Images etched forever in his mind.

  These kids were victims of the streets, abused in unspeakable ways. Brought from foreign lands—Vietnam, Cambodia, China, and others—most had lacked any English, leaving them at the mercy of the pimps and slave lords that hid in the shadows of nearly every major city.

  The best he could do was give them a chance. Levi had paid heavily for the documents that would give them American names, a US citizenship, and a healthy start to a new life. And now, as he looked into their smiling, healthy faces, he knew it had all been worth it. For all the sins he’d committed, and would continue to commit, he hoped this would be a balm to his restless soul.

  “So, you’re the one.”

  Levi looked up at the woman who’d spoken, and he gasped in recognition. This was the woman who’d “rescued” him in Flushing. The same woman, who under her clothes, had an undulating dragon tattoo across her taut, athletic body. Her arms were draped over the girl he’d tried to help that day—the girl who’d only wanted a hot dog.

  He spoke to the kids in Pennsylvania Dutch. “Go now to Grandma Yoder and tell her I said you all deserve a treat. I want to talk to this woman.”

  The kids cheered, and poured out of the school, however one of the kids, Alicia, she turned to the girl standing in front of the woman and spoke in what Levi assumed was Cantonese.

  The woman nodded and both girls raced from the schoolhouse, leaving Levi alone with her.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, trying to keep the anger he was feeling from his voice.

  The woman approached him with a relaxed self-confidence. “I should ask you what these children are doing here. Why did you have Mei stolen from her manager?”

  “Manager?” Levi felt the heat rise up into his neck. “You mean pimp. How the hell did you find this place?”

  The woman stepped closer, within arm’s reach. She wasn’t at all intimidated by him. “Why did you have her taken?” She motioned toward all the other desks in the room. “And the other kids, are they like Mei? Did you steal them all?”

  Levi’s sixth sense tingled, he sensed something was amiss. Was she a cop? Was she trying to entrap him into admitting something?

  “Raise your hands,” he said. “I need to frisk you.”

  “You’re not touching me,” the woman growled, giving him a look of revulsion. She took a step back. “Lock the door and I’ll show you that I’m not hiding anything.”

  Levi took a step toward the door, closed the latch, and watched as the woman unzipped her dress, letting it fall to the ground. She kicked it over to him, followed by her shoes and undergarments. She then raked her fingers through her long jet-black hair. Levi had never encountered anyone who would so casually get naked in front of a stranger.

  The woman brazenly stood naked in the middle of the classroom as Levi inspected her clothes for a listening device. “Why are these kids here? You realize that these people would kill you for taking them.”

  He tossed her clothes back to her, and she quickly got dressed. “How did you find this place?” he asked.

  She stepped closer and glared at him. “Answer my question first. Why are these kids here?”

  Levi studied her. She was aggressive—pushing him. Why? He unclenched his fists and shrugged his shoulders. Her demeanor was setting him on edge.

  “I wanted more for them,” he said. “They didn’t deserve to be victimized.”

  The woman tilted her head and stared unblinkingly at him. “So, all of these kids are like Mei? And now they’re off the streets. But for how long?”

  Levi frowned. “What do you mean for how long? Forever, if I have anything to do with it, and I do. These kids aren’t going back to the streets, ever. Do you understand me?”

  The woman took a step back, and her expression softened just a bit.

  “How did you find us?” Levi asked again.

  The woman shook her head. “I can’t tell you that. Just know that you’re lucky you weren’t the one who took her—or you’d be the one cut into pieces.”

  She growled a warning. “Stay away from where you found Mei. I won’t be able to help you next time.” She stepped around Levi
and moved toward the door.

  Levi placed a hand on her shoulder, but she spun around and back-fisted his hand away. “Don’t touch me.” she snarled. “Don’t worry—they’ll never hear about this place from me. Nor will you ever see me again. But don’t you dare come looking for me, or all bets are off.”

  And with that, she threw open the latch and walked out of the schoolhouse.

  Levi contemplated going after her. He also worried whether this place was still safe for the kids. But he didn’t have any real alternatives. What else could he do? He had nowhere else he could take them.

  His muscles ached with pent-up anxiety. He needed to punch something—hard. He sat on one of the kids’ chairs, feeling somewhat paralyzed.

  The door creaked open, and a face peeked into the classroom. It was Alicia. She was one of the first kids he’d taken from the street. She’d run away from whoever had smuggled her into the States, and Levi had found her rummaging through a dumpster no more than ten blocks away from his Park Avenue apartment.

  “Hello, baby girl.” He said in Mandarin. “You can come in.”

  Alicia walked in with the new girl in tow. “Mei wanted to thank you,” she said in English that was much better than he last remembered her speaking.

  Mei looked nothing like the kid Levi had met in Flushing. Gone were the gaudy makeup and improper clothing. Now she wore a modest, dark dress with a white prayer cap. She looked just like everyone else in the community—apart from being Asian. Levi smiled at how young and innocent she looked. He knew she was damaged and scarred on the inside, but hopefully, in time, she’d put her past aside and find a new life.

  She walked up to Levi, her eyes tearing. She started to say something in Cantonese, but after only a couple of words, she began to cry.

  Levi knelt in front of her and wrapped her in his arms. She hugged him back tightly, as if she’d never let go. He closed his eyes and choked down the lump in his throat. “Tell her that she’ll be safe here.”

  Alicia smiled. “She knows that already. Miss Lucy told her that none of the bad men would find her here.”