Final Victim (1995) Read Free Page B

Florida, he ran into him in a bar. When Kulack called Ray Gonzales "just another Cuban grease stain," Lockwood lost it and swung at him, knocking him out with one punch.
    Now Kulack was upstairs, seething, on the Internal Affairs floor of the Washington, D . C ., Customs building. Lockwood had been wondering what Kulack would do and figured the call from the Director of All Operations was the other shoe dropping.
    He got off the elevator on the third floor and moved along the green-carpeted corridor. The offices were all spacious and decorated with oak furniture; very nice for civil servants. All of the men and women on this floor were in the Senior Executive Service (SES), Assistant Commissioners or above, and made their living passing paper and begging the appropriate Congressional committees to improve funding. The furniture had been purloined from a Senate office building after its renovation two years ago. As far as Lockwood could see, oak furniture and a full dental package were the best perks in SES.
    Lockwood could hear Heath before he saw him.
    "Where the fuck is he? I said forthwith!"
    Heath's assistant, Bob Tilly, was seated at an oversized secretarial desk outside of Heath's office. He shot Lockwood a smile weak as Oriental tea and waved him in.
    Laurence Heath looked like the commander of a tank division. He had a bull neck, with rolls of fat and muscle coming off the back of his shaved skull. He was popular in the Customs Service, because he was willing to downfield-block for his men. Through the large window behind him, Lockwood could see across Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. A cloud-drenched April sun was struggling to get through. The sky looked like oatmeal.
    "Are you ever gonna stop wearing your balls outside your trousers?" Health said, without preamble. His bright-blue eyes and huge shoulders glowered.
    "Larry, I don't know what Victor Kulack told you, but you can bet there's another side to it."
    "He's upstairs, about to paper you for failure to correctly supervise an informant."
    "That's bullshit."
    "Shut up, John." Silence hung like a velvet curtain. "He says there's five thousand dollars missing from Operation Girlfriend's petty cash account." Heath held up a Customs Internal Affairs folder and waved it at Lockwood like a booking sheet. "He says you and your informant, Ray Gonzales, were dipping into that account to buy drugs, and that you put those drugs on the street to build your pedigree with the river scum down there."
    "That's a lie. The money went to buy information. We were trying--" "I said shut up. I'm not through. Stop talking for a change." "Okay . ."
    "Then I get it in the halls that you knocked this asshole through a wall in a bar fight in South Beach before you came back up here."
    "Kulack tried to steal the bust, sir. He jumped the gun. Got two guys shot."
    "So you hit him?"
    "Accounts vary. There was undoubtedly some kind of struggle--" "You fuckin' amaze me."
    "He tried to hijack the bust to get those two dirty counter agents. There were over a hundred baggage handlers and skycaps involved in that smuggle. Those two Customs guys were less than five percent of the bust. Internal Affairs is supposed to investigate bad police work, not cowboy investigations to get headlines. We ended up in a dick-dragging shoot-out because Kulack jumped early and the cat got loose."
    "So you hit him?" Heath asked again.
    Lockwood didn't answer. He could tell by the red that was working its way up from under Heath's collar onto his neck that he was probably going to come out better by holding his silence. Larry Heath leane d f orward, snapping out his words. "Vic Kulack is shit on Melba toast, but he is also an Internal Affairs SAC. Internal Affairs, in case you haven't read your organization manual lately, is a couple of limbs higher on the tree than Operations. Technically, that makes Kulack your boss. Kulack says you fucked up the bust. He says five thousand dollars is missing. The hint