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the dude. That, plus he told me this was a high-six-figure opportunity for me.
That caught my interest."
All Agent Cavalierre and I had to do now was listen. Once Brophy got started
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there was no stopping him.
"What did he look like?"I asked.
"You want to know what he looked like? That's the million-dollar question,
Regis Philbin. Let me set the scene for you. When I walked into the room at
his hotel, there were bright lights shining at me. Like Hollywood premiere
movie lights. I couldn't see shit."
"Not even shapes?" I asked Brophy. "You must have seen something."
"His silhouette. He had long hair. Or maybe he was wearing a wig. Big nose,
big ears. Like a car with the doors open. We talked and he said he'd be in
touch but I never heard from him again. Guess he didn't want me for his crew."
"Why not?" I asked Brophy. It was a serious question. "Why wouldn't he want
someone like you?"
Brophy made a pistol with his hand and shot me. "He wants killers, dude. I'm
not a killer. I'm a lover. Right, Agent Cavalierre?"
Chapter Thirty-Eight
What Brophy had told us was scary and it couldn't get out to the press.
Someone who called himself the Mastermind was out there interviewing and
hiring professional killers. Only killers. What was he planning next? More
bank-hostage jobs? What the hell was he thinking?
After I finished work that night, I went to St. Anthony's. Jannie was doing
fine, but I stayed another night with her anyway. My home away from home. She
had begun calling me her'roomie."
The next morning I waded through files on disgruntled former employees of
Citibank, First Virginia, and First Union; and also records of anyone who had
made any kind of serious threat against the banks. The mood in the FBI field
office was quiet desperation. There was none of the buzz and excitement that
went along with leads, clues, progress of any kind. We still didn't have a
single good suspect.
Threats and crank communications to banks are usually handled by an in-house
investigative department. General hate mail is most often from people who are
denied loans or have had their homes foreclosed. Hate mail is as likely to
come from a woman as from a man. According to the psychological profiles I
read that morning, it was usually someone having work, financial, or domestic
problems. Occasionally, there were serious threats because of a bank's labor
practice, its affiliations with foreign countries such as South Africa, Iraq,
Northern Ireland. Mail at the major banks was X-rayed in the mailroom, and
there were frequent false alarms. Musical Christmas cards sometimes set off
the machines.
The process was exhausting, but necessary. It was part of the job. I glanced
over at Betsey Cavalierre around one. She was right there with the rest of us,
seated at a plain metal desk. She was nearly hidden behind the stacks of
paper.
en
"I'm going to run out again for a while," I told her. "There's a guy I want to
check out. He's made some threats against Citibank. He lives nearby."
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She put down her pen," I'll go with you. If you don't mind. Kyle says he
trusts your hunches."
"Look where it got Kyle," I said and smiled.
"Exactly," Betsey said and winked. "Let's go."
I had read and reread Joseph Petrillo's file. It stood out from the others.
Every week for the past two years, the chairman of Citibank in New York had
received an angry, even vicious letter from Petrillo. He had worked in
security for the bank from January of 1990 until two years ago. He'd been
fired because of budget cuts that affected every department in the bank, not
just his. Petrillo didn't accept the explanation, or anything else the bank
tried to make him go away.
There was something about the tone of the letters that alarmed me. They were
well written and intelligent, but the letters showed signs of paranoia,
possibly even schizophrenia. Petrillo had been a captain in Vietnam before he
worked for the bank. He'd seen combat. The police had been to see him about
the crank mail, but no charges had been filed.
"This must be one of those famous feelings of yours," Betsey said as we rode
to the suspect's house on Fifth Avenue.
"It's one of those famous bad feelings," I said. "The detective who
interviewed him a few months ago had a bad feeling too. The bank refused to go
any further with the complaint."
Unlike its namesake in New York, Fifth Avenue in DC was a low-rent area on the
edge of gentrifying Capitol Hill. It had originally been mostly
Italian-American, but was now racially mixed. Rusted, dated cars lined the
street. A BMW sedan, fully loaded, stood out from the other vehicles. Probably
a drug dealer.
"Same old, same old," Betsey said.
"You know the area?" I asked as we turned on to the street where Petrillo
lived.
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