“Oh, yeah,” said Fisk. “Looking into the business end of a handgun does that to people.”

Garza took a moment to scan the crowd. They were starting to disperse now that the show was over.

“I was feeling good about having an image of Chuparosa,” she said. “But now suddenly I feel we are no closer to him. No how, or where, or when.”

“He’s killed off everybody who could answer those questions.”

“He couldn’t have killed everybody,” said Garza. “He is staying somewhere. Someone is helping him.”

Fisk said, “I had a look at the seating plan for the dinner tonight. Obama and Vargas are seated at separate tables, which I guess is a power hosting thing. It gives the gathering two prime tables for guests to sit at, and by guests I mean donors.”

Garza nodded. “So?”

“Obama’s seatmates were all named on the diagram. As were Vargas’s seatmates . . . except for one. One was left empty.”

“Why?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

Garza shook her head. “I haven’t seen the chart.”

“Well, then two other things came to mind. One was the mysterious presence of a U.S. marshal at the security review. I recognized her on the way out. She gave me a very vague nonanswer about what she was doing there. As you may know, they handle fugitives and federal witness relocation. And where was the restaurant owner? Two heads of state are coming to your establishment for an important dinner, and you’re not present at the security review? You’re not overseeing every little detail?”

“Fair point,” she said. “Who is the owner?”

“A limited partnership. Some shell corporation. But even shell corporations have to file legal papers and tax forms.” Fisk crossed his arms, looking down at her over his sunglasses. “I think we need to go pay this fellow a visit, Comandante.”

Garza nodded. “I think we do, too.”

CHAPTER 54

Chuparosa entered the garage dressed in a pair of light coveralls. He lifted the rear door of the fish truck with the Teixeira Brothers logo on the side and loaded in the deep tray of finely chopped ice.

He opened the four cases of shellfish, kneeling on the floor of the van. Blue Points, Chincoteagues, littlenecks, and Wellfleets, one box each. He spread the fresh ice in and around the oysters.

Packed in the ice beneath several layers of Wellfleets were the plastic frames of two Glock 17s. The trigger guards of each frame had been ground off, and all of the straight edges of the frame and handgrips had been modified with a Dremel tool in order to mimic the shape and roughness of an oyster.

Both guns had been fieldstripped, their slides and magazines distributed in the lining of a box of oyster knives. Each handle of the sixty-eight knives contained a single 124-grain 9mm Hydra-Shok hollow-point round sealed inside a lead lining so that they could not be detected by X-rays.

The barrels of the Glocks had been inserted inside the handle of a hand truck he had bought at the Home Depot on DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn.

Silencers were the easy part. The two AAC Ti-RANT cans were top-of-the-line military-grade suppressors, slightly modified. Each had been disassembled, the tubes and pistons painted the same color as the hand truck and attached to the cross member, the baffles disassembled and slid onto the handles of the truck in place of the original rubber grips and painted matte black.

The locking blocks of the Glocks, too, had been painted and attached unobtrusively to the frame of the hand truck with Loctite. All that was left of the Glocks were the trigger groups, the trigger bars, the sears, and the trigger connectors—all of which were small pieces containing little more metal than a ballpoint pen. They were installed inside a tablet computer labeled ORDER TRACKING MODULE, effectively immune from detection.

The most distinctive parts—the gun barrels—had been set aside. They would have the most distinctive X-ray profiles, and so they would have to go in through an entirely different route.

Chuparosa heard footsteps and grasped the handle of the knife he carried in his belt, just as a precaution. He turned and waited.

Tomás Calibri came around the corner carrying two formal-looking outfits on hangers, wrapped in dry cleaner’s clear plastic. Tuxedo shirts and black pants.

Servers’ uniforms.

From his pocket Calibri pulled out two black bow ties.

“I hope you know how to tie a real bow tie, patrón?”

CHAPTER 55

Fisk and Garza spent some time out of his vehicle at the security station before the gate built into the twelve-foot-high stone wall. It was a beautiful, blue-sky day on Long Island. Their respective credentials were examined by a security guard while a second guard, a backup, remained inside the booth, watching them carefully.

The first guard carried their identification into the guard booth and spent a considerable amount of time on the telephone. He finally returned, again checked their faces against their identification cards, and only then signaled the second guard to roll back the gate.

When they were back inside his car and rolling up the wide driveway, Fisk said, “Getting on an airplane is easier than that.”

The lawn was beautifully landscaped, the main house not coming into view until the wide driveway took a leftward turn.

The mansion was slate roofed, with multiple dormer windows set symmetrically between red-trimmed gables. It was three stories and wide, fronted by a large circular driveway ringed by perfect green shrubs, offset by a pond with a fountain in its center. Picture perfect against a clear blue sky on a warm September day.

“My goodness,” said Fisk.

“How much would you say?” asked Garza.

Fisk said, “Seven million. The upkeep alone would be beyond any cop’s reach.”

“All from one tiny restaurant?” said Garza.

They parked outside the front door. The door was opened by a butler, who welcomed them inside. He was Mexican by appearance, stern looking, in his fifties. “Comandante and Detective, Don Andrés insists upon a strict no-gun policy inside his home,” said the butler.

Fisk said, “That is simply not possible.”

“I am afraid I will have to insist. Or else Don Andrés will not be available to sit with you today.”

Fisk checked with Garza to be sure he was speaking for both of them. “You tell your boss that we wear our weapons wherever we go.”

A woman stepped into the entrance from one of the three rooms that fed into it. “Then I will have to insist,” she said.

Fisk smiled. “Marshal Graben.” The U.S. marshal he had seen at the restaurant during the briefing.

“Good to see you again, Fisk. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s no concern of yours. But since Andrés León does not object, I am making it happen. But not with your service pieces. Again—his house, his rules.”

“Fine,” said Garza, unsnapping her holster and removing her Beretta.

Fisk, after a moment’s consideration, pulled out his Glock.

The butler was waiting with an open box. They laid them inside.

“And any electronic devices,” added the butler.

Fisk glanced sideways at Graben before relinquishing his phone. Garza laid hers inside the box next to Fisk’s.

The butler closed the box and set it on a table near the door. “Thank you,” said the butler. “Now, if you don’t mind . . .”

He did not give them a chance to mind. The butler frisked Fisk, thoroughly and professionally. As a courtesy, Graben walked over to pat down Garza.

Garza stared at the marshal during the frisking.

“Satisfied?” said Fisk.

Graben said, “He is on the patio in back.”