of the bedroom and proclaimed he was in charge of any further questioning. All the officer’s questions would be directed to him and he would then state the question to Rudy. All of Rudy’s answers would be directed to him and then he would state them to the officers.
“I need a private room to confer with my client before we can continue,” Vargas told Levy.
Levy waived his hand in the direction of the rear bedroom and said, “Tell the uniformed officer stationed there I said for him to wait in the hall while you confer.”
Vargas and Rudy made their way into the second bedroom and dismissed the officer.
“Tell me everything you told them,” Vargas barked.
“I told them that I had an accident with the sword and cut my shoulder,” Rudy said in a hushed tone. “The truth is, two thugs tried to kill me with a knife last night. I awoke and found them in my bedroom just as they were about to stab me. I fought with them and broke one’s neck and crushed the other guy’s throat. I was sure they were both dead. I left them laying in there on the floor next to the bed. They cut my shoulder pretty bad and I needed stitches, so I went to the hospital. I used the sword accident story at the hospital with the doctors. I didn’t want them to call the police. When I returned, the two bodies were gone. When the police showed up and started their questioning, the sword story was the first explanation to come to mind. Do you think I should tell the police what really happened?” Rudy took a needed breath
“No...no, stay with your original story.” Vargas said as he thought the situation through.
“Yes...okay, but they’ve asked me to show them the sword and I don’t have one here. I told them that is went missing. They’re searching the suite now, looking for it.” Rudy said without pride.
Vargas opened his cell phone and pushed a button. “Carlos, I need a Matador’s sword delivered to the Ritz Hotel pronto, a very, very sharp sword. We need for it to be found during the police search of Rudolph Rodriguez’s suite. See to it.” He snapped the cell phone closed and placed it in his jacket pocket. “Have you and Roberto had time to discuss his audit of our books for this year?”
“No...I just arrived in New York yesterday,” Rudy said. “I haven’t seen Roberto since last week in Montreal.”
Vargas grunted, as if displeased. “You know that I still have your power of attorney to handle the trust fund until you sign the audit statement on your birthday, this Monday. I must again insist that you and your brother keep the trust in tact, and that I continue to manage your father’s estate. I have made all of us very wealthy men and we can continue to make even more if we keep the money in my control. As I have said many times, we can simply increase your annual allowance from the nine hundred thousand dollars you presently are getting to...say, ten million dollars a year. Surely that’s more than you’d be able to squander away every year.”
Rudy was silent for a moment and then said, “Juan, I believe this is not the time to be having a conversation about the trust fund. I’m in trouble here and I need your help to get the police out of my life. I’m to meet Roberto this afternoon to review his report of the audits. I’ll discuss it with him at that time, and we’ll have an answer for you then. But...for now, let’s get Levy and Miller off my ass.”
Vargas motioned for Rudy to stand closer to him and said, “No matter what I say to the police after we go back in there, do not act surprised or disagree with me. Do you understand?” Rudy nodded his head yes.
Vargas grabbed Rudy’s arm and started pulling him as he walked toward the bedroom door. He whispered hoarsely, “We must do everything we can to keep this matter in the family.” Rudy removed Juan’s hand from his arm and was impressed with the older man’s grip.
Rudy said, “What we need to do is find the two guys who tried to kill me last night. If we knew what happened to them it would be a big help. I’m sure they didn’t just get up and walk out of here. If nothing else, they had to have had a lot of help from someone.”
Juan grunted his disapproval again and said, “We shouldn’t be concerned about that scum, we have bigger things to take care of.” He started for the door again and said, “Remember, I do the talking and you do the agreeing, correct?”
“Correct,” Rudy replied. The pair returned to the front bedroom with Detectives Levy and Miller.
Detective Miller was thumbing through Rudy’s passport and said, “This shows you arrived in the country last Monday, June eleventh. You said earlier that you haven’t seen your brother for over a week and that you had just arrived in the city yesterday, June the fifteenth.
“Yes” Rudy began.
“Hold on there,” Vargas interrupted as he shoved past Rudy and grabbed the passport out of Miller’s hand. “You have no right to this information. This is private information between my client and the State Department, and is not public information.” he protested.
Miller tried to grab Rudy’s passport back out of Vargas’s fat hand but he held a firm grip on it. “This may be a murder investigation. That makes it our right to have this and anything else we find here,” Miller yelled back at Vargas.
Vargas paused for a moment and stepped back from the group and slid Rudy’s passport into his jacket pocket and said, “Mr. Rodriguez will receive a very large amount of money on Monday along with his twin brother Roberto, and, Rudolph is a man of the blood sport and very skilled with a sword. It’s not a secret that Rudy and Roberto share no admiration for one another, and I have first hand knowledge from Roberto that he fears what his brother is capable of.”
Rudy listened to Vargas in astonishment. He could not believe what he was hearing him say, but tried not to look or act surprised as he had promised. Vargas had all but confessed that Rudy had killed his twin brother. He didn’t know what to do to protect himself from the evidence Vargas was fabricating in front of the police. What good could come from this inaccurate assertions? Rudy waited, with resentment, for Vargas to clear up the misconception he had provided to the police.
Vargas paused for a moment to see if he had everyone’s attention and said, “Men kill for much less to gain and get away with it all the time.” Rudy, Miller and Levy were dumbfounded. All eyes were on Vargas, silently waiting for him to magically produce from nowhere the indisputable proof to hand to the police that would send Rudy to prison for the rest of his life.
Detective Levy was the first to brake Vargas’s spell by asking him, “Are you telling us that your client, Rudolph Rodriguez is guilty of the murder of Robert Rodriguez?”
Vargas watched each man in the room, one by one, and then replied, “I am simply stating the facts as we all know them to be. All that’s missing is the body and the weapon. DNA testing of the blood soaked bed sheets will only prove that one of the identical twins lost a lot of blood here last night. Roberto Rodriguez has been with me for the last two days at my office, doing an annual review and audit of my corporation’s management and investments of his late father’s trust fund. His final conclusion is that I have made so much money for the group, that I should continue to be in full control and manager the trust fund without interference indefinitely. Now, if I can get Rudy to do the same and we agree that I should be in full control of the fund after his birthday, on Monday, I’m sure we can get on with clearing up this investigation.”
Rudy now understood the motive behind Varga’s vicious attack on him. His mind wandered as to who the caller was that brought the police to his hotel suite. Why had Vargas been in the lobby of his hotel at that particular time? The coincidence was too much for Rudy to ignore. Vargas was lying about Roberto agreeing to keep the trust fund under Vargas’s control. Vargas was lying about Roberto fearing what Rudy might do. Rudy suddenly wished that Vargas hadn’t arranged to have a sword delivered to his hotel suite. It would surely become the assumed missing murder weapon. If Rudy was taken into custody and kept locked in a jail cell, Roberto would never be able to appear to clear him.
Rudy knew he needed to remain calm. He knew he needed to seem to be caught up by Vargas’s deceit. He knew he needed to