“Tell me about Carla?” I say to Smoke.
Smoke shrugs. “Dumpy woman. Nothing special. Archie borrowed her from another fence, wasn’t in his regular stable. I don’t think she worked much. Burned out or got burned or something.”
“You ever meet her?”
“I did. On that job you’re holding now. She needed a scrounger to get her a bunch of equipment, and I helped facilitate.”
“What’s a scrounger?” Risina asks.
“A fella who gets you any props you need while working a job—a delivery truck, a uniform, a wheelchair, an ID badge . . .”
“Weapons?”
Smoke shakes his head. “Your fence’ll supply those.”
“Yeah, scroungers are mainly for everyday things. They get paid well to work quietly and quickly.” Then, to Smoke, “What was your vibe off Carla?”
Smoke shrugs. “Not much to look at. Had a dog-face if you want me to get specific. Not sure what breed, but definitely canine. She didn’t say much either, all business. A little jumpy, to tell you the truth. Why? What’s in the file?”
“Nothing . . . just . . . a personal gig for Archie. File says it went down the way it was supposed to go down. It shouldn’t be suspicious; but if I were looking for a reason to kidnap a fence, I’d start with the jobs he instigated himself. I might want to talk to this Carla.”
“Archie didn’t have a problem with her. Like I said . . . that was the only time he used her.”
“Okay.”
I set the file aside and plow into the next one. An hour goes by with no further anomalies, no red flags waving at me. Shaky clients called off a few hits before the assassinations took place, but this is not uncommon. Clients buckle under the weight of what they’ve set into motion, and they’ll pay extra to cancel the order, trying to salvage their conscience, afraid to wake up with blood on their hands. Fences can make a pretty good business on canceled hits.
I just open the last file in my stack—the execution of a pit boss at Harrah’s Casino in Joliet—when Risina speaks up.
“I think I found something.”
And she did.
It’s rare, but occasionally in this business there are incomplete hits. Not canceled hits . . . incomplete ones. An assassin might get killed while on the job, or the mark goes into hiding and just can’t be found, or the police or FBI catch wind and sting the bagman in the act. The fence is forced into an awkward position; he has to turn the money back over to the client, which is a substantial sum, half of which, subtracting his fees, he paid to the hit man on commencement of the assignment. So personally he’s on the hook for the total, unless he can barter with his hired gun to return a portion of the commencement fee. If his hired gun is alive and not in jail, that is. Worse, the fence takes a shot to his reputation by failing to execute the assignment. Clients get jumpy, rival fences swoop in like vultures to fill the void. A few dings like that, and the contracts dry up.
Four months ago, Archie put a file together on a Kansas City man named Rich Bacino. This is the file Risina found, the file I’m absorbing now. On the surface, it doesn’t look like a difficult kill. Rich started an internet software company in the boom of the nineties and was prescient enough to sell it before the bust of the aught-years. He netted eighty million dollars before he turned forty. A bachelor, he bought up properties on both coasts and added an apartment in Paris. He spent a little money on the usual accoutrements of the rich: cars, boats, real estate. But Rich saved the majority of his cash for a newfound passion.
Rich started collecting.
Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of marks involved with an assortment of illegal activities. I’ve killed crime bosses, money launderers, numbers runners, low-level bagmen. I’ve killed corrupt politicians or judges taking bribes on the side. I’ve hit businessmen with mistresses and Sunday school teachers who were buried in gambling debts. I’ve also come across a few assholes involved in illegal collecting: kiddie porn or Nazi memorabilia or stolen art. You dabble with that stuff, it’s just a matter of time before a guy like me shows up on your doorstep. You sit in slime long enough, you make enemies and you get dropped.
But Rich’s collection is a first.
Rich Bacino collects skulls.
He has over fifty, all famous people, all acquired after the bodies were laid to rest without the heirs or families knowing about the exhumation. DNA tests and documentation prove their authenticity, though very few people will ever see the paperwork to confirm it. Collections like this aren’t gathered for display; it’s hard to describe, but they’re built on a perverse sense of getting over on everyone else. It’s like Poe’s telltale heart beating underneath the floorboards while the constable stands obliviously above it—except instead of driving the collector mad, the beating, the
knowing
excites him. While his friends, family, and acquaintances visit in his living room, they have no idea that the skulls of say, Ronald Reagan or Jeffrey Dahmer or Gianni Versace are stored in the basement beneath them. It’s a big secret fuck-you to everyone, an “I’m more powerful than you’ll ever know” high.
Exactly how much he pays for the skulls, I have no idea. Archie estimates millions of dollars exchange hands for each purchase. The more famous the person, the more public the grave, the higher the price.
So Rich either crossed someone he shouldn’t have, or someone’s loved ones found out about his hobby, because a price tag was put on
his
skull. Archie was hired to facilitate the kill, which was an eight-week job assigned ten weeks ago. And yet, Rich Bacino is still alive.
The bagman assigned to kill him was a native Chicagoan named Flagler. Next to his name, Archie had written a single word in red ink.
Missing.
I don’t know if this odd file has anything to do with the abduction of Archie or the note asking to bring me home, but it’s an unresolved issue in Archie’s professional life, and it seems like a good place to start.
CHAPTER THREE
R
isina and I are eating burgers at Blackie’s on South Clark. The joint has been here for most of a century, and in a town that knows how to cook meat, it’s a standout.
Smoke settles in across from us in the booth, looking a bit twitchy.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing. I’m just not good at this, is all.”
“You did solid work on the security guard.”
Smoke shakes his head. “That was a piece of pumpkin pie. This . . . I don’t know if I helped much. I wish Archie were here.” He takes out a file and slides it furtively across the table.
I put my hands on top of the manila envelope but don’t open it, just level my gaze at Smoke. “Give me the highlights.”
“Well, looks like we’ve used Flagler twice before this job, but Archie didn’t know him too well. Like that Carla you mentioned, he wasn’t in the regular stable. He came on a rec from an East Coast fence named Talbott.”
“That who you talked to?”
“That’s who I
tried
to talk to. He gave me the Heisman.” Smoke strikes the trophy pose before dropping his hands back to his lap.
“You gotta work him . . .”
“I don’t have the tongue Archie has . . . you’ve seen that.”
“I think you’re selling yourself short.”
“Man, I don’t know.”
Risina pulls the file out from under my hands and starts skimming it. “There’s a lot of solid information here, Smoke.”
Smoke shrugs, his eyes downcast. “I need a cigarette. Excuse me.” He climbs out of the booth and heads for the exit.
Risina starts to read the first page in the file, then stops. “You don’t think Smoke . . . ?” She pauses, trying to figure out the best way to say it. “You don’t think someone maybe got to Smoke, do you? Or that he’s been involved from the get-go? I mean, this note says to bring you to Chicago, and here you sit.”
I shake my head. “I think he needs to find his footing. Gain some confidence. This job is . . . it’s not for everyone. It’s one thing to watch Archie put files together, another to get out and beat the streets all by your lonesome. I’m sure I rattled him in that alley in Manila. Maybe he’s putting one toe in the pool and finding out the water’s a little too deep. Being a fence is a lot harder than it looks. Psychologically, I mean.”
“Hmmm.” Risina goes back to reading, her eyes floating over the page. I like the way she’s thinking now, even if I don’t agree with her. She’s starting to engage her intuition, a weapon as important to a hit man as his gun. She’s asking the right questions, at least.
After a moment, Smoke returns to the booth, smelling like his namesake. “Sorry ’bout that. I tried to quit smoking once, but that didn’t work out for me. Anyway, while I was out there I was thinking there was a nugget I found in this Flagler file that stuck with me. It’s in there and you’ll come across it, but I’ll tell you anyway. This cat didn’t pick up his money himself. Both times, the commencement pay and the completion—he gave instructions where to drop it. Now, most of Archie’s regular guys on the payroll, Archie pays ’em direct. They’re tight, you know? They’re . . . like I said before . . .”
“In the stable.”
“Yeah. Not this guy.”
“You know where the drop-off was?”
“Yep. I took the duffel myself. Trailer park goes by ‘Little Arizona’ near the Indiana border.”
“And you handed it to him?”
“No, that’s the thing. I never met him.”
Smoke’s file gave me part of Flagler’s story, but it had holes in it big enough to drop a body through. He started as a bagman in Maryland, Virginia, and DC, and stayed mostly in that area up until about a year ago. Smoke didn’t know what he looked like . . . and if Archie did, he didn’t put it in his file. Archie was good about keeping notes on all his contractors, but for some reason, hadn’t gotten around to recording much on Flagler. Smoke was sure
Flagler
wasn’t his real name, but didn’t know where, when, or why he chose it.
There was scant information regarding the jobs he’d worked on the East Coast, just that he had a fence named Spellman who died of colon cancer, allowing Flagler to become a free agent. He must’ve pulled a few jobs for the other fence named Talbott, who gave the recommendation to Archie, but like Smoke said, Talbott wasn’t talking.
What Smoke did find were details on the two jobs he pulled for Archie prior to the one that went sour.
The first was the owner of a bar in Minneapolis, a sixty-year-old lothario. From the file Archie cobbled, the man was juggling six different women in various parts of the city. Three of them were married. I have no idea who ordered the killing: a jealous woman or a cuckolded husband, but the barkeep’s Don Juan lifestyle caught up with him. He was shot in his car at one-fifteen in the morning after he closed down the bar and put his key in the ignition of his Cadillac. Robbery was the police department’s initial suspicion; the safe inside the bar’s back office was open and empty. But as details of the bar owner’s social life emerged, the police shifted their attention to his spate of lovers. A dozen people were brought in for questioning, but all the suspects seemed to have strong alibis. The case remains unsolved and open.
The second assignment was a bit of a high-profile case. It involved the violent death of a professional athlete. Again, Flagler used the robbery angle to throw the police off the scent. This is not an uncommon tactic; hired killers have been utilizing it for centuries. Make it look like a petty theft gone wrong and the cops will spin their wheels for weeks, staking out pawnshops and flea markets, trying to find the killer by tracking what was stolen. All the while, the trail grows as cold as a frozen pond. Robberies are supposed to be about money; the goods
have
to be fenced at some point. So nothing drives a detective more insane than when the stolen items simply vanish.
In this case, the athlete was a cornerback for the Bears, a guy who mostly worked on the punt and kick-off teams, but occasionally made it on to the field in nickel packages or long-yardage situations. He was in his sixth year in the league, and hadn’t made a fortune, but had done all right for himself. He lived in a decent-sized house in Cabrini and was into guns, amassing dozens of handguns and rifles.
He was shot in the foyer of his house, just inside his front door, while wearing a bathrobe. He lived alone and his body wasn’t discovered until he missed his second day of practice. Most of the athlete’s weapon collection had been stolen from the home, and the police went the robbery/homicide route.
The cops staked out gun shows and various shops around the city, but none of the weapons ever surfaced. Flagler was smart enough to bury them in the woods or drop them in the bottom of a lake, making the stolen guns a trail that would only lead to frustration. Half of a bagman’s job is to escape cleanly after a mark is hit. A good killer’s best weapon against the police is to behave illogically.
Contract killers know how homicide cops think. They want to keep their “closed” case percentages up, and nine out of ten murderers are handed to them on a silver platter. A boyfriend kills his lover. A husband kills his wife. A drug dealer pops his rival. A couple of days of work, someone cracks, someone steps forward, and the homicide is solved. Case closed. A contract killer has no personal connection to the victim, and if he’s good, he makes it look like the intention of the killing is something it’s not. When the case goes infuriatingly cold, it’s human nature for a homicide detective to move on to greener pastures.
Despite Smoke’s misgivings, he had given me quite a bit to go on; in fact, Flagler’s
modus operandi
helped fill in the blanks on why he went missing.
Flagler was contracted to kill a man who owned a strange, expensive collection of human skulls. I think Flagler finally found something worth stealing he didn’t want to bury.
Little Arizona is located in Hegewisch, smack between Powder Horn and Wolf lakes, on top of an old landfill near the Indiana border. For being so near the city, it’s a rural lifestyle, where fishermen can reel in a blue gill or a carp, and hunters can legally bag birds seeking a drink as they migrate south. For a trailer park and despite the occasional meth head, it’s not a bad life.