Sin City Assassin (The Bill Dix Detective Series Book 3) (22 page)

He stopped shooting to see if he could hear something that might help him figure out Marie’s status. All he could hear was the faint sound of sirens suggesting reinforcements were on their way and he was running out of time. He heard a single gunshot followed by a volley of rounds coming from the garage. Blass froze and felt his heart crushed. The light extinguished from his soul. He didn’t see it with his own eyes, but he felt it. Marie, the only person he every truly loved, was dead. He screamed and emptied more magazines into the building and garage. He wanted to stay and retrieve her body, but he couldn’t. He needed to get away so he could find, torture, and kill the man responsible for his sorrow—Bill Dix.

Blass jumped into his car and headed for the area he thought was clear. Law enforcement cars had blocked him in when he wasn’t looking. He stepped hard on the accelerator and drove right for the roadblock. He got within throwing distance and threw four grenades in their direction. Agents fled from their vehicles as the grenades rolled then exploded underneath the vehicles. Debris, body parts, and smoke filled the air. He slammed on the accelerator and drove toward the clearing he’d made.

As he drove through, he dropped several more spike strips behind him. He drove recklessly through a few city streets and made it to the freeway before anyone could follow. A single tear fell from his eye as he thought of his lover being murdered by the police. He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. Blass took a long deep breath and exhaled.

“Dix, you are a dead man, even if it’s the last thing I do on this Earth,” he said out loud. As he drove farther away from Las Vegas to regroup and re-arm, he made several phone calls.
It’s time to bring in my own reinforcements,
he thought.

Chapter 39:

Snead always worried about Dix and Petersen. When he worked with them they had all became very close—like the sons he never had. Today wasn’t anything different, but when he read the reports coming from his Canadian friend about Robert Laurin, the Roy family, and what they’d done over the years, he began to worry. He learned there was reason to believe the Roy family worked for Robert Laurin. The family was large, well connected, and several were in custody for assaulting or killing cops. The investigators in Canada believed Robert Laurin was also living two different lives. They based this on properties or vehicles being registered to other people or fake people, instead of the real Robert Laurin, and the fact he was rarely seen in public. None of the Canadian authorities had seen Laurin for several days.
Maybe he’s in
Las Vegas
.

Snead gnawed at a cold Hot Pocket and scoured the reports he obtained from his friend in Canada. He spread them out on his dining room floor and looked at surveillance photos, police reports, evidence collected, and other items believed to be associated to the case.

After awhile, the information became too much to analyze.
Snead stepped away for a minute and poured another cup of coffee. He sipped it slowly and stared at the dining room floor. None of it made sense, but Snead pushed himself to find something that could help Dix.

In one of the smaller surveillance reports, Snead noticed someone had written down a license plate. Next to it someone had written in pen the registration information, R. Blass, 2428 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The name didn’t mean anything to him, but he thought he remembered seeing the street address earlier while looking at information he obtained.

He popped the address into Google and a few other local databases. Several results popped up, but none of them seemed helpful. He decided to search the name Blass in Google. He typed in Blass and Canada. Numerous webpage links popped up. Most notable was the story about Richard “Le Chat” Blass. It appeared Le Chat killed people for fun and created his own gang in Canada. He escaped prison twice, the second time finding and killing two people at a bar who'd testified against him. Blass determined everyone at the bar also needed to die because they saw him kill the two other men. He went back with members of his gang, locked them all in, and killed thirteen more innocent people. He later died in a shootout with cops.

Snead wondered if the R. Blass for the vehicle registration seen on surveillance could be related to Richard Le Chat Blass. He continued searching, this time checking to see if Le Chat had any known children, but his searches came up empty. He tried to see if there was anything about the family other than the criminal side of things, and again there was nothing. It seemed to him someone had erased everything about the family because nothing from after his death surfaced in his searches. Snead decided to go further back in his search, to a time well before Le Chat was killed.

After a few hours, he stumbled across something of interest. A baseball team near where Le Chat lived won a championship. The local paper ran a story and there was a player on the team named Robert Blass. Snead searched for a photo of the kid. He found several and compared them to Le Chat. They had the same eyes, nose, and jaw bone structure. Something about the little boy’s eyes bothered Snead. It was almost like he looked right through the photographer. Nevertheless, Snead felt the boy on the baseball team had to be somehow related to Le Chat. Snead grew excited and continued to dig. Based on everything he'd seen and read, and the people he'd spoken to, he was almost certain Robert Laurin might be Robert Blass, the one and only son of a mass-murderer. He placed a call to a friend at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

She answered on the third ring. “Hey sugar, what’s been going on?”

Snead chuckled. “Not much, you got a second?”

She was pretty sure an off-the-books record check request was coming next. “For you, certainly.”

“Can you check on the name Robert Blass and Robert Laurin. See if they have any ties to Las Vegas or Canada?” He felt bad calling just because he needed a favor, but he’d have to make it up to her because right now he needed to be 100 percent sure he was right before he told Dix of his suspicion.

“All right, sugar. Give me an hour and I’ll get back to ya.” She could tell in his voice he was concerned so she didn’t harass him like she normally did. She punched in the names he gave her and went to work.

“I owe you one,” he replied. He was thankful to have so many close friends and hoped his hunch would be proven correct.

He popped another Hot Pocket into the microwave and started to brew another pot of coffee. As the buzzer for the microwave went off indicating his food was ready, his phone rang.
That was quick
, he thought.

“Hey sugar, I’m thinking the people you gave me are the same person. The thumbprint for each name and separate driver’s license number in Nevada is the same. I can’t exactly say which is which, but whoever they are, it’s the same person.”

Snead felt a sense of pride washing over him. “Thank you so much. You have anything you can email me, like DOBs, addresses, vehicles registered to them?”

“Sure do. Check your inbox, sugar, a whole lot for you to mess with. And call me when whatever you are doing is over, you know, to let me know you’re okay.” She heard her supervisor walking toward her cubicle and abruptly hung up before Snead could reply.

Snead grabbed his cell phone and located Dix’s phone number. He dialed it, but got no answer. He left a voice-mail, “Hey, buddy, I have some stuff for you. Bottom line, Robert Laurin is Robert Blass, or vice versa. Same thumb print on DMV records. I’m pretty sure Robert Blass is the one and only son of a notorious Canadian gang leader and murderer. Be careful, and call me so I can fill you in on the rest.” Snead hung up feeling uneasy. He glanced at the coffee pot and his stomach gurgled. He decided not to do anything else until he heard from Dix.

Chapter 40:

Dix headed straight to the police department once he checked on Frazier. The doctor had already treated him and signed the paperwork for his release. Frazier was surly as ever, but he decided to take the rest of the night off and rejoin Dix the following morning.

Dix arrived at the police department and filled everybody in on what happened at the federal building. Most of them were too young to believe such a brazen attack had occurred on American soil. After he finished, he asked to be pointed in the direction of the forensic laboratory where he could find Pierre.
I gotta see where Laurin’s phone is.

He saw the door was open to the lab and heard classical music coming from the room.
Where the hell is Pierre
? He walked around the large room and noticed several newspaper and magazine articles that had been cut out and taped up in a workstation that appeared not to be in use. The images were haunting and mostly stories of violence. Many of the stories had to do with notorious serial killers. Names and locations were circled in red ink and several handwritten notes had been scattered among the clippings. He noticed several of the stories came out of Canada. He wondered what the fixation on Canada was from. Dix backed away and felt the stuff was creepy.
Someone has a little too much time on their hands
, he thought.

Pierre had snuck up on Dix while he checked out his montage to some of the greatest killers of the last generation. “Boo,” he said to Dix.

Dix jumped and shouted, “Damn!” He turned to see Pierre standing behind him. His heart skipped a beat then fluttered in his chest. The kid had snuck right up on him and he had nearly jumped out of his skin.

Pierre shook his head. “I’m so sorry man. I didn’t think I could sneak up on you, let alone scare you.” He genuinely looked apologetic.

Dix regained his composure. “No worries, kid. You got me good.” He patted Pierre on the shoulder. “Hey, so I need you to pull up the pen register for the phone that’s still active.”

“Sure, what’s up?” He hadn’t checked it in awhile and kind of figured it was likely blown to pieces at the federal building. He refreshed the computer screen and the software updated the pen register.

“This Robert Laurin guy showed up to the federal building and tried to free Marie,” Dix said matter-of-factly.

“Wait, you guys had the Mantis over there and some dude tried to take on the federal building full of agents in broad daylight to snatch her?” Pierre shook his head in dismay. “He must have some serious balls to try that.”

“That’s about the gist of it. Laurin showed up in full body armor and lobbed grenades
after
shooting an RPG at the second floor.” Even as Dix finished the statement he thought it sounded made up. He shook his head and still couldn’t believe how damn crazy Robert Laurin was.
All the more reason I’ve gotta nab him before he strikes again.

The pen register loaded and Dix sat in Pierre’s seat to manipulate the software.

Pierre watched intently to observe Dix’s work.

After a few clicks and scrolls, Dix could see the phone they were monitoring was at the federal building during the attempt to free Marie. It also left the area around the same time Laurin broke the perimeter. The phone continued north, making a series of calls to phones with 418 area codes.

Dix looked at Pierre, “Any idea where 418 is?”

“Yup, it’s Ontario, Canada, bro,” he replied.

“Damn, kid, you’re good.” Dix smiled and tried to figure what it meant that Laurin was calling a bunch of numbers in Canada. He knew of the connections to Canada based on the information from the Range Rover and RL Associates. He assumed Laurin was on the run, especially after Marie had been killed.
The guy’s gotta be half way to Canada by now
.

Dix plotted the current location of the cell phone on Google maps. It was currently somewhere a little north and east of Pahrump.
Again with Pahrump
, he thought. He digested the phone information and his cell phone vibrated, causing him to jump again.

Pierre noticed him flinch. “Geez, man, you okay? You seem a little jumpy.” He wondered if the old timer was losing it.

Dix felt embarrassed again. He’d been on the front lines during war, been shot at, been shot, and made it through ‘hell week’ to become a Navy Seal, but some college kid had snuck up on him and now his cell phone made him jump.
You gotta calm down some
.

“I’m good. A little preoccupied and stressed out, but other than that, I’m fine.” Dix shrugged. He dug his phone from his pocket and saw he had a voicemail from Snead. He listened to it. The smooth drawl of his southern accent soothed him. He had been feeling like he was alone, but the sound of Snead’s voice snapped him back into reality.

After listening to the message, he stepped away from Pierre’s work area and called Snead.

“Hey, buddy, how the hell are you?” Snead asked Dix.

He sighed. “I’m hanging in there. Thanks for the call, and thanks for the help. What’ve you got?”

“Well, like I mentioned in the voicemail, Robert Laurin is also Robert Blass. He’s the only son of a mean ass son of a bitch. His daddy killed thirteen people."

“What? Did you say thirteen people?”

“Yup. He and his gang locked a whole bar down and he killed everyone inside because he thought they would talk about a double murder they’d witnessed,” said Snead.

Dix whistled and shook his head. He started gnawing on his fingernails without realizing it. “Man, that’s the kind of guy you never want to meet in a dead end alley.”

“Damn right. Listen, you be careful over there. I’m gonna send you an email with some addresses, physical descriptors, and vehicles registered to him. Hopefully it will make sense to you because it doesn’t mean squat to me.”

“Ok, send it ASAP. I think we may have the guy’s phone just outside of town,” said Dix.

Snead wondered why the guy would even stay around at all. “He’s a ballsy guy to hang around. The news just played a whacky story about an attack on the federal building,” he stopped and wondered if Blass had anything to do with it. “At least you aren’t chasing the psycho who did that.”