“I’d like to see you prove I was there.”
Noting that Bronsey had never actually denied being at the Paladin, I continued with my disinformation campaign. “Dude, don’t worry about
me
proving anything. You need to be concerned with Kyle Vandenbosch. His mom called us to ask whether we thought the cops would go light on Kyle for the theft charges if he came forward to be a helpful homicide witness.”
“Against me?”
“That’s what it sounded like.”
“That double-dealing little son of a bitch.” Bronsey didn’t sound angry now, so much as scared. “And he’s still got his mommy fooled, too.”
“How do you mean?”
“Before I say anything else, what do I get for cooperating?”
“Time,” I lied. “I promise to give you twenty-four hours from the end of the interview before contacting the police. You can either get a good lawyer or, if you’ve got a passport, you might consider flying someplace that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S.”
“Jesus. It’s that bad, huh?” Bronsey emptied his glass with two gulps.
“Yep. Kyle’s version of the story is that you gunned your partner down during the commission of a robbery. That’s first degree with special circs.” Since Bronsey was a former cop, there was no need to add that the district attorney could ask for the death penalty in such a case.
There are times when silence is the most effective interrogation tool, so I kept quiet and waited for Bronsey to say something.
Finally, Bronsey said, “Sit down.”
Ash and I slid onto the bench on the opposite side of the table while Bronsey signaled the bartender for a refill. Once the drink was delivered, I said, “Okay Merv, why don’t we start with how Lycaon picked you to do their dirty work.”
“I’m not working for Lycaon.”
“That’s not what Kyle told his mom.”
“That’s because that little backstabber has been lying to her from the very beginning.”
“Interesting. So, who is your client?”
“I don’t know and that’s the truth.”
“Did they contact you?”
“Yeah. On Thursday afternoon I get a call from a number with a blocked ID. It’s a guy asking if I want to make two grand for a couple days’ work.”
“And you said?”
“I didn’t get a chance to say anything. The guy tells me that if I’m interested I should go up to the old Nike place on Bunker Road at six o’clock and look for a car with one of those Jack-in-the-Box heads on the antenna. Then he hangs up.”
Bronsey was referring to the decommissioned 1960s-era Nike missile base on the hilly Marin headlands north of the city. Once upon a time, it existed as an antiaircraft battery to protect San Francisco from Soviet bombers. But now the facility was a museum dedicated to the Cold War, which made it an ideal place to stage an apparent chance meeting.
I said, “Sounds pretty cloak-and-dagger. Obviously, you went.”
“Yeah. I got there early, but the car was already there. Two guys inside.”
“Make? Model?”
“A new Saturn Aura. It had Nevada plates. I found out later that the plates were reported stolen from Las Vegas back in June.”
“Somebody at the PD still runs license numbers for you, huh?”
“I have friends,” Bronsey said petulantly. “Anyway, the guys in the Saturn knew what kind of truck I drove, because the minute I pull up, the passenger comes over carrying a gym bag.”
“What did this guy look like?”
“White, in his forties, clean-shaven, kind of going bald in front. Eyes as cold as a freaking lizard’s.”
“You get his name?”
“Rule number one was ‘no names.’ He told me to stay in the truck and then he got inside.” Bronsey took a sip of his drink. “I knew right then I was in over my head, because the first thing the guy does is whip out this little device and waves it around the inside of the truck. He tells me that our conversation is confidential and he wants to make sure that we’re not going to be overheard or recorded.”
“There’s usually a good or, more likely, really bad reason why someone would worry about listening devices. That should’ve made warning bells go off in your head.”
Bronsey held up his hand to forestall me from making any further judgmental observations. “I know. I know. But two thousand dollars for a few hours’ work? The finance company is looking to repo my truck, so I couldn’t pass it up.”
Ash folded her arms and you didn’t need to be an expert in body language to know what she thought of Bronsey’s rationalizations.
I asked, “And just what was the job, Merv?”
“Lizard Eyes knows all about me. He knows my PI business is in the crapper. He knows I need the money. He says that all I have to do is contact a guy, deliver the bag, and pick up some merchandise.”
“When were you supposed to deliver the goods to Lizard Eyes?”
“Tomorrow. The guy is supposed to call to set up another meeting.”
I chuckled in disbelief. “My God. Weren’t you at least a little worried that you were being asked to work as a dope mule?”
“I’m not an idiot, Lyon.” Bronsey glowered at me. “I told the guy that if this was a dope deal, he could go straight to hell. Look, I may not have been a recruiting poster cop, but I’ve never been in the narc trade.”
“So, I guess it must have come as a shock when the guy told you that you were buying a stolen robotic teddy bear.”
“He never said it was hot.”
“And I’ll bet you never asked.”
There was a long pause and then Bronsey said, “Just for once, come down from your freaking high horse and try to look at it from my point of view. I was drowning, Lyon. The guy told me that there was nothing illegal in what they were doing. They just wanted to keep their company’s name out of a potential lawsuit.”
“Okay, Merv, I’ll assume you didn’t believe you were breaking any laws.” I glanced at Ash, whose look of annoyance clearly said that she didn’t like being lied to. “Even if my wife doesn’t buy a word of it. What else did this guy tell you?”
“He says that Kyle Vandenbosch is getting a royal screwing from some company I never heard of, called Lycaon. The story was that Kyle developed some whiz-bang new toy on his own dime and wanted to sell it to the guy’s company, but that Lycaon is claiming it’s theirs.”
“And you were supposed to conduct the actual transaction, so that the buying company’s hands would stay as clean as Pontius Pilate’s.”
“I guess.”
“So, you accepted the job. What happened next?”
“The guy gave me Vandenbosch’s phone number and told me that he didn’t care where I set up the meet, so long as it was done quickly and the location had a telephone landline.” Bronsey took another swallow of his drink and crunched an ice cube between his teeth. “If I had it to do all over again, I’d have taken that number and flushed it down the toilet.”
Ten
“But you still have Kyle’s number?” I asked.
Bronsey nodded. “Yeah.”
“Could we have it?”
“Why not? I sure as hell ain’t gonna call him.”
He reached into his back pocket to retrieve his wallet and as he did his jacket flapped open, revealing a black auto-pistol in a brown leather shoulder holster. He opened the wallet and handed me a dog-eared business card. It read MERVIN J. BRONSEY, CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATIONS, and his phone number was printed beneath the name. There was another number handwritten in pencil on the back of the card. It was completely different from the phone number that Lauren had told us was Kyle’s cell. I slipped the business card into my shirt pocket.
The front door swung open and I pretended to give the newcomer a disinterested glance. I didn’t want to provide Merv with even the slightest hint that we were waiting for someone to arrive. However, I was beginning to get nervous. More than twenty minutes had passed and there was still no sign of Heather and Colin.
A groggy-looking, bearded tramp stumbled into the bar and I could smell the booze emanating from his person all the way across the room. Back when I started in cop work, I’d have referred to him as a “drunken bum” or “wino,” but I suspected that modern-day San Francisco cops were encouraged to call such people more politically correct names, such as “sobriety-challenged victims of societal oppression.” The rummy shuffled up to the bartender and diffidently offered to sweep the sidewalk in front of the bar for five bucks. I turned my attention back to Bronsey as the bartender nodded and went to go get the broom.
I asked, “Did your original contact tell you what the merchandise was?”
“Yeah, a robot that looked like a teddy bear,” said Bronsey.
“I think it’s safe to assume you know as much about real robots as I do, which is nothing. Given that, what was to prevent Kyle from selling you a mock-up of the genuine article?”
“Him and Lizard Eyes had already worked that out. I had to talk to the bear and watch it walk. Sounds weird, I know.”
Actually, it didn’t, but I couldn’t say anything and I hoped Ash could keep her poker face.
Bronsey continued, “The buyer said that if I wasn’t freaking amazed, then abort the deal and walk away.”
“But if you
were
amazed?” I asked, while watching the wino leave the bar.
“I was supposed to call a number on a landline phone and then plug one end of a data cord into the phone jack and the other into the back of the bear. I’d get a call on my cell when they were done with whatever they were doing.”
“Which was probably interacting with the bear’s computer system to ensure it could do everything that Kyle promised the buyer.”
“That’s what I thought, too.”
“And this guy gave you a data cord?”
“Yeah, but I left it in the room.” Bronsey sounded a little sheepish. “I guess the thing stayed connected to the phone jack, when I grabbed the bear to run.”
As far as I knew, the detectives never found a data cord in the motel room, which meant that unless Merv was lying, someone had tidied up the room before the cops arrived. I asked, “Do you remember the contact number the buyer gave you?”
“He made me write it down. But I left the card on the nightstand near the phone. I was just getting ready to make the call when everything turned to crap.”
I remembered the detectives hadn’t found a business card either, so it must have vanished with the data cord. I said, “Even the area code would be helpful.”
“No area code. It was a local number. Started with a six . . . I think.”
“But you can’t remember. Were you told how much money there was in the gym bag?”
“Four hundred thousand dollars. It was the most cash I’ve ever seen. The guy made me count the bill bundles and told me that I’d end up as one of the ingredients of gourmet sausage if I didn’t give it all to Vandenbosch.”
“That must have gotten your attention.”
“You got
that
right. You know how some guys talk big smack and you know it’s all just BS? Not this guy.” Bronsey rubbed his unshaven throat. “He meant exactly what he said.”
“But you went ahead with the deal.”
“Like I told you, I didn’t really have a choice.”
Ash couldn’t hold her tongue any longer, not that I could blame her. Bronsey’s self-pitying view of events was nauseating. She said, “You had a choice. You could have told him no and gotten another job. There are all sorts of jobs in the security field.”
“I’m not going to be some freaking department store rent-a-cop, honey.” Bronsey’s hand tightened around the glass and he continued in a goofy yet sarcastic voice, “Excuse me sir, have you paid for that leather jacket?”
“Merv, relax,” I said.
Bronsey pointed at Ash. “You don’t understand. You think your old man was the only one who liked being a cop? I was king of the freaking streets out here. You don’t just walk away from that and then be satisfied with a job keeping teenagers from ripping off the earring display.”
It came as a mild epiphany to realize that, in his own way, Bronsey had been proud of being a cop, even if it was for all the wrong reasons. I gently pressed my leg against Ash’s to signal that I wanted to get the interview back on track and said, “I understand what you’re saying, Merv. Now let’s get back to Kyle. When did you call him?”
He exhaled sharply, took a drink, and said, “That night. Thursday.”
“Tell me about the phone call.”
“I called him and gave him the code word.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The guy with the money gave me a code word so that Vandenbosch would know that I was the courier. Didn’t I tell you that?”
“No, but you’ve got a lot on your mind. What was the code word?”
“Talus. First time Lizard Eyes told me, I thought he said, ‘Dallas,’ but he spelled it for me.”
“The buyer likes playing word games,” Ash murmured. “Talus is the name of a mechanical bronze warrior from Greek mythology.”
I’ve known my wife for almost three decades, yet she still has the capacity to surprise me. I asked, “How the heck do you know that?”
“I grew up reading
Bulfinch’s Mythology
.”
“And I grew up watching Bullwinkle. It’s a good thing I fell in love with a smart girl.” I turned back to Bronsey, “Okay, so you give this guy the secret password. What happened after that?”
He took a swallow from his drink and then heaved a big sigh. “This guy Vandenbosch sounds like a little geek. But he’s copping this monster attitude, like he thinks he’s some bad-ass criminal genius.”
“Understandable. We both know that it’s the cowards who always act like the movie tough guys,” I said, hoping Bronsey didn’t realize I was including him in that description.
He nodded in vigorous agreement. “I tell him I want an immediate meet, but he says he can’t, because he thinks he’s being watched. Then he asks if I want to make an extra thousand on the deal.”
“And you said . . . ?”
“I wanted to know what I had to do. He tells me that he wants to make it harder for Lycaon to file a lawsuit claiming they own the toy.”
“Did he have some ideas as to how to accomplish that?”
“Lyon, this kid is an utter weasel. He says he wants me to pretend I work for Lycaon and mess with his mom big-time.”
I sat back and interlaced my fingers across my chest. “Define
mess with
.”