“Have you got H and K? Or SIG?” Dwyer asked.
“Nah, man,” the kid answered. The kid was lean, maybe eighteen years old, and was named Blaze. That’s whom he was supposed to ask for, anyway, according to his contact. He’d approached the kid in front of the cluster of decrepit government-built row houses.
“Are you him?” Dwyer had asked.
“I’m Blaze, as in Johnny Blaze,” the kid had said, whatever the fuck that meant. “You the English guy?”
“I’m a
Welshman
,” Dwyer corrected pointlessly.
The kid had shrugged and started walking toward one of the buildings. Dwyer followed and another kid, a big one with a black nylon stocking on his head, had fallen in behind.
Now they were all crammed into a small, airless storage room
that smelled of old marijuana and was filled with pressboard desks and other cheap furniture.
“Look, look, look, we don’t got no high-end SIGs and shit. We got Taurus. We got these Colts …”
Dwyer shook his head. He didn’t love his choices.
“We also got this AK …” Blaze pointed to a battered weapon that looked as if it’d been recovered from a cave in Waziristan.
Dwyer shook his head. Tempting though it was to wrap his hands around the familiar wood grips of a Kalashnikov, he couldn’t see himself waltzing around U.S. cities with an assault rifle.
“What’s your personal gun, then?” Dwyer wondered.
“My personal gun?” Blaze asked back.
“That’s right. You’re armed, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I’s motherfucking armed.”
Blaze lifted the basketball T-shirt that went down to his knees and showed the butt of some kind of chromed-out heavy-caliber automatic. It was exactly the kind of flashy nonsense Dwyer didn’t need. At least now he knew what the kid was holding when it came time for them to try and rob him.
“Lovely,” he said. “Let me look at the Colt.” Blaze handed it over and Dwyer was pleased to see that it was a .45 ACP, but that the make was actually Česká Zbrojovka. The CZ 97 B was a good gun, not off the Springfield production line, and had a smoother action and better balance than those did. Dwyer didn’t bother asking how they’d come up with a Czech-made gun, as he quickly racked the slide, removed the slide stop pin, and broke down the automatic. He inspected the recoil spring, barrel, and trigger action. The weapon was sound. “Okay, this’ll do. I’ll have it with four magazines.”
For a moment Blaze’s shrewd look went blank.
“Clips, man,” Dwyer said. “Four of ’em.”
“I got two,” was the answer. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the way it was. Then a dull black object that was leaning against the wall in a dark corner of the room caught Dwyer’s eye. “Is that for sale?”
Blaze looked at his hulking companion and they laughed. “Homeboy likes the shotty,” Blaze said. He went and picked it up, then crossed the room and rested it on a desk. It was a short-barreled Saiga 12-gauge automatic shotgun. An impressive close-quarters weapon designed for leveling men in enclosed spaces. And if things went poorly, it was equally useful for getting out of the same spaces—three or four rounds fired into a wall and there would no longer be a wall, and escape could be made. Dwyer inspected the shotgun and saw it was in working order and that it was loaded with 00 buckshot.
“I’ll have both,” Dwyer told them, putting the shotgun back on the desk.
“Wasn’t gonna sell the Saiga,” Blaze said, “but a’ight. I’ll do both for twenny-fi’ hunned.” The price was too high by half, but Dwyer didn’t waste time.
“Done,” he said. Then he pulled one of the packets of American cash off his abdomen. Proper tradecraft would have had him secreting the money in five hundred or thousand dollar increments all over his body. But he came in here recommended and hadn’t wanted to waste time. His mistake became clear the minute the two salesmen saw the five-thousand-dollar brick he had started peeling bills from.
“You want something else?” Blaze asked. “Can’t let you be leaving with all that cash.”
“No, just the CZ and the Saiga,” Dwyer said.
“Go on, buy a Taurus.”
“I don’t want a mingy Taurus.”
“Well, likes I said, we can’t let you be leaving with all that cash.” Blaze’s voice had changed when he said the last. Dwyer felt it and had looked up from counting money in time to see the big fellow reaching for the Saiga on the desk. Dwyer bunched the cash in his left hand into a fist and swung a thousand-dollar hook that drilled the big man in the throat. The man’s face registered surprise, then crumpled into pain, and he went off his feet sideways. He landed, gurgling, on the floor. Dwyer lunged across the space between him and Blaze and grabbed the wiry young
man’s wrist, which had been diving for the heavy chrome auto at his waist. Dwyer yanked the wrist down and held it firmly in place against the kid’s body. The other hand caught him by the neck. He stared into Blaze’s eyes and let the kid feel his superior strength.
“I was wondering whether you was gonna be twats, and now you’ve gone and done it.” For a moment the only sounds in the room were Dwyer and Blaze breathing through their noses, and the big fellow gasping wetly on the floor. “Now, do you scruts want
two grand
for the guns, or do you want to fucking die?”
Moments later Dwyer stood at the trunk of his rented Lincoln Town Car with the .45 tucked in his waistband at his lower back, and put the shotgun, now wrapped in an old towel, in the spare tire well under a piece of carpet. He closed the trunk and saw Blaze and his friend framed in the doorway of the building he’d just left. They paused when they saw him there. Blaze raised his thumb and forefinger at Dwyer and mimed firing a single shot. Dwyer ignored the gesture, got in the car and on the road for Indianapolis.
Behr’s bag clinked softly as he walked through the Caro offices. He sat at the desk and set five bottles of fine wine on the corner. Half the case, minus the one he’d drunk the night before. He figured that was fair, considering what he’d done to get it. The other half case was at home, lying sideways, waiting for another day.
“What’s this?” his coworkers asked of the bottles as they passed by his desk.
“Client gift. Grab one,” Behr answered. There were only a few takers, a few more raised eyebrows, and by the end of the day there was still one bottle left. Maybe when it got down to one, it didn’t look like much of a display. Or maybe the office preferred drinking harder stuff.
In between those visits Behr cranked away on his Payroll Place file. It was click, jot, scroll, and cut and paste as he got through four background checks, going alphabetically, searching databases in order to view past employment history; former residences; and credit, motor-vehicle, and criminal records. He went as fast as he could, but it took hours by the time the searches were done and the reports were written up. The last one was a killer because the employee’s name, Edward Charles, was a common one, and dozens of hits came up that had to be combed through and canceled out against his social security number. There were
some speeding tickets, a DUI, a personal bankruptcy in the pool. The checks sketched in a bland picture of an employee base that didn’t tell him very much. He had dozens more to do. He was feeling buried. Each time he looked up from his work that last bottle of Harlan Estates caught his eye. And each time he tried to go back to what he was doing, it took him longer and longer. Finally he acknowledged why, picked up his desk phone, and dialed a familiar number.
“Downtown District,” an assistant answered.
“Lieutenant Breslau, please,” Behr said and his call was put through.
“Breslau,” came the voice over the line. Behr was surprised he didn’t have an assistant, or maybe he or she had stepped away.
“Frank Behr,” he said. There was a pause and some rustling of papers.
“What can I do for you, Behr?” Breslau said in a low-effort attempt at cordiality.
“Just wondering what’s turned up on that shoot.”
“Well, I told you I’d let you know when something had, so obviously not much.”
“You told me that?” Behr asked.
“Told your boss.” Breslau sighed.
“I see,” Behr said, about two dozen more questions rattling around in his head.
“Love to sit and chat, but I’ve gotta—” Breslau began his signoff.
“Uh-huh,” Behr said, cutting him off, as he felt a kernel of anger glow to life in the pit of his stomach.
“I’ll ring you when we have something.”
The line went dead. Behr slowly hung up the receiver, willing himself not to smash it.
“Happy hour?” Behr heard, and looked up to see Pat Teague standing there, a finger tapping on the remaining bottle.
“Sweepstakes giveaway,” Behr said.
“So I heard,” Teague said.
“Help yourself,” Behr offered.
“Don’t mind if I do. Thanks,” Teague said and walked away with a rolling, bandy-legged gait, cradling the last bottle, like a football, in the crook of his arm.
Just keep collecting your check and don’t think so hard
, Behr told himself. But then he picked up the phone again.
Behr walked toward the Lutheran Church on Kitley, where there was a small group clustered a few steps away from the side door taking a nicotine break. Behr recognized the tall, thin figure and salt-and-pepper hair of Neil Ratay, crime reporter for the
Indy Star
, getting ready for his regular meeting. Behr approached and they shook hands and moved away from the other smokers.
“So what’s up, Frank?” Ratay asked, waving away a cloud of cigarette smoke that wafted between them. Behr hadn’t known him for long—and couldn’t call the man a friend, exactly—but the bond had been immediate when they’d met about a year back. He’d quickly identified a sense of code in Ratay, perhaps springing from the time-honored practice of reporters protecting their sources, which had led him to believe he could trust the man. And he hadn’t been proven wrong.
“That shoot in the garage on Pierson the other night,” Behr began.
“Kolodnik thing,” Ratay said.
“My thing too,” Behr said.
“That was you?”
Behr nodded and told him how it fell, even including the bit about the wine. The reporter’s eyes grew a bit in circumference from their normal knowing slits when he heard Behr tell it.
“The story got a single coat in your paper, barely covered the primer. My office isn’t looking into it, and whether or not the cops have anything, this hump Breslau got handed the package and won’t be sharing anything with me,” Behr said.
“Breslau …” Ratay murmured.
“What’s his deal?” Behr asked.
“New breed. Got a master’s degree. Camera-ready.”
“Started grooming him for captain before he drove his first patrol?”
“Pretty much. So, can I take a run at it?” Ratay asked as they watched the few other smokers finish up and drift inside.
“Yeah, give it a shot,” Behr said, “and let me know if you find out anything interesting, would ya?”
Ratay nodded slowly three times and then glanced to the church door. “My meeting’s about to start.” They shook hands and Behr left.
Even though he’d started his day with a brutal workout, Behr had something in him—that kernel—he still needed to burn off. He drove home, parked on the street but didn’t go inside. Instead, he pulled running gear out of his trunk, changed right there in the front seat, and set out. He looped around the neighborhood streets until he’d covered about three quarters of a mile and then set off toward Saddle Hill.
He didn’t have his weighted vest in the trunk, so Behr focused on explosive speed as he churned up the hill. His knees kicked high and his feet pounded down on the asphalt as sweat bounced off the sides of his head.
Why aren’t the police killing themselves following this up?
he asked himself on one trip up.
They are, they just don’t seem to have much
, Behr told himself on the way down.
Be glad it’s not your problem
, he told himself the next time up.
He jogged down the hill, filling his lungs. He’d been guarding a multimillionaire businessman who was about to become a senator.
Money or politics, or the place the two intersected
, he told himself as he raced up with chopping strides.
The only question was why?
Or was it a woman, a deal gone bad, a personal slight, or a hundred other things?
he reminded himself as he made his descent.
Just don’t ask, Frank
, he urged himself as he charged up the hill three more times.
But coming down the hill that final time, he knew he was going to.
“You fall into a pool?” Susan asked him and laughed when Behr entered his place. “You’re soaked.” She wasn’t alone on the couch, and another gentle peal of laughter joined hers. Sitting next to Susan was a pretty girl with well-dyed blond hair who couldn’t have been twenty-five years old and looked ready to pop out a kid within a month of Susan.
“Just took a run,” he said.
“We can tell by the running shoes,” the young lady said, as she and Susan stifled more laughs.
“You two been drinking?” Behr wondered.
“Just high on pregnancy,” Susan said, and they laughed again, though this time it was closer to a howl and the girls even shared a high five.
“All right, what’s going on?”
“We were down at baby care class, learning about swaddling and umbilical cords and filing tiny fingernails, and gabbing it up, I guess, when this
woman
in the class—”
“This dowdy bitch,” the younger blonde volunteered, “barely seemed fertile.”
“Says to me,” Susan continued, “ ‘Could you two keep it down? I’d like to hear what the nurse has to say about ointment,’ all snooty, but then she shifts in her seat and lets out this blast of a fart. So Gina says”—Susan pointed to her little friend—“ ‘I thought you said you wanted quiet.’ ” This brought on another high five and paroxysm of laughter. Behr could only shake his head and wait for them to finish.
Finally, Susan’s friend said, “Sorry, Frank. I’m Gina Decker. And you know you just can’t cross a heavily pregnant woman.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said.
He made small talk with the women for a few minutes, and then went off to shower. When he was finished, he came out to find Gina had left. He headed into the kitchen for some water and Susan followed him in.