Back in the kitchen, he opened the fridge, wincing at the stench coming from a Chinese takeout carton, the contents having turned to the dark side some time ago. He nabbed a bottle of water and drank his way to the back window, studying the yard. Why had Logan directed him to his stash in the office? Was it to find the notebook directing him to Bear and Snell? Was it to find the padlock key? Whoever trashed the house would have cut off anything padlocked and gone through the contents, but Jake found no such evidence. Maybe they took whatever was padlocked with them.
He took a long pull from the water bottle, his gaze settling on the swing. Logan was married at one time, but he didn’t have any kids. The swing must have been from a previous occupant. As the plastic seat wavered in the breeze, Jake realized he couldn’t spot the shed. He moved to the side of the window and gazed into the far corner of the yard. The thick trees obscured it from sight. If the break in was done at night, there was no way the bad guys would have seen the shed.
Jake drained the water bottle and dumped it near the overturned trash can on the floor. He waded through the weeds to the shed, a prefabricated six-foot by six-foot building, wood construction. Eight-foot, thick hedges ran along the fence line, blocking its existence from the neighbors.
A thick padlock held the shed’s door closed. Jake pulled out the key from Logan’s office. It fit inside the lock but wouldn’t turn. He trotted back to the house to the garage, grabbing a pry bar from the work bench. Jogging to the shed, he slid the bar through the closed hasp and twisted, applying his two-hundred thirty-pound frame of muscle against the protruding end. The lock held, but the mounting of the latch gave way and the entire contraption fell to the grass.
Unlike everything else in Logan’s house, the inside of the shed was neat and tidy, smelling of dust and gasoline. A three-tiered, steel storage rack on the north wall filled with boxes, a lawn mower covered in a fine layer of dust and a variety of gardening tools hanging on pegs. A dirty, green outdoor carpet mimicking field turf covered the floor. Jake rummaged through boxes which held everything from Logan’s high school memorabilia to old tax records that could be shredded. Nothing of help.
Jake stepped back outside and took a few frustrated strides around yard, hands on his hips. Logan wanted him to find the notebook and maybe the key. He didn’t hide those things in a false floor under his desk for no reason. Jake stopped. False floor. He went back inside the storage shed, rolled out the lawn mower, and squatted. He probed around the edges of the outdoor carpet until he could grab a corner and tugged. The carpet came up revealing a wood floor with a notch. Jake tugged on the notch and a foot-square panel popped out. Inside was a steel, fireproof box with a silver Masterlock sealing it shut.
Jake carried the box into Logan’s house and set it on the kitchen counter. The key fit the Masterlock, and it opened with a click revealing two manila folders stuffed with paperwork and pictures. The first folder contained copies of the detailed surveillance Logan’s team did on Keats, dated back to the time of the task force. It listed several witnessed transactions of weapons and drugs and catalogued the associated pictures. Jake noted the dates and became worried about his own involvement. It was right when Keats brought him up from Oklahoma to work in his organization. Was he in any of the pictures?
Jake thumbed through the photos which showed a younger Keats meeting with various people. There were handshakes and envelopes being exchanged. He recognized some of the people from Keats’s crew, several of them no longer upright and breathing. Blowing out a sigh of relief when he saw he wasn’t in any of the pictures, he went through the official report in detail, wondering why Keats wasn’t serving time. Logan’s team had him dead to rights breaking numerous federal laws.
The second folder was thinner. Handwritten notes by Logan in his unintelligible chicken scratch. Four photos in the folder behind the notes. The first photo was of Bear, Logan, Snell and a fourth man he didn’t recognize. He was taller and reedier than Bear, black hair swooped back and a large hooked nose. The four of them posing for the camera inside a conference room, a sea of gathered intelligence tacked to the wall behind them. Snell looked good, happy; hair shorter than she wore it now. Bear was slimmer without his beard. Logan looked like Logan but without the scraggle of a few day’s growth and years of resentment cemented in his face.
The next two photos were clear frontal shots of Keats in a parking lot by a black limo. A man in a dark suit with his back to the camera talking to Keats. In the final picture, the man in the suit handed Keats a thick envelope, his face revealed. Jake wouldn’t consider himself politically savvy, but even he recognized the silver-haired Senator Mitchell Young.
“Son of a bitch,” Jake said.
The task force had dirt on Keats, as well as a United States Senator, which could help explain why the whole thing was squashed. Why was it in a separate file? Bear talked about the bullshit politics that went along with the task force and was still bitter their hard work and long hours went to waste, but he didn’t mention Mitchell Young.
Jake scanned the photos again and turned back to the handwritten notes. Logan wrote “Keats and Young” and detailed the place of their visit and the passing of envelopes between the two men. The location was a parking lot outside one of Keats’s warehouses on the east side of town. If Logan knew why they met or what was exchanged, he didn’t say in his notes. He did put a date on the transaction. Three weeks ago. This had nothing to do with the task force. This was something else entirely.
Chapter Fifteen
Alexander Voleski received his much-awaited phone call a few minutes past eleven o’clock in the morning. The meet would occur in an hour at an upscale strip club called Dreams located a few blocks away. The good news was the place was one of Voleski’s favorites with lots of beautiful women, especially on Wednesdays. He also knew the layout well. The bad news: Dreams was a juice bar. The result of an asinine Kansas City ordinance whose authors seemed to think women taking off their clothes for money and alcohol were a bad mix.
The girl still wasn’t back yet and wouldn’t answer her phone. Twenty-four hours had passed since he’d last seen her, and the longer she was gone, the greater his anxiety she’d betrayed him. He stubbed out the latest of his chain-smoked cigarettes and waded through the fog to the apartment window, cracking it to get some fresh air circulating.
A few seconds later, a blue Caprice idled to the curb outside the EZ Mart where he purchased the cigarettes and vodka. The two men who emerged glanced at Voleski’s building and ducked inside the store. They both wore jeans and dark jackets with matching five o’clock shadows and cropped haircuts. Their expressions scared Voleski. The blank stares of men who could pull out somebody’s fingernails one at a time without the minutest rise in their blood pressure. The Hispanic man working the store’s counter talked to the men and pointed across the street to his building. The men handed the Hispanic man something and darted out. One of their jackets flashed open and a black pistol butt jutted out. They were coming for him.
Voleski rushed to the bedroom, cracking his shoulder on the door jam. He snatched the silver briefcase and fled the apartment. Stumbling up the steps to the first floor, he wheeled to his right down a long hallway, the threadbare carpet worn thin enough to show patches of wood underneath. He shoved his way through the emergency exit door at the end and into the alley. On the run again.
* * *
Jake pulled in front of a Quik Trip on Southwest Boulevard to grab something to drink. The convenience store chain had the best ice for their fountain drinks and associates who mastered the forgotten commercial art of multi-tasking. He shoved the folders with the incriminating pictures from Logan’s house under the seat of his truck. As he rose, a familiar red Fusion turned off the street in his rearview mirror. He glanced over his shoulder, and it parked in a slot at the far end of the parking lot, Victoria Snell behind the wheel.
Jake entered the Quik Trip, the store bustling with the lunch time foot traffic. He bought a large
fountain drink of Coke Zero and slipped out the open back door. An employee throwing a large trash bag into a dumpster shot him a quick glance and disappeared into the store.
Jake wound around the back to a narrow opening between the building and an eight-foot wooden fence. He emerged at the front of the store, even with Snell’s Fusion, her gaze locked on the front door. Jake opened her passenger door and jumped in. Snell startled and reached for the gun in her shoulder holster, eyes wide with surprise. She relaxed when she realized who it was.
“Jesus,” she said. “You scared the shit outta me.”
“Why are you following me?”
Her face flushed and she shifted in her seat. “Who said I’m following you? Maybe I’m here to get something to drink, just like you.”
“You’re a horrible liar, Snell. Didn’t they teach you anything in the FBI academy?”
She pressed her eyes shut and abandoned her lame story with an exaggerated sigh. Recovering, she smoothed the lapels of her maroon suit jacket. “It was never my strong suit. Yes, I was following you.”
“Why?”
“Because I haven’t made up my mind about you yet. You claim to be working with Logan, yet you worked for the local mob.”
“So, you knew who I was when we met at your office?”
“Of course, I did. Given your ties, you’re lucky I even let you in the door.”
“Had ties,” Jake said. “I don’t work with them anymore.”
She shot up an eyebrow and smirked. “Once in the mob, always in the mob.”
“Not in this case. I’m a free agent.”
“And how did you pull that off, exactly? Keats doesn’t seem the type to let people go once they’re in his circle of trust.”
“He’s not. I’m the exception. And I was never very deep in the circle.”
She turned her lithe frame in the seat and faced him. “You no doubt have information on him that could help me.”
Jake narrowed his eyes. “You’re playing a dangerous game, lady. Your case against Keats was whisked under the rug for a reason. Last I heard it was done, unless something’s changed.”
“Nothing’s changed.”
“Then why are you still after him?”
“Because he’s a corrupt bastard who deserves to go down,” she said, venom in her voice. “If you knew half the things I know you wouldn’t be protecting him.”
“I’m not protecting him. I’m also not a big fan of pissing into the wind. You have some skin in this game beyond an old case. What is it?”
She fixed her gaze on her lap. “I can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t trust you.”
“So, you’re following me to see if you can trust me because you want my help?”
She cocked her angular face, considering. “Maybe.”
“So, how’d you find me? You haven’t been tailing me. I would have recognized this car from a mile away.”
“Logan is still out,” she said. “I stopped by the hospital earlier. I thought I’d take a trip to his house and see if I could find anything interesting.”
“Did you?”
“I found you sneaking out of his backyard.”
“I wasn’t sneaking. I was walking.”
“And you had a folder in your hands,” she said.
“Again, your powers of perception fall short. I had two folders. Want to know what’s in them? Then tell me what Ares is.”
“I told you, I’ve never heard of Ares.”
“So why are you tracking down Logan and following me?”
Her lower lip trembled, and she clamped her mouth shut. A fear of something resonated, but of what Jake didn’t know. “I want Keats.”
Heat crept up Jake’s neck, and his nails dug into his palms. “Like I said, you’re a horrible liar, and you just told me two in a row. You know what Ares is and there’s something here beyond you wanting to nail Keats. Let me know when you want to get real and we can talk.”
Before she could say anything else, Jake left her with her mouth hanging open and stomped to his truck. His cell phone rang, and he had a sixty second conversation with Cisco, the low-level informant he and Logan talked with after they lost Voleski on Monday. The guy was a scumbag who would sell his mother for a buck, but Logan said his information was usually reliable. Voleski entered a local strip club with the briefcase in tow. Jake started the truck and headed that way. Snell, of course, followed.
* * *
Dreams was a juice bar in downtown Kansas City featuring nude dancers in a dim expanse of tables and stages. Jake always thought strip clubs were depressing enterprises. Low rent clientele and low rent women taking their clothes off for a few crinkled dollar bills. Sure, there were the diamonds in the rough, the rare gem with a plan who danced to give herself a better life, but they were the exception to the rule. He could never step foot in one again and die a happy man.
Jake bounced his truck over football-sized potholes into a lot at the back of the club and walked to the street. The club occupied the second floor of a red-bricked building straddling a cigar shop and a bar called Wheezers. The staircase running up to the club was guarded by a black bouncer the size of a tractor with tiny eyes set deep under a protruding brow. Jake headed to the club entrance when Snell parked in an empty slot across the street in front of a clothing store.
“Goddamnit.” Jake thumped over, noticing two men in a black Escalade glide by and wrench a U-turn at the top of the street. Jake recognized one of them from somewhere but couldn’t place him. Hired muscle in a dark suit, his crew cut brushing the ceiling of the Escalade. It sidled to the curb five car lengths behind Snell. They didn’t get out. Jake reached her car and leaned into her window.
“You’re being followed,” Jake said.
“I know. Two gorillas in a black Escalade.”
“Who are they?”
“Don’t know,” she said, checking her rearview mirror.
“How long have they been following you?” Jake asked.
“Off and on for a couple of days.”
“Are they agency guys?”
“They don’t issue agency guys an Escalade to drive around. I ran their plates yesterday, and it kicked back a dummy corporation out of Ohio. Crossed checked the name against our databases and came up snake eyes.”
“Doesn’t it worry you two guys are tailing you?”
“It worries the hell out of me. We’re the ones who are supposed to do the following, not the other way around.” She jerked her head toward the club. “Taking in a little sight-seeing?”
Jake thought about lying to her, but if she already had trust issues with him, perhaps a truth from him would grease the skids on her end to spill her stake in this game. “Got a call from an informant. He said Voleski is in there.”
“What are you going to do with him once you get him?”
“Get his briefcase. Beyond that, I haven’t decided.”
“I’ll come with you,” she said, opening her door. Jake pushed it shut.
“I don’t think so.”
She pressed her thin lips together. “There’s probably a crew with him. You can’t take them on by yourself.”
Jake cracked his knuckles. “You don’t know me very well. You stay here in case Voleski busts loose. I don’t want to lose him again. Stay in the car.”
Jake jerked from her window before Snell could offer up any further protest. He glanced at the two guys in the Escalade who now eyed him behind dark sunglasses. The identity of the driver was an itch in the back of Jake’s brain. If Jake knew him, there was a good chance he knew Jake.
The mountain bouncer studied Jake as he approached. He stepped to the side and opened the door with a good afternoon in a deep voice that made James Earl Jones sound soprano. Jake paused at the door.
“Where’d you play ball?”
“Kansas State and then two years with the Vikings.”
“Go Wildcats,” Jake said. “How’d you like Minnesota?
”
“It was fucking cold.”
Jake grinned. “A guy come in a while ago with a silver briefcase?”
The bouncer’s blood-shot eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Buddy of mine I’m supposed to meet. Wondered if I got here before him.”
“Came in a half hour ago.”
“Anyone with him?” Jake asked.
“No, but ten minutes ago three other guys asked the same question.”
“They still up there?”
The Mountain flared his extensive nostrils. “You going to fuck up my club?”
“No, bud. Just meeting my friend.”
The bouncer took a half step forward, crowding Jake. Jake was a brawny six foot three and felt like a midget compared to this guy. “Don’t make me come up there. I hate climbing stairs.”
Jake patted the guy on the shoulder. It was like slapping granite. He edged around the bouncer and scaled the stairs to the club.
Chapter Sixteen
Dreams was a third full, a decent crowd for a Wednesday lunchtime. To Jake’s left, a ten-by-ten polished wood platform served as the main stage down four carpeted steps. A patriotic, buxom blonde in an American flag G-string whirled around a pole while a handful of lonely guys ogled, and techno pop music blared from unseen speakers. A bar with a handful of stools and patrons lined the back wall manned by a leathery brunette in a pink-frilled lingerie top stacking glasses and wiping the bar top with a modicum of enthusiasm. Bored dancers grinded against guys reclined on leather couches to Jake’s right in a raised area guarded by a red theater rope and a shorter version of the bouncer downstairs.
Jake scanned the room. Voleski was nowhere to be seen. He approached the bar and leaned against it, waiting for the bartender. She appeared weathered from across the floor. Up close, she was an old baseball mitt left out in the sun for a decade.
Jake Caldwell Thrillers Page 33
