Moving on, Tom booted up the computer and was able to access Jessup’s email. Most of it was spam, with a few letters concerning the library. Tom was reading about the budget for a remodeling job when he heard movement behind him.
As a rookie, though he’d never admit it to anyone, Tom used to practice quick draws in front of a mirror. He got to be pretty fast. After being promoted to Detective, his hip holster disappeared and was replaced by the shoulder rig he now wore. Again, in the privacy of his apartment, he practiced drawing his gun from the new holster until he was just as fast.
So without even thinking, Tom’s hand reached into his jacket and tugged at his 9mm Model 17 Glock pistol, eighteen rounds with the first already chambered. He was quick.
The intruder was quicker. A muscular arm snaked across Tom’s chest and yanked him backward. Tom was violently flipped over the intruder’s hip, chair and all, and he landed hard on his shoulders. His grip still solid, Tom cleared leather on his holster and aimed the weapon upward. A boot dug into his armpit and two strong hands locked on the gun, twisting it out of his fist. It was tossed aside.
Tom’s vision stopped spinning and he focused on the man standing over him. Short, extremely so, but built like a tank on steroids. He had a crew cut and a blond Fu Manchu mustache. A chest-sized tattoo of a samurai was visible through his tight white T-shirt.
“Hi, Tom.” The man’s foot shifted from Tom’s armpit to his neck. He stepped down hard enough to cut off oxygen. Tom twisted and yanked at the leg, but couldn’t get free. It was like wrestling with a tree trunk. His lungs began to burn, and he could feel his face become bright red.
“So you wound up being a pig. A shitty one. Jessup put up a better fight than you.”
The man smiled, his mouth a dungeon of gray teeth. Three were missing, and one protruding incisor was capped in gold. It caught the light and twinkled at him.
Tom was big but limber. Grunting with effort, he brought up his long leg, aiming for the gold. The man turned in time, but still received a nasty kick to the side of the face. He stumbled back, and Tom scrambled to his hands and knees, sucking in air. He did a quick scan of the floor for his gun, and not seeing it, launched himself at the smaller man.
Tom’s charge was met with a solid right to the jaw. It was the hardest punch Tom had ever taken, and his knees melted as if made of butter. As Tom fell, his attacker completed a tight reverse-kick that connected with his chest. Tom landed on his side, unable to draw a breath. It felt like someone had parked a car on his ribcage.
His attacker wiped some blood from his mouth and snarled. He reached inside his long coat at hip level. With a simple, swift motion he withdrew an honest-to-God samurai sword. Tom tried to get up but he still couldn’t breathe. He’d landed hard, and along with the pain in his chest and jaw, his nervous system sent him notice that he’d somehow hurt his ass. He felt for it, found he was sitting on something hard. His Glock.
The surprise must have shown on his face, because the man was out the door before he could bring the gun around.
Tom sat there for ten full minutes, his breath slowly returning, the Glock held in a shaky hand. When he finally felt strong enough to stand up, the world was still wobbly and his stomach churned as if he’d eaten a nest of weasels. He managed to get to the bathroom before he was sick.
Then he drank some water out of the faucet and called it in.
Roy came into the hospital room just as the doctor was putting the final stitch inside Tom’s cheek.
“Ouch. Probably don’t want this coffee, huh?”
Tom gave Roy a slight shake of his head. It was a gourmet brand too. His partner set it down on a tray, next to a pile of bloody cotton balls.
“While some guy was doing a Jackie Chan on your face, I gave Jessup’s mom a call. You ready for this to get weirder?”
Tom made an affirmative sound around the doctor’s fingers.
“The vic was adopted. Mrs. Jessup had some female problem, couldn’t have kids. She and her husband were on waiting lists at adoption agencies. But here’s the deal—some strange man just showed up out of the blue and dropped a baby off at their house, complete with birth certificates and fifty grand in cash.”
Tom raised an eyebrow. Roy continued.
“She doesn’t know who he was, or why he did it. Never heard from the guy again. But she doesn’t think it ended there. She thinks her son was being watched, all while he was growing up.”
The doctor finished the knot and cut the thread. Tom thanked him and touched the side of his face, still numb.
“What do you mean, watched?”
“She said once, when Jessup was about four, he was playing in the backyard and she ran inside to get the phone. When she came out, he was lying on the ground, some guy leaning over him. She yelled at the guy, he took off. Her kid was soaking wet, coughing up water. Jessup had wandered into the woods and fell in a pond. The guy had given him CPR, saved his life. But here’s the thing—there wasn’t another house around for almost a mile. So that guy shouldn’t have been there.”
“Maybe he was hiking. Or a hunter.”
“Dressed in a suit, in the middle of the woods? She said there were other times too. She’d see some person watching Jessup play in the park, then a few weeks later see the same person.”
Tom mulled it over, wondering how much Jessup’s story mirrored his own. Had this same mystery stranger also given his parents fifty K?
“Roy, there’s something you should know.”
He told his partner about his tattoo, and his adoption, and also about the cop in Tennessee who’d been impaled.
“And I just remembered something else. My parents used to joke that I had a guardian angel watching over me. I got into a bike accident when I was a kid—broke my leg in an empty warehouse. Bad break, I passed out. No one knew I was there, but somehow I woke up in the hospital. The doctors said some man took me there, gave my phone number, and left.”
“This is some seriously weird shit.”
“Did you get anything else from Jessup’s mother?”
“I got a name. When the mystery guy dropped off Jessup, he also left birth certificates, already filled out. Not only the state one, but the one the hospital issued. Doctor in charge was a guy named Harold Harper, out of Rush-Presbyterian. Paper trail ends in New Mexico. I’ve got some guys working on it. What’s up with your foot?”
Tom’s shoe was off. It was sitting on the cot in a plastic baggie.
“The guy who attacked me admitted to killing Jessup. I kicked him in the face. We get a DNA match off the blood on the shoe, case is closed.”
“So you gonna walk around with one shoe?”
Tom tossed Roy his car keys.
“My gym bag is in the trunk. I’m parked in Emergency. Be a dear, would you?”
His sneakers retrieved, Tom signed his release and tailgated Roy back to the district. He wished he’d asked his parents more questions about his adoption when they were still alive, but it hadn’t mattered at the time. Why question a perfect family? Tom’s mother had been a saint, always loving and supportive. His dad, a Chicago Alderman, had been one of the best men Tom had ever known. Tom couldn’t have picked better parents.
After dropping off the shoe at the lab, Tom and Roy hit the computer. It took Tom fifteen minutes to feed in details about his attacker, and the computer took .04 seconds to spit out an answer.
Arthur Kilpatrick. He had a rap sheet that read like Felony’s Greatest Hits; assault, arson, burglary, rape, attempted murder. Two stretches in prison, and a current warrant out for his arrest. He’d seriously injured eleven people in a bar fight. Tom read the number again. Eleven. This was one major bad ass.
“Click under distinguishing marks.”
Tom did, and discovered that among Kilpatrick’s many tattoos was a blue number 9… on the bottom of his left heel. He was eleven days older than Tom.
“Shit keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
Tom agreed. If Rod Serl
ing had chosen that moment to walk out of the closet, he wouldn’t have been surprised.
“So why did this guy return to the crime scene, Tommy? You think he left something there?”
“We searched every inch of that place. What could he have been looking for?”
“Maybe he wasn’t looking for anything. Maybe he was there because you were there.”
Tom blinked. “He came there to kill me?”
“We got two bodies, Jessup and that southern cop, both with number tatts. Kilpatrick has a tatt, and you have a tatt.”
“But how did he know I was there?”
“Could have followed you.”
“It was rush hour. I used my siren to weave through traffic. No one could have followed me.”
“Staked the place out?”
“Two entrances, front and back. Can’t watch both at once.”
Tom rubbed his chin, some of the feeling returning. Was there any way he could have alerted Kilpatrick to his arrival at the apartment? A sensor, a phone tap, a silent alarm…
“When I first got there, I turned on the stereo.”
Roy raised his eyebrows. “And he heard it? You think the place was bugged?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Tom searched through his desk until he found the Foxhound, a souvenir from his days in Vice. It was a small silver box the size of a pager. The device scanned radio waves between fifty megahertz and three gigahertz, almost every available frequency.
“Check the batteries. It’s been a while.”
While Roy fussed with the battery compartment, Tom returned to the drawer for a gravity knife. He placed it in his pants pocket. Tom wasn’t going to be caught without a back-up weapon again.
“I thought those knives were illegal.”
“So? Call a cop.”
Tom drove, sparing the siren now that traffic had died down. He parked in the alley next to Jessup’s building.
“We going stealth mode or noisy, give him another shot at you?”
“Stealth. If we find anything, we can set a trap for him later.”
Regardless, Tom pulled out his Glock and made sure a round was chambered.
“You look whiter than usual. You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You can wait in the car, if you want. I’ll find you a lollipop.”
Tom gave him a glare. They walked in through the back entrance and up to Jessup’s apartment. Tom opened the door as quietly as possible, one hand on the butt of his pistol. He flipped on the lights, and after a quick tour revealed the place was empty he relaxed a bit.
Roy took out the Foxhound and played with the dials. He started at the bookcases, waving the antenna in a serpentine pattern from top to bottom. Nothing happened, so he moved on to the near wall. When the antenna pointed at the electrical outlet, the red light began to blink and the Foxhound vibrated. He nodded at Tom and pointed.
Tom knelt next to the outlet and stared. It seemed completely normal. A lamp was plugged into the left socket. He switched it on and the lamp worked fine.
Tom went into the kitchen, where he recalled seeing some screwdrivers in a junk drawer. He found one and brought it back to the outlet. Then he unplugged the lamp and carefully unscrewed the cover.
It was definitely a bug. He removed two more screws and took out the entire assembly, careful not to jostle or disconnect it. The device was high-tech and professional. A flat platform mike was taped to the inside of the wall, with a long antenna running alongside. It drew power off of the apartment’s electricity, and the current was live and allowed the sockets to function. Tom looked for any labels or markings, and wasn’t surprised when he didn’t find any.
He put the device back and joined up with Roy in the bedroom. His partner was kneeling next to another socket, the Foxhound blinking. Tom took the detector into the kitchen. Within two minutes, he’d found a third bug in an outlet next to the phone.
Neither one of them said a word until they were back in the car. Roy spoke first.
“Damn. That guy had more bugs than a housing project.”
“Not homemade spy gear, either. That was some major league equipment.”
“Even in Vice, we didn’t have stuff that slick.”
“So who does have stuff like that?”
“The government.”
They exchanged a look. Tom started the car and pulled out of the alley, eyes on the rearview. “What next? Try a sting, draw Kilpatrick into a trap?”
“What else can we do?”
“Call the district, have Wally check the fax. I’m waiting on Jessup’s phone records.”
Roy got on the cell and Tom considered this new development. Whoever bugged Jessup’s apartment was big league. Kilpatrick was the killer, but someone had to be behind him. Perhaps the mysterious Bert.
“Fax came.” Roy dialed another number. “Jessup called the O’Hare Hyatt three times in the last few days.”
“See if they have a convention going.”
“Way ahead of you, partner.”
Tom hung a ralph and headed for the expressway.
“Got it.” Roy pocketed his cell phone. “The Hyatt is hosting a huge convention all this week, hotel is booked solid.”
“What kind of convention?”
“It’s an NFLCA expo.”
“Enlighten me.”
“The National Fishing Lures Collector’s Association.”
“That was this week? Damn it, I forgot to mark my calendar.”
“Hurry. They said the Creek Chub auction starts in twenty minutes.”
Tom patted his pocket, reassured that the knife was still there, and then merged onto I-90.
“We can still make our reservation. You can throw something on.”
Joan stared at Max, stunned. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Not at all. Reservations at Carmichael’s are very hard to get. Everyone eats there. The waiting list is months long.”
“I can’t believe you. Some maniac broke in my house, killed my dog, and tried to shish-kabob me—”
“Joan, you’re being dramatic. Everyone gets robbed. This is LA.”
“Stop the car.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Stop the damn car.”
Max pulled the Lexus to the curb in front of a McDonalds.
“Joan, let’s not overreact.”
“Overreact? You’re a callous, arrogant, insensitive jerk.”
“Insensitive? Who just picked you up at the police station?”
“Well, a million thanks for driving me home. Why don’t you whip it out, and I’ll pull up my skirt and hop on.”
Max rubbed his eyes. His tortured look. She’d only seen him a half dozen times, and the look was becoming increasingly frequent—every time she offered an opinion, or her cell phone rang, or she talked about her day. Why was she with this guy anyway?
Joan found the door handle and used it. He rolled the window down.
“Joan, let me at least take you home.”
She ignored him and walked into the restaurant. Maybe she was being a bit dramatic, but hell, the past few hours were dramatic. Joan tried to imagine how Max would react if he had some psycho chasing him. Big corporate hotshot would probably be sucking his thumb, begging for his mama.
But that wasn’t really fair. No one really knew what they’d do in a crisis situation, until it happened. Maybe Max wasn’t being insensitive—maybe this was his way of trying to be strong for her. Was his suggestion so outrageous? Perhaps the best thing for her would be to go out and have a good time. It sure beat going home and pulling Schnapps off of that stake.
Joan turned around, hoping Max was still there, or perhaps even coming through the parking lot after her.
Max was pulling out into traffic.
Asshole. Fine. She didn’t care for him much anyway. He was too good-looking, and he knew it. Joan’s Second Rule of Dating; never date a man prettier than you are. She’d broken that rule because she t
hought Max had some class. He was young, successful, and not in the life. That was Joan’s First Rule. Never date a guy in the movie business. She had other criteria—no guys with back hair, no guys who wore Speedos or thongs, no guys who lived with their mom, but the first two were the most important.
The List - A Thriller Page 3
