The Angel Maker

by Ridley Pearson

  When she rounded the corner and saw him standing there, she stopped abruptly. “My God!” she exclaimed, seeing the chest cavity splayed open.

  “A perfect job,” he proclaimed proudly. “And fast, at that!” He turned to face her, his outstretched hands cupped firmly together.

  There, still beating, was the dog’s harvested heart.

  33

  When Donnie Maybeck entered the pawn shop, he had no way of knowing that his every word, his every movement was being monitored and recorded by the police. No idea that everyone in the place—the cheap-smelling skirt with the cleavage, the lame Jimi Hendrix impersonator, and the half-dozen others who crowded the counters—were all undercover cops. No clue that the big hairy bastard in the undershirt who was giving him such a hard time was a Homicide cop named Lou Boldt.

  The man behind the counter was supposed to have been Hymie Monros, but Hymie had missed the briefing because of an asthma attack that had later sent him to the emergency room. Daphne, through Shoswitz, had tapped Boldt for the job. Boldt, notorious for avoiding an active role in setups or stings, had argued he might be recognized from his pursuit of the van.

  Shoswitz had been carefully coached to convince Boldt to play the part. He said, “It was late afternoon. Dusk, if not dark. It was raining. You were running, which means you had your head down. It was a panel van, which means it had no windows on the back or on the side, except the passenger door, and you never made it that far, by your own admission.” Boldt had smelled a conspiracy.

  “The side mirror,” Boldt had argued. That was when he knew it was a conspiracy and that Daphne had coached the lieutenant, who immediately produced a still photograph of the gas station surveillance taken by J.C. Adams. It clearly showed that the van was missing its passenger-side mirror. In fact, there was no way the driver might have seen him, and it even helped to explain why the man had reached to lock the passenger door so late—blind on that side, he had not reacted until he had heard Boldt try the cargo door.

  Boldt, his skin going itchy from nerves, told the suspect once again, “What I’m telling you, asshole, is that any sleazeball could come in here off the street, ask if we had a Toshiba laptop, and then claim it was his.” Boldt carried a huge wad of pink gum in his cheeks. It looked like a pitcher’s abscess. It had been Shoswitz’s idea. “Read the fucking sign.”

  “Just let me see the thing.”

  “Show me the receipt,” Boldt repeated, finding it difficult to stay with Daphne’s script, but doing so. What if she were wrong? What if they pushed too hard, and this guy went south on them? “Show me the ticket, then you’ll get the laptop, providing you’ve got the money.”

  “I got the money,” the man complained anxiously, producing a hefty roll of bills.

  That’s blood money, Boldt thought. Sight of it made him sick. He wanted to arrest this guy. Now. Why wait? “Money won’t help you without the ticket,” he warned. “The sign, pal. Read the fucking sign.”

  “But I lost the ticket,” the guy protested, color rising into his pale face. He had horrible breath; the blind woman, Agnes, had mentioned that. He kept his hand loosely over his mouth, half covering a set of the worst teeth Boldt had ever seen. “I suppose I’m the first fucking guy to lose a receipt, right?”

  “Maybe you can’t read.” Boldt pointed to the painted sign. “You blind or just plain stupid?” Boldt was beginning to enjoy this. It gave him a vent for his anger.

  The woman edged over to them and said to Boldt in a sexy voice, “Hey, sweetheart. You gonna jerk off all day or what? I got some rocks I wanna hock.”

  “Get lost,” Maybeck barked at her.

  “Get fucked,” she said to him. “Wasn’t tawkin’ to you.”

  “In a minute,” Boldt told her.

  “Those really your teeth?” she asked Maybeck. He popped her shoulder with the butt of his hand. She stumbled back and flipped him the bird.

  “I don’t need your business, pal,” Boldt said. “Take it somewhere else. Now!” He felt terrified to say such a thing and yet he went with Daffy’s assessment.

  “Hey! Hey!” the guy said, raising his hands as if the woman had stumbled all by herself. “I’m cool, man.”

  “You hit her again, I’m gonna see you through the front door—without opening it.”

  “You and who else?” the guy asked.

  “Who’s next?” Boldt called over the guy’s head, ignoring him completely now. He looked over at Maria Romanello. Her skirt was about as big as a fly swatter, her legs, in black tights, a mile long. “What kind of stones?” he asked her.

  The guy was looking at her, too. Damn near drooling. Meyers let loose on electric guitar so loudly that Boldt couldn’t hear himself think. Boldt hollered for him to knock it off.

  “Come on, man,” the suspect tried once more.

  Boldt felt relieved that Daphne’s ideas seemed to be working. He never would have played it this way. Not in a million years. He said strongly—a teacher losing patience—”My floor manager told you yesterday: You lose the ticket; you come back after the grace period; you buy it back at floor value. If no one has bought it by then, it’s yours. Those are the rules, pal. And I gotta tell you: A laptop computer is not going to be around that long. No way. So give it up. Get a fucking job for all I care.”

  “You got to make an exception.” He offered Boldt two twenties he had cupped in his hand. “What do you think?”

  “Put the fucking cab fare in your pocket, pal. You’re going to need it. Wrong guy. Listen,” he said, conceding a point, “the only exception I ever make on something like this is if the customer can describe the item in such a way as to convince me they’re the rightful owner. But with something like this—with a laptop computer—they’re all the fucking same to me. I don’t know shit about computers—so you’re plum out of luck.”

  “But they’re not the same!”

  “To me they are.”

  “Diamonds,” Maria interrupted, leaning in so the man could see down her blouse. “Diamond earrings.”

  The guy was staring right along with Boldt. “Get outta here,” the suspect said to her, but he didn’t seem to mean it.

  She adjusted her blouse. “Keep your fucking eyes to yourself,” she said.

  “In a minute, darling,” Boldt told her. She pumped her way over to a stool and sat down on it with her legs set wide apart. Meyers broke a string on the guitar. Who could blame him?

  The suspect was still staring at Maria when he said softly, “Jesus, what a package.”

  “I hear ya,” Boldt agreed. It brought them together. It allowed Boldt to soften.

  “But what if I could prove it’s mine?” he asked Boldt.

  “You mean a serial number, something like that? Maybe. We’ve done weirder things before.” It was an awful chance to take. If the guy produced the serial number then Boldt would have to change his mind. Or he could pretend to check in the back and “discover” that the serial number indicated the computer was hot. Something. But this was clearly the turning point. He felt warm again. He wondered if the guy could see him sweating. “You got the serial number?”

  “Better than the serial number. A password. Who else besides the owner is going to know the fucking password?”

  “A password? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “The thing won’t work without the password.”

  “You kidding me?” Boldt shouted over to LaMoia, who was also in a grungy undershirt, “Hey, Benny! Know anything about computer passwords?”

  “Password? I thought that was a TV game show!” He laughed. “Check Deloris in the back. She’s the only one around here with any brains.”

  Maria shouted over to LaMoia, “Hey, buddy? Yeah. You interested in my diamonds?”

  “Can’t keep my eyes off’em, honey,” he shouted back. She strained up off the stool and sauntered over to him, brushing past the suspect on her way, keeping his attention off the fact that Boldt had gone into the back room. Meyers managed t
o get the rock guitar sounding like a jet airplane. LaMoia swore a blue streak at him until he turned it back down.

  Boldt mopped his forehead when he reached the back room. There were a couple techies waiting with the laptop. Some expensive-looking cameras were locked away in wood-framed chicken wire cabinets. A belt of cigarette smoke hung in the air like a layer of cloud. It came from the real owner, who was chain-smoking from a corner seat. He looked nervous.

  The techies had the laptop up and running, the cursor blinking on a line that awaited the necessary password. Daphne rushed up to Boldt. “You’re doing great,” she said. “Tell him to write down exactly what steps to take and that Deloris will try to get it running. You’re going to have to convince him that under no conditions will you allow him or any client to work the machine. No exceptions.”

  “No exceptions,” Bolt repeated, his system feeling overloaded. “Now I know why people smoke,” Boldt said, looking over at the nervous owner. He walked back into the main room.

  One of the guys working undercover shouted, “You guys all on fucking vacation or what? I want some fucking service.”

  Maria turned to him, “I got some friends who are in the fucking service, honey, if you’re serious. But they ain’t cheap.”

  “Up yours,” he said.

  “That’s the general idea, in case you’re new to it.” She returned her attention to LaMoia and went through the act of selling him her “stones.”

  Boldt was so entertained by this—so surprised at how convincing his people were—that the suspect had to shout over at him to get his attention. “So?” It worked in Boldt’s favor.

  Meyers launched into a dreadful rendition of “Purple Haze,” badly out of tune. A woman with kitchen brooms for eyelashes entered through the front door inspecting her nails. Her facial skin looked like old boot leather.

  Boldt worried about her. He didn’t want any civilians in here just now. She might realize that he and LaMoia were new faces. Boldt went into the back room again and told the owner to put one of his people out front. The owner agreed. The new person handled the woman.

  Boldt hurried back to the suspect who was clearly losing patience. To Meyers, the would-be Jimi Hendrix, he shouted, “You gonna buy that thing? This ain’t rehearsal space!” To the suspect he said impatiently, “I gotta have two forms of picture I.D. from you, and you gotta write down how I do this password thing.”

  “I can do it for you.”

  “No fuckin’ way. Do you read? Do you listen? We got state rules, and we got our own rules here, you understand? And I don’t got all day, neither, so move it or lose it.” He pushed a piece of paper in front of him. To one of the undercovers he shouted, “How can I help you?” in no mood to wait around for the suspect. As he stepped over to help this “customer,” the suspect said, “I’m with you!” He fished for his wallet. “But I only have one picture I.D.”

  Boldt wanted that wallet so badly, wanted this man’s name so badly that he felt like diving across the counter to get at it. Instead he had to sound uninterested. “I’m not gonna do this computer shit twice, pal, so make the directions simple. Understand? Far as I’m concerned, you can come back after the grace period. Guys like you are a real pain in the ass.”

  The suspect slid him his open wallet. Boldt hadn’t realized how hard it would be to suppress his exhilaration. He felt high. Donald Maybeck, he scribbled out, taking down the name, address and pertinent data. This had to be the rush that poker players felt. “I gotta have a second I.D. of some sort, Mr. Maybeck,” he said. “You got a credit card … something like that?” Boldt had to bite his lip so he wouldn’t smile. By the end of the day, he felt like telling the man, I’ll know more about you than your mother does.

  He owned a Shell Oil credit card. Name: Donald Monroe Maybeck. I’ll have your full credit history—taxes, debts, income. You just became public property.

  It took everything in his cop’s brain to slide the wallet back across the counter without searching the rest of its contents. He couldn’t allow even the slightest indication of pleasure to cross his face. He drummed up annoyance—this asshole was keeping him from his wife and kid—and moved down the counter to the waiting “customer” while Maybeck wrote out the computer instructions. The temptation to burst into a victory smile proved incredibly difficult to resist. Finally, he faked a sneeze in order to look away. He took a deep breath, regained some composure, and returned his attention to the undercover cop.

  Meyers shouted from the floor: “Hey, fatman, I’ll give you two bills for the guitar and the amp.”

  Boldt shouted back, “Wait your turn.”

  LaMoia called out, “Hey, dick-for-brains, watch who you’re calling fat. Put the guitar down and get the fuck out of this store. Now!”

  “Eat shit!” Meyers called back. He turned the thing up loud and hit an ear-blistering chord.

  Maria marched over to him. He stood up bravely. She planted her hand into his crotch and squeezed strongly. “You’re hurting my ears, Beethoven. You want to trade hurts?” She squeezed again.

  Boldt was distracted as well. The entire store was distracted.

  “Out!” LaMoia shouted. Meyers left, red in the face—which wasn’t all an act.

  “Okay,” Maybeck called out to Boldt, waving the instructions at him. Boldt was thinking that had they brought this guy into interrogation and requested the password, he never would have volunteered it. Now, here he was waving it at Boldt like granny with her flag at a Fourth of July parade. Take it! he seemed to be saying. Each step closer Boldt drew to that piece of paper, his heart beat a little quicker. Finally, his fingers took hold. To his surprise, Maybeck refused to let go. They stood face to face, eye to eye. There was nothing in this guy’s eyes—like looking down into a dark cellar. Maybeck’s breath was foul; again Boldt recalled the comments of Sharon’s housemate. It was the same guy—the one who had dragged Sharon from the room; Boldt felt certain of it. He wanted to take the guy by the neck and choke him down. He wanted to hurt him.

  Still holding the instructions—the password—Maybeck said, “You get the thing running, then I can buy it back for what you paid me, right?”

  “Right.”

  “You’ll look that up. You’re being square with me. Right?” Could he sense Boldt’s anger? No, it was the silence. The room had gone still. Boldt looked up a fraction of a second before the suspect. He saw LaMoia first, whose panicked eyes gave Boldt a sinking feeling in his gut.

  And then he saw the uniform. A patrolman—a beat cop doing his job—had wandered into the pawn shop. Chances are he knew at least some of these undercover people by name. It had shut everybody up instantly. Maybeck went white as a sheet. Seeing this, Boldt improvised. He said strongly, but not loudly, “You’ve got no problem with the police, do you? We don’t do business with people involved with the cops.” He wanted to sound as if he were protecting himself. Being selfish. All-American.

  “Not me,” Maybeck replied. “I’m cool.” He looked terrified.

  LaMoia crossed through the counter. “Officer Barnes! We’re all out of Uzis this week.”

  Maria Romanello laughed and started mouthing off at the cop who, looking around, stood dumbstruck. He must have realized that he had walked into a sting, and now he wasn’t sure how to act.

  Boldt kept one eye on the cop.

  Maybeck kept one eye on the cop.

  LaMoia said to Barnes, “I got a hell of a nice car stereo you might like.” He led him over to the counter. Smooth as silk, he leaned in and whispered something when Maybeck’s head was turned.

  In a frightened but contained voice, Maybeck said to Boldt, “I’ll be back later to pick it up.” He turned.

  Boldt caught him by the arm. He held on tightly. “Suit yourself, asshole. But I’m not wasting anybody’s time on this unless you’re here.”

  Maybeck glanced down at the way Boldt was holding onto him. Only then did Boldt realize that he was wearing his police academy ring. He never did this kind
of undercover work, had never even considered taking his ring off. But now it glared back at him like a neon sign. He released the man immediately. Had he seen the ring? Had Boldt blown the entire setup? Had he sacrificed Sharon Shaffer?

  The patrolman said goodbye to LaMoia and left the building. Maybeck, still watching the front door, said over his shoulder, “I’m hanging. Just hurry it up.”

  Boldt could hear Daphne’s coaching. Against his better judgment he said to the man, “You sure you’re clean with the cops?”

  “I’m clean, okay? You gonna do this or not?”

  “Wait here.”

  As Boldt entered the back room for a second time all eyes were trained on him—terror in most of them. One of the techies snatched Maybeck’s instructions from him and hurried to the computer. Boldt felt stunned. He was tugging at his ring when Daphne caught up to him. She looked a few years older than just a couple of minutes before. She stared at him. “You all right?” she asked.

  “I’m taking Grecian Formula into the shower with me tonight.”

  “You did good,” she said, intentional in her cop talk.

  Boldt glanced over at the techies. “Any luck?” he asked.

  One of them signaled a thumbs-up. “We’re copying now,” he said. Adding, “Database software, a couple of big files, Sergeant. That’s good news I think.”

  Boldt studied Maybeck on Watson’s television screen. The entire ordeal had been captured on time-coded videotape. They would relive his every move, study every word for significance. The prosecuting attorney’s office would examine the tape for signs of entrapment and rule as to its admissibility in court. A process would begin. Maybeck was in their file as of now. Boldt handed Watson the slip of paper that contained Maybeck’s name, address, and credit card number. “Fax this back to the office and have them run him through the computer. Do the same with the Bureau. I want to know this guy’s birthmarks, if he has any.”

  “I’d like a copy of that,” Daphne said, explaining to Boldt, “for the handwriting sample. The instructions as well.”