Dog Tags

by David Rosenfelt

  It took Chaplin a moment to process what he had just witnessed, to try and understand why Landon was dead and he was still alive. It did not give him a feeling of safety; his instinct was that M was there to kill both of them.

  He started to move toward the door, which was twenty feet away, way too far to get to in time.

  “Hold it!” yelled M, and Chaplin froze. “Turn around,” said M, and Chaplin did just that.

  To his surprise, M did not have the gun raised. “You’ve got nothing to worry about,” M said. “As long as you keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told.”

  “I will. I swear.”

  “So go home, and make sure the trades are executed as planned. Then you’re finished with this.”

  “So I can leave now?”

  “As soon as you help me clean this up.”

  Which is what Chaplin did. And after they had wrapped Landon’s body in plastic, they carried the body together and placed it in M’s trunk.

  “You can go now,” said M.

  Chaplin drove off, and did not look back.

  “ANDY, I KNOW WHERE M IS. Or at least where he was a couple of days ago.”

  Willie Miller has called to tell me what he obviously considers important news. I know he thinks it’s important, because he’s waking me at six fifteen in the morning. I look over and see Laurie awake and pedaling furiously on the exercise bike. It’s as if the world and I are in different time zones.

  “Where?”

  “Just outside Boston, a place called Everett.”

  “Why did you say ‘was’? You don’t think he’s there anymore?”

  “My source saw him leaving a hotel,” Willie says. “He doesn’t know if he’ll be back.”

  “Who’s your source? Russo?”

  “Yeah. He put out the word, and some guy called in and said he saw M. Russo said the guy is pretty reliable.”

  I hear noise in the background, as if someone is talking on a loudspeaker. “Where are you?” I ask.

  “LaGuardia. My flight is in forty-five minutes.”

  I’m torn as to what to do here. If M is really there, it would be extraordinarily dangerous for Willie to go chasing him. Everyone familiar with him tells me he’s an ice-cold killer, the kind of guy it would require an army or Marcus to take down.

  On the other hand, there seems to be a very good chance that the informant was wrong, since I know of no reason for M to have gone off to a small Massachusetts town. Also, the guy reported that M may well have left, thereby covering himself nicely if he was wrong. The report could have been just to get on Russo’s good side.

  Making my decision considerably less important is the fact that Willie wouldn’t listen to me anyway. He’s going to Everett, with my blessing or not.

  “Willie, be careful. This is not a guy to fool around with.”

  “I hear you,” he says.

  “If you find him, you call me, and I’ll get the FBI to move in. Cindy Spodek works out of the Boston office.”

  “I hear you.”

  “But my recommendation is that you not go at all.”

  “Can’t hear you,” he says, and hangs up. I’m beginning to think that I am not Andy, the Supreme Leader.

  I no sooner get off the phone than Sam calls. I’m going to have to sit my crack staff down and explain to them that we are a nine-to-five operation.

  “I think I’ve got it, Andy. It’s gas.”

  “Sorry to hear that, Sam. Why don’t you take a Pepto-Bismol and call me later?”

  “Come on, Andy. You know what I mean. Chaplin’s company has been taking positions in natural gas. It’s mostly on behalf of the same companies that made the killings on oil and rhodium.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “Well, I’m sure that they have big positions in natural gas. The problem is that they are a large company, so they have a lot of investments. So there could be something else I’m missing that’s even bigger; it will take me a while to make sure.”

  “How much do they stand to make on the gas?” I ask, knowing that he can’t really answer the question, since it would depend on how much the price of natural gas were to go up.

  “A lot” is his answer. “They’ve got bigger positions than the other two times combined. If it goes down the same way, they’re going to make a killing.”

  His choice of words is uncomfortable for me. I still have a dilemma; a mistrial is not an acquittal, so Billy is far from off the hook. But telling Benson Landon’s name may not be enough to prevent whatever is going to happen, and I am tempted to tell him what Sam has learned about the natural gas investments.

  I decide to wait the rest of the day to see what the fallout is from yesterday’s mistrial. The media has latched on to the news that the last vote the jury took was heavily in favor of conviction, and their unconfirmed general belief is that juror number nine was one of the two dissenters.

  I have an early-afternoon appointment at the prison to see Billy, who is craving information about his situation. I tell him I’m in negotiations with the FBI, trying to get them to reveal information that can exonerate him.

  “Information they’ve had all along?”

  I nod. “Yes, I believe so.”

  “Bastards. They just let me sit here?”

  “I’m working on changing that, but it’s a little tricky.”

  “Work hard, okay? I’m getting a little sick of this place. And I’m looking forward to seeing my man Milo.”

  I nod. “Okay.”

  “It’s time you started earning the money I’m not paying you,” he says.

  I’ve come to like Billy a lot, but I’m looking forward to the day that he’s no longer a client. For both our sakes.

  I leave the prison and get a phone call from Eli’s assistant, asking if I can come to his office right away. He’s in a meeting, but he’ll be back in twenty minutes, just about the time I would get there. The message is that it’s very important.

  I’m there in fifteen minutes, and Eli is waiting for me. If he’s happy to see me, he’s hiding it well. He looks like Hike on a particularly bad day.

  “You okay, Eli?”

  “Yeah, I’m giddy with happiness. Thanks for coming, Andy. I wanted to tell you something before you heard it in the media.” He looks at his watch. “Which will be any minute.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “We’re officially dropping the charges against Zimmerman. There won’t be a retrial.”

  I’m shocked, not at the decision, but at the timing. To drop charges hours after word is released that the jury was ten–two in favor of conviction is to invite public anger. “Why?”

  “Between us?”

  “Of course.”

  “I have no idea. The word came down from up high that it was going to end this way.”

  “How high?”

  “The attorney general of the State of New Jersey. I believe that he was in very intense discussions with agents of the federal government.”

  “I’m obviously pleased about this, Eli. But you know it’s going to look bad.”

  He nods. “Tell me about it. They’re going to say that some new information has surfaced, and then hope it all blows over. But anyone with a brain will know there’s something wrong.”

  I stop at the prison to tell Billy the great news, and he hugs me in relief upon hearing it. Man-hugs are among my least favorite things, and prison man-hugs with large men are the absolute worst. Since the prison officials haven’t received notification yet, I tell Billy that it probably won’t be until morning that he is officially released.

  “Me and Milo,” he says. “You saved us both.”

  His saying that makes me realize that Milo and I are soon going to be parting company. I’m going to miss him; he’s a lot of fun, and he’s one of the few living creatures who trusts me completely. I’m sure Tara is going to miss him even more.

  I’m almost home when I hear on the radio that the government has decided to drop
the charges against Billy. As Eli said, they are claiming additional information has come up that would make a conviction impossible, but they cannot reveal what it is, for fear of jeopardizing a “continuing investigation.” God forbid.

  I call Benson’s office and am told that he is “out in the field” and is not expected back until the morning. I don’t have his cell phone number with me, but I’m not sure I’d call him anyway. Agents may not like to be bothered when they’re in the field. Instead I leave a message for him to call me, that I have information for him that could be significant.

  I’m having a weird post-trial reaction. Usually I am either euphoric by a victory or devastated by a defeat, but this is somewhere in the middle. I’m happy that Billy is free and that justice was served, but I’m very disappointed and uneasy with the way it was served.

  It is ominous to me that members of the FBI can manipulate the justice system the way they did, with apparent ease. I can’t imagine that they broke new ground here; they must have done it before. And if they can do it in favor of the defendant, why not the prosecution? The implications are chilling.

  The only even slightly mitigating factor is that they knew Billy was innocent, and their actions served to eliminate the possibility of a wrongful conviction. I don’t know if that was their motivation; I can only hope it was. But I still don’t like it.

  After every victorious trial we have a tradition of having a party at Charlie’s to celebrate. I’m not inclined to do so this time, even though whenever a client goes free I consider it a victory. Not only am I not in a partying mood, but Charlie’s has not yet reopened.

  Also, a couple of Laurie’s Findlay friends are vacationing in New York, and Laurie is having dinner with them tonight. A party without her is definitely starting at a disadvantage in my mind. Besides, with Marcus off the case, I don’t want to leave Milo and Tara alone. I have no reason to think Milo is still in danger, but you never know.

  All in all, it’s not party time.

  I MAKE MYSELF A FROZEN PIZZA, THEN THROW TENNIS BALLS TO MILO AND TARA. It’s not exactly mentally taxing, which is fine with me at the moment. It feels good, though it would feel better if Laurie were here.

  Laurie’s told me not to expect her until ten o’clock, since their dinner reservation was at six thirty. I hope she likes her friends, because if I had to have a three-and-a-half-hour dinner with Vince and Pete at a restaurant without televisions, I would go into the kitchen and stick my head in the oven.

  Actually, I should have asked her if her friends were female. For all I know, she could be with some old boyfriend. She’s off wining and dining some guy, and I’m sitting here with a frozen pizza.

  I go upstairs, lie on the bed, and turn on the Mets game. It’s in the fifth inning when Hike calls. “Turn on the television,” he says.

  “I’m watching television.”

  “Turn on CNN.”

  I do so and immediately see his point. The graphic across the bottom of the screen says, “Financier’s Body Found.” Then, “Alan Landon Is Murder Victim.”

  Within five minutes I’ve gotten as much of the story as the media has. Landon was found by a jogger in a Connecticut park with three bullets in his chest. He’s believed to have been dead for approximately twenty-four hours, though it is thought that the body was killed elsewhere and then dumped.

  It’s amazing how many bodies seem to be found by joggers. If I were a detective looking for a missing person, I would recruit marathon runners and deputize them.

  According to reports, the jogger called in local police, who then brought in federal authorities.

  Now I know what Benson is doing “in the field.”

  It’s about nine thirty when I think I hear Laurie downstairs, but then I realize it’s only the television, which I left on when I was in the kitchen. I go down to turn it off, mainly because it will give me an excuse to be near the refrigerator again. I’m a growing boy; one frozen pizza apparently doesn’t do it for me.

  I fill a dish with chocolate ice cream. It’s nonfat and sugar-free, so the dish that I have probably is no more than two thousand calories. I head back out of the kitchen through the den, on the way to the stairs.

  I hear a noise off to my left, and suddenly the front door comes crashing open. Bursting in behind it is a large man with a gun. He falls to the floor from the impact, and I drop the ice cream and run back toward the kitchen.

  It was the only place I could go, but it does little to improve my thin chance of survival. I hide behind the stone island in the middle of the kitchen, but there is no escape from there. The man with the gun, whom I think is M, merely has to follow me in, walk around the island, and shoot me.

  I’m also not near a phone, and to get to one would expose myself to the intruder. That would not be an answer anyway; unless the emergency officers are hiding in my living room and waiting for my call, they couldn’t get here in time to save me.

  “Nowhere to run, Carpenter. Nowhere to hide.” Then, “This I’m going to enjoy.”

  I can hear him enter the kitchen, and I expect that he will walk around the island. I try to sense which side he’ll come from, so that I can move the other way and make a break for it out of the room. But he must be walking quietly, because I can barely hear him, and there’s as much chance that I’ll guess right as wrong.

  If I guess wrong, I’ll walk right into him. Guess right, and he’ll shoot me in the back.

  I’m so busy guessing that I don’t realize he’s already found me. When I look up, he’s standing there, pointing the gun at me and smiling. It is M, and he is the person that is going to kill me. The feeling of panic is overwhelming.

  “I should have done this a long time ago,” he says, and he raises his gun. I brace myself for the impact, though I know that bullet bracing is not a terribly effective defense.

  But there is no bullet. Instead something flies across the room and knocks the gun out of M’s hand, shoving M down in the process. It is the amazing Milo, doing what Milo does.

  Except this time Milo takes it a step farther. He jumps on M and starts to bite at him around the face, and M is screaming in pain. I’ve been frozen watching this, but I finally force myself to move, and I pick up the gun, which is lying only a few feet away from me.

  Once I have it in my shaking hand, I yell, “That’s enough Milo! Milo! That’s enough!”

  Milo actually listens and moves away, and I can see that M is bleeding from his scalp, forehead, and cheek. I point the gun at M and scream, “Get up! Get up!” though I’m not sure why. I was probably better off with him lying on his back.

  He slowly gets to his feet, dripping blood. I notice Tara has ambled into the room, probably assuming that with all the commotion, there are treats to be had. I briefly fear that she’ll walk near M and he’ll grab her, but she seems content to watch from afar.

  “Don’t move,” I say to M. “Stand there.” All the while I’m pointing the gun, and my arm is getting a little tired. I reach over with my left hand, pick up the cordless phone, and dial 911. When they answer I quickly tell them my name and address, as well as the situation. “Please hurry” is how I end the call.

  M hasn’t made a move, but I’m worried that he could have another gun, maybe strapped to something like an ankle or his back, like Bruce Willis in Die Hard. I don’t say anything else, I just keep pointing the gun and praying that the cops will hurry the hell up.

  “Give me the fucking gun,” he says.

  “Shut up” is my witty response.

  “You don’t have the guts to shoot me,” he says, and he takes a step toward me.

  “You’re about to find out,” I say.

  M laughs, and takes another step forward, as if taunting me. He thinks I’m scared, which makes him 100 percent correct.

  “One more step and you are a dead man,” I say, without having any confidence whatsoever that I could actually shoot him.

  He seems to quickly look behind me, and then does more than take a
step; he rushes me, taking me by surprise. The bullet hits him square in the forehead and for one sickening instant reminds me of the scene in The Godfather where Michael shoots Sollozzo and the police captain in the restaurant.

  I must have acted on instinct, evidence of a reflexive, almost primitive defense mechanism that I didn’t know I had, because I don’t remember deciding to shoot, or even shooting.

  That’s because I didn’t.

  Laurie is standing in the doorway, dropping her gun to her side. I hadn’t even seen her come in, but perhaps M had, and made his move because of it.

  “How was your evening?” I say.

  “Are you okay, Andy?”

  I try and come up with a witty response, but I’m out of them. The impact of what just happened is hitting me, and it’s all I can do to keep myself together. I walk over and hug Laurie, and then Tara, and then Milo. I hug Milo twice.

  By the time I’m finished hugging, the police are arriving.

  WILLIE WAS SITTING IN THE HOTEL LOBBY BAR, DRINKING BEER AND WATCHING TELEVISION. He’d been there most of the night, trying to limit the number of beers he had, since he wanted to stay alert. He hadn’t seen M all day, and was beginning to think that he was no longer there. Russo’s guy had said he might have left, and it appeared to Willie that he must have.

  All of a sudden staying alert became easy when a breaking news story came on the screen reporting that M had been killed in the process of breaking into Andy Carpenter’s house.

  Willie watched for five minutes, but they didn’t mention whether anyone other than M was hurt. He then went out to the lobby, where he could hear better, and called Andy on his cell phone.

  His relief when Andy answered was palpable. “Andy, you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Andy said. “Where are you?” In the excitement he had momentarily forgotten that Willie had gone off in search of M.

  “Everett. Up in Massachusetts.”

  “Right. I think it’s safe to come back now.”