by David Levien
“Brass catcher,” Behr said flatly.
Breslau nodded quickly. He’d either had the same thought or was quick at looking like he had.
“Brass catcher and a flash suppressor. That’s a tactical weapon. Military,” Behr added.
“Well …” Breslau said, “let’s not get too excited. It might be. Might be something jerry-rigged at home, too.”
“Is that right?” Behr said.
“I’m looking at the shot patterns here, and I’m not reading ‘professional.’ ” Behr glanced at the Toyota and the door of the Suburban and the wall behind it. Breslau wasn’t wrong: it had been some messy shooting, and he was alive thanks to it. Breslau put a hand on Potempa’s shoulder and steered him away into the police activity. “We’re pulling up security tapes and entry tickets on the garage …”
Behr remained standing there, alone.
3
The bloody cunts in America had bollixed it. One of ’em was even sicked up and crying over there now.
The Welshman, Wadsworth Dwyer, circled with his training partner, his mind far away from what he was doing. But he didn’t need to think in order to grapple. He’d been doing it for too long. He held black belts in judo and Japanese jujitsu-the kind the samurai had invented to use when the battle was to the death and the sword had been lost-and that’s how Waddy Dwyer used it. But that was just the beginning of his schooling. He’d been a striker growing up in the pubs in Merthyr and had learned military hand-to-hand at Hereford, before practicing it in piss-smelling beer holes the world over. He’d studied sambo when he was “working” in Russia just after the wall came down and liked it for its similarities to legitimate grappling. He’d quickly moved in and out of systema specnaz-the mystical and supposedly deadly art they taught to Russian Special Forces-when he’d choked out the teacher with a simple guillotine. He tried Krav Maga when he was on loan to Israeli intelligence, and liked it for its aggressive mind-set, but realized he didn’t need it much after he broke the instructor’s jaw the third day when he’d been feeling mean and homesick. That’s when he knew it was time to get out and come back to Wales.
Wales. He must be some kind of arsehole, because he loved the weather here, cold and rainy most of the time, even in the summer, up on the top of the mountain in the Cambrians where he lived now.
His training partner shot for a single leg takedown, and the Welshman sprawled, leaving a knee behind to clock the boy on the top of his head for his trouble. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been taken down. At five foot seven, fourteen stone, it was like toppling over a fireplug. His training partner got back up a bit slowly after the knee to the head, so Dwyer took his own shot. His was a double, and he wrapped his arms around both his training partner’s thighs and cranked to the side like he was turning a lorry’s steering wheel, dumping the boy on his head onto the hard mats.
Bloody fucking ’ell, he thought as he leaped on top of his training partner and worked a crucifix, catching one of the boy’s arms between his legs and hyperextending it, and doing the same to the other using his hands. I’m gonna have to go to America.
The training partner was stretched out and helpless but didn’t say “tap,” so the Welshman gave him a rap across the mouth, causing blood to run red over the boy’s teeth.
“Fuck’s sake, Waddy!” the training partner said.
Wadsworth Dwyer got up, certain as fuckall he hated leaving his mountaintop.
4
Behr sat down at the kitchen table before 7:00 A.M. and appreciated the morning light coming through the window in a slanted shaft. He hadn’t gone to bed until near 4:00, and hadn’t slept much before waking unrested but automatically around 6:00 to a day that could easily have never come for him. He couldn’t help but savor his coffee, the sweet sugar underneath the slight bitterness of the roast.
It hadn’t been a single team that had arrived in the garage late the night before but a wave of Caro boys who flooded in after the call had gone out and word spread.
To do what? Behr wondered. It wasn’t clear. To help with the investigation, perhaps. To herd up and feel the numbers of the organization standing strong against an outside threat. Or maybe it was simply to tack man-hours onto Kolodnik’s bill. Behr had caught a ride with one of them to his car, which was parked back at Kolodnik’s office, and had then driven home.
“Hi,” Susan had said when he’d walked in, looking up from the body pillow she hugged, aware of how late it was. The television was on in the bedroom.
“What’s this?” he asked. She often fell asleep to the TV, and she’d been sleeping not watching, but a glance gave her the answer.
“Women Behind Bars. Mostly wives who killed their husbands.”
Susan was a fan of true crime and reality shows. “You thinking about bumping me off?” Behr asked. “Studying where they slipped up?”
“We’d have to be married first for that,” she said.
“Right.”
“Why are you so late?” she asked.
He’d sat down on the edge of the bed and after catching a look at the large swell of her belly beneath the bedsheets, told her everything, trying to make it sound as routine as possible, which it wasn’t, and she knew it.
Behr went for his second cup of coffee. His shoulders and neck and his knees and wrists felt raw this morning. It wasn’t a question of injury, but as if all the adrenaline that had fired through his system, the absolute tensing of every muscle, had an effect similar to a full body workout. He didn’t mind it. He didn’t have a problem with anything that reminded him he wasn’t dead right about now.
He looked down at the morning paper to find they had the story. But they’d missed most of the details due to how late the deal had gone down. No names of the players were mentioned, just that two men had been fired upon in a downtown parking garage, that the shooter or shooters had gotten away, that no one had been killed.
Susan entered the kitchen and looked at him, noticing his shirt and tie, and the suit jacket hanging over the back of his chair.
“You’re going in to the office?” she asked, surprised.
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “What else am I gonna do?”
“No workout today?” she wondered. Almost every morning around 5:30 or so he’d be at it-running or weights, various other types of strength training, hitting the heavy bag or rolling Brazilian jujitsu. Not today though. After last night, there was something about it that seemed superfluous.
“I took a holiday on account of being alive,” he said, smiling, trying to sound light.
“Seems like a good reason,” she said, going to get a mug for the one cup of coffee a day her obstetrician allowed. “I didn’t even hear you get up. I’m sleeping like someone dropped a cinder block on my head these days.” Susan was complaining a lot about how tired she was, which was unusual for her-both the complaining and the fatigue. Her customary state was one of vivacious energy. “Have I mentioned that being pregnant isn’t much fun?”
“You might’ve, once or twice,” he said. “A couple more weeks, then it’s lounging around and bonbon time,” he said, alluding to the start of her upcoming maternity leave.
“Yeah, I’ve heard newborns are easy,” she said. “You want to go look at that place over on Guilford after work?” They’d given up Susan’s apartment three months back. It was nicer than his but small, while his had the extra bedroom that, though currently serving as a storage space, could be set up for the baby. But since his steady Caro money had been rolling in, they’d been seriously considering moving somewhere nicer. There were some new town houses over in Broad Ripple that would be a clean, fresh place to raise a child.
“Sure,” he said, “shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll let you know if they’re going to keep me late.”
5
Morning had stolen in like a secret, and the big house was still and empty and quiet around Lowell Gantcher. Nancy and the kids were away in lake country for the month and he wasn’t doing well alone. He’
d spent the night checking the paper’s Web page every minute for updates and had quickly begun to feel like he was playing the starring role in an unfolding nightmare. At first there’d been no information. Then there’d been a brief bulletin at around 4:30 A.M. He had kept checking incessantly, waiting for further details, but they didn’t come. The starkly worded initial report was all there was for hours.
He’d taken to pacing around the house. Ten thousand square feet of living space, plus three thousand more in the finished basement that included screening, workout, and poker rooms, probably was a bit much. It hadn’t seemed so when he and Nancy had been buying it and tricking it out, but it was a real bull market house. That was only two and a half, three years ago, but it seemed a lot longer. Hell, they hadn’t even gotten the place fully furnished yet.
He sat in the study, which was dark and silent, and wrapped in oak paneling. The only light in the room was the early sunlight bleeding through the closed slats of the horizontal blinds, which were also made of oak. This room was furnished. It was done up to the nines. His hands rested on a massive mahogany partners desk. There were matching leather couches and armchairs in a lustrous tobacco color, silver frames and leather-bound books on the shelves around a wet bar. Over the marble fireplace hung a plasma television that was so large it could serve as the scoreboard in a minor-league baseball park. It was the first room that had been done once the master and the kids’ bedrooms had been made livable. When they’d been walking around the newly built house, it was the study that had practically sold the place. The Realtor drifted away, leaving them alone, and Nancy had turned to him and said, “Let’s buy it. You’ll be like Don Corleone in here.”
“Yeah?” he said, hesitating for a moment.
“Yes, Lo. Every man needs a Godfather room.” And she gave him that smile that inspired him to greatness, that made him feel he was able to do anything, and they’d bought the place. But Don Corleone was a grave and powerful man, restrained and effective. Lowell was an aspirational real estate developer who had fed on times of easy credit until he’d practically turned into white dough. He even felt pale and washed out sitting there. The phrase “nouveau riche” was one he’d just recently learned.
It seemed simple once, to sit at the brand-new partners desk, going over statements that outlined the take of each machine and table and the casino’s total. How could there be trouble in the world? he’d wondered back then.
But now he was staring at a B rating on his venture. B. When he was in college a B would’ve been a welcome sight on his transcript. But now, because ratings started at AAA, a single, measly B was six classes down the quality scale; and once an investment had ticked south out of the A’s, it started to stink worse than a road-killed skunk. With a tumble from even BBB, there was no chance of rescue investors coming in now. No chance at all.
A report had recently landed on his desktop full of projections that intimated the state’s casino business had hit a high-water mark. That was more bad news. Adding to the gloomy forecast was out-of-state competition, the specter of those sausage eaters in Chicago passing gaming downtown, and the god-blessed Indians opening up all over the place with their tax-sheltered free rolls. A housing slump, a credit crunch, and record unemployment sucking disposable income out the customers’ pockets were the final grim strokes to the ugly picture. There was only one hope, and that was abatement by the state on the 75-million-dollar-per-year gaming license tax.
He heard tires on gravel. It was the sound he’d been waiting for. He hurried to the door to see a battered Honda Civic driving away, and the morning paper resting in its pink plastic sleeve at the end of the driveway. He hurried barefoot to get it, the sharp gravel digging into the soles of his feet. He bent and picked up the paper, tearing the plastic away, and scanned with his eyes while he hop-ran back to the house. What he read confirmed what he’d seen online. He didn’t make it back to the house. He collapsed to his knees on the pebbled ground, as if he’d been hit in the gut with an ax handle. Powerful, ungodly, tearless sobs shook his chest. It was all going to end.
6
Behr walked through the walnut doors into the Caro Group office well before 9:00, but there were nearly a dozen investigators and clerical staff already there, and when they saw him they started clapping. He didn’t know what to do with himself, so he stood there dumbly for a moment, until the applause and a single whistle subsided.
When he headed for his desk, Joanne, the new receptionist, smiled and wished him good morning as if he were the mayor.
“Frank Behr in … Bulletproof!” a mock announcer’s voice rang out as Behr put his stuff down. It was a pair of investigators, Reidy and Malick, who pumped his hand and gave him a few whacks on the shoulder.
“You get a look at the shooter?” Reidy wondered.
“Didn’t get a look at anything,” Behr said.
“You put any in him, you think?” Malick asked.
“Don’t know. Doubt it,” Behr answered. “They didn’t find any blood.”
“Don’t mean he wasn’t hit,” Reidy opined.
“It was dark.” Behr shrugged and after a moment the investigators drifted on and Behr went to pour himself a coffee.
He was in the break room filling up, when Pat Teague walked in looking rumpled around the edges as usual.
“Holy Christ, Frank, I knew that was a shit detail when I asked you to switch,” he set in, forcing a laugh.
“Sure was,” Behr said, giving him back a smile.
“How the hell are you?” Teague asked and didn’t wait for an answer. “When my BlackBerry binged and I saw the e-mail that went around, I almost crapped myself. Couldn’t sleep the rest of the night. I e-mailed you, did you get it?”
Behr nodded. An e-mail from Teague inquiring about his health had come through, but he hadn’t bothered responding.
“I would’ve called too, if it wasn’t so late,” Teague continued. “I mean, shit, Frank, it should’ve been me out there …”
“Don’t worry about it, Pat, luck of the draw,” Behr said. “How was the game, anyway?”
“Oh, it was fine. Forget that-I’m just glad everyone’s still using up some air here.”
“You and me both,” Frank said.
“Some shit detail,” Teague said again. That’s when Karl Potempa, hair locked down, and razor sharp in a blue pinstripe, appeared in the doorway.
“Teague. In here now,” he called out, then regarded Behr. “Hey, Frank, how you doing? No day off, not even the morning, huh?”
“I don’t golf. Not well anyway,” Behr said. The truth was he hadn’t even thought of taking time.
“I want to talk to you in a minute,” Potempa said. Behr nodded and continued to his desk as Teague headed into Potempa’s office.
Behr found himself less than interested in work-which at the moment meant finishing a forensic financial background check on a corporate executive. He’d only managed to tap out a few sentences on his computer. He’d write up his report on last night’s incident once he’d talked to Potempa. A quarter of his life now was reports. Another quarter was answering e-mails, texts, and calls on the BlackBerry that Caro had issued him. He may as well have had the thing surgically mounted to his hip he was such a slave to it. He recognized he was part of an organization now, and as such he wasn’t alone. There were upsides, like the health insurance and the squad of colleagues appearing in the parking garage and the whole office showing up at his desk this morning, one of them with a flyer advertising a combat shooting school in the Nevada desert that had been printed off the Internet and waved around with much hilarity. There were the steady paychecks of course, but there was a price that came with the belonging, too, like being told what to do and when to do it and remaining reachable and accountable-always. He swallowed it down and dealt with it. That’s what being a father, even an expectant one, was about.
By 9:45 the newspaper’s Web site had begun to fill in the gaps. Prominent citizen Bernard Kolodnik was mentioned, as
well as his unidentified “private security who had returned fire.” That suited Behr just fine. Lieutenant Gary Breslau was quoted as saying police weren’t sure whether “it was attempted robbery, carjacking, or other motive behind the shooting.” That “other” glowed in Behr’s mind for a moment, but before long Ms. Swanton, Karl Potempa’s helmet-haired secretary, appeared at his desk.
“He’s ready for you now, Mr. Behr.”
Behr took a seat across from Karl Potempa, who was ringed by plaques on the wall commemorating his civil and law enforcement service, including his stint in the FBI. Potempa had his feet up on the desk and was shaking his head at the departing Teague.
“How are you doing this morning, Frank?” Potempa began.
“Pretty good, considering,” Behr said, hoping now that everyone in the office had had a chance to check in with him, and Potempa had even taken two bites at the apple, that the solicitous questions would abate sometime soon.
“Bernie Kolodnik was more than pleased at the way things resolved. I don’t know if one’s on the way, but if a bonus comes in, it’ll be passed on to you.”
“Okay.” Behr’s eye found a series of family photos on the credenza behind his boss. It was Potempa and his handsome auburn-haired wife, along with photos of a son and a beautiful daughter. There were several pictures-slices of life-a cheerleading shot, the son in football pads, all of them dressed for a formal occasion-taken a few years apart, that tracked the kids from youth to young adulthood. In the last one of the whole family, the son looked to be around twenty-one, the daughter eighteen. Then there were a few more, from which the daughter was absent, including a wedding photo of the boy at around age twenty-four. Maybe the daughter was studying overseas, Behr considered.
“Now as far as press goes, it’s zero-sum here. You haven’t spoken to anyone yet, have you?” Potempa asked.
