by David Ellis
We waited a few minutes before leaving, so the whole thing wouldn’t look too strange, so no one would wonder why I pulled into the garage, closed the door, only to leave again right away. I backed out the car and drove away from my house. The tail, today a blue Chevy sedan, followed my car from a safe distance. We drove to the Supermax movie theater about a mile away and bought two tickets to a sequel about a wisecrack ing treasure hunter who seems to wear tuxedos a lot and, for a history nerd, shows tremendous composure under pressure.
Pete, in his leather jacket and blue baseball cap, bag slung over his shoulder, was silent as we walked toward the movie theater. We found Shauna Tasker where we said we’d meet, in the back row of the theater, so I could see anyone walking in.
“Hey there, fellas.” Tasker was in her typical contrarian mood. More important, she was wearing a leather jacket and blue baseball cap, identical to Pete. I checked my watch. In ten minutes, a cab would be pulling up on the street behind the theater. From the exit on the right of the big screen, Pete could walk to the cab in about ten steps.
“You have your money?” I whispered to my brother, as I kept my eyes on every person who walked into the theater. Pete couldn’t access an ATM machine without the possibility of someone inquiring. I’d taken out a couple thousand dollars in cash for him.
“I’m good,” he said. “I’ll pay you back.” Pete was doing his best to wear a brave face. He’d been shaken up pretty bad by those guys in the alley. It was more humiliating than physically painful. He had a lot of worries right now.
“I know you will.”
He nodded. The lights dimmed. Animated popcorn boxes and sodas told us to turn off our cell phones and keep quiet.
“When you’re in the cab, you’ll text me,” I said. “You’ll be fine, Pete.”
“I’m worried about you, brother.”
We looked at each other. I battled myself all over again, questioning myself, wondering if this was the right move. I was tempted to keep Pete close to me, but this felt like the better play. He’d be in an anonymous little suburban hotel, ordering room service for food and not showing his face much. It should work out.
“I gotta say this, Pete.”
“No, you don’t. I’m clean, Jase. I’ll be fine.”
I gripped his hand. Emotion strangled my throat.
“I better go.” Pete squeezed my hand and got up. I watched him intently as he walked down the aisle and out the exit door.
“He’ll be fine, Jason.” This assurance from Shauna. “And you’re covering my ticket, right?”
“Shut up.” I opened my cell phone and waited for the text message. It arrived, not two minutes later. I’m in. Can I put porn movies on your credit card?
I laughed, a brief moment of levity. Then I said a silent prayer for the only real family member I had left in this world.
When the movie was over, Mother Nature helped out with a rain storm. I used the weather as an excuse to get the car and pull up in front of the theater for Shauna, playing the role of Pete. All she had to do was keep her head down and pop into the car with the bag he had brought. There was not much of a chance that our surveillance could have made a distinction between my brother and my law partner. The identical leather jacket and blue baseball cap would be more than enough, as long as she kept her head down.
“I’m starting to feel like James Bond,” Shauna said. It was twice now she’d helped me fake out our tail, first lending me the car, now switching up with Pete and spending the night at my house.
We hung out in my living room for a while, though it was late and Shauna had an early day tomorrow. It felt like old times, back at State. After I was kicked off the football team for the misunderstanding I had with one of the team captains, I moved off-campus, into a five-bedroom house, which sounds nice until you factor in that eight of us lived there. Shauna was one of those people. We used to kill plenty of late nights, drinking the cheapest beer we could possibly find—how bad could it be if it was “Milwaukee’s Best”?—listening to REM albums, debating whether Automatic for the People was an interesting diversion for the band or a complete sell-out, discussing the merits of the Reagan Revolution, listing celebrities we’d sleep with—anything and everything. Easier times.
In another sense, it felt odd, maybe wrong, having a woman in this house for an overnight stay, the slightest hint of sexual overtone even if it was just Shauna. This was Talia’s house. It always would be.
Shauna stretched her arms over her head and yawned. The movement, however innocuous, brought back a memory from high school, the short interval when we were more than friends. Her eyes linked with mine and I blinked away, feeling like I’d been caught in the act of something forbidden but enjoying it nonetheless. It wouldn’t last, it wouldn’t make sense, not with Shauna, but it had felt more like a lifetime than four months since I’d experienced the sensation. I was still alive. I still could feel.
Shauna excused herself to bed, breaking the tension and leaving me to wonder whether it was mutual. But I had other things to consider at this moment.
I went to my own room and sat up on the bed, thinking things through. At midnight, I turned off the light. The darkness felt appropriate. I sat on my bed in the blackness, trying to focus a mind running wild. It was like trying to corral a bunch of roaches scattering from light. Outside the rain was rattling the window and drumming on the roof. I thought about where Pete was right now. I had to trust that he would be safe, because the alternative was unbearable.
When I was a prosecutor, I was assigned a badge, which I had to surrender upon my resignation from the county attorney’s office. But about three years in, I’d lost my badge and had to get a new one. Law enforcement offices do not have a sense of humor about losing badges, their use in the wrong hands, naturally, being problematic. The office reserved the right to dock a week’s pay upon the first loss of a badge and my supervisor, looking to make an example out of me, took full advantage of that punishment. It was about two months later that I found my original badge. The proper protocol, obviously, was to bring it in, but I didn’t. I didn’t precisely recall why, but it might have had something to do with losing that week’s pay and figuring I’d earned the right to keep it. Shame on me, then. Good for me, now.
In the darkness of my bedroom, I pocketed the badge and my revolver. Shauna, at my request, had parked her car the block over for my use tonight. But I had a thought. I called an audible. I decided to use my own car. First, because I wanted to see what would happen, if my tail was pulling a round-the-clock shift. And second, because I didn’t want it to be Shauna’s car I was driving, should things go wrong.
I backed my car out of the garage, taking care to look both ways for not only pedestrians but surveillance. I continued to look forward and in the rearview as I slowly drove down the street. I didn’t see any lights on any cars. For good measure, once I turned south onto the adjoining street, I pulled over, turned off the car, and killed the lights. I waited for five minutes. No one was following me. That meant something. There was a limit to Smith’s resources.
I drove for forty-five minutes on mostly empty streets and the highway, as the rain pelted my windshield. Rain always made me feel lonely, despairing, but this early morning it seemed to heighten my sense of isolation, allowing me to focus.
The place was on the far west side, a neighborhood that seemed to be on the way up, based on the stores that were being built on the main arteries. It was an apartment building. That was all I knew. I parked near the building and went through the first door, open. To my left in the small threshold were six mailboxes with tiny buzzers above them. Five of the mailboxes had makeshift nameplates. One was empty. I figured the empty one was the one I wanted. But that didn’t tell me which of the rooms inside this building was his.
And that didn’t get me through the locked, automated door separating the entryway from the rest of the building.
I went back to my car and drove on, turning right and then making ano
ther quick turn down the alley. Behind the apartment building, six parking spaces had been drawn out diagonally. Five spaces were taken, one empty. I checked the license plates against the one I was looking for. The car wasn’t there.
Good. I kept the car running but got out and checked the rear entrance to the building, which was covered by a beaten-up awning. The door was locked. Nearby, next to the closest parked car, there was an overfilled garbage Dumpster that, I decided, would be the best I could do.
I moved my car back to its original parking space, not far from the front entrance of the building. Then I jogged back around to the alley in back and considered my options with the garbage Dumpster. It was closer to the door than the cars, which helped, but there was about ten, fifteen feet to cover between the Dumpster and the door. Not ideal but I could give myself some help.
I looked through the Dumpster, not particularly excited about getting my hands dirty. I fished out a McDonald’s bag and found some food. I removed an uneaten part of a cheeseburger and placed it right by the door, separating burger from bun to make it a messy scene. I sprinkled a few fries as well, to balance the meal.
Then I removed the small jar of Carmex I had brought. Rather than rub my finger over it for use on my lips, I dug into it with my hand and liberally applied it to the handle of the back door, feeling like a sculptor as I ensured that every last bit of the oily lotion covered that handle.
Then I waited. It was tempting to stand under the awning to stay dry, but that would expose me. So I hunched behind the garbage Dumpster, helpless from the rain, which found its way under my collar and completely soaked my hair. Oh, Talia, if you could see me now.
Counting on the fact that I’d hear a car coming, I listened as best I could through the rain. Every few minutes, I got up and stretched out to stay limber.
It happened a solid hour later, which is what I would have expected but couldn’t know for certain. By the time I heard the tires crunching along the uneven pavement, the unhealthy engine spitting and sputtering, I was soaking wet and probably in the appropriate mood.
I reached into my jacket pocket and removed a ski mask, which was wet but not nearly as soaked as everything else I wore. I threw it on and listened as the car painfully turned into the lot, backed up, and pulled into the diagonal spot. I opened my cell phone and dialed the numbers, but did not push “send.” The car door opened and I steeled myself, cell phone in hand. Footsteps, but he hadn’t appeared yet. I heard the trunk pop open. A moment passed, as he presumably pulled up the board over the spare tire and removed the stash, but I couldn’t hear any of it with the rain still going strong.
I hit “send” as he came into my line of vision, only a few feet from the front door, facing away from me. Then I hit “mute” on my cell phone.
“What the fuck,” he said, as he saw the food lying right before the back door, abruptly halting a jog as he fled the rain. I heard his phone ring. He reached to his belt for the phone, unaware that the person calling him was ten feet to his left.
He looked at the face of the cell phone, presumably checking for caller ID. Then he opened the cell phone and said, “Yeah?” As he did so, continuing to speak into the phone—“Hello? Hel-lo?”—he spread out his left leg to try to move the food from his immediate path.
I had the oiled-up door handle for additional help but I didn’t need it. This was the moment, while he was preoccupied and off-balance with his leg out and one hand holding a phone to his ear.
The white noise of the rain rattling off the pavement helped mute my sprint. I closed the distance before he became aware of me. I treated him like a defensive back on a crack-back, though I wasn’t worried about being flagged for an illegal block.
He was a lightweight, and he didn’t see me coming. He flew off his feet into the brick wall on the other side of the door, his cell phone flying, his head smacking hard against the bricks with a sickening sound. The thought flashed through my mind, I had hit him too hard, but the noise escaping his throat, a combination of shock and pain, told me he was in sufficient condition.
By the time he knew which way was up, I had pulled my revolver and introduced it to his nose, as my other hand gripped his hair.
“I’ve been looking for you, J.D.,” I said.
32
JOHN DIXON tooka minute to respond. His head had met the brick wall hard. His right upper cheek was scraped, and his ear was bloody. The angle at which he had landed placed him beyond the awning’s protection, so that the rain was attacking his face. I thought it added a little something to the overall atmosphere, and my clothes were already stuck to my body, so what did I mind?
He blinked his eyes rapidly, fighting rain and probably a concussion. Presumably nausea, too, and the last posture you want when you’re going to vomit is lying flat on your back with someone sitting on your chest and pinning your arms down with his knees.
All things considered, the hour of three A.M. was not shaping up to be J.D.’s finest of this virgin day.
“Just take—take it already,” he managed. He couldn’t really focus on me, looking straight into a downpour as he was, and he was probably schooled enough to know not to spend too much time staring at the face of his attacker, not when that attacker was armed. In my time as a prosecutor, I found that many victims made a point of avoiding the eyes of their attackers, not wanting to be able to identify them, hoping that it would make them less of a threat to the assailant and increasing their chances of survival.
I got as close to his face as circumstances allowed, adding some body weight to the force of the revolver pressing into his nose. “I don’t want your fucking dope, J.D.”
“The fuck did you find me?”
That had been surprisingly easy. I figured that a drug dealer who’s already had to leave his day job wouldn’t stop his late-night occupation, no matter how well he was being paid to lay low. He’d want the cash and he wouldn’t want his customers to find new suppliers in his absence. So I figured he’d be using that cell phone of his, the number to which I got from Pete. Then it was a small matter of having my high-tech private investigator, Joel Lightner, “ping” the cell phone, triangulating the signals sent off by the phone while in use, to pinpoint a location.
But I didn’t feel the need to share this with Mr. Dixon. Better I remained something of a mystery to him. Instead, I emphasized the gun, jammed into his nostril. “I’m supposed to kill you,” I said. “But I’m having second thoughts.”
“Why you—why you gonna kill me?” he pleaded. “Why you gonna do that?” The downpour made it hard for him to talk, spurting out words as rain assaulted his mouth. Breathing was no small chore, either. This was like a cheap imitation of waterboarding. I’d have to remember to vote Republican next time.
“You think he’s gonna let you live?” I said. “You’re a witness, asshole. You’re a liability.”
“Man, I don’t know nothin’, man.” He shook his head furiously, side to side, as best he could with my tight grip on his hair. “Don’t even know the guy’s name.”
I didn’t know who he was talking about. I was bluffing.
“Tell me everything you do know,” I said evenly. “Fast, J.D.”
“Man, the guy says—guy says deliver the kid to Mace.”
“Yeah? What’s in it for you?”
J.D. seemed reluctant to answer. Gentle encouragement was in order, and J.D. already had a gash on the right cheek, so a little symmetry seemed appropriate, courtesy of the butt of my revolver. He let out a noise that was drowned out by the rain. “That’s me being nice, J.D.,” I said. “What was in it for you?”
He took some time to recover. It’s hard to take a blow when you can’t move your head or arms to absorb the impact. Finally, he said, “They let me live. That’s what was in it for me.”
“Threw you some, too?”
“Maybe. A dime, a dime,” he elaborated, when I raised my gun again. “They gave me ten thousand and told me, they won’t come back. I just had to de
liver the kid, is all.”
“What kid?” Here I showed how clever I am, pretending not to know of Pete, thus hopefully concealing my identity should J.D. get around to pondering such things later.
“Pete.”
“Pete who?”
He coughed out a mouthful of rain. “Pete Kolarich,” he said. “Okay?”
I considered popping him one, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to leave this guy’s face in a pulp. J.D. seemed on board with that sentiment and, instead of trying my patience, kept going. “That’s all I know, man. They said take him to Mace. Be ready to run.”
Right. They knew Pete would get picked up by the police—that was the whole point—but they didn’t want J.D. on an arrest report.
“Tell me about the cop,” I said, again bluffing.
“The cop?” He moaned as his eyes filled with rainwater. “What cop? Man, I got out before the cops.”
My gut said he was telling the truth. That didn’t mean that Detective DePrizio was clean, only that if the detective was in on this thing, J.D. hadn’t been informed.
“So who made you do this, J.D.? Describe them.”
“Four white guys, is all. Four big, bad-ass white dudes. Same as you, man, they jumped me like that.”
Not Smith. But that made sense. Someone else would handle the wet work, not Smith. I assumed these four thugs were the same ones who jumped Pete in the alley.
“Where’s Mace?” I asked. The way J.D. was telling it, he might not have known Mace at all before this encounter. But I said it like I knew otherwise.
“Man, you want no part a that dude.”
“Oh, but I do.” I reminded him of the gun in his nostril.
“Guy’s Tenth Street. C’mon now, man.”
“His full name, J.D.”
He seemed to be thinking about it. It could be, he was weighing some options, too. But I thought he was really trying to come up with the name.
“Mason’s the last name,” he finally answered. “I think Marcus?”
Marcus Mason. Finally, I had the name of Mace.
