The Hidden Man

by David Ellis

  Smith pushed away the plate of rigatoni, which now revolted him. “Goddammit. This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. All that asshole had to do was follow instructions and we’d be fine. Now look at us. Look what we’re thinking about doing here. This was never supposed to happen.” He looked over at DePrizio, who was dishing more food into his mouth. “Denny, I’m real glad this isn’t spoiling your appetite.”

  DePrizio shrugged. “Hey, nobody asked me if this was a good idea.” He swallowed and wiped his mouth. “This whole thing, from day one, was pretty much a clusterfuck, right?”

  That didn’t make Smith feel any better. He reached for another stomach pill and washed it down with water. “What other choice did we have? You tell me, Denny. What the hell else were we supposed to do? This is the only thing we could do.”

  “Okay, it was the only thing you could do.” DePrizio poured himself some more wine. “I mean, I get you. You want to control the outcome of this trial and keep the spotlight off Carlo. So you do what we do, right? You throw some money at him. Only that didn’t work, he still does whatever he wants. So then you apply pressure. That’s how it works. Only you got this lawyer who isn’t being real compliant.” He took a healthy drink of the Merlot, a nice bottle from 1994. “So yeah, I think you’re right, you don’t have much of a choice now. You gotta up the pressure. You gotta move on that brother of his.”

  Smith had always regarded DePrizio as something of a lightweight—a valuable asset, given his position, but not the brightest bulb. Still, Smith wanted some validation for his idea. He needed to hear that someone agreed with him.

  Because Smith, himself, was out on a limb. This was a very quiet operation. Carlo turned to Smith not only because of their long-standing relationship, but because he wasn’t telling Smith anything he didn’t already know. They’d borrowed a handful of guys to do the heavy lifting, but those guys didn’t know shit. No, in the end, it was Smith and Carlo, and Carlo, with his sick granddaughter and his daughter in pieces over it, was in no position to decide on details.

  This was all on Smith, and it wasn’t going so well.

  “Look at it this way,” DePrizio added, helping himself to Smith’s rigatoni. “When this trial was over, you were gonna do it, anyway, right? You were gonna move on the lawyer and his brother. Am I wrong?”

  Smith looked away. He hadn’t shared those kinds of details with the detective. DePrizio served a limited role here. Still, Denny was right. After Sammy Cutler’s trial, it was inevitable that Carlo would want the garbage collected. Jason and Pete Kolarich could not remain as threats.

  Smith found himself warming to the decision. DePrizio had said it correctly. They’d have to come for Pete Kolarich sooner or later—sooner, in all likelihood, once Cutler’s trial was over. They wouldn’t be doing anything they hadn’t already planned on doing. They’d just be moving up the timetable.

  Smith watched DePrizio devour the remainder of his rigatoni. “Jesus, Denny. It’s like you don’t have a care in the world here.”

  “I don’t.” The detective sat back and patted his stomach. “Because I did my part. What can blow back on me? Anyone says I pinched that kid on a bogus charge, I say prove it. I say I caught him in the act. Who’s gonna say I didn’t? Now you, my friend, that’s another story.”

  “The hell is that supposed to mean?”

  DePrizio poised the glass of wine at his mouth. “Not for nothin’, but maybe you should start thinking about what happens if this doesn’t turn out so well. You think Carlo’s gonna remember how good a friend you’ve been?”

  Smith made a face. “You’re out of line, Denny. You’re drunk.” But the thought, of course, had been on Smith’s mind. And things were about to escalate. It was one thing to set up the idiot brother on a drug and guns charge. All that took was DePrizio and some money thrown at Pete’s drug supplier, who wouldn’t be able to identify Smith because he’d never laid eyes on him. So far, Smith had remained invisible. Insulated. He wouldn’t be meeting with Kolarich face-to-face any longer, and he was calling him from an untraceable phone. He was clean. So far.

  But now, the men he had borrowed would be doing more than scaring Pete Kolarich in an alley outside a bar or surveilling Jason Kolarich around town. Now, if Smith went through with it, they were talking about major felonies. It would be messy. And there would be no turning back.

  “Keep an eye on Jason Kolarich,” Smith told DePrizio. “Use all that charm of yours to keep him close to you. Where’s that briefcase with the money?”

  “In the trunk of my car.”

  “In the trunk of your car. Well, obviously, the briefcase comes back without any traceable prints. But offer to help Kolarich. Keep him close.”

  “I can do that.” DePrizio enjoyed the wine. It annoyed Smith, the detective’s calm in the face of this. But then, DePrizio didn’t have to oversee this operation. He didn’t have to answer to Carlo if this whole thing went south.

  Smith wiped his forehead with the napkin. “I have no choice,” he said.

  44

  I WOKE UP MONDAY MORNING with heavy eyes. I’d slept only in fits. Part of me had expected Smith’s boys to come after me. Smith, clearly, was considering his next move, and I’d expected that he might move by coming after me in the middle of the night.

  I reached for my cell phone and called Pete at the hotel where he was holed up.

  “Bored to tears,” he told me.

  “Bored is good,” I told him, again.

  I showered, got dressed, and went to the garage. I took care in doing so, to the point of peeking beneath the car and into the backseat before getting in.

  I backed the car out of my driveway and checked the rearview mirror as I drove to the office. Strange. Traffic was as plentiful as ever but I didn’t sense that anyone was tracking me. Maybe they were getting better at it. Maybe they were sure I’d be heading straight to the office and felt no need to watch me until I arrived there. Maybe.

  I had the same feeling when I pulled into the parking garage—nobody following me. I ran through the same calculus, the possibility that I just couldn’t see them. Weird.

  When I got to the office, I found a message from Lester Mapp, the ACA prosecuting Sammy. I hadn’t gotten back to him about a possible plea deal, hoping to show strength in my silence. I figured he could wait a little longer. First, I wanted him to know about Kenny Sanders—that I had a positive ID on the black-guy-fleeing-the-scene from Tommy Butcher. I drafted the disclosure to the prosecution, announcing Sanders as a new witness and the ID from Butcher. I also disclosed the new information regarding Archie Novotny—his absence from his guitar lesson on the night of the murder. I had Marie fax the whole thing to Lester Mapp and imagined the look on his face when he received it.

  I made a couple more phone calls to the eyewitnesses from the night of the murder—not Tommy Butcher, but the ones the prosecution would call—once again leaving a voice mail for them. I had been officially stiff-armed by these witnesses and needed to pay them a visit myself or go to the judge for some assistance. It occurred to me that Smith might have something to do with their reluctance.

  I worked through lunch, reviewing reports, taking notes, beginning the outline of my closing argument at trial. You always start with the closing argument, your wish list of what you want to be able to say at the end of the trial—and then you work backward to make sure that you’ll be able to do so.

  At one o’clock, I received another call from Lester Mapp. This time, I took it.

  “You must be joking, Counsel,” he said.

  “Good day to you, too, sir. I’m just sitting here trying to decide whether I should call Archie Novotny or Ken Sanders first. Who would you choose, if you were me?”

  There was a pause, then an unhappy chuckle from the prosecutor. “The convenient Negro rears his head. I suspect you’ll be shooting for an all-white jury, too? I’m moving to bar. This guy shows up a year after the murder with a story about an African American suspect, and th
en lo and behold, you find that guy, too?”

  It sounded like Lester Mapp wasn’t having a good day.

  “This Thursday,” he said. “I got a two o’clock from the judge. I’ll have a motion to bar on file by tomorrow. I’ll send you some fun information on Mr. Butcher, too. Your star witness isn’t such a star.”

  That didn’t sound so good, but I didn’t want to let on to being concerned.

  “Two o’clock, this Thursday,” he said. “You’ll have my motion to bar by tomorrow.”

  “I’ll count the hours.”

  I put in a call to Tommy Butcher’s office at Butcher Construction. I left a message with the date and time for this coming Thursday. I’d already warned him of this possibility. The prosecution was right to take a free shot before trial to exclude the testimony—before the jury could hear Tommy Butcher identify Ken Sanders. I was sure that Lester Mapp would put Butcher through the paces. I reached for the phone to call Kenny Sanders, to notify him of the same thing, when the intercom buzzed.

  “Detective DePrizio?” Marie said.

  I took a breath and punched the button. “This is Jason Kolarich.”

  “Denny DePrizio. Got some bad news for you, Counselor.”

  In the background noise behind DePrizio, I heard sounds of automobile traffic, a horn honking, an engine revving. DePrizio was calling from a pay phone somewhere. I didn’t think there were any pay phones these days.

  “Oh, shit,” I said. “Don’t tell me.”

  “Nothing, my friend. The briefcase, the money—all clean.”

  “Dammit.”

  “Y’know, if what you’re telling me is on the up-and-up, then these guys would be too smart to leave a print, anyway. Right?”

  I sighed. “I guess so. It was a shot in the dark, I guess.”

  “Yeah, well, listen. I’m beginning to feel like I’m being bullshitted here. And I don’t like being bullshitted.”

  DePrizio was pretty good at this. He actually sounded like a good cop trying to look into something for me.

  “It’s not—I’m not—” I let out a low moan. “I guess I can’t really expect you to believe me.”

  A long pause. “Well, listen—you show me something, I’ll look at it. I’m not too interested in wild-goose chases, right? But you give me something real, I’ll look at it. Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough. Shit.”

  “In the meantime, I got a briefcase with ten thousand bucks?”

  “Give it to charity,” I said. “I don’t want that guy’s money.”

  He laughed. “You gotta take this money back, Mr. Kolarich.”

  “How about I get back to you on that? I’m tied up for the next couple of days. I need to be careful about meeting with you.”

  “Still the black helicopters following you?” He was pretty clear on his opinion of my paranoia. “Call me,” he said, laughing.

  “I will,” I said. “And when I do, I’ll have something tangible for you.”

  I left the office and went to my car. I needed to talk to those eyewitnesses the prosecution had identified and I was done waiting for them to return my calls.

  I was on my way to the highway when my cell phone buzzed, a single bleep, indicating a text message. I picked up the phone and watched the graphic on the screen, the back of an envelope appearing, within which the words, “Message from Pete.”

  I hit the “read” button and read the words of the text message:J: I have to get out of town. I feel like I’m trapped. I’ll never beat the charges and I can’t go to prison. I am not cut out for it. I hope you understand. I can’t tell you where I’m going but I will try to get in touch with you soon. I’m sorry. Pete

  I struggled to keep my focus on the road, reading and rereading the message. I clicked it off and dialed Pete’s cell phone. Wherever he was, he had his cell phone close.

  “Answer the phone!” I yelled. The call rang into voice mail. I hung up and typed a text message of my own, in reply to him: “Tell me where you are.”

  I hit “send” as I sped down the highway. I held the cell phone in front of me, in the event Pete would respond with another text. The text message was optimal from the sender’s perspective because it avoided a conversation. And it was anonymous. It didn’t have to be Pete making the communication. It was just Pete’s phone.

  I called the number of the hotel where he was staying, asked for his room, and got nothing but a half-dozen rings and then a voice mail. “Dammit,” I said into the phone. I redialed the hotel and this time asked for any information on Pete Kolarich. The front desk had nothing in the system to indicate that Pete had checked out.

  But I knew that he had.

  45

  I DROVE TO THE HOTEL, with the dawning realization that Pete wouldn’t be there, that I had made a fundamental mistake, that Smith’s goons could have found him any number of ways, including the same way I found Pete’s supplier, J.D.—by triangulating his cell phone calls.

  They even had a plausible cover for the abduction. Pete was facing a stiff prison sentence, and the text message made sense on a superficial level. He was running. He couldn’t handle prison. Hell, I’d made it easy for them. Pete had taken a leave from his job and he was hiding in a hotel, having cut off contact with everyone. He had already isolated himself. Nobody would wonder where he was, why he hadn’t shown up for work. Nobody would notice his absence.

  I had underestimated Smith. I had miscalculated his desperation. I had backed Smith and his friends into a corner, and now they had my brother. They had taken a step that was irreversible. Until now, they could remain fairly anonymous, working behind the scenes to frame my brother on drug and gun charges. And they could reverse it. The same people who helped frame my brother could recant, or disappear. But abducting Pete? There was no retreating from that.

  I’d long suspected that once Sammy’s trial was over, Pete and I would have bull’s-eyes on our chests. Smith and company would come after us. I’d hoped to wrap up everything before then to prevent it from happening.

  But now they’d taken the first step down that road. They had my brother, and they’d use him for leverage against me—to drop the motion for DNA testing, to follow their game plan for the trial, to do whatever they wanted—but they’d never let Pete go now.

  I left the hotel, having talked the management into letting me look briefly in his room, confirming, by the presence of his suitcase, his toiletries, that Pete had not willingly checked out of the hotel.

  My body went cold. I drove in silence back to my office, where I expected to receive the call. I knew Smith would freeze me for a while, let my fear and imagination get the better of me. I turned to the stack of files in the corner of my office, devoted to the investigation into Audrey Cutler from way back when. If there had been any doubt that Smith’s mysterious client had murdered Audrey and those other girls, there wasn’t anymore.

  I read through everything I could in the file, forcing out images of Pete and what they might be doing to him. When my intercom buzzed, I jumped from my seated position on the floor, revealing the extent of my nerves.

  “Mr. Smith for you on 4407.”

  I punched the button and didn’t speak.

  “Your brother’s alive,” Smith said. “Whether he stays that way is up to you.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Drop that motion. Forget about DNA testing or delays. Use the guy we gave you—Sanders—and stick to the goddamn script.”

  I took a deep breath, then another, before answering, the same answer I gave to Father Ben recently. “Or what?” I asked.

  “What do you mean, ‘or what?’ You know what.”

  “My brother might as well be dead already. You’ll never let him go.”

  “You have to trust that we will,” he said. “What’s the alternative?”

  I could do this. If there was one thing I learned from my childhood, it was how to act tough when I was scared. This guy had my brother and me by the balls, but I could keep my voice
strong, I could play the hard-ass. I had no other choice.

  “The alternative is that I make you pay, Smith, starting tomorrow. The judge is going to allow my request for DNA testing. We both know that.”

  He paused. I had him thinking.

  “Let Pete go right now,” I said, “and I drop that DNA request. It’s your only option.”

  “Hey, asshole, I’m the one with the options. You know what I have to do to keep my guys from tearing your brother from limb to limb right now? They want to take a razor blade to the guy.”

  I closed my eyes, shutting out the images. I felt like I was spinning out of control, full-throttle panic, just at the time that I had to retain control. My body began to shake uncontrollably. My brother was in their hands, and there was nothing I could do. I wanted to capitulate right there, cry uncle, offer to drop the DNA and go along with whatever they wanted, as long as they let Pete go. But what I had said to Smith was true—they’d never let him go. Not now. My game of poker had backfired.

  “They’re telling me, starting tomorrow, it’s one finger a day, every day, until they’re satisfied that you’ve fallen in line. I can’t stop this, Jason. Only you can.”

  Time passed, what felt like an hour, though it was only a matter of minutes. We were both silent, save for our labored breathing. I wasn’t the only one who was scared. I could hear it in Smith’s voice. We’d taken this game too far, beyond the point of return. Neither of us was having fun.

  “Okay, Smith, this is a one-time-only offer,” I said. “Are you listening?”

  I knew that he was. He was a wounded animal, just like me. No matter how much he had me over a barrel, it was clear that I had him by the shorthairs, too.

  “My hearing is tomorrow at one P.M. That gives you a short window of time to do as I say. I want signed affidavits from the people who helped pinch Pete on that arrest. I know one of them is his supplier, J.D. I don’t know who the other guy is.”

  I did know, of course—it was Marcus Mason, the notorious “Mace.” Joel Lightner had delivered me a rather voluminous file on that gentleman. But I didn’t need to share that with Smith.