by Robert Ward
• • •
A few minutes later, Jack and Oscar stood by Charlie’s bedside. The nurse, a middle-aged woman named Ruth Anne with bleached blond hair, smiled at them.
“Five minutes,” she said. “That’s it.”
Jack smiled back at her.
“You in the business?” she said.
“The cop business,” Jack said.
“Oh,” she said. “I thought you were a producer. I’ve been doing a little extra work.”
Jack said nothing and she opened her palms, faceup.
“Hey,” she said. “A girl’s gotta try, huh?”
“Yeah, sure,” Jack said. “You mind if I talk to my friend?”
“No problem,” she said.
She walked out of the room, giving Jack a sexy parting smile, just in case he was lying about not being a producer. It never hurt to leave a good impression.
Jack looked down at Charlie, whose skin looked pale, almost gray, like a frozen haddock Jack had seen on ice in a stall at the farmers market.
“Charlie, how you doing, buddy?”
“Okay,” Charlie said, grimacing as he spoke. “I shoulda never let him get the jump on me like that, Jackie.”
“Cut it out,” Jack said. “You get a look at him?”
Charlie shook his head a little and grimaced again.
“Nah. It was dark. Back in your extra bedroom. He had on a ski mask.”
“Yeah,” Oscar said. “Big guy?”
“Yeah, he used a gun butt on me. I’m just glad it was me. When I think it coulda been Kevin walking in there . . .”
Jack felt the icy shiver up his back. The mere thought of Kevin meeting one of Steinbach’s crew made him feel cold and sick.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “I owe you big-time, Charlie.”
“Nah,” Charlie said. “You don’t owe me a thing. Just try and make it to the next ball game, huh? I’m sorry they took your computer, that’s all.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jack said. “Get some rest.”
He squeezed Charlie’s hand and watched his battered friend close his eyes.
Outside in the hallway, Jack looked at Oscar.
“There’s something they want really bad, all right. But I got nothing like that in my computer.”
“No, maybe not. But they don’t know that. Maybe we should really take a look at anything we’ve ever been involved with that had Witness Protection in it.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “I’ll think about that tonight.”
Jack and Oscar walked back out to the lobby, where Kevin was watching an old episode of Family Guy.
“This is a great one, Dad,” Kevin said. “The dog goes to California to be a movie star.”
“Some lucky dog,” Jack said. “C’mon, kiddo. Let’s go home.”
At home Jack tried to act as though everything was normal but, in spite of Kevin’s best efforts, Jack saw a flash of fear in his eyes. His son looked like an animal that was cornered, trapped in a hunter’s gun sights.
Jack sat on the corner of the bed and patted Kevin’s hair away from his eyes. It was the kind of gesture he’d done when his son was much younger. The last few times he’d tried anything so blatantly tender, Kevin had jerked away, mumbling, “Cut it out. What do you think I am, a baby?”
But now Kevin didn’t flinch. He smiled at his dad in a vulnerable way, his eyes still darting around the corners of the room searching for something lurking there, something monstrous, which would emerge only when he was alone.
“You okay, buddy?” Jack said.
“Sure, Dad, fine,” Kevin said. But his voice was filled with doubt.
Jack saw his eyes watching the window. Waiting for whatever might be there in the backyard, just waiting.
“Listen, pal,” Jack said. “Nothing like that is going to happen again.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Kevin said.
“The alarm is here, and so am I,” Jack said. “Anybody who comes through that door won’t be walking when he leaves.”
“What do you think the guy wanted, Dad?”
“Something he thought was in my computer. But I’ll be damned if I know what it is.”
“You think it was that guy you arrested . . . one of his guys?”
“Steinbach?” Jack said. “Could have been. But there’s something that bugs me about that, too.”
“What?” Kevin said. He sat up on his pillow. Jack wondered if he should talk about the case with his son. But then again, all this affected him . . . so maybe he had a right to know. Plus, he was a smart kid. Maybe he’d come up with something helpful. In any case, he seemed wide-awake now.
“You see, if Steinbach sends a guy, he’s a professional. He goes in, he looks for something, and he doesn’t panic if somebody walks in. More than likely, he would have been quieter and simply gone out the window. That’s what bugs me. Whoever was in here panicked and got involved with armed robbery. Pros never want to do that. In a federal agent’s house? Something about it doesn’t add up.”
Kevin’s eyes gleamed.
“So maybe it wasn’t Steinbach who sent him, huh?”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Maybe it wasn’t.”
He thought of Forrester. That made sense somehow. Forrester sending the guy to find someone in Jack’s computer whom Jack had sent into Witness Protection.
Jack hugged his son good night and went back to the kitchen, where he poured himself a beer.
That was the problem. There was only one person Jack had sent into Witness Protection, a guy named Mark Reynolds. But Reynolds had died of lung cancer years ago, and the case had nothing to do with anything Forrester could be interested in.
No, that didn’t make any sense.
He drank his beer and looked out the window at a green palm tree in which three wild parrots made their home. Behind them was the wonderful purple-and-orange light, a perfect L.A. sunset. Of course, the colors were created by toxic waste, but you can’t have everything.
Had to be some other case, and then it seemed to him — just then — that there was another case sometime long ago.
But what was it? Something he couldn’t quite put his fin- ger on.
But it was there, somewhere . . .
If he could only recall it. But he was wasted, exhausted. Within a few seconds after putting his head down on the kitchen table, he was fast asleep.
29
THE NEXT MORNING at eleven, Jack stood behind his desk at FBI headquarters. He looked tense, jumpy, as he rubbed his hands together. Leaning on the wall just to his right, Oscar felt nervous himself. If things weren’t handled just right, putting Jack in a room with Steinbach and Tommy Wilson, from Homeland Security, could backfire . . . and both of them could be in a world of trouble.
Now Steinbach was dressed in a khaki safari jacket and a black sport shirt. He looked like a successful Hollywood movie director, the kind of guy who made millions off action movies.
The Afrikaner smiled.
“Excuse me, Jack,” he said. “Did I hear you right? Did you say I was in your house? That I attacked a friend of yours?”
“Yeah, you heard it, Karl,” Jack said. His voice rose from the tension constricting his throat.
Steinbach laughed and shook his head, like a father dealing with an impudent and misbehaving child.
“You find that amusing, Karl?” Jack was bouncing on the balls of his feet now, so Oscar took a step closer to him.
“Yes, Jack, I do.” Steinbach turned slightly to include Tommy Wilson in his astonished look.
“It’s funny, Jackie, because last night I was with my partner here, Tommy Wilson.”
“All night?” Oscar asked.
Wilson nodded. “Yes, all night. We’re setting up an important operation.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “So it wasn’t this shithead here who was actually in my house. Doesn’t matter because he still set it up. Put a guy inside my home to grab my kid.”
Tommy Wilson coughed as he spoke. He didn’t li
ke what was going down here. Why couldn’t Harper just admit he was wrong?
“Jack, come on,” he said. “You’re reaching.”
“Bullshit!” Jack said. “It was him. If Charlie hadn’t been there . . .”
“Jack, Jack, Jack,” Steinbach said. “Listen to yourself. I think you need some counseling. Maybe a prescription for some Paxil. That usually quiets patients right down.”
“Fuck you, you piece of shit!” Jack said. He exploded around the desk, moving so fast that he went right by Oscar, who seemed to reach out in vain. Jack pushed Wilson aside and was all over Steinbach, punching him in the face, then again in the stomach. Steinbach hit him back, then got him in a clinch. Oscar was around the desk now and tried tackling both men at once.
A few seconds later, they were all over the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.
Tommy Wilson came up from behind Jack and pulled him off Steinbach. Jack reluctantly let himself be brought to his feet.
As Steinbach managed to scrape himself off the floor, Oscar put a small electronic bug inside Steinbach’s leather briefcase.
Then he shut it quickly and scrambled to his feet.
“Jack,” Oscar said. “That’s not the way, babe.”
Tommy Wilson was up in Jack’s face.
“Harper,” he said. “You’re way out of line. One more time like that, and I’ll put you on report. You won’t leave this building for the next five years!”
Steinbach smoothed his expensive shirt.
“And I’ll hit you with a civil suit. For both physical and mental damages.”
“Do whatever you gotta do,” Jack said. “But if you or any of the creeps who work for you come near my family, you’re gonna die. You hear me?”
Steinbach looked at Tommy and laughed.
“You heard that, Tommy. Harper just threatened my life. You’re my witness.”
Steinbach looked at Jack with a smug twist of his lips and headed out the door. Before he left, Tommy Wilson turned and looked sadly at Jack.
“You used to be a good agent, Jack. But you’re all burned out. You need help. And then you need to fucking retire. Go write your memoirs or something.”
He shook his head as if Jack was a lost cause and walked out the door.
Jack waited until he was sure they were gone and then turned to Oscar.
“You get the locator in the bag?”
“Oh, yeah,” Oscar said.
“You’re a good man,” Jack said.
“And you’re a good actor,” Oscar said. “For a while there, I thought you’d actually turned into a psycho.”
“Who’s acting?” Jack laughed and pounded his partner on the back.
Oscar laughed with him, but wondered. Jack had looked a little too convincing. Maybe his old partner was headed over the edge after all.
“Look,” Jack said. “There’s something we gotta talk about.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to break into Andreen’s place on Sunday night.”
“Jackie, you know I’ll be out of town. I got my sister’s wedding out in Glendale.”
“I know,” Jack said. “So I’ll do it on my own.”
“Jack, that’s bullshit. You can’t go in there without backup.”
“Cut it out. We’ve both done it before.”
“Yeah, but it’s a freaking risk . . . we can wait until next week.
We got other cases, you know: the Wilshire bank thing, the Blackstone Gang case.”
Jack felt a steady, pulsating pressure in his head.
“No,” he said. “The guy is killing agents. I don’t think we want to wait around to see if he comes at us next. Man, he was in my fucking house, okay? We need to do it this weekend.”
“That fucking vein is pulsating in your head, compadre,” Oscar said.
Jack put his right hand up to his forehead. Oscar was right. The vein was pulsating. He felt clammy down in his finger tips, too. The whole goddamned case . . . the sons of bitches in his house. Thoughts of Kevin getting hit with a hail of bullets crossed his mind. He could see his son lying there, in his own bedroom, dead. Or maybe they would come after him at school, or at the baseball field. Then he remembered the scarred man. What was his part in all this?
“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “I gotta do this now.”
“Jack, it’s my sister. I don’t go to this, I’m expelled from the family. I’m serious.”
“It’s fine,” Jack said.
“How dangerous is it going to be?”
“It’ll be nothing. I already got it worked out, checked the alarm. Piece of cake.”
“All right, Jack. But be fucking careful, amigo.”
“You got it,” Jack said. “Have a great time at Laura’s wedding, amigo.”
Oscar smiled. “You know you’re invited, too.”
“I know,” Jack said. “But this thing . . . I don’t think we can wait.”
He tried smiling at Oscar but the pain in his head was worse. He ought to take something for it, he thought. He ought to go see the doctor, but there was no time for that right now.
He had to get this prick, and he was sure there was something in Andreen’s records that was going to help him do it.
30
IT WAS SUNDAY NIGHT, and Winkie was having a hard time breathing. Whenever he sucked in air, he got a terrible burning sensation at the back of his Adam’s apple . . . (which Wink thought of as “the Apple”).
That dirty son of a bitch, the new guy . . . Bobby Hopps had just about smashed “the Apple,” and now it was all swollen inside. Wink, as his pals called him, made horrific hacking noises all day and night, irritating everyone at the Valentine Club.
Timmy had told him to get the fuck out of his office a couple of times in the past few days. Which made Wink sore as hell. He would just love another crack at Mr. Bobby Hopps.
Even worse, Timmy seemed to be in love with the guy, telling him stories and laughing with him . . . hanging around with him in the office, like The Winkster himself used to do.
Winkie now sat on a hard-backed chair outside of the office, his throat burning and his heart half-broken.
Man-oh-man, if ever he hated a guy, it was that Mr. Bobby Hopps.
He was so angry, he had invented a new name for Mr. Bobby. It was one people had called him when he was a kid. One that royally pissed him off .
Junior! How he hated being called that. So that’s what he’d do to Hopps.
Call Mr. Bobby Hopps “Junior”!
Yeah, when he could talk without hacking up blood and pus he would spring that one on Mr. Bobby, for sure.
He’d say:
“Oh, look who it is. Mr. Bobby Hopps . . . Junior!”
That would really bug Hopps — he was sure of it.
’Cause nobody but nobody liked to be called Junior!
And if it pissed Hopps off enough to come after him with the Finger Trick, Wink would be ready this time. He’d reach out and grab Hopps’s forefinger, and snap it off like a freakin’ No. 2 pencil.
He could already see Hopps falling to the ground in excruciating pain. Once down there Winkie would kick him in his testicles until they looked like chipped beef.
Winkie started to laugh, amused at his own witty mind, but the laugh caught in his throat . . . literally. He began to gag and cough, and felt “the Apple” bulging out of the right side of his neck . . . man, that Hopps asshole had pushed “the Apple” all sideways!
The asshole! He’d kill him the next time. No doubt about it. He was about to dream up another sadisto fantasy concerning what punishment he would lay on Hopps when his attention was diverted by the sound of footsteps down the hall.
He jumped off his chair and put his mammoth hand on his .44 millimeter cannon, which was cradled in his brand-new Spanish leather holster, a present from none other than his boss, Mr. Tim Andreen.
Back two months ago, when Timmy still valued his friendship.
But he couldn’t worry about that now. There was som
ebody coming down the hall on a Sunday night. Somebody was inside the Valentine Club, and this was all wrong.
People weren’t supposed to be “in the structure” during off hours. Nobody but Timmy and Winkie himself were supposed to be here. That was a solid fast rule!
Wink adjusted his eye patch, unbuttoned his holster with a flick of his finger, and waited . . . to see who it was.
He hoped it would be Mr. Bobby Hopps and he would have a reason to smash him in the gonads with a swift kick . . . would that not be a great thing?
Oh, yes . . . Yes . . . indeed.
But no . . . no . . . it wasn’t Hopps. Instead it was that new singer . . . the Chink chick, Michelle Wu, and she was dressed in this unbelievable midnight blue gown, with a plunging neckline . . . a neckline that revealed big ice-cream scoops of her fabulous breasts.
Winkie felt dizzy. Girls did weird stuff to him.
He tried to assume an angry posture but she was smiling at him (at him!) and he felt kind of swoony.
He managed to croak out a couple of words as he sat back down in his chair.
“Hey, Michelle. Just what the heck are you doing here?”
“I came to use the piano in the dining room, Wink. Need to practice my tunes. Think you could come in and help me?”
“Me?” Wink said. His lizard heart fluttered like a butterfly’s wings inside his massive chest.
“You,” Michelle said. “Come on, Wink. I heard you’re musical.”
Wink felt really funny now. She was standing oh so close to him, and she had on this perfume that just seemed to smother him . . . but it was a good kind of smother. Really good.
But still . . . He had a job to do.
“I’m afraid I can’t, uh, do that,” he said, immediately feeling like a dork. He’d hoped it was going to come out suave, like maybe James Bond might say it. Instead, he sounded like a constipated bullfrog.
“Why not?” Michelle said. “I just need you to turn the pages of my sheet music. Let me show you. It’s easy.”
“I’m sure it is,” Winky croaked. “But, see, you are not supposed to be in the structure on Sunday nights. That’s a hard- and-fast rule.”
“Yes, well, I’ve already talked to Tim about it. He gave me the key.”
