Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

by David Levien

  The numbers associated with the tax breaks in the proposed Senate bill were huge—tens of millions, maybe hundreds. On the streets he’d seen people killed over five bucks, so what would that kind of money cause men to do? Once the fever was unleashed, values—monetary, moral, or that of human life—had a way of becoming arbitrary in a hurry.

  If he looked at the thing from five miles up, it was clear enough: everyone was acting in his own self-interest. It was as simple as that and something he shouldn’t have forgotten. Forces wanted Kolodnik gone. Caro wanted Behr out of the way so things were smooth with the cops. The police wanted to be the only player on the field, as they always did. Not for any grand conspiracy for the most part but for a much cleaner reason: expediency. Behr wanted to find who’d shot at him. Mothers looked out for their babies because that’s what mattered to them. All these things only became a problem when agendas conflicted. But then it was indeed a problem.

  Behr opened his notebook and pored over what he had and what he still didn’t. Then he realized there was someone he hadn’t gotten to yet, and it was time to do so. It was time to get a hold of Lowell Gantcher.

  59

  A Westerner’s first impulse when planning a crime is: How am I going to get away when it’s done? But Dwyer had learned an important mind-set in his days in the field in the Middle East. The first impulse in the extremist—Muslim or otherwise—is: How can I succeed? The getaway be damned. This was Dwyer’s current attitude. He needed to get it done. Then he could return home to his mountaintop and his Sandy. But a nasty secret had reared up in him as of late. The truth was, he finally had the taste for action back in his mouth after a bit of an absence. He could keep telling himself this was about walk-away money or protecting his reputation, but he knew what it was really about: the juice. And the irony that he was using the extremist approach in order to get away with the original crime was not lost upon him. He felt himself starting to stumble and shake a little like a dry drunk.

  Dwyer was in the living room of Pat Teague’s house, off a small-town crossroads in the middle of the American flatlands. He surveyed the damaged hutch, the cracked mirror, and spilled dirt around the potted plant, and put it together with what he knew. Something had upset Pat Teague big-time. He had used his landline telephone to call a man with a warning, and Dwyer and Rickie had just gotten there and were sitting down the street listening.

  “Hey, it’s Teague,” he’d said.

  “Shit, Patty,” the voice said, “is it safe to call me?”

  “It’s not safe anyway,” Teague said.

  “Oh no …” the voice lamented.

  “You know who he’s talking to?” Rickie asked.

  “Nah,” Dwyer said, “wish we had caller capture.” On the more sophisticated version of the line tap, they’d be able to know the number he was calling, not just listen.

  “The wheels are coming off this fucking thing,” Teague said. “Are you still around?”

  “Yeah, the son of a bitch left me,” the voice said.

  “Then we should meet and talk about what the hell we can do.”

  “Where and when?” the voice asked.

  “The Steer-In, first thing tomorrow, say eight,” Teague told him. “It’ll be nice and quiet.” Dwyer jotted down the information.

  “Good,” the voice said.

  “Keep your head down, then,” Teague advised.

  “Ah, Christ,” the voice whispered, “I will.”

  “You want to tail him to this Steer-In, see who he’s meeting?” Rickie asked.

  “We can’t wait that long, you savvy?” Dwyer said. “We’ll find out who he’s gonna meet, but we’re not just gonna sit here and diddle ourselves while this bastard calls everyone in his address book.”

  As if to confirm the statement, they heard Teague pick up and dial again.

  “Hello, hon,” he said.

  “Hi, Pat,” a woman, presumably his wife, said. “How’s it going?”

  “I had an issue. Got into it with someone. A real prick …” Teague said.

  “Oh no, you all right? Was it work related?” she asked.

  “Yeah, of course it was work related. I’m pretty lumped up, it’d probably be better if the kids didn’t see me,” he said.

  “They’re going up to the farm with Mom and Dad to help out after school. They were gonna stay up there for dinner,” she told him.

  “Good,” he said, “I’m heading out to Stookey’s for a cocktail—”

  “This early?”

  “Screw it, yeah,” he said. “Then maybe I’ll go and stay in the city. You want me to bring you back an order of fried catfish before I go?”

  “Sure,” she said. “I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t waste the energy,” Teague said, and hung up.

  Dwyer and Rickie scrambled to gear up and go in, to intercept Teague before he left, but they were too late. Almost instantly they saw him walking, with a slight limp, toward his car.

  “Heading off for Stookey’s, I imagine,” Rickie said as Teague drove away.

  “Fucking doctor of rocket science, ain’t ya?” Dwyer said. “Come on, let’s be waiting when he gets back home.”

  A good hour and a half had passed since Dwyer and Rickie had entered Teague’s house. Things had finally gotten quiet back in the bedroom, where Rickie was. Dwyer was doing a little stretching in the living room when he heard the garage door start to open and it was on. He moved quickly into the kitchen, where the door from the garage let in. After a moment he heard the car door slam and saw the knob turn. He let Teague step in past him before he burst from the wall and hit the man across the back of the head with the blunt side of his newly purchased hand ax. Teague went down and Dwyer dragged him by the hair and collar into the family room where he shoved the looped detective into a chair. After a few minutes spent with his head lolling about, Teague came around and stared across at Dwyer, who had the Česká in his hand.

  “You’re him …” Teague said, slowly putting things together. “There is no Carrolton.”

  “No, Carrolton exists, but I’m me,” Dwyer said.

  “Ah, shit, this isn’t my day,” Teague said. Then he looked around, assessing his own home, and asked, “Where’s my wife?”

  “She’s not home,” Dwyer said.

  It had been a bit of a surprise when she’d arrived while they were waiting, as based on the call they’d intercepted they didn’t expect her until later. But they’d improvised.

  “Why’s her car in the garage?”

  “Don’t know,” Dwyer said. “She parked and then went off on foot. Lucky all around.”

  Teague nodded and glanced over Dwyer’s shoulder toward the bedroom.

  “Who decorated your face?” Dwyer asked.

  “Some asshole from work,” Teague said.

  “Wouldn’t be Frank Behr, would it?” Dwyer said, planting a look of shock in Teague’s eyes.

  “Who?” Teague said, doing his best to fall back on his training that had been too long neglected.

  “Look, man,” Dwyer said, “you should drop the counter interrogation, and then I won’t need to use counter resistance, and we can just move things along. Otherwise I’ll go pull the battery out of your car and we’ll get to it.”

  Teague nodded warily.

  “Who have you told, and what have you told them?” Dwyer asked.

  “Nothing to no one,” Teague said. “I thought you were a pro. Hire you, the job gets done, and everybody’s insulated. That’s what they all said.”

  “We try,” Dwyer said, tamping down his fury at the criticism, “but life’s full of imperfections, ain’t it?”

  “I haven’t told anyone anything,” Teague repeated, looking over Dwyer’s shoulder toward his bedroom once more.

  “Try again,” Dwyer said.

  “No one who didn’t know already,” Teague said. “Behr found out some of it, all right? Some of the basics. How it got started. But nothing about you.”

  “Not
hing about me?” Dwyer said. “That’s good fucking news. Why am I supposed to believe it?”

  Teague looked over Dwyer’s shoulder again. Did he see something there? Dwyer wondered. Was it unusual for the bedroom door to be shut?

  “Who are you meeting tomorrow morning?” Dwyer asked.

  “How the hell do you—”

  “Does it matter?” Dwyer cut him off. “Who?”

  Teague didn’t answer. Instead he looked back at the bedroom door yet again. Then his face changed, and whatever semblance of professionalism he’d been holding onto started to give way.

  “I really need to know my wife is okay,” he said.

  “Come on now. Focus. Who are you meeting tomorrow?”

  Teague shook his head. Dwyer saw the transition as the wondering got to the man and his face crumbled and he sobbed. “Oh, Margie …”

  “Don’t you do it, man,” Dwyer warned. “Steady.”

  But it was too late. Teague was cracked. He went for his hip. But he was hopelessly slow. Dwyer gave him a double tap to the sternum. The report of the shots was muffled, short and sharp in the small room, like dry wood cracking in a fire. Teague fell forward out of the chair onto his face. His shirt rode up and revealed he was wearing a gun. Dwyer stood and fired once more into the back of his head. The door to the bedroom was open now, as Rickie came out to check what was happening, and the sight Teague had been so afraid to see was now finally visible. A leg hung heavily from the edge of the bed, a loose sock dangling limply off the end of the foot.

  “How’s mum?” Dwyer asked, bending to pick up his brass shell casings.

  “She had her fun, but now she’s done, the old girl,” Rickie said. The kid was really quite amazing.

  “We’re getting busy,” Dwyer said, standing. “We’ve gotta get you your own banger.”

  Then they started to wipe down surfaces.

  60

  The attempt to get face-to-face with Gantcher at his downtown office started off just as easily as the foray at the casino but went wrong just as quickly. Many office buildings in Indianapolis don’t have lobby security, and Behr was happy to find that Gantcher’s was one of them. He went straight to the elevators and rode up to the eighth floor where the company was housed. A left turn out of the elevator put him in front of a set of large glass doors etched with the initials “LGE,” and behind them was the anteroom of Lowell Gantcher Entertainment. A pair of receptionists sat inside, and two things became immediately clear to Behr: that Gantcher was in there too, and that he wasn’t getting in. The reason being that a professional security force was camped out right in front. While Behr didn’t see the men he’d tangled with at the casino, he spotted four operatives milling around, using the phone, talking to the receptionists, and sitting on the guest chairs. He slowed as much as seemed natural as he passed by and considered the likelihood that there were at least another one or two inside the work area, if not many more. He thought about running a pretext in order to talk his way in—real estate appraiser, mortgage broker, Web site builder—but it seemed like a long shot he’d get past the bunch of pros hanging around, especially in the jeans and T-shirt he was now wearing, so he continued on past, eyes front, without breaking stride until he reached the fire stairs and descended. A repeat scuffle in an effort to get to Gantcher wasn’t going to do him any good.

  Once outside the office building he made for his car and sat there for a long time, staring out the window at the street, thinking. He needed to interrogate Lowell Gantcher, but he couldn’t get to him. He also wanted to get a hold of Kolodnik’s adviser Shug Saunders, but Behr could practically picture him on Capitol Hill, overtan, slickly dressed, and cozying up to the boss he was involved in trying to remove. He dialed Kolodnik’s office anyway, hoping he could get some information out of the secretary or book an appointment. It’d be worth a drive to Washington.

  “Shug Saunders please,” Behr said.

  “He’s not in, but I’ll connect you to his office,” a receptionist’s voice cooed. After a few rings an automated voice mail picked up and offered him the chance to leave a message, which, pointless as it was, he took.

  “Hello, Shug,” he said. “This is Frank Behr. We met a little while ago over at your offices and I was hoping to talk to you about something important, so please give me a call.” Behr left his number and hung up.

  He was stuck and frustrated and without direction or answers. Hikers lost in the mountains are advised to stop and stay still and wait to be rescued, but Behr knew no one was coming to find him. Only his experience told him not to give up, that if he could just look at the situation with focus for long enough, an angle would present itself and he would finally see it. He flipped pages in his notebook, scanning his notes, when something caught in his mind and stopped him. It was a question he’d asked and gotten a response to, but it was not an answer he should’ve accepted.

  Who did the hiring? he’d asked Pat Teague.

  I don’t have a clue. Not a damn clue, is what Teague had told him. Behr pictured the man’s face, sweaty and beaten. His eyes, glazed in anger and defeat, had flashed downward. And Behr’s own rage, his indignation at being set up, had caused him to careen ahead without probing further. That was the moment, and he’d missed it. Whoever it was that had supplied the money—Shugie Saunders or Lowell Gantcher or the two of them together—and whichever one of them had initiated the plot, who involved was most likely to know how to hire a professional contractor? It was Teague all the way.

  Goddammit, Behr hissed, already dialing. But he got no answer from Pat Teague. Behr let it ring and ring, and then he put his car in gear. He was going to have to drive out to Thorntown again.

  61

  The man has money, but he lives like absolute swine, Dwyer thought. He was standing in Shugie Saunders’s walk-in closet in front of a row of expensive but garish suits. There was another row of dress shirts, many with sweat rings around the collar and armpits that laundering had only faded but didn’t remove. The enclosed space smelled like feet, thanks to the pile of cheap shoes on the floor, many with their soles and heels worn to the uppers. Dwyer had been over the place with painstaking detail, from the dirty dishes in the sink to towels piled on the bathroom floor. First he’d called, then waited in front of the building for a couple of fruitless hours until he was convinced that the man wasn’t home and was probably off in Washington, before making entry. The building had an external fire stairway and Dwyer was able to jump from it to a neighboring balcony, cross two more, and reach Saunders’s. A six-inch lockout tool easily popped the glass slider and he was in.

  What he hadn’t found was a safe, but neither had he come upon any documents implicating him and Shugie. Dwyer had found a checkbook with a balance of $62,000, and this was in his pocket. Three months earlier there had been more than $100,000 in the account, so the man was on a bit of a spending spree.

  Dwyer took in the apartment, which he’d thoroughly tossed, a final time. He wasn’t sure why, but he now had the feeling Saunders hadn’t left town permanently for D.C., but that he must be staying elsewhere. No discernible amount of clothing and toiletries were missing—there were several large pieces of luggage in the top of a hall closet—so it was likely a short trip if Dwyer was right in the first place. As tempting as it was to wait out Saunders’s possible return for another hour or day, Dwyer and Rickie had agreed to rally back at the shite hole after their respective actions. One never knew if one’s partner in the field might need support, so he had to keep discipline and make the meet. Dwyer did a quick wipe down of the doorknobs and let himself out the front door.

  62

  A piece of storm cloud snaked its way into Behr’s belly when he reached the head of Teague’s street. There were police cars and an ambulance and neighbors lining the block, and like a funnel of bad news it all led to Teague’s door. Behr parked as close as he could and advanced through the onlookers toward the house and was just in time to see a stretcher bearing a loaded body bag being ca
rried out.

  “What happened?” Behr asked those in his general vicinity.

  A woman with a tearstained face didn’t turn toward him, but just kept her eyes on the stretcher as she spoke. “Someone killed the Teagues.”

  “All of them?” Behr asked, sick with the knowledge that Pat had four children.

  “Both of them,” a man in a checked shirt said, rubbing the back of his brush cut head. “Pat and his wife. The kids weren’t home …”

  “Thank god,” the woman said with a half sob, “those poor babies …”

  There was assorted talk about who could’ve done the crime in this quiet community, and the quick consensus was gangbangers down from the city looking for easy drug money via robbery.

  “Son of a bitches,” the man in the checked shirt said through gritted teeth. “I’ve got a Remington twelve gauge’s gonna be waiting by my bed if them junkies want to try this town again.”

  Behr wondered if any of the neighbors had seen him coming or going earlier, or if Teague had told any friends of their runin and he was the one headed for a police interview room. He drifted away from the group and moved closer to the house and found a spot near some officers by the door where he listened to fragments of their radio chatter.

  “… yeah, the resident was male, Caucasian, early fifties. GSWs to chest and head, over.”

  “… deceased was law enforcement, or ex-law enforcement, retired FBI …”

  “… victim two, spouse, also early fifties …”

  “GSWs, over?”

  “Negative. Stabbing … or, well, slashing, chopping really, with a bladed weapon, over …”

  “… Homicide and robbery units on scene, copy …”

  Behr dropped back from the house and passed through the crowd toward his car.

  “What they ought to do is check his old cases, see if some serial killer or felon he put away was recently released,” a bystander voiced to some murmured agreement.