He was ready to get out of there and started to stand up when the big bail bondsman leaned forward and held up his index finger.
“Hey, you know what else is funny?” Manny said, shifting the portion to both cheeks. “After you asked me about that law firm thing yesterday, I found that card they give me.”
Wolf’s attention peaked. It could be a solid lead as to who had betrayed them in Mexico and possibly a tie-in to what happened in Iraq.
“Where is it?” Wolf asked.
Manny held up his index finger again and winked. He obviously had bitten off more, as they say, than he could comfortably chew. Wolf hoped the bail bondsman didn’t choke because it would probably take both him and Mac to get their arms around him to do the Heimlich maneuver. He set the sandwich down, pushed back on his wheeled chair, which squealed in protest, and opened the center drawer of his desk.
After several moments of searching and chewing, Manny finally reached a point of completion. He shifted his bulk to the right and spoke to Freddie.
“Hey, Sherman, where’d I put that card I told you about?”
Freddie, who was off the phone and busy clicking keys on his computer, turned and rolled his eyes.
“Will you quit calling me that?”
“Calling you what?”
“Sherman,” Freddie said. “It ain’t my name, for Pete’s sake.”
“Whaddaya want me to call ya,” Manny said. “Pete?”
“How about Fred,” he said. “You know, they used to call me Freddie the Fox when I was in high school.”
“That’s a pussy sounding name,” Manny said, cocking his head back toward McNamara and Wolf, as if the three of them were all sharing a dirty joke.
Wolf actually felt kind of sorry for the maligned nephew and wondered if the worm would one day turn.
“You stuffed it on the bulletin board,” Freddie said. “Didn’t ya?”
Manny snorted and nodded, swirling another half-turn on the axis of the chair. A bulletin board, replete with thumb-tacked printouts, flyers, and wanted posters, had been affixed to the wall next to him. He reached up and pulled a business card from the padded triangular corner guard.
“Yeah,” he said. “This is it. New York, New York.”
He swirled the remaining thirty degrees and came full circle.
Wolf looked at him expectantly and Manny leaned forward, the pocket of his shirt smashing the half-eaten sandwich, and handed the card to him.
Fallotti and Abraham Law Firm
John H. Cummins, Attorney at Law.
Cummins … Finally, things were starting to come together.
A Manhattan address and phone number was along the bottom edge.
Wolf stood up and reached for Manny’s landline.
“Mind if I use your phone?” he asked.
At last something tangible to go on, he thought.
McNamara looked expectant, too.
“Help yourself, why don’t ya,” Manny said, brushing some mayo off the front of his shirt. “But it ain’t gonna do you no good.”
Wolf already had the receiver in his hand. He paused.
“Why not?”
“Cause I tried to call them yesterday,” Manny said. “Just to confirm that they were the same one, but the number’s no longer in service.”
“Figures,” Wolf said.
Was he ever going to catch a break?
Wolf drove the Hummer while McNamara sat in the passenger seat and perused the two files that Manny have given them. The GPS map on the dashboard illuminated their chosen route to their first stop, the car dealership.
“There’s way more to this whole thing that we gotta find out,” McNamara said.
“The pinch?” Wolf said. “I thought Manny said they were a couple easy ones?”
“I’m talking about that law firm card he give you. We gotta start looking into that more.”
Wolf heaved a sigh. The truth be told, he would much rather be trying to track down some information on this Fallotti and Abraham law firm than be out with Mac trying to run down a couple of pathetic losers who’d skipped out on their court dates. But Wolf’s computer skills were sorely lacking. In fact, he didn’t even have a laptop or tablet. Most of his research was done on one of the monitors at the public library, which for him was like trying to traipse through the jungle blindfolded and carrying two buckets full of water. But it was still easier, and ultimately faster, than relying on Kasey to help him.
“I’m gonna lean on her some more,” McNamara said, as if reading Wolf’s thoughts. “She never got back to you about those names, huh?”
“Well, she’s been kind of busy with Chad and all.”
“Bullshit,” McNamara said, shaking his head. “She’s spending too much time with that damn Shemp. I tell you they’re talking about getting married?”
“I figured they were pretty serious.”
McNamara bit his lip. “You don’t think she’s sleeping with him, do you?”
Wolf almost chuckled but suppressed it.
When he didn’t answer, McNamara answered for him.
“You do, don’t you?”
“Look, Mac,” Wolf said. “She’s not sixteen years old anymore. And she’s already been married, had a kid, and divorced.”
“That was back before we reconnected,” McNamara said.
“Yeah, but still …”
McNamara rubbed his fingers along the sides of his mouth. Lately, he’d been growing a Fu Manchu mustache.
“But to me,” he said, slapping the files shut. “She’s still my little girl.”
“And she always will be,” Wolf said, thinking that given how intimidated Shemp was by Big Jim McNamara that the lawyer’s abstinence was a distinct possibility.
“Pull over there,” McNamara said, pointing to a McDonald’s parking lot with a couple empty spaces. “I need to call in.”
“Call in?”
“Yeah.” McNamara glanced at him. “What’s the matter with you?”
Wolf raised his eyebrows. “I guess I’m a little worried about what Kasey’s going to think.”
“Aw, hell, she’s got to get used to it.” McNamara’s attention suddenly shifted to the cell.
Wolf pulled into the lot and parked, taking up two spaces.
McNamara clucked his tongue and grinned.
“I can see why Reno liked this thing so much,” he said, taking out his cell phone. “Commands a lot of authority. Now let’s see if this blue-tooth thing works.” He pressed a button on the dashboard and the sound of the phone ringing became audible inside the vehicle.
Kasey answered right after the first ring.
“Dad? Where are you?”
McNamara’s brow creased. “Something wrong?”
“Yes,” she said. “You left this morning without telling me where you were going and then Rod called and told me you were interviewed by the FBI.”
McNamara compressed his lips and clenched his big hands into fists.
Poor Rod doesn’t know how lucky he is that he’s not here, Wolf thought.
“He called you?” McNamara said.
“Yes, well, actually I called him. And he told me all about it. Now where are you?”
“Me and Steve are running down a couple of easy pinches,” McNamara said. “I need you to check on a couple of guys for me.”
“What?” she said. Her voice was shrill. “You and—” She stopped, hesitated, then began again. “Put Steve on the phone.”
The way she said Steve made Wolf wince.
“He’s right here and you’re on speaker,” McNamara said. “Go ahead.”
After a pause of several seconds, she said, “I said, put him on the phone. And turn off the speaker.”
Wolf reached over and took McNamara’s phone then pressed the button disconnecting the blue tooth.
“Yeah, Kase,” he said.
“Don’t you call me that.” The way she said “you” was venomous. “My name’s Kasey, and what are you doing dragging my fa
ther with you on an arrest?”
“Well, I—”
“Shut up. You listen to me. You bring him home right now and then you can go off gallivanting if you want to, but you’re not going to drag my father along when he’s recuperating.”
She was shouting and it was obvious McNamara could hear the conversation. He swore, reached over, and grabbed the phone, his fingernails scratching Wolf’s ear.
“First of all,” he said. “Steve didn’t drag me anywhere. I dragged him.”
Wolf could still hear her voice: “Dad? What are you— Put him back on.”
“I’m your father, dammit.”
“I told you to turn off the damn speaker,” she said.
“I didn’t need the damn speaker to hear, you’re yelling so loud. Now cool it!”
Wolf could still hear her voice giving it right back to him. McNamara swore again, pulled the phone from his ear, pressed the button to terminate the call, and threw the phone down. It bounced off the floorboard by Wolf’s feet.
They sat in silence for a moment, and then Wolf laughed.
“Were you that hard on the U.S. Government equipment you were issued when you were in?”
McNamara just continued scowling.
Wolf smirked. “No wonder our defense budgets were so damn high.”
“Horseshit,” McNamara said. “I was in the army kicking ass and taking names before you were even born, and then some.”
After a few more moments of tense silence, Wolf looked at him and said, “Mac, she’s just worried about you because she loves you.”
Mac’s frown deepened. “Yeah, I know.” He blew out a heavy breath. “It’s my own damn fault. I was always off fighting some damn war someplace when she was growing up. It’s like she said. I missed all the important milestones in her life … And now she’s worried I’ll be missing them in my grandson’s life, too.”
“Maybe it’ll be better for you to sit this one out.”
McNamara shook his head. “I’ll be all right. I’ll just be in the car to pull it up when you call me. What could go wrong?”
“Wasn’t that what we thought about Mexico?” Wolf said.
Cummins slouched down in the seat of the rented Lexus RX350 and pulled the brim of the baseball cap farther down on his forehead. Behind him, in the rear passenger side seat, Zerbe had a pair of binoculars pressed against the heavily tinted window. After the Hummer had pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot, Zerbe had directed him to go around the block and set up on the street where they’d have a good vantage point.
Cummins had done so, petrified that he’d somehow pull up to the place at the same time Wolf was exiting. Locking eyes with that one-man gang was the last thing in the world he wanted. Well, maybe aside from being on Von Dien’s expendable loose ends list. As it was, when he rounded the turn and slowly approached the McDonald’s, the Hummer was parked haphazardly in two spaces on the far side. He was able to find a spot down the block that allowed Zerbe to use the expensive binoculars he’d bought, along with a ton of other equipment.
“Don’t let them see you watching them,” Cummins said.
“Relax,” Zerbe said. “This isn’t exactly my first rodeo, as they say.”
“Yeah, well if Wolf sees us it’ll probably be your last. Remember he knows what both of us look like.”
“Which is why I got a rental with appropriately darkened windows.” Zerbe kept the lenses focused on the restaurant.
“Maybe they’re just eating lunch,” Cummins said. “Anyway, what good is it going to do us just going around following and watching.”
“I told you, we’re trying to establish a pattern of behavior. See what their routine is.”
Cummins decided to shut up, but the growing tension in his bladder was starting to make him feel very uncomfortable. After arriving at McCarran in the middle of the night, they’d been going almost non-stop. From the airport, they’d gone to the car rental place, then to check into their hotel. He’d only been able to grab what seemed like an hour or two of sleep when Zerbe was banging on his door at seven, and after a lousy continental breakfast, they were on the road again. Zerbe hit several ATM machines along the way, withdrawing cash on the special account Fallotti had set up for them. And then it was a non-stop shopping spree at several sporting goods stores and an electronics shop.
“What’s all this shit?” Cummins asked.
“Surveillance equipment,” Zerbe said.
After that, they’d staked out that bail bondsman’s place. Cummins had provided the guy’s name from their Vegas meeting, and Zerbe pressured him to remember which of the players from the bounty hunter conference knew his face from there.
“Just that bail bondsman guy,” Cummins told him. “Manny Sutter. And McNamara’s never seen me.”
But Wolf had. In fact, he would recognize both him and Zerbe. McNamara had also seen Zerbe up close. The bail bondsman knew him, but not Zerbe, who had been certain Wolf would show up there eventually, and he was right. Maybe the sleazebag wasn’t such an idiot after all.
It surprised Cummins that Wolf and McNamara had arrived in two cars, but Zerbe made a few calls and ran checks on the license plates. The guy had some interesting connections, that was for sure. Wolf was driving a car with dealer plates, and his partner got out of a big Hummer registered to that Reno Garth character. This surprised Cummins because he’d been under the impression that Garth didn’t like them. But then again, they’d all been betrayed together down in Mexico and were supposed to be dead, so maybe they’d somehow become friends now.
It was just another sign that this he shouldn’t be involved in thing damn thing at all. Not after the Iraq screw-up and especially not after the Mexican fiasco.
Cummins wasn’t too happy that Fallotti had sent him here with Zerbe, but he could understand why he’d done it. The sleazy PI evidently now knew the value of what they were after: the Lion Attacking the Nubian, and that the rich bastard, Von Dien, was willing to pay just about any price to acquire it.
And the real irony was that stupid Wolf and his partner, McNamara, had it, but didn’t even know what it was. It was imperative that they didn’t find out, either.
Cummins had done some checking on this guy James McNamara. Retired Army, Special Forces, a chest full of medals, Vietnam vet, Desert Storm vet, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and veteran of numerous deployments in every shithole part of the world, clandestine and otherwise, in a military career that had lasted almost forty years. The guy had six bronze stars, three silver stars, the Army Commendation Medal, and four purple hearts. He purportedly had so much shrapnel in him that he could set off a metal detector just walking by it. And now the son of a bitch had a bounty hunting business. Cummins was just as leery about running afoul of McNamara as he was about Wolf. Luckily, McNamara hadn’t seen him in Vegas or in Mexico so he had that going for him. But there was always the possibility that a picture of him might have surfaced. Fallotti had done a good job scrubbing away as many computer references to Cummins as he could and eliminated him from the law firm’s website. And that was being dissolved, too. Von Dien was erasing them all and he had the money to do it.
But my military pictures are still around, he thought. And with McNamara’s connections to the army, he and Wolf could probably get a hold of one.
“Looks like they’re getting ready to pull out,” Zerbe said. “Don’t take off too fast, or they might notice us following them.”
Cummins lowered himself in the seat some more, which wasn’t easy for a man of his size and bulk. Plus, it had been several hours since they’d taken a break and he had to urinate. Real bad.
He told Zerbe that.
“Christ. Suck it up,” Zerbe said. “You want to know how many times I had to piss in fucking bottle when I was on a surveillance?”
“Not really.” Cummins felt a momentary flash of panic as he contemplated the possibility that Wolf would turn left out of the parking lot and catch a glimpse of him. “Look, Wolf’s driving, all h
e had to do is glance this way and maybe catch a glimpse of us. He knows what we both look like.”
“Well, scrunch down then, for Christ’s sake.”
Easy for you to say, Cummins thought. You’re ensconced in the back seat.
He suddenly wondered if Zerbe was armed. He’d carried a snub-nosed revolver down in Mexico but didn’t fire it, not that a little gun like that would do a lot of good, anyway. That Wolf was a madman. If he ever caught sight of them it would be all over, snub-nose or not.
“You got a gun?” Cummins asked.
“No, I didn’t want to take mine through security at the airport. Why?”
“If Wolf sees us …”
“Oh, Christ. Just get ready to slip in behind them when they pull out,” Zerbe said. “Let them get a few car lengths ahead.”
“You know,” Cummins managed to say. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“What?” Zerbe tone was laden with irritation. “I told you we need to plant this tracker on his car.”
“We need to be cautious. Like I said, he knows what we both look like. If he sees us, it’ll all be over and we’ll have to answer to VD.”
“Who?”
“Von Dien.” Cummins realized a moment too late that he probably shouldn’t have used his pet nickname for the big man in front of Zerbe, but the sleazy PI laughed.
“Good one,” he said. “I’ll have to remember to tell him you called him that.”
“Don’t,” Cummins said.
Zerbe laughed again, and Cummins realized he’d just inadvertently given the damn South African a bit more leverage over him.
“Besides, I gotta go bad.”
“All right, all right,” he said. “We’ll cut it off. I had hoped to plant that tracker but it doesn’t seem to be their car, anyway. We can pick them up tomorrow. I’ve got to make a few more calls, anyway.”
Cummins could tell by the way he said it that Zerbe was pissed, but that was just too God dammed bad.
I shouldn’t be expected to be doing field work, he thought. That’s his department.
“Oh, Christ,” Cummins said. “Here they come.”
He pulled the hat down again and worried that his efforts at concealment would make him stand out more, but Wolf turned right and headed away from them and down the street. Cummins heaved a sigh and straightened up. He shifted into gear and pulled away from the curb. The sudden urge to vomit overwhelmed him and he put a hand over his mouth and goosed the gas pedal, roaring into the same parking lot that their quarry had been in. He slammed on the brakes and spun into a vacant parking space. Throwing open the door, he struggled to unfasten the seat belt, threw the door open, and leaned partially out the door, emitting a flow of vomit onto the ground. The asphalt seemed to sizzle in the oppressive late morning heat.
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