Jake Caldwell Thrillers

by Weaver, James

  Chapter Seventeen

  With the gridlocked rush-hour traffic downtown, it was five thirty before Bear dropped Jake off at his truck outside Dreams. Jake directed him to a liquor store while he got dinner. Thirty minutes later they reconvened in Jake’s apartment, eating greasy pizza off paper plates and drinking cold beer from long-necked bottles.

  “So where’s Snell?” Jake asked.

  “Tried to call her on the way here, but she didn’t answer. Called the hospital too. Logan’s still out.”

  Bear belched loud enough to wake the dead and grabbed another slice of pizza.

  “Your wife’s going to have my hide,” Jake said. “You’re gonna gain five pounds every time you come see me.”

  “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Speaking of what people don’t know, let’s talk about what we don’t know with your case. Some asshole is still running around with Logan’s blood on their knuckles, and it pisses me off.”

  “The only reason I’m still on this. Well, the screaming mystery girl still bugs the hell outta me. We have to figure that one out too.”

  “Most definitely. So, Logan takes pity on you and hires you to help him find this Alexander Vol…what’s his name?”

  “Voleski,” Jake said.

  “Whatever. And we don’t know who hired Logan to find this Voleski?”

  “Nope. He never told me. Just find the guy and get the briefcase he’s running around with.”

  Bear popped the top off a beer and leaned his considerable bulk into the couch. “So you’re chasing Voleski who kills a guy you don’t know and he gets away. What next?”

  “The dead guy’s cell rings and it’s the girl screaming for help.”

  “And you didn’t call the police because?”

  “How am I going to explain how I came across that information?”

  Bear shrugged. “Could be an anonymous call.”

  “You know how hard it is to find a damn pay phone nowadays? It’s like finding Bigfoot or a unicorn.”

  Bear gave up with a sharp wave of the hand. “Hope whoever it was is okay.”

  “Me too. I feel like I should do something, but don’t know what. Anyway, I trace the number back to a pharmaceutical company in Olathe. Drive out there and see a security guy dressed exactly like the dead guy in the apartment.”

  “Interesting. Maybe they have the same bad tailor.”

  “Maybe.” Jake wiped his hands on a paper towel and tossed the empty pizza box in the general direction of the kitchen. “But why would a security guy from a pharma company in Olathe be meeting Voleski in an empty downtown condo?”

  “The briefcase. The company must want what’s in the briefcase. What do we know about the company?”

  Jake handed Bear the print-out from his limited research on Blue Heron Industries. “Looks like they make antibiotics. Probably a bunch of people in white plastic suits and hairnets running an assembly line. Doesn’t say anything else on the website about what they do.”

  Bear scanned the printouts. “What do we have on Voleski?”

  “Nothing much. He’s done some work for Jason Keats, and now Keats is after his ass, too.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I went and saw Keats this morning.”

  Bear winced like he sat on a nail. “Ooh, that must’ve been awkward.”

  “Not as awkward as Keats offering me a hundred and fifty thousand for Voleski’s head on a stick if I deliver him and the briefcase.”

  Bear did a spit take with his beer. “Dollars?”

  “Jesus, you spewed all over my coffee table.” Jake tossed him a dishrag from the kitchen. “Whatever’s in the case is worth a shit ton of money.”

  “And you’ve got nothing on Voleski?”

  “Nothing. I did a basic criminal background check using the database Logan hooked me up with, but I can’t find the guy anywhere.”

  “Snell would know.” Bear tried calling her again. No answer. He left a message for her to call him.

  “She’s not telling us something,” Jake said. “She says she wants Voleski because she thinks he can help her close the loop on Keats, but there’s something else. Any luck on finding out what Ares is?”

  Bear lay back on the couch, balancing his beer on his ample belly and scrolling through some numbers. “Been playing phone tag with a guy I know in D.C. who’s a ninja with data.”

  “Who does he work for?”

  “Freelancer. A lot of what he does isn’t exactly legal, but he could find out the circumference of a fly’s asshole in Timbuktu if you gave him enough time.” Bear punched a number and raised the phone to his ear.

  “Jimmy?” he continued. “Bear. Good, man, how about you? Aw man, that sucks.” Bear covered the mouthpiece and rolled his eyes. “Found out his wife is banging his neighbor. If you met the guy you’d understand.” He turned back to the phone. “Listen, I need a favor. Run a blacknet query on an Alexander Voleski, last known whereabouts are Kansas City, Missouri. May be tied in with a local Mafioso guy named Jason Keats. Maybe the Russian mob. Call me back when you get something.”

  Bear tossed the cell on the coffee table and wriggled deeper into the couch.

  “How long until he calls you back?” Jake asked.

  “Could be an hour, could be a day. Depends on how deep he has to dive.”

  “Where’s he get his information?”

  “Beats the shit outta me,” Bear said. “You can’t ever use his info in a court of law, but it leads you in the right direction.”

  They drank and pondered. Horns honked from outside, and blaring sirens came and went. Jake turned on the television, and they watched two no-name colleges battle on the hardwood with the sound turned low.

  “How do you explain the screaming girl?” Jake asked, breaking the silence.

  “She must’ve called from a phone inside the plant. That’s the only way the number would have popped up. For example, if someone calls out from the Sheriff’s Office, the Caller ID reads out the general Benton County Sheriff’s Office number no matter what desk they call from. Pisses me off because I don’t know who’s calling. Some of my guys are a pain in the ass. Defeats the whole purpose of caller ID.”

  Jake looked to the ceiling and probed the lump on his cheek that Marco gave him. It hurt, and he knew he should slap some ice on it. “Then why did she call the security guy’s cell phone?”

  “One of two possibilities. Either this guy helped her, or she dialed 9-1-1 and the switchboard automatically routed it to a specific number. Some businesses don’t want their employees to have the power to summon the authorities before they can check things out themselves. So, the 9-1-1 call gets routed to security and they make the decision on whether or not to summon the cavalry.”

  They drank some more and watched the basketball game. Jake plopped in his easy chair by the window, eyes on the screen but not watching as he considered the possibilities. Jake wished he knew who the girl was. Her scream still echoed in his brain—that frantic cry for help that he did nothing about. He pictured Halle in the same situation and shuddered.

  Waylon Jennings belted “Luckenbach, Texas” from Bear’s phone. He snagged it just before Jake could find out from the ringtone the implications of the successful life Waylon was livin’. Bear answered and mouthed “Snell.” Bear gave her Jake’s address, and Jake flipped the station to Kansas State blowing out Oklahoma State in the final conference game of the season.

  “How’d the deposition go on Langston?” Jake asked.

  “Slam dunk. We have that son of a bitch on drugs, weapons, kidnapping and murder. He ain’t gonna smell fresh air for a long time.”

  “Is Maggie or Halle going to get deposed?”

  “Both. You too, probably. You and Maggie may have to testify at the trial, but we’ll try and work it so Halle doesn’t. Langston is as cold blooded as a winter’s day. I still think you should have blown his fucking head off when you had the chance.”

  A knock sounded on Jake’s do
or. He checked the peep hole and opened it. Snell took a few tentative steps inside, casual in jeans and a light leather jacket. She assessed Jake’s apartment.

  “Nice place,” she said.

  “Not really, but thanks for trying.”

  She gave a half-hearted wave. “Hello, Bear. It’s been awhile.”

  Bear clambered from the couch and nodded. “You look good. Thanks for calling.”

  “Any trouble at the police station?” she asked Jake.

  “No. You know a couple detectives named Morrisey and Ogio?”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Ogio used to partner with Logan. Don’t know Morrisey.”

  “You’re lucky,” Jake said. “He was an asshole. Ogio seemed all right. You want a beer?”

  She nodded; feet seemingly cemented to the floor.

  “How have you been?” Bear asked.

  “Busy. Doing a lot of work on terror cells lately. Combing through a lot of data points. Pretty boring work.”

  “How’s your daughter?”

  She took the beer from Jake and traced a finger around the rim of the bottle. “Good, when I get to see her. She spends a lot of time with her father.” Snell stepped over the pizza box and perched on the couch; her free hand stuffed in her leather jacket. “So, what’ve we got?”

  Jake and Bear popped a fresh beer, and Bear laid out what they had. Snell listened, nodding in the right places. Jake kept note of her body language while they talked and knew she hid something. It was the way her green eyes would drift off or how stiff she sat; limbs held tight to her body. Uptight. Insecure.

  “So tell us what you know about Voleski,” Jake said, plopping in his chair by the window.

  Snell chugged from her beer and set the bottle on the coffee table. “Alexander Voleski, born in a village outside of Moscow. Served a few years in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. We’re not sure what he did for them. Most of this intel is from the CIA and, as you know, the FBI and CIA don’t play well together in the sandbox. He left the army and hooked up with the Russian mafia. Came to the States five years ago and has bounced around the country. He pops up sporadically on the radar.”

  “Working on his own or for the Russian mafia?” Bear asked.

  “We’re not sure. He surfaced with ties to Keats running guns right before the task force was disbanded. I didn’t even see his name until months after you were already gone. Suspected in a string of homicides, but nothing solid. He’s a mean, slippery bastard.”

  “Did you see him come out of Dreams?” Jake asked.

  “No. I knew something was up when the mondo bouncer ran inside a few minutes after you went in. Voleski never came out.”

  “Damn,” Jake said. “I was hoping you had a location on him.”

  “No such luck.”

  Jake set his bottle on the coffee table and leaned back with his hands locked behind his head. “I think the Russians are one of the groups after Voleski and the case.”

  “Why do you say that?” Bear asked.

  “Two guys tailed me a couple days ago. A Russian monkey with a busted nose and one of Keats’s guys. The guys Voleski met with in Dreams were Russian as well. I think Voleski was getting ready to make a deal for the case with them.”

  “Was the case for the Russians or for Keats?” Snell asked.

  “Can’t be Keats. He wants me to track down Voleski for him. Would be a lot easier to piece this together if we knew what was in the case.”

  “And how this Blue Heron company ties into it,” Bear said.

  “Blue Heron?” Snell asked, as the tumblers in Jake’s head spun and clicked. “What do they…?”

  Jake jumped back to the police station when he was in the interrogation room…Ogio looking at the ceiling microphone. He held up a hand to silence Snell.

  “What are the odds a lifelong Cardinals fan would call his team the blue birds?”

  Bear snorted. “Zero, unless he wanted his ass kicked. Those Cardinal fans are fucking nuts.”

  “In the interrogation room, after he gave me the song and dance on Voleski working with the police department, Ogio asked me about baseball. He turned his back to the interrogation window, like he was hiding, looked to the ceiling mic to make sure I saw it, and said someone ought to keep an eye on those blue birds. Blue. He played if off like he made a mistake. And what is a heron?”

  “A bird,” Bear said. “Ogio was giving you a clue. Blue Heron Industries. But why?”

  “That’s what we’ve got to figure out,” Jake said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  By eleven o’clock they’d gone over every piece of data they could find, but were still missing the key components: What was in the briefcase? What was the tie to Blue Heron? Jake had forgotten to tell Bear about what he found at Logan’s house on Senator Mitchell Young, but couldn’t now that Snell was there. He didn’t know what she’d do with the information.

  “You know anything about Blue Heron?”

  Snell sat with her elbows on her knees, drumming her long fingers against her cheeks. “Nothing other than what we’ve talked about tonight. They didn’t come up on any radar before.”

  “How hard would it be to poke around your databases and find something useful?”

  “Not hard at all. I would just have to go back to the office.”

  “Good,” Jake said. “Ogio was pushing me in that direction for a reason. Bear and I will check with some of Logan’s contacts. See if they’ve heard anything. Let’s regroup for breakfast in the morning. Say seven o’clock?”

  Snell stood and stretched. Her white blouse yanked tight against her frame, revealing two delicious mounds of flesh sitting way up high and a few inches of tanned, tight stomach. Jake jerked his eyes away, but judging from the wry smile on her face, she caught him looking. She swiped her keys from the coffee table and headed out the door. Her jeans fit like a glove, and both he and Bear took an admiring moment.

  “She’s filled out nicely in the last few years,” Bear said after she shut the door. “Best ass in the Bureau, I bet.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “If she doesn’t roust your libido, you should check your pulse. What’s this bullshit about Logan’s contacts? We don’t know any of his contacts.”

  Jake retrieved the file folders he took from Logan’s. “Just wanted to get her out while I ran something past you. I went to Logan’s house today. Found some pictures in a shed behind his house.” He handed over the first group picture of Bear, Snell, Logan and the hook-nosed guy. Bear studied the picture and blew out a breath.

  “Jesus, I need to go on a serious diet,” Bear said.

  “Who’s the fourth guy in the pic with you?”

  “ATF guy named Hal Skirchak out of Washington. Decent enough guy, seemed pretty sharp. Could shoot the ass out of a fruit fly at a hundred yards. He and I spent some downtime at the firing range, and he whupped my ass five ways from Sunday, and I’m no slouch. Don’t know what happened to him after the task force broke up. Probably headed back to D.C.”

  “You guys close back in the day?”

  Bear raised his bushy eyebrows. “As close as two heterosexual men could get working eighteen-hour days in close confines. We didn’t get to the point of Brokeback Mountain, but by the time we were done I could have written his biography.”

  “I’m wondering if he could beat the bushes up there and shed some light on what Ares is and if there’s any connection to Mitchell Young.”

  “Mitchell Young? What’s he got to do with this?”

  Jake handed him the next series of pictures showing Young and Jason Keats in the parking lot. Bear furrowed his brow in confusion. A few seconds later, the confusion boiled to a snarl.

  “That sleazy son of a bitch. This is dated three weeks ago.”

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “I’m wondering if Young is the reason your little task force went belly up. Were you close to getting traction?”

  “Very close. But we could never nail down the top of
the ladder. Makes sense why you held this back from Snell. She sees red when you even mention the name of Jason Keats. She’d fly into the fucking stratosphere if she saw him tied to a Senator from her home state.”

  “Think your buddy Skirchak would volunteer to do a little digging?”

  “I think that could be arranged. If he doesn’t want to do it voluntarily, I have something to persuade him.”

  “Like what?”

  “Let’s say Skirchak and I had a nutbusting good time at a nudie bar one night. He wasn’t married yet, but he was engaged. I was a good boy. Hal was not.”

  “Blackmail?”

  “Logan isn’t the only one with photos.”

  * * *

  Tanner Stanton hunkered in a darkened doorway across from the last known whereabouts of Alexander Voleski. The girl moved about the basement apartment across the street giving no sign Voleski was there. Stanton zipped up his black windbreaker concealing the Steyr M-A1 in his shoulder holster. Devaroux dressed similarly, smoking a cigarette and talking on his cell. A minute later, he ended the call.

  “The girl’s fine,” Devaroux said. “Billy put a tray of food into the room, but she hasn’t touched it in an hour. What are we going to do with her?”

  “Not our call,” Stanton said. “Quit moving around and put out the cigarette. It’s giving me a headache.”

  “Sorry. We’ve been here for hours, man. He’s not gonna show.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “We already rousted him from this place, if that was even him in that apartment. No way he’s coming back.”

  “He’ll be back, and it was him.”

  “And you know this how?” Devaroux asked, the hours of standing around wearing thin on his demeanor.

  “Three reasons. First, the vodka and men’s clothes on the floor tell me he was there. You could still see the fog of smoke in the living room.”

  “Could have been any guy.”

  “It was him. Second, Voleski has a particular affection for the bimbo in the apartment. And, third, since he’s already been shaken out of there once, he’ll figure it’ll be safe to move back there again. People rarely look in the same place twice.”