by Tom Fowler
"I had to keep it off most of the time," he said. "They watched us pretty close for a while, and I wanted to preserve the battery."
"They never found the phone?"
"Like you said, C.T.: no one searches your junk." Brian reached down the front of his pants and pulled out the phone. He held it out to me. I put up my hand.
"Keep it," I said. "Or at least disinfect it before you give it back."
"What happened to Anna?" Chris said. The good mood fled the room. Brian looked away. I wish I could have, too.
"Did they separate you?" I said.
"Yeah. Esposito said they were letting her go." Chris looked around again. "I was hoping she'd be here."
I took a long, slow breath. Never before did I have to tell someone their loved one died. I’d heard it before, concerning my sister, and being on the receiving end was dreadful. The delivering end didn't feel much better. "There's no easy way to say it," I said, watching all happiness evacuate Chris Sellers' eyes. "She's dead, Chris. Esposito had her killed."
Chris might have collapsed if Brian hadn't grabbed his arm. His expression went blank, and his mouth hung open. I knew he had questions. I wished I knew the answers.
By the time we arrived back at the precinct, the BCPD issued a BOLO for Esposito. Two goons—one dead, one injured—were taken away by people other than the police. The other three, including Sir Spits-a-Lot, rode in a different van. The usual array of police cars arrived as well. Gonzalez commandeered one of them and took Brian and Chris Sellers away. For a second, I hoped they were going back to the safehouse. Then I remembered they got abducted somewhere near there.
The three arrested goons each sat in separate interrogation rooms. Simpson and Sung, the former animated and the latter mostly sitting, talked to one. Reyes and a cop I didn’t know talked to another. The cretin who spat on me sat all by his lonesome in a room. Gonzalez and Rich approached me. “Want to talk to the spitter?” Gonzalez said. He looked at the file he carried. “Name’s Ray Fish.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Let’s hope he doesn’t slip again,” Rich said, smirking.
“Always a danger of spitting so much,” I said.
We walked in, Gonzalez first, Rich next, then me. There were only two chairs on the business side of the table. I didn’t want to leave and get another one, so I leaned against the one-way mirror. “I got nothing to say,” the goon announced before anyone asked him anything.
The announcement drew a large round of indifference from the three of us. Gonzalez and Rich were trained investigators who knew how to interrogate people. I just liked to make people sweat. Give them silence, and nervous people will fill in the gaps by saying more than they should. As much as I like to talk in normal circumstances, I appreciate the value of sitting and keeping quiet when questioning someone.
“I said I ain’t saying nothing,” he said, not catching on. Normally, I would make my English teachers proud and point out the double negative. Instead, I crossed my arms under my chest. Rich glanced at me. He knew I fought an internal battle on the matter. The struggle is real.
“You pigs listening?” It was all we were doing, in fact, but understanding still eluded this fellow.
After another moment of only silence for a response, the goon said, “I want a lawyer.”
“You need one,” Gonzalez said. “Kidnapping, assault, attempted murder of police officers. . . .”
“I didn’t try to kill nobody!”
“A dumbass double negative means you did,” I said, unable to resist this time.
“Fuck off.”
“The eloquence continues.”
“I want a lawyer,” the goon reiterated.
“We’ll call one for you,” Gonzalez said. “But first, I think we need to have a conversation.”
“I ain’t saying shit without a lawyer.”
“Suit yourself,” Rich said.
“Christ, we forgot about the dead girl,” Gonzalez said.
“You’re right,” said Rich. “We did. That adds more charges. Kidnapping, murder, breaking and entering. . . .”
“Hey, I didn’t kill no girl,” Ray Fish said.
“You’re the only one we have in custody,” Gonzalez said. “Looks like you’re getting all the charges.”
“That ain’t right!”
“Killing people isn’t right, either,” Rich said. I liked watching him and Gonzalez work together.
The moron looked between them a couple times, then looked at me. I didn’t say anything. Gonzalez and Rich had a good thing going; I didn’t want to step on it.
“A lawyer will get me out of here,” he said after a moment. He puffed out his chest when he said it. I wondered if he tried to convince us or himself.
“A lawyer will advise you to stay quiet,” Gonzalez said.
“Sounds good to me.”
“Here’s the problem with that, Ray,” Rich said. “Unless you tell us who did the things we’ve talked about, you’re getting charged with all of them. And if you have to sit there and be quiet like a good little boy, you can’t tell us who we’re looking for.”
The revelation made our prisoner frown in thought. He stayed silent for a minute. This man had never been employed for his brain power, and it showed. I almost expected smoke to come out of his ears. “Fine,” he said after another minute.
“Was it Esposito?” I said. Rich shot a sidelong glance at me.
Fish snorted. “The man don’t get his hands dirty,” he said. “He has other people do the work.”
“Tell us what happened with the girl,” Gonzalez said.
“We captured all three of them . . . the broad and the two brothers. Kept them together for a while. Then Esposito said he would let the girl go.”
“Did you think he would?” Rich said.
“I doubted it,” said Fish. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as he looked. Or acted. “What would be the point? She saw us all. She coulda talked.”
“So he had her killed.”
“Yeah.”
“Who did it?” I said.
Fish sighed. He looked down at the table and didn’t look up as he answered. “George,” he said. “George Hood.”
Gonzalez recorded the name. “We’ll look into it,” he said. He and Rich stood. “Wait here.”
“What about my lawyer?”
“We’ll call him.”
We left the interrogation room. Gonzalez punched in George Hood, filtered some results, and brought up two pictures on his screen when he finished. “Based on age, it could be either of these two,” he said.
“I have an idea to narrow it down,” I said.
“Are we going to like this idea?” Rich said.
“I doubt it,” I said. “It’s why I’ll do it myself.”
Chapter 21
Sometimes, the best course of action is to walk into the lion's den.
Alternatively, driving there in a car you stole from the lion's chief minion is an acceptable plan. Soon, I would need to let Matty's BMW get towed away. For now, however, I focused on what I would do when I arrived at the den. The lion had fled. Some level of chaos could be expected.
I considered letting Rich and/or Gonzalez know about my plan, but they would have tried to talk me out of it. For justifiable reasons, I might add. They might have been able to infer it from our last conversation. If so, they hadn’t tried to dissuade me. Esposito could have left an order to have me shot on sight. I wore the vest Rich got for me, but I hoped I wouldn’t get to test its bullet resistance.
With Esposito in the wind, I needed a plan to try and find him, and I devised one. It was even a good plan. I depended on whoever had established himself as the alpha of the house giving me a chance to implement it. I took the Loch Raven Boulevard exit and drove toward the Oaks. The viability of my plan would be tested soon.
Before stopping and getting out, I drove by the house. I was in Matty's car. Its bright orange paintjob would be visible from space, let alone from the residence I scout
ed. This was a car goons would be used to, however, and the darkened windows would prevent them from seeing me at the wheel. I passed the house once, then turned into the alleys and drove by the back. People who left trash cans and parked cars in places not meant for them made navigating the alleys harder than it should have been. I didn't see anyone camped out at the rear of the house.
On the street again, I parked the orange BMW two houses down from Esposito's. I took a deep breath. Just because sauntering into the lion's den made for the best plan didn't mean I would enjoy it. Even with the lion absent, a bunch of smaller, vicious cats could still make for a rude welcome. I patted the gun at my side, got out of the car, and walked down the sidewalk.
As I climbed the steps to Esposito's house, the door opened. A man I once saw in passing stared out at me. I noticed the gun in his hand, which he held pointed toward the floor at the moment. "You got a lot of nerve coming here," he said. "What the hell do you want?"
"I want to find your boss," I said, stopping a couple feet from him. The gun made my heart rate climb.
"So do lots of other people," he said, confirming Esposito wasn't in the house.
"Who's in charge here?"
"How do you know it ain't me?"
I decided not to use the uncharitable response I had queued up because of the gun, and since I needed these guys not to hate me, at least for a few minutes. Instead, I said, "Because the man in charge never answers the door."
It must have satisfied this fellow as he nodded once. "You packing?" he said.
"I am."
"Gonna need to take it."
"How many men do you have inside?" I said.
He frowned. "Four. Why?"
"You'll have me outnumbered four to one," I said. "If I start to draw my gun, you have four chances to shoot me before I can. The odds are in your favor."
"So?"
"So I'm not suicidal. I'm keeping the gun."
Now he paused to think. "Fine," he said after a moment, "but I'll be watching you."
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance," I said.
He led me inside. The house was narrow, as I would expect from a duplex, but deeper than it looked from the outside. Tan carpet not yet trampled down covered the floor. The living room held two sofas, a recliner, and a coffee table, all set opposite a large wall-mounted TV. Two men sat, one on each sofa, watching TV. They regarded me with a mix of hatred and surprise as I entered. "The fuck is he doing here?" one of them said.
"He's going to talk to the man," my escort said.
The other one answered my unasked question with a snort. "The man ain't here.”
“Then I guess I'm talking to the man's substitute," I said.
“How do you know that ain't me?” the one on the sofa on the right said. After he asked, he stuffed a few potato chips into his wide mouth. Did all of them ask this question?
"Because you're sitting on a couch, eating chips, and watching a shitty house-flipping show."
"So?" he said around his mouthful of half-chewed chips.
I shook my head.
"Come on," the one leading me said. Then he looked at the other two. "Either of you want to come along?"
They groaned, but both got up and followed us downstairs. I wanted them to. The more, the merrier for what I planned. I got led down a narrow staircase off the kitchen. The basement was converted into a large office. A desk bigger than mine sat near the far wall. Three guest chairs were arranged before it. In a leather chair behind the desk sat Esposito's apparent surrogate--the man I knew as his driver.
"Well, well," he said as I sat in one of his guest chairs. The fellow escorting me and one of the other goons sat, too. “Surprised?”
“I guess I shouldn’t be,” I said. “Jeeves was the brains behind Bertie Wooster, after all.”
The erstwhile driver smiled at the reference. The others self-identified as literary philistines by their confused expressions. We sat in silence for a few seconds. "Driven any nice cars lately?" I said.
"I could ask you the same thing."
I smiled and shrugged. "People who want to keep their cars shouldn't get their asses beaten."
"So I should try to take the car back the same way?" he said.
Now I needed to be careful. The guy behind the desk didn't worry me in a fight, but I was outnumbered four to one by the others, who did worry me to varying degrees. Even if they were just thugs used to ending a fight quickly, there were still four of them and sheer numbers would pose a problem. Never mind they probably all packed guns. "I didn't come here to talk about cars," I said. "I came here to talk about your boss."
The driver leaned back in his chair. It took him almost parallel to the floor before he adjusted and came forward. "He's missing," he said.
"I'm aware."
"No thanks to you."
"I didn't kidnap two people and have a woman shot," I said.
He didn't say anything. There wasn't much to say, really. Esposito's problems were of his own making. As much as this guy wanted to blame me for them, he knew the truth on some level. "You didn't," he said after a moment. "What do you want?"
"I want to find Esposito." The goons surrounding me chuckled. "Did I say something funny?"
"What makes you think you can find him?" was the only answer I got.
"I found Brian and Chris."
The revelation stopped the chuckling. Jovial expressions turned serious and unfriendly in an eyeblink. "Yes, you did," the driver said. "I'm sure you know that you're not the only person looking for Mr. Esposito."
"Of course," I said. "But there's one difference between me and everyone else looking for him."
"Really? What is it?"
"I don't want to kill him."
Now everyone fell silent. "You don't?" I shook my head. "What do you want, then?"
"I want to bring him in."
"You're not a cop," the driver said.
"Thank goodness," I said.
"Why would you want to bring him in?"
"Because he abducted two people and ordered Anna Blair killed." I watched the group for reactions to what I said about Anna. Nothing. Maybe none of these men killed her. Or maybe her killer owned the kind of poker face Lady Gaga would sing about.
"And now you want to bring him to justice?"
"It's more than he'll get if Tony Rizzo's men find him first." The driver looked surprised. "Really? You think Tony doesn't have people looking for your boss?"
The driver sat up and leaned forward. He put his elbows on the desk, rested his chin on his fists, and sighed. "I don't know where he is," he said.
He looked at me the whole time he said it. I didn't see any hint of nervousness. A quick glance at the goons showed similar behavior. He told the truth. "Do you have contact with him?" I said.
"Here and there."
"Good. Tell him to reach out to me when he gets tired of running."
"I don't think he'll like it," the driver said.
"I think he'll like it more than dying," I said.
The driver nodded. "I'll see what I can do."
"All right. Thanks."
He nodded at one of the goons. "Billy will show you out." He was the one escorting me so far. I stood. "We're going to want Matty's car back," the driver said.
"When I'm done with this, you can have it," I said. "I don't like it much, anyway."
Billy and his brutish coworkers—one of whom looked like George Hood—led me upstairs. One of them opened the door for me. I walked out. As soon as I cleared the threshold, the door shut and locked. I survived the lion's den. The absence of the lion might have helped. I walked back to Matty's BMW. Once I got in, I checked my phone.
Five attempted Bluetooth hacks, five successes. If Esposito reached out to anyone in the house, I would know about it.
Now I leaned on the hope he did.
In an ideal world, I would have five burner phones handy. Then, I could repurpose each into a clone of the ones I hacked. The downside would be carry
ing a total of six phones. The upside would be not straining the power of my lone unit. I gave Brian Sellers one of my burners and failed to get it back from him, leaving me with one. I could go out and buy four more, but what if Esposito reached back to his old employees while I was busy setting them up? No, keeping everything on my phone was the better option. I hoped it wouldn’t be for more than a day or so.
I plugged my cell in and resolved to keep a more watchful eye on its battery level. It would deplete faster while it kept track of the five hacked phones. While I waited for some activity on that front, my stomach rumbled and reminded me I hadn’t eaten much. I ate breakfast with Gabriella earlier and a snack en route to Esposito’s—it’s always better to eat in someone else’s car—but nothing else. While I considered lunch options, my phone rang. I looked; it was mine and not one of the cloned ones.
“I was wondering if you were up for a late lunch,” Gloria said.
“As a matter of fact, I’m starving,” I said.
“Good. You want to come up here? I’ll order something.”
I said her offer sounded good. Leaving from my house or Gloria’s would make little difference unless Esposito set up shop in downtown Baltimore. Since Tony Rizzo’s people were looking for him, it struck me as unlikely. Still, I wanted to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. In addition to my usual overnight items, I packed the bullet-resistant vest, a gun, and three spare clips.
Gloria owned a posh house in Brooklandville. It was one of many posh houses in the area, and all told, probably around the middle of the pack. Even the smallest house in the neighborhood could have fit mine twice over with space for a sunroom. Hedges and shrubs framed Gloria’s driveway. Her red Mercedes rocket was in the garage. I parked Matty’s BMW to the side of the wide driveway. If I’d brought the Caprice, the neighborhood watch would have been waiting to tar and feather me as I left.
After she answered the door, Gloria pushed me up against it and gave me an aggressive kiss. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”