There was a stop sign at Bryant Street at the southeast corner of the stadium parking lot. I stayed there for a few moments and surveyed the area.
Back to my left the stadium rose up stark and silent and empty, with the big white bronco rearing up over the south stands. There was an eight-foot-high chain-link fence running around the structure. At the south end of the east stands, and on this side of the fence, was a cluster of pay telephones. Between me and the phones were a few acres of parking lot. The lot was surrounded by a waist-high chain-link fence broken by gates in several places around the perimeter. On Sunday morning the lot would be packed with buses filled with orange-clad fans. Now it was an empty white expanse.
I pulled across Bryant Street toward the I-25 underpass. The highway hummed and whistled with Tuesday night traffic.
The street curved right and then left under the freeway. Then it turned north between the freeway and the Platte River. I pulled into the long, narrow parking area above the riverfront bike path. Then I turned the Olds around so it was pointed back toward the highway bridge, a hundred yards away.
Rivers and I waited. Our view of the stadium parking lot was blocked by the busy elevated freeway. The stadium bleachers rose up beyond it like the remnants of a dead civilization.
Ten minutes went by.
Fifteen.
The phone chirped.
“We got the call,” Tony told me. “He told Angela to set the bag outside the car, then for us to drive home. If the money is all there and there’s no interference, he’ll call and tell us where Stephanie is.”
“Okay, Tony, take Angela home. I’ll—”
“Bullshit,” he said. “I’m pulling away from the phones right now, but there’s no way I’m leaving the area.”
“Goddammit, if they see you, they’ll—”
“They won’t see me. Where are you?”
“On the downtown side of the freeway.”
“Okay,” Tony said, “I’ll cover the west side of the stadium. You do what you have to do, Lomax.”
He broke the connection.
CHAPTER 27
I PULLED AHEAD, ALMOST forgetting about Rivers. I stopped under the freeway.
“You’d better get out,” I told him. “You can wait here.”
“But I can—”
“Now.”
He hesitated. Then he reached over the seat for his blanket-wrapped rifle and climbed out.
“What do you think you’re going to do?”
“Maybe I can help,” he said.
I didn’t have time to take away his toy.
“Just stay here, Rivers. Stay the hell out of the way.”
I steered around the curve to the stop sign. Then I turned right and drove slowly north on Bryant Street—the stadium and the parking lot on my left, the freeway high above me on my right.
The lot was empty. Rivers’s car with Tony and Angela was nowhere in sight. Near the cluster of phones I could see a small dark shape in the snow—the bait, a gym bag filled with money. Except now the bag might as well have been stuffed with comic books.
I drove well past the stadium, then killed the lights, made a U-turn, and stopped.
To my left the freeway was alive with traffic. So was Federal Boulevard, beyond the stadium and up the hill. Down here it was as still as a cemetery. I punched up the number of Rivers’s car. Angela answered.
“Where’s Tony?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t see him, but he ran toward the stadium. I’m scared, Mr. Lomax, maybe—”
“Where are you?”
“I’m a few blocks away on Seventeenth.”
“Stay there,” I said. “Stay in the car.”
At that moment a late-model Monte Carlo entered the parking lot from the southeast corner.
I put down the phone and picked up my gun.
The car sped directly toward the cluster of phones. I slammed the Olds into low, steered through the nearest gate, and started across the lot toward the phones. The Monte Carlo got there well ahead of me. It slid to a stop. The passenger door swung open, and a man reached out for the bag. I was fifty yards away. I hit the lights. Bruno Tartalia looked up, momentarily frozen against the open door, his hand poised above the bag.
Then he grabbed the bag and slammed the door. The Monte Carlo started spinning its tires in reverse.
I braced myself against the steering wheel, flattened the gas pedal, and drove the Olds straight into the car. I smashed into the car’s trunk and stayed with it, driving it forward, crashing into the cluster of pay phones and shoving the whole mess into the chain-link fence, which wrapped up the front end of the Monte Carlo like a net over a wild animal.
The collision must have dazed me, because when I saw Bruno, he was moving in slow motion.
He climbed out of the passenger side of the Monte Carlo. He had the gym bag in one hand and a fat automatic pistol in the other. He raised his arm. I fought with the door handle. His gun boomed, the windshield shattered, and I rolled out of the Olds onto the snowy asphalt. I peeked over the hood of the Olds, ready to return fire. Bruno saw me and fired first. Then suddenly the front of his coat burst open in bloody eruptions, and a microsecond later I heard the whap-whap of Rivers’s rifle. Bruno fell heavily against the Monte Carlo, then dropped to the ground, dead.
Johnny Toes Burke was already out of the driver’s side of the car. He had a gun in his hand, but he was interested in flight, not fight. He began run-limping for his life toward the west side of the stadium. I went after him.
He’d covered less than twenty yards when Tony stepped out of the shadows in front of him. Johnny Toes fired wildly, almost by accident; then he dropped his gun and raised his hands.
“I give up,” he said.
Tony shot him.
Johnny Toes let out a yell and grabbed his side and fell to his knees. Tony and I rushed over to him. Tony pointed his gun at Johnny Toes’s head.
“Don’t do it, Tony,” I told him.
He wasn’t listening. “You’ve got ten seconds to live,” he said. “Where’s Stephanie?”
Johnny Toes rocked back and forth, holding his side and wailing, “Oh, sweet Jesus, I’m shot, I’m bleeding, Jesus, get me a doctor.”
“Tell me where you’ve got her or I’ll blow your fucking brains out.”
Tony meant what he said. I stepped between him and Johnny Toes.
“Put down the gun.”
“I’ll kill that mother—”
“If you do, we won’t find Stephanie.”
His eyes lost some of their fever. He put away his gun. I noticed for the first time that his pant leg was wet with blood. I looked around for Rivers and saw him jogging toward us from the distant corner of the lot. Then I saw his car speeding down Seventeenth. Angela steered through the exit, stopped to pick up Rivers, then headed toward us. She slid the car to a halt a dozen feet away, then jumped out and ran to Tony. Rivers climbed out the passenger side.
“Call nine-one-one,” I told him. “We’ve got two men wounded.”
“Wait,” Tony said, disengaging himself from his sister. “I’m just scratched. Don’t call anybody. Not until this shit tells us where he’s got Stephanie.”
Rivers stood beside the open car door.
“Well, Johnny,” I said, “do you want to talk now or kneel there and bleed to death while we watch?”
“We never had her, I swear, Jesus, please call me a doctor.”
“Where is she?” Angela begged.
Before Johnny Toes could answer, Tony stepped up and kicked him in the shoulder. Johnny Toes cried out and toppled over in the snow. His hands never left his side. Blood oozed between his fingers. I was afraid he might die before he talked. I motioned for Rivers to make the call. He nodded and climbed into his car.
“Talk to us, Johnny, and we’ll have an ambulance here in minutes. Where’s Stephanie?”
“She’s on a farm near Wray. Oh, Jesus. Some kind of religious commune.”
“Yo
u’re lying,” I said. “I was there a few days ago and she’d left.”
“No, she’s there.”
“How do you know? How did you know she was there at all?”
“A guy I know, a junkie named Dexter, told me.”
I remembered the name. Reverend Lacey had said someone named Dexter had quit the commune the very day I was there—Thursday.
“Tell us about it, Johnny,” I said. “All of it.”
He did, in between moans and groans.
Dexter was a junkie who’d bought drugs from Johnny Toes. He’d tried to kick the habit at the commune in Wray, found the going too tough, and left. But before he’d gone, he’d stolen Reverend Lacey’s stash. This was the communal pot that Lacey created with the help of all new followers—everyone had to surrender their cash and jewelry to him.
When Dexter got back to Denver, the first person he looked up was Johnny Toes. He wanted coke, and he gave Johnny Toes everything he had, including Stephanie Bellano’s ring. Johnny Toes saw the inscription and asked Dexter about Stephanie. When he learned that she was isolated out of town, he cooked up the fake kidnapping. With a little help from his new partner, Bruno.
“We figured Bellano’s old lady would have plenty of cash after she collected on Joe’s books, so—ah, God, oh, shit, I’m dying here, where’s that doctor?—so nobody would even get hurt, you know?”
“Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Rivers said from behind me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Did you call?”
Rivers nodded. “The police and the paramedics are on their way. I think we’d better check out this slimeball’s story as soon as possible.”
I agreed. If Lacey had lied to me about Stephanie, perhaps he was holding her against her will.
“I searched that place from top to bottom,” I told Johnny Toes. “Where was Stephanie?”
“How the hell should I know? Ah, God.”
Maybe Rachel Wynn had been right. Maybe there was a hidden room in that house.
“I’ll take your car and drive up there tonight,” I told Rivers. “You’d better stay here and explain everything to the police.”
“I’m going, too,” Tony put in.
“No.” Angela grabbed his arm. “You’re waiting here for the ambulance.”
Rivers turned to me. “Do you want me to go with you? You might have trouble with Lacey and his followers.”
“I can handle it,” I told him. “Besides, and don’t take this the wrong way, you’re the one who dropped Bruno. The cops might get very nervous if they have to come looking for you.”
“You’re right. I’ll stay here.”
“Please,” Angela said to me, “you should go now.”
I looked down at Johnny Toes lying on his side and moaning. He was still bleeding, but not profusely. Maybe he’d live, after all.
“Promise you won’t kick him again?”
Tony grinned. “I promise.”
I walked toward Rivers’s car. He fell into step beside me.
“Before you drive up there, there’s something you should know.”
“What?”
He glanced back at Tony and Angela. Obviously he didn’t want them to hear. He went around the car and got in the passenger’s side, leaving the door open. I climbed in behind the wheel.
“What is it?” I started to ask him, but he already had his rifle pointed at my chest.
It was a hunting rifle, all right. The kind used to hunt men—an M-16. Rivers’s finger was on the trigger.
“Ever seen one of these before?” he asked me casually.
“Not up close.”
“But you saw what it did to Bruno.”
“I saw.”
“Close your door and put your hands on the wheel.”
I did so. He jammed the muzzle of the combat rifle into my ribs. One squeeze from his finger and my heart and lungs would be all over the car.
“Don’t panic,” he said pleasantly. “We’re just going for a little ride. If you try anything now, you die. So do Tony and Angela. Do you understand me?”
“More or less.”
He leaned his head out the door but kept the weapon pressed against my side.
“Mr. Lomax decided he wants me to go along. We’ll be back as soon as we can. You probably shouldn’t tell the police where we’re going. Not until we’re certain Stephanie’s all right.”
I watched Angela and Tony through the dark windshield. They looked puzzled. Tony took a step toward us. Rivers waved good-bye and closed the door.
“Let’s move it, Lomax,” he told me.
I did so.
CHAPTER 28
I DROVE OUT OF the parking lot.
Rivers kept his military machine of destruction nuzzled against my side. He had me drive under the freeway and pull into the long, narrow parking lot near the Platte River. Somehow I doubted he’d phoned for the police and the paramedics.
“Kill the lights and shut off the engine,” he told me.
I did.
We sat alone in the dim city glow. Alone, that is, except for a hundred people per minute zipping past on nearby I-25. They were on their way to family or friends, or maybe a late dinner or movie, as many destinations as there were people, and you could bet that not one of them was wondering if they were about to get their guts blown out.
Across the river the downtown towers of speckled light stood still and watched.
Rivers reached over his weapon with his left hand and opened the glove compartment. His right hand never strayed from the stock and the trigger. He rummaged around and came out with several plastic restraints, the kind cops use when they arrest a crowd of people—cheaper than handcuffs but just as effective. He shook one loose.
“Did you buy those from Ramón Quinteras, along with the rest of your arsenal?”
He gave me a smile of admiration.
“You got that far, did you?”
“Not soon enough, though.”
“That’s right, Lomax, not soon enough. Turn around and put your face against the window and your hands behind your back.”
I didn’t have an effective argument. I did what he said. He bound my wrists together with the thin plastic strip.
“To answer your original question,” Rivers said, “no. I appropriated the restraints from the Denver police department when I was filming my special on drug busts.”
“And what ‘special’ included Ramón Quinteras?”
“‘Illegal Arms Sales,’ what else?”
Rivers pulled me around, opened my coat, and took the Magnum from my shoulder holster. Then he laid the M-16 on the backseat. He climbed out the passenger’s side, then pointed my gun at me.
“Slide over here.”
When I did, Rivers put the seat belt on me, tight across my lap and chest. I could move my head and my legs, and that was about it. Now I knew how Stan Fowler must have felt. Rivers tossed my gun in the glove box. Then he went around to the driver’s side and got in.
We drove out of the parking lot toward the on-ramp for northbound I-25. Rivers slid the BMW smoothly into the flow of traffic. He kept the speedometer under sixty. It wouldn’t do to be stopped by a cop.
“I need to take I-76, don’t I?” he asked pleasantly.
“You don’t think I’m going to help, do you?”
He grinned. “I believe you will. Later.”
I didn’t know what he had in mind, but apparently he needed me. At least he thought he did.
“Why did you put the bomb in Stephanie’s car? Is she that much of a threat to you?”
“Yes.”
“She could hurt you?”
“She could ruin me.”
“How? I know it has something to do with you and your wife and baby in Big Pine.”
“It has everything to do with that.”
“Let me guess. Little Thomas Rhynsburger didn’t die of sudden infant death syndrome. It was something more sinister than that, and Stephanie found out.”
�
�Right you are.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. Then he saw the sign for I-76 and moved over into the right-hand lane. We began heading northeast, away from the city.
“I … killed my son,” he said. “Of course, it was an accident,” he added quickly. “He was screaming, crying about God knows what, he wouldn’t stop, as usual, and my nerves were on edge, I mean, I’d been under more strain than you can even imagine, and—”
Rivers eased back on the gas. We’d been well over the speed limit.
“I was at a turning point in my career,” he said calmly, “and I needed to get myself together. I took my family to Big Pine to relax. And it seemed like that goddamn kid was crying from the moment we left the house. It went on for almost two days. So …” He shrugged again. “I hit him. Not hard at all, just enough to shut him up. But he didn’t shut up, he just got louder. I guess I lost my temper. I hit him again, and again, and well …”
“Then you took him to the clinic.”
Rivers sighed. “He was bruised and bloodied, and he’d stopped breathing. I was in a panic. My wife was practically hysterical and—”
“Why didn’t your wife come forward with this?”
“First, because she loves me. And second, because she’s an accessory after the fact and she knows now that if she talks she’ll go to prison, too. ‘Felony child abuse resulting in death,’ they call it. A parent can do a lot of time for that. Both parents. I made sure she understood.”
“I see.”
“Also, she’s been a basket case since it happened. She’s with her parents now. She rarely leaves the house.”
“Lovely.”
“Yes, well. Anyway, we rushed Thomas to the clinic, but it was too late.”
“Stephanie was there, and she saw the baby.”
“Yes. It was obvious what had happened to the child. But at that point I was too upset to care. I mean, about hiding the fact. Then Dr. Early and my wife and I had a long talk. He agreed that calling in the police would not bring back Thomas. He understood our predicament, our grief, and he was very sympathetic. So he faked the death certificate.”
The Dead of Winter (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 3) Page 21