Paying the Piper

by Simon Wood

  “No, you can’t go. May I call you Baz?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Call me Baz. I hate Barrington. I got my butt kicked throughout school because of it. Technically, I’m Barrington Reagan the Fourth. Shit, I sound like a duke.”

  “You’re a bicycle messenger for Bay Bike Messengers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good job?”

  “Great one. I bike for a living. Shit pay, though. Didn’t used to be. Traffic sucks in this town at any time. A bike was the answer to gridlock.”

  “Was?”

  “E-mail. No one uses couriers much anymore. It can all be done with the click of a mouse.”

  The banal chat helped pacify Reagan. He still bounced his leg, but it had lessened to a steady bob.

  Sheils opened the file with Reagan’s brief statement and his DMV record. “So is that why you took two hundred bucks to collect a ransom?”

  “Hey, I didn’t know the guy was a kidnapper. He just told me to come to the Caltrain station, take a bag from a locker, and hand it off to him.”

  “At two in the morning? You didn’t think there was anything suspicious in that?”

  Reagan’s bouncing knee ramped back up to two hundred beats a minute. “Okay, okay, I didn’t think I was picking up his forgotten luggage, but I didn’t know he was the Piper.”

  “So what did you think you were collecting?”

  “I don’t know. Didn’t want to know. Drugs. Guns. Dirty money. Stolen kittens. It wasn’t any of my business.”

  “Not very smart of you.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “You said it, Einstein.”

  Reagan’s leg ceased bouncing, and he leaned across the table, with his hands out in a pleading gesture. “Look, I’m not saying I’m an angel, but I don’t know where those kids are and I don’t know anything about the Piper.”

  “I disagree, Baz. You know a lot. You’re the first person who’s encountered the Piper without a mask. I think that makes you very important.”

  The color drained from Reagan’s face. Sheils guessed the realization had just sunk in. Reagan’s foot bouncing restarted. “How did you get this gig?”

  “He approached me.”

  “Through Bay Bike Messengers?”

  “No. At the Mechanics’ Memorial on Market and Battery. A lot of us messengers hang out there between jobs.”

  “How many of you were there at the time?”

  “Three or four,” Reagan said and reeled off names.

  “Did he offer the job to all of you?”

  “No. Just me.”

  “Why you, Baz?”

  Reagan shrugged his shoulders.

  Sheils could hazard a guess. Reagan looked as if he’d do anything as long as cash came attached.

  “What did he ask you to do, exactly? Word for word.”

  Reagan thought hard. “He asked if I wanted to earn two hundred bucks. I said yes. He said he needed the contents of a locker at the Caltrain station on Fourth brought to him. I asked when, and he said he’d call with details, but to expect it to be a night job.”

  “After you collected the backpack, then what were you supposed to do?”

  “Go to Fort Mason.”

  “Were you supposed to call first?”

  “No. Just go there.”

  He wasn’t sure if a window of opportunity had just closed up on him. A catch-and-release approach with Reagan might lead him to the Piper, but the Piper had to know Reagan had been waylaid. He knew just about everything they did. They would have been better off letting Reagan collect the ransom and follow him to wherever he took it. Sheils cursed himself. He should have known the Piper would pull a stunt like this.

  The best he could hope for now was to milk Reagan for all he could get.

  “Can you describe the man who approached you?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m going to get a sketch artist.”

  Friedkin hit a wall with the CHP officers. They weren’t in the listening mood when it came to the Piper. They wanted to know why he was driving like a madman on I-80, endangering lives, in a vehicle that didn’t belong to him. Mentioning he was snooping on the FBI while they worked a crime scene didn’t help, either.

  Rebecca changed matters when they contacted her about her now deceased Chevy Cavalier. She confirmed Friedkin’s account. Since CHP didn’t let him go, Rebecca realized the seriousness of the situation and called Friedkin’s lawyer. He knew the right people to wake up. Within twenty minutes, Sheils had a fast-and-dirty version of events over the phone, and in another thirty, officers escorted him through the doors of the FBI field office.

  Sheils met him as he stepped off the elevator. The FBI agent looked less than ecstatic to see him.

  “I can do without the granite stare. I’ve had enough of that with the CHP boys.”

  Sheils sighed. “I think it’s been a long day for everyone.”

  Friedkin followed Sheils to his office. He’d expected other Feds to be in on the meeting, but it was just the two of them. Sheils fell into the chair behind his desk. Friedkin lowered himself into a visitor’s chair, his body bruised and aching from the crash.

  “You hurt?” Sheils asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. I told you to stay out of this.”

  It’s going to be one of those meetings, he thought.

  “Do you want to explain what you were up to tonight?” Sheils asked. “Did the Fleetwoods have any knowledge about your plans?”

  This was where it got tricky. Telling the truth meant betraying his client, and privacy was what his clients paid for. Breaking that fundamental trust would destroy his reputation, but he couldn’t avoid it. The lives of two boys were more important than Rooker’s business.

  “The Fleetwoods had no knowledge.”

  “But they’re your clients.”

  Friedkin squirmed, but Sheils wanted him to squirm. Mission accomplished.

  “Rooker is also my client. He wanted me to tail Scott—see where he went, who he spoke to.”

  Sheils leaned back in his chair with a mug of coffee in his hand. He didn’t offer Friedkin any. “For what reason?”

  “Rooker hopes Scott will lead him to the Piper.”

  Sheils leaned forward onto his desk, the coffee mug held in both hands. “Does he think Scott is colluding with the Piper?”

  “Don’t know. He just wants to find the man who killed his son.”

  “Okay. Scott leads you to the Piper. What was the plan then?” Friedkin shifted in his seat. It set off the headache he’d been trying to suppress.

  “I’ll make it easy for you,” Sheils said. “You were going to do your citizen’s duty and come straight to me to tell me where I could find the Piper.”

  “Agent Sheils, I have vital information, and we’re wasting time.”

  “Okay, tell me about this guy on the roof.”

  Friedkin outlined what had happened from when he’d spotted the Piper on the roof until he totaled Rebecca’s Chevy.

  “As soon as you saw this bastard, why didn’t you contact me?” Sheils demanded. “I could have alerted CHP and they could have shut him down without the carnage.”

  “I did. I called Rooker and told him to call you.”

  “He never called.”

  Why didn’t Rooker call? Friedkin thought. It would have put him in an awkward position with Sheils, but so what? Catching the Piper outweighed the embarrassment factor.

  “What makes you think this guy on the rooftop was the Piper?”

  “I have a hard time believing it was a coincidence. Someone wearing a ski mask just happens to be on a rooftop in the early hours of the morning across from a building where two kidnapped children were kept? I don’t think so. Do you?”

  Sheils said nothing.

  “Did you run the plate?”

  “The car’s a rental. We’ll get a name and face when we track down the manager from the rental company. In the meantime, there’s an alert out on the car. SFPD are c
ombing the streets for it now.”

  “I know the car was last seen heading west, but what makes you think the Piper will return to the city?”

  “He sent someone to collect the ransom from the Caltrain station.”

  The news hit Friedkin hard. The Piper had gotten too cute for his own good, and the balance was tipping to Sheils. The Piper’s options would be narrowing, just the way they had with Nicholas Rooker’s kidnapping. If the Piper was smart, he’d do what he’d done eight years ago—cut and run, leaving bodies behind.

  A knock came at the door and a man entered Sheils’s office holding a thin stack of printouts. “I thought you’d want to see the digital rendering we got out of Reagan as soon as it was ready.”

  Sheils took the printouts and studied the face. He looked up at Friedkin after a minute. “Did you get a good look at the guy in the car?”

  “Just a partial profile.”

  Sheils slid a printout across the desk. Friedkin picked up the picture. It was a headshot, in color and fairly lifelike. The face looking back at him drove a fist into his gut. He recognized the reconstructed face. The hair color was wrong—dark when it should have been blond. He’d probably worn a wig to disguise his identity, but the wig failed to disguise the face. Friedkin knew it well. It was Alex Hammond, his AWOL investigator.

  “Do you recognize him?” Sheils said.

  “No. I’ve never seen him before.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  “When is someone going to talk to us?” Scott asked Guerra.

  “Soon. Just let us do our jobs. Relax.”

  Relax. What a joke. He and Jane had been cooped up in the windowless room since returning from Vallejo. For the last hour, Guerra had been babysitting them. Dunham had poked his head through the door now and again to make sure things were okay, but things weren’t. A suspect was being detained in this very building. They’d been told he wasn’t the Piper. They learned these two facts on the ride back with Sheils. Since then, nothing.

  “Would you like more coffee?”

  “No. I’ve drunk so much I need the bathroom,” Scott said.

  He got to his feet. Guerra stood with him.

  “I don’t need company.”

  Guerra backed down, raising her hands and moving back. “You know the way.”

  She held open the door and watched him stride down the corridor toward the restroom. When he reached it, he glanced back. Guerra had returned to the boardroom. He doubled back in the direction of Sheils’s office.

  Dunham came out of the copy room and expressed his dismay at seeing Scott wandering the building unescorted.

  “Save it,” Scott barked. “You blew your chance to explain. Now I want the boss.”

  “Mr. Fleetwood, please return to the boardroom,” Dunham said.

  “When I’ve got an answer.”

  Dunham nipped at Scott’s heels all the way to Sheils’s office. Scott didn’t bother with knocking; he just barged in. The office was empty.

  “Dammit.”

  Sheils appeared from behind them. “What’s going on?”

  “That’s what I want to know. We’re going crazy in that room.”

  “I apologize, but things are happening very quickly. Good things. C’mon, let’s return to Jane, and I’ll explain.”

  Sheils and Dunham escorted Scott back to the boardroom. Sheils eyed Guerra with disappointment, but it was momentary. He took a seat at the table, and Scott returned to his seat next to Jane.

  “Agents Dunham, Jessup, and Guerra picked up a man who attempted to collect the ransom from the Caltrain luggage locker,” Sheils said. “The Piper paid him to collect the backpack and bring it to him.”

  Scott didn’t like how this sounded. It hadn’t made sense why the Piper wanted him to put the money in the locker and leave it. The locker would be staked out when he came to collect the ransom. It was stupid, unless…

  “This guy was a sacrificial lamb,” Scott said. “The Piper knew you’d bust whoever came for the ransom. This was a test to see if I’d play by the rules. He knows I sold him out.”

  “Not necessarily,” Sheils said. “Remember the accident we passed on I-Eighty?”

  Scott nodded.

  “John Friedkin followed us to Vallejo. He chased after a man watching us at the crime scene.”

  “Watching us?” Jane asked.

  “Yes, it looks as if the Piper had the Vallejo factory staked out to see what happened.”

  Scott wondered how long the Piper had been watching. Had he seen him break down when he found the photograph of Sammy and Peter? He couldn’t imagine the Piper missing that dose of pure misery.

  “What I’m hoping is the Piper doesn’t know his bagman was picked up and he believes you fear him enough to tell us about the factory, but not the location of the money,” Sheils said to Scott.

  “That’s a big what-if,” Scott said.

  “What does this have to do with John Friedkin?’ Jane said.

  “He pursued the Piper and got a license plate before getting into a wreck,” Sheils said. “Unfortunately, the car’s a rental, but we’ll know who rented the car in a couple of hours.”

  “So you still don’t know who the Piper is,” Scott said. He’d been hoping for better news than what Sheils had given up.

  “No, but I know what he looks like.” Sheils slid a computerized image of a man across the table. “The bagman described him.”

  Scott held the image. At last, he was face-to-face with the kidnapper of his children. The man looked younger than Scott had expected.

  Jane examined the picture. An involuntary whimper escaped her lips. Scott leaned over to hug her.

  “Do you recognize him?” Sheils asked.

  Both Scott and Jane shook their heads.

  “We have a man without a name,” Scott said. “What now?”

  “I’m releasing the bagman to go through with his exchange.”

  “You have nothing to fear. At no time will you be out of sight of an agent,” Sheils said. “Smile, Baz. You’re working with the good guys now.”

  Reagan found it hard to smile, all things considered. He’d only agreed to turn on the Piper to ensure he didn’t get any splash-back when they charged the kidnapper. He’d convinced Sheils he was an unwitting party in the Piper’s plans, but he was still an accessory to a bunch of felony raps. Prison or the Piper? He couldn’t decide which was more dangerous. He tried not to think about it.

  Two of the agents who’d busted him replaced the ransom in the backpack he’d taken from the locker with wads of paper. The two million bucks was elsewhere. Shame. He’d never seen that much cash. It occurred to him that he’d been a multimillionaire for about three seconds. That would be something to tell his grandkids—as long as the Piper didn’t slice his balls off.

  He was still in the interview room. The room felt small and tight. Prison would kill him. God knew how many hours he’d have to spend cooped up in a cell. No, he’d take his chances with the Piper.

  “Do I get a wire or something?” Reagan asked.

  “Not necessary. We’ve got you covered,” Sheils said. “Besides, I don’t want to tip the Piper off if he frisks you.”

  It felt decidedly sketchy. It didn’t matter how much these guys played nice and told him not to worry. He was risking his ass.

  The agents packed the last of the dummy cash into the pack, zippered it up, and helped him put it on. The load felt good, familiar after ten years as a cycle messenger.

  They took him down to the parking lot and drove him out to where he’d left his bike a couple of blocks from the Caltrain station.

  “You know what to do,” Sheils said. “Just do as you would have done if we hadn’t caught you. Don’t think about us. Don’t look for us. You might not see us, but we’re there. Just focus on the job the Piper paid you to do. Okay?”

  Reagan perched himself on his saddle, jammed a foot onto the pedal, and locked it in place. “Yeah. Sure. Solid.”

  Sheils clamped
a hand on the crossbar. “Don’t even think about riding off. I’ll find you and mail you to the hall of justice.”

  “Never crossed my mind.”

  Sheils removed his hand. “Make sure it doesn’t.”

  Reagan cycled away before the Feds could issue any more threats. He threaded his way down to the Embarcadero. He ignored a red light and turned left toward Fisherman’s Wharf.

  It felt good to be on his bike again. The night air cut through his clothes straight to his skin, invigorating him. To the east, a faint glow rose up from the horizon. This was why he rode a bike—for moments like this—and he’d nearly thrown it all away for two hundred bucks. He couldn’t believe he’d been dumb enough to take a job to collect a bag from a locker. He was lucky it turned out to be the Piper. The guy could have been a terrorist, and he could have turned himself into an unwitting suicide bomber.

  He seemed to be the only soul on the road. If Sheils’s guys were out there, he didn’t see them.

  He reached the end of the Embarcadero and cut along the sidewalks to get to Fort Mason and the location for the exchange. He cycled up to where McDowell met Battery, the agreed rendezvous point.

  He dismounted and leaned his bike up against a tree. The Piper was nowhere to be seen. He scanned his surroundings but saw no one. No Feds. No kidnapper. The ride had warmed him up, but the wait chilled him.

  “C’mon, where are you?” he murmured.

  The Piper failed to answer his plea then or an hour later. The fucker wasn’t coming. It was a washout, but he had no way of telling the Feds. They should have wired him for sound. No one ever listened to him.

  An SFPD cruiser crept up the private road toward him.

  He groaned. Not more cops. He could do without explaining himself.

  The cruiser stopped in front of him. Two of San Francisco’s finest took up the front seats. The window came down on the passenger side.

  “We’re FBI, Baz. Agent Sheils says it’s over. He’s a no-show. You’ve done your part.”

  The curse on his shoulders lifted. He was Piper-and-cop-free.

  “Now point toward the city,” the Fed said. “We have to make this look convincing in case the Piper’s watching.”