Redemption Song (Daniel Faust)

by Craig Schaefer

  “Every damn day.”

  My heart pounded. Strikeout after strikeout, and we’d just been handed something better than information, better than a clue. If I played this right, Gary Kemper would be a weapon. He’d damned himself with that email, but it wasn’t the kind of rock-solid proof I needed. After all, anyone could send an email. No, I’d need to lure him in, bait him closer to my hook.

  “Two things,” I said. “Can you send him an email so it looks like it came from Lauren?”

  “Have you met me? Come on, that’s kid stuff. What else?”

  Bentley stood at the end of the aisle, head tilted my way, waiting to leave. I mouthed a silent apology.

  “Can you rig things so that anything he emails to Lauren won’t reach her box, and vice versa? I want to cut that cord. Everything either of them sends to each other should come straight to us instead.”

  “Give me five minutes and it’ll be a done deal.”

  “With no chance of getting caught?” I asked.

  “Good luck,” she snorted. “I’m behind seven proxies.”

  “Get on it. I need to make some phone calls.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  I smiled. “You want to bring down Carmichael-Sterling? Well, Detective Kemper’s going to help, whether he likes it or not. We just need to seal the deal.”

  • • •

  The Wardriver rode again, as soon as Pixie got her mysterious friend to give her the keys. She swung by Vons to get me, and then we took a suburban detour, heading out to Silverado Ranch to pick up Jennifer.

  “Nice ink,” Pixie said, eying Jennifer’s sleeve as she opened the back doors of the van for her.

  “Thanks! You got any?”

  Pixie was wearing a camisole top. She turned, showing off the fairy wings tattooed across her shoulder blades. Jennifer whistled.

  “We oughta compare notes. I’m thinking of getting some more work done, and my old artist moved out to Berkeley.” She peered in the van. “And what do we have here?”

  Pixie rapped her knuckles on the electronic console. “It pretty much does everything. FBI, eat your heart out. It’s not mine, but I built in a lot of the extras.”

  “Sweet sunshine, Daniel, where’ve you been hiding this girl?”

  I saw where her thoughts were going. Behind Pixie’s back, I gestured so Jennifer made sure to notice the Sharpie-inked X across the back of Pixie’s hand.

  No, Jenny, she’s not going to go work for a drug dealer. Put your eyes back in your head.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “We’ve got a fish to catch.”

  I’d already slung my hook. Once we sorted out the details, Pixie sent Gary an email “from Lauren,” dictated by me.

  “Understood. I’ll keep you safe. Too dangerous to meet in person. Take the manuscript to one of my operatives. She’ll meet you at the Mormon Fort. —Lauren”

  The original fort went up in the 1850s, care of, as the name implied, a band of Mormon settlers looking for insurance against Indian attacks. They abandoned the place just two years later, returning to Utah when the Mormons and the feds got into a running gunfight back home. After that, the fort turned into a military garrison, then a private ranch, and finally a state park. The blocky adobe buildings and towering walls weren’t all original—there’d been a lot of reconstruction over the years—but it was still a neat little slice of history. Also, not a bad place for a clandestine meeting.

  We parked by a fence made from rough-hewn logs, and Pixie angled the Wardriver’s hidden cameras. Jennifer sat next to her, watching her moves, learning how the system worked. Jennifer was the biggest tech junkie I knew. Nothing on Pixie’s level, but we only had one shot at getting this footage, and I wanted somebody I could trust in the director’s chair. Pixie didn’t count, since her job was outside the van.

  Gary knew my face, and Jennifer’s too. There was a good chance, if the task force was really digging into our backgrounds, that he’d be familiar with everybody else in our crew. Pixie, though? An outsider. The perfect actress to play Lauren’s secret agent.

  “See? You can sweep the whole area with this knob now that we’ve got the camera lined up,” Pixie was telling Jennifer. “You’re good for sound up to about a hundred feet. Ambient isn’t too bad, but closer’s obviously better.”

  “Stay in the parking lot and don’t let him take you into the fort,” I told Pixie. “We need his face, not just his voice.”

  “And I’ll keep him facing the camera, yeah. I do know how to do this, Faust. Not my first time.”

  A green Mustang rolled into the lot. Same one that had escaped me at Our Lady of Consolation.

  “Showtime,” I said, pointing it out on the bank of monitors. Then Gary got out. Pixie leaned close, squinting.

  “Fuck,” she hissed. “I know that guy.”

  “What? From where?”

  “You remember the big EcoFirst protest outside the Enclave construction site last month? Where I got busted?” She pointed at the monitor. “He’s the asshole who busted me. Nearly twisted my arm out of its socket, too.”

  Pixie and Jennifer both looked to me for an answer. I didn’t have one. A month was a long time, and Kemper probably didn’t have a photographic memory for everybody he’d tossed in a wagon, but there was always a chance.

  I shook my head. “Pack it in. Too risky. We’ll figure out something else.”

  “He probably won’t recognize me,” Pixie said.

  “‘Probably’ isn’t good enough. You aren’t a part of this—”

  She glared. “Bullshit I’m not a part of this. I’m not your paid errand girl, Faust. I want to see Carmichael-Sterling go down as bad as you do. I just have different reasons. And my reasons are probably better than yours.”

  “If she gets in over her head,” Jennifer said, “we can always turn this from a blackmailin’ into a kidnappin’. Or just ventilate the son of a bitch. He can’t help Lauren with a bullet in his skull.”

  I looked to the monitor. Gary took a slow walk around the parking lot, head swiveling, looking antsy. I needed to make a decision before he got spooked and left.

  “Go,” I said. “Do your best. And if things get hairy, we’ll be on top of it before he knows what hit him.”

  Pixie gave us a thumbs up and jumped out of the van. I sat down next to Jennifer at the console.

  “I almost feel bad for him,” Jennifer said. “Poor critter’s trapped between a rock and a hard place, and now he’s about to fall into the hands of some real professional troublemakers.”

  I shrugged. “On the plus side, if he does what he’s told, he might actually live through this.”

  A quiver of feedback squealed through the speakers. Jennifer went to work, fiddling with the audio dials until faint, echoed voices filled the van.

  “—Kemper?” Pixie asked.

  “Jesus, a little louder, tell the whole neighborhood my name!” Gary snapped. “Did she send you?”

  “No. I’m psychic and I read your mind, that’s how I know who you are. Duh. Calm down.”

  On the screen, Gary’s shoulders slumped.

  “I’m sorry. Sorry. It’s been…hard. I’m juggling too many faces, too many names. Hard to remember what lie I told to who.”

  “Relax,” Pixie said. “She sent me to get the manuscript. You brought it, right?”

  “There was, um, a complication. I don’t have it anymore.”

  “Where the hell is it, then?” I muttered at the screen. A heartbeat later Pixie echoed my exact words.

  “Sullivan called me into an emergency meeting late last night. I couldn’t put him off. He saw the pages, and he took them away from me. He thought I was bringing them to him. I know, I know, this screws up everything, but there was nothing I could do! If he thinks for one second that I’m Lauren’s inside man, he’ll skin me alive. And I’m not even exaggerating about that.”

  I looked over at Jennifer. “We’re definitely recording, right?”

  “Oh yeah,” she purr
ed, bringing the camera into tighter focus.

  Pixie was a natural. She put her hands on her hips and stared the taller man down.

  “Lauren’s not going to be happy. What about the task force? Anything to report?”

  “Yeah. Black’s breathing down my neck. She’s not just a fed. She’s got…shit, I don’t know, magic powers. Swear to God, she’s some kind of witch. She suspects something, I know it. I just know it.”

  That answered the question of who the magician on his team was. Good to know.

  “Meanwhile,” Gary said, “after I stuck my neck out, leaked Agnelli’s phone call, and pretty much held Sullivan’s hand while he planned the entire kidnapping, fucking Daniel fucking Faust escaped somehow. So that’s one more person who’s going to shoot me if they find out who set them up.”

  “No one’s going to find out. Keep on as if nothing is wrong,” Pixie said. “I’ll report back for you, and you’ll get further instructions from Lauren.”

  “No, hey, I need help now! I can’t keep doing this! I don’t care about the deal, I don’t care about the cash. I cannot keep doing this!”

  He paused, suddenly frowning as he stared into Pixie’s face. The back of my neck bristled. I knew a cop look when I saw one.

  “Wait a second. Don’t I know you from somewhere?” he said. “I’ve seen you before, I’m sure I have.”

  Twenty

  “Maybe at the office,” Pixie said, keeping her composure.

  “No. No, I’ve never set foot in that office.” Gary shook his head. “Something is seriously hinky about this whole situation. Maybe you and me should go see Lauren together.”

  I tensed. Jennifer shot me a look.

  “Against her orders? And endangering both of you? Yeah, great idea you’ve got there,” Pixie told him. “You’re stressed out, and it’s making you jump at shadows. Go home. Go home, call everybody, and tell them you’ve got food poisoning and have to stay in bed. Get some sleep and wait for our email.”

  He held his stare for two more heartbeats, then deflated.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, you’re right. Okay, fine, I’ll sit tight.”

  She turned to leave, and that was when things went wrong. I could have kicked myself for not seeing it coming.

  Her tattoo.

  Gary saw the ornate wings on her back, reached out, and grabbed her shoulder in a vice grip.

  “Now I remember. You don’t work for Lauren. You’re some goddamn hippie chick! What’s this all about, huh? You’d better tell me everything I want to know, now!”

  I jumped to my feet. Jennifer shook her head.

  “Not yet. Give her a chance,” she said.

  “But she’s in trouble—”

  “Trust her.”

  Of all the reactions Pixie could have had, backhanding Gary across the face wasn’t one I saw coming.

  “You stupid bastard,” she hissed. “What, you remember me from the protest? Lauren sent me there. It’s called undercover work. I was trying to chat up the real protesters to find out if they were planning to vandalize the construction site, and you hauled me out and nearly put my arm in a sling!”

  He blinked, stunned.

  Pixie leaned closer. “You think you’re the only informant on her payroll? You think you’re the only person pulling strings for her in this town? You’re small-fry, Kemper. Small. Fry. You’d better remember that, or your next job is gonna be serving fries.”

  I sat back down in front of the screen and looked over at Jennifer, while Gary muttered a muffled apology.

  “She’s good,” I said.

  “Told ya.” Jennifer tapped the side of her nose. “I got a nose for these things.”

  We both high-fived Pixie when she got back in the van. On the monitors, Gary drove away, off to lay low for a while.

  “We got it,” Pixie said, checking the console. “Should be a crisp, clean recording. What’s next?”

  “Next,” I said, “I sit down with our friend Gary and teach him the facts of life.”

  • • •

  Finding Gary’s home address wasn’t hard for Pixie, and thanks to her quick thinking, we knew he’d be there faking a bout of food poisoning.

  “Sure you don’t want me to go in with you?” Jennifer asked.

  “Guy’s a Metro detective with a lot of juice, not even counting his FBI and DEA pals. If this goes south, nobody but me is taking a fall for it. Besides, you’re the insurance.”

  I asked Pixie to double-check her research when we got near the address. The detective lived a little north of the airport, in a neighborhood even I wouldn’t walk through at night on my own. We zeroed in on a three-story apartment building with salmon-pink stucco walls and a couple of overflowing Dumpsters that hadn’t been emptied in a good month or two.

  “Positive,” Pixie said. “This is his address on record. Second floor, apartment 26.”

  “Maybe he’s frugal?” Jennifer said, squinting at the second-floor windows. Tacked-up sheets passed for curtains here and there. Other windows bristled with cheap AC units.

  I picked up a freshly burned DVD in a plastic jewel case and wedged it in my hip pocket. “That or a crackhead. I’m going to have a chat. You two get the other copies squirreled away. Don’t think it’ll be necessary, but just in case.”

  They left me at the curb. I circled around the apartment building. The side door sported a cracked window covered in bent and rusted wire mesh. The doorknob jiggled in my hand, barely hanging on by a couple of half-stripped screws, and I let myself in. A rank odor clung to the back stairway, a mingling of cooked onions, liver, and rotting trash.

  The problem with paying someone like Gary Kemper a surprise visit was that you never knew how he was going to react. If I knocked on the door and said hello, maybe he’d stand still long enough to listen to reason. Or maybe, since he already believed I was gunning for his head, he’d pull his service piece and blast me on the spot. Too risky to chance it. I listened at his door, catching the faint echoes of what sounded like a basketball game on a tinny television.

  I knocked on the door, then stood off to the left, out of the peephole’s line of sight. Footsteps shuffled up on the other side. I heard him there, standing still, deciding.

  The sound of a pistol sliding out of a leather shoulder holster makes a distinctive rustle. Once you’ve heard it, you always recognize it. Metal rattled on the other side as he undid the security chain. I waited until the clicking of the deadbolt, and the slow turn of the knob, to pivot on my heel and give the door a vicious kick.

  The door swung in, hard, smacking into Gary and sending him stumbling a step backward. He needed a second to recover, and I didn’t let him have it. I barreled into his apartment, sweeping my arm out to knock his gun hand to one side and driving a balled-up fist into his gut. He threw his weight forward, hooking his free arm around my neck and pulling me to the floor with him. We wrestled for the gun on the rough hardwood floor, rolling, kicking at each other. He rabbit-punched me, hard, and I curled an arm in front of me to ward him off. Then I drove my knee up between his legs. He yelped, the pain enough to loosen his grip on the gun.

  I grabbed the piece, a blue chrome snub-nosed nine millimeter, and rolled to one side. He was about to launch himself at me when I stuck the barrel in his face. He made like a statue.

  “Calm,” I panted. “Down.”

  He stared at me wide eyed as we both caught our breath, sitting a few feet apart on his living room floor. The apartment wasn’t as bad inside as it looked on the outside. Shabby-cozy, a one-bedroom nest with a Denver Broncos pennant on the wall over a half-empty liquor cabinet. Given the two empty bottles of Grand Marnier on his kitchen counter and the dirty shot glass sitting on the end table next to his threadbare couch, I had a hunch where a lot of his disposable income went.

  Photos over the television caught my eye. Gary at a park with a younger woman and a cherub-faced toddler. A wedding shot, minus the kid. Gary pushing the little girl on a swing. I nodded toward
the pictures.

  “Gary, I’m going to need an honest answer from you. Is somebody going to walk in on us while we’re talking? Because that’s going to complicate things.”

  If looks could kill, the revulsion in his eyes would have stopped my heart cold.

  “What, you’re gonna kill my family, too? Bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’m not here to kill you.”

  “Then what are you here for?” Gary sneered. “Because you just assaulted a goddamn Metro cop, in his own home. You know what that means? Do you even understand what you’ve done?”

  He was so eager to pin a crime on me, I decided to let him have one.

  “Your pal Carl Holt was a homicide cop, too, right up until I arranged a closed-casket funeral for him.” I fixed him with a glare. “Your badge means shit to me. Now answer the question.”

  He slumped, putting his back against the wall. “No. Mona and Lindsey aren’t here. They aren’t…in my life anymore.”

  “Good. Progress. Now we’re communicating. Let me get right to the point.” I tugged the DVD from my pocket and slid it across the floor. “That’s a copy, for you to watch at your leisure. It’s a video of your little meeting at the Mormon Fort today.”

  I could hear the breath catch in his throat.

  “How did you—”

  “You were talking to one of my people, not Lauren’s. We got the whole thing on video. Crystal-clear audio, unmistakably your face, and all those lovely little incriminating statements. You’re bent, Gary. You’re as bent as your buddy Holt was, but at least he only whored his badge out to one customer. You’re taking cash from Sullivan while working for Lauren Carmichael, and using Agent Black’s task force to do it.”

  “It’s not—it’s not like that,” he said, his voice small.

  “No? Then tell me what it’s like.”

  “Lauren didn’t send me to join the Redemption Choir. I was already a member. I was a beat cop, back in Denver, when I met Sullivan. It was right after my wife walked out on me. See, she didn’t know what I was. Not until she walked in and saw my real face in the bathroom mirror. Five years of marriage, total self-control, never let on, but I slip once…that’s what it’s like for us, Faust. You don’t understand. You can’t. The evil’s always bubbling just under the skin, wanting to come out.