Thirteen Million Dollar Pop fb-3

by David Levien

  One of the double doors to the bathroom swung open and Gantcher emerged in a puff of steam, wearing only a monogrammed towel around his baggy waist.

  “All scrubby-dubby, are we?” Dwyer said, causing Gantcher to freeze, and a wave of gooseflesh to pucker across his skin.

  “How’d you get in here?” he said, his mouth flapping. “There are-”

  “Two poofs guarding the front, occasionally walking the perimeter,” Dwyer said. “I saw ’em. They didn’t see me.”

  Gantcher’s eyes traveled toward the bedroom’s double doors and then back to Dwyer.

  “Who tried to get to you today?” Dwyer asked.

  “You saw that?”

  “Your security stopped him. Who was he?”

  “They … they told me his card said Frank Behr. From the Caro Group,” Gantcher said. “They thought he might’ve been … someone else.”

  “I know who they thought he was,” Dwyer said, his voice hard. Now he had a name for the big pro.

  “What do you want?” Gantcher said too loudly. Dwyer saw what he was trying to do.

  “Drop the volume,” he said. “You know what I want.” Dwyer took in Gantcher’s hairless, pink, flabby body. “Look at you there, with your man babbles,” Dwyer said with disgust. “How much steak and lobster, clarified butter, and sweets have you shoveled down your gob, you soft bastard?”

  Gantcher didn’t respond, just stood there looking wounded.

  “You ought to have some insurance money coming your way about now, righto?”

  “The fire,” Gantcher said, confirmation playing on his face. “Holy shit, I had a feeling that was you.”

  Dwyer said nothing.

  “They’re going to be coming to me now, asking,” Gantcher whined. “Investigating. They’ve already called …”

  “Well, you’ve got nothing to worry about, ain’t you? Your bloody hands are clean. Now what about it? My money.”

  “The thing is, you see,” Gantcher started, “the insurance policies on the development-they were lapsed.”

  “The fuck do you mean ‘lapsed’?”

  “There was a bookkeeping error. A shortfall. Damn it, I’ll tell you, it’s the same thing I told you before. I’m tapped. My company is tapped. You know how expensive fire, loss, and liability insurance is on a job of that scale? I couldn’t pay the premium, and now …” Actual anger flared in the man and replaced his fear for a moment. “You really dicked me over here, Dwyer. You burned my damn job! How am I supposed to finish-”

  “Huck up!” Dwyer said, jumping out of the chair and putting the fear right back into Gantcher. “How the fuck were you gonna finish the job in the first place, if you couldn’t even pay the insurance?”

  “All right, all right,” Gantcher said, backing up, “fair enough.” A moment passed. “So where do we go from here?”

  Dwyer took a slip of paper from his pocket and thrust it into Gantcher’s hand. “Wiring instructions. A blind account in the Isle of Man. My name’s not on it. If you don’t want to see me again, have the money in there within forty-eight hours. And hear me on this, you damned jeefe: you don’t want to see me again.”

  Gantcher nodded, his eyes on the slip of paper. Dwyer headed straight for the bedroom’s grand double doors, pulled a sleeve over the hand that gripped the knob, and headed out and down the stairs. He descended a wide staircase and let his heels ring brazenly against the marble of the vaulted foyer.

  Dwyer exited through the front door, like a boulevardier out for a stroll, where he rabbit punched the closer of the two guards in the back of the head. They were the same two lummoxes he’d seen at the casino. On shift for too long-which was something only an amateur would do-they were rendered too tired to be sharp. The man went out and down, straightaway, landing on his face with a crunch that meant new dental work. Dwyer caught the second one, just turning in surprise, around the body and rocked him into a wicked harai goshi-a sweeping hip throw-that had him flying through the air briefly before being viciously deposited on the stone steps headfirst. The man’s face and chin took the brunt of the fall. Dwyer was already down the driveway to the street and in his car before they even started to move.

  51

  You’re sand in the gears.

  Behr recalled hearing varying versions of this complaint his whole career, and while he understood it conceptually, seemed powerless to change when he needed to. He made his way on a tender ankle from the car through the near-midnight dark to his place.

  “Are you okay? What the hell happened to you?” Susan asked the minute he walked in the door, bringing him out of his thoughts. Between the stink of smoke on him, the soot on his face, and the bandaged hands, there was no chance he was getting off without an explanation.

  “Nothing to worry about, I’m fine,” he said. “There was a fire.”

  “I see there was a fire. Where? What kind of fire?” she demanded.

  “I was … looking to do an interview … and a device went off.”

  “A device?”

  “I believe they call them improvised explosive devices.”

  “Jesus, Frank! What’s going on here?”

  Her question was straightforward enough, but he knew where his answer would lead the conversation.

  “What do you mean?”

  They stood there, eyes locked, for a moment-and then she plunged ahead. “I know you’re working the shooting,” she said. “Okay? I know.” The look on his face asked “how?” and she continued. “The other day when you were in the shower I opened your notebook.” Even though it was beside the point, the admission caused him to see red.

  “Why are you opening my notebook?” he asked with some heat.

  “Why are you pursuing this thing when they told you not to?”

  “Because I want to know,” he said, his decibel level rising. “And because no one tells me what to do.”

  “That’s great, Frank. And what about us-me and the baby? You have responsibilities now-”

  “I was shot at, Susan-”

  “I know you were. And it makes me sick that I could have lost you. Which is why I was hoping you’d walk away from it and just leave it alone.”

  “Well, I can’t,” he said.

  A thought occurred to her and she looked into his face. “You’re doing this because you’re bored.”

  “Bored?”

  “That’s right. With the grind of the Caro job. With the suit and the BlackBerry and the bosses and the supervision. Maybe with me. Our life …”

  “You’ve got to be kidding, Suze,” he said.

  “Then tell me it’s not true,” she said.

  “Not the part about you.”

  “And the rest of it?”

  He couldn’t answer. Not in a way that wouldn’t blow things up between them like the firebomb he’d just survived. So he bit down and didn’t say another word for a good minute or two.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice at its quietest register, “but I can’t break off now. I’m close to finding some things out, and then I can hand it off to the police and it’ll be done. Then it’ll be nose to the grindstone. I promise you that.”

  It was between them now, like a boulder, but she chose to relent.

  “How are your hands? Do they hurt?” she asked, touching him softly on his arm.

  “No, they just itch right now,” he said.

  “Can I do anything for you?” she offered. He shook his head. “All right then, I’m going to bed.”

  “Fine,” he said, “I’ll be in with you in a few minutes.”

  The smart move would’ve been to go off to bed with Susan right then, to reassure her that he was as reasonable and responsible a choice in a partner as she could possibly want. But he hadn’t had time to run the partial plate on that Lincoln he’d seen earlier, so he sat down and started in on the Illinois Department of Motor Vehicles database. It was an uphill climb with only half the digits he needed, but he kept trying. He also ached to head out and brace Lenny Barne
s, to interview Lori the escort, to learn more. But he held himself back from pushing that course, because if he pumped Lenny Barnes it would invariably track back to Caro and likely cause the video of Potempa’s daughter to go viral, destroying the man. Behr just couldn’t do it to the guy.

  At the ninety-minute mark, he had made some minor progress and realized he wasn’t going to get much further. His best guess was that the Illinois-plated Lincoln was registered to the largest rental car company in the world. He could farm out cracking the company’s database to a hacker, but in the end, the car would likely come up rented to an alias. That was if his guess was even right, and it wasn’t one of the dozens of private Illinois citizens who owned the same vehicle.

  Behr shut down his computer. His hands had progressed from itching to stinging, and were now throbbing, along with his head. He picked up the phone and called over to the hospital where they’d taken the shooter.

  “I’m not supposed to release this, so please don’t share it with anyone,” the duty nurse said after he’d explained who he was, “but since you tried to save the guy, I’m sorry to tell you our burned John Doe expired of shock and burn trauma.”

  Behr thanked her and hung up the phone. His night was over.

  52

  The isolated telephone interface, better known as a tap, was a nifty piece of equipment; just a little box that clipped into the telephone line where it entered the house and allowed him to listen to conversations via his laptop. It was true, no one used landlines much these days, but Dwyer had the frequency sweeper and signal intercept pieces to monitor mobile phone calls as well. The only tricky part was placing the box. In days past it would have been a broad daylight operation with a team that could have posed as utility workers with dummy uniforms and trucks and the like. Now he was solo, and all props kept to a minimum, so he was left with the dead of night. He’d stolen out of a copse of scrappy trees and across a dirt-patch rear lawn in dark clothing and balaclava, the Ceska tucked in his belt, and went to work, hoping that Teague wasn’t on his game and that he didn’t end up with a hot round behind his ear.

  Dwyer doubted he would. It had been three years since they’d met at the hotel bar in Dublin during the World Wide Detective Association’s annual convention. Dwyer wasn’t a member of the WWDA, but he often ducked into the city where it held its yearly event. It was as close to marketing as he could get in his profession. Certain members of the organization knew of him and referred him to their fellows who were in need of some off-the-books assistance. Carrolton, a longtime friend from the service, would then get the call and broker the meeting.

  Besides, Teague didn’t even know it was Dwyer he’d met. The man had been under the impression he was Carrolton, Dwyer’s representative. There was a Carrolton, of course, but Dwyer had wanted to meet Teague himself while preserving his anonymity. What he’d learned in the sit-down was that the old Fed was big as a half beef, and he liked his whiskey. He’d drained a good four or five Tullamore Dews during the meeting, which had just been a general introductory chat with no specific job discussed. Dwyer’s experience was that that type of drinking, if it didn’t stay the same, generally only went in one direction over time, and that was more, so he imagined the old boy would be pretty hard to wake in the middle of the night. All the same, he had treaded lightly. He’d known too many lawmen’s wives who slept like sparrows and were plenty handy with the family shotgun.

  Before long Dwyer had the line tap placed and was back in the car, which he drove around the corner to a place where he could receive the signal. He’d waited while the sun took its time getting up, as did the ex-Fed and his family. The program on his laptop chimed to life, but it was only to hear Mrs. Teague ring a friend for afternoon plans. Two of the four kids made calls, one about meeting a friend before school, the other about something that happened on a television program the night before.

  Four bloody kids, Dwyer thought, no wonder the ex-Fed needed a few extra bob …

  He’d been hoping to pick up a transmission that would mention Kolodnik’s location, a vulnerability, either right then or at some point later on, but he got no such break. It was with irritation that Dwyer watched the ex-Fed and his whole damned family set off for their day.

  “Fuckin’ ’ell,” he said aloud, and realized that even a few years ago working all night and coming up with nothing would’ve rolled right off his back. He was getting old, he supposed, and still in need of that kip, too. But it would still have to wait. He needed to head out for the airport, which he’d do after a quick shower at the shite hole. He put the car in gear.

  53

  “Ms. Miroslav,” Frank Behr said, as a woman carrying a purse and a briefcase arrived at her office.

  Olga Miroslav was pretty and dark haired and quite surprised to see Behr sitting in her cubicle at the main branch of Payroll Place. John Lutz had been surprised too that morning when he got the crack-of-dawn call from Behr asking for the interview. He was as happy to arrange for Behr’s admittance to the offices as Ms. Miroslav seemed miserable when she learned why Behr was there.

  “How would you describe your duties?” Behr asked once she’d put down her things and settled.

  “I chart the pickups at our clients’ businesses and design the routes for the armored cars,” she said with a bit of a Slavic accent. “And schedule drop-offs and bank deposits also.”

  “You do all this by hand, using maps?” Behr asked, though he already knew the answer.

  “No, the computer does it. There’s a mapping program. I just input it,” she told him.

  “And then if you need to make any changes …?” Behr wondered.

  “I tweak it after the computer makes the route,” she said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Road construction. Businesses closed for holidays. Things the computer don’t know about.”

  “I understand you have visitors to the office sometimes,” Behr said, changing course with some information he’d picked up yakking around with her coworkers before her arrival, seeing if it threw her. “That you have lunch down in the cafeteria with a Salvatore Rueben.”

  “Sally is my boyfriend,” she said, nodding, looking uncomfortable with the topic. She wore fairly heavy base makeup, but her color was mottling beneath it.

  “I see,” Behr said, making a note. He was writing for effect, to let her see him documenting the conversation. “And what does Sally do?”

  “For a living?” she asked.

  “Yes. Does he have an employer?” Behr inquired.

  “He’s … self-employed.”

  “I see. What’s his business?”

  “He’s in … distribution.”

  Behr didn’t have to ask what he distributed. He’d run Sally Rueben after discovering the restraining orders and the guy had drug arrests. To complete the investigation properly, Behr would have to finish the backgrounds, interview a dozen other potentials, to rule many things out. And maybe he would when he had time, but for now he noticed Ms. Miroslav’s hands were shaking.

  54

  A whore in the morning was rarely a pretty sight, and this one was no exception. In fact, she proved the rule. Behr had felt he should get in to the office and show his face, but leaving Payroll Place down in the wholesale district he realized the address Sunny had texted him for her friend Lori was close by. Unlike speaking directly to Barnes, he believed he could explore the connection of this “certain investigator” and Kolodnik’s camp without mentioning Potempa, or his daughter, and then make a retreat. Or maybe he was just telling himself that so he could go get what he needed. Either way, he reached McCrea Street and the old industrial building that had been converted to high-dollar loft apartments. He made his way inside as a food delivery kid exited, took the elevator to the fourth floor, and set to banging on the large steel door for a while before he heard a muffled female voice from inside.

  “Keep it in your pants … Just a sec …” she said.

  A deadbolt lock bar clanged o
pen and the door rolled to the side, revealing a woman who wouldn’t look young for long. She’d slept in her makeup, and there’d been a lot of it. Her eyes were caked in black smudge, her lips smeared red, and concealer rubbed off in patches revealed purple blotches and acne pits. Whatever mask she’d applied the night before was long gone. She was rank with cigarette smoke, dead cherry perfume, and body sweat. It was a wonder people paid for this. But her body was shapely and her flesh looked firm, and she hadn’t hit thirty, which was a kind of magic elixir to some men.

  “Hey. Can I help you with something?” she asked.

  “Invite me in,” Behr said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to talk to you.”

  “Oh shit, cop?” she wondered.

  “Nope.”

  “If you’re not a cop, you are some kind of law guy, no?” she said.

  Behr nodded. “I could use your insights on something,” he said.

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “You’re not,” Behr said, “yet.” Then he went to a leverage point that worked on every prostitute he’d ever met. “But my partner is over at Lenny Barnes’s place with his foot on the scumbag’s head, and if you don’t help, my partner’s gonna squash him like a grape.”

  She swallowed and stepped aside, letting him enter.

  “Look, just be cool with Lenny. I’ll help you as much as I can,” she said. The pimp victimized his women-emotionally, financially, often physically-but the psychological bond was deep, and the women stood up for these parasites, even when it cost them everything. Sometimes even their lives. The door rolled and clanged shut behind him.