‘You double parked?’ Vincent asked.
‘What?’
‘You in a hurry?’
‘No, I was just—’
‘Relax, Denny,’ Vincent said. ‘Enjoy your beer.’
Wargo looked to Jessica. Another nervous smile. Jessica began to wonder if Denny Wargo was cut out for this business. On the other hand, he wasn’t selling heroin or crack. The worlds of hallucinogens and hard-core street drugs were night and day.
Thirty minutes later they stood at the back of the small parking lot next to The Ark. The temperature had dropped. Jessica wished she had worn something other than her leather jacket.
‘So,’ Wargo said. ‘You’re looking for ‘shrooms.’
Vincent nodded. ‘Luis said you’ve got some satori.’
‘The best there is.’ Wargo looked up the street, back. ‘But they’re expensive.’
Vincent held the man’s stare for an uncomfortable amount of time. He then reached into the front pocket of his jeans, pulled a roll that could choke a Clydesdale.
Wargo’s eyes widened. He reached into his pocket, took out a twist of baggie, handed it to Vincent. When Vincent didn’t hand him any money, he knew.
‘You’re not Hector and Marta, are you?’
Vincent smiled. ‘Man, haven’t you ever seen Scarface?’
Wargo shook his head. ‘Damn, man. I knew I’d heard those names together somewhere.’
They were talking about the scene when Al Pacino, as Tony Montana, goes up to the motel room to meet with the Colombians. The woman on the bed – the hard-looking woman with the machine gun – was called Marta. Jessica wasn’t thrilled with the casting decision, but she’d done enough undercover work to know you take the role given, and do your best.
Jessica loved Al Pacino, but she’d never understood the appeal of that movie.
‘Man, I asked if you were cops.’
‘And I told you the truth.’
‘Am I busted?’ Wargo asked.
Vincent gave the question the appropriate weight. ‘That depends.’
A look of relief came across Wargo’s face. It turned quickly into one of concern. ‘On what?’ he asked.
‘The answer to my next question.’
‘Okay.’
‘I need to know who has bought this recently.’
‘The satori?’
‘Yes, Denny. The Schedule One, illegal narcotic I have in my hand at this moment.’
‘Nobody.’
‘And why is that?’
‘It’s a little bit beyond the college crowd, price-wise. And Pink Floyd isn’t touring.’
The joke, if that’s what it was, fell flat.
‘How did my guy get this drug, Denny? We’re not going to part company until this question is answered to my complete satisfaction.’
Wargo took a few seconds. ‘The only way to get this cheaper is to grow it yourself, but growing mushrooms is not that easy, okay? It’s really easy to catch a mold, then the whole batch goes south.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘There are a few things that people need to start a grow. Syringes and substrates. I sell those, too.’
Vincent said nothing. Wargo kept talking.
‘There is this one guy I’ve sold syringes and some satori substrates, too.’
‘More than once?’
Wargo nodded. ‘More than once.’
‘What does this tell you?’
‘It tells me he’s no chemist.’
‘Who is this guy?’
‘Just a guy,’ Wargo said. ‘Young fella. Name is Mercy or something.’
‘Mercy?’
Wargo shrugged. ‘What do I know? You told me your name was Hector.’
Vincent let the attitude slide for the moment. ‘How young?’
‘A freshman, maybe. Maybe a sophomore.’
‘He goes to Penn or Drexel?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How did he find you?’
‘How does anyone find me? How did you guys find me? A guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.’
‘How does he get hold of you?’
Wargo held up his phone. ‘He has my cell number.’
‘When was the last time he called?’
‘Maybe a month ago,’ Wargo said.
Vincent held out his hand. Wargo started to roll his eyes, thought better of it. He handed over his cell phone.
Vincent began to scroll through recent calls. ‘About when was this?’
Wargo thought for a few seconds. ‘Late October.’
‘Remember the day of the week?’
Wargo snapped his fingers. ‘I do. Funny the way you remember things.’
Vincent looked up, waited. ‘It’s much funnier when you answer the question, Denny.’
‘It was a Saturday.’
‘And you remember this how?’
‘I get my daughter on weekends.’
Jessica could see that her husband wanted to mention that this guy was doing drug deals on the phone while he had custody of his daughter, but he’d save that for later.
‘When did you get the call?’ Vincent asked.
‘Afternoon,’ Wargo said. ‘Late. Three or four.’
Vincent went to the second last Saturday in October. He showed Wargo the screen, scrolled slowly down. There were a dozen incoming calls between three and five p.m.
‘That’s it,’ he said, pointing to one of the numbers, a 215 area code, meaning it was Philadelphia metropolitan.
‘You’re sure.’
‘Yeah,’ Wargo said. ‘I know all the others.’
Vincent wrote down the number. If Jessica knew her husband – one of the most feared narcotics detectives in the city – she knew that he memorized another half-dozen numbers from Wargo’s phone. It was an uncanny ability he had.
Rule one for drug dealers, Jessica thought: Never hand your phone to a narco unless you have to.
Vincent handed the phone back, let Wargo twist for a few seconds.
‘Can you describe this guy to a sketch artist?’ Vincent finally asked.
For Wargo, the night just got worse. He looked across the parking lot for a second or two. Vincent Balzano, at his most patient, was like a Rottweiler looking at a brisket. That is, not so much.
He grabbed Wargo by the wrist. ‘All right. Let’s go.’
‘Wait!’ Wargo said. ‘Yeah, okay. I can describe him.’
Vincent pulled the man close. ‘Fuck with me one more second, Denny. One second.’
‘I’m sorry.’
After the right amount of time, Vincent let go. He then reached into his pocket, handed Wargo one of his blue cards. Blue cards, while not technically a get-out-of-jail card, when presented meant that Vincent would get a call the next time Wargo ran afoul of the law, and was caught at it. Might never happen. Probably would.
‘This is a one-time only call,’ Vincent said. ‘If you fuck up too badly, or you sell to kids, I will personally supervise your trip to hell.’
Wargo just stared at the ground.
Vincent continued. ‘You are now going to drive to the Roundhouse. We will follow you, and walk you in. When you’re there, you will give a highly detailed description to our sketch artist.’
Wargo listened.
‘Run one stop sign, or make one funky turn, and the next year of your life will look like Scared Straight. Feel me?’
Wargo nodded.
‘Say it out loud.’
‘I feel you.’
‘That’s the Denny Wargo we have all come to know and love,’ Vincent said. ‘Which one is your car?’
Wargo pointed to a ten-year-old Taurus. Jessica had spent half her time in the department in one just like it. Truly glamorous. Maybe the ‘shroom business wasn’t so good.
Vincent nodded to the driveway leading to 52nd Street. ‘We’ll be right there.’
Wargo turned to leave. Vincent put a hand on his arm.
‘By the way,’ Vincent said. ‘They are touring.’
‘Pink Floyd. Next summer. Let me know if you need tickets. I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.’
40
At ten o’clock the next morning Byrne received a call from the Loss Prevention manager of the Cheltenham Avenue Home Depot. While Jessica followed up on the doll they had found at the Gillen crime scene, Byrne took a ride back to the big box store.
The morning’s status report included the information that Jessica and Vincent had gotten the night before, that being the name ‘Mercy,’ a suspect sketch, and a phone number, which turned out to be a pay phone at a gas station near the West Ridge Pike exit on the Blue Route.
These were all long shots – the possibility that the man who purchased the mushroom-growing accessories from the dealer was not the man they sought, or was simply someone who grew the mushrooms, and sold them to someone else, was likely – but every lead needed to be followed. There was, at that moment, a detective from West Division sitting on the pay phone, and the homicide unit was running the name ‘Mercy’ through NCIC.
While at the Home Depot, in addition to watching the surveillance footage, Byrne decided to pick up twenty-five gallons of exterior paint for his new house, an order Josh Bontrager promised to pick up later in the day. Josh drove a Subaru Forrester.
While Byrne was there he had a brief conversation with one Donte Williams, the young man who had mixed the gallon of Candlelight. Donte said he recalled mixing the paint, but couldn’t remember the customer. He said the reason for this was that the customer probably knew exactly what he wanted. If he’d had to do some selling, it would be more likely that he’d remember.
If it had been a woman – any woman – Donte said he’d remember. He was asked to sit in when Byrne watched the surveillance video.
The manager of the Loss Prevention office at Home Depot was Tony Walton. African American, in his mid-fifties, Walton was a gregarious man in a job that would surely chew up and spit out anyone who thought they would eliminate the petty theft at a store with over ten thousand items on its shelves, a lot of it able to fit in a pocket.
Gregarious, however, did not mean he was an easy mark. Even in the short time they spoke, Byrne could see that nothing slipped by Tony Walton.
They met in the cluttered security room, where there were a half-dozen monitors, showing two dozen vantage points in and around the busy store.
Walton offered coffee; Byrne accepted. It was surprisingly good for hardware store java. They sat in front of one of the monitors. Walton took out a book of discs, pulled one that had the date in question written on it in black felt tip pen.
As he slipped it into the optical drive of the desktop computer under the table, Byrne asked, ‘Were you ever on the job?’
Walton nodded. ‘I was,’ he said.
‘Here in Philly?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I was in Pittsburgh.’
‘What squads did you work?’
‘I was a detective in Zone Three.’
‘Do you miss it?’ Byrne asked.
‘Only every day.’
The two men kicked around the vagaries of the job, the life. Then it was time for business.
‘I pulled this from the time frame that the paint you were asking about was mixed,’ Walton said. ‘The time stamp on this video is for three minutes after the paint was mixed.’
‘Are we sure that this subject is buying the Candlelight paint?’
‘We are not,’ Walton said. ‘But I ran the register receipts starting at the same moment the paint was mixed, and moving forward for the next thirty minutes. There were only eight cans of paint purchased in that time, only four of them were gallons. Two of those customers bought a number of other things – plywood, drywall, one bought a space heater. Of the remaining two, only one bought only the paint.’
Byrne took this all in. He was grateful for the work Walton had done, the thought he’d put into this. Once a cop, right?
‘Now this might lead to nothing, but if this is your guy, this will be your guy.’
‘Okay,’ Byrne said.
Donte Williams sauntered into the room.
‘Thanks for finding the time,’ Walton said.
‘Huh?’
Walton turned to Byrne. ‘Ready?’
‘I am.’
‘Here we go.’
Walton hit a key on the computer keyboard, and an image came onto the monitor. The angle was from above and to the left of the checkout line, the one closest to the north exit doors. This was one of the two open lines.
The first man in line had what appeared to be a half-dozen lengths of PVC electrical conduit, along with a Home Depot plastic bucket. Byrne knew that, for some odd reason, Home Depot did not offer its customers handheld shopping baskets. Either they thought baskets were a little too fey for their testosterone-heavy clientele, or they wanted their clientele to accidentally buy an orange bucket on every visit.
The guy with the conduit wasn’t fooled. He looked like a tradesman. He dumped the contents of the bucket on the counter, and put the bucket underneath.
Byrne watched this with casual interest. His focus was on the next man in line. He felt that familiar feeling, that low level electrical current begin to pass through him, that feeling that he might be laying eyes on a suspect for a very first time.
Byrne tapped the monitor. ‘That’s him?’
‘That’s him,’ Walton said.
Byrne turned to Donte. ‘Do you think this might be the guy you mixed the gallon of Candlelight for?’
Donte leaned in, squinted at the monitor. ‘Could be,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. I mix a lot of paint, yo.’
On screen, from above and behind, the man with the paint appeared to be young – early twenties perhaps. He had dark hair, swept back from his forehead. He wore a well-tailored dark overcoat.
When the man with the conduit was finished, the man behind him stepped forward. He put the gallon can of paint on the counter. The young lady behind the counter took it, and swiped her handheld scanner across the bar code on the can’s lid. She didn’t put it in a bag, but instead put on a PAID sticker.
As the man reached into his coat pocket – Byrne noted immediately he did not retrieve his wallet from his pants pocket, but rather from an inside pocket of his coat or suit – he said something to the checkout girl, something that made her smile. Byrne noted that the girl curled one foot behind the other leg, a rather obvious sign that she was being flirted with, or charmed at the very least.
This was the first moment where there might have been a breakthrough. If the man paid for the purchase by credit card, they would have a substantial lead. But there was no such luck.
The man handed her cash, then returned his billfold to his inner coat pocket.
As he walked out of the top of the frame, heading for the exit, he paused for a moment. He set down the can of paint, buttoned his coat, reached into a side pocket and retrieved a pair of gloves. He slipped them on, then once more picked up the can.
At the top of the frame, at the upper left-hand corner, a woman approached him. Byrne could barely see anything, other than she wore a knee-length overcoat, and wore low heels.
The two hesitated a moment, then they were gone.
Walton stopped the recording.
‘Do we have video of them leaving the store?’ Byrne asked.
Walton shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We have cameras on the parking lot, but they only fire when we need them. Keeping video of the lot 24/7 is expensive. This is all we have, I’m afraid.’
He rewound the recording, let it play again. There was no mistake. The man waited for a moment until he was joined by a woman.
Byrne wondered: Wife? Girlfriend? Sister?
The two did not appear to join hands, so it really could be any of the above.
Walton ran the recording one more time, stopped it just as the man crossed the end of the checkout lane. For an instant the man turned to his left, and they saw a very fuzzy pro
file. The subject was white, no older than twenty-five, well dressed. Although they couldn’t be certain, he appeared to be wearing a white shirt and dark tie.
‘What do you think, Donte?’ Walton asked.
Byrne turned to look at Donte. The kid was checking his Twitter feed on his phone. Byrne wanted to give Donte a few hours in the basement of the Roundhouse, just to give him an idea of the importance of this. He decided to let it go for now.
‘Go mix some paint,’ Walton said.
‘Now?’
‘Now.’
Donte sniffed, slow-rolled out of the office.
When he was gone Byrne asked: ‘Can I get a printout of that frame?’
‘You got it.’ Walton hit a few keys. Seconds later the laser printer on the floor beneath the desk came to life. Walton grabbed the printout and handed it to Byrne.
Byrne thanked the man. They made their parting remarks.
At the door Byrne asked: ‘Can I ask a personal question?’
‘Are you really a cop?’
‘I am.’
Walton smiled. ‘Then there’s no such thing as personal.’
‘May I ask how old you are?’
Walton told him. He was younger than Byrne had originally thought. Just a few years older than Byrne, actually.
‘How do you like this job?’ Byrne asked.
Walton shrugged. ‘I’d rather be chasing brown women around Bimini, but it pays the bills. Some of them anyway.’ He fixed Byrne in a knowing look. ‘You want to know what you’re going to do when you take your twenty.’
‘Thirty, actually.’
Walton looked impressed. ‘To tell the truth, I never thought I’d be doing this. What I mean is, you have no idea the volume of theft from a store like this. You learn really quickly what matters here and what doesn’t. I didn’t like being a housecat at first, but the job grows on you.’
On the way out of the store, as Byrne stood at the Pro Desk, paying for his own paint purchase, he glanced up, at the smoked glass dome cameras hanging from the ceiling, wondering if Tony Walton was watching. He also observed the checkout lane where his subject had paid for the Candlelight paint, as well as the door the young man had exited, but not before meeting up with his companion.
The Doll Maker Page 21