Denouement

by E. H. Reinhard

  Erik took the money, pulled the rubber band from the stack, and began counting.

  “It’s all there,” Ray said.

  “I’m sure it is.” Erik continued to count to the last bill and then jammed the wad of cash into his pocket. “I’ll go get your merchandise. Do you want it in here, or do you want it out in your car?”

  “In here is fine,” Ray said.

  Erik walked outside, pulled two large black canvas bags from the back of his van, and headed back in. He set the bags on the floor before Ray and unzipped them.

  Ray rummaged through the assortments of handguns and assault rifles. “Any Desert Eagles?” Ray asked.

  Erik shook his head. “No. Four AK-47s, two SKS and MAK-90s, three TEC-9s, and some miscellaneous throwaway pistols. Everything the aspiring street thug could want,” Erik said.

  Ray removed one of the TEC-9 semiautomatic pistols and turned it in his hand. The serial number was gone.

  “All three of the TEC-9s are the same. Thirty-two round magazines and converted to full auto. They should be pretty easy to dump for a couple grand each. Very desirable,” Erik said.

  “Shells for any of these?” Ray asked.

  “I’ll leave you with a couple boxes. But everything in there should be ready to go.”

  “Okay,” Ray said.

  Ray zipped the bags back up and moved them to the corner of the room between the bed and wall.

  “Are we all good?” Erik asked.

  “Yeah, that should be it,” Ray said.

  “Okay. I’ll grab you those shells.” Erik turned and started for the door.

  Ray took a couple quick steps around the edge of the bed after him. Ray’s hands left his sides as he started to reach toward Erik’s neck.

  Erik stopped with his hand on the doorknob. He turned back quickly toward Ray, who was still advancing.

  Ray stopped dead.

  Erik stared at him for a moment. “Um…” Erik paused. “I have to say, Ray, seeing you like this just doesn’t feel right to me.”

  “What do you mean?” Ray asked.

  “You pushing guns on the street for cash. You holed up like this. I’m assuming that shitbox Toyota out front is what you’re driving. It’s not sitting right.”

  “It is what it is. I need to do what I can.”

  “You don’t have anyone who can help?”

  “Everyone got scared of the heat and took off,” Ray said. “It seems loyalty goes out the window as soon as the feds come sniffing.”

  “Feds? What’s going on?” Erik was quiet for a moment. “Should I be worried?”

  “No. It’s unrelated.”

  Erik’s face said he was thinking. “Well, I don’t know exactly what you’ve got going on down here or what,” Erik paused, “but your brother, and you, have always been good to me. I’ve made a lot of money because of you two. Here,” Erik said. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the cash Ray had given him for the guns, and tossed it to him. “Take the guns as a gift. I don’t want your money.”

  “Are you sure?” Ray asked.

  Erik let out a breath and nodded. “Just call me when you get back on your feet.”

  “I will,” Ray said.

  “Let me grab you those shells. I’ll be right back.” Erik twisted the knob and left the room.

  Ray sat back down on the edge of the bed and waited. He heard the sound of a motor firing and tires chirping. He lunged to the window, swatted the curtains and blinds to the side, and looked out. The back tires of Erik’s van were smoking as it sped from the motel’s entrance.

  “Shit!” Ray shouted.

  Chapter 21

  Hank and I sat next to Terry at a workstation in the tech department. The SIM card of the phone we’d found at the condo was plugged into a reader attached to a cord coming from a computer. Terry clicked a few buttons and leaned back in his chair. “This should only take a minute or so,” he said. “Every call that came and went should still be on here.”

  I nodded and stared at the computer monitor. Just as Terry said, the screen showed the telephone numbers within a minute—just six calls made, and one incoming.

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  “That’s it.”

  “When were these made?” I asked.

  “It looks like they were all from today.” Terry pointed at the date and time next to each call made. He clicked the icon on the computer screen to print the page.

  I stared at the numbers before me. Hank went to the printer to grab the sheet, brought it back, and handed it to me.

  “The last one there, the incoming one, belongs to Faust. We need to find who these other six belong to,” I said. After setting down the sheet of paper with the numbers in front of me, I took my pen from my pocket and wrote Faust next to the top number.

  “Well, let’s take a look and see,” Terry said. “I’ll start with the latest calls first.”

  He began searching each number one by one.

  A knock came on the office door. It swung open, and Pax stuck his head in. “The prints from the phone came back as Andrei Azarov. Same as the glass from the sink.”

  “Thanks, Pax,” I said.

  He nodded and closed the door.

  “The second to last number called here is a land line that comes back to a business listed as Chicagoland Firearm and Supply,” Terry said.

  I wrote the business name next to the number. “Never heard of it or saw it in anything relating to the Azarovs,” I said.

  “What would Ray be calling a gun place in Chicago for?” Hank asked.

  “It could be where he’s headed if he’s getting out of town. I’ll run it past Faust when I call him. Let’s get to the rest here,” I said.

  “The next one up is a cell phone from Zap Mobile—prepaid, I’m guessing. No name attached.”

  I wrote it down. The next three results were the same—Zap Mobile prepaids.

  Terry punched in the last number. “Miami area code. It’s a cell phone,” he said.

  “I’m betting it belongs to the former sergeant, Ivan Blok,” I said.

  “What makes you think that?” Hank asked.

  “It’s probably how he knew exactly where Azarov was. He talked to him this morning. Give me a second.”

  I dialed Harrington at the Miami Dade PD. Within a minute, he confirmed the number as belonging to Blok. I asked him about the Chicago gun store. He said he’d never heard of it. I thanked him and hung up. Then I wrote Ivan Blok’s name next to the number.

  “So all we have to work on is the Chicago gun store?” Hank asked.

  “Can we try to use our GPS tracking for the other numbers, Terry?” I asked.

  “I can try, sure.”

  Hank and I waited as he plugged in each prepaid number. We didn’t get a GPS signal from any of them—a dead end.

  “Okay, thanks for the help, Terry,” I said. “I’m going to go call Faust and see if he can do anything with the numbers. I also want to dig into this Chicago gun place and see what I can turn up.”

  “No problem, Kane. Let me know if I can do anything else.”

  “Sure.” I folded up the list of phone numbers and slipped them in my pocket with my notepad.

  Hank and I left tech and headed back upstairs. He went to his desk, me to my office. I took a seat behind my desk and grabbed the phone. The voicemail light was flashing, so I clicked the button for it to play and heard a message from Kathy, our realtor. She said the inspection had gone off without a hitch. The short version was the place couldn’t have been in better shape if it had just been built, but the inspector had a full write up for Callie and me. Her message ended with her asking how we would like to proceed. I hit Erase and dialed Callie, who picked up within a few rings.

  “Hey, hon,” she said.

  “Hey. How are you guys doing?” I asked.

  “Fine. This baby is kicking like you wouldn’t believe. I was thinking if it’s a girl, we should name her after your mother.”

  I smiled. “And
if it’s a boy?” I asked.

  “I’d say we could name him after you, but then he’d share his name with a restaurant chain. Maybe John, after your father.”

  “I can’t argue with either selection if that’s what you want.”

  “Good. Settled. Any news on when we can come home? Do we even know that Ray coming after us is a possibility? I mean, he was around for quite a bit without us knowing, and he didn’t come after us. We shouldn’t have to put all of our lives on hold on a ‘what if,’ you know?”

  “I know, Cal. I don’t like having you guys hiding out either. Sticking you guys up there was just a precaution. Give me another day here, and we’ll figure something out.”

  “Okay.”

  “So I just got a message from Kathy.”

  “And?” she asked.

  I tapped my fingertips on the top of my desk. “The place checked out fine. Better than fine, from the way her message sounded,” I said.

  “So, what do we want to do?”

  “Are you in love with the place?” I asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Do you want it?”

  “We want it,” Callie said.

  I let out a long breath. “Okay. Should we have Kathy put in our offer?”

  “Yes!”

  I heard Callie yelling to my family that we were putting an offer in on the house.

  She came back to the phone. “Carl, can you imagine us living there? Oh my God, I’m so excited.”

  I smiled. “They need to accept our offer first.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Oh my God! I can’t wait.”

  I laughed. “All right, all right, let me call Kathy.”

  “This is so cool. Call me later. I love you, I love you, I love you.” She made kissing sounds into the phone before hanging up.

  The only other time I’d heard her that excited was when I asked her to marry me. I dialed Kathy and put in our offer. She said the number sounded as though it would be accepted. I hung up and sat in silence for a bit, my heart pounding. I could barely believe the dollar amount that had just come from my mouth.

  I realized I had to push my personal matters back for a minute. Until Azarov was in custody, everything would remain in limbo.

  I dialed Faust, but the call went to his voicemail. I pulled the paper from my pocket and left him a message with the phone numbers we’d pulled from the SIM card. I told him to call me when he could.

  I stared down at my sheet of paper. We weren’t going to get anything from the prepaids, and the only call other than the gun place had gone to Blok. I slid my fingertip to the business name and number of the gun store. I leaned forward in my chair and woke up my computer to search the name of the store, and a website came up right away. I clicked the link and was taken to the page. It looked professional enough. I clicked through the links to the About page and found a photo of a man standing in a gun store. The page didn’t list his name or any kind of bio. It contained only generic nonsense about providing quality firearms at affordable prices.

  I looked at the phone number on the website’s page. It was the same as on my sheet. I took my cell phone from my pocket, blocked the ID, and dialed. It rang.

  A recorded message said, “Hello, you’ve reached Erik with Chicagoland Firearm and Supply. The store will be closed the eighth through the seventeenth while I attend the US Firearms Convention in Atlanta. For orders and status on your orders, you can press one to be directly put through to my mobile phone.”

  I clicked End and set my cell phone on my desk. The voice on the answering machine had carried a hint of a Russian accent.

  I searched “US Firearm Convention”, and the results came up right away. The convention in Atlanta had just concluded. I dialed the gun shop and listened to the recording again. The wording of the message sounded as if the place was a one-man operation. I debated pressing the one key to get this guy on the phone, but I resisted, hung up, and rocked back in my chair. I needed some kind of a plan. I cracked my neck from side to side, thinking, and the beginnings of a plan came together. I stood from my desk and looked out into the bullpen. I spotted Officer Denise Benjamin, a female patrol officer in her late twenties. I walked to my door and leaned out.

  “Benjamin, anything pressing at the moment?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No. What’s up, Lieutenant?”

  I waved her toward my office and went back to my desk.

  She walked in a moment later. “Need something?”

  “Yeah, grab a seat.”

  She pulled out one of my guest chairs and plopped down.

  “Do you have your cell phone on you?” I asked.

  “Um, yeah, why?” she asked.

  “I need you to make a phone call for me.”

  “Ah, okay. Who and what for?” she asked.

  “The place I want you to call is a gun store located in Chicago. On their answering system, they have a prompt to be connected to the owner’s cell phone. I need you to try to get the guy on the phone and get his cell-phone number.”

  She scratched the side of her face. “Do you want me to act like I’m a buyer or something?” she asked.

  “That would probably work,” I said. “Ask for a callback number, maybe?”

  She smiled and nodded. “I’ll give the guy the ‘I’m a dumb girl looking to buy a gun for my husband’ or something.”

  “Perfect,” I said.

  She pulled her cell phone from her pocket. “What’s the number?” she asked.

  “Block the caller ID first,” I said.

  “Okay.”

  I read the number off to her. She put her cell phone on speaker, and the recording picked up. Officer Benjamin pressed the one key.

  “Chicagoland Firearm and Supply,” a man answered. His voice was crackly. Music was playing in the background at his end of the call, along with static. It sounded as if he was driving.

  “Um, hi. I’m looking to get a price on a firearm,” Officer Benjamin said.

  “Sure, what are you looking for, ma’am?” he asked.

  “Ah, I have it written down here somewhere. One second. Sorry, I’m not too knowledgeable about guns. This is going to be a gift for my husband.”

  “No problem,” the man said.

  “Okay, it’s a Glock twenty-six.”

  “He’s looking for a concealed-carry firearm?”

  “Correct, yes,” she said.

  “Okay. I could do that for six hundred.”

  “Oh, okay. Six hundred is pretty good. Now, your message at the store said you were out of town. If I wanted to do this, is it something you’d have there or have to order?”

  “That’s something I have in stock.”

  “Okay. And if I wanted to come and look at it, the store will be back open on Monday?”

  “It’s looking like Wednesday now, actually. I planned to be back by Sunday night but decided to take a few personal days in Florida. I guess I’m not quite ready to be back in the gray Chicago spring yet.” He let out a chuckle.

  I nodded my head when he said Florida and motioned for Officer Benjamin to keep him talking.

  “I know, this winter just won’t break. Um, while I have you on the phone, I actually have one more pistol that I’d like to get a quote on. I think this is actually the one that he really wants, but it seems a little harder to find locally, and it’s kind of pricey.”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s a Kimber Super Carry Pro.”

  “That’s a fine firearm, but I’d have to order it. Give me just a second, and I’ll get you a quote.”

  “All right.”

  The man didn’t speak for a minute or more. The faint sound of music and wind noise remained.

  He came back on. “It looks like that one is going to be around sixteen hundred.”

  “Yeah, that seems to be the going price, I guess. Okay. If I wanted you to order the expensive one, how long would it take?”

  “A week or two, I’m guessing.”

  “Great, I could sti
ll get it before his birthday. Um, I actually have one more place to call. Do you have a direct number I could reach you at if I wanted to go ahead and get that one ordered?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll just give you my cell number.”

  “Perfect,” she said with a smile.

  He rattled off his number, and I wrote it down. She thanked him and hung up.

  Officer Benjamin looked at me. “How did I do?” she asked.

  “Perfect. Good job on throwing the Kimber out there,” I said.

  “My husband has been shopping for a concealed carry. He runs a couple guns a day past me for my opinion. The Kimber he asked me about last night.”

  I ripped the page from my notepad and stood. “Thanks, Denise. I need to go get this number to the guys in tech.”

  “No problem,” she said.

  I folded the sheet of numbers we’d gotten from Ray’s phone back up and put them with my notepad in my pocket. I followed Denise out from my office and then headed toward the elevators.

  “Kane,” Bostok called.

  I stopped and turned back. Captain Bostok leaned from his doorway. I walked back toward him.

  He nodded his head at the paper in my hand. “I just walked back in the office. I was upstairs in a meeting. What did you get from the condo?”

  “Azarov wasn’t there, but we got his prints on a cell phone and a glass in the sink.”

  “Anything on the cell we can use?”

  “Only a few numbers dialed. All dead ends except for the one I’m still digging into.”

  He motioned for me to continue.

  “There was a number called this morning to a landline for a gun store in Chicago. The message on the machine said the store was closed until Monday. I just had Benjamin from patrol get the store owner on the phone. He said he was in Florida. I had her get the guy’s cell-phone number. I was heading down to tech to try to get a GPS location on it.”

  “Okay. This will just take a second, and you can get back to it.”

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “I was upstairs talking with the brass. I just wanted to tell you that your oral boards are scheduled. Next week Friday is the day.”

  “Shit. Okay. That’s sooner than I expected. I’ll have to try to jam it in between everything.”

  “Do whatever you need to do, to try to wrap up this Azarov thing. If you need to get Jones and Donner helping, let me know. You’ll want at least a solid day uninterrupted, at minimum, to prepare for the boards. You can’t just mail this in.”