Another exchange in Goblin.
"He sure," Ivan said. "Say bitch come to where goblins live, bring meth, want them to kill cop. Some goblins say yes, go off with bitch in big black car – car like one just drove away. Goblins not come back."
Damn right they didn't – thanks to me and Sharkey.
Thorwald. The bitch, indeed. She had hired goblins to kill me. The only reason she'd do that was if she was working for the Church of the True Cross. Their own little double agent inside the FBI. Well, well.
I pulled some bills out of my wallet and handed them to Ivan. "Don't give this to him – he might use it to buy meth someplace. Buy him a reward – some food that goblins like, or something. OK?"
Ivan took the money and put it in his shirt pocket. He looked at me over the back of his seat. "We square now, Markowski – yeah?"
"Yeah, Ivan," I said. "We square."
When I finished telling him what the commando had given up to Lacey, McGuire was smiling – but then the smile faded. He said, "We'll need a warrant to raid the warehouse, and the judge is going to want to know on what basis we're asking for it."
"So tell him we received a tip from a confidential informant," I said. "That's worked before."
"But the confidential informant is Lacey – a cop."
"Yeah, but she isn't a cop in this department, or even in this county. Hell, she isn't even a cop in Wilkes-Barre right now – she's on extended leave."
McGuire rubbed his jaw. "Yeah, I guess."
"Take it to Judge Olszewski, boss – him or Rakauskas. Either one of them will sign the warrant application in a second."
"Hope you're right," he said, and slapped his palms on the desk. "OK, I'll have to alert Dooley, and tell him to have SWAT ready to roll night after tomorrow. And I'm going to assign two detective teams from the squad to go along, for extra manpower. I assume you and Karl want to be one of them."
"Bet your ass we do."
"Where is Karl, anyway?"
"He and Lacey took our prisoner to the Pike County jail. After that, I figure he headed home – the sun'll be up soon. Anyway, we're both on personal time tonight." I grinned at him. "I'm not even supposed to be here."
"OK, then," McGuire said. "We'll send SWAT, plus you and Karl, along with one of the other detective teams. And I'll have to get the Feds in on it, of course."
"No, you won't," I said. "And you shouldn't."
He stared at me. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
I told him about my visit with Ivan and his goblin pal, and what I had learned regarding a certain Federal agent.
"Thorwald," McGuire said, shaking his head. "Jesus fucking Christ. Are you sure?"
"All I'm sure about is what the goblin said, boss. And he didn't seem to have any doubts."
"Shit." McGuire closed his eyes for a second, his brow furrowed. "We can't use what the gob told you as the basis for arresting Thorwald, that's for certain. And there's no chance we'd get away with that 'confidential informant' crap twice in the same day."
"Yeah, I know," I said. "We can't bust her – at least, not yet – but that doesn't mean we have to tell her about the raid. If she knows, the Church will know, and then there's no point in having the fucking raid in the first place. All we'd find is an empty warehouse."
"All right, we'll keep the Feds in the dark, and may the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover have mercy on us. We'll have to keep an eye on Thorwald, as well. That'll be tricky – she knows all the detectives in the squad."
"Why not put Lacey on it?" I asked.
"The same Lacey who isn't a cop these days? That Lacey?"
"She doesn't have to be a cop just to conduct surveillance," I said. "She can testify under oath about whatever she sees, just like any other private citizen. And she's as good at surveillance as anybody we've got available, that's for sure."
"She's not likely to go all Death Wish on Thorwald, is she?" McGuire said with a frown. "The absolute last thing we need is having some Fed burned down by a cop, on leave or not – especially a Fed against whom not a damn thing has been proven yet. Nothing admissible in court, anyway."
"Lacey's got it under control," I said. "If she didn't cross the line with our prisoner, then she's not gonna cross it – period."
"Here's hoping you're right," he said. "OK, put her on it, if she's willing. Surveillance only – be very clear about that."
"I will, boss." I looked at my watch. "Well, I'm not on the clock right now, but if I were, it would be time to go home – or to the Radisson, anyway."
"Yeah, take off," McGuire said. "You've given my ulcer enough to work on for one night."
In the parking lot, I called Lacey – but all I got was her voicemail. Since I wasn't sure when I'd get to talk to her, I laid out as briefly as possible what I wanted her to do. I asked her to get started watching Thorwald as soon as she'd had some rest, and to call me if any problems arose.
As I drove to my palatial accommodations, I was feeling cautiously optimistic about the case. With luck, we were gonna bust a lot of bad guys in less than forty-eight hours, and wouldn't that be sweet?
Yeah, I felt pretty cheerful – that alone should have served as a warning.
I arrived at the Radisson just as the sky was lightening in the east. As soon as the door of my room closed behind me, I knew something was wrong. It took a second or two to realize that it was a smell – an odor both alien and familiar, which hadn't been present in the room when I'd left.
I drew the Beretta and stood, listening. I couldn't hear anything except my pulse pounding in my ears. Then the heater came on automatically, and I almost put three bullets into it.
I took a couple of slow, deliberate breaths, in an effort to tamp the adrenaline down a little. The rising sun had barely reached the window, and my room was still dimly lit. I reached behind me and clicked on the light. Squinting against the glare, I swept my gun across the room, but found nothing to shoot.
The only thing that seemed out of place was on the bed.
My pal Tim had agreed to instruct housekeeping to stay the hell out of my room for the duration of my stay. But someone had been in here, because in the center of the bed, under the blanket, was a lump about the size of a basketball, but irregular in shape.
A bomb? Not too likely. You put a bomb in somebody's bed, the last thing you want is to make it conspicuous.
So if it wasn't a bomb, then what? I approached the bed slowly, gun still in my right hand. I flashed on that scene from The Godfather when the Hollywood producer wakes up to find a very nasty surprise sharing the bed with him. Good thing I didn't own a horse.
I slowly grasped the edge of the covers with one hand, then threw them back in one swift motion. I had my gun trained on the bed before I could register what I was seeing.
His broad-brimmed hat had been knocked askew by my sudden removal of the bedding, but the sunglasses were still in place. The teeth were bared, so it seemed as if Sharkey's head was grinning at me.
I gaped in shock – which is just what I was expected to do. Behind me, the bathroom door clicked open, but I registered the sound just a second too late. I tried to turn, but a strong hand grabbed my gun wrist and an instant later I felt the sting as a needle went into my neck. I struggled for a moment longer, but then I was falling, and the dope worked so fast I never even knew when I hit the floor.
The first thing I realized was that I was cold – not freezingto-death cold, but enough to be uncomfortable. The second thing I noticed was that my ass hurt.
Eventually, I gathered enough of my wits about me to figure out that I was cold because I was in an unheated building with my sports coat off, and my ass hurt because I was sitting on a concrete floor, and probably had been for a while.
Both of those things had to do with the fact that my back was against some kind of wooden pillar with my hands bound behind me. I could feel metal around my wrists, and realized I was handcuffed – probably with my own cuffs. Motherfuckers.
My legs wer
e tied together at the ankles with rope. I squinted for a closer look and saw that the rope was triple-strand nylon – not rare, but not the kind you buy at Sears, either. I've learned a lot about rope in my job.
I thought about the ME's report on the second witch burning. I don't have a photographic memory, but sometimes stuff sticks in my head, whether I want it there or not.
The deceased was secured to the tree in two places with ligatures consisting of triple-strand nylon rope.
Funny, the things you remember – and at the oddest times, too.
Having nothing else to do – unless you count panicking, which I figured I'd save until later – I checked out my surroundings.
I could see because of the double fluorescent light in the ceiling, which flickered as if it was on its last legs. The room was about twelve feet square. My view through the single window was blocked by a dirty white Venetian blind, but a little sunlight leaked through, so I knew it was still daytime.
The red brick walls were chipped and pitted, the mortar crumbling here and there. In one corner was a battered gray file cabinet. Ten feet or so in front of me was a severely functional desk, the kind you'd find in high school homerooms back when I was in school. It had seen better days, too, and so had the vinyl-covered desk chair behind it.
Clearly, this was an office of some kind, or had been. It was what you might expect to find in an old auto repair shop – or maybe a warehouse. I shuddered, and it wasn't because of the cold. The word warehouse had some pretty bad associations for me these days.
There was a plain wooden door to my left, and I happened to be looking in that direction when it opened. A young guy wearing a black turtleneck stuck his head in, looked at me and said, "Good."
He stepped back out, but left the door ajar, so I had no trouble hearing him say, "Mister Wilson – he's awake, sir."
Father Duvall had said that the head honcho of the Church of the True Cross, bigger even than Bishop Navarra, was a rich nut named Patton Wilson. I figured I was about to find out just how nutty he was.
I heard footsteps approaching rapidly, and then a man strode into the room and closed the door behind him. He didn't look crazy – but then, they hardly ever do.
Patton Wilson was probably in his sixties, but there was nothing old about the way he moved around. His iron-gray hair was thick, with a moustache to match. He had a tan, but it was the kind you get from a lot of time spent outdoors, not a bottle. His head was large, and his face took up a lot of territory, but the dark eyes were small and mean, like two raisins in a bowl of rice pudding. He had big hands.
"Sergeant Markowski, I presume." His voice fit the rest of him. It was deep and loud – louder than he needed to be in such a small space.
"You ought to know," I said, "unless you're in the habit of having random guys abducted and brought here."
"They said you were over-fond of your own wit," he said. "Pity that they were right."
He dropped his lean frame into the desk chair and rolled it forward until he was sitting behind the desk, hands clasped in front of him.
"Choose your next witticism carefully, Mister Markowski," he said sternly. "It may be your last."
Then he threw his head back and laughed. Looks like I wasn't the only one around here over-fond of his own wit.
When the laughter was done he looked at me and said, "I trust you recognize the reference."
"Sure – it's from Goldfanger," I said. "But that stuff's wasted on me. My partner's the real James Bond nut."
"Oh, yes, Detective Renfer. Pity I won't get to meet him as well."
"If you want to wait a few hours, I'll give him a call," I said. "I'm sure he'd love to join us – maybe even bring a few friends."
"No, I'm afraid that won't be possible. Our FBI colleague is attending to him–" he looked at his watch, a gold Rolex "–perhaps even as we speak."
He peered at me. "I note a distinct lack of reaction when I mentioned the FBI. So you know about our mole, do you? Well, aren't you a smart one."
"What kind of 'attending' are we talking about?" If Thorwald was going to try for Karl while he slept, good luck with that – even if there was no more Sharkey around to blow her head off. Karl had made some improvements to the lock on his bedroom door since the last attempt. The codebreakers at NSA would have trouble cracking it now.
"Oh, nothing that extraordinary," Wilson said. "Merely the application of a small amount of plastic explosive to the hinges of a certain door, the removal of said door, followed by the vigorous pounding of a wooden stake into a certain chest. Very simple, really."
I understood my situation very well – there was no way I could get to Patton Wilson right this moment and do what needed to be done – but my hands apparently didn't agree. The short chain joining the cuffs rattled as they followed the impulse to wrap themselves around the bastard's throat, only to be stopped by the cuffs and the pillar behind me.
"Please, Sergeant, no histrionics, especially over what can't be undone." He leaned forward, and a small smile made an appearance. "I am well aware that one of the reasons why that James Bond idiot is able to survive, and thwart his enemies' plans, is that his captors talk too much. Instead of putting a bullet in his head as soon as he is captured, the various villains feel obliged to keep him alive for awhile to explain themselves and perhaps gloat a little. Do you know what I'm talking about?"
"Sure." What else was there to say?
"I never confuse film and life, Sergeant. Nor do I consider myself a villain – indeed, I expect that, in time, the human race will come to regard me as its savior."
Yep – nutty as my Aunt Hazel's fruitcake.
"But putting a bullet in your head at this moment isn't convenient," Wilson said. "We have need of you, alive and in good condition, later tonight. Around midnight, to be exact."
I can't say I was surprised. As soon as I'd realized where I was, the prospect of ending up chained to a chair in front of the cameras was never far from my mind. But that doesn't mean I enjoyed hearing the bastard say it.
"And so," Wilson went on, "since there is time to spare and a search by my associates has satisfied me that you are not concealing a laser in your shoe, I wouldn't mind explaining how you have come to find yourself here – and why. And I confess, I am rather pleased with myself over it all."
Wilson spread his hands, a study in candor. "So, ask me what you like. I'll tell you the truth, since you won't be repeating it to anyone – apart from Saint Peter, or, more likely, Beelzebub. I'm sure there is much that puzzles you about recent events – so ask."
"Anything?" I said.
"Yes, of course."
"OK," I said. "How old were you the first time a troll fucked you up the ass?"
He sat looking at me for a few seconds, his lips a thin tight line.
"Assuming that your adolescent display of bravado is done with," Wilson said, "is there anything you'd really like to know, or shall I just leave you alone until we're ready for you?"
Sitting here by myself until midnight would give me far too much time to think about Karl's fate – and my own. Even talking to Wilson was better than that.
"How did you manage to get Sharkey?" I asked.
"Oh, that was a simple matter," Wilson said. "After what happened to the specialist we imported from Chicago, we knew that Sharkey was watching Detective Renfer's apartment building during the day. We sent a decoy into the building through the front, carrying the same kind of long bag that I understand Mister Duffy had employed. When Sharkey broke cover to follow him, another of our people, stationed on a nearby roof with a rifle, shot him down in the street."
"I guess congratulations are in order," I said. "Sharkey was known as being very hard to kill."
"That was only true because no one with any intelligence had decided to kill him," Wilson said.
"So, how did he get from the street outside Karl's to my hotel room – part of him, anyway?"
"A van with our people in it was parked a block away
. Once the shooter reported success, the van sped to where Sharkey was lying and removed the body. Decapitation took place inside the van, and the result we left as a little gift – and a distraction – for you."
"So, you're shooting your next video tonight… not–"
"Tomorrow night – as Jeffrey told you?"
"Who the fuck's Jeffrey?"
"Oh, didn't he give you his name?" Wilson said with a smirk. "He's the young man you captured last night, at that slut witch's house."
"You knew about that," I said.
"Knew about it? We were expecting it."
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