"Never ass-kiss an ass-kisser," Swifty admonished
sternly, then pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number from memory.
"Go ahead and order. They know what I want."
He asked for somebody named Leon at the
Times
Metro
section. "I need something planted, Bubee," he cooed once he got him
on the phone. "Above the fold . . . with a picture." While he talked
he glanced at Herman and motioned to the menu. Herman picked it up and tried to
read, but he wasn't hungry—he was too worried to eat.
"You bet," Swifty said, then dropped his voice to a
confidential whisper and went into his pitch. "Since I owe you one, you
get this first. My gift. When you accept the Peabody just remember to mention
me at the ceremony." He turned his twinkling eyes back to Herman and
shrugged
impishly. Then
he continued: "It's a fantastic legal action taking place in Federal
Courtroom Sixteen downtown. It involves top government security, DARPA
commandos, missing government secrets, the disappearance and probable
kidnapping of a private investigator, illegal genetic engineering, a secret
government weapons team . . . and, get this, bubala: the movie rights are still
available. You write it, Leon, you're in first position." He listened,
wrinkled up his nose, and then shook his head. "Why give those pricks the
Pulitzer? This is my gift to
you,
boychick. . . and I swear it's
righteous. I can back up every word, every scintilla. Every participle and
modifier is
emes."
A moment of listening, then, "Credibility
is my middle name, babe. This is public record. The TRO is in federal court. Go
down there tomorrow and see for yourself. I never lie." Another pause
while Swifty pulled his happy countenance into a frown. "Come on. . .no
fair. He thought his ex-wife was balling his trainer." He listened to Leon
for at least a minute more before the smile returned. "Okay, I'll scribble
up the release and get it over to you with the artwork in . . ." He looked
at Herman, then pointed at his twenty-thousand-dollar Carrier watch.
"An
hour," Herman said. "My daughter's picking up Wirta's picture
now."
"In an hour you'll have the scoop of a lifetime. And, Leon?
If you can get it on the
Times'
wire and leak it to the AP for the next
news cycle, I'll owe you my firstborn. If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'." A moment
more of eyebrow calisthenics, then Swifty nodded. "You're a mensch. Be
back atcha." He closed the phone, sighed theatrically, then looked at
Herman. "He's down. Now let's see if I can write this up the way you want
and still not come off like a complete asshole when Leon reads it."
At 8
p.m.
Susan stood in the corridor outside of Jack Wirta's office in Boy's Town
and waited. The office door had been replaced and was bolted. She didn't have a
key, but she had called Jack's ex-partner, Shane Scully, whose
son's estate
owned the building. After she'd filled him in on the phone, Shane said he'd
stop by the realtor's for a key and come right over.
Ten minutes after she arrived, a good-looking, dark-haired man
came up the stairs and into the hall. He was dressed in blue jeans, an LAPD
windbreaker, and tennis shoes. He smiled as he approached.
"Ms. Strockmire?"
"Shane Scully?"
"Yep." After they shook hands Shane put a key into the
lock. "You said on the phone you think Jack's been kidnapped by the feds.
You real sure about that? Jack would be a hard guy to snatch. Maybe he's just
working your case and hasn't had a chance to phone in yet."
"He was arrested by federal police at the airport, then
disappeared. There's been no sign of him since. Besides that, we've been under
surveillance by some kind of urban commando unit since the day before
yesterday."
"That sounds ugly." He pulled the key out of the lock,
looked at it, then tried again. "This isn't working."
When Scully looked directly at her she saw that he had beautiful
aqua-blue eyes and was attractive in a rough-and-tumble kind of way. His vibe
was all male.
"It's a new door, maybe the lock was changed when they
replaced it," she said.
Shane smiled, then reached into his pocket, withdrew a little
leather case full of long-handled picks, and started to feed them one at a time
into the lock. First he pushed in a slender, flat one, then slipped in several
tiny picks with hooked ends behind it.
"You pick locks, too?"
"We're a full-service police department," he quipped,
carefully turning the four picks in his hand. In a second she heard the lock
spring. He opened the door, checked inside to make sure it was safe, then stepped
back and said, "Your party."
Susan walked into the office. The place had been thoroughly tossed
and whoever had done it had made no effort
to hide the search. The file cabinets were open, the
dividers strewn all over the floor. The desk had also been ransacked. The
closet door was ajar and the boxes Jack had stacked in there had been ripped
open, their contents—mostly law enforcement reference books and manuals—strewn
everywhere.
"Not very neat, were they?" Shane commented. "Dad
and I were hiding next door when it happened. That was yesterday."
She moved to the east wall and looked at the pictures hanging
there, finally taking down one of Jack and Shane. "This is you?"
"Yeah. Police barbecue, the first year we partnered in
Southwest. My third year on the job. Jack and I rode together in a Plain-Jane
for almost eighteen months."
"Was he a good cop?"
That brought Scully around fast. "He was a
great
cop,
okay?" he growled at her. "He took chances out there, for all the good
it did him. He probably didn't tell you this, but during that bank shoot-out in
North Hollywood, even after he stopped the Parabellum and couldn't walk, he was
crawling around under cars, exposing himself to fire, cranking off rounds while
those two assholes emptied armor-piercing ordnance at him. Guy is a hero, but
all he got for it was a buncha shit and a disability check that he had to sue
the department to collect."
"Don't snap my head off," she said. "Pisses me off,
is all."
"If I need your help down the road on this, can you give
it?"
"If you need me to help pull Jack Wirta out of a hole, I'm
here. I can also line up some guys to join us if you want. Jack still has a lot
of friends on the job."
"Thanks." She looked down at the picture again. They
appeared young in the shot.. . young and eager. Untouched by the cop cynicism
that she sensed had finally scarred them both. In the picture they looked
boyish and heroic, full of idealism, comfortable inside their skins.
"I need a picture of Jack, so I'm going to cut you out of
this," she said, holding up the picture.
"Why should you be any different?" he quipped,
confirming her suspicions about his now-dark view of law enforcement.
Then Susan noticed something on the floor under the desk. She
leaned down . . . it looked like dried blood.
Shane crossed to where she was standing.
"That wasn't there when I was here the first time," she
said. "I hope Miro didn't try to . . ."
"Who's Miro?" Shane interrupted.
"The guy who runs the escort service next door."
Shane followed as she hurried out of Jack's little office and down
the hall. The door to Reflections was locked. "That's strange, it's a
dating service. They should be open. They operate at night."
"Dating service, as in young men for rent?"
"I try not to be judgmental."
"And you're to be heartily congratulated for that," he
said sarcastically, but she let it slide.
While they were standing there a man wearing a ripped T-shirt came
up the stairs at the end of the hall. "They're closed," he called
out.
"Why?" she asked.
"The guy who owns it got the shit kicked out of him. He's in
Cedars. They took him outta here in an ambulance about four hours ago."
H
e was in a private room in the trauma
ward, conscious but hooked to a drip trolley, his face swollen and already
turning purple. Two of his front teeth were missing.
"I didn't tell anything," Miro slurred proudly, looking
up at Susan through puffy eye sockets. She was holding his hand trying not to
wince as she took in the damage. The doctors would only allow one visitor, so
Shane was waiting downstairs in the coffee shop.
"Miro, Jack told you not to go to his office," she
scolded.
"But I had to get the door fixed.
We couldn't leave Jack's office open." His voice small, "I was just
locking up when they came."
"But why would they beat you?"
"They wanted to find all of you. I told 'em to stop
threatening, that it was against the law. But that just made them angry. They
said if I'd tell them, they'd let me go. But I didn't tell."
"Jesus, Miro . . ."
"Make sure Jack knows I didn't say anything. . . not about
the DNA or the Octopus thing, or Dr. Adjemenian. Nothing."
"Even after they beat you?"
"When they thought I was unconscious they left me on the
floor under the desk. But I wasn't unconscious. I just kept my eyes
closed." Proud of himself now. "They called a man named Mr. Valdez
from Jack's phone. Told him what happened. Promised Valdez they would find all
of you
and take you to
some place called Black Star in Cleveland."
"Miro, I'm so sorry. Nobody meant for anything to happen to
you."
"Tell Jack I didn't say anything. Tell him Miro's one gay man
who knows how to keep secrets."
"I'll tell him." But she seemed hesitant, and Casimiro
Roca, expert on human dishonesty, picked up on it immediately.
"Is Jack okay?" he asked, frowning.
"He's missing. They got him, Miro. But maybe with what you
just told me we can figure out where he is in Cleveland," she said,
wondering how they would ever find Jack in a city of several million.
"Black Star," Miro said. "Don't forget, Black
Star."
"I won't," she said, and squeezed his hand.
"If anybody hurts Jack I'm going to the police," he said
defiantly.
She leaned down and kissed his forehead. "I hope Jack knows
what a great friend you are," she said as he smiled at her through cracked
lips.
When Susan arrived at the cafeteria
Shane Scully was sitting in a booth one over from where Dr. Lance Shiller had
drawn his crude oval heart on the place mat and explained to her about Herman's
arrhythmia. It seemed as if that had happened years ago.
Susan got some coffee and then slipped into the booth across the
table from him.
"He okay?" Shane asked.
"Yeah, I think so, but, my God, his face is a mess. He lost
some teeth. . . he took that beating but refused to talk." She paused to
sip her coffee as she thought about it, then added, "Sometimes people
surprise you, what they do, how strong they are, underneath." She told him
what Miro had overheard while under the desk, about the call to Mr. Valdez, and
the plan to take them to a place called Black Star in Cleveland. After she
finished, they sat there looking at one another, each lost in thought.
"He's not in Cleveland. That doesn't make any sense at
all," Shane finally said.
"But that's where Miro said . . ."
"I don't care. He must have misunderstood, or they said that
because they knew he was listening. Why take Jack two thousand miles away?
DARPA is a federal agency with access to offices everywhere. What's in
Cleveland that they can't get here? It's nuts."