The Snow Angel (6 page)

“Leonard, does your mama know you use drugs?”

“You got a warrant? Because if you don't have a warrant…”

“Lighten up, little man. I need some help.” Kane handed the giant biker a photo of Darryl Childress. “This boy's been kidnapped.”

“What the fuck's that got to do with us?”

“We're trying to save his life.”

“My people don't fuck with kids.”

“I know. That's why I'm asking for help.”

”Help?
What kind of help?”

“Information—you know, from your ‘associates.' Nose around, ask a few questions, turn over a few rocks…”

Lawless stared at him. “Son of a bitch, you have balls. Your gestapo's been leaning on us for months, calling us terrorists, and now you want help.”

“That's them, this is me. Have I ever screwed you over?”

“You all work for the same company.”

“Is that a no?”

Lawless examined the picture for a long moment. “I've seen this kid somewhere.”

“TV He's been on TV Pizza commercials. Cute little guy, ain't he?”

Lawless studied the detective, then looked back at the picture. Finally, he shrugged. “Come on in. It's cold out here.”

Kane followed the pot-bellied Outlaw through the dank garage. Four huge motorcycles covered with tarps stood to one side. Absurdly, a scrawny little Christmas tree stood near them, lights flashing.

In Lawless' office sat six leathered-up bikers, holding beer cans and glaring at him in an attempt to look menacing. Kane knew them all; he had memorized their rap sheets. Mostly they were petty thieves or weed dealers, although some may have been dealing crank. All wore identical black leather Outlaw jackets. Other than their various sizes and differing tattoos, they were virtual clones.

These assholes think they're bad-asses and rebels, but they're all in uniform, just like corporate ladder-climbers. Everybody has a costume.
With them were four young girls, heavy on makeup and mascara, also dressed in leather.
Underage, no doubt—someone's children, runaways.

Statutory rape was a common offense on Outlaw rap sheets. Kane made a mental note to tip off Vice if these fuckers declined to cooperate.

The room remained dead silent. Kane sniffed the air. “Who's holding the weed?” he asked. “You, Mumps?”

The wiry Mumps Rafferty glared at Kane. “You jamming us for smoking a little gage?”

“No, I'm asking for some. That bud smells good. Marin County, that's my guess. I haven't tasted any good cannabis in a long time. Fire up some of that shit.”

Weasel Warren, with a bad complexion and covered with tats, looked
over at Lawless in astonishment. “Is this fucker for real?”

“Go ahead,
give
me a joint,” Kane insisted. “You can take a picture of me smoking it if you want. That way you'll know I'm not gonna burn you.”

Lawless shrugged in amazement as he handed Kane a joint. The detective lit it, inhaled deeply, held the smoke, then exhaled. He repeated the ritual, then smiled and handed the reefer back to Tiny. “Nice stuff,” he said to one of the girls, who was staring in disbelief. “Bet you never saw a cop do that.”

“Man, you are something else,” said Lawless.

Kane, lightheaded, just laughed. “I came to enlist you citizens in my own private army.” He held up the photo of Darryl Childress. “This boy here is our mission.”

N
ight had fallen. Christmas lights twinkled even here, in the bleakest of slums.

Ike Bell checked in with the command post, then called Vera to tell her he'd be working late. “So what else is new?” she asked. But she said it lovingly. It was just the way things were, being married to a detective. She didn't even ask what kind of a case it was.

Vera reminded Bell that she herself was working tomorrow. Now that they had moved, her commute was much longer. That meant the children had to spend more time in day care. And this week and next they were on Christmas vacation. So the babysitting costs would be substantial.

“I'll take some comp time next week,” Bell promised. “I can watch them myself.”

“Sure thing,” said Vera, not believing it.

Bell said goodbye and hung up, once again angry about their forced relocation. He examined the graffiti on the nearby walls. This particular desecration was the handiwork of an offshoot Crip set, the One-Twelve Killahs.
Who needs the KKK when
black
terrorists control our streets?

He tried to check his rage. Hate the sin, love the sinner; that's what
Vera would say.
Sure thing.

He pulled up his jacket collar, crossed the street, and walked slowly into The Lucky Deuce, a strip bar. He paused just inside the door and surveyed the room.

A buxom chocolate-colored woman with dyed blonde hair gyrated her naked pelvis before a group of noisy lowlifes to the tune of “Jingle Bell Rock.” Half her admirers wore sunglasses, one an absurd peaked red Santa Claus hat with a white pom-pom. Four or five drunks were scattered about in the otherwise empty dive.

Garland McQueen sat in his usual place in a rear corner, next to an exit sign. He was smoking a Cuban cigar while playing cards with three of his cronies. Bell flashed on their rap sheets. All were small-time, low-profile wannabes.

But there was nothing low-profile about McQueen. Today he wore a purple suit which made him look like a singer from a sixties Motown group, topping off the ensemble with a wide-brimmed purple hat.
No wonder white people have stereotypes about us.

The Lucky Deuce was the legit front for McQueen's gambling operation. Vice Ops had tagged him for bookmaking several times over the years, but each time he had skated, aided by expensive lawyers and—more than once, it was rumored—an expensive judge.

Bell walked toward McQueen, exaggerating his gunfighter stride for the benefit of his audience. With his peripheral vision, he watched the room. How many of these dirtbags had outstanding warrants?

McQueen looked up, the cigar clenched in his teeth. He forced a smile and, without rising, slapped Bell's hand. “The Deacon! My
man!”

“A minute of your time,” Bell said quietly, nodding toward McQueen's rear office.

“You back workin' Vice?”

“No. It's something else.”

“Whatever you say, brother,” said the old racketeer. He lay his cards face-down on the table, stood up and led Bell back to his office. The walls were covered with nude shots of former McQueen employees.

“How's business, Queenie?” Bell asked, casually inspecting the pictures.

“If that's an official question, let me call my lawyer.”

Bell held up a photo of Darryl Childress. “Someone kidnapped this kid this morning, out front of his house. The media doesn't know about
it yet. We think it's professional, a ransom caper.”

“My people are into
adult
entertainment. We don't fuck with kids.”

“You hear me accuse you of anything? I'm asking for help.”

The old hustler considered that, then broke into a gold-toothed grin. “Help. The man's askin' for help. How about that shit? My oldest main ad-versary comes askin' for hep.”

“This ain't about you, Queenie. Or me, either.”

McQueen took a fifth of bourbon from a drawer. “Little taste, Deacon? Some Christmas cheer?”

“I'm off the sauce.”

“Oh, yeah? How long?”

“Coupla years.”

“Good for you. Some of us were worried.”

“Don't give me that jive,
Garland.
You and your boys would be just as happy if I turned tits up.”

McQueen grinned again, pouring a shot for himself. “Ike, you and me, we gettin' too old to be enemies. What can I do for you?”

Bell laid a dozen glossies of Darryl Childress on the cluttered table, next to a porno magazine called “Black, Beautiful and Barely Legal.”

“Put the word on the wire,” Bell said. “We'll be kindly disposed toward anyone who helps us find this child.”

“Is there a reward?”

Bell picked up the porno magazine and idly thumbed through it. “This your publication?”

“One of my an-cillary businesses.”

“You sure these girls are all eighteen?” Bell asked. “Maybe I'm getting old. But some of them look pretty young to me.”

“What are you driving at?”

“I didn't think we had to
reward
people for helping to save an innocent kid.”

McQueen thought about that and nodded. “Christmas
is
a shitty time to kidnap someone's baby.”

“Yeah. A real shitty time. You gonna help us or not?”

McQueen belted down the whiskey. “I
love
children, Ike, you hear what I'm sayin'? How can I help?”

O
nce again, Kane and Bell stood on opposite sides of the police gymnasium, avoiding each other. Each had privately briefed Easterly, without revealing names or giving much detail. Between them, they had mobilized an army of the city's criminals in the search for Darryl Childress and his captors.

Now the room was filling up with plainclothes officers, many of them new faces. Since noon, the task force had almost doubled. A nerve center was manned by six uniformed cops working computers and communication equipment.

On the way in, Kane had stopped for a chat with another biker gang, the Brightmoor Satans. He also looked up a recent parolee who had been hanging around with a new militia group. Everyone had pledged cooperation.

Kane had long since ceased being impressed by the human race. Once in a great while someone rose to something better than himself, something close to heroism. But most people behaved badly most of the time; that was Kane's world view. Today, however, Kane was surprised how easy it had been to recruit these scrotes into the cause.

It must be the season, he finally decided. Even criminals were bombarded by Christmas hype, coming from everywhere.
Goodwill toward men, all that shit.

Plus, the Childress kid was cute and semi-famous. The city's dirtbags, having a lot of time on their hands, watched a lot of television. So they all sort of knew the kid. That's another reason they were helping.

Across the room, Isaiah Bell was having similar thoughts. After leaving McQueen, he had cruised the ghetto for a while, pondering the situation. Sometimes, when working a case, a detective needs to slow down and let his mind wander. That's how hunches arrive.

While thus reflecting, Bell had spotted the city's main dope dealer, Cleveland Talmadge, in his chauffeured Town Car. Bell had put the blue light on the roof and pulled Talmadge over. The drug dealer went into his usual indignation routine, accusing Bell of harassing him because he was with a white woman. Bell let him run his mouth, then pulled out the picture of the missing child.

Talmadge shut up. He, too, recognized the boy from television. By
the time the conversation was over, Talmadge had vowed to take out a contract on the life of anyone who harmed little Darryl.

“No,” Bell had cautioned. “We want the kid back safe. Ask your people to help with that.”

Now, leaning against the rear wall of the gym, watching Kane across the room, Bell wondered what the reaction would have been had the boy not been a celebrity.

Bobbie Easterly walked to a microphone at the front of the gym and waited for the room to fill up. Next to her was a huge television set. Absent was the boisterous laughter which usually attends a gathering of cops.

“All right, listen up!” Easterly commanded. “Here's what we know: a vehicle—we now believe it was a late-model Chevrolet with tinted windows—was seen circling the block just before Darryl was grabbed. We're putting a neighbor under hypnosis, to see if she can remember any more details.

“Other than that, no one saw anything except Darryl's mother. You already know what she gave us. The lab didn't find much. As we feared, all footprints and tire tracks were trampled or covered over. We did find some fibers from Darryl's coat. We think they were pulled loose when he struggled. Other than that and the glove, there's no physical evidence.”

She paused and shut her eyes for a brief moment. “We're hoping, of course, that matching fibers will be found on the suspects—when we arrest them. Maybe we'll get lucky and find the other glove. There still has been no ransom demand. We're worried about the silence.” She looked around the room. “That's all we have. Any questions?”

A detective raised his hand. “Inspector, when are we going public with this? We've already told the entire neighborhood about it.”

“But the bad guys don't necessarily know that,” Easterly responded. “We'll keep a lid on it as long as we can.”

“Publicity might help the cause,” argued another cop.

“Maybe, maybe not. We don't know what kind of people we're dealing with here. It's a calculated risk either way.” She thought for a moment. “Believe me, Jim, the Chief of Detectives and I are anguishing over every facet of this thing. We may change our minds, depending on developments. We know we can't keep it quiet for long. Any further questions?”

No one raised a hand. “Okay, then,” she said. “Everyone who's
worked eight hours or more, go home for some rest. I want you fresh in the morning.”

The troops started to rise. Then Easterly remembered: “But before you go, at their request, we have a message from the boy's parents.”

She nodded at Stan Jablonski. He killed the lights and activated the television. The Childress couple filled the screen, Louise sitting silently beside her husband.

“I—we are the parents of Darryl Childress,” Stephen said. “We want to thank all of you from the bottom of our hearts for what you are doing for us, and for our son. We just wanted you to know a little about the kind of boy Darryl is, and why we miss him so much.