“Yes.”
“And it looks to me like you took his advice, am I right?”
How could he know that, I wondered, unless it was true? That he did have contacts in the police?
“That’s right,” I said. “We don’t need to involve the police in this. Not if it means you’ll let go of my daughter.”
“That’s what I like to hear. Cooperation. It’s what makes the world go round. So, you know what it is we want?”
“You want the car.”
“That’s right. That’s one shitty car, I have to say. We could have been spared all this trouble if the fucking thing had only started.”
“It does that sometimes. I thought it was fixed.”
“You should have bought from a dealer. You’da got a warranty. Buying from these auctions, it’s not the way to go.”
“Evidently not.” So he was the guy. From the auction. And, I was willing to bet, the guy who had slammed Stan Wannaker’s head with a car door.
“If there hadn’t been so many people gawking from their balconies, maybe we could have figured out a way to tow the thing, or get a truck, but people, they’re awfully nosy, you know?”
“Sure. Can I talk to Angie?”
“Uh, no. You heard her a minute ago, you know she’s fine. And as long as you do what I ask, and don’t call the police—” he made a sickening throat-clearing noise that sounded like a toilet flushing “—she’ll stay that way.”
“What do you want with this car? I’m guessing it’s more than the gas mileage.”
“Hey, that’s funny. That’s good. Yeah, you’re right, that’s not the reason. Let’s say it’s carrying a shipment that we’d like to have. Shit, once we remove it, you can keep the fucking car. Only a candyass faggot would drive something like that around anyway.” He laughed, and then there was some other laughing in the background, and then he lapsed into a coughing fit.
“Hang on,” he said, almost apologetically. “I need a sip of something.” I heard him smack his lips. “I got kind of a tickly throat.”
I said, “Once I get the car started, where do you want me to bring it?”
“I’ll call you in an hour, let you know where. That should give you enough time to get that sucker running. Maybe it needs a jump.”
And he hung up.
“What did he say?” Trevor asked. “How’s Angie? Did you talk to Angie? Have they hurt Angie?”
“Shut up,” I said.
I got out my wallet, hunted for my auto club card, found it and punched in an 800 number.
“My car’s dead,” I told the woman. “This is a huge emergency. How long will it take someone to get here?” I gave her my location.
I could hear her clicking away on a computer. “They should be there in no more than half an hour, sir.”
Too long, I thought. But I told them to come, anyway, and put the phone into my jacket.
“I can’t wait,” I said, and got in behind the wheel of the Virtue and turned the key. I figured, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. I might get lucky.
Nothing.
“Mr. Walker,” Trevor said, “why don’t you let me—”
I turned on him. “Go home.” I didn’t even know whether Trevor had a home, but I knew he didn’t belong here with me.
He shook his head. Quietly, he said, “No, I’m not leaving. I can help.”
“I don’t see how, Trevor.”
He paced briefly, then said, “I’ll be right back, I have to go to my car, make sure Morpheus is okay.” He ran off. What a dipshit, I thought. My daughter’s missing, and he’s worried about his dog.
I got out of the car, put my hands on the roof, felt the cool metal on my palms. An idea began to form in my head. If the auto club got here soon enough, or if I could get the car going myself, there was another errand I was going to run before I got my next call from Angie’s abductor, who was, it seemed clear now, Barbie Bullock.
The voice on the phone matched the bully from the auction, and Cheese Dick Colby had identified him from Stan’s photos as Barbie Bullock, the man in charge of Lenny Indigo’s operations ever since Lenny got sent away to cool his heels for a while.
So why would Bullock have been at the auction? Hadn’t I noticed him looking at the Virtue around the time I first laid eyes on it? Was it possible he was there to buy it, that he was planning to bid on it, but pulled out after he’d attracted so much attention getting into a fight with Stan?
Who had this car belonged to before the feds had seized it?
And what was in it that the feds had missed, that Bullock figured he could obtain for himself by buying it?
I reached down below the driver’s seat and pulled the lever that popped the trunk. I swung the trunk lid wide, scanned inside. It was clean. I lifted up the flooring, exposing the spare tire, a tire iron, and a jack. The painted metal was shiny under there, never having been exposed to the elements, and the spare tire was one of those mini ones that lasted only a few miles until you could get a proper replacement. The tread was jet black, never touched pavement.
I ran my fingers under the bottom side of the tire, looking for I didn’t know what. But there was nothing there. I reached into other nooks and crannies, but couldn’t find a thing. I opened the back door, reached into the seat crevices, got down on my knees and peered under the two front seats.
There was nothing to be found. Of course, if whatever I suspected was in this car had been in plain sight, then the feds would have found it before selling it to me and Lawrence, wouldn’t they?
“What are you looking for?” It was Trevor.
“Whatever’s in this car. There’s got to be something in it somewhere.”
Trevor said, “I bet they took her thataway.” He pointed west.
“Is that the way they drove off?”
He nodded. “I’ll bet, if we drove around, maybe we could find them.”
I was back on my feet again. “Trevor, it’s a big city. They could be anywhere. We’re going to have to wait for their call. They’ll tell us where to go.” I slammed the doors shut on the Virtue. “If there’s something in that car, I don’t know where the hell it is.”
“Did you look in the rocker panels?” Trevor asked.
“The what?”
“I don’t know what they are, but in The French Connection? That was where they hid all the bags of heroin. Down in the rocker panels.”
“I don’t think I’ve got the equipment on me to start cutting through sheet metal,” I said, just as my cell phone went off in my jacket pocket. “Hello?”
“Walker, Sarah left me a message, and Nancy says you may know something about this thing that happened to Stan.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Colby. The edition is gone, but I’m still working this thing. What did you have for me?”
“Nothing, Dick,” I said.
“What do you mean, nothing? I was told you had something that connected this thing that happened to Stan to this Bullock guy. Am I wrong about that?”
“I can’t do this now, Dick.”
“Excuse me? One of your coworkers gets his head smashed in, and you’re too busy to help us find out who did it? What kind of asshole are you?”
“The worst possible kind, Dick.” I hung up.
I decided to give the Virtue another try. I got behind the wheel again, turned the ignition.
Nothing.
What was it Otto had said? Something about a short in the transmission? I turned the key again, far enough that it allowed me to unlock the automatic transmission lever between the seats, and moved it from park, down through reverse and neutral and the lower gears, and back again. I did it a couple of times, then turned the key all the way forward in a bid to turn the engine over.
Bingo.
“Yes!” I shouted. “Yes!”
The hell with the auto club. As long as the Virtue was running, I could keep it running. All I had to do now was move the Camry, which was parked behind the Vir
tue. I bailed out of the Virtue, jumped into the Camry, backed it up ten feet, effectively blocking in a couple of other people’s cars, then got back into the Virtue.
I looked at my watch. It had been twelve minutes since Bullock’s phone call. I still had better than forty-five minutes before he called again. I had at least one vital errand to run, and one important phone call to make.
“Where are you going?” Trevor asked me through the open window.
“I’m going to try to get my daughter back.”
“Let me come with you,” he said.
“I can’t.”
Trevor’s expression grew more frustrated. “I might be able to help you. I, I might be able to figure out where they went.”
“Trevor, I’m going to ask you this one last time. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
He pressed his lips together, looked one way and then another. “No,” he said. “No, there isn’t.”
I put the car into reverse, and Trevor said, “Give me your cell phone number. In case I find out anything, I can call you.” He had his own out and in his hand. I told him my number, which he immediately entered into his phone’s memory bank. If I had a chance sometime, if we all got through this evening alive, I’d have to get him to show me how to do that.
“I have to go,” I said, backed out of the spot, and headed for Lawrence Jones’s apartment.
As I drove I tried to put the pieces together. If Bullock wanted the Virtue back, how did he know where to find it? I hadn’t even bought the car at the auction. Lawrence had handled everything. He’d done the bidding, he’d written the check, he’d filled out the forms—
Jesus.
And only a few hours later, someone had gone to see Lawrence Jones, torn his place apart, and left him for dead.
Probably after they’d found the check I’d written him, for the same exact amount as the check he’d written at the auction.
And the one I’d written him would have had my name and address on it.
Which explained why Lawrence, at the hospital, had tried to tell me that they were after me, too.
What were the odds that the kind of people who’d stab Lawrence for a name and an address were going to let me walk away with Angie once I’d let them search the Virtue for what they believed was hidden inside it?
This was not something I was going to be able to handle alone. I had to have help. I needed the police.
But if Bullock had his own people on the inside, or had members of the force on his payroll, how could I call the police and be confident they wouldn’t pick up the phone and call Bullock?
The answer was not to call the police. The answer was to call a single policeman. A police detective. One who might feel he still owed Lawrence something, who might want to make up for a mistake he’d made in the past.
As I sped toward Lawrence’s apartment, I dug into my back pocket and struggled once again to get out my wallet. In there, I found Steve Trimble’s official business card. I let the wallet drop onto the passenger seat, glanced at the home number on the card, memorized it, and dropped the card next to my wallet. Now I dug out my phone and punched in the number with my thumb, keeping my other hand on the wheel.
“Hello?” A woman.
“Is Steve there?”
“May I tell him who’s calling?”
I told her.
“Just a minute.”
I waited a good half minute. Finally, “Walker, what do you want?”
“I haven’t got a lot of time to explain this, Trimble, so listen carefully. Some people from Lenny Indigo’s gang, one of them Barbie Bullock I think, have kidnapped my daughter. They’ve told me that if I call the police, they’ll know and they’ll kill her. They say they’re willing to trade her for my car, which I bought yesterday at a police auction with Lawrence, and which I’m guessing has drugs hidden in it someplace. Am I going too fast?”
“I’m listening,” Trimble said.
I could see Lawrence Jones’s building up ahead. I hung a right before I reached it, drove into the parking lot out back.
“They’re calling me back in about half an hour, to tell me where I’m supposed to meet them. I don’t think I can make this exchange alone. I need someone watching my back, and since I’m too scared to call 911 and tip these guys off, I’m calling you. And there’s something else you should know.”
“What’s that?”
“I think these are the people who tried to kill Lawrence.”
There was a pause at the other end of the line. “Where will we meet?”
My mind raced. “How fast can you get to Lawrence Jones’s apartment?”
“Fast.”
“I’m in that part of town. I could meet you out front. I’ll be in one of those Virtue hybrid cars. It’s silver.”
“Ten minutes.”
“Okay.” I paused to catch my breath. “I appreciate this.”
“Ten minutes,” he said again, and hung up.
I pulled up behind Lawrence’s old Buick. I was hoping the cops, during their investigation of the attack on Lawrence, wouldn’t have bothered to search this car. After all, it had bogus plates on it. There was a chance that if they’d rooted through any car, it would have been Lawrence’s Jag, whose plates were legit.
I popped the Virtue trunk, left the engine running, walked around back and lifted up the cover I’d looked under only a few minutes earlier. I grasped the tire iron, walked over to the passenger side of the Buick, and smashed in the window.
I pulled up the lock button, opened the door, and reached for the handle to the glove box. It was locked. Using the thin end of the tire iron, I wedged open the glove box door.
I reached into the back, past the ownership manuals and tattered maps, and found the gun Lawrence had used to fire at the Annihilator two nights earlier. I took it out, and a roll of masking tape that was tucked in there. I knelt down next to the car and rolled up my right pant leg as far as my knee and taped the gun around my leg. I didn’t much care what Bertrand Magnuson might think of this.
And if it hadn’t been for Angie’s suggestion that I go for ample-fit khakis, I wouldn’t have been able to roll the pant leg back down over the gun so easily.
29
I waited around front, on the sidewalk, by the door to Lawrence Jones’s apartment. I’d driven the Virtue around, left it running. Its excellent fuel economy was a major blessing now that I was afraid to turn the damn thing off.
Five minutes later, Trimble arrived in the same unmarked four-door Ford he’d shown up in the night before at this same location.
He put down his window, motioned me over. “Have they called yet?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Any moment now, I’m guessing.”
“You said these people are the same ones who tried to kill Lawrence,” Trimble said, his eyes narrowing.
“Yeah. I think that’s how they got to me, they found my address on a check in Lawrence’s apartment, maybe in his office or his wallet, I don’t know. All this time, I’ve been worried about some kid following my daughter around, not knowing there was someone else out there a whole lot more dangerous.”
Trimble got out of the car. “Are you going to be okay?”
I looked into his face. “I’m not okay now, I can tell you that much. These people, what they did to Lawrence, you really think they’re going to let me walk out of wherever they are, with Angie, alive?”
Trimble’s face didn’t move. He chose not to answer.
“Do you really think they’ve got cops on the inside?” I asked. “Because maybe, if there are some you trust, we should get more help?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Trimble said. “There’ve been rumors for a while that Lenny Indigo had people on his pad, in the force. But there’s never been anything hard, nothing concrete. But more than once, we get ready to make a move on him, and he knows before we get there. We’re lucky we finally nailed him a few months back, but his organization is still alive and kick
ing.”
“That’s Bullock? This Barbie Bullock guy?”
“Yeah. His real name’s Willy, or William. You’d think a nickname like Barbie would be hard to take, but if people are going to be calling you Willy, maybe it’s not that much worse. He’s dangerous, but not always a hundred percent competent. He’s been struggling lately to prove to Indigo that he’s got what it takes to run the organization. And there’s talk that he does have informants on the force. And I don’t think right now would be the best time to test that theory, not if you want to get your daughter back in one piece.”
I didn’t like his choice of words. They conjured up an image I had to push out of my mind.
“This Bullock, is he the kind of guy who’d kill Angie, even after I give him the car?”
“Look, let’s just take this a step at a time. You got a paper, pen, ready for when they call? Because they’re probably going to give you an address, where to make the trade.”
I patted my jacket, where I had my pen and the reporter’s notebook. Almost as if my tapping had activated it, my cell phone rang inside my coat. I grabbed for it nervously, nearly dropping it as I pulled it from my pocket. I was sweating, and a drop had rolled down into my right eye, stinging and causing me to blink.
“Okay,” said Trimble. I had my thumb poised over the button, ready to take the call. It had now rung twice. “Just take it easy. Listen carefully to what they have to say.” He eased his head up close to mine. “I’m gonna listen in. Okay, go.”
I pressed the button and put the phone to my ear, tilting it out a bit so Trimble could hear the person on the other end.
“Hello,” I said, breathlessly and a little too fast.
“Hey,” said Sarah. “Where the hell is everybody?”
I let out a breath. Trimble cocked his head to one side, looked at me, asking the question. I mouthed, “My wife.”
“What?” I said. “Are you home?”
Trimble had moved his head away. This was a call he didn’t need to hear in detail, but he had some input just the same. He was shaking his head, indicating that he didn’t want me to tell Sarah anything about what was going on.