I looked at Ivan. "Fred?"
He shrugged those enormous shoulders. "Close enough."
"OK," I said. "Ask him if he knows about somebody going out to Goblinville to recruit a bunch of them willing to kill a cop."
Ivan frowned at me. "Goblinville? What's that?"
"I mean whatever they call the place where they live, out near the dump."
Ivan turned to his passenger and spoke in Goblin, which always sounds to me like a mixture of Chinese, Russian, and the sound of a cat fight.
After another nervous look at me, Fred turned to Ivan and answered.
"He say human come, a while ago–" Ivan began.
"Wait," I said. "How long is 'a while ago'?"
"Goblins not good with time," Ivan said. "Could mean a week, a month – who knows?"
"All right," I said. "Go on."
"He say human come, bring meth – but not much. Give to some goblins, promise more. Want goblins to kill human – cop."
"Did the human say why this cop needed to be killed?"
More Goblin talk followed. Then Ivan turned to me again.
"Human say cop bad for goblins. Say he kill goblin, year ago. No goblin remember year ago, but some want meth. Meth enough reason."
"Ask him what this human–"
Suddenly, Fred stiffened. I noticed he was staring past Ivan, out the driver's side window. He pointed out the window and started jabbering.
I turned and looked where he was pointing. In the police parking lot, Special Agents Thorwald and Greer were getting into what looked like a black Ford Explorer. Ivan had the windows of the SUV closed, so the Feebies couldn't hear the goblin, fortunately.
"What's he so excited about?" I asked Ivan. "What's he saying?"
Ivan said, "He say that the human who come with meth, over there. The bitch."
"Bitch?"
"That what he say," Ivan said. "'That one, that one, the bitch'."
"Ask him if he's positive." I watched the Feebies back out of their parking space and drive away.
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?"