“So, you’re the guy got his ass blown off the street,” one of them chuckled. I’d already forgotten who was who.
“Yeah, not my best day.”
“Man, I don’t know sounds pretty lucky to me,” another one of them added.
“What we do here,” Hale said, cramming half a hot dog into the right side of his mouth, “is monitor traffic on a little over a dozen websites. We’re building documentation, coupled with sworn statements from customers after the fact.”
“Sworn statements?”
“Yeah, we pay them a visit, gently confront them, and suggest they can either go to jail or sign a statement that basically says they responded to a particular Internet ad that led them to engage in sex for payment.”
“You get guys to sign?”
Hale looked around the table, they were all smiling.
“We got something like an 85 percent close rate. What would you do? Sign and we promise to keep it quiet, not prosecute them, or they can go to jail and sort it out.”
“You arrest them?”
“Nah, we just tell them we will. I doubt it would hold up in court anyway. Besides, I don’t want to screw with the paperwork. But, these guys are so freaked, they gladly sign, promise never to do it again, and then thank their lucky stars once we leave.”
“We can nail the ground troops, the working girls, anytime, today if we want. But what’s the point? They’ll be replaced with fresh meat within the week. The guy we want is Braco. Since his kid Sergie bought it, there’s been an increase in activity, lots of phone traffic. Problem is we don’t have a translator. So we have no idea what they’re saying. By the time we find out, it’s after the fact and too far down the road to do anything.”
I looked around at the computers, the four guys, the room, all the wiring, the three-foot stack of pizza boxes.
“You got all this and no translator, that doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re right it doesn’t, but those are the facts. I asked Peters if we could borrow that gal, what’s her name?”
“Dziedzic?” I said.
“Yeah, that’s the one. You can imagine how eager he is to share resources. You read all that shit in the paper about budget constraints, well,” he spread his hands palms open.
“You must be able to get someone, somewhere?”
“That’s where you come in, my friend.”
“Me? Sorry to disappoint, I got enough trouble communicating in English. I sure as hell can’t speak Russian.”
“Yeah, but Nikki Mathias can.”
“Nikki Mi… it might as well be the Easter bunny. Don’t you listen? I never found her.”
“Yeah, I know, she found you.”
“Me?”
“When old Sergie lost his head. Her name keeps coming up in the translations we received. They think she was the shooter.”
“Nikki, I don’t think she would…”
“What, since you couldn’t find her, that makes you an expert on her? Or is it because she’s a great-looking redhead who likes to stand around naked on the beach with three people who’ve been murdered? I’ve seen the photo, remember. Listen, her old man was some kind of master hunter or some damn thing. It’s not a long stretch to think his kid could…”
“I was there, or well, I saw it, sort of, in my rearview mirror.”
“So?”
“I just don’t think she’s your shooter.”
“Well, Braco and everyone else seems to think she is. I do too. You find her and we’re a long way toward putting this whole thing to bed.”
“How am I supposed to find her? I wouldn’t know where to even begin to look. I just spent the better part of a week chasing dead ends.”
Hale gave me a big warm smile.
“Funny thing, we got a plan.”
“Why do I think I’m not going to like this?”
“What’s not to like?” Hale asked sounding sincere. “It’s simple, we just use you as bait.”
“As bait, me! Are you crazy!”
“There’s been some discussion on that point.”
“As bait?”
“Look, I think she has a source, pretty close to Braco, real close as a matter of fact. If we can get you to lead her somewhere, we grab her, get her to translate for us. Then we take Braco down.”
“That’s, that’s so insane it can’t possibly work. For starters what makes you think she’ll show up somewhere. How will she know, I mean, are you kidding?”
“No, look, the hit on Braco’s kid, Sergie. She didn’t follow you, she had to be waiting there. Think about it. How long did you talk to Karina, Kerri, a minute, two tops?”
I nodded.
“That’s not enough time to follow, unobserved, then get to a shooting station, take up a position, and fire. In a residential neighborhood? It just doesn’t work.”
He had a point.
“Think about it. She was in position before you arrived, knew Sergie and his pals were going to show up. It was a setup but not for you, for old Sergie. I’m just thinking we do the same thing, again. Only this time we grab her. I’m willing to bet she wants Braco out of business a lot more than we do.”
“If that’s the case, why doesn’t she just get in touch with the police?”
“Gee, go figure, a known prostitute, here illegally, no documentation. Some tight-ass like Peters will just lock her up the first chance he gets, charge her with Sergie’s murder. Then real or imagined she’ll figure Braco is going to kill her family. Too risky for her, we have to find her and convince her.”
“Okay, so let me guess, meanwhile while you’re trying to find her, I’m out there twisting in the wind?”
“I haven’t quite worked that tiny detail out yet.”
Chapter 60
A couple of days of doing stretching exercises, eating hot dogs, take out pizza and staring at three guys watching computer monitors put me in a slightly different frame of mind.
“So, how about this?” I said to Hale. “You set me up outside Braco’s, just like I did before. I follow Kerri or Braco, whichever leaves, with any luck they’ll lead me to a prearranged spot. If Nikki knows about it she’ll be waiting there, and you grab her. But, you grab me first, get me out of there. After that you can grab her. If she’s hiding, you find her. If she’s as good as you say she won’t jump up and run away, you’ll have to stumble over her. But you gotta get me out of there first. And then one other thing,” I said, “What’s that?” Hale asked.
“I want LaZelle involved. Nothing personal, Hale, but he’ll make sure I’m safe.”
Hale nodded, “Makes sense to me, I’ll try and set it up. And thanks, maybe you’re not the total fuckup I was led to believe.”
“Then again,” I said.
Chapter 61
Two days later I was back sitting on Robert Street. Since I was newly carless, I was parked in some sort of pimped-out ride that had been part of a forfeiture agreement arranged through a drug dealer’s attorney. If I wanted to attract attention to myself I couldn’t think of a better way to do it. Sitting behind the wheel of a metallic chrome green Hummer H3 with black-tinted windows and Sprewell spinners for wheel rims, with a little over a quarter ton of chrome trim that probably glowed in the dark. I was getting more than a few stares.
“You gotta be kidding me,” I’d said to Hale when he had pulled this pimpmobile into the garage.
“Look at it this way, we won’t lose you in the crowd.”
“Shouldn’t I be wearing a full-length fur coat and a white fedora when I’m driving this bomb?”
“Yeah, well, just don’t scratch this thing, it’s a DEA loaner,” he’d cautioned.
So I sat and waited on Robert Street. Sweating in the heat and humidity, trying not to doze off. I limped out of the car periodically to toss more quarters in the meter then waited some more. In between times I did my stretching exercises right there on the downtown sidewalk, attempting to reduce the throbbing still in my back and butt. Nothing happened. Although at one point I think I spotted one of Aaron’s undercover guys leaning against Braco’s condo building looking nonchalant. At seven that evening I drove off, made sure no one but Hale’s crew was following me and returned to my bunk-bed dungeon.