"All right." Nick yawned. "I'm fried-Grissom had me in early today, to keep at those computer records…I gotta go home and catch some z's."
"It's a plan…. Later."
"You may want to try getting some sleep one of these days yourself," Nick said, at the doorway. "Latest thing-they say it's really catching on."
Warrick expended half a smirk. "Not around here."
Warrick Brown stayed with it, going through file after file looking at drug dealers the LVMPD had busted in the last few years. An hour later, he was still rolling through files looking for the odd little red triangle.
A knock at the doorframe took him away from his work, and he turned to see one of the interns, a young, dark-curly-haired guy named Jeremy Smith, slight of build, in a black UNLV sweatshirt and blue jeans. A criminal justice major at the university, Smith had been working part-time for the last few months, sometimes days, occasionally nights.
"Hey, Jeremy," Warrick said, mildly annoyed to be interrupted. "What's up?"
Smith stepped gingerly into the lab, as if not sure he had permission. "I talked to every glass company in the metro area-remember, to see if they replaced the driver's side window of a '95 Avalon?"
"Right. And?"
The young man shook his head. "Zip zally zero."
Warrick muttered a "damn," but the kid was stepping forward, more sure of himself now.
"Then I thought I better check the car dealerships too."
"That was good initiative, Jeremy-any luck?"
"Not really."
"Yeah. Well. Good thought, though. Thanks."
"All right, then…Warrick?"
Warrick sighed to himself, suddenly sorry he'd told the kid to call him by his first name.
Smith was beside the computer, now, bright-eyed as a chipmunk. "Anything else I can do for?"
Why not tap into all this energy? Warrick considered the offer for a long moment, then said, "Junkyards, Jeremy-try the junkyards."
Smith nodded, grinned. "I'm on it."
The kid was halfway out the door when Warrick called out, "One more thing, Jeremy! You ever see this before?"
The intern came back over and Warrick passed him the evidence bag with the baggie of coke inside.
Turning it over and over, Smith studied it, then handed it back. "Yeah, I've seen this mark."
Warrick knew the intern had been working a lot of days, and gave him the benefit of the doubt. "Bust you were in on?"
The intern shook his head, saying, "No, this is something I've seen on campus…. Small-time dealer, sells mostly grass. I don't know if he's been in the system or not."
"He wouldn't have a name, would he?"
"Well, I don't know his real name-his street name is Lil Moe. Supposed to be once you've tried his stuff, you always want…a little mo'."
Warrick just looked at Smith.
Jeremy gave him a quick nervous smile and patted the air with his hands, like an untalented mime. "Hey, that's just what I heard."
"Uh huh."
"Honest, Warrick!"
Smith used some of his nervous energy to haul his ass out of there, and Warrick immediately tried "Lil Moe" in the database, coming up blank. He checked pending files and struck out again. Finally, he went in search of Jeremy the intern and found him in the break room with a phone book in one hand and a phone in the other, a notepad and pencil before him.
The kid looked up, saw Warrick, and said, "Starting on the junkyards. Some of 'em work at night, y'know. Anybody I can't talk to, at least I can have a list of numbers ready for tomorrow."
"Table that. Would you know Lil Moe if you saw him?"
"Sure."
"Help me know him."
"Five-nine, -ten maybe, a hundred twenty-five or thirty. Real skinny. He's got dreadlocks to his shoulders and always wears this big Dodgers stocking cap."
"Stocking cap in Vegas?"
Smith shrugged. "Makes him easy to find."
"Find where?"
"He kind of bounces around the edges of the campus…but he'll probably be somewhere around the Thomas & Mack Center."
Easy for students to find him, Warrick thought, and nodded. "Thanks."
"What now?"
"Junkyards."
"Junkyards," Jeremy said, and got back to it.
Warrick found Brass in his office and shared his new information.
"Lil Moe, huh?" Brass said.
"A little is better than nothing at all." Warrick stood with his hands on his hips, his eyebrows high. "You wanna go for a ride, and see if we can score?"
Brass was already on his feet. "Let's do that-even a drug dealer'll feel like a step up from Owen Pierce."
The home of the Runnin' Rebels basketball teams squatted on the far southwest corner of the UNLV campus, but the Taurus came at the Thomas & Mack Center from the campus side. The detective made the trip just below the speed limit, but not too slow. The Taurus stuck out enough without them crawling along in an obvious search. It wasn't midnight yet, and the campus hadn't quite yet gone to sleep.
People (kids mostly) dotted the sidewalks here and there, quiet students heading to their dorms, louder ones off to the next kegger, the occasional professor walking with briefcase and sometimes a young teaching aide, a few joggers working off the stress of the day in the cool of the night…
…and another strata more in the shadows, harder to see, unpredictable, even dangerous, some searching for drugs, and-more important to Brass and Warrick-some selling. On their first lap, as their eyes probed the shadows and recesses of doorways, they didn't see anyone fitting Lil Moe's description…and not on the second lap, either, or even the third.
By lap four, midnight had come and gone, the sidewalks had thinned, and they hadn't gotten even a whiff of Lil Moe.
"Maybe he's not out tonight," Brass offered.
"Or maybe he's making the car. Just 'cause it's unmarked, that doesn't mean Moe doesn't know a police car when he eyeballs it."
"We could disguise ourselves," Brass commented dryly from the wheel, "as cheerleaders."
"I got a better idea…. Let me out."
Brass just looked at him. "You have your weapon, Brown?"
"No-I don't wear it around the lab."
"We're not in the lab. You're asking to do some kind of half-assed, impromptu undercover dance, and that's not-"
"C'mon, Brass! I'm not saying leave me alone. Just back me up from a distance. Let me see if I can smoke this guy out."
"You're a criminalist, Brown-not a cop."
"And you're a middle-aged white guy. Which of us stands to score easier?"
Brass considered that. "Well, it's plain this plan isn't working."
"All right then-Plan B."
Hopping out at the corner of Harmon and Tarkanian Way, Warrick ambled down the street named after the legendary UNLV basketball coach. Taking his time, not wanting to appear anxious or in a hurry, Warrick strolled toward the arena, enjoying the cool evening. In the dusky light he could barely make out the sign for the Facilities Management Administration Building (whatever that was) across the street. Passing the single-story building, he continued inexorably toward the Thomas & Mack Center.
Warrick turned left, keeping the basketball arena on his right as he circled the building. The street-lights spaced their pools of light about every ten yards, giving a sense of security to a gaggle of passing coeds, but only made Warrick feel more like a moving target. The shadows deepened and became fathomless in contrast to the spheres of white.
He glanced up to see Brass's Taurus turning off Gym Road into the Thomas & Mack parking lot near Tropicana Avenue. Then he shifted his gaze around, as if aimlessly looking at this and that, so that anyone watching him wouldn't realize he'd been keeping tabs on the unmarked car.
The CSI had almost made it to the Jean Nidetch Women's Center when a male voice called out to him from the shadows. "Bro!"