“Not nearly enough.”
“Where does Ed Gradduk fit? That’s all I care about, Dean.”
“Listen,” he said, “we’re not here to answer your questions. It’s not advantageous to us, and, frankly, we don’t have any desire for you to get more involved than you already are. You’re not law enforcement anymore. You don’t even have a client. You are nothing more than a concerned friend in this case, Mr. Perry, albeit a concerned friend with some unusual abilities. But while our sympathies may lie deep for concerned friends, our loyalties do not.”
“Rabold was in the car when they hit him,” I said. “He had to know what happened. What did he tell you?”
“Did you miss everything I just said?” Dean asked.
Everyone was quiet for a minute. The waitress came back to refill the coffees and saw that we all had full cups. She frowned and disappeared again. Across the room, a kid was working with a mop. Closing time.
“It’s personal to you,” Dean said. “We understand that. But when you let personal problems carry you into the middle of something you don’t understand, Mr. Perry, you’re inviting disaster.”
I didn’t say anything. Dean’s eyes were hard on mine, his jaw set. The comic partner of the duo was now making Mason look cheerful.
“The last time Larry Rabold made contact with us was the morning before he was killed,” Dean said. “At that time, it seemed some people viewed you as a problem. Perhaps one that needed to be dealt with. It is my assumption that nothing about your activities in the past few days diminished that perspective.”
“So Padgett’s on his way, then? Cancerno’s problem-solver out to clean up another mess like he did with Ed?”
“Cancerno’s got more problem-solvers than Padgett.” Dean had a leather-bound folder with him, and he reached inside it, withdrew a photograph, and slid it across the table to me. It was a color headshot of a mean-looking Hispanic guy wearing an orange jumpsuit. A prison photo.
“Recognize him?”
“His first name’s Ramone,” I said. “He works for Cancerno’s construction crew.”
Dean took the photograph back and smiled at me. “He’s no master carpenter, Mr. Perry. Most of Cancerno’s people are not.”
“All of them?” I said, thinking of Jeff Franklin, the good vibe I’d had from him.
“He has to have some people who are legitimate on that end,” Dean said. “He handles enough work that having a few good people would be a requirement. But many people on Cancerno’s payroll, be they construction workers or pawnshop cashiers or warehouse laborers, are earning their keep in other ways. The gentleman in that picture is Ramone Tavarez. He’s served time for assault on two occasions, but he’s managed to rotate back to the free world pretty quickly each time, somehow. He’s an enforcer. Violent son of a bitch. He also contacted Jack Padgett about you the day Larry Rabold was murdered. Seemed concerned, Larry thought. As did Padgett.”
“Interesting that I’m the only person bothering these guys. Too bad they aren’t distracted by dealing with, say, police or the FBI.”
“It would be best,” Dean said, “if they were left to dealing with the police and the FBI. Understand me when I say this, Mr. Perry—Cancerno is evil. People who piss him off? Bad things happen. Businesses burn down. Cars blow up. Arms are broken. Some people turn up dead.”
“You know he kills people, why don’t you arrest him?”
Dean smiled. “Right. Good thinking. Why don’t we arrest him. I like that plan.”
I waited.
“I think you’re going to help,” he said.
I raised my eyebrows. “By?”
“What do you think of the word ‘bait,’ Mr. Perry?”
“I’ve never been a big fan of the concept that it’s associated with.”
“Too bad,” Dean said. “But while you might not be a fan of that concept, you’re putting it in motion for us right now, whether you realize it or not. And while we may be able to capitalize from the result, I’m afraid it won’t work out nearly so well for you.”
PART THREE
UNDER THE BRIDGE
CHAPTER 22
They drove me back to my truck, past an inordinate number of patrol cars still cruising the streets of the neighborhood. If there’d been more fires, we didn’t see any sign of them. None of us spoke much on the ride, although I had to give directions to my truck. When they pulled in behind it, Mason gave me my gun back, which he’d apparently claimed after they’d found me on the pavement. I climbed out of the car, and Dean put down his window.
“Cell number’s written on the back,” he said, offering a card. “You get into trouble, give me a call. But I’m hoping that isn’t going to happen. I’m hoping you believed enough of what I said back there to just go home and sit the rest of this one out.”
I took his card and put it in my pocket. “If I thought you guys honestly gave a damn about clearing Ed Gradduk, maybe I would, Dean.”
I walked away from them, unlocked my truck, and climbed inside. I was suddenly so exhausted that I wanted to just lean the seat back and go to sleep, not even make the drive home. I’d left my cell phone in the truck, and when I picked it up, I saw I had more than a dozen missed calls. Joe, Amy, Joe, Amy, Joe, Amy, Amy, Joe. I stopped scrolling through them when the phone vibrated in my hand, another call coming in. Amy. I answered it as I put the key in the ignition and brought the engine to life.
“Where in the hell have you been?” she said, the words drawn out and spoken between clenched teeth.
“Detained.”
“I was going to send the cops after you, but Joe told me to wait. He said to give you another hour.”
“I knew he had confidence in me.”
“Actually, he suggested you were probably already in custody. Was he right?”
“No. But pretty close, I suppose. I’m going home now.”
“We’ll both meet you there,” she said, and hung up.
“Easy, Ace.” I gritted my teeth as Amy pressed a sponge soaked in ice water against my head. The water leaked through my hair and trickled down the side of my face.
“Sorry. I’m trying to be gentle, but that’s not easy with the lump you’ve got up here, Lincoln. It’s about the size and texture of a Twinkie.”
That description didn’t make me feel any better. I was back in my apartment, on the couch, with Joe sitting across from me, and Amy insisting on tending to my battered skull. The dull ache that had been there all through my talk with Dean and Mason had become an incessant throbbing. I’d taken a handful of ibuprofen, but I had a feeling it wasn’t going to do the job.
Amy took the sponge away, grimaced, then held it out for me to see. There was a coppery smear across its surface. I’d already washed off the long cuts and abrasions on my arms and hands, but I couldn’t see the head injury well enough to deal with it.
“A cut?” I asked.
“Looks like it’s just scraped up. Nothing too deep.”
“Great.”
She set the sponge aside and then handed me a plastic bag filled with ice, guided my hand to the lump at the crown of my skull. Her fingers were cold from the sponge.
“So tell me again,” Joe said, “who hit you in the head?”
“A building.”
He smiled. “You really ran . . .”
“Right into it,” I said. “Yes. Headfirst.”
His smile widened. Joe is not a strong one for sympathy. At least not for people who run headfirst into buildings.