Or maybe not. It seemed the detective had made him from the start.
She would not give him the slip again.
Shane had been doing things like this — shadowing cops, politicians, judges — his entire career. Although it wasn’t technically illegal, he was walking the thin line between journalism — or at least what passed for journalism these days — and interfering with a criminal investigation.
But, as the saying went, it was easier to get forgiveness than it was to get permission.
The streets around this part of North Philly were mostly empty at this hour. The occasional car passed by. Each time Shane lowered himself slightly in the seat. Just because the two detectives in the car a block ahead of him were facing the other way didn’t mean they couldn’t see what was happening around the area. Shane Adams was pretty good at covert surveillance, but cops, especially homicide cops, were experts.
St Simeon’s. He looked it up on his smart phone, but couldn’t find much information about it, except that it had been closed for a long time.
Shane lifted the opera glasses, scanned the area. Nothing moving. The two detectives were just sitting, watching the church. It was mind-numbingly boring work, but he knew they were watching the church because they thought something might happen there. The very idea was intoxicating.
Shane Adams was actually at a crime scene before the fact.
He could barely breathe. In fact, he had left the station so quickly, following the two detectives, he had forgotten to stop for food. And he had most definitely forgotten to take a leak. Ten cups of coffee without a pit stop.
He checked the immediate area. He saw no one. He eased open his door, ran around the back of his car, then a few feet into an alleyway between a burned-out rowhouse and a closed rib shack. He unzippered, and relieved himself.
Before emerging from the alley he looked both ways. No traffic. The two detectives were still silhouetted in their car up the street. In his earpiece he heard no new police-scanner activity.
He crouched low, circled his car, slipped inside. Nothing like the pause that refreshes, he thought. He felt a million percent better.
Except that he was starving. He reached over, opened the glove compartment. There he found a half-dozen unpaid tickets, the car’s owner’s manual, a pair of nail clippers. Clippers were an essential part of the reporter’s tool kit. If you gripped a microphone on camera, your nails mattered. Shane was hoping for a stale protein bar, a half-eaten bag of pork rinds, something.
Maybe in the backseat, he thought. Sometimes he left half-eaten Subway sandwiches when a story called. He got up on his knees, spun around.
And came face to face with a killer.
‘Shane Adams reporting,’ the killer said with a smile.
Shane felt a pinprick on the side of his neck. It felt exactly like the time he had been hit with a pellet from a BB gun when he was six years old. But this was no BB. Within seconds he felt his legs fail him, then his arms.
As the warmth spread over him, through him, he felt the waters of the Ohio River, heard his mother’s voice calling him to supper. But it wasn’t his mother’s stern voice, it was the darkness itself beckoning with a final calclass="underline"
‘It seems you have one more story to tell.’
FORTY-NINE
The building was a twenty-four-story high-rise near the corner of Fourth and Washington. It was one of the few remaining old high-rise buildings in the area. It had recently been converted into a senior living facility. On the way over, Vincent explained to Byrne that one of DeRon Wilson’s dodges was to use the place as a stash house. He said Wilson’s grandmother had passed away in 2009, but Wilson kept the place.
At nine o’clock Carter Wilson left the building, and headed down Fourth Street to his car. He rounded the corner and was just about to open the door when two men walked up behind him. Instinctively Carter’s hand went to the 9mm pistol in his belt.
Vincent Balzano stopped him.
Where DeRon Wilson was small and wiry, Carter Wilson was of average height, but flabby. Too much junk food, too much sampling of the product. Vincent easily pushed the man to the top of the dead-end alley.
‘You know who I am?’ Vincent asked.
Nothing. Just Carter Wilson’s version of a jailhouse stare.
‘Coulda swore I asked you a question,’ Vincent added.
‘I know who you are.’
‘Good,’ Vincent said. ‘That saves me a lot of time.’
Carter nodded in Byrne’s direction. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Him? He’s the angel of fucking death, Carter. Believe me, you don’t want to deal with him.’
Carter continued to stare at Byrne.
‘Time to look at me,’ Vincent said.
Carter took a half-second too long to follow directions. Vincent turned Carter roughly around, slammed him into the wall. He emptied the man’s pockets, put the contents onto the top of a fifty-gallon drum, one of three in the alley: a few dollars, some loose change, car keys, an empty condom wrapper, a cell phone, and a disposable lighter.
‘Put your hands down and turn around,’ Vincent said.
Carter slowly did as he was told.
‘Where are you coming from?’ Vincent asked.
‘The store.’
‘Oh yeah? Which store is that?’
‘I don’t know, man.’
‘You don’t know? You were just there, how could you not know? Are you talking about that Rite-Aid on the corner?’
‘Yeah, yeah. That’s the one.’
‘There’s no Rite-Aid up there.’
Carter shook his head. ‘Man. Why you playin’ me like this?’
Vincent smiled. ‘I’m not playing, Carter. Truth is, we have somewhere to be. Do you know where we’re going?’
Carter remained silent.
‘That was a question,’ Vincent said.
‘How would I know where y’all going?’
‘We’re going to see your brother.’
Carter pulled a face, like he’d never heard the word before. ‘My brother?’
‘Yeah. Your real brother, not your play brother, or your cousin-brother. The one called DeRon. We can’t seem to locate him.’
‘Did you try his house?’
‘Damn,’ Vincent said. He looked over at Byrne, and back. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? Yeah. We tried his house, Carter. We also hit all his spots, all his corners, so we’re pretty sure the word is out that we want to have a little chat with him. That’s why we came to you, my man.’
Stone cold silence.
‘Okay. Look. I’m not going to insult your intelligence — such as it is — by asking you the question again.’
Vincent reached into his jacket pocket with one leather-gloved hand and pulled out a neatly wrapped package, a clear plastic baggie of what looked like two ounces of cocaine. He handed it to Carter, who took it.
‘What’s this?’
‘It’s yours,’ Vincent said. ‘I just found it on you when I patted you down.’
Everything seemed to hit Carter all at once. Instead of flailing, railing, or running, he seemed to implode. He just stood there, wide-eyed and shocked. Vincent took the package back.
‘That ain’t mine, man!’
‘Of course it is. Got your prints all over it. And with your record, I’m pretty sure you’re looking at federal time.’
Vincent tossed Byrne the keys to Carter’s car. Byrne opened the trunk, found a zippered canvas pouch, opened it. Inside was what looked like thirty or forty thousand dollars.
‘Oh, Carter, Carter,’ Vincent said. ‘We add that money into the mix and you are looking at a deep, dark hole.’
Carter started to vibrate. Byrne had seen it many times. It was the involuntary muscle reflex that always preceded supersonic felony flight. Carter was getting ready for liftoff.