Body Guard (23 page)

“I don’t want to get too far out of range.” Bunch pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store and coasted toward the outdoor telephone. A few minutes later, the locater began moving again, and in a short time Devlin saw Atencio’s Mustang go by with Vinny following three or four cars back. Martin was gone.

A static-fractured voice came over the receiver: “… following Johnny now. Scotty’s on his … .”

“Damn,” muttered Bunch. Then into the radio pack, “Dave, sit tight. Martin’s gone somewhere. Probably checking their backside. Target’s still headed west on Forty-eighth.”

“Ten-four.”

“Let’s go, Bunch. Signal’s getting weak.”

They followed them to Pecos and then south. There they sat out of sight while Atencio led Vinny in a series of repeated loops around a residential block in the Chaffee Park neighborhood until he was satisfied there was no tail. Then they took Forty-fourth Avenue straight to Federal and turned north.

“They’re headed for it now, wherever the hell it is.” Bunch fed the information to Miller, and, dropping back into heavy traffic, they followed the straight signals from the locater as Atencio steered north on Federal for a couple miles. Just beyond Sixty-fourth, Vinny’s car made a right turn, then a left, and halted.

Bunch and Kirk turned and drove past the spot far enough so the signal weakened. They swung onto a parallel street and moved back.

“I bet it’s that storage lot,” said Bunch.

Over the low roofs of scattered small homes and cinder-block buildings that housed generator repair shops, distributing companies, novelties wholesalers, was a sign for U-Rent-M Self Storage.

“Dave, two of them are at the U-Rent-M just off Federal north of Sixty-fourth. We can’t see the main man.”

“You want us to move in now?”

“Not yet. We’re going closer. Maybe we can pick up something from our man’s wire.”

“Ten-four.”

Martin was smart enough to delay his arrival, figuring that if Atencio and Vinny were going to be busted, they’d get hit just after they stopped at the storage bin.

“Pull into the parking lot of that RV place, Bunch.” The locater bug hadn’t moved and they could see both Vinny’s Chevrolet and Atencio’s Mustang parked at the end of one of the rows of garage doors that opened to the storage bins. Bunch fiddled with the antenna of the receiving unit while Devlin watched in the rearview mirrors. Vinny and Atencio began loading something from the trunk of Vinny’s car into the open bin.

“I got him,” said Bunch.

Vinny’s voice came thinly out of the speaker. “When the hell’s he supposed to get here?”

“Don’t worry, man, he’ll be here. Let’s get this crap inside— we ain’t got much time.”

The voices gave way to the rustling crackle of hands busy at something. Then Vinny’s voice again: “That it? You done?”

“Yeah. Pull that up there.”

Silence.

“He’s taking his fucking time.”

Atencio’s voice laughed something indecipherable.

“I just want to get it over with.”

“Chill out. He’s not going to leave this crap alone for long.”

“Here comes the fucker. You set?”

“Yeah.”

Bunch radioed Miller. “He’s pulling in now. There’s only one gate. You ready to move?”

“We’re on our way.”

“Remember, Dave, cover our man.”

“I remember.”

It happened quickly. Martin’s Firebird crackled across the gravel as he coasted through the gate toward the two waiting cars. It stopped and the man got out and they heard Martin’s voice distant on the speaker: “Everything okay?” Then Miller’s unmarked sedan squealed through the gate, tires spraying dust and gravel in a hard slide to block the cars. Someone said, “Jesus Christ!” and Vinny’s voice came loud: “What the hell! What the hell, Scotty—they followed your ass!” Four plainclothes officers leapt out of the rocking vehicle, guns drawn, as another voice shouted excitedly, “Get ‘em up! Lift ‘em, God damn you, or you’re dog meat!”

Kirk and Bunch watched as the officers separated the three men and spread them over the hoods of the cars. Vinny’s voice came again. “Take it easy, shitbird—ow!” The transmitter went dead and the three, arms shackled behind, were hustled into the police car. Then the vehicles pulled away and Bunch, too, drove to the station.

Miller was waiting in the Vice and Narcotics offices. “I put them in separate rooms, Bunch. There’s the stuff.” He pointed to the stack of plastic-wrapped bundles on a desk. One of them was open, and a small pile of white powder sat on waxed paper beside a bottle of liquid and an eyedropper. Behind it, covering two walls, rows of identification photographs pictured arrested prostitutes. One section was for women, another for female impersonators. Additional photographs showed the impersonators stripped of their disguises. A third panel was for homosexual prostitutes. Here and there red marker pen over a photo spelled AIDS.

“Any trouble?”

“Naw. It was sitting out waiting for us. It tests positive; it’s a good bust.”

Bunch eyed the stack of bags and whistled. “All that ninety percent?”

Miller, too, was impressed with the quantity. He should have been—it was one of the biggest hauls in V and N history. The swing of his leg as he sat on the corner of the desk and stared at the packets matched the satisfied nod of his head. “The lab will give us a breakout tomorrow. But I bet my badge we got us a kingpin. And we got him by the balls!”

“How’s my man?”

“Uh? Oh, he’s okay.” The detective fished in his pocket. “Here’s the wire. I pulled it when I patted him down. You know, sitting cheek-to-cheek in the same car with the others … .”

“Thanks. We talk to him?”

Miller led them to the holding cells. Vinny, like the other two, was in isolation. He stood up from the single metal bench bolted to the bare wall. “It’s about goddamn time. They get the stuff checked yet?”

“It’s positive,” said Miller.

“No shit, Dick Tracy. Where’s Martin and Atencio?”

“Down the hall,” said Bunch.

“You’ll let Atencio go, right? That’s the deal, right?”

Miller cocked an eye at Bunch.

“That’s what I promised him, Dave. Atencio’s only a mule. Martin’s the one behind it all. Vinny thinks if we let both of them go, Martin won’t know which one snitched.”

Vinny nodded quickly. “Johnny’ll turn state’s, too. He told me. And he’s not the one you want anyway.”

Miller grunted. “He’ll have to testify. You too.”

“Yeah, he knows that. It’s okay with me, too. Better cover.”

“All right. I’ll book the both of you and take statements— go through the motions, like.” He led Vinny away to an empty desk and started filling in the paperwork. Another detective had already begun marking and registering the unopened packages.

Martin, alone in his cubicle, was handcuffed to an eyebolt anchored into the wall. He said nothing as Bunch and Devlin entered and told him who they were.

“You’re facing twenty to thirty, Martin.”

He shrugged as best he could against the pull of the cuffs. “We’ll see. We’ll see what my lawyer says.”

“He’ll say Kingpin Statute, Scotty. Twenty to thirty.”

“Uh huh. Now I got something for you: I know who snitched. You tell Vinny he’s dead meat.”

Bunch pulled a locater transmitter from his pocket and held it up. “Here’s your snitch, Scotty. A bug. Your car’s been bugged for the last three weeks.” The big man smiled widely. “You led the cops to it yourself.”

The man stared hotly at Bunch, his straight hair hanging raggedly down over his collar and forehead.

“The cops are going to offer Vinny and Johnny a deal,” Devlin said. “All they have to do is tell the truth and they both walk.”

“Bullshit.”

“Think they won’t do that? What do they owe you?”

“They won’t fink! They know what’ll happen if they fink!”

Bunch snorted a laugh. “Yeah. They know. Here’s what’ll happen: You go to Canon City, they go on probation. The cops want you, Scotty, not them. They’re just mules. The cops are willing to trade for testimony against you.”

“You’re all on your lonesome,” agreed Devlin. “Unless you’ve got something to trade, too.”

His eyes, a kind of muddy green, narrowed. “Like what?”

“Information.”

“Screw that.”

Bunch said, “We don’t work for the cops. We work for Advantage Corporation. But the cops will listen to us on the charges. Maybe, with Mr. Reznick’s help, the charges can be reduced.”

“Who the hell is Reznick?”

“Your boss. The plant manager.”

The eyes studied Bunch and Devlin. Finally Martin said, “Reduced to what? It’s only possession.”

“No. It’s possession with intent to sell. No jury’ll believe you brought in twenty kilos of ninety percent pure for your own recreational use, Scotty. You’re under the Kingpin Statute, and Miller’s hungry for your ass.” Bunch smiled. “How’s it feel to be a genuine kingpin?”

“And maybe,” said Devlin, “the charges will be increased. Remember the kid who was murdered? What’s your alibi for that night, Martin?”

“No you don’t—”

“Yes, you son of a bitch, I do. Visser threatened us, and you and Tony carried out that threat. You two killed that boy, Scotty. Just like you said you would. Remember Visser? He swore out a deposition that you brought in Tony and you both went over there and killed the kid. Premeditated murder one, with aggravating circumstances. That’s a death charge, Scotty. That’s the big one.”

“Hey, I didn’t do that. I don’t know nothing about that!”

“Cut the bullshit, Martin.”

“I didn’t—”

Bunch’s large hands grabbed Martin’s ears and lifted him to the end of the short chain and thudded the back of his head against the white concrete wall. He leaned over the grunting man. “You shit-for-brains, you’re getting a deal! You’re getting a fucking deal and you better take it!”

“You can’t hurt me like this—I got rights! Guard!”

Bunch picked him up again. “We’re not cops. You got no rights with us.” He bounced the man again.

“Ow!”

“Everything all right in here?” A uniformed officer leaned through the door to look suspiciously at the three men.

“Tell the man, Martin. Tell him it’s not all right. Tell him you want to talk to somebody in homicide.”

Martin stared at the black policeman, his eyes wide and mouth open. But no sound came. Instead, he took a deep breath and chewed his lower lip and nodded. “It’s fine. Fine.”

Bunch smiled at the officer. “We’re from down the hall in Vice and Narcotics.”

The policeman grunted. “Getting pretty noisy out here.”

“Thanks,” Devlin said. “It’ll be quiet now.”

The heavy door with its rivets and tiny Plexiglas window closed again. Kirk gazed down at Martin, and he seemed to be a long distance away, as if bracketed in the sights of a rifle. “I don’t want to give you a deal, Martin. I want you to fry. I want to hear your goddamn skin crackle like bacon.” The man’s eyes gazed hollowly back at Kirk. “A premeditated torture murder. There’s no way you’ll beat the death sentence on that, Scotty.”

“It wasn’t me!”

“We’ve got the deposition. As an accessory, you’ll be just as dead.”

Martin’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “What kind of deal?”

“We want Tony and the names of the people in the Pensacola plant. You give them to us and maybe—just maybe—I’ll talk to Reznick about lowering the charges.”

A long minute. “What about—ah … the other. You know.” He swallowed again. “I’m telling you the truth—it wasn’t me!”

“Then you by God tell us who it was.”

E
VENTUALLY, HE DID
; in his eyes, justice was a series of deals, and what helped Martin was what was just. He repeated several times that he had not been the one to kill Newman, that he didn’t know that’s what Tony was going to do. “He said he was going to thump the guy a little. Nothing heavy, just a few thumps to find out what he knew. Me, I was lookout. Outside the door. We went over, the guy sees me through the peephole and opens the door, then Tony steps in. Next thing I hear is the music go loud.”

“You didn’t hear any screams?”

Martin shook his head, and his eyes moved away from Kirk’s stare. “Later, Tony opened the door and told me to come in and help clean up. He’d taped the guy’s mouth so he couldn’t scream too loud. And there was all this fucking music real loud … .”

Neither Kirk nor Bunch believed the man, but there was no evidence otherwise. When they got Tony, that scumbag might tell a different version and it would be up to the prosecutors to decide which was the best story to bring into court.

“Why’d he kill the kid? He didn’t have to do that.”

One of Martin’s shoulders bobbed. “I don’t know. Maybe he flipped. Tony’s got this thing about hurting people, I don’t know. He did hard time in Joliet and some other place.”

Tony was one of the Pensacola people, and Martin thought he was the one who put the organization together. He was also the one Martin telephoned after Chris came in with the story about selling cocaine in the factory. “An emergency number, you know? Something comes up, I call this number, somebody calls back, finds out what’s the hang-up. Tony maybe takes care of it. Anyway, I told him about this guy wants to sell cocaine in the plant. Tony didn’t believe it, but he says he’ll come and scope it out because it was bad news anyway. Set up a meet, he told me, use a front, and he’d go along to look things over. So I told Eddie to meet with you people. Eddie and Tony. I never met the guy in person before. I don’t know if that’s his real name, even. Anyway, he goes along as driver. After the meet, we went over to talk to the guy. Newman. Find out what kind of scam is really going down.”

“And you found out.”

“Tony came out of the room and said you was company dicks and there wasn’t nothing to worry about. We’d just lay low for a while. Keep our eyes open.”

“And he said Chris was dead.”

Martin looked down at his dusty work boots. “No. Not exactly. He just told me to come in and help clean up.” He looked up. “I was along but I didn’t know what was going down.”

Bunch snorted. “And if you did, you’d have stopped it, right?”

Martin thought about that, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think I could’ve.” A deep breath. “You people going after him? You two?”