Gatekeeper (20 page)

"The Incredible Hulk," Manuel said in astonishment, speaking for the first time since their arrival.

Badamo turned and looked at him. "It speaks," he said, but Manuel's outburst had obviously pleased him. "You a fan?"

"Oh, sure," Manuel admitted, approaching the huge drawing. It was more like a set piece, old and stained and battered around the edges, crudely painted on plywood. "I loved all the Marvel and DC characters."

Badamo laughed. "Look behind it."

Sam watched, amazed, as Manuel's aloof and chilly manner melted into something closer to that of an enthusiastic kid coming face-to-face with an old friend. He tilted the painted panel toward him and craned to look behind it.

"Oh my God: It's Thor. These are wonderful." Manuel shifted the Hulk aside to reveal a blond-haired, muscular Viking carrying a massive hammer in one hand. "Why are they here?"

"Old souvenirs," Badamo explained. "From years back. We have an annual parade in Rutland—every Halloween. In the old days, writers and artists from Marvel and DC would come up from New York dressed in costume to ride the floats we put together. Those things were part of it."

"Why?" Sam asked, incredulous.

"For fun. There was a guy named Tom Fagan who worked for the paper who also knew Stan Lee and a couple of other comic bigwigs. He invited them up and I guess they thought it was loopy enough to accept. They did it for years. Basically, just a way for a lot of people to get drunk and stoned, but it got to be quite the tradition. The parade was even mentioned in a few of the comic books, along with Fagan himself."

Manuel was shaking his head. "Wow. I learned to read from these things. My uncle used to have them by the hundreds. I couldn't get enough of them."

Sam watched them looking at one another like long-lost cousins, wondering at life's odd twists.

Julius Badamo waved a hand toward the house behind them. "So, you interested?"

Manuel glanced at Sam, who'd been so picky all day. She smiled and said, "Who can argue with the Incredible Hulk? Works for us if it works for you."

Badamo looked a little rueful. "You said your money's good. You got it."

* * *

After they'd sealed the deal with both a security deposit and a down payment in cash, which Badamo did a poor job of pretending to take in stride, Sam and Manuel retired to their car.

"A comic book fan?" she asked him before starting the engine.

He was staring straight ahead. "How soon do we start operations?"

"A comic book fan?" she repeated, laughing now.

His face reddened. "I was a kid once. Drive."

She still didn't turn the key. "Where did you grow up?"

"In an apartment."

"In Holyoke?"

He hesitated. "Nobody grows up in Holyoke. I was born in the Bronx."

"Holyoke's got to be better than that."

He tilted his head equivocally, his eyes still fixed ahead, as if this entire conversation were taking place inside his head. "Better," he conceded. "That's still not saying much."

"You're upwardly mobile," she argued. "If Johnny pulls this off, you'll be sitting pretty."

He didn't answer.

She watched him a moment before asking, "You don't think?"

For the first time since they'd entered the car, he looked at her. "I hope so."

She waited expectantly, but that was it. The next thing he said was, "Drive."

* * *

Joe pulled into the gas station parking lot off the immaculate and picturesque village common of Rochester, Vermont, roughly halfway between Rutland and Waterbury—the agreed-upon meeting place that he'd set up with Bill Allard on the phone an hour earlier.

Neither one of them bothered leaving their cars. Old-time cops both, they'd instinctively parked door-to-door and simply rolled down their windows to have a comfortable and private talk.

"Too restless to use a phone?" Joe asked his boss, smiling.

"Yeah—a little. Good day for a drive," Allard answered. "I didn't want anyone hearing this, either, even if it is total horseshit."

"Sounds political."

Allard let out a short, mirthless laugh. "Yeah. You could say that. Governor Reynolds is getting twitchy about seeing results."

Gunther raised his eyebrows. "Twitchy? When was the last time we put together an operation this fast, much less one involving an undercover?"

Allard was sympathetic. "He's running for office, Joe. You know how they get. He wants a headline he can claim credit for."

Gunther repressed his irritation. "Can't give him one. Not yet."

Allard tried a more general approach. "Where do we stand overall, starting with Sam?"

"She's in place, and all the surveillance equipment is working fine, although audio ain't the best—too much echo. Usable, though. But nothing much has happened yet. She and Manuel are still setting up shop, scoping out the neighborhood, getting a feel for the competition. They don't want to start selling until they know the ground. Hollowell's murder is still a fresh memory."

"Anything new on that?"

"You mean, anything new on who killed Lapierre?" Joe countered. "Not a whole lot. Sam finally got Manuel to admit that Hollowell was their guy in town, so I guess that means Rivera didn't kill him."

"What was Hollowell's job?"

"Rutland BCI is running that. I have access to their reports and can sit in on their briefings, but I don't know what's being kicked around in the squad room. Last take I heard is that Torres or one of his Holyoke buddies did in Hollowell to shut down Rivera before he got started. But that doesn't explain Sharon Lapierre. If she just happened to be in Hollowell's motel room when he was hit, why the rigmarole with the tourniquet and the syringe? Why not just make it look like Hollowell killed her? Or, for that matter, why care about her at all? They probably didn't know her grandfather was connected to the governor."

"What's the less obvious take, then?" Allard prompted.

"Still no clue about Lapierre," Gunther continued. "But an alternate theory for Hollowell might be that it had nothing to do with the Holyoke crowd. All these people are screwed up enough to eat their young for lunch. And Christ knows, Torres, Rivera, and the others are just the ones we happen to know about. There're a ton of freelancers out there, too. Hollowell may have just pissed off the wrong guy."

Allard didn't look happy. "What about forensics. They find anything?"

Joe shook his head. "The motel room was a hole-in-the-wall—had more prints, hair samples, and body fluids than a bus depot bathroom. They gathered stuff, as usual, but nobody I talked to thinks it'll come to anything. The best hope is the interviews they're conducting with Sharon's friends and contacts, and so far, all of them are playing dumb. Murder makes them skittish."

"Go figure," Allard muttered to himself.

"By the way," Gunther added, "we ever going to get to the part where you explain why we're meeting out here other than the pretty-day-for-a-drive line? I know it's not because we're dumping on the governor—everybody does that. The people downstairs upset with us again?"

The tiny VBI offices in Waterbury were on the top floor of a building largely filled with the Vermont State Police.

"They're not too thrilled," Allard admitted. "There's some bitching that we went around the outside and slipped in the back door."

"They don't know about Sam, do they?" Joe asked in alarm. "I figured McCall for better than that."

"No, no," Allard assured him. "That's not where this is coming from. McCall seems perfectly happy, as does the Rutland chief. This is just the brass chasing its tail while the field troops are getting the job done. Sam's safe and I think you guys are secure in the task force. But people are grumbling, and unless I can get the governor calmed down, they might find a way to his ear. If that happens, any thing's possible. Reynolds is already unhappy I made him downgrade his 'end of drugs in Vermont' spiel."

"Christ," Gunther said softly.

"Don't worry about it, Joe," his boss reassured him. "This is all pure FYI material. Ignorance ain't bliss when the lions are circling the compound, but at least it only counts if they find a way in. I'll do everything I can to stop that from happening. Okay?"

"All right."

"More to the point," Allard went on, "how's Sam doing emotionally?"

"So far, so good, as far as I can tell. She's charged up about the job, feels she has a handle on the players, and is settling in with the man Rivera partnered her up with."

"Tell me about him," Allard requested.

Gunther recited what he'd gleaned from the computer search they'd conducted on Manuel as soon as Sam had forwarded his name. "Manuel Ruiz, age twenty-seven, born in the Bronx of Puerto Rican parents. High school dropout, ex-gang member in New York, list of petty crimes as a juvenile, ramping up to assault, weapons charges, drug possession, et cetera. He's also suspected of having been the bad guy in a fatal knifing down there. The feeling is he moved to Holyoke to get out of the heat. The NYPD was interested to hear we were asking about him."

"But they don't have a case?"

"Right."

"You comfortable with him being with her?"

"She is, and that's all I can go by. I mean, Christ, Bill, none of these guys are virgins. They shoot each other in cold blood in Holyoke, right on the street in the middle of the afternoon. Sam tells me Ruiz is a comic book fan. I think she likes him."

Allard stared at him. "Likes him? What the hell's that mean?"

Gunther laughed, in part to discharge the tension. "Just what I said. The woman sleeps with Willy Kunkle, for crying out loud. You surprised she'd take a shine to a loony with a knife who reads comics? Get real."

Bill smiled despite himself. "Sorry. Still . . ."

"I know," Gunther admitted, getting serious again. "To be honest, I'm not too thrilled about Ruiz myself. I think he's dangerous as hell. But she does have to work with them—all of them—and that means getting friendly. It's a risk of the job."

He held his hand up to stop Allard before he responded to that. "I'm not saying she's falling for him. Stop reading into this. I'm suggesting we have to let her act it out as she sees fit. She knows what she can and can't do legally. She knows the line that'll be drawn in court. The rest is up to her. We have to trust her here."

"She is pretty levelheaded," Allard commented, as if to comfort himself.

"Right," Gunther reinforced him. But, in fact, he wasn't being entirely truthful. Sammie Martens was reliable, loyal, dedicated, and as true to her job as a bloodhound to a scent, but "levelheaded" implied something she was not. She could work up a passion bordering on zealotry sometimes—and he'd seen it affect her judgment.

Were he to be absolutely honest, he just hoped he wouldn't be questioning his own in the end. 

Chapter 15

George Backer stood by the tree in deep shadow for a slow count of thirty, eyeing the dark house before him, listening for any sounds that would turn him back. The driveway at least was perfect—long enough to allow for a slight curve that hid the house from the road behind a row of bushes.

Satisfied, his heart pumping with the comforting high of this part of his routine, he walked quickly from the tree up the short flight of steps leading to the kitchen door, tried the knob, found it locked, and instantly punched out the small window right above it—his hand protected by the extended sleeve of his sweatshirt. He reached in, turned the lock, and entered.

As always, he wasn't positive the place was empty. That was part of the rush. He didn't stake a house out for long. He did the obvious things—checked for cars, signs of life, any dogs, circled the whole building—but mostly he tried to get a feel for it, kind of like a Zen thing, or what he thought was a Zen thing.

He walked quickly through the kitchen into the living room beyond, his hands by his side. "You touch it, you take it" was one of his rules. He didn't use gloves. Took away from the fun. He had quite a few rules—no jewelry, no silverware, no art, nothing too heavy, nothing too high end, no super rich houses, no white houses. They tended to be owned by wealthy people, and wealthy people owned alarms. But he didn't much care about doorknobs. Someone had told him once that the cops never dusted doorknobs, because everybody used them. Made sense to him.

Backer glanced around, seeing by moonlight, a flashlight at the ready in case he needed it. He saw an open closet—clothes, shoes, a rifle in the corner. Forget that. Don't steal firearms. People took that seriously in this state. On the shelf above were hats, a few boxes. He moved on.

He ignored the TV, the radio, the expensive phone, paused at the bedroom door, knowing this was the make-or-break point concerning anyone being at home. Then he turned the knob and stepped inside, quiet as a ghost.

It was empty.

He crossed to the dresser, seeing the glint of glass in the dim light. Sure enough, there was a large jar, half full of spare change—a habit so common, he'd come to expect it. He weighed the jar carefully in his hand, found it acceptable, and dropped it into his backpack.

Feeling better now, he checked his watch. One minute down. His own two-minute rule half done. Moving faster, he checked the closet here, saw nothing immediately interesting, dropped to his knees, shined his flashlight under the bed, got up empty-handed, and finally returned to the kitchen. He wasn't distressed. He knew people's habits—especially people like these. It might be a wash except for the change jar, but he had one last standard place to check.

He opened the freezer door, shoved aside the usual items and chuckled at his own prowess. Reaching in, he extracted a frost-covered baggie and held it up to the light at the window, just seeing a fair amount of its flourlike contents.

"Bingo," he said softly, and checked his watch one last time. A hair over two minutes. Not bad.

He circumvented the broken glass at the door, stepped out onto the small landing, and was halfway down the four steps when he was suddenly caught in the crossbeams of several powerful flashlights.