Last Call (18 page)
Beat that.
“I never knew this was here,” said Andie.
“You like it?”
She surveyed the wall of wines and the waiters dressed in traditional attire. “Yeah, I do, actually. And for you it’s perfect. Sparky’s used to be a gas station.Your new favorite restaurant still is.”
“What can I say? In a Miami-chic world where pretentious-ness knows no bounds, a guy has to search pretty hard to find these little gems.”
The waiter brought menus, and Jack found himself peering out over the top of his as Andie studied hers. Men often liked a certain type of woman, and if that was true of Jack,Andie had been a complete—albeit brief—break from type. Both Rene and his ex-wife were blondes. Andie’s hair was blacker than black, like a midnight blue tuxedo, and her mixed ancestry made her attractive in ways that traditional beauties weren’t.
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“What do you want?” she said.
“Huh?” he said, averting his eyes.
“What are you ordering?”
“Ah,” said Jack, relieved to know he hadn’t been caught staring.
He made some recommendations, but Andie wasn’t very hungry, so he ordered churrasco steak tapas and a small serving of chipotle for them to share. Andie wanted a glass of pinot grigio, and Jack convinced her to share a bottle of Santa Marguerita, since he was buying and it was cheaper here than at the supermarket anyway.
That she drank was important. Law enforcement types were always stressed at the end of their day, and he wanted her in a good mood, more receptive to his strategy on how to nail the punks who had shot at Theo.
“I assume you didn’t invite me out here to get me drunk,” she said.
“No. I have a witness to Theo’s shooting.”
“Terrific.When can I talk to him?”
“He doesn’t want any part of law enforcement.”
“Naturally,” she said.“That’s the problem with drive-by shootings.Witnesses tend to get scarce.”
The waiter brought their wine and poured two glasses.When he was gone, Jack showed Andie the drawing that Tyrone had sketched for him and Uncle Cy. It was a menacing-looking knife in an upright position, handle at the top, tip pointing down, and blood dripping from the blade.“There can’t be that many red cars with this symbol etched onto the back window.”
She examined it while tasting her wine. “I know this gang. O-Town Posse. Started in Overtown about five years ago, but it’s grown fast.”
“What’s with the knife symbol?”
“It’s actually a KA-BAR—a military fighting knife made especially for close-combat killing.This is who they are: extremely violent, heavy drug traffickers who would kill you as soon as look at LAST CALL
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you.They’re trying to align themselves with the big leagues—Folk Nation out of Chicago or Crips in L.A.”
“So this is a good lead?”
She drank more wine. “Just because we have a red car with a recognizable gang symbol doesn’t mean we can peg the shooter.”
“Find the car and haul in the owner for questioning.”
“I definitely will. But it’s not easy to get someone to testify against a gang as ruthless as O-Town Posse, and the owner of this vehicle knows that. He won’t crack just because I ask him tough questions.”
The waiter brought their churrasco. It was done to perfection, medium rare, and the chimichurri sauce wasn’t too oily.“What if I can get the witness to talk? Will you protect him?”
“Did he see the triggerman?”
“No.”
Andie finished her wine. Jack poured her more. She said, “I can’t sell the bureau on protecting a witness who doesn’t know enough to get an arrest, let alone a conviction. I already have my hands full trying to justify protection for Theo.”
“He’s helping you figure out who helped Isaac Reems escape and who shot him. It’s not like he’s getting something for nothing.”
“But we cut Theo’s deal on the assumption that the same guy who shot Isaac Reems also tried to shoot Theo.The more we learn about Theo’s shooting, the less it resembles Isaac’s.”
“You don’t need the exact same MO for two shootings to be related.”
“No, but now that we know Theo was shot by a gang, the state attorney is going to say, hey, maybe this had nothing to do with Reems. Maybe it was even random. Because the Reems case is looking more and more like a professional hit.”
“Gangs do hits,” said Jack.“And if somebody wanted to elimi-156
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nate both Isaac and Theo, what better way to confuse the investigators than to make one of the killings look like a drive-by shooting by a gang like O-Town Posse?”
“But all we have is a theory.
Your
theory. Honestly, it’s not entirely adding up for me.”
“Why not?”
“There are a zillion holes.”
“A zillion?”
“Yes.”
“You counted them?”
“Stop being such a literal lawyer. I meant there are a lot.”
“Let’s hear them.”
“I can’t name them all.”
“You can’t name any.”
“I can name plenty.”
“Plenty? Help me with my math. Is that more or less than a zillion?”
Jack didn’t enjoy getting under her skin, but when she wore her FBI hat, that was the only way to make her talk.
She swallowed more wine. “All right, explain this to me. Every arm of law enforcement was out looking for Isaac Reems and couldn’t find him. But the killer was able to hone right in on him.
I’m curious as to how that works under your theory. How did the shooter know to go to the restaurant that used to be Homeboy’s?
How did he know exactly when Isaac Reems was going to be there?
How did he get such a clear shot at Isaac? Why did Isaac call out Theo’s name before he was shot? Why would—”
“What did you just say?”
Andie froze. She’d obviously shared something she shouldn’t have.“Forget what I said.”
“No way.”
“Jack, be professional about this.”
“I am being professional. I heard what I heard.”
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“All right, fine. Now you understand why I’m having difficulty buying your version of events.”
He also understood that the only way to change her views was to tell her about Isaac’s phone calls to Theo. Only then would she understand how the killer—by tapping Theo’s phone line—had heard Isaac tell Theo to meet him behind the old Homeboy’s at 1:00 a.m. Problem was, those calls could also prove that
Theo
knew where Isaac was going to be.
“I could fill those holes for you,” said Jack, “but I need to protect Theo from any possibility of being charged with Isaac’s murder.”
“What are you asking me to do?”
“Look at the evidence I’m willing to share with no one else but you. See if it convinces you that whoever killed Theo’s mother also killed Isaac—and then tried to kill Theo.”
“What if it doesn’t convince me?”
“I’ll forget that you slipped and told me that Reems called out Theo’s name before he was shot.And then you’ll show me that you can keep your word.”
“Meaning what?”
“Somewhere down the line, if the state attorney ends up charging Theo with Isaac Reems’s murder, you can’t share this evidence with the prosecution.”
“You want me to get amnesia?”
“I want you to make a deal, and I want you to stick to it.”
She shifted in her seat, her posture more relaxed, and took another drink of wine. “Let me ask you something. I’m curious.
What if we were dating?”
Jack coughed.“What?”
“Assume you hadn’t decided that I was anti-Theo and we were now several months into a real relationship. Say I had a slip of the tongue and confidential information about a case popped out of my mouth.Would you be busting my chops like this?”
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Jack considered it.“I don’t know.That’s very hypothetical.”
“Very,” she said.
“Hypotheticals always make me nervous.”
She leaned closer, elbows on the table.“No, Jack. It’s
reality
that makes you nervous.”
Their eyes met, and her gaze was so penetrating that she seemed to be searching inside him for his response. He had none.
“So, do we have a deal?” he said.
She rose slowly, confidently, his concession of the point having apparently granted her satisfaction—at least for the moment. “I’ll think about it. And then maybe I’ll give you a call.”
She turned and exited through the minimart. Jack drank his wine and watched as he let reality walk away from him. Again.
Theo needed to buy a guard.
It was a pretty safe bet that an insider had helped Isaac Reems escape. Somebody—namely, a guard—had looked the other way when Isaac climbed out of a second-story window and lowered himself to the yard with a rope made from bedsheets. Part of Theo’s “protection” arrangement with Andie Henning and the FBI was to work undercover and find the insider. Theo would honor the deal, but finding a corrupt corrections officer wasn’t his main objective. He was more interested in finding out who had killed his mother, who had put a bullet in Isaac’s head, and—most important—who had taken a shot at him. He’d be that much closer to answering those questions if he could figure out who had bribed the guard to spring Isaac loose.To do that, he first needed to learn which guards were for sale.
“Your buddy Isaac didn’t get too far, did he?”
Theo was alone in his cell when he heard the guard’s voice. He turned and saw MacDonald standing in the open doorway. They called him Old MacDonald, because he was the youngest guard on the cell block. He’d been a high-school football star, and he still carried himself with the cockiness of a teenage jock. He was showing signs of going soft around the middle, but his arms and shoulders were enormous. Save for the slight limp from a career-ending knee injury, he looked like he could have gone on to play college ball. Instead, he was a prison guard.
“Say what, dude?” said Theo.
MacDonald stepped inside, serious attitude in his swagger. He 160
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stopped about a foot away from Theo, getting right in his face.“None of this ‘Say-what-dude’ disrespect. It’s ‘Excuse me, sir.’”
Theo was expressionless.“Say what, dude?”
The stare-down lasted a moment longer, and then MacDonald backed away. He checked the stack of magazines on Theo’s bunk, the photograph of Trina taped to the wall.“Who’s this?”
In prison, personal information was power, and Theo knew better than to give it out freely.“My grandmother.”
“Pretty hot granny.”
“She takes vitamins.”
“Quite the wiseguy, huh? Maybe I’ll stick you in a cell with a real wiseguy. See how you like sucking Italian dick.”
“There ain’t no Mafia in here.”
“How do you know, chump?”
Theo couldn’t tell him that he knew more about his fellow inmates than the guards did. Only Andie and her boss at the FBI, the state attorney, the director of the Department of Corrections, and the TGK warden were privy to the special arrangement that had gotten him arrested on sham charges and landed him in Isaac’s old bunk pending a trial that would never happen.To everyone else, he was just a regular inmate.
“’Cause I don’t smell any garlic.”
MacDonald smiled insincerely, then got his ugly face right up in Theo’s. “Listen to me, boy. I know Reems was your old buddy.
I know you’re in here because you helped him after he got on the outside.”
“Me and my lawyer say I didn’t do it.”
He threw a forearm to Theo’s throat and pushed him back against the wall. “I don’t care what you or your lawyer says. Nobody cares.”
Theo wanted to clock him, but he couldn’t do his job from solitary confinement.
MacDonald said,“Do you think I enjoy coming to work every LAST CALL
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day and babysitting scum like you? I had a good record here. I was up for promotion. Then your friend Isaac busts out and makes us all look like Keystone cops. I’m pissed about that.You understand what I’m saying, Knight? I’m
pissed
,” he said, thumping Theo’s chest for emphasis.
The anger was all over MacDonald’s face, but he didn’t take that proverbial one step too many—he didn’t say “I’m pissed, and I’m going to make you pay for it.”
He ripped the photo of Trina off the wall, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it at Theo as he left.
Theo picked it up, flattened out the creases, and put it right back on the wall.
“MacDonald’s an asshole,” said Moses, as he entered Theo’s cell.
Theo said,“You heard?”
“It ain’t like I had my ear to the wall, dude. I’m just a couple cells away.”
“It’s cool,” said Theo.
Moses leaned against the wall. “So, you and Isaac go back a ways?”
“Long, long ways,” said Theo.“Before I was on death row.”
“Isaac was cool in my book,” said Moses.
“That so?”
“Yeah. It’s a pretty short book, too.”
“I’m sure he was honored.”
Moses smiled, seeming to like Theo’s sense of humor. He started out of the cell.“Walk with me.”
“Where to?”
“I got a date. Come see.”
Theo followed him out onto the cell block. Free time and recreation lasted until shower time at 8:00 p.m., so the block was abuzz with inmates who were watching television, playing dominoes, waiting in line to use the telephone, shooting 162
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the breeze, or just wandering around and trying to shake off the boredom.Theo followed Moses past the bank of telephones and up the stairwell that led to the laundry room and infirmary.
Moses took a seat on the third step from the top and peered through the bars that covered the stairwell’s only window.
“Right on time,” he said.“Have a look.”
Theo went to the window and sat one step below Moses. In the distance, beyond a nine-foot-high chain-link fence that encircled the yard, a woman with long brown hair stood beside a car that was parked on the shoulder of the road. She was wearing a long yellow raincoat, even though the sun was setting on a clear and warm evening, not a rain cloud in sight. She unbuttoned the coat, grabbed the lapels, swung open the left side, closed it, swung open the right side, closed it. She continued teasing in this fashion, and it was obvious even from a distance that she was naked underneath her coat, top and bottom, her tan lines highlighting the points of interest. She moved like an exotic dancer to spice things up, bending over and grabbing her ankles every now and then to tempt them with her ass.
