Middle of Nowhere (18 page)

“Your people have to report for tomorrow’s day tour, Lou, or they’re thrown out of the game.”

“If he fires that many people, it’s going to be Molotov cocktails instead of blue bricks.”

“Just don’t let it be your people. Use the emergency calling tree. We’ve got to drop all the animosities and get as many people back by tomorrow morning as possible.”

“Amen.”

“And, Lou? I’m calling from a pay phone, because when the chief finds out this thing leaked, he’ll be looking for a scapegoat, for sure. He won’t appreciate some people being tipped off and others left to eat it. But that’s how it going to be, no matter how hard we try. There’s no way we’ll reach everyone by morning. Just so you know. I wouldn’t be making calls from my home or my cell.” He added, “The airport might work— they’ve got those business centers on A concourse.”

“I follow.” He sensed the man about to hang up. “And thanks, Phil.”

“What are friends for?” The line went dead.

Palisades, a marina and upscale restaurant, hung off the south shore of the Magnolia peninsula, supported by pilings and enough docks to house several hundred pleasure craft, all neat and shipshape and sparkling white under the lights. Teak and aluminum and enough fiberglass to wrap the city in a dome.

Boldt appreciated the view of the skyline, and LaMoia’s choice of location. The prices at the restaurant guaranteed they wouldn’t run into fellow officers. Palisades was more for the professional set and gold card tourists. Boldt walked the docks, drinking in the cool night air and charting the determined progress of the slowly moving cavalcade of lights from the state ferries. He made out the man’s distinctive silhouette from a distance. Bold. Confident. Even aggressive. You wouldn’t walk up to LaMoia at night without knowing him.

Boldt approached him in silence, distant city lights reflecting in the silver black water a mirror image that looked like a giant, glowing key, or the mouth of a shark. Boldt felt an urgency to get this meeting over with and head to the pay phone. If Schock and Phillipp hadn’t had their blood shed, he would have postponed the meet.

“Sorry about the cloak and dagger,” LaMoia said.

Boldt answered, “I appreciate the call. We need to talk.” The two of them worked in concert to watch for anyone watching them, an unspoken system that had one looking toward the restaurant, the other searching the neighboring docks, then switching assignments in a dance born of years of working the field together.

LaMoia supplied: “Many hands make light the work.”

“Yeah?” Boldt complained. “Well, I’m a little short-handed, thanks to you and the squad.”

“Don’t go forming stereotypes, Sarge. You think I’m home watching
CHiPs
reruns or something? I’m working Maria’s case.”

Boldt’s surprise registered on his shadowed face as confusion.

“Damn right. Figured a slouch like you could use a little help.” LaMoia added, “I’m working
all sorts of shit
you don’t wanna know about.”

That much was probably true. LaMoia’s investigative approach was anything but conventional. “You have to come back on the job,” Boldt informed him. Not only were LaMoia and his wealth of contacts invaluable, but Shoswitz’s news threatened the man’s future with Homicide.

“Don’t look a gift horse—”

“I’m serious, John. The chief—”

LaMoia interrupted. “Schock and Phillipp had Ron Chapman under surveillance. I’d lay odds on it.”

“Chapman?” Boldt questioned, his thoughts jarred. Chapman swinging a baseball bat on a fellow officer? Not likely. “Krishevski is Property. Chapman is Property. But I don’t see Ron Chapman doing Big Mac’s dirty work. Chapman hasn’t even joined the Flu! That doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m just telling you what I saw. Those boys were eyeing him.”

“That’s a crowded bar, John.”

“Chapman doesn’t hang at the Bull. I
do,
Sarge. As much as I hang at the Joke when you’re on the ivories. And Chapman’s out of place. He stuck out tonight because everyone knows he’s still on the job. You could say he got a lukewarm reception—same as you.”

“Go on.” Boldt continued to scan their surroundings, ensuring they weren’t being watched. It was no longer safe for one cop to talk to another. He hated the way things were.

“Chapman came in looking for someone. No doubt about it. Completely obvious. Schock and Phillipp weren’t far behind—a staggered entrance, one through the front, one through the back. Textbook shit. Phillipp’s a couple minutes behind his partner. About as long as it takes to double park in an alley down the street, if you hear what I’m saying. I’m putting ‘em on Chapman, on account that’s the way I read it. Chapman wanders around craning his head this way and that, gives it up and takes off. ‘Bout as subtle as a whore at a tea party. Maybe he signaled someone. Maybe not. I’m thinking Schock hangs to maintain appearances. Phillipp’s out the back door a couple beats behind the mark. . . . I’m telling you, Sarge. Couple minutes later, Schock follows. Maybe he gets a call. I didn’t see that. Can’t say. But they don’t make it far, right? And if that’s a mugging, then your bruises came from falling down stairs.”

LaMoia apparently had heard Boldt’s in-house explanation for his pains and aches. Not much sneaked past him.

“The chief is sending health services door to door.” Boldt explained what Shoswitz had passed along to him.

“It’s a bluff, Sarge. Shoswitz was supposed to leak it.”

“If I’m the chief, uniforms are promoted to detective. Academy recruits who’re past the three-week mark head straight to patrol. I keep the National Guard out of my house.”

LaMoia looked a little more convinced.

“You and your squad need to be back on the floor tomorrow before this hits the fan.”

“It’s the perfect bluff, I’m telling you. A couple lieus leak this and they get thirty, forty percent of us back with nothing more than a phone call.”

“Phil Shoswitz was guild secretary. Whose side do you think he’s on?” Boldt said, “Don’t double guess this, John. The information is good. We need to work the call tree, and we need to do it tonight. Phil thinks we should avoid our home lines.”

“Oh, this is precious.” LaMoia snorted and shook his head and looked Boldt over, trying to read him. He asked tentatively, “You buy this?”

Boldt knew to leave it alone. It was the only way to convince his obstinate sergeant. As much as he wanted to argue his case, he returned to LaMoia’s reason for the meeting. “Schock and Phillipp are Vice. Why are they sitting on a guy like Chapman?”

“Are they?” LaMoia asked. “Vice? You’re Homicide, Sarge, but are you at the moment?”

“One cop watching another? What, they got handed an I.I.?” Internal Investigations had been wiped out by the Flu same as Burglary. It wasn’t out of the question, no matter how unlikely. I.I. was a closed unit—a dreaded assignment. But it only made sense that these investigations would have to continue in spite of the Flu. He considered this possibility. “We need to know who Chapman was looking for.”

Saddled by obvious reservation, LaMoia informed Boldt, “Maria got hooked up to something first day of the Flu, Sarge. She wouldn’t talk about it—and we talked about
everything.
I got pissed off, partly ‘cause she wouldn’t talk, partly because she wouldn’t join us in the sickout. Basically, Sarge, she threw me out. Next time I see her she’s got her head screwed down to that bed.”

“I.I.?” Boldt asked.

“It might explain why she wouldn’t discuss whatever it was,” LaMoia suggested. The unit operated under strict secrecy acts. The explanation satisfied Boldt. LaMoia added, “Let me sniff out Chapman. You chat up Maria about that case. With me involved, it would only get her pissed off again. Hispanics and temper, Sarge! I’m telling you!”

“The call tree.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Thanks again for the call,” Boldt repeated. “I would have missed that crime scene.”

“What are you talking about, Sarge?”

“The call. Putting me on to the assault.”

“The only call I made was from the bar,” LaMoia said.

“Earlier?” Boldt asked.

LaMoia shook his head. “Wasn’t me.”

Boldt’s gut twisted. Who had wanted him to see two badly beaten officers? And much more important: Why? So he could help out with the investigation, or as a warning of how close he had come to incurring the same fate?

B
oldt placed the call from his cell phone, disturbing Phil Shoswitz at home. Boldt’s former boss had the kind of contacts within the department that John LaMoia had in the private sector. LaMoia could come up with any and all information on a suspect or witness, be it financial, tax-related, insurance or medical. He had “Deep Throats”—sources within institutions and industries—that would have made government agents blush. Shoswitz had formed similar relationships within SPD—ironically, in large part, due to his many years of guild service—and had ways of turning gossip into hard fact. He knew the scuttlebutt in the department’s vehicle garage as well as the chief’s social calendar. Exactly as Boldt needed.

Recognizing Boldt’s voice immediately, Shoswitz said, “You’re supposed to be working that phone tree.”

“Already in motion. What about Schock and Phillipp’s condition?” Boldt asked.

“Word is both are going to pull through, although Schock may lose the eye. Phillipp won’t be completing any full sentences for a week or so, but he’ll be back on the job.” Shoswitz already had the full medical reports on the two and understood Boldt wanted this information first.

Boldt said cautiously, “I need to know if they had drawn I.I. duty as a result of the Flu. I hear they may have followed a fellow officer into that bar.”

“I can ask around, but I won’t get confirmation, Lou. Not if it’s I.I.”

“And that lack of confirmation will tell us what we need to know.”

“Not necessarily.”

“I read this wrong, Phil. Blue on blue. I was thinking we were getting roughed up in order to cut our numbers, strengthen the effect of the Flu. And sure, maybe a brick through a window. Some rookie pissed off his paycheck isn’t coming in and drinking too much. But assaults? Sanchez? Schock and Phillipp?” He left himself out of it. “Would we do that kind of damage to each other over guild politics?”

“Don’t underestimate what a desperate man will do,” Shoswitz cautioned.

“Six months into a strike, maybe. But one week? Does that make sense? And so carefully executed to look like muggings. The things are textbook, Phil.”

“Your point?”

“I could use a little help here,” Boldt prodded. “I’ve got two Vice cops poking around a bar and apparently following a Property sergeant. What’s that about?”

“I’ll ask around,” Shoswitz confirmed. “But if they were I.I., about the best we’ll get is a denial. We’ll be working hunches is all.”

“I have another source I can work,” Boldt told him. “Sanchez may be able to fill in some of this.”

“I thought she’s comatose.”

“So does everyone,” Boldt said. “Right now, that’s the one advantage I’ve got.”

It was too late to visit Sanchez at the hospital. She’d be medicated and fast asleep. But it wasn’t too late to grab onto a few limbs and start shaking the tree. Whoever had committed the assaults would have fresh blood to hide, might even have defensive wounds to show for their efforts.