Random Victim (21 page)

Leal skimmed the printouts. “Any idea what kind of car he drives? There’s a Ford van listed here that comes back to him.”

“That sounds like Stanley,” Brown said. “He was always a van man. His little ass looks pretty funny bouncing around on top
of one of those big Harleys.”

Leal smiled.

“You want me to have one of the marked units look for him and Nuke?” Brown asked. “Maybe pull ’em down on a traffic stop or
something?”

Leal considered this, then shook his head.

“Thanks, but I don’t want to take a chance on spooking them just yet,” he said. “At least not until we get a fix on where
this place actually is.”

“Okay,” Brown said. “We’ll keep Connie on ice for you tonight. You’ll be back in the morning for her, then?”

“Right,” Leal said. “Thanks for all the help, brother.” He extended his hand toward Brown, who shook it. “Oh, by the way,
I forgot to ask you. What’s Stanley’s street name?”

Brown smiled broadly.

“It’s Snake,” he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Clockwork

God, he looks hungover, Leal thought the next morning as he briefed Ryan on the new developments and the interrogation of
Connie. Ryan sat, his left hand supporting his head, occasionally sipping from his coffee cup and massaging his temples. Murphy,
Ryan told them at the start of the meeting, had been handpicked by Brice to replace Smith, who was now on vacation.

Man, I’m gonna miss Joe, Leal thought as he shook hands with Murphy. But with a new baby he won’t feel like working long hours
of surveillance, either. The bags under Murphy’s eyes rivaled Ryan’s, and his color seemed to darken as Leal explained how
the case had developed over the weekend.

“We’re gonna pick her up this morning,” Leal said. “Brown will arrange an I-Bond for the hypo charge. Then we’ll sign a complaint
on her for the credit card.”

“But them cards ain’t even been reported stolen yet, have they?” Murphy asked.

“It doesn’t matter at this point,” Leal said. “We’ll sign for receiving the card of another. That’ll keep her on ice tonight
in the Will County jail.”

“Will County?” Murphy said.

“Technically,” Hart said, “she has to be brought before a judge in the county where she’s arrested.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Murphy said, his head bobbling angrily. “Just seems that we ain’t doing much as a team, that’s all.”

“All right,” Leal said. “She’s agreed to show us the apartment building where the stuff’s at if we get her into a drug treatment
program. We’re going to take her for some methadone this morning. I know somebody at a clinic in Joliet. When we get the address,
we sit on it until the warrant comes through.”

“This is the boyfriend’s place?” Ryan asked. “The guy who gave her the card?”

“Actually, he didn’t give it to her,” Hart said. “They partied hard for a couple of days with some heroin and coke that Stanley
had. It seems his nose is falling apart fast, and he’s just started mainlining. She was teaching him.”

“Nice girl,” Ryan said, taking out one of his cigarettes.

“Maybe we can get her cleaned up in time for the Miss America Pageant,” Murphy said. He took out a cigar and motioned for
Ryan’s lighter.

“How about holding up on the smokes, guys?” Leal said. They both stared at him, but didn’t light up. “Anyway, after a few
days of sex, drugs, and rock and roll she lifted the card and decided to go shopping. She played it pretty smart, telling
people she was Martin Walker’s daughter, and just buying stuff she could fence real easy. Jewelry, sheets, CDs.”

“So she could buy more shit,” Ryan said. He stuck the unlit cigarette between his lips.

“Then she tried to get some cash refunds on some of the stuff she bought,” Hart said. “That’s when the store security checked
with the credit card company and saw the alert.”

“And the rest is history,” Ryan said. “So where’s this taking us?”

“She gives us the apartment where Snake stashed the stuff,” Leal said, “and they give her an I-Bond tomorrow and take her
to the drug rehab place.”

“Christ,” Ryan said. “I hate working with hypes. What if she tips the fucker off we’re coming?”

Leal shook his head. “After we get her the methadone and she shows us the house, Brown will keep her for us.”

“She’ll probably just sleep all day anyway,” Hart said.

“Just so she doesn’t make any calls to shithead,” Ryan said. “What’s he supposedly got?”

“The DVD/VCR definitely,” Leal said. “They used it to watch porno flicks. We’ll have to make the warrant nonspecific, though.”

“Too bad we missed the party,” Ryan said. “So we get this guy Willard—Snake to his friends and lovers—and maybe we get the
connection between him and Walker, huh? Maybe he’s one of Walker’s boys.”

“Or his supplier,” Leal said. “Anyway, once we get him we find out the connection. I think these wannabe motorcycle gangsters
are involved somehow.”

“Sounds like you’re kinda stretching it,” Murphy said.

Leal just shot him an angry look. If I can get through the rest of this investigation without punching this fat fucker’s lights
out, I’ll be happy.

“Okay,” Ryan said, standing. “One step at a time, okay? You guys go out there and take care of business. Murphy, go in with
a second car. I’ll get with the state’s attorney. As soon as you got the address, call me and I’ll set up the warrant. You
guys can sit on the apartment until it comes through.”

Leal nodded and handed Ryan copies of Connie’s statement and the report.

“I want to make sure Snake’s in there when we hit it,” he said.

Ryan nodded, looking over the paperwork. “You got a picture of this bitch?”

Leal handed him a Polaroid mug shot.

“Jesus Christ,” Ryan said. “Talk about coyote ugly. That’s where you wake up next to her in the morning and have to gnaw your
arm off to get out of the bed.”

Murphy guffawed with a heavy chuckle.

Those two fit together like a perverse Laurel and Hardy, Leal thought.

“I’d better touch bases with Brice on this, too,” Ryan said. “He took a personal day today, so I’ll beep him. At a reasonable
hour, of course.”

“Get started on the warrant first,” Leal said. “I don’t want to lose the momentum on this.”

“Roger that, Franko,” Ryan said, with a grin and a salute. “Just get me the address and I’ll start the ball rolling.”

It went like clockwork once they got back to Joliet. Connie was “enrolled” in the drug counseling program, thanks to Leal’s
connection, a middle-aged Hispanic woman named Maria. She and Leal talked in Spanish for a good five minutes before she turned
to Connie and greeted her with a cordial firmness.

“How have you been, Connie?”

The girl mumbled something unintelligible, her gaze on the floor.

“So are you ready to reinstate yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“All right, I’ll set up your counseling sessions and support group,” Maria said.

“I don’t have to go through that shit again, do I?”

“You know the rules. Either you agree, or it’s no deal.” Leal watched as Maria met the girl’s insolent-looking stare. “I’m
already stretching things by letting you bypass our waiting list.”

“Okay, okay, for Christ’s sake,” Connie said. “I’ll do whatever the fuck you say. Now can I
please
just have my medicine?”

Maria exhaled, then took out a book and a set of keys. After making a few notations in the ledger, she left the room. When
she returned she had a small plastic vial filled with a pink liquid.

“Cisco,” she said.
“Lo quieres?”

“Sí,”
Leal said, taking the vial. Then to Connie, “I’ll just hold on to this for now, babe.”

They ignored her pleading protests as they escorted her back to the squad car. Murphy was sitting behind the wheel of his
car, smoking.

“Can the cigar and get in with us,” Leal said, directing him to the front passenger seat. Hart opened the back door for Connie,
whose eyes stayed on the vial as Leal stuck it by the windshield.

“The quicker you show us the house,” he said, “the sooner you get your stuff.”

It was a brick three-flat situated in the middle of the block in one of the city’s older, decaying sections. Connie told them
Snake’s apartment was the one on top. The building had a small entranceway recessed into the northeast side. The trim and
gutters had been painted a dull green, with chips of paint peeling and flaking off, showing the gray patches underneath like
a torn checkerboard. The house on the left was also a three-flat, with a long canopied gangway that ran to the rear yards.
A chain-link fence separated the two. On the right side there were two more apartment buildings of identical design. Leal
circled the block and cut down an alley that ran parallel to the street.

The rear of the buildings had three-tiered, enclosed wooden porches ascending from the ground to the roof. A large three-car
garage, almost as wide as the apartment building itself, blocked the view of the rear yard. Three overhead garage doors and
a metal gate faced the alley. Leal drove around to the front again, checking the area. He stopped halfway down the block and
told Murphy to get out and check it.

Murphy breathed laboriously as he got out of the car and shuffled toward the middle building.

“This is where I’m really gonna miss Joe,” Leal said. “Now we got to deal with Jabba the Hutt with a badge.”

He saw Hart smile in the rearview mirror.

“So what was that Maria called you back at the clinic?” she asked. “Cisco?”

Leal sighed. “Yeah, like the Cisco Kid, right?”

“Actually,” she said, “I was thinking of that old Willie Nelson song.”

He grinned. “Either way, you know who that makes you, right?”

“All right, I won’t call you Cisco if you don’t call me Pancho then. Okay?”

“It’s a deal,” he said. “For now.” He saw Murphy leisurely ambling back toward them. “Good thing we’re not in a hurry.”

“Stanley Willard’s name is next to buzzer three,” Murphy said, settling back into the car.

“See?” Connie said. “Now can I have my medicine?”

Leal removed the vial from the dashboard, shook it several times, and handed it back to her. He watched as she drank it in
one long gulp then settled back into the seat.

After dropping Connie off and thanking Detective Brown for his help, Leal called Ryan back to get any progress on the search
warrant.

“I’m writing the complaint as we speak,” Ryan said. “Keep your pants on, will ya, Frankie?”

Leal glanced at his watch: twelve thirty-five.

“Okay, we’re going to set up on the house and wait,” he said. “Call me back when you get the warrant.”

“Is the stroke even there?” Ryan asked.

“I didn’t want to ring the bell. He’s supposed to drive a blue Ford van, and that’s in the garage. But he has a Harley, too,
and that’s not here.”

“Okay,” Ryan said. “I beeped Brice twice so far and he ain’t called yet.”

Leal wasn’t worried about Brice. He told Ryan to keep working on the warrant and hung up. Afterward, he called Sharon and
told her he’d be tied up till late.

“Oh, damn,” she said. “It figures that you’d be on nights when I’m on days. I was kind of hoping you’d come over so I could
fix you dinner.”

“How about a rain check?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said.

He detected some hesitancy in her tone.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Well, I got a call from Mr. Feinstein in New York this morning.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I mentioned to Steve what happened, and apparently it got back to the big boss.” She was speaking rapidly. “So, anyway,
he apologized to me and said that he was going to reprimand that guy Fenner for his—How did he put it? ‘Unconscionable behavior.’
”

Leal licked his lips. “Good. Did he talk to you about the job, too?”

“Yeah,” she answered slowly. “He asked me to reconsider and offered to up the salary considerably.”

Leal was silent for a moment.

“Sounds like he still wants you,” he said. “What did you say?”

“Frank, I—” Her voice trailed off. “I told him I’d have to think about it. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned this over the
phone. It’s just that I was really hoping that you could stop by tonight so we could talk.”

It’s all over but the crying, he thought.

“It depends how this thing goes down,” Leal said. “I’ll call you later.”

“Okay, be careful.”

Leal pressed the “end” button on his portable and slipped it back in his pocket, gritting his teeth and trying to force the
conversation out of his mind. He knew he didn’t need any extra baggage right now, but it still grated on him.

Yeah, all over but the crying.

Leal told Murphy to park near the mouth of the alley and watch the rear of the place, and directed Hart to pull down the street
from the front. She deftly pulled in behind a parked car, and they both slouched in the seat. Since they were only a few hundred
yards away from each other, Leal told Murphy to go to tac band on his portable.

They waited in silence, watching people come and go. The afternoon slipped away, boredom replacing their initial enthusiasm.

“Hey, Sarge,” Murphy’s voice said over the tactical frequency. “How much longer?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Leal said to Hart. He keyed the mike. “Unknown, Murph.”

“Well, Sarge, could I be excused for a little bit?”

“Negative.”

Leal squinted at the radio as it squawked again.

“Awww, Sarge, I gotta relieve myself,” Murphy said.

Just be glad I reminded you not to have too much to drink when we stopped for lunch before, Leal thought. You’d probably have
pissed your pants by now.

“Just stand by,” Leal said.

“Sarge, come on. I gotta go bad. How about sending your partner back here to relieve me.”

“No way,” Hart said. “Just the sight of him makes me sick.”

“Negative,” Leal said into the radio.

Murphy muttered something indistinct that could have possibly been a curse word. Leal’s lips tightened into a thin line and
he gripped the door handle and wrenched it upward.

“That settles it,” he said. “I’m going back there to have a
talk
with that fat fucker.”

“Frank, take it easy,” Hart said. “Remember, we still need him to cover the back.”

Leal blew out a slow breath and massaged his temple. Nothing on this fucking case was going smoothly. Every time he managed
to take a few steps forward, somebody threw a roadblock in his path. But this lead was too hot. With a little luck, they could
break this one wide-open. He brought the radio to his lips and told Murphy that he was clear to take a quick break. “Get something
to eat, too, but make it as fast as possible. You ten-four?”

“That’s affirmative, Sarge. Thanks.”

Leal told Hart he’d be back and got out of the squad. He walked down the block, working out the kinks that inevitably occurred
from sitting in the cramped position for so long. It felt good to move a little. As he neared the alley he saw the unmarked
whiz by. Leal turned and went past the spot where Murphy had been parked. It was littered with cigar butts and candy wrappers.
A small gray tendril drifted upward from the most recently discarded butt. Leal smashed it under his sole and cursed Murphy
for leaving such a distinguishable trail. From all accounts this idiot Snake wasn’t a rocket scientist, but Murphy’s detritus
was enough to send out smoke signals. The smell from the nearby garbage cans was putrid. How the man could even have an appetite
after sitting back here was amazing to Leal.