He watches her walk away and shakes his head back and forth. “So, gentlemen, life is good, huh?” He lifts a chin in the direction of where the girl had headed. “And I mean, like, real good.”

  I’m tired of this man already and don’t reply. I look at him and pull a chair out, but I don’t sit down.

  His face hardens. I remind myself that while this little worm is not dangerous, there are some who work with him who most assuredly are. He also knows Patrik, and I cannot damage that connection, whatever it may be. We have just finished a war. We don’t need another one yet.

  “We will not need much of your precious time. Can we begin?” I gesture at the table and force a smile.

  We all sit down.

  “Drinks?” He starts to wave a waitress over.

  “No, no drinks.”

  “You talk for your partner, too, Andros?”

  Jan smiles at me but still doesn’t say anything as he looks around the room.

  “You have some information that we need. Information you’ve already been paid for. We flew a long way here. You are supposedly in a hurry and so very, very busy. We are, too.”

  He waves the waitress over anyway and orders a scotch on the rocks. His cellphone beeps, and he holds up a finger to me so he can check a text message. He stares at the little screen and scrolls around on it for too long.

  “The information. Right now.”

  He holds up both hands in surrender.

  “Sure, sure. Jesus, relax, okay? This ain’t Chicago.”

  “Here you go, Paulie.” The waitress appears out of nowhere with his drink and sets it in front of him.

  He doesn’t even look up or acknowledge her. Instead, he takes a big sip and starts talking right away. No more pissing around or posturing.

  “When Patrik called Mr. DeMarco, me and another guy were told to start looking for her, find her, and follow her around.”

  “Ania Kozak, correct?” I ask him, just to make sure.

  “Well, yeah. She was going by Annie here, but yes. She hooked up with two different guys, same time, and was playing them both. A local card player named Casey Brunnell and a poker pro, Cord Needham, who was in town for a tournament. Evidently, before we started tailing her, she had lost a bundle of cash to the pro somehow. She had a room here at the Magnum but then got bumped out because of a scene her and Brunnell caused at a table. So, she went over to the Riv and got a room there. What the exact con or grift was, we don’t know for sure. But there was a lot of money involved and a lot of poker getting played.”

  He stops, looks at us both, and takes another drink. “You following so far?”

  Jan and I don’t say anything yet because he is finally telling us something and we don’t want to stop him.

  “Okay, so like I said, while she was doing Brunnell, she was also tagging Cord Needham. We’re sure of that. We saw her alone with both of them. She would go into the hotel rooms with one or the other and not come back out.”

  He smiles, nods at me, then glances at Jan and keeps talking. “Those boys didn’t have a clue about the two-timing from what we could tell. Finally, there was a big challenge game right here about a week ago between Brunnell and Needham. Private suite, the whole bit. A bartender that was in the room, he’s a guy of ours, called me as soon as it was over. Brunnell won the game. I don’t think it mattered, though. She came out with the money, you know? Hey, personally, I think she would have won either way, if you know what I mean. She is one hot little number, I want to tell you…and smart. Very smart.”

  I ask him my first question. “She came out with the money. What do you mean? Exactly.”

  “Just what I said. We watched her come downstairs alone with the head of security afterwards. We know for sure there was a money exchange made in his office because my other guy sees a security guard go in, too. When they come out, she’s carrying a Magnum bag, and the security guy is escorting her to the front doors. I’m already hanging by the valet stand, and I give the kid my card when I see them coming. She had used a valet, too, when I followed her here, so I knew I was good.”

  “How much did she walk away with?” I am worried he will stop talking.

  “Don’t know the exact amount. The bartender said some of the hands that went down were big, though. Maybe not the end of the world for Needham, but it was awful big money for a hard-luck journeyman player like Brunnell.”

  “Okay, yeah. Damn, she was a little snake, huh?” Jan is also doing his best to keep him going. “Then what, Paul?”

  “I’m in my car and pull up and around the curve a little. Out of the way and all. I’m watching the rearview the whole time, right? About five minutes later, she goes by real slow in her red Miata. She heads north. Our other guy waited in the lobby for Brunnell to come down. I called him and told him to drop off Needham at that point. He was out of this for us anyway.”

  Jan cut in. “So, where’d she and Brunnell go after she left the Magnum?”

  “I’m getting there, okay?” Severns takes another sip of his scotch. “Well, they didn’t leave together, that’s for sure. My guy calls me about twenty minutes later when Brunnell finally comes down. Annie didn’t go back to her room at the Riv right away though. I followed her to a pawn shop a little ways off the north end of the strip. On the corner, next to a big bank of all things. Perry’s Pawn. She obviously went in there to buy something back. I mean, you don’t just win a bunch of money and then go pawn something, right? She was moving quick, too.”

  “So, when did Ania and this Brunnell guy finally meet up?” Jan asks, leaning back and finding a waitress with his eyes. Nods at her and points at Severns, who’s looking at me now.

  “Never did.” Severns drains his drink and sets it down. “She goes back to the Riv and comes back out with a roller bag in, like, ten minutes. She pulls out, I follow again, and away we go.”

  “She blew him off then, right? Took the money and bolted. Screwed them both but Brunnell especially,” Jan says.

  “Well, as it happened, it probably worked out much, much worse for Casey Brunnell. All I can or will say about that is he shows up at the pawn shop about a half an hour after her with my associate following him. A very well-known guy in this town—someone you would never want to have on your bad side—shows up with two muscle types. They go in, too.” He pauses and seems to consider stopping there.

  “Go on,” I prompt him, but not too hard.

  “I’m going. So, after they get in there, my guy who’s parked across the street hears what he thinks is a gunshot or a boom. There’s nobody else in the shop because it’s still pretty early in the morning, so he sits tight. He sees one of the muscle lock the front door from the inside and flip the Open sign on the door to Closed. A half hour goes by. Nothing. Another half hour, nothing. Nobody goes in, nobody goes out.”

  Severns holds his glass up about shoulder high and waves it around. I’m sure he thinks the waitress who’s at another table was just waiting for him. She finally sees Severns and keeps talking to the other party, but she smiles at Jan.

  “So, my guy at the pawn finally calls me and asks what should he do? Something is going down. I tell him to break it off because the game has changed. Brunnell is out of the picture just like Needham, and it’s all about her now. I’m heading south on I-15 by this time, and I’m following her little red sports car. Still had the Illinois plates, by the way.”

  “What are those plate numbers, Mr. Severns? Surely you know that after having followed her for several days?” Jan leans in closer.

  “Donnie has them. He’s the detail guy.”

  “Donnie?”

  “My associate. So anyway, we come up on a town southwest of here called Jean, and little Annie just zips right on by. West on 15. All the way, baby. I mean, hey, doesn’t take a genius. She’s going to LA, no doubt in my mind. There just isn’t a whole lot else that way before LA except desert. It’s a frickin’ five-hour drive though. I give Mr. DeMarco a call direct and ask him what he wants me to do. He says fuck it, Severns, just turn around and come back. So I did. The end.”

  “She was heading in the direction of LA when you pulled off?”

  “Look, Andros, that’s it. I got better things than this to do right now, remember?” He nods over at the bar. “Besides, there is more—a helluva lot more. It turned out this thing had a lot of legs to it. You’re only being told what has to do with the little slut you’re chasing. There are some local angles to it too. But they’re our angles. Things that have to do with here and us. Not you, Chicago, or little Annie.”

  “Maybe you should tell us those angles and other things too?” Jan suggests.

  “And maybe that ain’t part of the deal between my boss and yours.”

  “Fair enough. What about this pawn shop? Did your associate leave without seeing anything more?”

  “Ask him, Jan. You’re having some lunch at the Mirage with him tomorrow. One o’clock sharp. There’s about eight restaurants in that casino. He’ll be at the Paradise Café. Donnie will give you anything else that he’s allowed to, and he’ll also set you up with a few more little things that you might need on this road trip.”

  “Can we see him tonight?” I don’t want to wait until tomorrow.

  “No, Andros, you can’t. He’s taking care of something for Mr. Demarco tonight. And now, boys, I’m done. Enjoy yourself a little, for cryin’ out loud.”

  Then he gets up and walks away.

  “What a little jagoff.” Jan laughs and looks over at me. “I hope Patrik didn’t pay too much for that information.”

  “Yes, I would agree. A pompous little ass.”

  “Time you want to meet in the morning, boss?”

  “Eight. We’ll have breakfast and discuss this further. Patrik has us in rooms under our names on the eighth floor. Across the hall from each other. Let’s check in. I must call Patrik and update him.”

  “Mind if I try to get some valuable information at the craps table?”

  I look at him for a long second. “Okay, but just remember why we’re here.”

  “Hey, call me if you need anything. Seriously.”

  “I won’t need you. Now, go give your money away, but be ready in the morning. I’ll call you at eight.”

  SIX

  John

  “How’d it go with CPD?” Yeats asked me.

  I switched the cell phone to my other ear and scratched my cheek. My fingertips raked over the day’s worth of stubble. I’d need to shave again before I headed out for the next set of interviews.

  “Not great,” I told Yeats. “But not horrible.”

  “My guy came through, then?”

  “Yes,” I said. “IAD didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet, but they gave me complete access.”

  “Best you can hope for from cheese-eaters,” Yeats said.

  I smiled. His days as a cop showed through sometimes. How he got to be a major in a metropolitan city like Baltimore and still have contempt for the internal affairs process is beyond me, but I guess it comes down to one simple fact.

  No one likes a rat.

  Of course, any investigator needs people to be exactly that. Sometimes the trick of a good investigator wasn’t turning up clues but learning how to make someone feel good about informing on someone else. Making them feel they’re doing a civic duty or something else righteous instead of what was usually a bald-faced case of ratting someone else out.

  “Those cheese-eaters gave me Sergeant Alberto Molinari,” I said. “Pretty much on a silver platter.”

  “And he gave you…?”

  I flipped open my notebook, even though I didn’t really need to. “Speedo Mullins and Jimmy Kerrigan, for starters.”

  “Who are…?”

  “They were partners to old man Sawyer. Accomplices on the diamond heist. According to Molinari, one of them double-crossed the other two. He put the kid, Mick, onto them.”

  “Sounds promising.”

  “Maybe. I’ll hit them tonight, after I get a sandwich.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not really. At least, not from the sergeant. But the IAD lieutenant gave me some background on both brothers.”

  “Is it relevant? Do I need to hear it?”

  “Not all of it. But one piece is interesting. The other brother, Jerzy? He was muscle for the Polish mob here in Chicago. Might be that he did a hit on one of the Russians right about the same time as this diamond recovery project was going on with the two brothers.”

  “Didn’t they just have some kind of beef there? The Polacks and the Russkies?”

  “Yeah, the IAD guy said it was short but bloody. By the time local organized crime was onto it, it was over. And the feds…”

  “…won’t catch wind of it until next year.” Yeats chuckled on the other end of the phone.

  “That’s about what the IAD guys said, yeah.”

  “Well, you go ask the FBI’s organized crime division, and they’ll tell you that they actually predicted it a week in advance and just couldn’t share sensitive information with the local yokels.”

  Chicago wasn’t exactly yokel, but I took his point. There were always multiple sides to a story. “Well, that muddied the waters a bit when it came to the homicide investigation of the Sawyer brothers. No one could be sure if it wasn’t part of the Polish/Russian war or if it was over the diamonds, or what.”

  “Could be either. Are you telling me some guy named Boris probably has our relic?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve got a meeting later tonight with a homicide detective who worked the case. We’ll see.”

  “Well, sounds like some good progress, John. Give me a call in a day or two for another update.”

  “Roger that, boss.”

  He clicked off. I slid the thin phone into my shirt pocket and headed out for that sandwich.

  Jimmy Kerrigan was the easiest to find. He had an apartment near Comiskey Park, at the corner of Pershing and Wells. The area looked like the ’hood to me. Trash strewn everywhere—not even the motion of vehicle or foot traffic pushed it aside. Graffiti was the rule, not the exception. Boarded-up doors and windows in some apartments and cold, hard eyes coming at me through the doors and windows of others. I’ve been in far worse, in this country and others. Even so, I missed the reassuring weight of a .45 on my hip.

  I found Kerrigan’s building and headed up the stairs to 4B. The odor of rat shit and people piss filled the stairwell and the hallways. On the second floor, a two-year-old pushed a plastic toy truck down the hallway. There were no adults in sight, and all the apartment doors were closed. His diaper sagged and swayed as he waddled away from me.

  Unbelievable.

  You can’t save the world, I thought, followed by another of Colonel Grayson’s frequent admonitions: Focus on the mission.

  I reached 4B and rapped on the cheap wooden door. There was no answer. I knocked again, a little louder. Still no answer. When I banged on the door a third time, the sound was loud enough for them to hear me down on the first floor.

  “What the fuck?” a voice yelled from within. “No answer means ‘go the fuck away.’ I ain’t interested!”

  “Jimmy Kerrigan?” I asked.

  “Not here.”

  “Well, maybe you can get paid instead,” I said.

  There was a pause. Then he said in a wary tone, “Paid how? And don’t bullshit me.”

  “I need some information, and I’ll pay for it.”

  “Fuck you. I ain’t a rat.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, well, the guy I have questions about is dead, so it ain’t about being a rat.”

  Another pause. Then the door cracked open. A silver security chain hung across the crack. The top of Jimmy Kerrigan’s head barely made it that high. His short-cropped red hair was gone almost to grey. He had a pinched-in face, a long nose, and virtually no chin.

  The worst thing about him was his eyes—angry, distrustful, and full of defeat. Jimmy Kerrigan was like the dog that had the shit knocked out of it for years. But life teaches us that when you feel sorry enough for the mutt to give it some food or affection, you get bitten for your trouble.

  “Who?” he demanded, his voice sounding a little nasally without the door between us.

  “Who am I?” I asked him.

  “I don’t give a fuck who you are,” he snapped. “Who I got to talk about?”

  “Oh.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my money clip. I counted off five twenties and held them up in the air. Kerrigan eyed the cash greedily. “Just so you know I’m serious,” I told him.

  “You flash that shit in this neighborhood, serious is the kind of trouble you’ll get,” he told me, but his tone was distracted. I could see the wheels already grinding behind his eyes. He was wondering how much he’d be willing to tell and about who for that amount of cash.

  I peeled off one twenty and held it out to him, just inside the crack of the doorway. He reached up warily at first and snatched it out of my hand.

  I figured he might slam the door and call it a victory at that point, but he’d seen the other eighty bucks, so he stayed in the game.

  “Who?” he repeated.

  “Two whos,” I said. “Mick and Jerzy Sawyer.”

  Jimmy Kerrigan laughed then. It was an unpleasant, grating sound. There was no real mirth in it, even though he seemed to be enjoying it. “Those dead motherfuckers? You bet. Ask away.”

  “Can I come in?”

  He shook his head. “Here’s fine.”

  I shrugged. “Fine. I’m guessing Mick or Jerzy paid you a visit a while back?”

  He nodded. “They both did.”

  “They were together?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And how’d that conversation go?”

  “Like shit,” Kerrigan said. “I got my ass kicked by the Polack. He busted open my door and everything.”

  “What’d he want?”

  Kerrigan’s eyes flicked to the cash in my hand. I sighed and peeled off another twenty. He took it a little more calmly than the first one.

  “How about this, pal? You tell me what you think it was about, and if you know, I’ll confirm it.”

 

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