Jury of Peers (14 page)

Chapter Twenty

Interdict

Saul and his new dog spent the evening on a different corner.  He only sold about two grams, but the other areas that Vesper had put under his control did better, so he wasn’t going to sweat the little shit for now.  He’d decided to keep Bolo completely out of sight, so he took a spot farther back inside the neighborhood.  That meant dealing with locals, the addicts and guys he knew from the hood.  The same guys that would try to bargain with you, beg a hit off you.  Steal.  Bolo was good for that kind of thing–literally like having a trained dog.  Saul looked feeble alone which could be good on the busier streets, but with Bolo sitting on the steps behind him, most people would think twice before getting up in his face.  He knew he’d take a hit working back here, the money would never be as good, but it would be okay.  On a couple of the boarder streets, the ones that ran along the edge of the neighborhood, the suburban kids would come charging through in their hot rides, with their sweet–ass girls.  It was lots better there.  They’d pay and be on their way back into the heavy traffic in a matter of a few seconds, slap, slap.  So, business was down, but Bolo was out of sight.  And unusually quiet.

Saul didn’t mind.  Tomorrow night he’d do the same thing.  At least until Vesper told him differently.  So he stood his corner, and concentrated on selling his rocks, and tried not to remember all of the screaming.

Chapter Twenty–One

Illegitimatus Non Carborundum Est

Seth sat in the back seat of the BMW with his new laptop and a bottle of water.

He had some time now.  Not a great deal, and he wouldn’t relax, but he didn’t want to rush either.  Not this part.  He worried about the police a little.  They were, like most cops, sharp folks who tended to be driven.  And while he didn’t really know much about how cops thought, he’d covered his bases as best as he could. 

The media had reported, if not actually concluded, that he had flown off to Africa, so those hounds were off of the scent at least temporarily.  The cops might have chewed on that little bit of misinformation as well, but he had to assume that they were still looking here closer to home.  It seemed like every third car in D.C. was a BMW and his didn’t have, never would have, license plates, so this would help.  Besides, this car would only be out once more, and only in the evening.

He just needed a couple of days.

Seth pulled up his web browser and typed in, “+Washington +D.C. + gangs."  It was that simple.  He didn’t have enough information to find everything here, but he didn’t need to perform a surgery, he only needed to get into the operating room.  As expected, there was an unwieldy amount of initial information.  He refined the search, adding the spray painted numbers that dripped down the walls of a home that he would never see again.  More results, more clutter.

             
Washington gangs.  Washington D.C. gangs 19137. 

“19,137,” he said aloud.  “1, 9, 1, 3, 7.  1, 91, 37.”  Certainly it wasn’t an address and he doubted that it was a quantity.  It read like a locker combination.  Maybe it corresponded to street numbers, block numbers?  Were they pissing on the wall to mark their territory? 

“No…” he said again. 
It’s a calling card.

He typed out the alphabet and then began trying combinations. 

Nothing over twenty–six.

             
1,9, 1, 3, 7        1, 9, 13, 7       19, 13, 7       19, 1, 3, 7      

A I A C G
              A  I   M G       S    M  G       S    A C  G

He paused and added the letters to each search.  Nothing.  He went back to a previous link and searched for a listing of D.C. gangs.  Several links were 404… defunct, but there was an east coast link that contained a dense paragraph pertaining to “Washington, D.C. Crews.”  He scanned the list… the
SMG
Crew.  19.  13.  7.  Twenty minutes later he knew where to find the operating room, it was just a matter of reading.  It was nothing more than a start, a sixteen block area in the nation’s capitol that held thousands of people, but all he had to do was get close enough to verify that this was the right area.  From there, it was only a matter of money.  Beyond that… well, he didn't know much about the law, but he knew enough.

So that was it, wasn’t it?  Tomorrow he’d just drive down there.  He wondered if the navigation system in the BMW would revolt with a built in self–defense mechanism: 
Caution, caution… you’re entering a designated red zone.
 

He lay down on the seat, turned on his side and stared at the computer screen.

It would either work, or not. 

He closed his eyes and examined his fear.  It was there, lurking in some cortex or another, waiting to be unleashed and make him into a sniveling child again, but another entity was making the rounds as well.  It would shore up the walls that held back the fear.  Rage was here for him.

It wasn’t what Seth had expected.  There was no more tunnel vision, no more trembling.  It didn’t make him sweat or slobber or scream.  It was just there, urging him to continue using his strengths:  logic, organization, planning… intelligence; use these things, it promised, and I’ll do the rest.  Rage, he realized, provided hope.  It warmed him, kept him alive.  Kept him sane even during his march toward madness.  It had taken him captive, but promised to make his prison bearable until the end.  There was no escape, no parole…. But if you did what it said, you might find release.

It would either work, or not…. But if it did, what?  Would he leave the world a better place?  Not really.  He’d leave it a
different
place maybe.  Either way he’d be leaving it.

He curled up on the leather and realized that he was more than alright with leaving it, just not until he’d given rage a fair shot, and certainly not until he’d found release.

Chapter Twenty–Two

Inutile

Ray arrived at the office at 6:30, almost two full hours later than usual, to find that his desk was gone.  Or rather, replaced.  He stood before the new beast and wondered if he’d stepped off of the elevator a floor too early.  Weather–beaten and etched with ancient graffiti just like his previous desk, the dust had been wiped away only where the movers had touched it.  The thing was enormous.  It came complete with an equally dusty lamp sans bulb, a telephone with someone else’s extension crossed out and Ray’s written in, a cigar box full of pencils, and a couple of crayons.  Sitting under the lamp was a bright red rotary
telephone upon which was scrawled in magic marker,
New Delhi – Direct Line
.  In the top drawer was a telephone book from 1971, and in the bottom drawer was a box of cherry donuts that were still warm to the touch.  There was also a well–worn, but deliciously comfortable, high–backed leather chair.

Finn and Tonic were nowhere to be seen.

He wiped the rest of the dust away, found a bulb for the lamp, and got to work.

By noon he’d run down Seth Meek’s credit card purchases for the last six months.  He’d meant to get only a week’s worth, but found that the credit card companies were almost too helpful in this regard.  It took less time for him to obtain the records after identifying himself as “with D.C.P.D.” and handing over the identification code, than it did to get through the automated menus in the first place.  It was pretty routine stuff, and his purchases were the same – right up until yesterday.  Ray had never looked at data in quite this way, but it was quickly obvious that “unusual purchases” were not all that hard to sort out.  More than forty thousand dollars blown at a computer store.  The American Express customer support guy had been very clear that they had made it a point to call Mr. Meek when the purchases had come to their attention because they were concerned that the card had been stolen but he had assured them that all was well, and this was certainly within Mr. Meek’s credit limit.  Ray didn’t ask what limit that might be.  

Meek’s bank account showed the same kind of activity.  Sudden and decidedly non–thrifty.  The check for 50k had cleared, and financing had been cleared through the bank and then set up through another company for the purchase of a new vehicle via Beltway Autoplex.  Not much of it made sense, but Ray took it all down.

Getting any kind of medical information turned out to be next to impossible so Ray ended up burning up his lunch hour talking to a kid at the computer store.  He seemed far more interested in playing the game that could be heard in the background than answering questions so Ray dropped his pseudo–police credentials and he got serious. 

He’d only
helped
with the sale, and went on to explain how this meant that he’d initially talked with the guy, but that his boss had quickly taken over when it became clear just how big of a purchase was going to be made.  He was clearly pissed about the whole commission issue.

             
“What did the gentleman look like?” Ray inquired.  This kid made him feel like taking notes with his two new crayons. 

             
“His face was all messed up.  White shirt.  Jeans I think.  But holy shit, he was beat up.  Said he fell.  Tipped me a hundred bucks for loading his car.”

             
Ray circled
beat up
in his notes without any real conviction.  “What kind of car was it, do you know?”

             
“This guy in trouble?  My boss was talking about him being on the news or something.  And I think the police already talked to him too, man.”

             
“Oh yeah?  Well this is just routine work, I’m not sure if it’s connected to anything your boss saw or not.”  Ray thought that was sufficiently vague for not knowing if he needed to be crafty.  “Do you remember his car?”

             
“Yeah.  It was a big black one, dark windows.  Rich guy’s car.”

             
“Do you know what kind it was?”

             
“Not really, sorry.”

             
Ray thanked the kid and asked him to have his boss call when he got back from lunch.  There might have been a security camera in the store or in the lot, and that was worth knowing.  He wondered who had been talking to the kid’s boss already, and added it to his list of things to check.

             
Meek’s boss was out of the office, but Ray was able to talk to the Brenda woman once again who, aside from sounding genuinely broken–up over the turn of events, offered little in the way of actual information regarding Seth’s work.  She did mention that his cubicle was taped off.

             
“Is his computer still there?” Ray had asked impulsively.

             
“No, they came and took it this morning.”

             
“Who?”

             
Again, she became quiet, and this seemed like a fairly clear indication of just who “they” were.  He thanked her for all of her help and asked her to call if she had any further information.  Again, doubtful… but worth a shot.

             
Ray stood and stretched, eyed the donut drawer, and considered lunch.  This whole detective thing was entertaining, and he was caught up enough to overstep his bounds a little bit, but he also had to wonder why they were giving him so much to do.  His supervisor wasn’t pestering him about other tech work, and now he had a new desk.  Ray decided that he’d hit the vending machines out in the hall right after he made a call to check in with the detectives, wherever they were.  Probably still eating ribs.  His stomach growled.

             
He dialed out on the new/used telephone.

             
“Finn,” came the voice. 

             
“It’s Ray, I’ve got some of the information here for you.”

             
“Sorry, hold on, there’s a lot of… noise… hang tight.  Alright, so you’ve got the credit card stuff… bank stuff?”  He was breathing hard.  In the background he heard Tonic say, “
You’re the one making all of the noise Grandpa
.”

             
“Yeah, I’m at the office.”

             
“Whose office?”

             
“At the just across from your desk office,” Ray said.  He’d learned quickly that there was never any telling just where a conversation with James Finny might lead.  He sat back and the leather chair complained with a shriek. 

He heard it echo in the telephone a half second later.

              “How do you like the… new desk?” Finn said into his cell phone, and to Ray’s back.  The two detectives stood there behind Ray smiling, having come up the stairs in a half–hearted effort at stealth and treachery.

             
“It’s very nice,” Ray said as he kicked off of the desk and swiveled around to face them.  He still held the telephone, and the cord twisted around his neck. 

“Consider it a ghetto promotion,” Tonic said and handed over yet another brown bag with a darker, greasy bottom so often indicative of mishandled Chinese food.

Ray struggled out of the cord and the three of them sat down to eat.

“Okay, so tell us what you’ve got,” Finn said as he pulled up a chair to the monolith. 

“Okay.  The bad news first.  I don’t have the first clue how to make doctors talk.  I didn’t turn up anything on the whole vaccinations thing.”

“Yeah,” Tonic said.  "Doctors are real fuckers about stuff like that, even
if
you can corner ‘em for the twenty seconds it would take to ask.  We just wanted to see if you could do it.”

“Thanks.  What’s the secret?” Ray looked between the two.  “I spent two hours and got nothing.”

“Call the guy’s dentist,” Finn said, mouth full of egg–roll.  “They have access to lots of stuff and if you attack it from the whole cloak and dagger angle, most of those guys are so bored with capping teeth that they’ll step up.”

Tonic added, “Plus, they almost never yell at you.  Dentists are nice.”

“Credit cards?” Finn asked.

“Yeah,” Ray pushed over the stack of info he’d printed out.  "It’s all real tedious until yesterday.”

“How so?” Finn asked.  He picked up the stack and worked from the bottom up.

“He spent like forty grand on computers yesterday, oh… and the check cleared for the preacher at the hospital.”

“Fuck me,” Tonic said. 

“Yeah and that’s not all,” Ray said, “I think he bought a car.”

“Africa is a hella long road trip,” Tonic said.

“No shit.  What kind of car?” 

“I don’t know yet.  A big black one with dark windows, but how many of those things are there around here?  I called the dealer and they’re calling back.  I also called the bank and they said it was financed for 50k down and payments out to twenty–four months.  Something like a two–hundred thousand dollar car.”

“Smart,” Tonic said.

“Why?”
              “Anymore if you buy a car outright, a dealer will give you a good once over with the police, ‘specially around this city.  Call the dealer back, ride his ass.  If he bought a car like that, he
might
have a tracking system… and if so, well, it won't take long to serve someone with a request for his current location, eh?"

"It's got to have GPS…." Ray started.

Tonic was looking at hands.  "No, not GPS.  It's passive.  You can't track people like in the movies.  But a two hundred thousand dollar ride might have an anti–theft tracking system… that could be useful.  Worth checkin'."

“He went to a
pet
store
?” Finn turned the printout so that everyone could see it. 

“Yeah,” Ray said.  "And after that he bought himself a few cell phones.  I’ve got all of the numbers.  Oh, and he went to a toy store too, look.  God knows what else, he’s got the cash.”

“What a weird son of a bitch," Tonic said.

"Can't we track them anyhow… the phones I mean?" Ray asked.

"Yes and no," Finn said, still reading.  "A network knows which mast a phone is connected to, which would be lovely if we were in New Mexico, but the overlap here in D.C. is rather… redundant.  And if he's moving, forget it.  The lag between what the network sees and what we get is just too long."

Ray nodded, “Okay, the pet store I haven’t called yet.  I figured maybe he had a goldfish or something, stocking up since he was leaving, but yeah, he bought five different phones, a thousand minutes each give or take, and from three different providers.  All local plans, I checked.”

“That’s the funky kind of sneaky,” Tonic said.  “He’s gotta know that we can get his records if we want.  Maybe he figures we’re not that far along yet.  Fuck… maybe we aren’t, but it’s really like he doesn’t care what we know or not.  We sure as hell can find out where he’s been, and seriously, who has the scratch for that kind of car on a whim?  Maybe he’s freakin’ out.”

“Maybe,” Finn pinched the bridge of his nose.  "Anything at all on his computer?”

“Doesn't matter.  Someone came and got it last night,” Hopkins said as he walked up.  He put his hand on the back of Ray’s new chair.  “About three in the morning from what I hear.  NSA guys.  But whatcha gonna do.  If they want somethin’ in this town now, they get it.  Period.  It’s national security,  and you sure as hell don’t want to go to condition magenta just because you want to solve a murder.”

“Triple murder.”

“Yup,” Hop patted the chair.  He did a double take.  “I’ve got one just like this, too bad I never get to sit in the damn thing.  Hey, gimme an egg–roll you ungrateful bastards.”  He rummaged through the sack, came away with two, and left.

“Well shit,” Tonic said.  The computer had been a nice ploy to sneak into Ray's head, and make him feel like a part of the team; it was distantly troubling though, that NSA was coming out of it's cube and playing in their backyard.

"Good work on tracking all this shit down.  I hope you gave out your cell phone number.”

             
Ray’s eyes narrowed, “Why?”

             
“Because you’re coming with us, Rambo,” Finn stood.

             
Ray looked to Tonic for help.  "Aren’t I more… valuable here at my new desk?”

             
“Not even close.  Com’on.  We’ve got a meeting in Beirut.”

             
“I should call my wife,” Ray said.

             
“Not really,” Tonic said as he stood.  “Hey you gotta gun?”

             
“
A gun?”
             

“Ah well, that’s probably better anyway,” Finn said.  He took the last egg–roll for the road.