Jury of Peers (30 page)

Chapter Fifty–Two

Taurine

Once they were armed with a physical address, it was a simple footrace for the news crews.  Those who opted for a technological approach and plugged the numbers into Google Earth, ultimately came in second – later though, they agreed that second place wasn’t always a bad thing.

             
The local crews had a small advantage in that they knew which streets down in Widmore were actually open to thru–traffic, and which were literally dead ends.  Still, this shifted on a day–to–day basis, and once a crew spotted another satellite van cruising a block away, they would simply follow one another about until a suitable street could be found.  It was daylight, but there was still safety in numbers.  Or the semblance thereof.

             
FOX found Saul’s home address first.  At least they found the address of a three–story brick apartment house.  After the suggestion of ‘rock paper scissors’ was dismissed in favor of everyone sharing in the suffering, the crew loaded up their gear and with the practiced confidence of Homecoming royalty, simply walked in the front door.  They were met with a stairwell which was occupied by no less than six sleeping men, sprawled at all angles up and down the flight.  The rock paper scissors option was reinstated, and the sound guy was chosen to negotiate the stairs and try to bring Mrs. Brown
down
for an interview.  He failed, but not for lack of trying.  They could all hear him pounding on the Brown’s door, but with less enthusiasm as tenants began to complain from behind the thin, stained walls.

             
Outside another local crew was dealing with a growing crowd.  They had a brand new truck emblazoned with their logo, and bringing it down into the Wild West was less cost effective than having it parked out in front of the Capitol Building. 

             
“Nice ride,” a kid said.

             
Karma was against this news crew's sound engineer as well, and he stood guard at the side door.  “Yeah,” he allowed.

             
“You gonna put us on TV?”

             
“Not unless you know where Saul Brown’s mom is,” the guy stalled.

             
“Fuck man, she right up the street.”

             
“Where?” the pretty anchor put down her makeup kit and rolled the passenger window down half an inch.

             
“Gonna put me on TV or what?”

             
“Sure, what’s your name?” the anchor asked as she furtively searched through her purse.

             
“Jonquez, call me Quez.”

             
“Alright Jonquez,” she fished a bill out through the narrow opening.  "How about for ten bucks?”
              “Fuck that, how ‘bout a hundred?”

             
The crew retreated inside the van, pooled their funds behind closed doors, and struck a deal that led them four blocks down to a kid named Andy.  They scooped the FOX crew who had to pay two hundred for the same pre–owned information.

             
Negotiations with the skinny white kid proved less expensive, but more complicated.  The guy had popped up from inside of an upright dumpster like a weasel at the county fair when they’d called his name.  He was tweaking, which made him happy to divulge all sorts of happy horseshit, very little of it relevant to the situation at hand. 

             
“Dude it’s easy dude, just come up through the back of the front street and then stroll over to that one place.  You’ll see it all plain as day dude, just watch out for that chick’s dogs because they’re mean as hell.  Have a spot of coffee?  No?  Alright,” his voice floated about from patrician to beach stoner with ease.

             
The crowd, of course, followed along to watch.  They didn’t try hide their glee at watching the crews falter and stumble, and were glad to add their own overlapping sets of instructions until Andy overloaded and sank back down into his hole.

             
The anchor turned on the crowd.  She was pissed, but put on a beaming
on the air
smile.  “Who wants to be on TV?”

             
Silence.  Sudden and complete.  The smiles stopped. 

             
She tried again.  “Come, on… someone must know.  We’ll put you on at five o’clock.”

             
More stares.  They were playing with her.

             
The FOX van rushed past, the driver was smiling, and in seconds the local crew left this mess behind and was in tow.

             
They found Mrs. Brown covered in lint. 

She wasn’t a large woman, but appeared even smaller when the crews flooded into the Laundromat and one by one lit the place in a bath of orange light.  Her willowy arm was hidden behind a stack of dryers as she struggled to clear the ducts, and when she jerked it free, she managed to open an inch long slit on the pad of her thumb.  She gripped it in her fist as they ignored the wound and fired off question after question.

It was clear by the look on her face that she knew nothing of her son’s peril.  The lines of anguish etched into her face long ago, deepened as she deciphered the meaning of their visit.

“What’s wrong with my baby?” she asked as the crowd outside began to fill every empty spot.  “Where’s my baby?”

There were no answers, just more questions. 

“Do you even know where your son is?”

She cried and looked from face to face, bleeding and wailing on the verge of hysterics.  She begged for information – thoroughly confused, exhausted at the end of a long night’s work, and obviously every bit the distraught mother.  All in all, it was probably worth a hundred bucks. 

Siclo’s family would have been worth a thousand.

The first crew to arrive made the assumption that the kid had been lying on the videotape.  The apartment building looked as if it had been bombed, the overpressure having atomized all of the windows and blown the drapes out into the wind.  Hundreds of wisps of material now fluttered from Manor Court, though in warning or distress, no one could tell.  The crew parked, rechecked their map, and even called to verify that this was the place; but in the end, they left it there without going inside.  It was dangerous they reasoned, and accurately.

The second crew decided to take the chance. They hoisted their gear, picked their way through the rubble, and ventured into the building from the end that looked more structurally sound.  Inside, it was dim as they had expected, but the halls were wide and mostly clear of debris – the doors were even numbered.  #230, curiously, was not on the second floor, but they overlooked this and ventured a knock.  When there was no answer, they tried again, and had nearly exhausted their reserve of courage when the peephole darkened and a voice said, “What?”

“I’m Doug Beeman,” the reporter said reflexively.  He realized that there was no glass in the peephole… just an inch of open air and an eyeball.

“So?”

“We’re from FOX news.  We were wondering if we could talk to you for a few minutes.”

“No.”

They were ready for this, and placed a hundred dollar bill betwixt them and the eye.  The door opened, and a skinny arm snaked out reaching for the bill.  Beeman held it back.  "Are you Derek Siclo’s parent or guardian?”

“Sometimes.”

“Which?”

A face appeared, drawn and stubbled.  "Why?  What’d he do?”

“He’s been kidnapped.”

The door came open the rest of the way.  This was the man responsible for Derek ‘Bolo’ Siclo, “I’m his daddy.”  The hand waited for the bill, and then waved them inside after it was firmly in hand.

Everyone was forced to stoop through the opening, and remain so after they were inside.  The room slanted downward, away from the door, and most of the grimy furniture had collected against the opposite wall.  This was odd indeed, but all but ignored by the crew who were being forced to hunch down under ceilings that were no more than five feet high.  It was as if a giant had pressed his palm into the roof, effectively making the apartment into an accordion – there were cracks and fissures that ran unevenly along the outside walls.  Bricks protruded, and paint was squeezed into tight lines. 

Siclo himself seemed to have been crouched all of his life.  He moved within the claustrophobic confines like a beetle over dung, perfectly happy in his squalor. 

“So whatcha want?” he said as he crawled into an old recliner.

Everything in the single room was covered in dark grime.  Outwardly the blackness looked dry, like soot baked onto a kettle, but it was slick and oily to the touch.  In places, it appeared to have turned to sludge and dripped down the sides of whatever it clung to – oozing ever downward toward the canted floor.  The handle to the refrigerator was clean, polished by the touch of hands, likewise were the two doorknobs that lead into other rooms.  They seemed to gleam in the dismal chill.

“We’d like to interview you regarding what’s happened to your son,” Beeman said.  He’d touched the ceiling with his head, and was now working to squeegee the filth out of his hair between a finger and thumb.

“Why, what happened?” the spindly man asked from his tilting throne.

Beeman repeatedly flicked the goo off of his fingers, but it resisted.  "He was kidnapped.”

“Who was?”

“Your son, Derek.”

“Oh.  Right.  Him.”

“So will this be alright with you,” Beeman asked.

“What?”

“An interview.”

“Oh.”

The cameraman decided that this constituted enough of an okay to flip on his camera and start filming.  Siclo’s eyes bulged in the sudden light and he actually hissed.

This caught Beeman off guard, but he recovered and brought his microphone around.  “Mr. Siclo, would you please tell us a little about your son?”

The man’s eyes stayed wide, wild and fixed.  Under the harsh lights he seemed even more gaunt – his face tight as if someone were trying to lift him high into the air by the nape of his neck.

“Sir?” Beeman said again.

Suddenly, the invisible hand that held Siclo back let go, and he surged forward at the microphone.  The cameraman caught it all:  From the stunned look on Beeman’s face to the moment where Siclo’s toothy maw closed down over the foam microphone cover and wrenched it away like a shark chomping down on a seal.

“Oh god,” Beeman said as he heeled back toward the door.  He reached for the frame, missed, and then found himself without firm footing on the slick floor.  Like a kid on a waterslide,  he thumped to the ground and skidded down into the apartment.  He came to rest against a doorjam, thoroughly filthy, and was just scrambling back up the slope when the door flew open.

Another man stood there, fastening his trousers, bathed in the light from the camera.  “What the
fuck?
” he cried.  His face was tight with anger, but this dissipated into the light, replaced with fear in an instant.  “Wasn’t me,” he said just before wheeling around and disappearing back into the darkness of the room. 

Beeman clawed his way back up to the front door, completely disheveled and covered in black sludge.  The cameraman kept filming from the relative safety of the doorway, content to let the reporter fend for himself.

Siclo reclined in his chair and put his feet up, bits of foam still clinging to his lips.

“That’s it, we’re outta here,” Beeman said.  “Fuck this… come on.”

But the cameraman stayed focused.

“Let’s go man,” the reporter said.  He followed the cameraman’s aim.  Below them, standing in the very doorway that had nearly swallowed him alive, Beeman could see a little girl. 

Nude from the waist down, she was as filthy as the pimp in the recliner. 

The one she called daddy.

Chapter Fifty–Three

Trip

“This whole ‘sweating hostage duct taped to a chair’ gig must be like a vacation for Ray,” Tonic said he fiddled with the phone they’d found.  Smokey’s wasn’t exactly on their way to the next stop of the day, but they stopped for something to go anyway.  Now they sat in the parking lot hunched over what could only be Ray’s telephone.

“Hope the poor guy never loses this thing, it’d be a bitch to replace all these numbers.”

Finn watched, reading glasses perched on his nose.  “What about sent and received?”

“No big surprises there,” Tonic said.  "'Bout forty from his wife.  Before that it was a run of a dozen from someone else...” He traced his finger down the screen.  "Here, right in the middle.  Wanna bet that this one of Meek’s new cell phones?”             

“And what do you wanna bet that he doesn’t leave it on?”

“It’d be worth a try though right.  If it’s on, we can work on finding the mast he's on.  It would give us…"

Finn was shaking his head, "Fuckall.  It would give us about a fifty-thousand doors to knock on in the city.  The guy isn't giving us anything."

"We're a few days behind man, he had time to plan things out, but we'll get the guy.  It just takes time."

"I'm thinking that we don't have much more of that," Finn exhaled and closed his eyes tightly.  "Son of a
bitch
.  Nobody can think of everything.  What are we missing here Spence?  We're getting seriously low on time, he's gonna slip away on us if we don't catch a break.  I still want to win."

"Something this complex… well, there's always a loose end."  Tonic tossed the phone over, "You call it in and find out, I’ll go get our food.”  He hopped out of the car and ran across the parking lot to Smokey's.  Inside, it was warm and busy.  The televisions were up and tuned to CNN, not the usual array of sports interests, and it took just long enough to slide up to the bar to discern the topic of most of the conversations.

“Heyas Spencer,” one of the bar tenders said.  "Ribs?”

“Yeah, to go.”

“Right, hey Smokey wanted to talk to you.  Got a second?  Hang tight,” he said and then disappeared into the kitchen without waiting for an answer.

Above him a television was showing the current weather complete with meteorological mime.  He watched without much thought, listening instead to the conversations of the patrons.  There was the usual cop talk, but it was clear that those who had been near the televisions had primed themselves with interesting conjecture regarding
The Trial.

Smokey ambled over, leaned over his bar and slid Tonic a can of soda.  "On the house, hey you boys going to need the back room tonight?”

“I dunno,” Tonic said.  “Things have taken a turn for the surreal.  Prolly not tonight, Finny and I are beat, but tomorrow morning for sure.”

“Yeah I figured,” Smokey said.  “You boys always have the first crack at it, just let me know.”

“Thanks Mearle.”

“You betcha, oh hey… here we go…” he was looking up at the television.  For a few seconds he searched the bar for the remote, and then just reached up and cranked the volume.

…joined us, yet another shocking turn of events surrounding the recent killings of a mother and child in Washington, D.C. As you might recall, just one member of this family survived the brutal attacks and this morning, CNN learned that Mr. Seth Meek, a computer programmer and analyst in Washington, and son of former PIOB Chairman Whitaker Meek, had allegedly become involved in a plot to hunt down and abduct his attackers for reasons unknown…

“Reasons unknown,” Smokey scoffed.

The scene cut to the now familiar tape of Meek in his suit talking to the camera, and then to the glassy eyes of the
hostages. 
Tonic watched as if he’d never seen it before, it was just fucking unreal.  Captivating in its scope, yes, but also in a fundamental, primal sort of way – it was an age old inclination toward revenge, and exceedingly easy to fall into as it took only one question to stir the mind to action
, what would you do?

It was a question that Tonic had already asked himself a couple of hundred times.

“You boys think you’ll run this kid down?” Smokey asked from behind a big hand.  The guy knew a little bit about everything, but he was discrete.

“Depends on his time line I guess."  Tonic said.  "It’s not
really
our case anymore since he had to go and kidnap somebody.  I mean the paperwork alone on the parts that we handled is enough to keep us busy for a good month.  The Feds don’t know what they’re in for.”

"Bullshit.  You two ain't given' up that easy."

Tonic smiled.  "We'll get 'em."

Smokey chuckled.  "Yeah, well when you run into this fella, tell ‘em that at least one old fart thinks he’s doin’ the right thing.  I’ll get your ribs.”

The right thing.
  This had also been the topic of much discussion in the car.  It was endless, even for two guys who had talked through hundreds of cases and always managed to come up with a fairly solid conclusion.  This one was messing up their record.  Tonic took the two bags of ribs, his soda, and a watery ice–tea for Finn, then wandered out into the lot.  Finn was off the phone, chin in hand, staring out toward the river.

“Figure it out yet?” Tonic asked as he dumped himself back into his seat.  He tossed over a sack of ribs and opened his own.

“Which part?” Finn asked. 

“Hell I dunno.”

“Well, the number belongs to Meek.  Or at least in his name.  Doesn’t pick up though, which isn’t surprising."  Finn grimaced and drew a little house and tree in the fog he’d created in the window.  “I was sitting here thinking, if we could've nailed down that cell signal, this would have been over in twenty minutes.”  He looked over.  "But it shouldn’t end until he’s done with it.”

“Still illegal,” Tonic said.

“But he’s also right in a way.  And those fuckers could wiggle out of this with some good lawyerin'.  As bad as this was, they could walk.  They’re kids.”

“Yeah, but they’re gang kids.  It’s not like those fuckwads in Colorado, hosing their school, rich kids.  You know it’s different, don’t tell me you don’t.”

“It’s different,” Finn confirmed.  “I know it.  And the bangers from down in Widmore have got zero prospects for the next ten years
if
they make it that long.  That black kid, Saul, he was getting’ jumped into somethin’ bigger.  Movin’ up in the business.  And yeah, it’s not like he could just move his family outta town.  But fuck man, what they did…”

“Did you vote?” Tonic asked suddenly.

“Not yet,” Finn said just as quickly.  “Tonight though.  Tonight I will.”

“Yep, me too man.  Think it’ll matter though?  There's no way the general public will
not
indict these two.  Convict?  Dunno… but everyone wants to see more right?"

Finn erased his pastoral window scene, "Yep."

“Yep.  Okay… where to?”

“Wanna know who else was calling Ray right before Meek did?” Finn asked.

“Not really.”

“Almost more than his wife did… Irving Hack.  There’s a line of a dozen some odd calls within forty minutes.  Someone was wantin’ to talk.  Bad.  And the time received says he started at around 3:00am.  I think that’s our next stop.”

*
              *              *

The John Hancock Standard Building was not a sprawling layout with busy revolving doorways and manicured lawns.  Instead, the JHS resided in what looked to be a tired old drive through bank which stood on a windblown corner like a monument to better times.  With dark windows, a faux brick façade, and lawn of equal parts gravel and cigarette butts, the place looked more like a compound than a place of business.  The parking spaces were, appropriately, numbered one through sixteen – two cars per each drive through.

They parked in #1, which was marked as
reserved
, but didn’t say for
whom
it was reserved.  This, they reasoned, was a good omen.  The wind hooted and bayed through the old pneumatic tubes that once carried the business of the nation’s capitol, but which were now little more than an out of tune pipe organ.

“You sure you don’t want to see if I can get us some work in out on the coast, man?” Tonic asked.

“As meter maids?”

“Would you care?” Tonic smiled.

“You’ve got rib shit on your lips,” Finn grinned, gesturing to his own lips with a finger.

The front door gave way to a dreary foyer that in turn provided visitors the opportunity to enjoy the musty fetor while letting their eyes adjust to life as a bat.  At the end of the hall was a green desk lamp that acted as a beacon to the wayward.  A tiny desk struggled to contain the enormous woman hunkered down behind it.  She did not look up as they emerged from the cave.

The two stood there for thirty seconds before Finn leaned over and swatted the silver service bell that sat near her phone.  The clean, reverberating chime seemed wholly out of place, but it served to at least annoy the woman into action.  "Yes?”

“We’re here to see Irv Hack, we have an appointment.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes we do,” Finn said.

“Do not.”

Tonic watched, smiling.

“Do so.”

“You do
not.” 
She threw her pen down and it bounced off into the darkness.

“
Do so
,” Finn whispered.

Annoyance had changed to exasperation.  “You don’t have an appointment because Mr. Hack is not here today.”

“I meant with his boss.”  Finn shifted gears without a blink.

She scowled, or perhaps it was just gravity’s gift to her for years of over–eating, and punched an intercom that hissed in reply.  "Two guys here to see you.”  More hissing.  She nodded.  More hissing.

“Mr. Mason will see you now,” she said after a few more moments of static.

“Great.  Who’s that?”

“Mr. Hack’s office manager, the one you have an appointment with,” she took a new pen out of a drawer brimming with them, and went back to doing whatever she did.

Both detectives knew that ambiguity could often be translated into opportunity, so they didn’t press her any further on El Jefe’s location.  In fact, secretaries were often Finn’s favorite targets on this score – fluster them and a few moments later you were wandering around inside of a building with an excuse to do so. 
I was just looking for…

So they toured the foul smelling printing room, two storage areas with even more pens, and then opened a door at the bottom of a set of narrow stairs which was marked by a torn off notebook paper marked,
NET. 
There was one pallid kid in the dungeon, his crimson tie wrapped around his head like a bandana.  They’d startled him and his face was frozen in mid–thought, tongue out, eyes glazed, hands clutched up under his chin.

“Hi,” he’d said, and food tumbled out of his mouth.  “Who are you?”

“We’re here for the body cavity search,” Tonic said. 

“It’s not my turn,” the kid said trying to contain the crumbs.  The room contained two fold up tables, two computers, and enough knotted up cable and wiring to keep a troop of boy scouts busy for months.  There were no windows, just fake wood paneling and water stained ceiling tiles.  A steel door against the outside wall, the escape hatch if this little Mercury capsule caught fire, was actually
blocked
by one of the tables.

A voice from the hallway said, “Can I help you gentlemen?”  Evidently El Jefe and the rotund secretary had finally made the connection.

“Sure,” Finn said.  "We’re here for our appointment with Mr. Hack.”

The man dropped a meaty hand on Finn’s shoulder and Finn stared at it until it was clear that the man had no intention of removing it.

“Mr. Hack is temporarily out of the office, what can I do for you?”

“You can get your hand off of my fucking shoulder for starters,” Finn said.

The man was chewing gum, a particularly large hunk from the sound of it, but it wasn’t helping his breath.  "Right.”  He let his hand slide off.  "We run a friendly ship here, sometimes I forget that not everyone appreciates it.”  He glared past the detectives and into the Internet Dungeon.  "Get back to work Roos.”  The kid jumped again and instantly wheeled around in his chair.

             
“Well, unless you’re Irving Hack…” Finn began.

             
“Where could we
find
Mr. Hack?” Tonic cut in.

             
“I’m Irving’s office manager,” the guy said by way of evasion.  "But he’s not here at the moment, shall I take down your names so that he can give you a call?”

             
Finn handed the guy a card that he pocketed without a glance.

             
“We’ll see ourselves out,” Tonic said.

             
“Well I’m going that way myself,” Mason said and the three of them climbed back up the stairs leaving the firetrap behind.