Playing the Game (17 page)

            ‘Time to phone it in, I guess’, Charlie announced, realising we were getting nowhere. ‘Hopefully the guys can decipher this one as well’.

            Just as I was about to call in it, my cell rang again.   

            Having spoken to The Chemist once already today, I wasn’t expecting to talk to her again. Not quite so soon anyway. When the LAPD switchboard operator rang me to patch her through, I got a bad feeling immediately. A feeling that maybe she was altering her plans, that maybe she was improvising, and that was most certainly not a good thought. Turned out I was going to be offered a hell of a choice.

            ‘Twice in one day, I’m honoured’, I said, putting the phone on loudspeaker so Charlie could be privy to the conversation. Although we now knew the identity of The Chemist, I wasn’t giving that away. Not yet. I would play that card when the time was right.

            ‘You should be’. It was the same robotic voice. ‘It’s not like me to get so up close and personal so frequently, but you should know, you need to know, I’m changing the game’.

            As much as I’d guessed this was an unscheduled call, that had been unexpected. I glanced over at Charlie, not quite sure how this was going to unfold.

            ‘I’m giving you a choice’. I was almost holding my breath.

            ‘And what choice is that?’ I asked.

            ‘Do you want Stella back?’ The question hung in the air, lingering for what seemed like an eternity before I managed to answer.

            ‘Of course we do’, I stated the obvious. ‘What’s the catch?’ I knew this wasn’t going to be simple.

            ‘You have two choices. Number one; I’ll give you Stella back, alive’. Well that sounded alright to me. ‘But we begin game number four immediately.’

            ‘What’s the second choice?’

            ‘You place trust in your ability to catch me, and pray you do before Stella dies; in which case, we will go onto game number four regardless’.

            ‘I’d like to give that fucker a third option’, Charlie growled. ‘That we take their ass down.

            ‘Tell Detective Holland that is unlikely to happen’. I didn’t need to; Charlie had heard that for himself.

            If ever I’d been in a catch-22 situation, this was it. On one hand, getting Stella back would condemn some other poor girl to one of The Chemist’s games. On the other hand, we hadn’t turned up anything yet on Sarah Caldwell, apart from her name and a link to San Quentin. Our chances of getting to Stella before six a.m. were looking slimmer and slimmer as the hours ticked away. If we took Caldwell at her word, and took option one, at least we would get Stella back and then we would just be in the same situation as we were now, but with more time to get to girl number four. Even so, I shuddered at the thought that we would have to go through this all over again; that we would have to start from scratch chasing yet another victim.

            ‘You have thirty seconds to make your decision, starting now’.

            Taking The Chemist off speaker, I looked at Charlie. ‘Well it’s flip a coin time’, he said. ‘Either way, we’re fucked so far. I say let’s get the girl back and go onto game four. In the mean time, let’s hope we get something on Caldwell that can lead us to her.’ He held his hands up shaking his head. ‘What do you reckon Patton?’

            ‘I’m thinking pretty much the same,’ I told him. ‘So option one then?’

            ‘Yeah, why not? Like I said, either way man, either way’.

            Putting Sarah Caldwell back on speaker, I told her our decision. ‘Give us Stella. But just so as you know; we’re coming for you.’ Given what we had on her at the present time, it was an empty threat.  I could hear what sounded like laughter down the phone, but given the distortion, it sounded more like heavy breathing.

            ‘Oh Detective Patton’, the voice rasped. ‘I was hoping you would choose that one.’

            Then the phone went dead. Why did I get the feeling we had just made the wrong choice?

46

Last week

            The majority of his work done and satisfied that the afternoons court proceedings would go in his team’s favour, Jameson Burr poured himself that well deserved drink. Just the one mind, he’d reward himself with another couple after the day’s court session. Despite the interruptions from that pesky telephone engineer this morning, he’d made good time with his paperwork, and had half an hour or so before he had to leave the house. As had often been the case over the last few days when he hadn’t been occupied with work, he turned his attention once again to the imminent demise of Senator Conrad Conway. McCrane had procured the Clozapone from an unnamed, yet an assured reliable, source. Burr had provided the individual who would carry out the attack in five days; an individual named Daryl Walls who was one of those rare junkies that remained lucid at all times, no matter what poison he’d injected himself with that morning. An individual that Burr knew he could put in prison at the drop of a hat, no questions asked. He likened Walls to Sherlock Holmes in that narcotics only seemed to enhance his particular line of work; a somewhat different line of work to Conan-Doyle’s fictional detective, yet the similarity there remained. Walls had done several jobs for him over the last few years and had never let him down, despite his addiction to class A drugs. He knew that if Walls was given sufficient notice and a specific way to carry out a task, such as injecting someone with Clozapone then suffocating them, he would complete it with ruthless efficiency. As a reward, Walls would receive five thousand dollars and get to keep walking the streets of Los Angeles as an added bonus, at least until Burr and McCrane decided otherwise.

            Still, the fact that five days was such a long time away nagged him. A lot could happen in five days; and after looking at the Senator’s schedule for this week that he’d also managed to acquire, he thought he spied an opportunity the day after tomorrow, which was a much more pleasing timescale. Conway needed to pay for what he’d done as soon as possible.

Not that he needed McCrane’s permission but he thought it best to verify his newly proposed course of action with the DA. He would be pissed if he wasn’t at least consulted given the level of loyalty he had shown him in helping him deal with this problem. Even he wasn’t keen to add Paul McCrane to his list of enemies.

Picking up the office phone, he managed to reach the District Attorney within five minutes. Not many people in LA could do that!

            ‘Mr. Pacino, a pleasure’, greeted McCrane; the Animi’s Oscar winner pseudonyms second nature to him after all these months.

            ‘Likewise, Mr. Washington, likewise’, Burr responded.

            ‘And what can I do for you, this fine afternoon?’

            ‘I’ve been thinking about our proposed schedule for our good friend Mr. Brando. I think it should be sooner’.

            ‘Maybe it should’, agreed McCrane, ‘anything in mind?’

            ‘Well I’ve been looking at his schedule’, Burr continued. ‘There is one particular window I can see the day after tomorrow. He’s got meetings between seven and ten in the morning but then has a quick nine holes planned  between half ten and half twelve. I happen to know that out of habit, he never packs his clubs in the morning before he leaves for the day. I think a while ago, he forgot his clubs on his way out one morning, came back to get them and hit a hole in one that afternoon. He does it now every time out of superstition. That would be an ideal opportunity’.

            ‘Can our man deliver in that time?’ McCrane wanted to know if Walls could be contacted and briefed sufficiently with a new time structure.

            ‘I’m sure he can’, confirmed Burr, ‘never been a problem in the past has it?’

            ‘Mmm, you right there at least. Yes, on reflection I think the sooner the better. I sense you want this thing done and dusted and I can’t say I blame you for that. The day after tomorrow you say?’

            ‘I’m sure we can get to him then and I’m sure he will take out Mr. Brando as instructed’.

            ‘Well in that case, I’ll leave it in your capable hands, Mr. Pacino. I’ll speak to you soon’.

            Hanging up to McCrane, but still cradling the receiver in one hand, Burr dialled another number. Walls, after less than a minute answered. ‘Hello?’ he said softy. It was difficult to tell whether Walls was under the influence of drugs or not, such was his composure when he was high.

            ‘There’s been a change of plan’, Burr instructed. ‘It’s going to be the day after tomorrow instead’.

            ‘Cool’, Walls responded.

            ‘I’ll send you the information in the usual manner’.

            ‘No problem’.

            Satisfied with the new schedule, Burr readied himself for court. He would drop the information into Walls on his way home tonight. He looked in the mirror, fastening the top button of his white Armani shirt and straightening his tie. ‘Bye bye Senator’, he mouthed. ‘It was nice to know you’.

            A hundred yards or so down the road, Morris thought he’d heard what he’d been instructed to uncover. Conway had told him that any conversation referring to him would be under the pseudonym Mr. Brando. Playing the tape of the conversation back, it was difficult to know what Burr and the guy on the other end of the phone were talking about. The part about taking out Mr. Brando leapt out though as being particularly relevant! He was sure the Senator needed to know about that! Although he knew he’d be here for the rest of the day, cooped up in cramped, hot conditions, he called the Senator with his news.

            ‘It’s me’, he said ‘I think there’s something you should hear’. Morris played the tape to Conway over the phone. Even though, in transmission in this way, the quality of the recording lessened, it was more than enough for Conway’s suspicions to be confirmed. He had to concede, that had been fast work by Morris.

            ‘Stay on it’, he simply instructed. ‘Keep me informed’.

            Following his conversation with Morris, Conway sat at his desk, shaking ever so slightly, regretting beginning his affair with Burr’s wife once again; as enjoyable as it had been at the time. His suspicions seem to have been warranted.  The day after tomorrow was it then, according to Burr? He’d see about that.

            Picking up his own phone, he dialled the LA Times. After being put on hold for a couple of minutes, a now familiar voice greeted him. ‘Britland-Jones here’.

            ‘Green light’, he authorised, then hung up. By tomorrow night, the journalist should have some story on Burr and McCrane; something nice and juicy for the media to feed off. Not even Robert Farrington would be able to dilute the story sufficiently for no damage to be caused. As for the day after tomorrow? Whoever they were sending to kill him was going to have a hell of a shock, he guaranteed it.

47

            Detective Shawn Axon arrived at San Quentin only a couple of hours after being dispatched by Captain Williams. The Captain had pulled in a couple of favours to arrange express transportation for him, knowing that they didn’t have any time to waste, and that every minute that passed, a young girl was potentially a minute closer to her death.

            Axon had just been coming off shift as Williams had rallied his department. He’d been in the LAPD for a few years, having transferred from Washington DC on what was supposed to be a temporary inter-state secondment. As one of Washington’s most successful members of their Armed Robbery division, he’d naturally been assigned a similar role in Los Angeles. He’d made an immediate impact by capturing a group of bank robbers who’d called themselves ‘The Jackrabbits’ who had named themselves after the notorious bank robber John Dillinger; a pioneer of the bank robbery during the 1930’s Depression era of mid-western America. The Jackrabbits had robbed various banks across the state before Axon, in his first month in Los Angeles, had engineered their takedown, granting him immediate notoriety with the media and his new colleagues at the LAPD alike.

            Just like a vast proportion of LA, he’d been following the media’s coverage of The Chemist with interest, only with the added insight of being a member of the LAPD. He knew first hand that the whole of the PD wanted The Chemist caught; well he had seen as much over the last few weeks so when news had come through that they might have an ID, despite just coming off a twelve hour shift, he’d been the first to volunteer his services in trying to dig up any information on Sarah Caldwell. Contacting his various sources across the state, with a depressing lack of success, he’d been as frustrated as anybody that Caldwell seemed to be a ghost; that there was no record of her anywhere. When Patton and Holland confirmed a possible link to San Quentin, he’d volunteered once more to take that lead, knowing Patton and Holland both had to remain in LA to play The Chemist’s game. Having worked several divisions prior to bank robbery in Washington, he was also more than qualified to take responsibility for this assignment. Williams had verified that Governor Sebastian Tassiker was present at San Quentin that day, and Tassiker had been more than accommodating in granting the LAPD an audience. Williams had been purposefully vague on the phone, never once mentioning The Chemist, Sarah Caldwell or Paul McCrane, only saying that they had a few questions about a former inmate who may now be in Los Angeles. ‘See what his reaction is when you mention Sarah Caldwell’, Williams had instructed. ‘Dig up anything you can, see if there’s anything to substantiate what we have from Barnes’.

             He’d been waiting outside Tassiker’s office for several minutes, going over his line of questioning in his head. He had no warrant that would give him authority to do anything other than question Tassiker; Captain Williams hadn’t even applied for one as the information they had was tenuous as best. There was no way one would have been granted so why waste their time? With this in mind, Axon knew how he went about questioning the governor would be the key, mindful of the fact that Tassiker could quite simply refuse to answer any questions and stonewall him if he wanted to.