David Levien: Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

Behr had gone through his reserve mag now, but he hadn’t quite shot himself empty. He grabbed at his ankle where he wore his Bulldog.44 as a backup gun, strictly against company policy. He had the five rounds in it and then they’d be done.

He tried to listen as he held fire, but there was only a hollowed-out buzzing in his ears after all the shooting. Behr perceived Kolodnik’s racked and panicked breathing nearby. Then he got the impression there were footsteps across the way in the dark. There was a broken rhythm to them, perhaps a limping gait, and Behr wondered if the shooter was actually hit, or if he was coming toward them. But then the steps grew fainter. Behr’s heart surged at the idea he was giving up and leaving. There was the sound of a car engine, just around the corner; that came through clear enough.

Get up after him , Behr urged himself. But he didn’t move an inch.

Behr felt Kolodnik lying still under his hand. He was sure the man had been hit and he wondered how badly.

“Is it over?” Kolodnik asked, then started to stir.

“Believe so,” Behr said, hardly recognizing his own voice. A set of high beams had striped the wall opposite them, followed by a screech of tires, and then they’d been left alone.

Kolodnik’s knee and elbow had gotten thumped when he’d fallen to the concrete, and his jaw was sore from the kick, but otherwise he was unshot and unhurt. Behr, for his part, felt giddy to be alive.

“Get in the car,” he ordered Kolodnik. They climbed in, Kolodnik in the front passenger seat, Behr behind the wheel.

“I got nothing,” Kolodnik said of his cell phone.

“One bar,” Behr said of his, and dialed 911. He gave the particulars to the dispatcher and they waited in shocked silence for about two minutes before the first police cars responded.

Vehicles and voices and activity quickly filled the parking garage, along with lights-the red and blue of the cruisers’ flashers, the xenon white of headlights, and the hard carbon glare of the driver’s side spots-that chased away the darkness in which the danger had been hiding.

A young/old pair of patrolmen was first. Then another. Behr stepped out and identified himself and showed them his Caro credentials. He found the key to the Suburban. Then a dark Crown Vic tooled into the area and a solid man, who was dressed in a suit, climbed out.

“Lieutenant,” one of the patrolmen greeted him.

“I’m Breslau,” the new arrival said in a husky voice, and shook Behr’s hand.

Behr ran him through what had happened, beat by beat. Breslau’s muscled jaw worked a piece of gum feverishly around his downturned mouth, his eyes cutting about the garage, landing on the Suburban, the place where the shots had come from, Kolodnik, and finally back on Behr.

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh,” he said as he processed each piece of information.

Kolodnik, meanwhile, had removed his jacket and stood off to the side, talking with a tall, lanky officer. Behr heard the muttered particulars of his statement.

“On recommendation of several executives at my company,” is what Kolodnik said when the cop asked why he had security with him, and “no” was the answer to whether there had been any specific threats made on his person recently.

“Yes, of course,” Kolodnik said to the follow-up question: “Are you known to carry lots of cash?”

A paramedic arrived on the scene and sat Kolodnik against a nearby car to look him over.

“So, Caro … I know plenty of those boys-how come I haven’t met you?” Breslau said to Behr, half question half accusation.

“I’m fairly new,” Behr answered.

“You just a meat shield? Or are you an investigator or case manager?” he wondered.

The question wasn’t a simple one. It got to the heart of what Behr didn’t like about the Caro job. When the company had come to him the first time, he’d suspected it was to do the dirty work, to be the “radioactive man” for the company, so the rest of them, a tight clique of mostly ex-FBI and ex-Treasury guys who’d gone private, could keep their hands clean. He’d turned them down because of that, but they’d come back two months later, and he surveyed the paucity of clients out there for him on his own. Ten million people were looking for jobs and here was one. A good one. He signed on.

After a short honeymoon of polite respect around the office, he’d seen his concerns bear out. Caro was on retainer to an insurance conglomerate, and they started by asking him to videotape a waitress pulling some disability fraud. It was easy enough, even if she was a single mother who got arrested because of it. Then it was on to placing GPS units on subjects’ cars. They requested he break into a few vehicles next, to plant voice-activated recorders. He tried to put them off, saying, “I look like the Pelican to you?” referencing the dirty tricks P.I. who was currently serving a long jail sentence. He’d gotten a laugh, but they’d pressed him and he’d done it; and after that they wanted him to illegally enter an office after hours in order to retrieve certain documents. He’d balked at the office job, and found a work-around, getting the papers while the place was open, but he knew it wasn’t the last time they’d be asking for a B and E.

“I guess you could say I’m a floater,” Behr finally answered. Breslau just looked at him.

“Gonna need to borrow that for a bit,” Breslau said, pointing a forefinger at Behr’s hip.

“Sure,” Behr said, easing the empty Glock out of its holster and dropping it into a plastic evidence bag held out by a jowly sergeant who appeared next to Breslau. The police would run a serial number check, make sure it matched the company’s paperwork. Behr added the first magazine, which he’d collected from the ground, and wished he’d been wearing his gold ring with the diamond-studded letters “IMPD.” It was commemorative of a special relationship with the department, and only given by the brass, which was how Behr had gotten it. But it was sitting at home in a drawer as usual.

“We’ll return the Glock to you asap,” Breslau said curtly.

Behr nodded and watched as Breslau went on a little walking tour of the scene, shining a small flashlight at a few particular spots, taking it all in. He kept the gum moving all the while as he walked, like he was training for an Olympic chewing event; and Behr found himself standing next to Kolodnik, who was finished with the medic.

“How you doing?” Behr asked.

“Good. I’m all right,” Kolodnik said.

“So, an armored SUV …” Behr said, leaving it out there.

“We have a project coming up, a big development in Mexico. Between the drug wars and the kidnappings down there, we thought we might need a half dozen for the executives and the project managers. The company in New York we ordered them from sent us this one to try, to see how it performed.”

“Performs pretty good, I’d say,” Behr remarked, and they shared a jagged laugh. Then there was a moment’s quiet rippled only by radio calls as the cops all looked at the ground or crawled around on it. They’d found eighteen of Behr’s shell casings but were having a heck of a time locating the other two, as the things had a tendency to roll.

“Thank you, Frank,” Kolodnik said, clearing his throat. “I mean it. What you did … That was … I really don’t know what to …”

“Just glad how it came out,” Behr said. “Believe me.”

Kolodnik handed Behr a business card, just his name and a telephone number engraved on heavy ivory stock. “That’s my personal number. You call me if you ever need anything.”

Behr nodded and went back to watching the cops work, when the squealing of tires on the cement announced the arrival of another vehicle. It was a blue Cadillac STS adding its headlights to the party. Behr recognized the car as belonging to Karl Potempa, the head of Caro’s Indianapolis office. The Caddy jerked to a stop, and out jumped Potempa, looking oddly casual in a velour tracksuit with an FBI crest on the left breast. Behr had never seen the man without a necktie, but the absence of a business suit didn’t diminish his authority any, and his silver gray hair was perfectly combed. After just a handful of months on the job and no real interaction, Behr wasn’t close with Karl Potempa but knew him well enough to see he was shaken.