David Levien - Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

“I recognized the address when the call came through,” Pomeroy said. “How’s Officer Decker in this?”

It was no social drop-in. “The women were friends,” Behr said.

“I see …” Pomeroy said. “I’ve been made aware that he put himself in this thing, that he might’ve shared department information with you.”

“He didn’t put himself in it,” Behr said. “Some asshole showed up looking to kill me, or me and my girlfriend, and his wife happened to be here.”

“And the information?” Pomeroy pressed.

Behr said nothing.

“Right …” Pomeroy said. “Well, I’ve gotta have someone on this.” Behr could only admire the unbelievable, self-cleaning organ that was the police department. “Seems like Decker’s paid enough.”

Behr could only nod.

“Due to the … political nature … of it, it’s raining big juice on this one, and you can’t stand under our umbrella. Lay off it, Frank.”

“Unbelievable.” Behr nodded once more. He knew what it meant: he was done with the department. Whatever anemic courtesy he might have ever gotten was now history. He’d been on this side before, for a long time. He’d only recently been in good standing. It was a shame to have to go back so soon, but he’d survived it in the past and he would again.

“You have no idea how the upper ranks of the department work-it’s like the Vatican,” Pomeroy said by way of absolving himself.

“Decker will be untouched?”

“He’ll be untouched.”

“Just so you know, I didn’t go looking for any of it-someone shot at me,” Behr said, walking back toward his house.

“Hey, this is the business we’ve chosen,” Pomeroy said, his arms outstretched and palms turned up.

When Behr came back in, he took care to be quiet in order not to disturb Susan, but soon found that she hadn’t been resting. She’d been packing.

“What’s going on?” he asked when he saw her in the kitchen filling a water bottle, a shoulder duffel and her pillow in a garbage bag at her feet.

“I’ve gotta go, Frank. I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“I just can’t be here now.”

“That’s understandable, Suze,” he said. “How about if we go to a hotel? Where you can relax …”

“I don’t think so,” she said in a tone that sent a chill through him.

“You’re leaving? For good?” Behr said, a near-desperate feeling taking hold of his insides. “You can’t. It’s not safe, if someone’s looking for you I need to be able to-”

“They’re looking for you , Frank,” she said with regret. “I’ll-we’ll-be safer … away from you.”

“Where are you going?”

“Chicago. To my parents, I think,” she said.

“What about the doctor, and the delivery?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “There are doctors there. That’s two weeks from now anyway-”

“If he waits-”

“If he waits. I have to worry about today. About tomorrow.”

Behr just shook his head at what had fallen, one domino at a time, and how they had ended up here.

“I need you to drive me back to my car. It’s at the doctor’s office.”

It was an evening of what Dwyer called “hopeless sits.” They’d been out to Kolodnik’s residence, gotten a vantage, and found the massive home darkened. They sat silently in the woods for an hour, hoping someone-Kolodnik himself even-might arrive. Dwyer had been following news of the man and it seemed he was off for the country’s capital for his coronation, or whatever the hell it was called. But one never knew when a subject’s plans changed or when the news cunts might be wrong. Night stalking like this always reminded him of diving, the limited yet purposeful actions, the effort to preserve stillness and quiet. After another few minutes in their positions, it was time to play the percentages, and Dwyer tapped Rickie on the leg and signaled: back to the car.

Then they’d made their way downtown to Saunders’s building again. They’d called and gone up and knocked, but there was no answer. They returned to the car to wait for a bit, though Dwyer had all but changed his mind and accepted that the man must have left town with his boss. While they sat, Dwyer used the laptop to book them back out of town the following afternoon, Rickie from Indianapolis, and he from Chicago. Once they had staked out Teague’s intended morning meeting and seen what it was all about and had visited Gantcher one last time to collect the money, their business would be done. Then, since the element of surprise had been ceded, they could go straight on and hard at this Behr, clean that up, and head directly for the airport. When he’d finished the bookings and closed the laptop, Dwyer turned to Rickie, who had been unusually quiet.

“Brief me on your action of this afternoon,” Dwyer said.

“I don’t really feel like it,” Rickie said.

“I don’t really give a fuck how you feel,” Dwyer said. “Do it.” A harsh order could be comforting to a certain kind of lad.

Rickie nodded. “I’d just gotten there, and I mean literally just inside the door, when I heard the car and looked out. I saw her parked at the curb and coming to the door with her hands full of plastic shopping bags and her keys around her knuckle. So I timed it with her walking up the steps, opened the door, and yanked her in. Pretty certain no one outside could have seen it.”

“Good. Then?” Dwyer asked.

“Then she screamed and I closed off her mouth, and put her to the floor and started an interrogation. Bad bit o’ business she was knocked up, but I figured it would make her talk quick,” Rickie said.

“ ‘Where’s your husband?’ I asked her. ‘He’s at work,’ she said. So I says, ‘What’s he working on? When’s he home?’ And, believe me, she was in no position to lie.” Rickie paused and made a hatchet-against-neck gesture.

“Fucking Ruthless,” Dwyer said.

“That’s me,” Rickie said. “She keeps on with the ‘I don’t know,’ and adds ‘His shift’s over at six.’ I thinks, ‘Six is too bloody long to wait ’round.’ We go back and forth another few times-‘Where’s your husband? Where’s Frank? What does he know?’ ‘I have no idea,’ she says. ‘No idea.’ The cheeky little gash wouldn’t give him up. Then one last time, ‘Where’s your husband?’ And she says, ‘He’s a cop, you can’t do this.’ But by then she’d seen me, so I had to do it, o’ course.”

“Cop?” Dwyer said.

“Yeah. Cop, private cop-what’s the difference?”

“What’d she look like?” Dwyer said, suddenly troubled.

“Good looking. Blond and preggers, like you told me. Young, ya know,” Rickie said.

“How young?”

“Late twenties. ’Bout five foot and a few-”

“You mean near six foot,” Dwyer said.

“No, she was a little thing. Come on, man, you’re starting to make me feel bad.”

Dwyer turned to him. “You sure of who you grabbed over there?”

“I was a go on the guy and a pregnant blond slag, Waddy, I wasn’t checking IDs. How many of ’em they have running around here?” Rickie said.

Dwyer shrugged. “May have been a wrong woman. Friend or neighbor.”

“Fuck me backward,” Rickie said with force, and then the big kid’s shoulders sagged.

“Shame about the wee one …” Dwyer said.

“Yah,” Rickie agreed.

“Well, don’t get down about it,” Dwyer said. “It’ll be over tomorrow. That fancy bastard will either pay, or he’ll pay, and we’ll be done.”

They sat there in a long moment of contemplation and then Dwyer put the car in gear.

Behr dropped Susan off at her car in her doctor’s parking lot and stood there and watched everything he loved drive off into the night. He’d been unable to convince her to do otherwise. He considered putting a fist through his passenger side window, but suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired. He staggered around the car and got in and drove back across the city. The downtown area felt deserted, as if everyone had decided en masse to go inside or otherwise hide.