Dave Zeltserman - Outsourced

“One person owns all of the boxes that were broken into?” Maguire asked.

Brown nodded. Then, very softly, “Viktor Petrenko.”

Resnick’s voice cracked as he asked Brown to repeat the name. Brown repeated that Viktor Petrenko owned all of the boxes that were robbed.

Resnick could feel his heart beating a mile a minute. “Did he own any others?” he asked.

Brown shook his head. “Only the ones that were broken into.”

There was a knock on the door and a patrolman stuck his head in. “We found another dead body out back,” he said.

“What do you mean out back?”

“In a lot behind the bank’s. A male Caucasian, around sixty, shot once in the head.”

Resnick exchanged glances with his partner and then Stillwall, who lowered his head into his hand and squeezed his eyes. “I might as well throw my Sox tickets away,” he moaned.

Resnick and Maguire left with the patrolman, the others staying behind to continue questioning Brown. Resnick had to get out of that office anyway. Hearing that Petrenko owned those safety deposit boxes had sent a burst of adrenaline pumping through his system and he had to get moving. Petrenko must have had more than just money in those boxes. Probably also weapons and other incriminating evidence. If Resnick could get his hands on what was taken from those boxes, he had no doubt that he would be able to put Petrenko away for a long, long time.

As they walked towards the lobby, Resnick was so caught up in his thoughts that he only half heard his partner ask the patrolman whether the media had picked up on the robbery yet.

“It’s a zoo out there,” the patrolman was saying. “Reporters from all the local stations and newspapers are parked out front.”

“Any of them know about the dead body out back?” Resnick asked.

“Not that I know of. We’re trying to keep them away.”

When they got to the lobby, Resnick noticed that Margaret Williams’ body had been removed. A large puddle of blood remained where she had died. When they left the front lobby door, a burst of voices yelled out to them. Resnick looked up and saw a mob of reporters and cameramen being restrained by a line of uniformed cops. He ignored them and moved quickly towards the parking lot in back. The patrolman led the way, pushing through a thick row of shrubs about three feet high. Maguire cursed as his pant leg caught on a branch and the fabric ripped.

On the other side of the shrubs, Kathleen Liciano was kneeling by the dead body. She looked up as Resnick approached her.

“He was shot once in the forehead with a forty-five caliber,” she told him.

Resnick scanned the empty lot. “Could he have been shot in the bank’s parking lot and dragged here?”

“No. I found the bullet casing here. Also, there would be plant debris on his clothing if he had been dragged through those bushes.”

Resnick looked down at his own suit and brushed away some small leaves that had attached themselves to it. Maguire walked over to him, still cursing over his torn pants.

“I just bought this suit,” he complained. He looked down at the dead body and shook his head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with these old guys having to walk around as if they’re still at Woodstock. He should’ve been shot dead just for dressing like that. Do we know who he is?”

Liciano shook her head. “He had no identification on him.”

“Car keys?” Resnick asked.

“No. His pockets were empty.”

Resnick stared at the dead body. There was a small entry wound in the middle of his forehead. Without looking, Resnick knew there would be a large hole blasted out of the back of his skull. The dead man’s body looked bloated, his skin grayish. There was a smallness to his face, though. Almost as if it had shrunk in death. Resnick looked past the body and could see small pieces of brain and bone fragments littering the pavement.

“I wonder what he was doing here?” he asked no one in particular. “This store has been vacant for years.”

“Probably lousy luck more than anything else,” Maguire offered. “Maybe he was going to cut through to the bank, ran into the perps, and got shot either because he saw something, or maybe for his car.”

“But why would he park here?” Resnick asked. “Why not in the bank’s lot?”

“Who knows?”

Kathleen Liciano stood up, stretching. She removed her latex gloves. “I’m done here,” she said. She handed Resnick a card. “Call me in a day and I’ll let you know if the autopsies reveal anything.” An ambulance had pulled up next to them. She turned to talk with the EMT workers about the removal of the body.

Resnick took one last look at the dead body and then faced Maguire. “Let Tom and Phil handle the witnesses,” he said. “Get the surveillance tapes and I’ll meet you back at the station.”

“What about you?”

Resnick gave a thin smile, one of the few Maguire had seen from his partner during the three months they had worked together. “I have an errand I need to run,” he said.

Shrini drove while Dan lay slumped over in the backseat. Both of them had taken their overalls off. Dan had also taken off his wig and had been able to remove the mustache and sideburns using the solution Gordon had left him, but he didn’t want to risk anyone else seeing him until he had the rest of the makeup off.

Shrini was fuming, too furious to talk. Every few minutes he’d punch at the wheel and let loose with a string of curse words, both in English and Hindi. That seemed to go on for about forty minutes. Then, after some quiet, he told Dan in a tight angry voice, “If your friend thinks I am going to go quietly back to India, he’s in for a very big surprise, believe me.”

“Joel just needs to cool off. When he does, he’ll give us our share,” Dan said, his own voice sounding brittle and odd to him. He still had this strange sensation that he was only a spectator to what was going on around him, almost as if he were watching everything from outside his body.

“No, I don’t think so. I believe this is what your friend intended from the beginning.”

“Come on, Shrini. He went over the top because of what happened with Gordon. He’ll cool off.”

“Come on yourself, dude! Why do you think he demanded his pig-friend be included?” Shrini’s voice choked off. Dan could see from the reflection in the rearview mirror that Shrini’s dark eyes were simmering with fury. “Believe me,” Shrini continued when he could. “I am going to receive my share from that little peacock friend of yours, and after I do I am going to kick his ass all over the place.”

Dan lowered his head back on to the seat and closed his eyes. As enraged as Shrini was, he himself felt nothing but a gnawing anxiety in his gut. He couldn’t blame Joel for what he’d done; after all, he was the one who had promised that Gordon would behave himself during the bank robbery. Joel was right, he had a price to pay for what happened, although he still couldn’t comprehend Gordon shooting those two women. It just made no sense to him.

“What was it with that Gunga Din talk?” Shrini demanded. “Was that supposed to be some sort of racist insult?”

“He was just trying to get under your skin. Try to calm down, okay? If we give Joel a couple of days to cool off, he’ll come to his senses.”

“I don’t want to give your friend any days. I say we buy two rifles and wait outside his house and welcome him the same as he did to us. Then we take the money and split it between us.”

“What are you saying? You want us to ambush him? Kill him?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Shrini, please, man, calm down. We’re not killers.”

“I hate to break it to you, dude, but we are. Once Gordon killed that girl we became killers.”