Stephen Cannell - Final Victim

"Are you through with this chickenshit performance?" Malavida said, his back to the wall.

"Karen, if you came down here with this guy, you're an accessoryafter-the-fact in a Class A felony."

"Actually he called me and invited me down."

"Hey, Lockwood, instead of fronting me off and getting your balls all puckered, why don't you calm down and listen for a minute?"

"I'm not gonna calm down. I'm gonna drag your ass right down to the Federal lockup."

"You and me got something in common."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"You made a mistake taking me to your wife's house to do that crack, and I made a mistake by being careless and not using a masking program. Between the two of us, she got dead."

"And you give a shit about that?"

"Yeah, I do. I never helped someone get dead before. I can't stop thinking about it. But I know how to get this guy, Lockwood. I'm better than him and I can do it. I can find him… but you gotta help."

"I do, huh?" Lockwood glowered. "And then what?"

"I help you get this asshole. Once we get him, you close your eyes and count to a hundred. After that, you can do whatever you want. You can go get a drink and toast my escape, or you can load up a posse and come after me. I just want a running head start."

Lockwood stood looking at him for a long time. He could see in Malavida's young face both a resolve and a sadness that matched his own.

"You really think you can find him? He already burned us once."

"Hey, Lockwood, I'm the best there is. The best cracker-jack in the world. Nobody's ever been born was better, and that includes this scalpel-wielding, tooted-up dickhead. I made one careless mistake, but it won't happen again. I'll get him, but you gotta give me some slack and a little equipment."

There was a long silence while Lockwood considered it. He knew Malavida was probably the best chance he had.

"Okay, Mal… you got my help and the head start, if and when we find him."

"We need a helicopter and some airboats," the Chicano said, still leaning against the wall.

"That's gonna be tough."

"Call Customs. Tell 'em you need 'em."

"Wouldn't help. I handed back my badge… I was about to get suspended anyway."

"You mean now you're not even a cop?"

"Oh, I'm a cop. That doesn't ever go away. I just don't have any jurisdiction or authority. The good news is, I'm not stuck fighting a bunch of regulations anymore. From now on, far as I'm concerned, Miranda is just a lady who danced with fruit in her hat."

They spread the map out in the motel room, which suddenly seemed too small and too hot for the three of them. Lockwood was good at reading unspoken language between people, and he could see that there had been a shift in the dynamic between Karen and Malavida. She occasionally looked at the young Chicano with something other than clinical interest. She wrote down a lot of what he said and rushed to help him with small tasks. Malavida seemed to smile with his eyes when he talked to her.

Lockwood hated himself. It was just days after Claire's murder and he shouldn't give a damn about what happened between them, but he couldn't help it. He did. Not that he had a romantic interest in Karen Dawson… Maybe under different circumstances he could have, but under these, it was impossible. Nonetheless, he didn't want to see her with Malavida Chacone. This was made doubly difficult by the fact that he had to relinquish control of this part of the operation to a long-haired Chicano convict. Lockwood was lost in his cybernetic world. Malavida had written down all the information about the radio wave emanations he could dig out from the owner's manuals. He felt The Rat might have the latest and greatest TI and Toshiba Pentium notebooks, plus large-format monitors from Hitachi, Sony, or NEC. Malavida was packing his two radio receivers into a suitcase while Lockwood was studying a map of the Little Manatee River that he had picked up from the Tampa Tourist Bureau.

"This place is crisscrossed with shell roads. Some may have been washed out by summer rains, some might have been taken by high tides. The whole area is marshy and unstable," he said.

Karen moved over to look at the map.

"We've gotta split up," Malavida said. "Karen and I will take a boat. You take the car. Try to get in there close enough to receive his computer transmission. It should be detectable from a mile or so; then we'll see if we can walk each other in."

Lockwood noted that "Miss Dawson" had now become "Karen," but decided to wait until they were alone before saying anything to Malavida.

"We need walkie-talkies," Lockwood said, looking at Karen. "You'll have to go. My Customs credit cards are stopped. Find a radio store, get the Sony 1600s with extra battery packs and charging units."

Something told Karen not to leave them alone.

"We'll be okay." Malavida grinned. "If he gets bored, he can just pat me down again."

"I'll be right back," she finally said and reluctantly left the room. Lockwood waited till the sound of her footsteps disappeared; then he turned to Malavida, who was still packing the suitcase.

"Let's me and you get something straight…"

"What's that, Zanzo?" His back was to Lockwood.

"You wanna help. Okay, I'm gonna take you up on it 'cause, frankly, I'm outta options. You want a running head start when this is over… Okay, I hate it, but that's the price of the ticket. But you better stop giving Karen back rubs. She needs a massage, I'll find a tall Swedish guy."

Malavida stopped packing and Lockwood continued: "She's in over her head. She hasn't got a clue what she's signed on for. You an' me, we've spent time around sprung motherfuckers like The Rat, but this is just a field trip for her. He could kill her without raising his heartbeat. She needs all her senses focused on the game."

Malavida turned now, and Lockwood saw he was smiling. "Something I said was funny?"

"You fuckin' amaze me, John. You left your badge upside down in a bucket of shit, so let's you an' me get something straight. I don't have to listen to your bullshit. I'm a wanted man, but you're harboring a fugitive. You're also fucked up and operating illegally. The reason I'm doing this isn't so I can bump Karen Dawson. I'm doing it 'cause I wanna make up for getting your ex-wife killed. You, I could give less of a shit about. You got some limited law enforcement skills and they might come in handy, but dating advice you can stick up your ass. Back off or I'm shutting my end down, and without me, you won't get him."

They stood glowering at one another. The silence grew heavier in the room, but neither had anything else to say. Lockwood hadn't slept in more than twenty-four hours and his eyes were grainy. He moved to the window and looked out at the Florida interstate.

"How's your little girl?" Malavida asked, his tone softer. "She wants her mommy. So do I…"

"We'll get this guy. Let's just not forget what's going down between us. Things have changed."

Lockwood realized he was right. He looked at the young Chicano and believed he had come down here for the right reasons.

"Are you strapped?" Malavida broke through his thoughts.

"No, they took my gun in D. C. I need to pick something up. I've got a friend down here, Ray Gonzales. He's in Jackson Memorial Hospital with a leaky kidney, but I think he's got family in St. Pete. I'll make a call, see if I can line something up."

"Get one for me."

Lockwood smiled. "That's just what this caper needs… another unlicensed shooter."

Lockwood got in touch with Ray Gonzales in the renal ward at Jackson Memorial in Miami. Ray told him that his nephew would deliver something. Lockwood gave him a list of favorite handguns, starting with a nine-millimeter Beretta and working down to an S amp;W Chief with a two-inch barrel. It was the same piece Customs had issued to him, and although he'd never been able to hit anything with it, at least the short muzzle didn't poke him when he sat.