C Box - Below Zero

Joe said, “Uh-huh,” as if he knew whom Coon was talking about.

Coon said, “The Talich Brothers are ruthless leg-breakers of the highest order. Three of them: Corey, Chase, and Nathanial. Born a year apart: boom-boom-boom. One black-haired, one blond, one redhead, all built like cage-match wrestlers. They’re famous in Chicago, from what I understand.”

“Okay.”

“So anyway,” Coon said, getting into it, “after years of investigations and two trials that ended when lone jurors held out-call it the Chicago way-Stenko finally goes down. We arrest him in his real estate office with news crews covering it. Stenko gets thrown in the pokey and everything in his office is seized. But when our guys go to sweep up Leo the accountant and the Talich Brothers, they’re nowhere to be found. They’ve flown the coop-disappeared. And so have the computers and financial records we were after to prove Stenko was worth millions. But we forge on, hoping to flip Stenko himself, hoping he’ll turn on Leo and his crew who left him high and dry or the higher-ups in the Chicago scene. But Stenko lawyers up and gets his wife to sell $5 million in real estate to pay his bond.”

Joe was trying to keep up with Coon, trying to figure out where in all this April came in. If at all.

“So Stenko’s out of jail and he misses a preliminary hearing because he suddenly claims he’s sick. He claims he’s dying, in fact. He gets a doctor to tell the judge Stenko’s got liver and bladder cancer at the same time-which I guess is a death sentence. There’s nothing the doctors can do when somebody has advanced forms of both and the end comes real fast. We don’t believe Stenko’s doc, and we ask the court that Stenko be evaluated by an independent expert. But Stenko doesn’t make the appointment. This is two weeks ago or so.”

Joe nodded, the time frame fitting.

“So Stenko is missing,” Coon said. “He didn’t even pack up. His wife claims she has no idea where he went-he didn’t come home, hasn’t called. We’ve got all the phones tapped, so we’d know. He vanished off the face of the earth. All we’ve got is an unsubstantiated rumor to follow up on-”

Coon cut himself off, probably realizing-as Joe did-he’d revealed more than he wanted to.

“Your turn,” Coon said.

Joe sucked in air, trying to locate the words. Finally, “This is all news to me. Like I said, I don’t really care about Stenko.”

“Who do you care about, Joe?”

“Like I said, someone who may be with him. Maybe on the run with him.”

Coon tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice, but he didn’t succeed. “Someone with a cell phone? Someone who called you?”

“Actually, the text was sent to my daughter.”

“Who is this person?”

“I won’t say. I told you that.”

“Where did the text come from?”

Joe hesitated. He needed to know what the rumor was. “Supposedly Aspen.”

“Colorado?”

“Yup. That’s what… the caller… claimed.”

Alarm bells went off in his head. He almost said she.

“Male or female?”

“Whoever sent the text.”

“Christ,” Coon said. “I’m disappointed, Joe. I gave you a lot. You haven’t given me anything I didn’t know already.”

“That’s true,” Joe said, his mind spinning, trying to figure out what to give without endangering April. But if she was somehow mixed up with this Stenko and these Talich Brothers? Maybe the best thing to do was to spill everything, let the FBI do what the FBI did best?

It didn’t feel right yet. He said, “Okay, but understand that this is speculation at this point, but it’s all I’ve got.”

“Go ahead.”

“You should check out murders that were committed in the last two weeks. I don’t have the exact dates in front of me, but all involve small-caliber handguns-probably the same weapon. As far as I can tell, no suspects have been arrested, suggesting the murders are random and not personal. The first was in Chicago, then Madison, then Keystone, South Dakota…”

“Hold it, slow down…” Coon said, obviously writing down the locations.

“… and Aspen, Colorado. Two days ago.”

“Jesus.”

“I said it was speculation, and I mean it,” Joe said. “Those are locations given in the text messages. There could be more, or it all could be hooey.”

Coon hesitated. “We need to put a device on your daughter’s phone.”

“No.”

“Damn it, Joe.”

“I told you the rules. And I already gave you the number to track. You have that number, don’t you?”

“Yes. We can get an operation up and running tomorrow.”

“Good.”

“Will you let us look at the text messages?”

“Nope.”

He knew he was risking the chance that the FBI would pinpoint the location of April’s phone and close in on her without notifying him. But he doubted they’d be able to find her on their own, without his help. For one thing, they didn’t know it was April. They also didn’t know what kind of vehicle she was in or how many others she was with. The feds didn’t have the manpower to flood a ten-to-fifteen-mile radius in the hope of running into Stenko, especially if he was on the move. It was a risk giving up the number, but one he was willing to take.

“You’ll notify me if your daughter gets another text,” Coon said. Not a question but a statement.

“I will,” Joe said, “but only if you’ll give me the location of the call if you’re able to track it down.”

“Deal,” Coon said.

“I gave you something to run with,” Joe said. “Now what was the rumor you referred to earlier?”

“It’s just a rumor.”

“I understand that.”

Silence. Joe figured he could wait him out.

Finally, Coon sighed. “There is an unconfirmed report of a man matching Stenko’s description coming out of a brothel in Chicago two weeks ago. Later, the brothel manager or whatever he’s called was found murdered upstairs. No witnesses to the killing.”

“Small-caliber weapon?” Joe asked.

“Yes.” He said it with the same bolt of realization Joe was experiencing-the two stories coming together.

“Anyone with him? With Stenko?”

“This is unconfirmed.”

“Was anyone with him?”

“Calm down, Joe.” Then: “He was supposedly with an unidentified female minor. Mid-teens or slightly older. Blond, five foot four, possibly one of the prostitutes.”

Joe slunk against the door of the cab, his cheek on the window of the driver’s side.

“Joe?”

Rawlins, Wyoming

STENKO WAS SICK, ROBERT WAS ANGRY, AND SHE WAS SCARED. They were in a parking lot outside Buy-Rite Pharmacy someplace in Wyoming in the car they’d stolen. There was only one other car in the lot, a muddy and dented Ford Taurus in a handicapped space. Through the afternoon the sky had darkened and now the wind gusted and rocked the car from side to side on its springs. A herd of tumbleweeds-perfectly yellow, round and hollow, like exoskeletons of large beach balls-swept from somewhere out on the high plains and rolled across the blacktop of the lot and piled up against a high chain-link fence that separated the Buy-Rite from a bank that was closed for the night.

That’s me, she thought. A tumbleweed caught in a fence.

Stenko to Robert: “Morphine. You’ve heard of morphine. I need you to go in there and get me some.”

Robert took his hands off the wheel and waved his hands in the air: “How? We need a damned prescription. And if I take those empty bottles from Chicago in there, the pharmacist might do some checking and find out they’re looking for you. That would really screw up my life if we got caught in a hellhole like this.” When he said it he gestured toward the Buy-Rite, toward the town in general. Robert was startled and gave a little cry when a tumbleweed smacked and flattened against the driver’s side window before rolling up and over the hood toward the fence.