Jim DeFelice - Threat Level Black

“Hey, screw you. Who are you?”

“Andy Fisher. FBI. I was doing some checking inside. You’re with Genovese.”

“I’m with Sammy Gorodino.”

“Sammy the Seal?” said Fisher. “No way.”

“Hey, bullshit on you, asshole.”

“So, what’s the story on Howe? He owes your boss money?”

The goon glanced at the Virginia detective, then back at Fisher. “You for real?”

Fisher shrugged.

“I just do what I’m told. Sammy tells me what to do and I do it.”

“Sammy’s where?” said Fisher.

“Oh, fuck you. I’m not telling you that.”

Fisher took a sip of his coffee. It occurred to him again that it might have been much better if the cup hadn’t been washed.

“I can find Sammy,” said the detective next to him. “He owns a restaurant in a strip mall out near Circleville.”

The goon’s face twitched ever so slightly.

Fisher pulled out his satellite phone and slid it across the table.

“Call him,” he told the goon. “And tell him you’re going to be released on your own recognizance this afternoon. Tell him there are some rumors going around that he ought to know about, rumors that you were talking about his auto parts business. False rumors, and you don’t want him getting upset. Because you told that asshole FBI agent nothing, and the raid that’s coming had nothing to do with any sort of information you gave out. And you’re being let go free was just some sort of trick by this jerk Andy Fisher.”

The man looked at Fisher, then at the detective, then at the phone.

“There’s a bowling alley,” he said. “It’s over by Kirdwood Park.”

Alice looked much younger asleep. She had pulled her hair back and tied it so the doctors could treat the small cut on the right side of her mouth. The strands at the top of her forehead looked like the fine threads at the edge of a scarf.

Howe gazed at the down in front of her ear, a shade lighter than the trio of freckles beneath it. Her lips were a soft pink, loosely pressed together; her body moved upward gently with her breathing.

“Who were they?” she said without opening her eyes.

Howe stooped down. “ Alice?”

“Who were they?”

Her left lid opened slowly.

“I’m not sure,” said Howe. “They were after me. I’m sorry they hurt you.”

Fisher had told Howe that the goons had probably started following him sometime the day before and seen where Alice lived. They probably had left someone there to watch her as a backup.

“They thought I was your girlfriend.” Alice pushed her legs off the bed and sat up.

In the hallway Howe heard the footsteps of the detective and FBI agent who’d been waiting to see her.

“You going to be okay?” Howe asked.

“I’m okay.” She was still in her jeans and the T-shirt she’d been wearing earlier. Aside from a bruise where one of the thugs had squeezed her arm, she was unhurt.

One of the investigators pushed back the curtain behind him. “Uh, Colonel Howe,” said the woman. “Excuse us, but we’d prefer if you didn’t talk with Ms. Kauss until we’ve had a chance to interview her.”

“Protocol,” said the other detective.

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” said Howe. He looked at Alice as he spoke. “I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”

“I’m okay,” she told him.

“I guess we have to reschedule,” he said.

“Call my office.”

“I will.” He nodded. He couldn’t tell how angry she was with him, though he figured she must be very angry. “Okay,” he said, leaving.

Fisher had never quite gotten the point of bowling. Maybe it made sense as a metaphysical exercise, the round sphere of the life force laying low the solid pins of orthodoxy, but the people who played it regularly didn’t seem to be the metaphysical type. Most of them seemed to be in some sort of pain: They unleashed the ball, stared as it rolled down the alley, then cringed as it toppled its targets. A few did odd dances, as if calling on the gods of thunder to be merciful, and even those who emerged from the process with smiles on their faces set off immediately to handle the paperwork.

Not much sense in it that he could see.

Fisher walked through the alley, turned past the shoe rental register-another activity he didn’t understand-and through the double doors that led to the lounge. He went to the bar and pulled open his coat, removing his Magnum to the wide-eyed stare of two rather large men standing a few feet away.

“There’s six bullets in that, and I’m counting them when I leave,” he said, placing the long-barreled gun down. He walked over to the table where Sammy the Seal was sitting with a few of his bodyguards.

Sammy was only thirty-three, but Fisher’s sources on the local organized-crime task force had him pegged as an old-line mob type too dull to make the transition to semi-legal activities like the movies or stock market. He relied on muscle and wits to keep afloat, which meant he’d be a prime candidate for the federal Witness Security Program in a few months. Fisher appreciated this, actually: There was something admirable about a man too dumb to be successfully dishonest.

Fisher sat down and tossed the thin wallet with his Bureau credentials on the table.

“FBI,” he told Sammy. He glanced up at the two bodyguards clutching their chests behind him. “Don’t have heart attacks, guys. I’m here to talk. And not about auto parts, prostitution, or the movies. Though I might mention that the coffee you serve in your pizza parlors is class A heartburn material, a plus in my book.”

“Who the hell are you?” said Sammy.

“Andy Fisher. I picked up a couple of your people earlier today. They should’ve called by now.”

“I don’t have people.”

“Well, I didn’t bother to run DNA tests on them,” said Fisher, taking out a cigarette, “but they looked human. Walked and talked.”

Sammy looked at his cigarette.

“Mind if I smoke?” Fisher asked.

“I do mind, yeah. It’s against the law in this county.”

Fisher lit up anyway. “Maybe you can use the charge for a plea bargain.”

“Why are you here?”

“Somebody hired you to freeze William Howe. Problem is, they didn’t tell you Howe was a national hero.”

“He’s no hero,” said Sammy, making a face.

“You look at his résumé?”

Belatedly realizing he had said far too much, Sammy shut up.

Fisher leaned forward. “All I want to know is who hired you? Between you and me.”

“You think I’d screw a client like that?”

“I hope so,” said Fisher.

Sammy laughed. “Get out before I throw you out.”

“Flip on the news,” said Fisher. “Put on CNN. See what kind of shit you’re in.”

A dim light began to shine somewhere in Sammy’s brain. He called over to the bartender and told him to turn on the television.

“And bring a round of drinks. What are you having?”

“Coffee,” said Fisher.

“Coffee’s old.”

“Can’t be any worse than the crap they have over at police headquarters.”

Sammy frowned. The station came back from a commercial. A picture of Howe flashed on the screen. Sammy stared at the television, doing a rather convincing impression of Paul on the road to Damascus. If his jaw hadn’t been attached, it would have been part of the rug.

“Guy told us what hotel he was in, had a name, that was it. We didn’t know, I swear to God,” said Sammy. “I swear. Off the record. ’Cause you ain’t read me my rights or anything, and you can’t use this.”

“Oh, yeah, way off the record,” said Fisher. “So, who hired you?”

“A Chink,” said Sammy. “Guy named Sin Ru Chow. We do some deals sometimes. He’s who you want to talk to.”