Джозеф Файндер - Company Man

— Scott

When Nick looked up, he said, “Ten million bucks? What’s it for?”

“I don’t know, but it looks to me like Scotty-Boy’s being a little reckless. Playing fast and loose, huh?”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“Not like you.”

“Huh?”

“ You’re not being reckless at all, right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What you’re doing, man, is a fuck of a lot stupider than whatever Scott McNally’s up to. You better check yourself before you wreck yourself, bro, or we’re both going to the slammer. And don’t think I’m going to take the rap for you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Eddie’s gaze bore down on him relentlessly. “You want to explain what the fuck you’re doing layin’ pipe with Stadler’s daughter?”

Nick was speechless for a moment. “Are you spying on me, Eddie? That’s how you knew where I was going that day, in the rain, isn’t it? You have no business monitoring my e-mail or my phone lines—”

“It’s like we’re on a road trip together, Nick. We gotta be taking the same turns. You need to be watching the speed limit, observing all traffic signs. And right here, see, there’s no Merge sign. Sign says DO NOT ENTER. Are you hearing me? Because it’s real important that you do.” Eddie locked eyes with him. “Do you realize how unbelievably fucking reckless you’re being?”

“It’s totally none of your business, Eddie.”

Eddie stretched, raised his arms and put his hands behind his head. Under his arms, sweat stains blackened his gray shirt. “See, that’s where you’re wrong, buddy. It’s very much my business. Because if this keeps up, we could both be making license plates in the shithouse, and I promise you, that’s not going to happen.”

“This is out of bounds. You lay off her.”

“I wish you’d lay off her too. You tell me you’re getting rim jobs from the local Brownie troop, I could give a shit. You tell me you’re setting up a crystal-meth lab in your basement, I could give a flying fuck. But this thing involves the two of us. You let that piece of ass into your life — for whatever freaky, fucked-up reasons of your own — and you are jeopardizing both of us. What the fuck do you think she’s after?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“News flash,” Eddie said in a low voice. “You wasted her old man.”

The blood left Nick’s face. He was groping for words, but none came.

“You really don’t get it, do you? Cops think you might’ve had something to do with it. Let’s say the cops talk to her, maybe let on their suspicions, let it slip, see if she knows anything, right? So this little girl figures she gets close to you — I’m just spitballing here — and maybe she finds something out. Something that could help bring you down. Who the hell knows what? Maybe her thing isn’t really getting into your pants. Maybe it’s about getting into your head .”

“That’s bullshit. I don’t believe it,” Nick said. It felt as if his guts had furled into a small hard ball.

That time at Town Grounds.

God, someone who’d do something like that to your family.

I’d want to kill him .

“Believe it,” Eddie said. “Entertain the goddamn possibility.” He drained his glass, exhaled with a loud alcohol wheeze. “The ass you save could be your own.”

“I’m not going to sit here and listen to this,” Nick said, his face burning. He stood up, went to the door, but stopped halfway there and turned back around. “You know, Eddie, I’m not so sure you’re in any position to be giving lectures about recklessness.”

Eddie was staring at him defiantly, an ugly grin on his face.

Nick went on, “I don’t think you really leveled with me about why you left the Grand Rapids police.”

Eddie’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I already told you about that bullshit charge.”

“You didn’t tell me you were drummed out for pilfering.”

“Oh, Christ. Sounds like the kinda thing Cleopatra Jones might have told you. You going to believe her, or me?”

Nick pursed his lips. “I don’t know, Eddie. I’m beginning to think I believe her.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said acidly. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

“You didn’t say it wasn’t true.”

“Did I cut corners? Sure. But that’s it. You can’t believe everything you hear. People talk some crazy shit.”

Audrey’s desk phone rang, and she checked the caller ID to make sure it wasn’t poor Mrs. Dorsey again. But it was a 616 area code, which meant Grand Rapids, and so she picked it up.

A woman was calling from the Michigan State Police crime lab who identified herself as an IBIS technician named Susan Calloway. She was soft-spoken but authoritative-sounding, her voice arid, devoid of any warmth or personality. She gave the case number she was calling about — it was the Stadler homicide — and said, “The reason I’m calling, Detective, is that I believe you asked us to see if we could match the bullet in your case with any others, correct?”

“That’s correct.”

“Well, it seems we got a warm hit on IBIS.”

Audrey knew a fair amount about the Integrated Ballistics Identification System. She knew it was a computerized database of archived digital images of fired bullets and cartridges that linked police and FBI crime labs across the country. It was sort of like AFIS, the fingerprint-matching network, only the fingerprints here were photographs of bullets and casings.

“A warm hit?” Audrey said. That term she hadn’t heard before, though.

“I mean a possible hit,” the woman said, her bland voice betraying the tiniest hint of annoyance. “To me, it looks quite similar to a bullet recovered in a no-gun case in Grand Rapids about five, six years ago. Six years ago, to be precise.”

“What kind of case?”

“The file class is 0900-01.”

That was the Michigan state police offense code for a homicide. So the gun used to kill Stadler had been used six years earlier in another homicide, in Grand Rapids. That could be significant — or it could mean almost nothing. Guns were bought and sold on the black market all the time.

“Really? What do we know about the case?”

“Not much, Detective, I’m sorry to say. I have only the submitting agency’s case number, which won’t do you much good. But I’ve already called over there and asked them to bring over the bullet in question so I can do the comparison.”

“Thank you.”

“And as to the question you’re probably about to ask — how long will this take? — the answer is, as soon as I get the bullet from the GR PD.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to ask that,” Audrey said. She thought: Only because it would rankle if I did ask. If you had no juice with these firearms examiners, you’d better be as sweet as pie. “But I appreciate the information.”

Interesting, she thought. Very interesting.

She took a stroll across the squad room and over to Forensic Services, where she found Kevin Lenehan slumped over his desk, arms folded, a dim shadowy tape playing on a TV monitor, numbers racing across the top of the screen.

She put a hand on his shoulder, and he jolted awake.

“Hey,” she said, “you don’t want to miss the guy in the Nike Air sneakers and the Raiders jacket.”

“I hate my life,” he said.

“You’re too good for this kind of work,” she said.

“Tell that to my manager.”

“Where is she?”

“Maternity leave. Noyce’s my manager these days. Aren’t you tight with him?”

“I wouldn’t say that. Kevin, listen. Could you take another look at my recorder? I mean, unofficially and off the books and all that?”