65 Proof (22 page)

I reached for the whiskey, letting it burn down my throat.

“Be cool, Duffy. Any second now, they’re going to approach you, make the offer.”

I cocked an eyebrow at Kelley. “What the hell are you talking about? Did I just walk into a bad spy novel?”

“Lower your voice, dumb ass. I said stay cool.”

I was going to give Kelley more shit but his eyes made me think better. I took another pull on the Schlitz and played along.

“You wearing the wire?” I asked.

I guess I was going to give Kelley shit after all. But he surprised me by saying, “No. You are. Joint effort with the Chicago cops. Stick this in your pocket.”

He passed something into my hand. I glanced down. Looked like a pen drive.

Kelley wasn’t the practical joker type. He wouldn’t crack a smile on his birthday in a room full of clowns. Maybe my fat opponent had jarred something loose in my head, because I truly had no idea what was going on.

“Pocket,” Kelley said. “Here they come. Tell them yes.”

I felt movement to my right. The three well-dressed foreign-types were standing over me.

“Matching Rolexes,” Jerry Two said. The Fearsome Foursome were appraising the new arrivals. “Daytonas. Platinum bands.”

“White gold,” Rocco said.

“Platinum.”

“I thought white gold and platinum were the same thing, just different colors.” This from KC.

“Different elements,” said Jerry Two. “Platinum is heaver.”

“No it ain’t, zipper-head. Gold is.”

“Platinum. That’s why it’s more, you know, pricier.”

The tallest of the men, the guy who stood in the middle, smiled at me. Dark hair, dark eyes, five o-clock shadow coming in strong even though he smelled like aftershave. He had something on his front tooth. A diamond.

“Mr. Dombrowski,” he said. His accent was Russian. “May we have a word with you?”

“You know how to tell a fake Rolex?” Jerry One. “If it’s got a ticking second hand. The real thing sweeps, don’t tick.”

“Another dead giveaway is the plastic band with Fred Flintstone on the face,” said Rocko.

Titters from the Foursome. I rubbed the pen drive recorder in my hand, and still couldn’t figure out what exactly was going on here. Were these the Chicago cops Kelley mentioned?

“You guys were at the fight,” I said. Seemed like a smart thing to say. “Ringside.”

“Yes. Your performance was…” he smiled, the diamond glinting blue from the neon beer sign, “acceptable. Now can we have a word?” His eyes flitted over to the Foursome, then back to me. “In private?”

In between fights, I made my living as a counselor. Over the years I got pretty good at reading people. These three didn’t look like cops, sound like cops, or act like cops. But their expensive suits had bulges under their left armpits, which meant concealed weapons, and Kelley did insist I say yes to them. So I nodded, finished my beer, and stood up.

The trip wasn’t a long one. I followed them over to their table.

“Please, Mr. Dombrowski. Sit.”

“I’d rather stand.”

Bling Tooth made a dismissive gesture, but he and his buddies stayed standing too.

“You put on a pretty good show tonight,” he said. His accent seemed to get thicker. “Your opponent, however… the show he put on was much better.”

I waited, not liking where this was going, but not jumping to conclusions.

“We paid him ten thousand dollars to put on that show.”

I felt the burn coming up my neck, to my ears. I’d gone eight rounds with the fat guy, but all of my energy had suddenly returned, tenfold. It all clicked what Kelley wanted from me, but I couldn’t hold back the anger and my fists clenched involuntarily, which probably wouldn’t be good for the voice recorder in my palm.

“I’ve heard the rumors,” I said, making sure my rage wasn’t in my voice. “New guys in town. Russians. Paying fighters to take falls. But the guy tonight, he hit back. Hard. I know him from the circuit. He’s legit. You’re telling me you owned him?”

“We can be… persuasive.”

I wondered how much his diamond tooth was worth, and where I could pawn it after I knocked it out of his mouth. But they had guns, and like an idiot I was standing between them and Kelley, my back-up. Plus, Kelley’d told me to say yes. Get it on tape, they go to jail, win-win. All I had to do was swallow my pride and agree to take a dive.

But then Bling Tooth made a big mistake. Two fingers scissored into his vest pocket and removed a photograph.

“We hope you agree to help us, Mr. Dombrowski. Or else we’d be forced to hurt someone you care very much about.”

He flashed the picture at me. It was Al, my basset hound.

These fuckers had my dog.

It didn’t sink in right away. It had already been a long night of getting punched in the head. I looked up to see Bling Tooth smile at me.

“You want I send you a floppy ear for proof?” he said. He went to smile but before the corners of his mouth turned something went bad inside me and I hit him with a straight left. It caught part nose and part upper lip. He went down hard, grasping his face. Blood already spurted from between his fingers, and I guessed it was nose blood by the way it shot.

I sat on the bastard’s chest and grabbed his thorax with my right. My grip remained sore from the eight rounder, so it wasn’t as tight as I would have liked.

“Listen mother—” I didn’t get to finish.

I heard a series of clickety-clacks and realized his two buddies held guns pointed at my head.

Then one of them bent down next to me, picking something up off the floor.

I’d dropped the pen drive recorder.

The trail led us to Crawford, about fifty miles out of New York City. When a murderer crossed state lines, the Feds had jurisdiction. At least, they were supposed to. But neither Herb nor I gave them a call. We didn’t even tell our boss, Captain Bains, we were leaving Chicago.

Sometimes being a law enforcement officer meant tip-toeing around the law.

Our suspect, a Russian mobster named Vladimir Polchev, had skipped town before we could haul him in. Polchev had made two big mistakes.

First, he’d murdered a friend of mine. Dirk Wendt, a semi-pro boxer who happened to be my taekwondo instructor for the last six years.

Second, he’d done it on my turf.

The Russians scared the crap out of people, so most weren’t willing to talk. But when I’ve got my mean on, I can be pretty damn persuasive. Herb and I shook down a pimp owned by the mob, got word that Polchev was paying off fighters to throw matches. If they didn’t play along, his crew killed them. Wendt was a Chicagoan, but it didn’t take much research to find two other murders that matched Polchev’s signature.

A tip took us to New York. We called ahead, playing nice with the locals, and were invited to visit as part of a joint task force. It seemed Polchev was a person of interest in several recent murders. The NY fuzz put a tail on him, checked with their informants, and learned Polchev was planning to put the squeeze on a boxer named Dombrowski. We met the lead investigator, Kelley, at a dive bar, to supervise a sting operation. Kelley informed us, in no uncertain terms, that this was not our collar, and we were to maintain a hands-off policy.

Herb and I had no problem with this. I wanted Polchev, bad. It didn’t matter to me which city locked him up, as long as someone did.

“This is an excellent burger,” Herb said. There was so much of it on his face, shirt, and tie, I was dubious he’d gotten any of it into his mouth.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“You should eat something, Jack. The food is good.”

My stomach was still a bit queasy from our flight. The pilot called it “a little bit of turbulence,” but it had been enough to knock the ice out of my complimentary cup of water. Besides, I had a rule never to eat in a place where the main source of lighting was neon.

I checked my watch, then glanced over at the bar. In my left side peripheral vision, Polchev and two cronies sat, drinking top shelf vodka. Polchev was the one with the diamond in his front tooth. To my right, four men argued about the merits and detriments of toothpaste.

“You know fluoride is poisonous?”

“Is not.”

“Is so, Jerry. They don’t use fluoride toothpaste in space.”

“You can’t brush your teeth in space, dumb ass. It’s a vacuum.”

“You mean it can clean your rugs?”

“There’s no air in space. You tried to brush your teeth, your brain would slurp out your nose.”

“I mean on the space shuttle. No fluoride in the toothpaste, because astronauts have to swallow it.”

“Makes sense. If they spit it out, it would float after them, following them around all mission.”

I tuned them out. Or tried to, at least. I turned back to Herb, took a sip of my club soda and lime, glancing casually at Polchev. He and his men were all armed. Kelley said nothing was going to go down here, and I hoped he was right. The bar was crowded, and shooting would be a catastrophe. I hoped that this Dombrowski guy was good at keeping his cool. Kelley said he was a social worker. Interesting combination, social work and boxing.

Herb finished licking his fingers and dug out the paperback he was reading.
Afraid
, by Jack Kilborn. He’d read a good portion of it on the plane, every once and a while pausing to whisper, “Jesus H. Christ.” Apparently, the book was supposed to be scary.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Herb whispered again.

I hated it when people did that, because of course I had to ask what was so upsetting.

“This girl is hanging upside down over a pile of dead bodies,” Herb said.

“Sounds like fun.”

“You gotta read this, Jack.”

“I will. Right after I order a burger.”

The four next to us segued into
The Wizard of Oz
.

“The horse of a different color died. The color they used on him was toxic.”

“Was not. They used gelatin. He kept licking it off.”

“You’re thinking of the tin man.”

“The tin man licked off his paint?”

“No, dummy. The horse.”

“The tin man licked the horse?”

“You guys know it’s impossible to lick your own elbow?”

They all tried to do just that. I shook my head and inwardly wept for the gene pool.

The front door swung open, and a guy walked in. Athletic build, not bad looking, a bit old for a boxer. But I knew it was Dombrowski by the way he walked. Economical, no movement wasted, but coiled, like he was waiting for something to happen.

Dombrowski played it cool, walking up to the four nitwits, having a drink and joining in the conversation. Then he had a few private words with Kelley that I missed in the bar chatter.

When Polchev and his goons approached him, I told Herb to put away the book and pay attention. He tucked it into his inside jacket pocket.

Dombrowski seemed confused about everything happening, and I wondered if Kelley had bothered to inform him what exactly was going down.

Then everything went to hell. The boxer hit the mobster, and the other mobsters drew their guns. If that wasn’t bad enough, one of the goons picked up the recorder Dombrowski had dropped. A simple sting operation, where no one was supposed to get hurt, was moments away from turning into a bloodbath. I wanted to smack the shit out of Kelley for staging this in a public place, but before I could, instinct took over and I had my .38 in my hand, pointing it at the thugs.

“Police! Drop the weapons!”

The bar went silent. No one moved. I could hear my heart beating, and sensed Herb draw his gun next to me, and Kelley draw his as well.

“That’s one damn sexy cop,” said one of the four. I think it was one of the Jerrys.

“Drop them, hands in the air,” I ordered. “Or we will shoot you.”

There was a bad moment when I thought they might be stupid enough to point their guns my way. But the moment passed, and the mobsters let their weapons fall to the floor.

“Chick cop is wearing Armani,” said one of the four.

“You sure? Could be Fendi.”

“It’s Armani,” I said. “Now shut the fuck up or I’ll shoot you guys, too.”

Dombrowski must have noticed he didn’t have any guns aimed at his head anymore, because he resumed pounding the crap out of Polchev.

Kelley got to him before we did.

“Cool it, Duff. We got him.”

“Asshole has my dog.”
Punch.
”He’s going to tell me where A is.” Punch. “Or he’s going to spend the rest of his life eating his meals through a straw.”
Punch.

Herb grabbed the recorder, zip-tied the other two mobsters hands behind their backs, and I asked everyone in the bar to kindly step outside.

“Everyone, get the fuck out, now!”

Okay, maybe it wasn’t so kindly.

“Duffy, ease up, man.” Kelley was trying to hold Dombrowski’s arm back, and not doing a very good job. Polchev looked like someone dropped a lasagna, extra sauce, on his face.

I pointed the gun at the boxer.

“Shit, the Fendi cop is gonna shoot Duff.”

“Armani. She said Armani.”

“That the designer guy, got shot?”

“That was Versace.”

“Think she’s the one who shot Versaci?”

Apparently, the Four Stooges hadn’t left when I’d ordered them to.

“Mr. Dombrowski, stop hitting the mobster and get your hands up over your head.”

Kelley stared at me. “Lieutenant, he’s one of the good guys.”

“And I’m trying to save him from a murder rap. Get ahold of yourself, Mr. Dombrowski.”

The boxer looked at me. There was anger in his features, but some sadness too.

“He took my dog, Al.”

“We’ll get your dog back,” I said. “I promise.”

He nodded. But before he got up, he punched Polchev one more time, in the kidneys.

Kelley slapped the cuffs on Polchev, and Mirandized all three suspects. I heard sirens in the distance. Back-up, and probably an ambulance. I looked for Dombrowski, but he was moving toward the front door, staring at something in his hands.

A wallet. Polchev’s wallet.

“Duffy!” I yelled. “Don’t leave the bar!”

He glanced over at me, then ran out the entrance.

My fist hurt, but I pushed back the pain and headed for my car. When I punched Bling Tooth in the kidneys, I reached around and swiped his wallet. I had the asshole’s address. For his sake, the dog had better be there.