Body Guard (16 page)

“Apparently so.”

The woman shook her head. “With the turmoil of packing and moving, it’s no wonder Sharon didn’t mention a burglary. Still—” She had cooked breakfast for them the morning they left. Eckles had loaded his and his wife’s cars and then stopped by. Both of them were fine people. He was an ex-Air Force officer and she was just the sweetest thing. And the house had been vacant since. There had been other people driving up now and then—the realtor, she assumed; people looking at the house. The Eckleses had been trying to sell their home for a long time. “Houses in this price range aren’t moving very quickly,” she said with some expertise, “and the cost of money is so exorbitant anymore it’s a wonder anyone can afford a house.” But there was no one at all she remembered who looked like a burglar.

The other neighbors told Kirk much the same thing they’d told Cappiello, though one did recall a dog barking for a long time. It might have been the twenty-second or a day or two either way, he couldn’t be certain now. But none had heard of the burglary from Eckles. He hadn’t mentioned it to anyone— which, one woman said, was like him. He was very military, you know; self-contained, efficient. When Kirk finally left the last household, the wide streets held only the light traffic of late afternoon, and kids on bicycles began to swoop down the sidewalks, burning off the energy pent up all day in school.

Bunch, too, had been busy. Now he watched the lowering sun through the office window as it burned the mountains into a black silhouette of ragged peaks. The final rumble of casters had long ago rolled away overhead, and his ear was hot from the rub of the telephone. He cursed Vinny and his greed that caused this extra work, and Vinny’s mother for spawning him in the first place. The early afternoon had been spent working on a listening device, the late part on chasing down information about Arnold Minz: home, business, family, frequent contacts, police records—anything that could be combed out of documents or Bunch’s acquaintances. Dave Miller would have saved him a lot of time. But then he’d want to know why Kirk and Associates was interested in Minz. Miller always wanted to know about anything involving Minz. As a friend, Bunch would have had to tell him. But they weren’t ready yet to alert the Vice and Narcotics detective that they would be poking around one of his favorite people. And violating federal law to do so.

Bunch stretched, fingers brushing the ceiling. He felt the stiff muscles pull against each other. Honesty, Bunch was convinced, was not only the best policy, it was—in the long run—the easiest. But Vinny, who was lazy in every other facet of his life, had never discovered that. Instead, he focused all his energy on the challenging task of looking after himself in the most underhanded ways possible. Not that Bunch didn’t have his own degree of self-interest; he didn’t know anyone who lacked it. But with Vinny it was a religion: every thought, every move was based on the question What’s in it for Vinny? Well, maybe this time the little puke would get something he hadn’t been planning on.

“Devlin.” Bunch looked up as Kirk came in, spilling a waft of cold air from his jacket as he shrugged it off. “What’s the word on Eckles?”

The tall man poured himself a cup of coffee from the hot plate resting on the metal filing cabinet. They were always talking about moving it so if it spilled, it wouldn’t drip into the drawers full of papers. But they hadn’t done it yet. “There’s smoke. Maybe there’s fire. Nothing definite yet, but it’s worth digging deeper.” They talked a bit about how to do that, the leads and possibilities that could be followed up tomorrow when offices were again open for business. Then Kirk asked what his partner had come up with for Minz.

Bunch carefully brought a cluster of wired equipment from his workroom. “Here’s a little jewel I kind of modified from an early-model remote infinity listening device.”

“Jesus. It looks like a Rube Goldberg bomb.”

Bunch held up the small black box with a series of wires leading to a plastic case and a large dry-cell battery. “Better than a bomb—much better. Usually these things run off the power in your telephone wires. That’s how you spot them: you get a drain bigger than what you’re using. If Minz knows what he’s doing—and he hasn’t been caught yet—he probably runs a sweep of his lines every day. I can’t imagine any big-time dealer not checking his phones. Hell, maybe he has a permanent monitor set up. Anyway, I rigged a self-powered device and added a storage tape on it, too. It doesn’t drain power from the telephone lines—it runs off its own batteries. And it only sends when we want it to, which means it can’t be picked up too easy by a transmitter detector.”

“How’s it work?”

“Like an infinity device. It hears everything near a telephone and puts it on the tape. Then what we do is trigger a playback from a remote when we’re sure nobody’s listening for a transmission except us. Two o’clock in the morning, say.” He stared at the awkward collection of wires and units and dry-cell batteries. “Trouble is, it’s too damned big.”

“Does it work?”

“Hey, where’s your confidence?”

“Uh huh. Now tell me we have to plant this monstrosity in his house.”

“Well, yeah. That’s another problem, all right.” Bunch smiled. “But it can’t be traced to us—no wires.”

The feds were touchy about wiretaps and other illegal electronics. A lot of detective agencies, including Kirk and Associates, turned down bugging jobs a couple times a month for just that reason. But there were those situations when no other type of surveillance was possible. Kirk tended to draw a line—admittedly thin and erratic—between using electronics for someone else and using them only for the agency. He doubted that a federal judge would accept an ancillary plea like that, however, and twenty years was a long time to spend in jail for violating a dope pusher’s right to privacy.

“Hey,” said Bunch, “we’ll be careful. I’ve been doing a little background on Minz. Here’s how we can work it.”

Minz’s office address and telephone had been on the car lease agreement. His legal occupation was commercial real estate, and his secretary told Bunch he was out showing a property. He would return to the office about six to get any messages. His home number had taken a bit more sleuthing—it was in the telephone book—and Bunch’s call to that number had been answered by a tape-recorded message. It was one of those comedy routines complete with the roar of a jet plane and a butler’s voice announcing that Arnold Minz had just flown off to Tahiti and would return shortly. Please leave any message with James. Beep. Bunch figured that the real comedy of the message was its expression of Minz’s fear—latent or admitted ironically—of being on the run from the police.

The East Jewell address turned out to be a sprawling complex of large and expensive condominiums built around a series of courtyards. Each multi-bedroom unit was angled for privacy and the least amount of shared wall space. High fences painted gray-green like the rest of the buildings formed secluded little patios attached to each unit. On the west side of the complex, rows of double garages provided parking for residents. Visitors were offered islands of parking around the periphery of the condos. Minz’s garages were empty, and no metallic-blue BMW sat near the walk leading to his unit. Devlin backed the newly rented van to the curb and, wearing coveralls, he and Bunch carried large toolboxes to number 8.

Bunch asked again, “He still didn’t answer the phone?”

The last call had been from a public telephone two minutes away. “Just his machine.” Devlin turned his back to the door and surveyed the network of tall fences and shrubbery that offered privacy—and concealment—to the units’ entries. Behind him, half hidden, Bunch quickly worked a pick into the lock.

It clicked and swung open. “It’s clear.”

Devlin followed him in, noting the unused chain dangling beside the deadbolt lock, another indication that Minz wasn’t home.

But just to be certain, they glided through the rooms for quick glimpses at the carpeted and multi-leveled spaces which looked both warm and open under skylights that punctured the ceilings.

“I’ll set it up in the basement,” whispered Bunch. “Take about five minutes.”

Nodding, Devlin settled in the kitchen, where the windows overlooked the walkway through the patio to the garages. The latex gloves made his fingers squeak on the shiny tile of the countertop, and—emphasizing the silence—a tall clock in the living room steadily counted each second. Whatever Vinny was plotting—even if it had nothing to do with the Advantage case—could mean trouble for Kirk and Associates. A little insurance wouldn’t hurt and might help a lot. But if he was arranging some kind of deal that involved Martin and Atencio, it meant Vinny had learned something. He knew when, maybe even where, the next shipment would arrive. It also meant that either Martin had brought Vinny in on the deal or Vinny was planning to force himself in somehow. Maybe the latter, maybe not. Eddie Visser said he went through middlemen to move his cut. But Minz wasn’t just a middleman. He was a major source. He was somebody who dealt in large quantities and who took a big bite out of the profits. Vinny could only afford a bite like that if he was going to get the whole pie instead of just a sliver.

“Okay, Dev.” Bunch had come silently from the basement, and they went quickly to the front door. A woman, passing by with arms full of plastic shopping sacks, glanced their way as the door opened.

Bunch leaned back into the room. “If it gives you any more trouble, Mr. Minz, call us. We take pride in our work!”

“Afternoon.” Devlin smiled. The woman smiled back and disappeared around a bend in the brick walk.

Bunch quickly relocked the deadbolt on the door.

T
HE EQUIPMENT CHECKED
out. Bunch called from a pay phone and listened to the recording of the now familiar jet noise followed by the orotund voice stating that Arnold Minz had just taken off for Tahiti. When the message cleared the line, he dialed another number—one the phone company didn’t know about—tooted a multi-tone whistle to activate the tap’s transmitter, and listened to the recording play again.

“Where’d you hide it?” asked Devlin.

“Couldn’t hide it too well. I put it in a dark corner behind the heater and moved some empty suitcases in front of it.” Bunch thought a moment. “Did you look at his telephones for a voice scrambler?”

“I didn’t notice any black boxes.”

“Me, I was in the dope business, I’d use an encryption unit. Expensive as hell, but so far, they can’t be beat. You can tap them but it won’t do any good.” He shrugged. “Besides, fifteen, twenty thou, that’s pocket change for a guy like Minz.”

“And now you’re going to hit me up for an anti-encryption unit? Say, thirty thousand dollars’ worth?”

“If they made them that cheap, Dev, I’d do it. But so far, you’re safe.”

Apparently the phone tap was safe too. For the next couple weeks, either Bunch or Devlin was hauled out of bed at late hours by the clock radio to dial the number on Minz’s tap and tweet the whistle that started the playback of his calls and the snatches of conversation that took place within sound of the telephones. These last were few—and, as Bunch said, thank God Minz wasn’t the partying type. A couple hours’ whooping and hollering would fill the whole reel. One consistent caller was a woman named Louise whom Minz was dating. She would call to tell him about theater tickets or concerts that would be fun, or just to talk about what had happened to her since they’d been together last—usually eight or ten hours ago. Minz’s replies gradually grew shorter and his voice more polite as the days passed. Other voices, men and women, ranged from cryptic messages about precise times and vague places to inquiries about commercial real estate. Both Devlin and Bunch suspected that the prices quoted were often for property that wasn’t anchored to the earth. There was nothing from Vinny on the telephone tap. And the daily reports Kirk now insisted on having from the man were a constant litany of “Nothing yet, Kirk.” Consequently, there was nothing Kirk could tell Reznick when he called the executive.

“Nothing? Jesus H. Christ, Kirk. It’s going on a goddamn month and you’re telling me you people haven’t found out a thing yet?”

“We’re dealing with a very sophisticated organization, Mr. Reznick. And a very cautious one—there’s a murder charge floating around. They haven’t made any moves that we know of, but they haven’t closed down their operation either.”

“How do you know that?”

“For one reason, the suspects are still working for you. Despite having enough money to live very comfortably.”

“Jesus.”

“For another, our agent. He’s made a contact and he’s waiting to hear about the next shipment.” It wasn’t what Vinny told Kirk but what he did that provided the slim foundation for that statement. Devlin hoped Reznick wouldn’t ask more about it, and was relieved when he didn’t.

“How goddamn long’s that going to be?”

“That’s up to them—it has to be. But my guess is, it can’t be much longer. If they take too much time, they’re going to start losing customers. People with habits have to get their dope. If a pusher can’t supply, they’ll shop somewhere else. I think Atencio and Martin will be under pressure from their supplier, too.”

“How’s that?”

“A lot of dealers work on margin. They don’t have the cash to pay up front, so they put money down and pay the rest after they’ve marketed it. But suppliers don’t like to wait too long; trust doesn’t go very far in the dope trade.”

“All right, all right. I get the picture. You people stay on it, then. But by God, I want to know the instant something happens. The very instant, understand me?”

“You’ll know as soon as I do.” He didn’t tell Reznick that an operation this big and complex probably paid in full at time of delivery. No sense giving the man grounds for more worry. Besides, no matter how restless Reznick and Kirk grew, it was still Martin and Atencio who set the pace.

At least there were other files to service. Bunch had the security bids, Kirk had Eckles, and they both had the evasive Ms. Truman.

“I think it’d be cheaper if we just moved in next to Truman’s condo, Dev. Be a hell of a lot more comfortable, too.” Bunch twisted his shoulders hard against the stiffness of his spine and felt the vertebrae crackle deep in the muscles of his back. They’d been taking turns again on surveillance, but the only view either had of the woman was once when she limped out of the house in neck brace and walker to wait for a taxi to take her to a doctor’s appointment. As she waited she stared down the block to where Bunch lounged low against the seat back and tried to find relief for his cramped legs. And it was possible that, as the taxi pulled to the curb and the driver opened the door for her, she smiled and nodded a brief hello to the white Subaru.