Boldt 03 - No Witnesses (30 page)

“I understand, Lou, I understand.”

“Fredricks, Chi, Mackensie—he’d recognize any of them.”

Somewhat angrily Fowler said, “I can run a surveillance, friend. Would you be asking if I couldn’t? What the hell do you think we did in Major Crimes, eat pizza all day and talk sports?” It was a stab at the Fraud division, but Boldt let it pass.

The sergeant asked, “Matthews was going to ask you for some help?”

“Got her place wired up good and tight. Nice stuff. She won’t be having any more prowlers.” He added in a bellicose fashion, “We take care of our people. Someone has a problem, we fix it. That’s what we’re here for. It’s a lot simpler than wearing that badge of yours, believe me.”

Boldt’s cell phone rang, and for a moment he did not know the sound was coming from his own pocket.

“I think that’s you,” Fowler encouraged him.

Boldt, feeling self-conscious, was not terribly comfortable with the device, and he thought that Fowler probably sensed this as he turned it on. His awkwardness seemed to lend weight to Fowler’s claim of technical superiority, and this bothered the sergeant.

He spoke in blunt, terse acknowledgments. Grunts. As he did, Fowler’s phone rang, though the security man did not move. He watched Boldt intently, allowing an unseen answering machine to take the call. Boldt shut off the phone and said, “You want some involvement?” He was already out of his chair. “We’ve got an ATM hit going down.”

There was no hope of catching the extortionist during this first withdrawal; but if this night were like the others, there would be a second hit. Boldt wanted to be there.

He was on the phone with Lucille Guillard at Pac-West Bank by the time he ran the red light on First Avenue. Fowler secured his seat belt. They ran another light heading north toward Queen Anne and Ballard. The first withdrawal had been made in the U district; Lucille Guillard was playing percentages, believing a cluster of four banks on North Forty-fifth Street presented the next closest target. “How many people do you have in the field?” Fowler asked. The blue light of the dash-mounted police bubble played off his face, doing cruel things to his looks.

“We have three roamers. KCP has loaned us another five—they’re at fixed locations.”

“Eight people?” Fowler gasped. “Eight fucking people to cover every ATM in the city? You’re fucking kidding me?” Fowler confessed, “I have four stationaries. They are each within a two-block distance of three or more separate ATM locations. I have another four people on unmarked patrol, but with very definite territories. All told, I figure I’ve got somewhere around thirty-five of the fifty most active ATMs in the city covered. But I bet you’re covering some of the same ones.”

Boldt withheld comment. Fowler was organized, well financed, and obviously had a reserve of manpower on which to draw. For someone in Boldt’s position, it was discouraging.

The second ATM hit occurred at position 33, according to the police dispatcher whose constant running commentary and absurdly calm instructions could be heard from beneath the dash. On the off-chance that a savvy reporter had figured a way to eavesdrop on this or any of the other secure radio frequencies, the surveillance team was utilizing these reference numbers. Fowler spread it open on his lap. He studied it a moment and said, “North Forty-fifth Street.”

Boldt turned right, passing the
Waiting for the Interurban
sculpture, and Fowler said, “Nice system. Nice and private. I like it. Do you pretty much stick with this, or mix it up?”

“We’re going to start mixing it up,” Boldt informed him.

“This is all I need, Lou. You give me this map and at least we won’t be stepping on each other’s toes.”

“Hang on!” Boldt interrupted, recognizing Adrian Walcott’s voice as he announced his location as North Forty-fifth and Latona.

Boldt put his foot down hard and blew past traffic. He turned left on Stoneway, ran two lights while sounding his horn, and skidded the back end of the car through a yellow light at Forty-fifth, as Fowler pointed right.

Walcott announced in a harried voice: “I’m stuck in traffic.”

Fowler said to Boldt, “Friday night. Forty-fifth street—it’s a good place to disappear in a hurry if you have to. A good place to lose the cops.”

The maximum amount of time Boldt could hope for was fifteen to twenty seconds per transaction. He estimated that this time was about up, confirmed when the dispatcher’s voice said, “Transaction is complete. Repeat: Transaction is complete.”

“I’m going on foot,” announced an anxious-voiced Walcott. “Passing Meridian.”

Three blocks to go
, thought Boldt.

“Are you there?” Lucille Guillard asked over the cell phone.

“Right here.”

“That’s twelve hundred. We could still see more.”

From beneath the dash, a winded Adrian Walcott announced, “I’m at position thirty-three. There’s no one using the machines.”

Boldt pulled over, slammed the car into Park, taking the key, and cut through the stalled westbound lane of traffic. Car horns sounded. Fowler cut to the right, increasing the distance between them.

Face after face of what were mostly young college students streamed past. Seeing his intensity, these kid strangers looked away uneasily. He encountered no six-foot male wearing a greatcoat. He caught up to Walcott, who, sweating, shook his head and cursed.

Fowler said eagerly to Boldt, “Let’s stay with this.”

Dodging traffic, the two men ran back to the waiting car.

Boldt grabbed the police radio handset. He was willing to play a gamble. “Cover the banks to the south. And let’s make sure our patrols are aware of the Be On Lookout for that mug shot.”

Dispatch acknowledged.

“What about the north?” Fowler asked. “Do you want my people—”

“South,” Boldt insisted. “The density of the ATMs favors the city.”

“That’s a hell of a chance to take,” Fowler objected.

Boldt rudely handed him the cell phone. “Tell your people to cover south of the bridge: Broadway and east of I-5. I’ll keep our people west of the interstate.” He was, in effect, giving in to exactly what Fowler had suggested. The security man looked a little stunned, but he made the call quickly before Boldt changed his mind.

The radio began to sparkle with the new deployment. Boldt headed toward the university. As he drove past the ramp to I-5, Fowler, coming off his call, queried, “Where the fuck are we going?”

“Back to square one.”

“Why?”

“Exactly,” Boldt said, swerving to miss two kids on mountain bikes who had disregarded a crossing light.

He came around the block and parked in front of the Meany Tower Hotel at Eleventh Avenue NE, because this offered him immediate access to the U district—and the ability to block the most predictable route the extortionist would take back to I-5, the entrances to which were only two blocks away.

Fowler scratched at a stain on his pants. Boldt explained softly, so as not to cover the dispatcher’s voice, “If I’m this person, I want it as crowded as possible, as confusing as possible. Friday night, this is where you come. A couple of the malls, maybe—but they’ve got cameras everywhere. I hit the ‘Ave.,’ then I go out Forty-fifth—it’s close, it’s quick and easy. I head back to the U because it offers me everything I’m looking for and it worked the first time I was there.”

“I don’t know,” Fowler disagreed.

“Broadway—where your people are—is my backup choice. Again, lots of weekend activity—a difficult area to police, and only a few—”

He was interrupted by the dispatcher’s bizarrely calm monotone. “Position four-one. All field operatives: Position four-one is active. Repeat: active.”

Checking the map, an excited Fowler said, “It’s a Pac-West. It’s right around the fucking corner.”

Boldt stuffed a radio earphone into his ear and was already out of the car and on the run.

“Ten seconds active,” the dispatcher announced.

The average ATM access time, from keying in the PIN to the ATM card being returned to the account holder, ran eighteen seconds.

“No operatives in the immediate vicinity,” the dispatcher announced into Boldt’s ear. Boldt had neglected to make his own position known and, therefore, dispatch remained unaware of his presence.

Ten thousand
…
Eleven thousand
… he counted in his head.

Natalie Smith, normally assigned to SPD’s Sex Crimes, checked in. She had been crossing Montlake Bridge when the hit was announced. Now she was on her way back, a minute away. An eternity.

Fourteen thousand
…
Fifteen thousand
…

“Transaction complete,” dispatch announced.

Boldt turned right, took an immediate left through a parking lot, and broke around the corner. The blue-and-green Pac-West Bank sign hung over the sidewalk, twenty yards ahead.

Boldt said, “Six feet tall, maybe wearing a greatcoat.” He signaled Fowler across the street. Boldt took this side, moving quickly toward the sign and the entrance to Pac-West Kwik-Cash. The sidewalk was mobbed. He searched for Caulfield’s face in the crowd. The effect of the kids flowing past him was dizzying.

He reached the Pac-West sign. Through the glass window, he saw three ATMs side by side. One was in use by a young redheaded woman, a short woman—not a six-foot-tall Harry Caulfield. Boldt tugged on the door. It was locked. A small sign indicated how to use one’s cash or credit card to gain entrance. Boldt slid a cash card into the slot and the door opened.

She glanced quickly at him, but displaying none of the fear or concern he might have expected of a guilty party.

“Someone just left.” He interrupted her transaction, showing her his badge.

She squinted. “That girl?”

“A girl?” Boldt questioned, recalling the account application.

“Weird chick—she was wearing a motorcycle helmet.” She nodded toward the door. “Just left,” she said, echoing him. “Just now.”

Back out on the sidewalk, in a teeming horde of college students, Boldt searched left … right …

He saw the glossy dome of a motorcycle helmet on the opposite side of the street, heading away from Fowler’s position.

Not wanting to shout, not wanting to alert the woman, he signaled Fowler, making a motion around his head, attempting to indicate a helmet, and he pointed down the street.

Fowler saw her.

Boldt crossed the street, just as Natalie Smith’s tires yipped to a stop in heavy traffic. A horn sounded. The helmet turned. “Sergeant?” Smith yelled loudly from her car.

The helmet broke down an alley at a run, Fowler sprinting to catch up.

Boldt pushed through the melee of teeming students and headed down the adjacent alley. Suddenly overcome with the stench of urine, he jumped over a pair of legs at the last second and turned to see a man sleeping next to a bottle.

The helmeted figure blurred past the intersection with another alley, heading to Boldt’s left.

Another blur—Fowler in pursuit.

Boldt ran fast and reached the corner, which he rounded in time to see Fowler’s back turn down an alley parallel to his.

He rounded this next corner as well, and when he came to the end of the alley, he faced another street teeming with hundreds of students.

Kenny Fowler was doubled over, winded, clutching the knees of his pants.

He gasped to Boldt, “I lost her.”

Boldt searched the crowds for another half hour. He issued a Be On Lookout for a motorcycle with a black helmet and female rider. Frustrated and out of his element, a failed Lou Boldt returned to where he had last left Fowler, but the man was gone. Back at the car he found a business card on the seat where the surveillance map had been. The map now belonged to Kenny Fowler.

With this one agreement, Boldt effectively doubled his surveillance manpower—and yet he did not feel right about it. He did not feel entirely right about Fowler, something he attributed to Fowler’s having left the department to seek his fortune. Or maybe it was just the man: unceremoniously direct and brusque.

He flipped the business card over where Fowler had written:
Thanks, partner
.

He pocketed it, and drove straight to the Big Joke.

TWENTY-FIVE

A late-night talk show was playing on the television in the living room as Bear Berenson unlocked three locks and admitted Boldt to his upstairs apartment.

“Kill the fatted calf,” Berenson said, admitting his friend and locking the door behind him. Whenever he heard a lock turn, Boldt felt he was somehow failing in his job.

“Liz is pregnant.”

“Do I congratulate you or offer my sympathies?”

“Miles gets a sibling,” Boldt said, elated.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

As usual, the place was a mess. Berenson lived the quintessential bachelor’s existence: He termed it
magical realism
, because lately he was reading Latin American writers. Boldt called it hedonism, enhanced by a generous consumption of marijuana—hence the magic.

Bear stood just under six feet. He was stocky, with dark Arabic features and intense brown eyes—often bloodshot. He owned the Big Joke, the bar, restaurant, and comedy club immediately below them where Boldt often performed during happy hour.

“I thought I’d find you downstairs.”

“The stand-up is awful. I booked the wrong act.”

“Place is pretty full.”

“No accounting for the taste of the public.”

Berenson punched the remote, killing the television. “Went channel surfing instead. You know what I think? All this information superhighway shit? Bunch of crap. Even with thirty channels, there’s nothing on. I mean I have a hard time believing that, but it’s true. Crap to the right of me. Crap to the left of me. Five hundred channels? Give me a fucking break. Five hundred times zero is still zero.”

They sat down. Bear rolled a joint. The policeman in Boldt felt tempted to ask him not to, but not tonight.

“I’m kind of at wit’s end,” Boldt said seriously.

Bear nodded.

They were the kind of friends where Boldt felt no need for apologies or approval. They had been—and continued to be—there for each other through, as Bear called it, “the good, the bad, and the ugly.”