The Angel Maker - 2 (27 page)

"If we blow it," Boldt said, "chances are we've sacrificed a nice piece of evidence. Maybe even the smoking gun."

Daphne looked up at the clock. "The pawn shop opens at ten.

That gives us one hour to get into place. Any questions?"

A single hand raised. Meyers again. Daphne nodded. "Anybody thought about what we do if he pulls a piece and demands the laptop?" Boldt said, "We'll have an identical laptop on hand.

if he tries to rob the place, we'll substitute it and give him the wrong one."

"Anything else?" No other hands surfaced. Daphne felt herself perspiring as she watched for the lieutenant's reaction.

Shoswitz looked his crew over. He hesitated but finally nodded, giving his approval. Boldt glanced over at her. She felt a real connection to him.

As she passed closely to him on her way out, she whispered,

"What'd you think?" He said softly to her, "I'm glad you're on our side."

she was thinking about Sharon again-it was all she could think about anymore. What had become of her? Where did this man at the pawn shop fit in? And what fate awaited Sharon if they failed in the task before them?

The receptionist left for lunch.

Pamela locked the front door and placed the CLOSED clock in the window-back in an hour-because they had a surgery to do and they couldn't be disturbed. In truth, this wasn't the only reason she locked the front door. It was for privacy as well, for while it trapped the public out, it also trapped the two of them inside, together. They had work to do.

She had lost two pounds in just three days. Some kind of miracle! She attributed this newfound strength to him. She placed the phones on the service, unbuttoned the top button of her shirt, and headed for his office. If she was honest with herself, she was worried about him. He wasn't himself today. He had spent the morning brooding in his office, his nose buried in medical journals and textbooks. He had outright refused to see several of their patients, passing the work along to her.

Not like him at all.

She knocked. "Enter," he called out in a threatening voice that reminded her of her father. No, he was not himself at all. She opened the door.

He looked worried behind his desk. Others might not see it in him, but she knew him better than anyone. He picked at his beard nervously. "What about that stray?" he asked. "What's become of him?"

"We've called around. No one is claiming him.

He's headed for the pound later this afternoon."

"The pound?

But they'll kill him in three days! I saved that dog's leg!" he protested. "The farm? Is that what you mean? You want him out at the farm?"

"Are we prepped for surgery?" he asked. "A knotted intestine.

Routine. It's all set up for you, prepped and ready to go." She added as a hint, "I've locked up. The phones are off." She wondered if he noticed her exposed cleavage. He didn't seem to.

She reached up and undid the next button as well. "Very well,"

he said, rising from his black leather chair. "But not the lower G.I. Set up the stray for thoracic." "Excuse me?" she questioned. "Prep the stray.

Now!"

A few minutes later, they were standing alongside one another ready for the first incision. He studied the animal for what seemed like an interminable amount of time. "Doctor?" she said, breaking the silence.

He glared at her. He looked down at her breasts and told her to button herself up. "This isn't a porno movie, you know. We have work to do. Correction! I have work to do. I'll handle this alone."

"What?" she gasped, fishing for the buttons.

He glanced around the room. "Get me some ice," he said. "Ice?"

"Now!"

She left the room and headed into the small kitchenette. She collected ice from a freezer there. She heard a buzzing from the surgical suite. The saw? "Saline!" he called out loudly.

She had to go to the back room to find it. It took her longer than she wanted. She hurried back into the operating room, because he blamed her for any problems, even if she was off doing something he told her to. "Where's that saline?

Penicillin! Where's the ice?" he repeated sternly.

When she rounded the corner and saw him standing there, she stopped abruptly. "My God!" she exclaimed, seeing the chest cavity splayed open. "A perfect job," he proclaimed proudly.

"And fast, at that!" He turned to face her, his outstretched hands cupped firmly together.

There, still beating, was the dog's harvested heart.

When Donnie Maybeck entered the pawn shop, he had no way of knowing that his every word, his every movement was being monitored and recorded by the police. No idea that everyone in the place-the cheap smelling skirt with the cleivage, the lame Jim! Hendrix impersonator, and the half-dozen others who crowded the counters-were all undercover cops. No clue that the big hairy bastard in the undershirt who was giving him such a hard time was a Homicide cop named Lou Boldt.

The man behind the counter was supposed to have been Hymie Monros, but Hyrnie had missed the briefing because of an asthma attack that had later sent him to the emergency room. Daphne, through Shoswitz, had tapped Boldt for the job. Boldt, notorious for avoiding an active role in setups or stings, had argued he might be recognized from his pursuit of the van.

Shoswitz had been carefully coached to convince Boldt to play the part. He said, "It was late afternoon. Dusk, if not dark.

It was raining. You were runnin& which means you had your head down. It was a panel van, which means it had no windows on the back or on the side, except the passenger door, and you never made it that far, by your own admission." Boldt had smelled a conspiracy. "The side mirror," Boldt had argued. That was when he knew it was a conspiracy and that Daphne had coached the lieutenant, who immediately produced a still photograph of the gas station surveillance taken by J.C. Adams. It clearly showed that the van was missing its passenger-side mirror. In fact, there was no way the driver might have seen him, and it even helped to explain why the man had reached to lock the passenger door so late-blind on that side, he had not reacted until he had heard Boldt try the cargo door.

Boldt, his skin going itchy from nerves, told the suspect once again, "What I'm telling you, asshole, is that any sleazeball could come in here off the street, ask if we had a Toshiba laptop, and then claim it was his." Boldt carried a huge wad of pink gum in his cheeks. It looked like a pitcher's abscess. it had been Shoswitz's idea. "Read the fucking sign."

"Just let me see the thing."

"Show me the receipt," Boldt repeated, finding it difficult to stay with Daphne's script, but doing so.

What if she were wrong? What if they pushed too hard, and this guy went south on them? "Show me the ticket, then you'll get the laptop, providing you've got the money."

got the money," the man complained anxiously, producing a hefty roll of bills. "That's blood money, Boldt thought. Sight of it made him sick. He wanted to arrest this guy. Now. WHY wait?

"Money won't help you without the ticket," he warned. "The sign, pal. Read the fucking sign."

"But I lost the ticket," the guy protested, color rising into his pale face. He had horrible breath; the blind woman, Agnes, had mentioned that. He kept his hand loosely over his mouth, half covering a set of the worst teeth Boldt had ever seen. "I suppose I'm the first fucking guy to lose a receipt, right?"

"Maybe you can't read." Boldt pointed to the sign. "You blind or just plain stupid?" Boldt Ill painted was beginning to enjoy this. It gave him a vent for his anger.

The woman edged over to them and said to Boldt in a sexy voice,

"Hey, sweetheart. You gonna jerk off all day or what? I got some rocks I wanna hock."

"Get lost," Maybeck barked at her.

"Get fucked," she said to him. "Wasn't tawkin' it to you. "In a minute," Boldt told her. "Those really your teeth?" she asked Maybeck. He popped her shoulder with the butt of his hand. She stumbled back and flipped him the bird. "I don't need your business, pal," Boldt said. "Take it somewhere else. Now!" He felt terrified to say such a thing and yet he went with Daffy's assessment. "Hey! Hey!" the guy said, raising his hands as if the woman had stumbled all by herself. "I'm cool, man."

"You hit her again, I'm gonna see you through the front door-without opening it." "You and who else?" the guy asked.

"Who's next?" Boldt called over the guy's head, ignoring him completely now.

He looked over at Maria Romanello. Her skirt was about as big as a fly swatter, her legs, in black tights, a mile long. "What kind of stones?" he asked her.

The guy was looking at her, too. Damn near drooling. Meyers let loose on electric guitar so loudly that Boldt couldn't hear himself think. Boldt hollered for him to knock it off. "Come on, man," the suspect tried once more.

Boldt felt relieved that Daphne's ideas seemed to be working.

He never would have played it this way. Not in a million years.

He said strongly-a teacher losing patience- "My floor manager told you yesterday: You lose the ticket; you come back after the grace period; you buy it back at floor value. if no one has bought it by then, it's yours. Those are the rules, pal. And I gotta tell you: A laptop computer is not going to be around that long. No way. So give it up. Get a fucking job for all I care."

"You got to make an exception." He offered Boldt two twenties he had cupped in his hand. "What do you think?"

"Put the fucking cab fare in your pocket, pal. You're going to need it. Wrong guy. Listen," he said, conceding a point, "the only exception I ever make on something like this is if the customer can describe the item in such a way as to convince me they're the rightful owner. But with something like this-with a laptop computer-they're all the fucking same to me. I don't know shit about computers-so you're plum out of luck."

"But they're not the same!"

"To me they are."

"Diamonds," Maria interrupted, leaning in so the man could see down her blouse. "Diamond earrings."

The guy was staring right along with Boldt. "Get outta here,"

the suspect said to her, but he didn't seem to mean it.

She adjusted her blouse. "Keep your fucking eyes to yourself,"

she said. "In a minute, darling," Boldt told her. She pumped her way over to a stool and sat down on it with her legs set wide apart. Meyers broke a string on the guitar. Who could blame him?

The suspect was still staring at Maria when he said softly,

"Jesus, what a package."

"I hear ya," Boldt agreed. It brought them together. It allowed Boldt to soften. "But what if I could prove it's mine?" he asked Boldt. "You mean a serial number, something like that?

Maybe. We've done weirder things before." It was an awful chance to take. If the guy produced the serial number then Boldt would have to change his mind. Or he could pretend to check in the back and "discover" that the serial number indicated the computer was hot. Something. But this was clearly the turning point. He felt warm again. He wondered if the guy could see him sweating. "You got the serial number?"

"Better than the serial number. A password. Who else besides the owner is going to know the fucking password?"

"A password? What the fuck are you talking about?"

"The thing won't work without the password."

"You kidding me?" Boldt shouted over to Lamoia, who was also in a grungy undershirt, "Hey, Benny! Know anything about computer passwords?"

"Password? I thought that was a TV game show!" He laughed.

"Check Deloris in the back. She's the only one around here with any brains."

Maria shouted over to Lamoia, "Hey, buddy? Yeah. You interested in my diamonds?"

"Can't keep my eyes off 'em, honey," he shouted back. She strained up off the stool and sauntered over to him, brushing past the suspect on her way, keeping his attention off the fact that Boldt had gone into the back room. Meyers managed to get the rock guitar sounding like a jet airplane. Lamoia swore a blue streak at him until he turned it back down.

Boldt mopped his forehead when he reached the back room. There were a couple techies waiting with the laptop. Some expensive looking cameras were locked away in wood-framed chicken wire cabinets. A belt of cigarette smoke hung in the air like a layer of cloud. It came from the real owner, who was chainsmoking from a corner seat. He looked nervous.

The techies had the laptop up and running, the cursor blinking on a line that awaited the necessary password. Daphne rushed up to Boldt. "You're doing great," she said. "Tell him to write down exactly what steps to take and that Deloris will try to get it running. You're going to have to convince him that under no conditions will you allow him or any client to work the machine. No exceptions."

"No exceptions," Bolt repeated, his system feeling overloaded.

"Now I know why people smoke," Boldt said, looking over at the nervous owner. He walked back into the main room.

One of the guys working undercover shouted, "You guys all on fucking vacation or what? I want some fucking service."

Maria turned to him, "I got some friends who are in the fucking service, honey, if you're serious. But they ain't cheap."

"Up yours," he said. "That's the general idea, in case you're new to it. She returned her attention to Lamoia and went through the act of selling him her "stones."

Boldt was so entertained by this-so surprised at how convincing his people were-that the suspect had to shout over at him to get his attention. "So?" it worked in Boldt's favor.

Meyers launched into a dreadful rendition of "Purple Haze,"

badly out of tune. A woman with kitchen brooms for eyelashes entered through the front door . inspecting her nails. Her facial skin looked like old boot leather.

Boldt worried about her. He didn't want any civilians in here just now. She might realize that he and Lamoia were new faces.

Boldt went into the back room again and told the owner to put one of his people out front. The owner agreed. The new person handled the woman.

Boldt hurried back to the suspect who was clearly losing patience. To Meyers, the would-be jim! Hendrix, he shouted,