Biker (23 page)

Pratt opened the door and stepped out into the morning sun. Louise's expression of happy anticipation morphed into alarm. She put a hand to her mouth. “My God, Josh! What happened?”

Josh grinned. “I got caught in a cement mixer. Thanks for taking in my mail, Mrs. Lowry.”

“Josh, please. It's Louise. What really happened?”

“I had a motorcycle accident. I'll be fine.” Twinge of guilt for lying. When Jesus came to Pratt, he came hard. Sometimes it was okay to tell little white lies. Chaplain Dorgan had told him that. The truth was too complicated and would only have burdened Louise.

“Thank God for that. You know Dave and I are having a little party tonight for some friends of ours and we'd love it if you could attend.”

“We'd love to come,” Cass said, appearing behind Josh wearing his old blue plaid robe. She stepped outside and elbowed Josh over. “Hi, Louise.”

“Good. We have a pretty interesting crowd.”

“We'll be there. What time?”

“Fivish.”

Pratt wanted to kick Cass. He hated parties and wanted to get out of town, but he kept that grin plastered on his face and nodded agreeably.

Inside, Cass turned on him. “What?”

“I was hoping to get out of town.”

“And go where?”

“Danny's got a place nobody would think to look. He got it off some drug dealer.”

“Do you mind? Only for an hour. I'd love to see it!”

Pratt sighed with resignation and headed for the shower. When he came out Cass had whipped up an omelet with cheese and onions. After she'd rinsed the dishes and stacked them in the dishwasher she tried to lure Pratt back to bed.

“Come on, babe, later. I've got to take care of business.”

Pratt phoned Calloway and agreed to meet him at police HQ downtown. He phoned Bloom and told him he would be over as soon as he finished with the police. Pratt grabbed an old gym bag from the basement, threw in some underwear and toiletries. He put on the fanny pack while Cass gathered her things. They rode downtown in her truck and parked in the Doty Street ramp.

Pratt removed the voice recorder from his fanny pack, put it in his pocket and got up in the truck bed. He pointed to the Northern Industrial toolbox snugged up against the cab, held shut by a laminated Master padlock.

“Got the key?”

Cass reached into her jeans pocket and tossed her key ring to Pratt. It had a rabbit's foot fob and a tiny silver coke spoon. Pratt unlocked the padlock, pulled it off and opened the toolbox. Inside were a case of Dragon's Tears Roman Candles and a case of Hasta la Vista Baby Cherry Bombs which were illegal in 49 states.

“Nice,” he said, putting his guns inside and locking it. He and Cass walked down Doty toward South Carroll toward the City/County Building. She took his hand and he felt awkward, like an adolescent. The City/County Building loomed five stories high overlooking Wilson and Hamilton. They paused outside the double glass doors.

“You coming up?” Pratt said.

Cass sucked lemon. “I don't think so. I think I'll go to that café on the square and get a coffee. You can meet me there.”

“Okay.”

Cass reached out and grabbed his head for an intense kiss. It worried him. In addition to his long-lasting fear of commitment, he felt that circumstances were lending unearned emotional gravitas to his and Cass' relationship.

The thought of her tight body made Pratt want to throw her down and fuck like a coked-up bunny. But bells kept going off in the darkness. That crack about Jews. The dogfights. Was he setting obstacles for himself? Were his standards unreasonable? Was he ignoring instinct? Where was the book?

Enjoy it while it lasts, son, Duane had told him.

CHAPTER 43

Pratt entered the police department and signed in with a desk sergeant, who called up to confirm Calloway was waiting for him. The sergeant gave him a laminated visitor's badge to wear around his neck and motioned him through a metal detector, where a stout black policewoman in navy blue slacks and crisp white shirt hand-wanded him. The wand beeped at his pocket.

“Please empty your pockets, sir.”

Pratt pulled out his wallet, keys, a handful of change, a bottle of ibuprofen, his buck knife and the Sanyo recorder. The policewoman picked up the knife in a latex-gloved hand. “You can ask for this on your return.”

The hall and elevators smelled of pine disinfectant. There were cameras everywhere. Pratt got off on the fourth floor and turned to a young woman at a reception desk beneath the blue and gold Madison Police logo mounted on a wall made of striated oak.

“Mr. Pratt?” she said.

“That's right.”

“Down that corridor, second door on the left.”

Pratt thanked her and moved on. The walls were decorated with framed photographs of notable Madison police. Pratt paused to look at a black and white picture of the Capitol Square from 1920. The men in bowlers, the women in full skirts. A Model T sat outside Baron Brothers Department Store. The door to Calloway's office was open. Pratt knocked and went in. Calloway looked up from his desk, one eye on Pratt, the other at a corner of the ceiling. His gunmetal-gray desktop was neat and clean, with a stack of reports in the center precisely lined up at the corners. A flat-screen computer doglegged around the side of the desk.

“Have a seat.”

Pratt sat in the institutional steel chair facing the desk. On one wall were Calloway's trophies, awards and photographs. Calloway with the governor. Calloway with Obama. Calloway with Morgan Freeman. A framed photograph of wife Doris and their two boys, Ike and Parker.

The opposite wall contained a chalkboard and a large bulletin board, case after case, face after face affixed with thumbtacks. The tops and bottoms were perfectly horizontal. The sides were perfectly vertical. Behind Calloway a large window looked out on Wilson.

Calloway slid a photograph across the desk. “Is this your boy?”

Pratt picked it up. It was a mug shot of a pumped-up dude in a black wife beater, tats covering both arms, staring sullenly at the lens. Dark eyes peered from beneath a unibrow of black electrician's tape. High, almost Oriental cheekbones. Black hair pulled tight and fixed in a ponytail. The date on the photograph was July 12, 1983. Moon in his twenties.

“I never got a clear look at him.”

“Well you look like shit, I'll give him that. There's good news and there's bad news. How do you want it?”

Pratt flipped a hand. Already he wanted this interview to be over.

Calloway peeled a sheet of white paper from near the top of his stack. “Fine. We'll start with the bad news. The feds are charging you with interfering with a federal investigation.”

“That's bullshit, man.”

Calloway stared at a fax transmission. “You know it and I know it, but they don't know it. There's more. Sheriff Archie DeWitt is charging you with breaking and entering and failure to render roadside aid.”

“Breaking and entering!? What the fuck! Has Moon complained?”

“Don't have to. The sheriff can charge you with whatever. If the DA doesn't agree he'll throw it out.”

“I'm through with DeWitt.”

“You might want to let him know. Here's his phone number.” Calloway turned the sheet around and slid it across the desktop. He'd highlighted the number with a yellow marker.

“I already got it. What's the good news?”

Calloway put his hands behind his head and leaned back, accompanied by the squeak of stressed leather and springs. “LAPD has your boy Moon boarding a flight to Hong Kong last night at eleven-thirty Pacific time.

Pratt stared at Calloway's good eye. He felt a sucking sensation in his gut.

“What's the matter, Pratt? You look like you swallowed a bad oyster.”

“I don't believe it.”

Calloway riffled through his stack and withdrew another sheet. “Eugene Strong Eagle Moon, United Flight number 346. That's your boy, right?”

“Come on. Would he use his own name? Do you have confirmation that he got off in Hong Kong?”

“He'd just be landing now but I'll check. If half the charges against him are true he'd be a fool to hang around.”

There was a knock on the door. Without waiting for permission, a wiry dude carrying a briefcase, in a military cut and gray Brooks Brothers suit, red tie and black pancake holster on his hip entered. He came around the chair and stuck out his hand.

“Ward Barlin, DEA.”

Pratt shook his hand, shot a glance at Calloway who shrugged.

Barlin sat in the other institutional chair half facing Pratt. “You mind answering a few questions about this meth lab?”

“What about dropping those charges?”

“Those were just to get your attention. Cooperate and there's no problem.”

Pratt stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged, turning on the little recorder.

Barlin pulled a credit card-sized metal box from an inside jacket pocket. “I'm going to record this if that's all right.”

“That's fine.”

“What happened at the Buffalo Chip?”

“Sir, I'm not sure I should talk to you about this without a lawyer.”

Barlin put his forearms on his knees and leaned forward. “Why is that?”

“Sir, if you'll permit me, my lawyer is five minutes away. I could call him and he could come over.”

Barlin fired his lasers. Pratt didn't flinch. “I could arrest you on behalf of Robbins County, Wyoming.”

“Sir, yes you could but you'd just be tying up badly needed resources in the investigation.”

Barlin stared hard. Pratt slowly closed his eyes.

“Look. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot here.”

Pratt opened his eyes.

“You're reluctant to talk because you may have committed some crimes in finding this meth lab.”

Pratt blinked noncommittally.

“I don't care about that. I care about busting up meth rings. From what I've heard you accomplished something we haven't been able to do, infiltrating the War Bonnets and locating their lab.”

Pratt glanced at Calloway. Both eyes swept the sky.

“I can't really talk about it unless you give me a written statement to the effect that I will not be prosecuted for any crimes I may have inadvertently committed in discovering this so-called meth lab.”

Barlin leaned back. “Jailhouse lawyer. Look, Pratt, I give you my word, so long as no innocent persons were harmed by you, I won't file charges on anything you tell me.”

“And you won't hand it off to somebody else to file charges.”

“That too. Detective Calloway is my witness.”

Calloway looked at Pratt and winked. Calloway was the only cop Pratt had ever trusted.

“All right. First off, I didn't exactly ‘infiltrate' the Bonnets.” Pratt told them his plan to steal the War Bonnets' stash and trace the runner who would have to get more. As he described bush-whacking the dude in the trailer Calloway smiled.

“My man, my man.”

Barlin shot Calloway a look.

“What did you do with the meth?” Barlin said, pulling a spiral notepad and a pen from inside his jacket. He made notations.

“I threw it down a toilet at the Chip. It's gone.”

Barlin nodded. Pratt continued. He talked about the boy with clinical dispassion in as few words as possible. The well and what Moon said. The mountain lion.

Barlin slapped his notebook on the desk. “Get the fuck outta here.”

Pratt pointed at the three parallel slashes on his left cheek. “What do you think did this? A garden rake?” He lifted up the front of his shirt to show his stitched and bandaged belly.

“What about this feral boy?” Barlin said.

“He's still out there. I'm hoping I can bring him in. I'm not certain he's my client's son. I'm afraid he is.”

“Sheriff brought in a backhoe and cadaver dogs. They found the remains of two adults near the hut, one male, one female. As of yet no identification.”

“Do you think Moon left the country?” Pratt asked.

“Yup. We got a positive ID and video.”

“May I see it?”

Calloway swung around to face his computer. The flat screen was mounted on a swivel. He turned it toward his visitors and stroked the keys. A black video screen appeared within the computer screen, grainy color footage of a boarding area at Los Angeles International.

“Here he comes,” Barlin said.

A man in a dark blue hoodie joined the line waiting to board. The bulky sweatshirt did not conceal his nervous energy. He carried a small flight bag. He looked up once, a featureless oval with a Fu Manchu.

“And this,” Barlin said, removing a piece of paper from his briefcase and placing it on the desktop, “is a computer projection of what he looks like today.”

CHAPTER 44

The eyes were sunken. The electrician's tape was thinner now, the cheekbones more pronounced. Moon was clean-shaven. A gold hoop dangling from one ear. Pratt had seen the face a thousand times in his nightmares. It was the face of a killer.

“We done?” Pratt said.

Barlin looked at Calloway. Calloway shrugged. Barlin handed Pratt his card.

“Need a place to stay?”

Pratt stood and tucked the card in his pocket. “Got one.”

He reclaimed his buck knife at the front desk and turned in his visitor's badge. He walked a block and a half to the Square. The State Capitol gleamed like a frosted wedding cake. Cass sat at a café table on the sidewalk outside Josie's reading the
Wisconsin State Journal
and smoking a cigarette.

She folded the paper as Pratt approached and looked up. “How'd it go?”

“That fuckin' sheriff wants to charge me with breaking and entering. Jesus. Now DEA's involved.”

Cass stood. Two high school kids in baggy tees on skateboards nearly collided staring at her.

“God I hope they get him,” she said.