Blood and Bone (20 page)

“All right. Those knuckleheads were faulty on procedure. And so was I, asking you to do what should have been police work. Now, what you got?”

“Apology accepted,” Hannibal said, tasting his coffee. At least this cop could do one thing right. “Actually, we can help each other. Can your case extend to Great Falls?”

Rissik rubbed his chin with thumb and forefinger, like a real old-fashioned detective. “It can if I have a good reason. Is that where the Lerners are?”

“Not likely,” Hannibal said. “But there's a connection. Bear with me for a minute here. You know who Harlan Mortimer is?”

“The black real estate wheeler dealer?” Rissik asked. “I've heard of him. I don't think he's got any mob connections, though. You saying he does?”

Hannibal held up a gloved palm. “Not like that. But he's got a granddaughter he never knew he had, by his son who's dead now. She just turned up, and it looks like he's ready to put her in his will.”

Hannibal could see Rissik's mind clicking as he did the arithmetic. He knew exactly how this equation added up. “You figure she's not legit.”

“Bingo. In fact, I'm pretty sure she's the bait in a mob plot to get the old man's money. Now, I'm not going to give you details, because there's a question of confidentiality here, but I think maybe the old man's
son, the girls supposed father, was killed by Sloan Lerner and his friends. So it makes sense…”

“They're the bad boys who put the girl in,” Rissik said, finishing Hannibal's sentence. Both men were smiling now. “And that probably means Zack King. So what do you want, Mister Jones?”

Hannibal leaned back and put his right ankle on his left knee. “Well, I thought you could put some men on watching the Mortimer house. If the bad guys come sniffing around to see how the girl's doing, you can nab them. And if anybody tries any violence, your boys can be on the spot to stop it. Now, how do you know about Zack King?”

“I do my homework,” Rissik said. “Ike Paton used to be Pat Louis. I take it you know that already. You probably also know he was working for King a year ago in Atlantic City. Did you know he was in Killer Nilson's gang years ago? It was Nilson's bunch who called themselves Omega and got those tattoos.”

“Sure,” Hannibal vamped. “Sloan Lerner was in that old gang with him. Maybe they set this scam up a long time ago, eh? With Louis, as Paton, as the inside man. Then maybe Louis had second thoughts.”

Rissik nodded and waved a finger at Hannibal. “Sure. That makes a dandy motive for murder. And it raises the possibility one of them might come back to check on the girl. Okay, I'll have the house watched.”

Hannibal emptied his cup. “Just wish I knew where they're hiding now.”

“Well, I've got warrants out in Baltimore and New Jersey, but I figure it's too hot in those places for these guys,” Rissik said, heading for his coffee pot. “I sent e-mail to the boys in Texas too.”

“Texas?” Hannibal sat up very straight. “Why?” Rissik made an odd face and turned to fill his cup
again. When he returned to his desk he stared down into the cup. Hannibal said “Come on chief. You owe me.”

Rissik seemed to mull it over before deciding to open up. “Louis' last bust was in Texas,” he said. “They caught him driving in from Mexico with a truck load of illegals. Most of his cargo got away but he went up. That was four years ago, and he only did a couple of years. But he might have had something going on down there. What do you think?”

Hannibal froze while his mind processed this new information. This case was littered with thin connections that looked important, and now it had one more. Patrick Louis, AKA Ike Paton was coming across the Mexican border into Texas four years ago, which was when Angela Briggs, AKA Angela Mortimer, first appeared in Corpus Christi.

Sometimes, Hannibal wished he could simply walk away. He drove back to Washington in a fog of uncertainty. The case seemed as twisted and dirty as the narrow streets he was driving on. The Rolling Stones in the CD player could not blast the confusion out of his brain. He wished he had not agreed to prove Angela Mortimer a fake. He wished he did not care who killed Pat Louis, or why.

But he did care, and he had agreed. And while he had no interest in following the trail of these two dovetailed mysteries to the Mexican border, he figured he knew where he might get a lead closer to home. Floyd had spoken to Hannibal once under threat of violence. He might be more informative about the New Jersey mob with cash as his incentive. But Hannibal began to have doubts when he pulled up across the street from Floyd's building.

Hannibal did not believe in extra sensory perception. But he knew experienced policemen and bodyguards developed a clear picture of how things should be, and became sensitive to situations when things were not. He thought all the senses must be involved, which explained why various people sometimes said they felt, smelled, or sensed trouble.

The first thing he noticed was the absence of a guard on the stoop. Of course, it might be the case
whenever Floyd was away from home, but it did not feel right. Then there was the green Ford Explorer parked in front of the door. It might not have anything to do with Floyd, but Hannibal sensed it did. And the outside door to the building was an inch or two ajar. No one who lived in this neighborhood would purposely leave the door open. It might mean no more than the presence of a careless child. But Hannibal smelled trouble.

The sound of breaking glass drew his attention to the second floor. Bits of a window flashed and glittered as they fell slowly toward the ground. He rolled his window down, trying to stare into the now open portal to Floyd's apartment. He heard the unmistakable thump of a rubber coated baton against human flesh repeated five times. Then he saw Floyd himself. He emerged from the window head first, chasing his own blood curdling scream. Catapulted into space, he seemed to be trying to swim to the other side of the street. In fact, he covered the distance to the gutter in front of his building. He neither flashed nor glittered. Nor did he fall slowly. His head hit the street first, and he was surely dead by the time his feet bounced off the concrete. Not much splatter, but Hannibal's stomach lurched.

In the next ten seconds, three onlookers wandered slowly toward the body, unable to resist the lure of death, but not wanting to get too close. Then the door at the top of the stoop slammed open and three huge men ran down the stairs much more quickly than he would have expected. One jumped behind the wheel of the Explorer and fired up the engine while the other two hopped into the back seat. The license plates were caked with mud, making them unreadable. The
vehicle laid rubber as it darted away. Hannibal watched it disappear in his rear view mirror.

Hannibal may have been inclined to help even scum like Floyd. But Floyd was beyond help now. And Hannibal knew it was pointless to mess with those three unless he was prepared to do anything to win. This was surely Zack King's revenge for talking to Hannibal. How he knew it was Floyd who led Hannibal to him was a mystery not worth puzzling over. Mobsters had ways of learning things. However he found out, King took action to make sure it would not happen again.

Hannibal swallowed his frustration, slipped his car into gear and pulled away. Zack had sealed the only leak Hannibal knew about. The Jersey mob was a closed book to him again. It might have to do with keeping him away from the secret behind Angela's appearance. Or it could be Zack's way of telling people not to talk about him.

A cloud bank moved in, making Hannibal's neighborhood seem darker than usual. The few trees on the block were sickly and weak. Hardly anything thrived in this environment and he wondered for the millionth time why he chose to stay here. He shuffled into his hallway, feeling defeated. He closed the door behind himself, turned left toward his apartment, and froze. New energy seemed to flood into him as he realized he did have another option. He sprinted to his office, shoving the door open.

“Whoa!” Hannibal froze, his heart missing one beat then bursting into triplets. Sarge's finger spasmed on the shotgun's trigger, barely avoiding dropping the
hammer. They stared at each other for a minute, then Sarge let out a long breath and lowered the barrel.

“Man, you could get yourself killed like that,” Sarge said. “It's been a long, hairy week.”

“Yeah, and you've done a great job,” Hannibal said, pulling his sports coat off, “but now it's over. Jewel's in no more danger.”

A face afraid to show hope peeked out from the next room. “Are you sure?” Jewel asked in her high pitched voice. “How can you be sure?”

“Because somebody a lot bigger than Floyd just tossed him out of his apartment,” Hannibal said, plopping into the chair behind his desk. “In fact, they were in such a hurry, they had him take the elevator down.”

“But his building doesn't have an…oh.” Hannibal saw the light come on in Jewel's head, and heard Sarge chuckling. Then Jewel's expression changed, as she realized all that this news implied.

“He's gone,” she said slowly, smiling at the sky outside Hannibal's office windows. “He's gone. I'm free.” Then she rushed across the floor to fling her arms around Hannibal's neck. “How can I ever thank you enough for what you've done?”

“Well, there is my fee,” Hannibal answered, easing out of her embrace and leading her to his visitor's chair. “But you can also help me with this case I'm working on. Floyd told me you were working in Atlantic City when he found you. What do you know about Zack King?”

Jewel looked at the ceiling and rubbed the back of her head, which apparently was how she engaged the memory of her internal computer. “Isn't that the name of a promoter in Atlantic City?”

“You've never met him?”

“Not that I knew,” Jewel said

Hannibal walked slowly around her. “How about Wally Lerner, or his brother Sloan?”

Jewel swiveled in her chair, trying to keep Hannibal in view. “Never heard of them guys, I'm afraid.”

“Okay, then how about Ike Paton?”

She shook her head left to right. “Sorry.”

Hannibal's frustration was mounting. He leaned toward her, his hands on the arms of her chair. “You might have known him as Pat Louis. Big black guy, tattoo of the Greek letter omega on his hand.”

“Don't know that name either,” Jewel said. “And I don't think I know anybody with a tattoo on their hand. Sorry.”

Hannibal turned and banged his desk. He hoped Floyd shared his knowledge of the underworld when he was drunk, or being intimate. But he could see Jewel had never gotten involved with the mob connections, in DC or New Jersey. She no more knew where the Lerners might hide than he did. He was sure the Lerner brothers held the secret to Angela's scam, if it was a scam. But now he had no way to find them.

“How am I going to prove to Nieswand that the girl's a fake?” he asked the desk.

“Nieswand?” Jewel asked in a shaky voice. “I know that name.”

Hannibal felt a jolt of electricity flash up his spine. It was too much to hope for, but the name was so uncommon he had to believe Jewel recognizing it was significant. He breathed deeply, trying to contain his optimism. Forcing a smile, trying not to intimidate the girl, he turned and leaned back against his desk.

“Jewel, are you sure you know that name from Atlantic City?”

“Of course,” she said with a nervous laugh. “You don't forget a name like that.”

“True,” he said. “What was he doing up there?”

Jewel's confidence fell, and she began rubbing her hands together. “He? Sorry, this was a girl.”

He knew he should not have gotten overconfident. He gritted his teeth against the frustration rising in his gut. “A girl.” he repeated.

“Yeah,” Jewel said. “Another hooker, I think. Abby Nieswand. I'm sure that was the name.”

“Abby?” Hannibal felt another jolt, strong enough to lift him from the desk. Resisting his drive to hug Jewel, he probed deeper. “What did she look like, this Abby Nieswand? And what was she doing there? When was this, anyway?”

Sarge stepped in and put a hand on Hannibal's shoulder. “Easy, man. This ain't no interrogation. She's trying to help.” Hannibal nodded to Sarge, then to Jewel to continue.

Jewel took a deep breath, gathered her thoughts, and went on. “This is like a year ago, maybe a little more. Not long before I left Jersey with Floyd. For a while she was in the hotel room next door to the one I used for,” Jewel hesitated for a second, “for business, you know. I don't think she was doing street work. She had to be pushing forty pretty hard. Bottle blonde I think. I mean, she was a white girl, but her complexion was kind of dark for a blonde, you know? Dark eyes like Jewish girls have a lot of times. Pretty nice figure. And I guess the guy she was with liked real bright red nail polish.”

“The guy she was with,” Hannibal said, waving his hand to encourage her to continue.