Last Shot (2006) (33 page)

The box Tim held propped before his face contained the legal records of Tess's meetings with her attorney on a matter likely involving Vector Biogenics. Meetings that had taken place days before her murder.

And Tim couldn't so much as crack the lid.

Bear regarded the box reverently. Tim squirmed his hand around through the punched-out handle, fingertips brushing papers. He let the tiny metal device fall inside, nodded at Bear--mission accomplished--then said, with feigned exasperation, "No logo. Struck out," and shoved the file box back into its slot among the others.

He descended the ladder, and he and Bear headed out, leaving Tess's files behind.

Chapter
48

The scent of brine, damp wood, and seaweed brought Walker back to exotic ports of missions past and made him crave the burn of tobacco in his lungs. Crouched at the dark brink of land, he kept his gaze fixed way at the end of the floating dock, where a houseboat rocked in its slip. The sole point of living movement, a man stooped and shuffled, waxing his deck with hand-slip brushes. Unseen crabs scuttled on the throw of black rocks at the water's edge. The slips were dotted with weekend sailboats, Bayliner cruisers, and motor yachts too spit-polished to be more than vanity possessions. A quiet place to live, undisturbed among the playthings of the rich.

The dock was well positioned at the edge of the two-mile channel off the harbor that gave Marina del Rey its name, a good distance up from Fisherman's Village with its rip-off New England buildings, cobblestone paths, and landlubber tourists wielding ice cream cones. The village's boutiques were long closed, but the eateries still threw wobbly streaks of light across the black water. When the wind shifted just so, it carried a few rueful notes from the seafood restaurant's bad string quartet. A plane rumbled overhead, three dots of light blurred by the thin August clouds, still climbing from the LAX runway it had left behind five miles south.

The strip-planked houseboat was good and light, with enough salt in its wounds to lend it a cranky, rustic character. A white life preserver, flaked into a mosaic on the pilothouse wall, announced The Jeeves--a dead giveaway. As was its owner's air of strained dignity; he was a service-industry lackey if Walker had ever seen one.

An afternoon intel-gathering trip to an Internet cafe had yielded a wealth of data, including the address of the mail drop in the boatyard deckhouse ten yards from Walker's back. There between the laundry room and coin-accessed showers for the live-aboards was the name Walker sought, rendered on a blue sticky band cranked out of an old twist-top label maker.

The man rose from all fours, stretched his back with a hands-on-hips arch, and settled on a bench with an Amstel and a cigarette.

Walker headed for the boat, minding the bob of the dock beneath his feet. The man watched him as he passed through one spill of lamplight and then another.

Walker stopped on the dock at the edge of the thirty-five-foot slip, the man rocking out of time with his own rise and fall. The trusty ropes creaked, straining against their moorings. The man took a pull from his beer, not yet fearful.

"Chuck Hannigan?"

"That's right."

Walker stepped up onto the houseboat.

Hannigan set down his beer and rose quickly. "You're supposed to ask permission to come aboard."

Walker strode to the triangular hatch at the bow. The just-waxed deck was slick. No grime, no oxidation. Chuck Hannigan made a fine swabbie.

Walker pulled the anchor onto the deck, throwing the toggle so the windlass fed chain out into a puddle at his feet. He dragged the anchor to the prow, the crown raising peels of epoxy varnish, the chain rattling behind. Hannigan looked scared now, his body bladed to hide one arm. Walker dropped the anchor at Hannigan's feet and was not surprised to look up into the barrel of a flare gun.

Walker's hands blurred, and then both of Hannigan's arms were twisted back on themselves, the muzzle pressed into the soft pouch of flesh beneath his chin. Walker's face was inches from Hannigan's, so close he felt the heat of the cigarette cherry against his cheek. He nodded, and then Hannigan nodded, and Walker pried the flare gun free and released him. Hannigan let out a shaky breath. Walker tossed the flare gun overboard, then kicked open the rail gate. Removing a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket, Walker secured one end to the anchor chain, the other to Hannigan's ankle. Hannigan looked down, eyes glazed, just now seeming to comprehend that Walker had cuffed him to the anchor. The cigarette, now long on ash, dangled from the corner of his mouth.

"You know who I am?"

Hannigan said, "I just figured it out."

Walker toed the anchor toward the open rail gate, and it coasted a few inches on the waxy deck. Some water lapped up, beading on the wood.

Hannigan said, "Don't."

A trilevel yacht drifted past, couples twirling with champagne glasses on the upper deck. It passed swiftly, trailing laughter and the smell of weed, and the wake rocked The Jeeves, causing the anchor to slide about a foot toward the rail gate. Hannigan let out a little cry, ash falling across his chest.

Walker held up the handcuff key between his thumb and forefinger like a photo slide.

"If I tell you everything, will you let me live?"

Walker gave a nod.

"I've been waiting to tell someone. Waiting for someone to come, I guess. Hell, maybe I was waiting for you." Hannigan flicked his butt overboard and tapped the pack in his pocket, waiting for Walker's approval before he removed and lit another cigarette. "It was at this commercial shoot, right? I'd picked up your sister and your--I guess it'd be your nephew?--at their house. Nice lady, your sister. I really liked her. Mr. Kagan--"

"Chase?"

"That's right. He was in the limo, too. I drove them to the shoot and waited in the limo bay in the garage. It's an underground garage, real private, you know? No one was there." His voice grew strained. "I stay with the car always, right? So Ms. Jameson comes out to get something--her purse, maybe--and Chase followed. He ducked inside. Started flirting heavy. She didn't want any. A nice lady, like I said. So he, you know..."

"He what?"

Hannigan's lips quivered. A drop of sweat rolled down his right cheek, staining his shirt. "He forced himself on her."

"Who was there?"

"Just Mr. Kagan--Chaisson Kagan. But this other fellow came out--Hawaiian shirt?--to check on things. The windows were tinted, but he must've heard..."

Walker nodded him on.

"...something. He knocked on the window, then Chase rolled it down a bit, and...well, then the guy sort of stood guard."

Walker started to talk but had to clear his throat. "Anyone else?"

"Dolan Kagan came out also. He saw from a distance, maybe. I don't know what he saw. The other guy told him to go away."

"So Chase could finish."

Hannigan wiped his cheek. "I guess so."

"And you sat there."

"I did. I sat there." A defeated pause, and then Hannigan rallied to his own defense. "I'm not a bad man. I've not slept, barely, since it happened. Like I said, she was a nice lady. But what was I gonna do? Look, guys like that, they pay my rent, right? I can barely afford to live out here on this square of water. They got fancy lawyers and press agents and publicists in their back pocket. I'm gonna...what? Press charges?" Hannigan wept silently into the fold of his hand. "I've had all order of things happen when I'm up front, behind the divider, but never anything like that. Never anything like that. Never."

"You were in the car. The whole time."

"I was," Hannigan said. "I was."

Walker stared out at the world's largest man-made marina. Then he kicked the anchor off the boat. It plunked into the water, the chain grinding across the deck's edge as it paid out, kicking up chips and splinters.

Hannigan's voice came high with disbelief. "You said you wouldn't kill me if I told you!"

"Changed my mind."

"Give me the key! Please, God, give it to me!"

Walker flipped the key in the water. He and Hannigan stared at each other, and then the chain pulled tight and Hannigan slammed to the deck and skidded off into the water with a splash. His cigarette, still lit, remained behind on the deck where it had been jerked from his mouth or he from it.

His churning was barely audible among the groan of the boats, the slap of water against the pilings, the cry of the night birds; he was just a few feet below the surface. After a minute or so, Walker sensed only the regular sigh and heave of the sea.

He picked up Hannigan's cigarette, placed it in his mouth, and headed along the dock for land, the orange dot moving through the mist like a firefly.

Chapter
49

Tim's head throbbed from too much caffeine and from squinting at online databases. He threw down one of the few license-plate photos lacking a name on its back and rubbed his eyes. To catch Walker they had to get a step ahead of him, to locate his next target before he did.

Using a hit man to lure a fugitive was ambitious, but Tim knew, if the lead was accurate, that Walker would be gunning for the Piper sooner or later. The Service would have to find him sooner. Set up surveillance. And wait.

Thomas had been playing Ma Bell all afternoon, gathering word on the Piper from Service offices around the country. In the meantime Tim, Bear, and Guerrera had split up the flash-card IDs of Game's esteemed clientele, double-checking the addresses on the backs and finding Wes's intel surprisingly accurate. The list was like a who's who of rich scumbags. A surgeon with a felony for selling meds. A studio VP who went down for a handgun in his Porsche. A failure-to-appear. More businessmen with embezzlement and fraud charges than Tim could count. The clean ones were almost more troubling. Despite the varied degrees of shadiness, no one was an obvious choice for the Piper. Guerrera had red-flagged a few top contenders, but Tim was skeptical that any of them were extracurricular hit men.

The Piper was a professional, which meant that even if one of the flash-card leads panned, they'd probably wind up with a link in a longer chain--a Hertz rental, a stolen car, a fake plate. Or maybe the Piper rode Yellow Cab, in which case they were shit out of luck. Unless Thomas came through with something that rang the cherries.

On the corner TV, Maybeck was reviewing the footage of Walker's brief passage through the Vector lobby. For the fifth time, Tim watched Walker disappear into the spokes of the revolving doors. Nothing new gleaned from the tape. Likewise no sightings of the Camry that had been stolen by the San Pedro landfill the night of Walker's escape. Freed continued pursuing the trails of Pierce's financials, so far with limited success.

Thomas racked the phone, finally, and ran both hands through his hair. It took a moment before he seemed to pick up that everyone was waiting on him, and then he said, "Still low resolution. The Piper's a professional, rumored to operate out of Los Angeles and Phoenix. He does some wet work for Chicago, may have been used by the Asian Triad in Houston and locally by the Russians. Hell, Rack, you should pick up this lead yourself. It's right in your area of expertise."

Tim ignored the dig. "Do we have a name?"

"Leslie Cardover." Thomas nodded at the gallery of photos spread across the table. "Not one of our Gameboys. If it's fake is another question."

Tim wondered if Leslie Cardover drove a low-rider with a hood ornament the size of a bowling ball. "If we're gonna use him, we'd better get to him before Walker turns him into ground beef."

"Or vice versa."

"My money's on Walker."

"Seems to be." Thomas cleared his throat hard into a fist, then swept the remains of his lunchtime burrito from desktop to trash can. "My hook at the Bureau said the Piper's been keeping his name off the boards for a while. He may have been feeling the heat after this Aspen job he allegedly did in January. A launderer for the Colombians."

"That'll do it," Bear remarked.

"So he flies to L.A. and takes out a single mom," Guerrera said. "Safer prey."

Bear noted Tim's troubled expression. "What's bugging you?"

"The hit on Tess was highly competent"--Tim took a breath, held it a moment--"but not meticulous. If this guy's a high-end contract player, why the left-side entry wound? The neighbor sighting? And the paint?"

"The car the hundred-year-old neighbor claimed to see?" Guerrera said. "Who knows if that's real? As for the entry wound, shit, socio, that's a pretty tiny detail, something even a pro could overlook. I mean, Tess Jameson was left-handed."

"Maybe so," Tim said. "Either way, we need more on the Piper, and we need it in a hurry."

Bear asked the room at large, "Any movement from the Vegas Task Force on the Aryan Brotherhood hit men?"

Zimmer said, "I been on it with Summer. They're watching the AB chapter, but there's been no unusual activity."

A court security officer ran in, the door banging against the wall. His neck was flushed. Tim cringed, anticipating another bad phone lead or interview request. "Rack, there's a call you're gonna want to take on line three. Now."

Tim glanced at the phone unit centered on the broad conference table. The red light flashed rapidly, as if to announce a malfunction. "Who is it?"