Spook Squad (8 page)

Anything at all…like the Roger Burke situation? Hoping she might be circling around to an explanation, I said, “Like what?”

“I think I found the spot.” She paused in her lock-fishing and did a few shoulder rolls, then looked me in the eye. “Things like stopping a movement to have Psychs disqualified for state college aid. You wouldn’t have heard about it—we nipped that one early. Things like locating partners and allies in the business community willing to provide us with additional monitoring. Things like checking out our personnel.”

She dropped her gaze as she said that last item. Since I was on the FPMP hire-list, I could only presume it meant she knew every last thing about me. In other words, the balance of power here was way more skewed than I’d thought. I did my best impression of “comfortable” by aiming for a light tone. “As job titles go, it’s got a better ring to it than PC-M5.”

Maybe she had perused all my un-private records, but she didn’t know me well enough to see that I was faking comfort. She laughed nervously. “It is pretty catchy. Too bad all my official paperwork says
Operations Coordinator
.” She turned back to the car door while a million grisly variations of
fixing
things flashed before my mind’s eye. “I think it was…okay, there. Right there.” Pull, click, and the rear door was open. “You can reach into the front to hit the power-lock. You’ve got longer arms.”

Why couldn’t a person unlock a whole car from the rear doors? Not everyone kept small children in the back seat. Some of us consumers would have preferred to open up the vehicle without exposing our backs to the person who’d just helped us break in. I solved this dilemma by facing her the whole time I stretched over the passenger seat rather than making my back a target. Luckily I did have long arms and I got the car open in a few awkward flails. I then hopped in the front door and grabbed my keys from the ignition.
 

As I battened down the car, I was relieved our little lockpicking stunt was over. Unfortunately, it hadn’t really told me anything at all about the elusive Operations Coordinator—other than the fact that I’d now need to check my back seat every time I got in my car to make sure she wasn’t hiding there with the ice scrapers and poorly folded maps. All my careful maneuvering, and I’d managed to come up with a job title, one that Jacob could have easily supplied. Super. I attempted to pry out just a little bit more. “So does everyone pack a slim jim…or is exclusive to The Fixer?”

She held up the narrow strip of metal. “This isn’t exactly standard issue.” She began to walk toward the elevator, while I hung back to buy a bit of time. She was clearly baffled by my body language. We pause-walked to the doors, completely out of synch, and finally she needed to reach across me to push the call button. I did my best not to flinch visibly. The doors slid open. We climbed in, the doors closed, and we faced our blurry reflections. The elevator began to rise. “So, what is standard issue?” It would’ve been smooth, if I’d said it maybe five seconds sooner. As it stood, it came off as a non-sequitur.

“What?”

“Weapons. Does everyone have matching sidearms?”

“No…not exactly. Most of our field agents go with a Sig P229. Ex law enforcement tend toward Glocks.”

“And you carry…?”

“Only if I’m assigned to a sensitive location.” I’d been aiming for a make, but she took the question in a different way entirely—whether she packed any heat at all. Like it didn’t occur to her that Jacob had told me she was at the range. Like I didn’t know a shot had likely come from her general direction that day in front of the prison. “Most days I work here. I’m really more effective if I have access to my secure computer and all my databases and files.”

“And your slim jim.”

She gave an edgy laugh and said, “The car I had in grad school was such a beater. The hinges on the driver-side door were rusted through, so I couldn’t open it without the whole door falling off—which it did on Maxwell Street, you know, when they used to have that big Sunday flea market? Someone actually tried to buy it from me, too, like I was going to drive home without a door. Once I wired that back on, my key broke off in the passenger door lock. Slim jim and I got to know each other really well that year.”

“Wow. My first used car smelled like hard-boiled eggs. I hate to think why.”

She appeared to relax, just a bit. “Can I ask you something?”

Hopefully it wasn’t why I was so interested in her gun. “Sure.”
 

“Is Con going to have you sweep the fifth floor?”

So. She’d dropped the
Agent Dreyfuss
. Not that I knew what it indicated. “He might.”

“I hope he does.” She gave a shudder. “How can he stand it? That feeling, you know, like someone’s watching you.”

Hard to say if ghosts were her entire problem in that regard. After all, the ex-husband who now signed her paycheck was a remote viewer. Did she know? Or was that fact a strategically placed glimpse good ol’ Dreyfuss revealed to make me feel like a special snowflake? The elevator stopped and I steeled myself to exit, but then I realized we were only on the fourth floor—and that someone was getting on. Someone who’d recently written WASH ME on my beleaguered little car.

“Hardcore Vic!” Richie grabbed my hand and pumped it up and down as if we hadn’t seen each other in years. He wore brown loafers, brown wool pants, and a nubby brown cardigan over a beige permanent press shirt that was buttoned wrong, so one side of the collar rode higher than the other. The top of his head, of which I had a great view, was nice and shiny. His hand was moist. Once he was done giving me the big handshake, he swung around to Laura and said, “There you are. I’ve been trying to call you for like
ten minutes
.” Then he swung back to me—and Stefan’s Camp Hell impression of him swinging around to look at people when he spoke came to mind, which made me feel like a dick. Because of course that classy boyfriend and I had laughed ourselves inside out over the way Einstein couldn’t talk to someone without lining them up with his whole body. “What’re
you guys
doing?” Richie demanded, insinuating hanky panky between Laura and me with the subtlety of an eight-year-old.

“I was helping Detective Bayne unlock his car,” she said placidly. Not like it cost her any effort, either. I wondered how often she dealt with Richie. My guilt over the way I’d mocked and antagonized him would undoubtedly wear thin at some point, and his unbridled stupidity would begin to annoy me. But Laura seemed to have a good supply of patience.

“What a piece of junk,” Richie declared. “Maybe when Agent Marks gets his Lexus, he’ll sell you his Crown Vic cheap.”

“Your concern over my vehicle is touching.”

“Them are like cop cars,” he explained. While no one ever accused me of being the king of grammar, ouch. “And you’d have the same name…Vic, driving a Crown Vic. Heh-heh.”

Laura smiled politely at the witticism. The elevator disgorged us onto the fifth floor none too soon. We made our way to the wide sweep of the big modern desk, and Richie planted his elbows on it, sprawling as if he was about to order a two-for-one drink special at happy hour. “So them guys never installed my new TV last night,” he told Laura.

“Was there a structural issue with your wall?”

“Nuh uh. They just didn’t show up.”

“Okay, I’ll call.”

“’Cos I need my TV.”

“Right. I’ll reschedule.”

“I can’t miss that show. You know. The one I watch.”

“Understandable.”

“It’s just sitting there in the box. I mean, what good is it in the box?”

I was wondering how long he could sustain an argument with someone who kept agreeing with him when Laura nudged him toward the finish line with, “What time should I have the installers come—seven?”

“Uh, yeah, okay. I should be home by seven. It’s all-you-can-eat wing night at The Blue Room.”

“Got it. Seven.”

Maybe I learned more about Laura Kim from that little exchange than I had the whole episode in the parking garage. While it was my experience that technicians supplied a broad window of arrival and then showed up whenever the hell they damn well pleased, The Fixer’s quiet confidence led me to believe she could make seven o’clock happen. She did it with the same cool confidence she’d just employed to get Richie to stop complaining about the installers, although whether he’d be there to let them in, or whether he’d still be anointing two-ply paper napkins with ranch dressing, chicken fat and hot sauce at that time would be anyone’s guess.

Once Laura fixed her headset in place, tapped a few buttons and listened, she said to me, “Agent Dreyfuss would like to see you in his office. I’ll walk you there.”

“Let me,” Richie said. “I got a question for him. An important one.”

A look flickered across her face. Was that a small calculation? Weighing the pros and cons of setting me loose with only Richie to wrangle me—or determining the most non-invasive way to keep Richie in line? She pressed a button, paused, and said, “Agent Duff would like a word.”

Who?

She listened, then told Richie, “Go ahead.”

Chapter 8

Not that I’d been under the impression Richie’s last name was actually Einstein, but the realization that I never even knew his damn surname was pretty disturbing. Almost as disturbing as hearing him called by the title
Agent
, which, I gotta admit, looks pretty slick in front of Jacob’s name. Not so much preceding Richie’s.

He knocked on the door, which gave a faint electronic click, then elbowed me aside and bounded in as if we were racing toward a box of donuts with only one cruller. “So I met these guys at karaoke,” he told Dreyfuss, “and they really want to come see the Bears with me on Thanksgiving.”

“How many guys are we talking?”

“Two. Uh…three.”

“That’s a total of thirty-two guests.”

Richie thought about it. Then he started counting on his fingers. Then he got lost somewhere around eight while the repeater beside him took a bullet to the throat. “Well, there’s my bowling team, that’s four. Plus my neighbors Bernie and Meg….”

Once I got over the idea of Einstein singing karaoke, I attempted to wrap my head around the cost of comping thirty-two people at Soldier Field—especially on Thanksgiving Day. That game had sold out two hours after the tickets became available…not that it would prevent Dreyfuss from scoring more. Just that the thought of him being willing to do so was interesting, to say the least.

“I don’t know if we can swing that many behind the fifty-yard line,” Dreyfuss said. “You’re sure you don’t want a skybox instead?”

“It’s only three more seats.”

“Free booze, Richie. People love an ice cold keg. Think how much fun it’ll be in your exclusive box—climate-controlled bliss. Shrimp cocktail and caviar. Sexy bartenders. Hell, I can even get you lap dances if that’s what you’re into.”

“Not in front of my
neighbors
.” Richie flushed pink. “How about pizza? Will there be pizza there?”

“I think that could be arranged.”

Richie considered the offer, then swung around to fully face me. “Hardcore Vic—did you want to come?”

The thought of watching Richie’s bowling team scarfing down some fat, oozing deep-dish while sexy bartenders rode their groins was mildly amusing, but it wasn’t the way I wanted to spend Thanksgiving. It would probably be funny for about ten minutes…and then I’d start thinking about the way we all had to chip in five bucks the last time someone made a pizza run back at the precinct, and how there’d been nothing left but a few crusts by the time I got to the break room. “Jacob and I already—”

“Agent Marks can come too,” Richie added.

“We already have plans.” We hadn’t discussed whether we’d be heading up to Wisconsin or not, but I wanted to leave the day open in case we did. Even if that meant turning down all the shrimp cocktail I cared to eat.

“There’ll be pizza.”

“I heard. But, you know. Family stuff.”

Richie seemed puzzled by that excuse, but Dreyfuss adroitly steered the conversation away from my personal life. “Speaking of Agent Marks, would you mind getting him for me, Richie?”

“Sure,” he said. “No problem.” I guess it didn’t occur to Richie to wonder why Dreyfuss didn’t pick up the phone and buzz him.

*
 
*
 
*

After the door sighed shut with a gentle magnetic click, I asked, “So how much is Richie’s Amazing Thanksgiving Adventure setting you back?”

“About half as much as it would have if he’d insisted on the fifty-yard line seats.”
 

If I tried to get a single pair of tickets from Sergeant Warwick, even up in the nosebleed section, he’d tell me to go beat them out of a scalper myself. “Deep pockets.”

“Money is only money—the treasury prints more of it every day. The seats behind the bench, however, have strings attached I’d just as soon not pull. I’d rather juggle my budget than burn favors.”

Money, favors, connections, all of it was worth something. Seconal required all of the above, and I’d be blissed out for the rest of my life on the amount of reds he could score for the cost of a skybox. Heck, I’d do a tap dance for the handful of reds in his pocket, but I didn’t let on. Seemed to me I was nowhere near as demanding as Richie, and I provided a lot more value in return for my fee.
 

I paced the room. The three repeaters looked the same as they had the day before. “Chance isn’t here,” I said.

“Of course not.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, turning to catch Triple-Shot in my peripheral vision. The first bullet took him in the thigh. I glanced away before I saw a replay of the other two rounds, disgusted. Salting the dead junkie shooting up in the corner of the convenience store was one thing. The poor saps working the cash register had nothing to do with his death. Dreyfuss, though? “If you don’t like working in a haunted office, you should’ve thought of that before you had the guys killed.”

“You think it’s a pain in the ass to score tickets?” he said. “Try covering up a shooting. I think you know me well enough by now to see it’s not my style.”

“I like to keep an open mind.”