trying the end run. What better way than to dump the press in his lap?”
“Games,” Matthews said, disgusted.
“You gotta get me off the Boise assignment, Sarge. You’ve got tattoos to run, con artists, adoption records. A foreign town.”
“How badly do you want off?”
“Whatever it takes,” LaMoia answered.
“I’ll go,” Daphne confirmed. “I won’t be missed.”
Boldt asked LaMoia, “Straight answer. Is there any reason Hill would be mad at you?”
“Moi?”
“I need it straight, John, because from here, from what we know about what you face in Boise — ”
LaMoia interrupted, “You mean failure? Trying to track down this driver and child
“It looks more like a setup. This may be the investigation’s biggest lead, and if it goes nowhere-”
“Hill needs a scapegoat,” Daphne said, following Boldt’s reasoning.
“Or else there’s a personal agenda at play,” Boldt said, challenging LaMoia directly, “and she’s either intentionally sending you off to Siberia, or getting you out of the way so you can’t screw things up for her at home.” He added, “How ’bout it?”
LaMoia didn’t answer. He looked searchingly back and forth between Boldt and Matthews.
Boldt said, “Sarah’s out of time. If the press picks up on the abandoned car …” His throat caught. To Daphne, he said, “Better go pack. We have seats on the red-eye.”
CHAPTER 51
LaMoia boiled at the thought of pursuing dead leads in Boise, Idaho, while Boldt attempted to track the tattoo and criminal records to the actual suspect in a place like the Big Easy. The central question that needed answering-was Sarah better off with him in Boise-seemed obvious enough: Bobbie Gaynes or Patrick Mulwright could easily handle Boise. How Sheila Hill could have made such a call without discussion was beyond him. Once again she was using him, this time in a political move that left too many unanswered questions. Was she afraid of someone within the department? Was LaMoia a threat? Or did she simply want three days with him in a hotel out of town to mend their fences? He feared this latter thought the most: playing gigolo in Boise for an oversexed, overly ambitious woman who had the power to trash his own career. Exactly what had he gotten himself into? Perhaps his handcuffing incident had awakened her, had made her realize how strong his feelings were for her.
He had no choice but to obey orders. A police department was not a democracy. The Boise investigation could have been handled over the phone, and Sheila Hill knew it. But the cameras-along with the fresh sheets and room service-were in Boise.
LaMoia’s calls to his credit services contacts produced immediate results. Cross-referencing the Spitting Image customer names with the dates that the Pied Piper was known to have been in specific cities produced billing records that suggested the kidnappers had counterfeited at least six credit cards. LaMoia was sorting through the information when his pager buzzed, interrupting his work. Tempted to ignore it, he obediently angled it to the light and read the overly long string of numbers on the display, immediately guessing these numbers would lead him to a hotel room, same as always. Sheila Hill wanted to talk; she had wisely reconsidered her decision. That, or she wanted to lay down ground rules for their Boise bed jumping. He cringed. A combination of resentment, anger and hope overcame him. Perhaps she wanted to apologize. Perhaps she knew in advance he had no intention of sharing showers with her in Boise. The New Orleans red-eye was only hours away. His own flight to Boise was much sooner.
One phone call, and LaMoia had the name of the hotel: a Days Inn south on I-5. Its close proximity to the airport annoyed him-she still expected him to board that plane to Boise.
He passed the credit card information along to Boldt, went home and quickly packed a bag, his anger continually resurfacing like a fire assumed out. He left an extra dish of dry food for his cat, Granite, and slipped a note under his neighbor’s door that said he’d be gone for a few days. He stopped at an ATM and withdrew two hundred dollars cash, which he would then expense over the next few days.
On the drive south he promised himself that he would not, under any conditions, have sex with her.
He found himself passing the Days Inn registration desk and heading to the elevators. He found himself on the second floor, walking the long corridor in search of the number 214. He found himself practicing his first few lines so that she could not, would not, steer him off course, no matter what her intentions and appetites. He knocked sharply on the door and braced himself for whatever she threw at him.
The door came open to empty space and he knew immediately she was hiding behind the door, and he feared what she had in mind. Feeling like a trained German shepherd, he stepped into the room prepared to counter whatever awaited him. He walked straight ahead, intentionally not looking back, not playing to her game. If her clothes were laid out on a chair or on the bed, then he knew what to expect: reckless abandon. He couldn’t wait to deny her that.
The TV was going loudly. Sheila Hill was a screamer. LaMoia knew at that moment that she intended to try to make up to him. Knew what she had in mind-something adventuresome, something daring, perhaps even dangerous. He cautioned himself against succumbing.
There was a big rat of a man in a padded chair pulled up to a faux-grain breakfast table, and LaMoia’s first thought was that she had fantasies about a trio, but for him, the gender was all wrong. The rat was hairy and in his middle thirties. On the table in front of him, a cheap briefcase waited. LaMoia had never seen the man before, but sight of him set off a string of mental alarms. This was no sex partner of Sheila Hill’s. Not only was someone in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the rat was the exact kind of man one saw in a lineup. He was a man made for numbers across the chest.
A squeaky male voice behind LaMoia wheezed, “Hands stay visible. Nothing fast. You move slow or you go.”
LaMoia turned his head ever so slowly and took in a smaller man dressed in blue jeans and a black leather jacket. He had Asian blood in him, and maybe some speed. He hadn’t seen the sun in a long time. He held a Glock in his left hand, as casually and comfortably as some people held cigarettes.
“I’m a cop,” LaMoia announced, not a single muscle tensing. He found his center; he found his calm.
“Guy’s a fucking genius,” Ratman said in an East Coast baritone.
“You can count if you want, or you can take my word for it: The money’s all there,” the little one said, more irritated than only a moment earlier. “We’re not about to short a cop.”
The rat opened the briefcase. Inside were several dozen vials of what looked like crack cocaine and two stacks of cash. The top bills of each were hundreds. If the rest matched those, it amounted to some serious change.
A neon light lit up in LaMoia’s mind. He looked at the little man with the gun curiously. “We got a small problem here,” he said.
At that moment, the hotel room door swung open, blindingly fast. “Police!” a voice thundered. A pair of black blurs occupied a space by the door and suddenly the little guy and LaMoia were both pinned against the wall, faces pressed to the cheap wallpaper, arms wrenched up behind so painfully that LaMoia couldn’t get his voice out. He hadn’t so much as twitched when he saw the ERT coming in; he knew the drill. At first, he couldn’t believe his good luck: that his own people had somehow come to his rescue, and so fast. But with his face kissing the cheap wallpaper and his shoulder about to dislocate, he reassessed. He heard a commotion behind him, which turned out to be the Ratman going down onto the floor.
“I’m a cop!” LaMoia finally gasped, his cheekbone welded with the wall, his ribs flattened by the pressure on his back.
“You
