Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

headfirst. The man’s face and chin took the brunt of the fall. Dwyer was already down the driveway to the street and in his car before they even started to move.

51

You’re sand in the gears.

Behr recalled hearing varying versions of this complaint his whole career, and while he understood it conceptually, seemed powerless to change when he needed to. He made his way on a tender ankle from the car through the near-midnight dark to his place.

“Are you okay? What the hell happened to you?” Susan asked the minute he walked in the door, bringing him out of his thoughts. Between the stink of smoke on him, the soot on his face, and the bandaged hands, there was no chance he was getting off without an explanation.

“Nothing to worry about, I’m fine,” he said. “There was a fire.”

“I see there was a fire. Where? What kind of fire?” she demanded.

“I was … looking to do an interview … and a device went off.”

“A device?”

“I believe they call them improvised explosive devices.”

“Jesus, Frank! What’s going on here?”

Her question was straightforward enough, but he knew where his answer would lead the conversation.

“What do you mean?”

They stood there, eyes locked, for a moment-and then she plunged ahead. “I know you’re working the shooting,” she said. “Okay? I know.” The look on his face asked “how?” and she continued. “The other day when you were in the shower I opened your notebook.” Even though it was beside the point, the admission caused him to see red.

“Why are you opening my notebook?” he asked with some heat.

“Why are you pursuing this thing when they told you not to?”

“Because I want to know,” he said, his decibel level rising. “And because no one tells me what to do.”

“That’s great, Frank. And what about us-me and the baby? You have responsibilities now-”

“I was shot at, Susan-”

“I know you were. And it makes me sick that I could have lost you. Which is why I was hoping you’d walk away from it and just leave it alone.”

“Well, I can’t,” he said.

A thought occurred to her and she looked into his face. “You’re doing this because you’re bored.”

“Bored?”

“That’s right. With the grind of the Caro job. With the suit and the BlackBerry and the bosses and the supervision. Maybe with me. Our life …”

“You’ve got to be kidding, Suze,” he said.

“Then tell me it’s not true,” she said.

“Not the part about you.”

“And the rest of it?”

He couldn’t answer. Not in a way that wouldn’t blow things up between them like the firebomb he’d just survived. So he bit down and didn’t say another word for a good minute or two.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice at its quietest register, “but I can’t break off now. I’m close to finding some things out, and then I can hand it off to the police and it’ll be done. Then it’ll be nose to the grindstone. I promise you that.”

It was between them now, like a boulder, but she chose to relent.

“How are your hands? Do they hurt?” she asked, touching him softly on his arm.

“No, they just itch right now,” he said.

“Can I do anything for you?” she offered. He shook his head. “All right then, I’m going to bed.”

“Fine,” he said, “I’ll be in with you in a few minutes.”

The smart move would’ve been to go off to bed with Susan right then, to reassure her that he was as reasonable and responsible a choice in a partner as she could possibly want. But he hadn’t had time to run the partial plate on that Lincoln he’d seen earlier, so he sat down and started in on the Illinois Department of Motor Vehicles database. It was an uphill climb with only half the digits he needed, but he kept trying. He also ached to head out and brace Lenny Barnes, to interview Lori the escort, to learn more. But he held himself back from pushing that course, because if he pumped Lenny Barnes it would invariably track back to Caro and likely cause the video of Potempa’s daughter to go viral, destroying the man. Behr just couldn’t do it to the guy.

At the ninety-minute mark, he had made some minor progress and realized he wasn’t going to get much further. His best guess was that the Illinois-plated Lincoln was registered to the largest rental car company in the world. He could farm out cracking the company’s database to a hacker, but in the end, the car would likely come up rented to an alias. That was if his guess was even right, and it wasn’t one of the dozens of private Illinois citizens who owned the same vehicle.

Behr shut down his computer. His hands had progressed from itching to stinging, and were now throbbing, along with his head. He picked up the phone and called over to the hospital where they’d taken the shooter.

“I’m not supposed to release this, so please don’t share it with anyone,” the duty nurse said after he’d explained who he was, “but since you tried to save the guy, I’m sorry to tell you our burned John Doe expired of shock and burn trauma.”

Behr thanked her and hung up the phone. His night was over.

52

The isolated telephone interface, better known as a tap, was a nifty piece of equipment; just a little box that clipped into the telephone line where it entered the house and allowed him to listen to conversations via his laptop. It was true, no one used landlines much these days, but Dwyer had the frequency sweeper and signal intercept pieces to monitor mobile phone calls as well. The only tricky part was placing the box. In days past it would have been a broad daylight operation with a team that could have posed as utility workers with dummy uniforms and trucks and the like. Now he was solo, and all props kept to a minimum, so he was left with the dead of night. He’d stolen out of a copse of scrappy trees and across a dirt-patch rear lawn in dark clothing and balaclava, the Ceska tucked in his belt, and went to work, hoping that Teague wasn’t on his game and that he didn’t end up with a hot round behind his ear.

Dwyer doubted he would. It had been three years since they’d met at the hotel bar in Dublin during the World Wide Detective Association’s annual convention. Dwyer wasn’t a member of the WWDA, but he often ducked into the city where it held its yearly event. It was as close to marketing as he could get in his profession. Certain members of the organization knew of him and referred him to their fellows who were in need of some off-the-books assistance. Carrolton, a longtime friend from the service, would then get the call and broker the meeting.

Besides, Teague didn’t even know it was Dwyer he’d met. The man had been under the impression he was Carrolton, Dwyer’s representative. There was a Carrolton, of course, but Dwyer had wanted to meet Teague himself while preserving his anonymity. What he’d learned in the sit-down was that the old Fed was big as a half beef, and he liked his whiskey. He’d drained a good four or five Tullamore Dews during the meeting, which had just been a general introductory chat with no specific job discussed. Dwyer’s experience was that that type of drinking, if it didn’t stay the same, generally only went in one direction over time, and that was more, so he imagined the old boy would be pretty hard to wake in the middle of the night. All the same, he had treaded lightly. He’d known too many lawmen’s wives who slept like sparrows and were plenty handy with the family shotgun.

Before long Dwyer had the line tap placed and was back in the car, which he drove around the corner to a