“Chicago. To my parents, I think,” she said.
“What about the doctor, and the delivery?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “There are doctors there. That’s two weeks from now anyway-”
“If he waits-”
“If he waits. I have to worry about today. About tomorrow.”
Behr just shook his head at what had fallen, one domino at a time, and how they had ended up here.
“I need you to drive me back to my car. It’s at the doctor’s office.”
65
It was an evening of what Dwyer called “hopeless sits.” They’d been out to Kolodnik’s residence, gotten a vantage, and found the massive home darkened. They sat silently in the woods for an hour, hoping someone- Kolodnik himself even-might arrive. Dwyer had been following news of the man and it seemed he was off for the country’s capital for his coronation, or whatever the hell it was called. But one never knew when a subject’s plans changed or when the news cunts might be wrong. Night stalking like this always reminded him of diving, the limited yet purposeful actions, the effort to preserve stillness and quiet. After another few minutes in their positions, it was time to play the percentages, and Dwyer tapped Rickie on the leg and signaled: back to the car.
Then they’d made their way downtown to Saunders’s building again. They’d called and gone up and knocked, but there was no answer. They returned to the car to wait for a bit, though Dwyer had all but changed his mind and accepted that the man must have left town with his boss. While they sat, Dwyer used the laptop to book them back out of town the following afternoon, Rickie from Indianapolis, and he from Chicago. Once they had staked out Teague’s intended morning meeting and seen what it was all about and had visited Gantcher one last time to collect the money, their business would be done. Then, since the element of surprise had been ceded, they could go straight on and hard at this Behr, clean that up, and head directly for the airport. When he’d finished the bookings and closed the laptop, Dwyer turned to Rickie, who had been unusually quiet.
“Brief me on your action of this afternoon,” Dwyer said.
“I don’t really feel like it,” Rickie said.
“I don’t really give a fuck how you feel,” Dwyer said. “Do it.” A harsh order could be comforting to a certain kind of lad.
Rickie nodded. “I’d just gotten there, and I mean literally just inside the door, when I heard the car and looked out. I saw her parked at the curb and coming to the door with her hands full of plastic shopping bags and her keys around her knuckle. So I timed it with her walking up the steps, opened the door, and yanked her in. Pretty certain no one outside could have seen it.”
“Good. Then?” Dwyer asked.
“Then she screamed and I closed off her mouth, and put her to the floor and started an interrogation. Bad bit o’ business she was knocked up, but I figured it would make her talk quick,” Rickie said.
“ ‘Where’s your husband?’ I asked her. ‘He’s at work,’ she said. So I says, ‘What’s he working on? When’s he home?’ And, believe me, she was in no position to lie.” Rickie paused and made a hatchet-against-neck gesture.
“Fucking Ruthless,” Dwyer said.
“That’s me,” Rickie said. “She keeps on with the ‘I don’t know,’ and adds ‘His shift’s over at six.’ I thinks, ‘Six is too bloody long to wait ’round.’ We go back and forth another few times-‘Where’s your husband? Where’s Frank? What does he know?’ ‘I have no idea,’ she says. ‘No idea.’ The cheeky little gash wouldn’t give him up. Then one last time, ‘Where’s your husband?’ And she says, ‘He’s a cop, you can’t do this.’ But by then she’d seen me, so I had to do it, o’ course.”
“Cop?” Dwyer said.
“Yeah. Cop, private cop-what’s the difference?”
“What’d she look like?” Dwyer said, suddenly troubled.
“Good looking. Blond and preggers, like you told me. Young, ya know,” Rickie said.
“How young?”
“Late twenties. ’Bout five foot and a few-”
“You mean near six foot,” Dwyer said.
“No, she was a little thing. Come on, man, you’re starting to make me feel bad.”
Dwyer turned to him. “You sure of who you grabbed over there?”
“I was a go on the guy and a pregnant blond slag, Waddy, I wasn’t checking IDs. How many of ’em they have running around here?” Rickie said.
Dwyer shrugged. “May have been a wrong woman. Friend or neighbor.”
“Fuck me backward,” Rickie said with force, and then the big kid’s shoulders sagged.
“Shame about the wee one …” Dwyer said.
“Yah,” Rickie agreed.
“Well, don’t get down about it,” Dwyer said. “It’ll be over tomorrow. That fancy bastard will either pay, or he’ll pay, and we’ll be done.”
They sat there in a long moment of contemplation and then Dwyer put the car in gear.
66
Behr dropped Susan off at her car in her doctor’s parking lot and stood there and watched everything he loved drive off into the night. He’d been unable to convince her to do otherwise. He considered putting a fist through his passenger side window, but suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired. He staggered around the car and got in and drove back across the city. The downtown area felt deserted, as if everyone had decided en masse to go inside or otherwise hide.
He passed by the statehouse, big and brilliant white and lit up, the place where laws where supposed to be tended and fairness and justice meted out. Instead, it seemed to be the central nest of rot. It needed some brighter lights, Behr thought, or, better yet, turn them out altogether. He braked at North Capitol for the only other vehicle in sight-a white carriage pulled by a dappled draft horse, head nodding at each step with the effort. Behr listened to the clopping of hooves on pavement along with the rattle of wooden wheels. A man in a fleece vest and a top hat steered by and touched his brim in greeting. Behr watched for a long time and then drove on.
Before long he reached Crows Nest, one of the ritziest enclaves of high-dollar houses in the area, which Lowell Gantcher called home. He was running on fumes, but needed to get to the man. Behr drove down Sunset Lane, looking at the impressive mansions, checking the gold numbers affixed to mailboxes near wrought iron gates and wooded driveways. He spotted Gantcher’s home, regal and imposing, if not a little newly built looking next to some of its ivy-covered companions. The designer had been conscientious, though, because a ruff of thick old growth trees that circled the rear of the house had been left standing. Behr slowed at one end of a large U-shaped driveway. The news was bad once again. There were three vehicles parked in front of the house and all the lights were on. A pair of strapping men stood outside the front door, and through a large window Behr could see about three or four more men moving about in shirtsleeves and what looked like handgun shoulder rigs. It was about this time the guys at the door started noticing him and were moving down the driveway toward him, so Behr took the opportunity to motor on.
When he got home, his place smelled of pine cleaning fluid, a chilling reminder of what had happened earlier, and it was too quiet, as if the walls were mourning the deaths and departures of the expectant mothers. Behr pulled the cork on a bottle of Harlan Estate and didn’t wait before filling a Ball jar and drinking it down quickly. He sat there, still and dumb, and watched the wine go down past the label and finally to the bottom and it wasn’t enough. He pushed himself up and got a gallon slugger of Wild Turkey, the same one he and Decker had put the dent in so recently.
