I turned to Burrell. “Can we search all of them?”
“We’ll have to,” she said.
“There’s another problem,” Smith said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Many of these hotels are welfare houses and crack dens, and are dangerous places,” Smith said. “We’re going to need a small army to properly search them.”
“Define small army,” I said.
“If we’re going to conduct the searches at the same time, which is the best way to go, we’ll need a few hundred people at least,” Smith replied.
“Do we have that kind of manpower available?” I asked Burrell.
“Let me find out,” she said.
While Burrell made some calls, I talked with the detectives from my old unit. I’d had little contact with them since leaving the force. The case that had cost me my job had cast a dark cloud over Missing Persons, and I hadn’t wanted to hurt their careers by staying in touch. But I still cared about them, and always would.
Burrell hung up the phone and came over to where we stood.
“No go,” she said. “Every available cop is searching for Jed Grimes.”
“What about FBI or FDLE agents?” I asked.
“They’re looking for Jed, too,” she said.
It was rare for three different law enforcement agencies to search for a single suspect, and I suspected that Special Agent Whitley had convinced them that Jed was responsible for the bodies in the landfill. Cops worked on priorities, and right now, finding Sampson wasn’t as urgent as finding his father.
Except to me.
I studied the map. The two men who were holding Sampson hostage were known drug enforcers. That made it likely that they would use a crack den as their hideout.
“Which of these hotels are crack dens?” I asked.
Smith pointed out the known crack dens. Lonnie Lowman had said that Sampson was being kept in Fort Lauderdale, so I removed all the thumbtacks on the map except for the known crack dens in Broward. There were seven.
“Sampson is being held in one of these locations,” I said.
“Are you sure?” Burrell asked.
“Positive. The eight of us should be able to find him.”
Burrell looked at the map, then shook her head. “We need to know which hotel Sampson is in. If we raid one, and he’s not there, the drug dealers will get on their cell phones, and alert their friends. We could end up getting ambushed if we’re not careful.”
“What are you suggesting?” I asked.
“We wait until we have more people, then raid them all at once,” Burrell said.
“How long will that be?”
“I wish I could tell you, Jack.”
I tried to imagine Sampson Grimes living in a crack den. The kid was a survivor, but I didn’t see him lasting forever in an environment like that. No one could.
I kicked a trash can across the War Room on my way out the door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
B ack when I was a cop, I’d often go home after a bad day, and lie on the couch in the living room with my head resting in my wife’s lap. Sometimes I’d listen to music on the stereo, but more often than not, I’d let the silence of my house calm me, while Rose gently ran her fingers through my hair.
These days, I didn’t have a house to escape to, and Rose was living three hundred miles away, so I settled for sitting at the Sunset’s bar with the Seven Dwarfs. My mind had latched onto the image of Sampson Grimes being held in a crack den, and wouldn’t let it go. I crushed my empty beer can against the bar.
“You doing okay?” Sonny asked.
“I’ve had better days,” I admitted.
“Can I do anything?”
“Tell me some good news.”
“A new guy came in last night and started buying drinks, and became everyone’s new best friend. I think he’s going to become a regular.”
The Sunset operated on a shoestring budget, which was largely paid for by the drinking habits of the Seven Dwarfs. A new regular was a cause for celebration.
“Is he suitable for Dwarfdom?” I asked.
“I think so. Check him out. He’s over there on the last stool.”
I followed Sonny’s eyes down the bar. Sitting on the last stool was an old, unshaven man with watery eyes and a drinker’s nose, what locals call a salty dog. He wore a long-sleeved denim shirt with the right sleeve tucked into his pants pocket.
“No right arm?” I asked.
“Says he lost it in a car accident,” Sonny said. “His name is Mitch, but he goes by Lefty. He’s a good guy, until he starts singing. Then he gets pretty unbearable.”
I ordered dinner. Sonny served me a bowl of the house chili, and I took a table overlooking the ocean, and ate while watching waves slap the pilings that held up the bar. In their pale reflection I could see the daylight slowly fading, and the blackness of night meet the blackness that lay below. Looking into the water’s depths, I felt a twisting in my gut. For every hour that passed, the chances of Sampson being rescued grew slimmer. I couldn’t just sit here and wait for the police to act. I had to do something.
I removed the photo that I’d printed off Tim Small’s computer, and laid it on the table. In the photo, Sampson was sitting in a dog crate. It occurred to me that of all the child abduction cases I’d worked, I couldn’t remember anyone putting a kid in a dog crate. I wondered what Sampson had done to make the men holding him do this.
An ugly sound broke my concentration. Turning around in my chair, I saw Lefty standing in the middle of the room, belting out a drunken ballad. He sounded like a cat being strangled.
“Hey,” I called out.
Lefty stopped singing. “What’s your problem, mate?”
“I think it’s your voice,” I said.
“Don’t you like music?”
“That’s not music.”
The Dwarfs hooted and hollered. Lefty glared at me.
“Can you do better?” Lefty asked.
I couldn’t sing worth a damn. But if I didn’t respond, Lefty was going to think he’d won, and go back to torturing me. Then I remembered the jukebox sitting in the trunk of my car.
“Give me a minute, and I’ll let you hear what real music sounds like,” I said.
“Sure you will,” Lefty said.
With Sonny’s help, I mounted the jukebox onto a wall in the bar, and plugged it in. As colored neon flowed magically through the glass tubes, the Dwarfs crowded around me, oohing and awwing like a bunch of dumbstruck kids.
“Play something,” one of them said.
The playlist contained dozens of classic rock ’n’ roll songs. I dropped a dime into the machine, and Elvis Presley’s “Don’t Be Cruel” filled the bar. The Dwarfs danced in place and clapped their hands. I returned to my chair, and Sonny served me a cold beer.
“You made Lefty’s day,” Sonny said.