I could see him looking up at the robot, maybe hoping that it would give him an easier time than I was. I supposed I had roughed him up enough. Clearly he was afraid that he might be the next target of the unknown cop killer. “All right, Stern, where have you been these past few days? And I think the question I’ll ask after that is obvious.”
He took a few seconds before accepting that he was caught. His face went pale, and now he looked not so much frightened as angry at himself. “I was running a drop-off out of town, on the mainland. I have a few buyers out there, and I decided a week or so ago to move stock into a warehouse in Brooklyn that I just paid off. But the warehouse was raided days ago, so I thought it best to liquidate before the evidence caught up with me. Every place I’ve been over the past three days was either a diner or a buyer’s location. I haven’t been anywhere near the Lower City since Saturday. I have a few Automatic friends around the city who relay messages to me through the phone lines, so it didn’t take long to get word that my old buds were history.”
“Fine. Next question: Where’d you get parts like these? You just pick them up off up the street, or off the machines themselves?”
“These are quality goods from some of the best underground, all-American Automatic factories in the state. I’ve run my own business for more than five years. Me and a few boys used to run the operation together, but I decided to leave before things got hairy, like they have now.”
“Who ran it with you?”
“Other guys in my squad. Ewing and Barton, they were in on it, too. We all were. Jaeger went down back in ’22, and because of him, we had a lot of assets. We hid some of the evidence and started the racketeering business. Just simple drops here and there at first. Then after a few years, it picked up. After Jaeger got out of the slammer in ’26, I set up a little gig for us to send him a few parts now and then, my own way of apologizing. I never told the other guys that I gave him a discount, but I suppose they always knew. They had him in their sights for a while. I never knew why. But when they probed me for his information a few weeks ago, I knew something was up.”
“How about the other two characters in your squad? Davin Morris and Cory Belik?”
“They took it upon themselves to run the show after I headed out on my own back in ’27. Barton and Ewing were the foot soldiers for their smuggling ring.”
“Would Belik or Morris ever decide to put bullets in their friends to keep those profits for themselves? After all, there isn’t much honour among thieves.”
“If I can be frank with you about this whole conundrum, I seriously doubt they had anything to do with this. They barely had the courage to pull a gun out on a hardened criminal. I can’t imagine them pointing even a toy gun at me or any of their partners.”
“That remains to be seen. After all, people change, don’t they?” I heard water splashing onto the floor and turned to shut off the tap. I knelt down and helped Stern up, setting him onto the chair once again.
“Not a chance. Those boys can’t change. It’s just who they are. It was always my job to deal with the gun-toting Brunos we hired. For all we know, Barton and Ewing could’ve been offed by the Iron Hands.”
The Iron Hands. So they were possibly a part of this. And owning a smuggling business didn’t exactly increase Stern’s life expectancy.
It also explained why he was so eager to assist me on this little issue.
I stood and left Stern there, giving him time to stew in his own failure as I approached Allen. “Ideas?”
“Stern couldn’t have killed them, Detective Roche. He has the tools to do short work on repairing and refitting Automatic parts, but he has no way to Red-eye or reprogram Automatics. I believe we may have gotten lucky finding him, though, as the other two would have been impossible to find. I congratulate you on your intuition.”
“Yeah, intuition … thanks, Allen. What about the others?”
“There is a possibility that the other two, Belik and Morris, might have instructed the Red-eyes to kill Ewing and Barton. On the other hand, these Iron Hands could have done it. It’s impossible to deduce which scenario was the one that transpired until we can question either Belik or Morris … like actual officers. I’d rather we not terrorize them like you did here.”
“Oh, you know me so well already.” I gave a grim smile as I turned. I knew I shouldn’t rely on her to help me find people, but she had eyes everywhere. I pulled Stern out of the chair and took the cuffs off, putting them away as he looked at me in shock. He seemed surprised that I’d even let him stand up. “You got any Automatics on your payroll?” I asked.
“Me? No. Morris and Belik, they have a few. Some are Blue-eyes, but we used to nab cop-bots back when they started turning them Green — give them a fresh coat of paint and use them as disposable messengers.”
“They have any Swingers? Red-eyes? Picked up after ’27, when you left?”
“M-maybe? I’m not sure.”
He was looking startled again. I realized that I had been walking closer to him, backing him up against the wall.
“I’ll ask them myself. I’m pretty damn sure that one of them dragged out an old cop-bot, reprogrammed it, and sent it to do the deed.”
“H-how are you so sure?”
“I knew the Green-eye they rewired personally,” I said through clenched teeth. Stern looked down, alerting me to the fact I was shoving my gun
