'No,' I replied. 'I'm a detective. I'm working on the case.'
'Hold the line. I'll see if I can put his sister on.'
'This is Detective Beaumont. How's it going?' I asked Linda Decker a few moments later when she came on the line.
When she answered, her voice was strained and weary. 'No change,' she said. 'He's no better and no worse.'
'How are you doing?'
'I'm plugging,' she answered, but it sounded like she was hanging by a thread.
I wanted to tell her about Don Kaplan. I knew how much she needed to hear some news, how much of a boost it would give her to know something was going on, but I kept my mouth shut. Kramer was right. We couldn't afford to let word leak out to any of the other conspirators before we were ready with our fistful of arrest warrants.
'I'll stop by and check on you tomorrow morning,' I said.
She hung up. Long after I heard the dial tone I continued to stand there, holding the receiver in my hand, staring at it.
'What's the matter?' Ames called from the kitchen, where he was putting away leftovers.
Slowly I put down the phone. 'I didn't tell her about Martinson, Kaplan, any of it.'
'Of course not,' Ames said. 'Especially when you're operating under strict orders to act like a team player.'
'But what if the team's screwing up?'
'That's not your problem,' Ames said.
'The hell it isn't!'
Slamming my half-finished drink onto the table, I slipped on my holster and headed for the door to retrieve my shoes.
'What do you think you're doing now, Beau?' Ames demanded.
I stopped long enough to try dialing Martin Green's number. There was still no answer. 'I'm going to Renton,' I said.
'Renton,' he echoed. 'Why Renton?'
'Because there's somebody down there who may know something about all this and I'm going to ask him.'
'You shouldn't be driving,' Ames said. 'You've had too much to drink.'
'You drive me then, because I'm going, and I'm going now!'
During the twenty-minute drive to Renton we spoke only when it was absolutely necessary. I gave Ames terse directions, telling him to turn here or turn there. I was steamed, but I knew Ames was right that night, the same as he had been the night before. I was in no condition to drive and was surprised by how quickly the booze had snuck up on me. My mind was fuzzy as we started out, but it cleared as we drove, as I concentrated all my physical and mental energies on what had to happen.
When we pulled into the yard of Katherine Tyree's house, the television set was going in the living room. Ames got out of the Porsche and followed me into the yard.
Fred McKinney answered the door and recognized me as soon as he opened it. He didn't seem startled to see me. 'We heard,' he said.
'Heard what?' I was almost afraid of his answer, afraid someone had leaked the Don Kaplan story to the press.
'About Linda's mother,' he answered. 'It's a crying shame.'
I breathed a sigh of relief. 'And did you hear about her brother?' I asked. 'He's in the hospital. Probably won't make it.'
Fred nodded bleakly. 'Will it ever stop?'
'That depends,' I said.
'On what?'
'On whether or not someone finally has balls enough to come forward and say what's really going on.'
'Who is it?' Katherine Tyree called from in front of the television set.
'It's one of those detectives,' Fred answered. He looked at me, his eyes narrowing. 'What do you want with us?'
'Do you have balls enough, Fred?'
'What do you mean?'
'You told me you came up here as a boomer. I want you to answer just one question. How did you manage to get to work on Columbia Center?'
McKinney dropped his gaze. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had him. 'I bought my way on,' he said quietly.
'How?'
'Five grand. Cash. I took out a second mortgage on my boat. I paid the second off when Logan bought Boomer from me.'
'So you bribed your way onto that job?'
McKinney nodded.
'Who to?' I asked.
'You mean who'd I give the money to?'
'That's right.'
'The guy who used to be in charge of book transfers.'
'Who's that?'
'His name is Harry Campbell.'
'Harry Campbell. Harry Campbell. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it right off. 'You say he used to be in charge?'
McKinney shrugged. 'That's right. When Green came in he kicked him back in the gang.'
'Do you know where I can find him?'
'The last I knew, he was working in the raising gang down on Masters Plaza.'
And suddenly I realized why Harry Campbell's name was so familiar. I had seen it before. In the newspaper. He was Angie Dixon's partner. The one who had sent her after the welding lead.
Leaving a puzzled Fred McKinney standing in the doorway, I wheeled and charged back toward the car with Ames right behind me.
'Where to now?' Ames asked.
'Back home.'
As soon as we were back in my apartment, I dialed Martin Green's number for the last time. His mother answered. 'I think he's down on the jogging track,' she told me. 'He said he couldn't sleep and that he was going for a walk.'
I found Martin Green smoking a cigarette on a bench at the far end of the building. It was almost eleven. The rain had stopped. The gardens next to the jogging track smelled fresh and moist. Green was sitting with his back to me, looking at the same cityscape Don Kaplan had been looking at when I first met him at Martin Green's party.
When he heard footsteps approaching, he turned and glanced at me over his shoulder. 'Did you get him?' he asked.
'He's in the hospital. They're removing his spleen.'
'I never thought about Kaplan being involved,' Green said. 'It irks me that he suckered me that badly.' Then he was quiet, taking a long drag on his cigarette.
'When do you go to Victoria?' I asked.
'Chrysler Air was all booked up. I go first thing tomorrow morning.'
There was another brief silence between us. 'Aren't you going to hassle me about not pressing charges?' Green asked after a pause. 'Your friends were ripped about it.'
'I don't give a damn what you do with Martinson,' I said.
'You don't?' Green sounded surprised.
