Biker (26 page)

“I'm gonna need to talk to you. You want to come in here or am I coming out there?”

Pratt calculated. The safe house was shot. Bloom would have talked. “Cass and I are leaving now. We'll meet you at Bloom's.”

“Don't—”

Pratt hung up. He dialed the Munz residence.

“Nate Munz.” Munz was up early and expected the same of others.

“Mr. Munz, Josh Pratt. May I speak to your head of security?”

“What's this about?”

Pratt told him about the call. Munz was blasé.

“I appreciate the head's-up, but these boys have got it covered. One of them's ex-Special Forces. Another was an Army Ranger. We're safe as Fort Knox.”

“May I speak to one of them?”

“I'll convey the message. Anything else? Any news on the matter for which you were hired?”

“No sir.”

“Don't call unless you have some news.”

Munz hung up. Pratt went back into the house and up the stairs. Cass was flaked out belly-down on the queen-sized bed in the master bedroom overlooking the front yard. There was a half-smoked joint in a glass ashtray on the nightstand.

“Cass.”

She snorked in exhalation.

Pratt gently shook her shoulder and she turned over with an arm across her forehead. “What is it? Let me sleep.”

“We've got to move. He knows we're here.”

“Who knows?”

“Moon.”

Cass sat up. “What? What did you say? How is that possible?” Her voice carried an edge of hysteria.

“He got to Danny, Danny Bloom. The guy who owns this place.”

“How do you know that?”

“He phoned me.”

“Who, Bloom?”

“No. Moon. I just got off the phone with him.”

Her eyes went wide-angle. She said in a tiny, disbelieving voice, “You talked to Moon?”

“Yeah. If he got to Danny he knows about this place. We've got to leave.”

Cass got up and went into the tiny bathroom. The toilet flushed and Pratt heard running water. She came out a minute later with water dripping from her chin.

“Let's go.”

CHAPTER 49

“Isn't there someplace you can go until this is over?” Pratt asked as they waited at a traffic light in Sauk City on the west side of the Wisconsin River.

“What are you talking about, Pratt? I'm with you. You're stuck with me. I don't have any place to go. Where? Back to the farm? I'm with you.”

Behind the wheel Pratt stifled a sigh. He knew places, but if she wouldn't go she wouldn't go and he couldn't make her. “I have a .38 in my backpack, you want to carry that.”

Cass twisted around in the passenger seat and snagged the kelly green backpack, pulled it onto her lap. She opened the flap and rummaged around, pulling out the steel Python and a box of ammo. Cass filled the five-shot cylinder.

“Don't blow your foot off.”

“I know how to handle guns, Pratt, in case you forgot.”

They hit the Beltline around nine-thirty, joining a thick line of cars circling the city. Pratt took the Nakoma exit. Traffic was stop and go on Laurel. Trader Joe's, Capital City Comics, Gullesarian Carpets, and a Wi-Fi hot spot on every block. Pratt flipped around AM looking for news. Nada. Sirens wailed in the east. They crawled toward the center of town past Camp Randall Stadium.

The Vilas neighborhood, where Bloom had owned a house since student days, consisted of narrow two-way streets and mostly older one-family dwellings, ivy-covered with putting green lawns. The police had set up a barrier on Franklin Street and were turning back all traffic. Pratt found a parking spot in front of a four-unit apartment block and snugged the big Ram to the curb.

“Better leave the hardware,” Pratt said, taking the Ruger from his waist and tucking it under the seat. Cass did the same with the revolver. They got out, locked the truck and walked south toward Lake Wingra. The cop hailed them from across the street.

“Hey, people, nobody in here but residents. I'm going to have to see some ID.”

Pratt veered toward the cop, pulling out his wallet and producing his driver's license and private investigator's license. The cop was young with the face of a choirboy.

“I'm Josh Pratt, officer. I alerted the police this morning to the situation at Daniel Bloom's house. I'm meeting Detective Calloway there.”

The cop examined Josh's ID and pulled the rectangular transceiver from his shoulder. He spoke into the transceiver. Pratt looked around. He'd always liked the neighborhood with its canopy of oak, elm and alder. A quarter mile across the hill an elephant trumpeted at the zoo. Children squealed in delight. A seal barked.

The cop replaced his transceiver. “You know where it is?”

Pratt nodded. The cop waved them through.

Lafayette Street backed up to zoo property. The backyard ended in a ten-foot bluff surmounted by a six-foot hurricane fence. There were police cars double-parked in the street and an ambulance in the driveway. Calloway came out on the front porch to greet them.

Pratt introduced Cass to Calloway.

“Ma'am, I'll ask you to remain on the porch.” He handed Pratt two plastic baggies and rubber bands to slip over his shoes. Pratt sat on Bloom's glider and put them on.

They stepped inside the foyer. It was a comfortable old family home from the thirties, two-story brick. Just inside the entrance stairs went up to the second floor. The living room was to the left and the kitchen in the back. Calloway led the way up the stairs. They emerged on a landing overlooking the living room, a short hall leading to two bedrooms and a bath.

“Don't go inside, just look from the door.”

Pratt moved to the entrance to the master bedroom. A medical examiner stood between Pratt and the bed, momentarily obscuring the view. Red. Everywhere red. You wouldn't think a human body contained that much blood. The sheets were soaked.

Crimson pools of blood lay at the foot of the bed. The ME stepped aside.

Bloom lay spread-eagled, arms and legs tied to his four-poster. The skin was missing from his neck to his thighs. Strips of waxen skin lay on the floor curling like fax paper. The room smelled like an abattoir. Pratt's stomach flip-flopped.

“Moon flayed him. He couldn't cry out because he was gagged. You and your friend are going into protective custody.”

If not for Bloom, Pratt would still be in Waupun. Bloom got Pratt's record cleared, gave him a job serving process, encouraged him to go to school and get his private investigator's license. Paid the fucking tuition.

Pratt rubbed his eyes hard.

He stared at the chunk of raw meat on the bed. Calloway gently positioned himself in the doorway, edging Pratt out.

“I'm sorry, Pratt. I know he was a friend of yours. Did he have any family?”

Pratt was in shock. Bloom's corpse looked like the skinned cougar. Moon did this deliberately. Moon was in his head.

“Hey!”

A brat-sized finger poked Pratt's chest.

“I'm sorry, what?”

“Did Bloom have any family?”

“His mother in Evanston, and a brother in Los Angeles. I think he's an entertainment lawyer. You'll find their contact information in his red date book in the downstairs office.”

“Come on.” Calloway pushed Pratt ahead of him like a bulldozer herding a puppy. Pratt led the way down the steps, around the corner to Bloom's home office with a view of the zoo, one wall entirely covered in bookcases and books. The red datebook lay on the polished maple wood desk. They stood on a Persian carpet that covered most of the hardwood floor.

“Anything look different to you?” Calloway said.

Pratt looked around. Nothing seemed out of place. Pratt walked over to a framed Badger poster and tilted it away from the wall. Bloom's wall safe was closed. “Hunh-uh. But I wouldn't bet on it. This guy's a fucking ninja.”

Calloway pulled out a mini-recorder and a little black pad. He sat in the leather sofa, set the recorder on the coffee table and gestured for Pratt to sit. He turned on the recorder. “Tell me about your phone conversation. Tell me exactly what was said, as best you remember.”

Pratt recounted the conversation. “Cass and Ginger both say that payback is a religion with this guy. He's like Captain Ahab. He'd rather go down with the whale then let a slight pass unanswered.”

“At risk of losing his life?”

Pratt shrugged. “He's insane. Mean crazy evil insane.”

The boy had a collar around his neck
.

“All right,” Calloway said. “I'm assigning Officers Higgins and Kellogg to you and Rubio. They should be here shortly.”

“What about Ginger Munz?”

“That's Lake County's problem but I understand they have private security.”

The front door opened. Ward Barlin stepped into the foyer. “Gentlemen.” He wore plastic baggies over his shoes.

“The body's upstairs,” Calloway said. “We'll wait down here if you don't mind.”

Barlin tramped up the creaky stairs.

“I have to visit the Munzes,” Pratt said.

“If you leave the city my men can't go with you. I'd rather you stayed here.”

“I understand that, but my first duty is to my client. We'll be fine. Flintstone Security's top of the line.”

“I can't stop you.”

“I'll wait for Barlin. Then we're out of here.”

CHAPTER 50

Barlin came down the stairs ashen-faced. He sucked it up and went into the office. “We've put Moon on the Homeland Security Watch List and the FBI Most Wanted. I learned this morning that remains found on his ranch match those of DEA Agent Robert Fisker who disappeared in South Dakota on April 19, 2006. We identified him through dental records. Warrants have been issued for murder one, murder of a federal agent, as well as all the drug stuff.”

“What about the other?” Pratt said.

“Not a clue.”

Barlin took out a small pad and a tape recorder, which he set down next to Calloway's and turned on. “You spoke to Moon?”

Pratt told Barlin what he'd told Calloway. Pratt excused himself. He used the downstairs half bath. Cass was sitting in the swing chair on the porch smoking a cigarette. Two kids with skateboards gawked from across the street.

Cass stopped rocking when Pratt appeared.

“Call Ginger. Tell her we're on our way and that we'd like to stay the night if that's all right with them.”

“What? Why?” Cass stubbed out her butt, field-stripped it and tossed the parts into the hedge. She got to her feet.

“'Cause Flintstone Security is the best and we need to sleep. We can figure out where to go from there in the morning. Will that be a problem?”

Cass shook her head. “They've got plenty of room. Nate'll bitch but he'll put up with it.”

They walked hand in hand back down the block toward Cass' truck. The cop car was gone and normal traffic had resumed. Cass used her remote to unlock the truck with a flash and a beep.

“Is Nate a pompous ass?” Pratt said, getting in the passenger side.

Cass got in and fastened her seat belt. “You noticed. He comes from a very proper Whitefish Bay Protestant family. His father was a lawyer and then a state Supreme Court justice and his mother is one of those high falutin' society types who's always throwing charity balls. The first time he brought Ginger home, his mother about had a cow. I mean, a biker chick? Nate's old man called him in for a talk and that's when Nate's old man found out Nate was a chip off the old block.

“Nate stuck to his guns. He knew a diamond in the rough when he saw one and he stuck up for Ginger, tats and all. The more his family saw of her the more they realized that she was a woman of real quality. Everybody except Agnes. The old bitch still has a hair up her ass.”

“How'd they meet?”

Cass smirked. “I'll say this for Ginger—once she made up her mind to improve her situation, she went about it in a real workmanlike fashion. Cleaned up real nice and got herself a job at Leonard's, fanciest restaurant in Lake Geneva.” Gripping the wheel, Cass extended the pinkie on her right hand. “Carriage trade, don'tcha know. That's where she met Nate. It's a target rich environment for young ladies of a certain bent.”

Cass worked her way through the Vilas neighborhood to Fish Hatchery Road. “Why don't you dial Ginger and give me the phone.”

“Don't crash.”

When the phone began to ring he handed it to Cass. They pulled up to a red light at the Beltline.

“Nate? It's Cass Rubio. I've got Josh Pratt here and we're coming out. May I speak to Ginger?”

Cass listened. She rolled her eyes. “Nate, it's important.”

She placed the phone face down on her thigh. “He's getting Ginger. On the plus side he's very protective.” She picked the phone up. The light changed and they drove around the clover leaf onto the Beltline heading east.

“Hi babe,” Cass said. She explained what they were doing. There was some back and forth.

“Okay, see ya.”

Cass closed the phone and handed it to Pratt. “All systems are go. Nate has a lot of respect for you. I think he envies you.”

“I envy him. Who knows how I might have turned out if I hadn't wasted most of my life.”

“Don't badmouth yourself, Pratt. You're a good man. You saved your neighbor's dogs.”

Pratt grunted. His whole life had been unsettled except for that stretch in Waupun. He hated unsettled.

He'd bungled the job. If he hadn't bungled the job, Moon would not now be creeping after them.

Where did he fuck up? He began at the beginning, at Cass' farm, and walked it through.

The image of the dog boy lurked in the shadows at the edge of consciousness, a rabid predator threatening to seize him in its iron jaws and drag him into the singularity. The emotional black hole from which there was no retreat and only one way out.