Chasing the Dime (41 page)

‘They never made the tires.'

‘They never made the tires because if they did that, they wouldn't make very many tires anymore, would they? Planned obsolescence, Einstein. It's what makes the world go around. Let me ask you this: How do you know that story is urban legend? I mean, how do you really know it didn't happen?'

Pierce nodded before he spoke.

‘They'll bury Proteus. They won't license it. It will never see the light of day.'

‘Do you know that the pharmaceutical industry invents and studies and tests several hundred different new drugs for every one that eventually comes to market after the FDA is through with it? Do you understand the costs involved? It's a big, huge machine, Henry, and it's got energy and momentum and you can't stop it. They won't let you.'

Zeller raised a hand and made some kind of gesture and then dropped it to the armrest of the chair. They both sat silently for a long moment.

‘They are going to come to me and take away Proteus.'

‘They're going to pay you for it. Pay you well. The offer's actually already on the table.'

Pierce sprang forward in his seat, the pose of calm completely disappearing. He looked over at Zeller, who was not looking back.

‘Are you telling me it's Goddard? Goddard is behind this?'

‘Goddard is only the emissary. The front. He calls you tomorrow and you make the deal with him. You give him Proteus. You don't need to know who is behind him. You don't ever need to know that.'

‘He takes Proteus from me, then holds ten percent of the company and sits as chairman of my fucking board.'

‘I think they want to make sure you steer clear of internal medicine. They also know a good investment when they see it. They know you're the leader in the field.'

Zeller smiled, as if he were throwing in a bonus. Pierce thought about Goddard and the things he had said — confided — during the celebration. About his daughter. About the future. He wondered if it was all sham. If it had all been part of the play.

‘What if I don't do it?' Pierce asked. ‘What if I go ahead and file the patent and say fuck you to them?'

‘Then you won't get the chance to file it. And you won't get the chance to work another day in this lab.'

‘What are they going to do, kill me?'

‘If they have to, but they don't have to. Come on, man, you know what's going on. The cops are this close behind you.'

Zeller held up his right hand, his thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

‘Lilly Quinlan,' Pierce said.

Zeller nodded.

‘Darling Lilly. They're missing only one thing. They find it and you're history. You do as you're told here and that will all go away. I guarantee it will be taken care of.'

‘I didn't do it and you know it.'

‘Doesn't matter. They find the body and it points to you, then it doesn't matter.'

‘So Lilly is dead.'

Zeller nodded.

‘Oh, yeah. She's dead.'

There was a smile in his voice, if not on his face, when he said it. Pierce looked down. He put his elbows on his knees and put his face in his hands.

‘All because of me. Because of Proteus.'

He didn't move for a long moment. He knew if Zeller were to make the ultimate mistake, he would do it now.

‘Actually ...'

Nothing. That was it. Pierce looked up from his hands.

‘Actually what?'

‘I was going to say, Don't beat yourself up too badly about that. Lilly ... you could say circumstances dictated she be folded into the plan.'

‘I don't — what do you mean?'

‘I mean, look at it this way. Lilly would be dead whether you were involved in this or not. But she's dead. And we used all available resources to make this deal happen.'

Pierce stood up and walked to the back of the lab where Zeller sat, his legs still up on the probe station table.

‘You son of a bitch. You know all about it. You killed her, didn't you? You killed her and set the frame around me.'

Zeller didn't move an inch. But his eyes rose to Pierce's and then a strange look came over his face. The change was subtle but Pierce could see it. It was the incongruous mixture of pride and embarrassment and self-loathing.

‘I had known Lilly since she first came to L.A. You could say she was part of my compensation package for L.A. Darlings. And by the way, don't insult me with that thing about me doing the work for Wentz. Wentz works for me, you understand? They all do.'

Pierce nodded to himself. He should have expected as much. Zeller continued unbidden.

‘Man, she was a choice piece. Darling Lilly. But she got to know too much about me. You don't want anyone to know all your secrets. At least not those kinds of secrets. So I worked her into the assignment I had. The Proteus Plan, I called it.'

His eyes were far off now. He was watching a movie inside and liking it. He and Lilly, maybe the final meeting in the townhouse off Speedway. It prompted Pierce to draw another line from
Miller's Crossing
.

‘Nobody knows nobody, not that well.'

‘
Miller
'
s Crossing
,' Zeller said, smiling and nodding. ‘I guess that means you got my “what's the rumpus” coming in.'

‘Yeah, I got it, Cody.'

After a pause he continued quietly.

‘You killed her, didn't you? You did it and then you were ready, if necessary, to put it on me.'

Zeller didn't answer at first. Pierce studied his face and could tell he wanted to talk, wanted to tell him every detail of his ingenious plan. It was in his nature to tell it. But common sense told him not to, told him to be safe.

‘Put it this way. Lilly served her purpose for me. And then she served her purpose for me again. I'll never admit more than that.'

‘It's all right. You just did.'

Pierce hadn't said it. It was a new voice. Both men turned at the sound and saw Detective Robert Renner standing in the open doorway of the wire lab. He held a gun loosely down at his side.

‘Who the fuck are you?' Zeller asked as he dropped his feet to the floor and came up out of the chair.

‘LAPD,' Renner said.

He moved from the lab doorway toward Zeller, reaching behind his back as he came.

‘You're under arrest for murder. That's for starters. We'll worry about the rest later.'

His hand came back around his body, holding a pair of handcuffs. He moved in on Zeller, twirled him around and bent him over the probe station. He holstered his weapon and then pulled Zeller's arms behind his back and started cuffing them. He worked with the professionalism and practice of a man who had done it a thousand times or more. In the process he pushed Zeller's face into the hard steel cowling of the microscope.

‘Careful,' Pierce said. ‘That microscope is very sensitive — and expensive. You might damage it.' ‘Wouldn't want to do that,' Renner said. ‘Not with all these important discoveries you're making in here.'

He then glanced over at Pierce with what probably passed for him as a full-fledged smile.

Zeller didn't say anything as he was being cuffed. He just turned and stared at Pierce, who threw it right back at him. Once Zeller was secured Renner started searching him. When the detective patted down the right leg he came up with something. He lifted the cuff of Zeller's pants and pulled a small pistol out of an ankle holster. He displayed it to Pierce, then put it down on the table.

‘That's for protection,' Zeller protested. ‘This whole thing is bullshit. It will never stand up.'

‘Is that right?' Renner asked good-naturedly.

He pulled Zeller back off the table and then roughly sat him back down in the seat.

‘Stay there.'

He stepped over to Pierce and nodded toward his chest.

‘Open up.'

Pierce started to unbutton his shirt, revealing the battery pack and transmitter taped across his left ribs.

‘How did it come through?' he asked.

‘Perfect. Got every word.'

‘You motherfucker,' Zeller said with a steel-hard hiss in his voice.

Pierce looked at him.

‘Oh, so I'm the motherfucker for wearing a wire. You set me up for a murder and
you
get upset that I'm wired. Cody, you can go — '

‘All right, all right, break it up,' Renner said. ‘Both of you shut it down.'

As if to accentuate the point, he tore the tape securing the audio surveillance equipment off Pierce's body with one hard tug. Pierce almost let out a scream but was able to reduce it to a ‘goddamn, that hurt!'

‘Good. Sit down over there, Mr. Righteous. It will start to feel better in a minute.'

He turned back to Zeller.

‘Before I take you out of here, I'm going to read you your rights. So shut up and listen.'

He reached into one of the inside pockets of his bomber jacket and pulled out a stack of cards. He shuffled through them, finding the scramble card Pierce had given him earlier. He reached over and handed it to Pierce.

‘You lead the way. Open the door.'

Pierce took the card but didn't get up. His side was still burning. Renner found the rights card he was looking for and started reading it to Zeller.

‘You have the right to — '

There was a loud metallic clack as the mantrap door's lock was sprung. The door swung open and Pierce saw the security guard from the front dais standing there. His eyes looked dulled and his hair was uncombed. He had one hand behind his back as though hiding something.

In his peripheral vision Pierce saw Renner tense. He dropped the card he was reading from and his hand started inside his jacket for his holster.

‘It's my security guy,' Pierce blurted out.

In the same moment he said it he saw the security man suddenly propelled into the lab by an unseen force from behind. The guard, a man named Rudolpho Gonsalves, crashed into the computer station and toppled over it, landing on the floor, with the monitor then falling onto his chest. Then the familiar image of Six-Eight followed through the door, the big man ducking as he crossed the threshold.

Billy Wentz stepped in behind him. He held a large black gun in his right hand and his eyes sharpened when he saw the three men on the other side of the lab.

‘What's taking so — '

‘Cops!' Zeller yelled. ‘He's a cop!'

Renner was already pulling his gun from his holster but Wentz had the advantage. With the utmost economy of movement, the little gangster pointed his weapon across the lab and started firing. He stepped forward as he fired, moving the barrel of the gun in a two-inch-wide back and forth arc. The sound was deafening.

Pierce didn't see it but he knew Renner had started returning fire. He heard the sound of gunfire to his right and instinctively dove to his left. He rolled and turned to see the detective going down, a spray of fat drops of blood hitting the wall behind him. He turned the other way to see Wentz still advancing. He was trapped. Wentz was squarely between him and the mantrap door.

‘Lights!'

The lab dropped into darkness. Two flashes of light accompanied the last two shots from Wentz and then complete blackness set in. Pierce immediately rolled to his right again so he would not be in the same position Wentz had last remembered him to be. On his hands and knees he held perfectly still, trying to control his breathing. He listened for any sound that was not his own.

There was a low guttural sound to his right and behind him. It was either Renner or Zeller. Hurt. Pierce knew he could not call out to Renner, because it could help Wentz focus his next shot.

‘Lights!'

It was Wentz but the voice reader was set to receive and identify only the top tier of the lab team. Wentz's voice would not do it.

‘Lights!'

Still nothing.

‘Six-Eight? There's gotta be a switch. Find the light switch.'

There was no reply or sound of movement.

‘Six-Eight?'

Nothing.

‘Six-Eight, goddamnit!'

Again, no reply. Then Pierce heard a banging sound ahead of him and to the right. Wentz had walked into something. He judged by the sound that it was at least twenty feet away. Wentz was probably near the mantrap, searching for his backup man or the light switch. He knew it did not give him a lot of time. The light switch was not next to the mantrap door but it was only five or six feet away, by the electric control panel.

Pierce turned and crawled silently but quickly back toward the probe station. He remembered the gun Renner had found on Zeller.

When he got to the table he reached up and ran his hand along the top surface. His fingers dragged through something thick and wet and then they touched what he clearly identified as someone's nose and lips. At first he was repelled, then he reached back and let his fingers follow the face up, over the crown of the head until they found the knot of hair at the back. It was Zeller. And it appeared that he was dead.

After a moment's pause he continued the search, his hand finally clasping around the small pistol. He turned back in the direction of the mantrap entrance. As he made the maneuver his ankle clipped a steel trash can that was under the table and it went over in a loud clatter.

Pierce ducked and rolled as two more shots echoed through the lab and he saw two microsecond flashes of Wentz's face in the darkness. Pierce did not return fire, he was too busy moving out of Wentz's aim. He heard the distinct
thwap thwap
sound of the bullets meant for him hitting the copper sheeting on the outside wall of the laser lab at the end of the room.