Niceville (35 page)

“So this device would clearly signal its worth to any intelligent thief?”

“Yeah. Sure as hell.”

“And you would describe the people who accomplished this robbery as intelligent?”

“Yeah,” said Deitz, grudgingly. “I would.”

“Then our prediction is that you will shortly be contacted by the thieves, or by a representative of the thieves. The object has no value to them, and is actually a clear and present hazard to their security. The penalty for being found in possession of such a thing would be very dire, would it not?”

“Fucking dire,” said Deitz, thinking about how much he personally would dislike thirty-to-life in Leavenworth.

Dak inclined his head. “So. Two scenarios are likely. One, they have destroyed it, and you and I find ourselves in a difficult position. Two, they will attempt to return it in exchange for a consideration. Since you are chief of the security apparatus for the research park, their next logical step would be to contact you.”

He held up a hand as he watched Deitz’s temper flame up again.

“Vengeance is an indulgence, Mr. Deitz. A form of weakness, if it is allowed to derange our affairs. You must not allow this to happen. When you are contacted, you must agree to whatever terms are asked and proceed with the utmost dispatch—”

“Terms? The terms will be damned expensive.”

“No doubt. You are being generously recompensed for your exertions on our behalf. You will pay what is asked promptly and without—”

“
I’ll
pay—”

“
You
will pay, Mr. Deitz,” he said, with serene emphasis, “since the original responsibility to deliver the item to us lies with you.”

“What if they want too much? What if they want more than you’re giving me? What if they want more than I can pay?”

Dak made a
so-sorry-too-bad
gesture.

“If for any reason you are unable to effect the exchange then you will be set aside and we will deal with them directly.”

Deitz had a pretty good idea of what Dak meant by the phrase
set aside
. He had to admit that when it came to threatening somebody, Dak was a hell of a lot better at it than he was. Dak was looking at his watch and Deitz, glancing out the window, saw that they were back at the car wash. The limo rolled to a stop. Deitz popped the door, and the steamy heat of the afternoon poured inside.

“What if they don’t contact me in time?”

“You will of course continue to make your inquiries. As will we. We
have some resources you do not have. We will call upon them. In the meantime, you should even now reestablish contact with all of your means of communication, at home and at your offices. It is quite possible that a contact has already been initiated. If so, act on it in a swift and certain manner. Be effective and do not give in to revenge fantasies. Your sole concern must be to regain possession of the object. You have my card. On the back there is a cell number. Be in touch with me in sixty minutes.”

“Or I could just talk into the roof of my fucking truck,” said Deitz, with an edge.

“Or that,” said Dak, with a polite smile. He closed the door and the car powered out into traffic. The Tulip rolled on and so did Niceville. The Filipino kid had the seat cleaned and Deitz gave him a fifty for his trouble.

He got into the truck, slammed the door hard, and sat back in the interior, which smelled of acetone and saddle soap and Deitz’s cigars. He started the car, turned up the air conditioner, turned his BlackBerry back on. There was a text message waiting for him, with no sender ID.

Beau and Nick were only a block north of where Byron Deitz and Zachary Dak were concluding their discussions. Nick was still brooding on Bock.

“You get a look at that guy at the table by the railing? All in black?”

Beau stopped to think.

“I saw him,” he said. “He drove up in that lime green shit-box Camry. Why?”

“I know the guy. His name is Tony Bock. He’s the guy in the Dellums custody case. Kate handed him his ass on Friday afternoon.”

“Weird-looking guy.”

“Yeah. Did you see what he had shoved down the crack of his ass? He had one of those collapsible steel batons. What do they call them? An ASP? Must have been damn uncomfortable.”

Beau nodded. “Or maybe he had his dick on backwards.”

“Yeah,” said Nick, pulling out his cell phone. “Happens to me all the time.”

Nick’s cell phone rang as soon as he turned it on. He got into the car on the passenger side—a couple of Advils had eased the pain in Beau’s butt cheek enough for him to drive.

Nick hit
ANSWER
.

“Lacy?”

“Nick, I’ve been trying to reach you.”

Her voice was tight and urgent, but not the tone she had when she was calling with a problem.

“I can see that. Four times in the last hour. Is everything okay?”

“Yes. No. Well, maybe.”

“That pretty much covers the ground.”

“Nick, Rainey Teague woke up.”

The words ran around in his skull like those tigers chasing the black kid in that book nobody was allowed to read anymore. For some crazy reason he remembered it from his childhood.
Little Black Sambo
. His mother had waved it around as an example of what she called endemic racism. On some level Nick knew he was thinking of that stupid book right now because what Lacy had just said completely rocked his world.

“How awake?” he asked when he could speak.

“They’re saying he’s responsive. He’s talking. He’s been immobile for a year, so he can’t sit up or control very much. But he’s definitely not in a coma or a caledonia or whatever it was.”

Nick turned to Beau.

“Lady Grace, Beau. Right now.”

“What’s up?”

Nick told him.

Beau took it in, made a U-turn to a chorus of outraged honks, accelerated into the street with the siren on. Cars on both sides swerved to the curb to give them room. Nick, busy getting the story from Lacy, only half registered Byron Deitz in his big fat yellow Hummer driving slowly north, staring at them as they flew south down Long Reach Boulevard.

Lacy had gotten to the part about Lemon seeing a man in the elevator.

“What does he mean? Like, a ghost?”

“No,” said Lacy, who wasn’t sure what the hell Lemon had been trying to say. “Just a guy with a really wicked vibe. Lemon said he sort of radiated crazy. Crazy and spooky. I don’t know. Whoever he was, he scared the hell out of Lemon, which is pretty hard to do.”

“He get a description?”

“Yeah. He’ll tell you when you get there. He’s in the lobby, waiting for you.”

“You got his cell?”

Lacy gave it to him.

“What was Lemon doing there in the first place?”

“After he talked to you, he wanted to go see the kid. He says he went to smoke the room.”

“What? You mean like that bug-killing stuff?”

“No, you mutt. It’s a tribal thing he does. All the Indians have it. He takes some sweetgrass and burns it in a bowl and calls the kid’s name.”

“Looks like this other guy had a better method for calling the kid. What’s this name Rainey was saying again?”

“He was asking for somebody named Abel Teague.”

“
Abel Teague?
You sure?”

“Yeah. He was also talking about a woman named Glynis Roo … something. Glynis Ruelle. I don’t know what this all means,” said Lacy, “but you better go find out.”

“I will,” said Nick. “Thanks, Lacy.”

“Keep me in the loop, will you?”

“When I know, you’ll know. Bye.”

He switched off, hit
AUTO-DIAL
. The phone rang six times, and then went to voice mail.

“Kate, when you get this, call me on my cell. You sitting down? Great news. Rainey Teague just woke up. Yes. Woke up. He’s responsive, whatever that means, but he’s got a ways to go to be all right. Still great news. Anyway, I wanted you to be the first to know. Love you, babe. Call me.”

“Not home?” asked Beau.

“Probably out in the yard,” said Nick, hitting a speed-dial number. Tig Sutter answered on the second ring.

“Nick—you heard?”

“I heard. We’re on our way to Lady Grace now. Do we still have the jurisdiction here?”

“Oh yeah. Case is still open. I’ve already called the doctors down there. They’re saying the kid’s not coherent, but he’s definitely conscious. They’re going to do a bunch of tests on him, but I told them to keep him alert until you got there.”

“Incredible, Tig,” said Nick, his heart lightening in a way it hadn’t ever since the case kicked off. “You know I’ve never even talked to the kid?”

“Yeah, well, remember, he doesn’t know his parents are dead. That’s going to be a tricky call.”

“He’s not going to hear it from me. Not today, anyway—”

“He’ll be asking.”

“Yeah. I can’t reach Kate. She’s his legal guardian. She ought to be there, see to what he needs, sign whatever has to be signed.”

“Nick, this is going to sound crazy, but the docs are saying the kid calmed down when he heard Lemon Featherlight’s voice. If Kate’s not available, maybe you could go in that direction?”

“We should think about that, Tig. Guy’s a CI, a drug dealer—”

“Lemon connected with the kid last year. Even Tony Branko at Vice thought Lemon’s heart was in the right place. I think it’s worth a shot.”

Nick thought it over.

“Okay. I’ll give him a try. Did you hear from the lab yet?”

“You mean that goddam cat? What’d you do to her, anyway? Yaztremski says the thing’s crazy.”

“He get anything off her coat?”

“Not much, so far. Blood, and it was definitely human, but it had broken down a lot. Yaz thinks it might have come from a body been dead quite a while. Not the same blood type as either Delia Cotton or Gray Haggard. We’ve got a forensic team going over the house now—”

“Yeah? How they liking the house?”

“What? Liking the house? Like how?”

“They talk to the Armed Response guy? Dale Jonquil? He said he saw some weird shit in the mirrors there. So did Mavis Crossfire.”

So did I
.

Skulls
.

Coffins
.

Slaves
.

“CSI didn’t say anything useful, Nick, but those people
never
say anything useful. You follow that thing down at Saint Innocent?”

“From a distance. I hear Mavis did good.”

“Yeah. I talked to her a few minutes ago. They’re going to give her a commendation. Giving Coker one too, for spotting that stovepipe round. Saved that man’s life, between the two of them. They’ve got Dennison in Psychiatric for now, but all in all, he may not even do much time.”

“You getting anywhere with the snitch?”

“I asked Byron Deitz to put one of his IT guys on it, but so far no word back. I’m hoping, though. Deitz says the guy’s the best there is.”

“I saw Deitz a minute ago, going northbound on Long Reach in that gigantic Hummer. He was gunning me like he wanted to talk, but I had the lights on. He and Phil Holliman still stomping all over Boonie’s investigation?”

“I told him to jerk Holliman’s chain. He said he would. You wanted to know about that metal shit you found in the dining room at Temple Hill?”

“I thought it was shrapnel. Was it?”

“First take from Metallurgy was that it was shell fragments from … get this … a German .88.”

“How’d they figure that?”

“One of the guys at Metallurgy is a fragments freak. Has cans and boxes full of various bits of shell casings, debris from car bombs, whatever—he’s compiling a sort of reference library about it. He takes one look at the bits, scrapes some shavings, puts them under a scope, looks up and says German .88. Here’s the thing. Haggard was at Omaha, and he got a chest full of shrapnel when he got to the top of the cliffs. From a German .88, according to the After-Action Reports.”

Nick thought about that. “Okay, well, if that shrapnel came out of Haggard’s chest, I’d say we’ve gone from a disappearance to a homicide.”

“That’s what I think too. We’re declaring Temple Hill a crime scene. And we’ve got everybody we can spare out looking for any sign of either of them. Are you going to go back to Delia’s house after you see Rainey?”

I’d rather stick hot needles in my eyes
.

“I don’t think so. We’d just get in the way. But keep me in the mix, will you?”

“I will. I talked to Mavis, a while ago. She called in to ask exactly the same thing you asked. ‘How did Nick like the house?’ What the hell went on up there, anyway?”

Nick was quiet for a moment, watching Lady Grace fill up the windscreen. He realized, abruptly, that he had not heard back from Kate, and for some reason that bothered him more than it should have.

“I don’t know, Tig. Beau and I saw some crazy stuff, hard to explain. Got to run, Tig. We’re at Lady Grace.”

“Okay. Check back.”

“I will.”

Beau pulled the cruiser to a stop at the main entrance to Lady Grace. Lemon Featherlight was waiting outside, under the arch, smoking a cigarette and watching them, looking jumpy and spooked. He came up to the passenger window as they cracked their doors.

“Nick, they won’t let me back in to see Rainey! Talk to them. I really think I can help.”

“So do I,” said Nick. “Let’s go.”

After a very hectic but productive afternoon during which he worked out and executed a seriously entertaining way to manage the Cosmic Frisbee Exchange with Byron Deitz, Charlie Danziger was back at his home, a mid-sized horse farm he ran a few miles up into the rolling countryside just north of Niceville, a large log-framed rancher furnished mainly in bare wood, Mexican rugs, gun racks, and saddle-leather chairs with steer-horn arms—Danziger, like Ralph Lauren, was a man of simple cowpoke tastes—and some brand-new pine-board stables, beside a fenced-in paddock for breaking and training, a few acres of rolling grassland, enough to keep eight quarter horses happy.

He showered, shaved, showered again to be on the safe side, replaced his bandages—he had to admit for a Sicilian pervert dentist, Donny Falcone knew how to sew up a chest wound—changed into clean clothes, burned his old ones, with the exception of his navy blue boots. A prudent cowboy never threw away his lucky boots.