The Angel Maker - 2 (21 page)

Boldt crossed the room quickly, his own expectations increasing with every step. It was possible-in fact, more than likely-that the name of the harvester was somewhere on this printout. He took it from Lamoia. He scanned it quickly. And scanned. Page after page. His heart sank.

La Moia had anticipated his reaction. He hung up and explained,

"Six hundred seventy-five surgeons. Discouraging, to say the least. Last page," he instructed. Boldt flipped forward. "By category it's a little better. Any of them could probably train to do those harvests-that's what I'm told-but if this guy is sticking with his specialty, then we've got thirty-one in thoracic, ten in urological. In general surgery we have," he honed in to read, "sixty-eight; thirty-four at the UDUB. I wrote a total there: one forty-three."

The job before them was overwhelming, though not impossible-given a huge task force, which Shoswitz seemed unlikely to grant them. A careful interview would have to be conducted with each Quiet inquiries about bank accounts and surgeon credit limits and life styles. of schedules, phone calls and travel itineraries. Through this, they were to attempt to narrow this enormous list down to the one harvester-all without making him the wiser.

Reading his thoughts, Lamoia, who had reached the office and was still reading over his shoulder, suggested, "Are you thinking about bringing them in here one by one?"

"Thinking about it, but not very seriously. One: Doctors can make the kind of noise that finds the ears of the top brass.

Two: Word would spread too quickly, the harvester would shut down shop, and that would be the end of any incriminating evidence. One of the difficulties here, don't forget, is that the law is hazy about all of this. If we're going to bust this guy, we're going to have to practically catch him in the act.

We give him a week to clean -guaranteed. If we're right up his act, and he'll skate about this, this guy has been in business at least three years, which means he's extremely well organized and knows what he's doing. Who knows how many harvests he's done? He hears that we're coming after him, and he'll clean up so well that we'll never find so much as a needle out of place.

We need the operating shears that connect Blumenthal to those bones. That would be some decent proof."

"So what are you suggesting?" Lamoia asked. Lamoia could piss him off when he got like this. The coffee room phone rang. It could have been any number of things. Besides interviewing Cindy Chapman and Sharon Shaffer's elderly roommate, Daphne was working with her contacts at the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit to come up with a possible psychological profile of the harvester. Bernie Lofgrin owed Boldt more complete lab reports on both Chapman and Shaffer. It might even have been Dr. Light Horse at the University, or Ms. Dundee at Bloodlines, both of whom had agreed to call if anything else pertaining to Boldt's case occurred to them. But above and beyond all of these, Boldt hoped it might be someone-anyone-calling to tell him that Sharon Shaffer was safe and sound, or that some doctor had just turned himself in.

The call was from the surveillance team assigned to Connie Chi.

Twice, the cellular phone from which the call was being placed went dead, and twice Boldt waited impatiently for the return call. The first news he heard, after the team identified itself, was, "We got a problem here ..." The second time the voice asked, "How much of that did you get?" Boldt could tell by the ambient sound that the car was moving. "You rolling?" he asked. Again, the line went dead before he received an answer.

The third time he answered, the phone remained in the clear, although he found himself rushing sentences in anticipation of another failure. "Everything we're seeing here indicates she wants to lose us," the man said, referring to Connie Chi, the Bloodlines employee. "She made you?" Boldt asked. "That's just the thing: I don't think so. But she's sure as hell acting like she did. We called in Danny and Butch. They're in the jeep.

We've been trading her off. I gotta think she thinks she's lost us. Way she's acting makes me think someone told her what to do. Know what I mean? All jitterylike. Constantly checking her mirror and shit like that. An amateur. It got a little hairy when she tried to ditch us in Nordstroms, but I gotta tell you: This gal is no criminal. Or if she is, she's the kind every cop loves /cause she's so damn nervous that she sticks out like a sore thumb. I gotta hand it to ya, Sarge: You now how to pick

'em."

"Keep me posted. I'm on my way."

As he steered through traffic in an attempt to intercept the surveillance teams, Boldt heard over his radio, "I've got her, Butch." The voices surfaced only occasionally, rising from a sea of electronic hiss. "Okay, good, we're falling off her.

Keep us posted."

Mobile surveillance presented its own special logistical nightmares. To be effective it required an enormous number of vehicles, a central dispatcher coordinating them, and a lot of luck. juggling the same two or three cars for an extended period usually failed. You either lost, or were spotted by, the mark. Boldt wondered what the hell was keeping Lamoia, when all of a sudden the man's voice crackled over the airwaves. Lamoia was like that: just when you were about to lose faith in him, he came through. He seemed to constantly push everyone, everything, right to the limit. With him rolling, they were up to four cars. They had a fighting chance. "She's turning right on 119th," announced detective John C. Adams, or J.C., as everyone called him. "What the hell is she driving?" Lamoia asked. "A red Saturn," came the reply. "But she ain't driving it. Some other woman is." Lamoia asked for the license number and was given it. "I've got them," he announced. "Turning again- 19th, now headed north on Greenwood. Go ahead and pass them."

Boldt ran two stop signs and a light and pulled to within a few lengths of Lamoia. "I'm with you, John, if you need me."

"Roger."

"Who's the Saturn registered to?" Boldt said. "One Su-Lin Chi,"

Lamoia announced. "Same last name," someone said. "For the sake of the radio," Boldt announced, "We call the passenger"Connie'

and the driver, 'the Sister.'"

"Affirmative," came the various voices. "What about Connie's car back at Nordstroms?" Boldt asked. "Did it occur to any of you goons to have it watched?" The resulting silence disturbed him. "This could have been some sort of drop, you know? Did it occur to any of you that maybe someone wanted us to follow her, to lead us away from the drop?"

J.C. offered, "We've always got a couple of patrol cars hanging around the mall. You want me to put dispatch on it?"

"We'll take care of it from here," came the voice of Phil Shoswitz over the radio. He had been monitoring the exchanges.

It caught Boldt-and the others-completely by surprise. It was extremely rare for this particular lieutenant to listen-in with the dispatcher. He didn't like field work.

The red Saturn signaled and changed lanes. "I've got it, John,"

Boldt said.

Lamoia pulled past, leaving the Saturn and Boldt to turn off.

"They're slowing," Boldt announced. He added, "Maybe it's only a gas stop. I'm going to pull past."

His adrenaline rush was immediately replaced by disappointment as he saw the car turn right into a gas station. "I'm pulling up short," said J.C. Boldt drove around the block and parked with a good view of the station. Lamoia coordinated his and the remaining car-a blue jeep containing Butch Butler and Danny Wuto cover either of two cross streets.

As Boldt looked on, he sensed that the driver of the Saturn was stalling. He announced this over the radio. The young Chinese woman filled up the small car's tank impossibly slowly, and only after it was , filled, while looking around anxiously and consulting Connie Chi in the passenger seat. There was also a kid of about eighteen across the street who was looking on from over by a Dumpster. Boldt assigned Butch Butler to keep an eye on him, so his own attention wouldn't be distracted. A self-service gas station was an easy place to steal a car-too often, drivers neglected to take the keys with them. Or perhaps the kid was a runner-someone paid to make an exchange with Connie Chi. Whatever his purpose or intentions, the kid was a variable that Boldt didn't particularly like.

From down the street, a dark blue, slightly beat up van approached at a pace uncharacteristically cautious for Seattle drivers. Boldt sat up in his seat, one hand grasping the radio's mike. The driver was nothing but a dark shape behind the silver impulse of the sky's reflection on the windshield.

Boldt punched the button on the mike and said quickly, "Butch, Danny incoming, right behind you!" He watched from a distance as the two detectives turned rubbery and slipped down in their seats so that as the van passed, the jeep would appear empty.

Slipping lower in his own seat, Boldt said, "I think we may have something here. Butch, you watch the kid. Lamoia, run the van's plates. J.C., if they break quickly, you take the Saturn with Lamoia. Danny, Butch, and I will take the van."

Donnie Maybeck drove past the gas station once to make sure the Sister's red car was parked there as it was supposed to be.

When he confirmed this, he drove fully around the block looking for guys eating donuts in the front seat of their car: cops.

Seeing none, he pulled in and parked next to an unleaded self-service pump. He climbed out and went through the process of filling up. In this way, he was able to carry on a conversation without ever looking at her. All of it had been the Doc's idea. Fucking genius. On cue, Connie's sister left for the bathroom. "Tell me about the cops," he said to Connie.

"What is it now?" When the shit hits the fan, he thought, it really spreads around fast. "They asked about a woman named Sharon Shaffer. She's the AB-negative I gave you last week!"

Involuntarily, he squeezed the pump so hard that gas bubbled out before the nozzle shut off. "And Verna's been asking me about my computer time. What's going on, Donnie? I don't even know what it is you do with that database. Some extra money, that's all. That's what you said. I got a feeling I don't want to know." She paused, then contradicted herself: "What do you do with it?"

He tried to keep calm. When he got uptight, he tended to do stupid things. Same thing all his life. His big temptation right now was to lose her-to turn the hose on her, light a match, and watch her fry. He had stolen some plates and bolted them on before coming here-he wasn't that stupid. He could lose the van if he had to, torch it as well. Burn, baby, burn. If he had ever had a tattoo, that's what it would have said. Nothing he liked quite so much as seeing something burn. Except of course the sight of money. Cash. Or ass. He liked that a lot, too.

Squeeze goes the handle, poof goes the match. Zoom goes Connie.

Her hair would go first, then her clothes. if she was wearing synthetics-anything stretchy or elastic-they would stick to her skin. She'd be staring at him screaming, bald from the flames eyes beginning to swell in their sockets. "You don't have to worry about that," he said, answering her question. "I'm scared," she replied.

Fifty grand. Fifty! A fucking fortune. A Harley. A trip somewhere. Who knows? "What I want you to do ... " he started, trying to think like the Doc, but losing his train of thought to anger. His temper was the problem. It had always been the problem. It ran away from him. As a kid on the streets-he'd been alone on the streets since he was thirteen-he had learned how to play tough. Tough, combined with a bad temper, meant violence. At fifteen he'd killed his first person-a junkie looking to roll him. He got pissed off and cut the guy with a bottle and then left him to bleed to death. At seventeen he killed a prostitute-after the act, which had been his first because he didn't have the money to pay her. That had been Spokane. He left because her pimp was out to zoom him. In Seattle he'd been arrested for purse snatching. He served six months in a J.D. reform, and the offense was kept off his record. He was eighteen when he got out, and the state arranged vocational training that eventually led to a job with Norwest Power and Light. For nearly two months his life had been real."

And then that day doing shit work on the top of a newly installed high-voltage tower-he saw the Doc digging a grave: The Secret. A chance at some real money. Things had been different since then. "Can you take Sharon Shaffer's name out of that database?"

"What about the police?" "I asked you a question." This was how the Doc dealt with him, and it felt good to pass it on. It felt real good. "Can you erase a file? Erase a file for good?" He pulled the hose from his tank and replaced it in the pump, still wondering if it wouldn't be smarter to hose her down.

"Erase a record from data processing, you mean? I don't know if I can. I suppose it must be possible. But I've never tried."

"I want you to try. The Shaffer file. it's important.

You understand." He gave her a look then charles Bronson on a particularly bad day. Maybe Brando. How would the Big Man handle this one?

She hesitated. It pissed him off. Her sister was hovering around the candy counter looking impatient. He decided to pay up. He opened the van's door and took the keys. He left the door open because she answered just then.

"I'll try."

"Damn right you will." He gave her one last look and walked away looking tough. I am tough, he convinced himself.

When he reached the station, he looked away as her sister passed because he didn't want her getting a good look at him.

You had to keep your options open.

He had to climb a small platform to pay at the cash register.

The gas cost him over twenty bucks. That pissed him off as well.

When he turned around, his added elevation gave him a view of two guys sitting real low in a jeep parked down the street.

Cops! Connie had fucked up; she had led them here! Or was she in on it?

The panic hit him as hard as if he'd been slugged. in the gut.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught some quick movement.

Some punk kid was headed for his van at a sprint. @e reached it, leaned in, and came out with Donle, s laptop computer. The fucking laptop! The Doc had warned him to never let it out of his sight. The database! The kid took off at a run. Donnie shouted after him. He chased after him, one eye on those Cops.