Kiss Her Goodbye

13

Interrogation room 3 wasn’t much more than a table, two chairs, and four blank walls that always felt as if they were closing in on you. Whether they had an effect on Bobby Nemo was anybody’s guess.

Jack Donovan dropped a tagged and bagged submachine gun to the tabletop. An H amp;K MP5. Unlicensed. Fully automatic. They’d found it under Carla Devito’s bed-part of a shipment they’d been tracing for months. They’d also found something in Carla’s bathroom, something distinctly incriminating, but Donovan was keeping it under wraps for the time being. Saving it for leverage.

“Here’s how it plays, Bobby. Just on the HK alone, you’re looking at five in the bucket. Throw in Northland First and Trust and a handful of dead cops, and we’re talking some very serious sphincter time.”

Nemo sat in one of the aluminum and vinyl chairs, his shackled hands in his lap. He eyeballed Donovan, but said nothing.

Donovan grabbed his own chair, straddled it. “You hearing me, Bobby? Multiple counts means consecutive sentences, my friend, so you can kiss off any hopes of an early release.”

Nemo remained silent.

“I’d be happy to show you the guidelines.”

“Fuck the guidelines. What are you selling?”

“I think you know.” Donovan pulled a manila file folder from under his arm, flipped it open, and slid it across the table. Inside was a Most Wanted flyer featuring a grainy black-and-white photo of Alexander Gunderson.

Nemo snorted. “This is a joke, right? You think I’m some kinda half-wit?”

“I figure you’ve got enough rattling around in there to know when someone’s offering you the only prayer you have of ever seeing daylight. Gunderson’s underground and I’ll bet dollars to donuts you know where to find him. Help me out and I’ll talk to the AG’s office. Who knows, they might even go for immunity.”

“Bullshit.”

“Is that yes or no?”

“It’s you’re outta your fuckin’ mind, is what it is. Where’s my lawyer?”

So that’s how it’s going to be, Donovan thought. A month and a half searching for this piece of shit and the wall immediately goes up.

“Don’t make a mistake here, Bobby.”

Nemo shook his head. “You’re the one making the mistake. Gunderson’s had a hard-on for your ass ever since you turned his bitch into creamed cabbage. You think I’m gonna get in the middle of that?”

“Beats the middle of a federal cellblock for the rest of your natural life.”

Nemo eyed him dully. “You’re so anxious to find him, why don’t you give Sara a jingle, see what she has to say?”

“Very funny, Bobby.”

Nemo shrugged. “Doesn’t seem to be a problem for Alex.”

Donovan just looked at him.

“You think I’m kidding? Guy thinks he can commune with the dead, for crissakes-and I guess creamed cabbage is close enough to qualify.”

“Uh-huh,” Donovan said. He’d heard rumblings about Gunderson dabbling in mysticism, but had never taken them seriously. Was Nemo pulling his chain?

“He doesn’t make a big deal about it,” Nemo continued, “but you get him high enough, he’ll start spouting all this ancient Book of the Dead bullshit he picked up from his whack job of an aunt. Reincarnation, mind control, swapping souls and shit… Guy’s convinced he’s got a suite reserved in the afterlife. Tells me, ‘Don’t be afraid to die, Bobby, that’s when all the fun starts.’ ” Nemo snorted again. “Thanks but no thanks, baby. I’ll take my chances right here and now.”

Donovan remembered reading a report in Gunderson’s juvenile file about his wayward aunt, a two-bit fortuneteller. When Gunderson was twelve, she was dragged off to the nut farm after she strangled one of her clients. Proclaiming innocence, she told the arresting officer that the client had committed suicide. That he’d been taunted by “the voices.” When the officer asked her what voices, she told him matter-of-factly, “Why, the voices of the dead, of course.”

If Nemo was on the level, maybe the apple hadn’t fallen too far from the tree.

“So if Gunderson’s such a head case,” Donovan said, “why join his crew in the first place?”

“Shit, man, I was his crew until Sara and the rest of those idiots showed up. And for all his bullshit, there’s one thing you can say about Alex: he knows how to generate cash.”

“Doesn’t do you a whole lotta good right now.”

“Excuse me while I break down and cry. What’s your point?”

“I think you know,” Donovan said. “Why not use the only leverage you have and tell me where to find him?”

Nemo’s eyes glazed over. “Tell you what. You wanna deal?” He made fists with his shackled hands, then raised the middle finger of each and pointed them at Donovan. “Deal with this.”

Six weeks. Six weeks nursing a wounded leg that still hadn’t healed right, calling in favors from informants, staking out the homes of known associates, looking for something, anything that would lead him to Gunderson… and Donovan had popped a foul.

Finding Bobby Nemo had been pure luck. Nemo’s new girlfriend had flashed a Mormon missionary kid, who, despite the distraction (and Nemo’s freshly grown beard), had recognized a wanted fugitive parked on the naked woman’s sofa. The kid sat on the information for close to two weeks, afraid the incident would either get him in trouble with the Church or with Nemo himself. But he’d finally let good sense get the better of him and picked up the phone.

That was this morning. Donovan and his team had spent half the day staking out Carla Devito’s apartment, then decided to make their move when a take-out man showed up with a couple boxes of Chinese noodles. Donovan had high hopes that nabbing Nemo would get him that much closer to Gunderson, but now Nemo was playing hard-ass.

And there wasn’t much Donovan could do about it.

He slammed out of Interrogation Room 3 and found A.J. waiting for him in the hallway. A.J. had observed Nemo’s display of affection through a two-way glass.

“That was a regular laugh fest,” A.J. said. He looked restless. Ready to get busy. “Think you’ll ever wear him down?”

Donovan shook his head. “Not without a serious breach of his civil rights.”

“I’ll bring the beer if you bring the peanuts.”

Donovan put a hand on A.J.’s shoulder. His muscles were twitching. “Easy, Rambo. That kind of thinking makes the boys from D.C. nervous.”

A.J. smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “But it feels so goddamn good.”

The Task Force command center was in motion as usual, a well-oiled machine that pushed forward relentlessly but never seemed to get a lock on a specific path to follow. The harried agents and support staff who populated the place had a purpose but no real sense of direction.

Donovan shared their frustration. Probably felt it stronger than all of them combined. But his only solution to the problem was to keep going, keep working, keep waiting for something to break.

Gunderson was still in town, he was sure of it. Sooner or later the bastard would have to show himself, and Donovan would be there, the full force of the attorney general and United States Treasury behind him.

He and A.J. exited the elevator and crossed the command center toward Donovan’s office. A.J. made an abrupt turn, heading for the break room. He still looked jittery. “You want coffee? I brewed up something special.”

“Maybe you should lay off a little.”

“Lay off? I’m two cups shy of my quota. You want one or not?”

“No thanks,” Donovan told him. “I’m trying to cut down.”

“Jesus, Jack. No booze, no cigarettes, now you’re turning your back on the almighty java bean? What exactly do you do for fun?”

Donovan tossed him the tagged and bagged MP5, wondering himself what the answer to the question was. After twenty years in law enforcement, he supposed it hadn’t changed.

“Chase bad guys,” he said.