Last shot

Chapter 49

Tim's head throbbed from too much caffeine and from squinting at online databases. He threw down one of the few license-plate photos lacking a name on its back and rubbed his eyes. To catch Walker they had to get a step ahead of him, to locate his next target before he did.

Using a hit man to lure a fugitive was ambitious, but Tim knew, if the lead was accurate, that Walker would be gunning for the Piper sooner or later. The Service would have to find him sooner. Set up surveillance. And wait.

Thomas had been playing Ma Bell all afternoon, gathering word on the Piper from Service offices around the country. In the meantime Tim, Bear, and Guerrera had split up the flash-card IDs of Game's esteemed clientele, double-checking the addresses on the backs and finding Wes's intel surprisingly accurate. The list was like a who's who of rich scumbags. A surgeon with a felony for selling meds. A studio VP who went down for a handgun in his Porsche. A failure-to-appear. More businessmen with embezzlement and fraud charges than Tim could count. The clean ones were almost more troubling. Despite the varied degrees of shadiness, no one was an obvious choice for the Piper. Guerrera had red-flagged a few top contenders, but Tim was skeptical that any of them were extracurricular hit men.

The Piper was a professional, which meant that even if one of the flash-card leads panned, they'd probably wind up with a link in a longer chain-a Hertz rental, a stolen car, a fake plate. Or maybe the Piper rode Yellow Cab, in which case they were shit out of luck. Unless Thomas came through with something that rang the cherries.

On the corner TV, Maybeck was reviewing the footage of Walker's brief passage through the Vector lobby. For the fifth time, Tim watched Walker disappear into the spokes of the revolving doors. Nothing new gleaned from the tape. Likewise no sightings of the Camry that had been stolen by the San Pedro landfill the night of Walker's escape. Freed continued pursuing the trails of Pierce's financials, so far with limited success.

Thomas racked the phone, finally, and ran both hands through his hair. It took a moment before he seemed to pick up that everyone was waiting on him, and then he said, "Still low resolution. The Piper's a professional, rumored to operate out of Los Angeles and Phoenix. He does some wet work for Chicago, may have been used by the Asian Triad in Houston and locally by the Russians. Hell, Rack, you should pick up this lead yourself. It's right in your area of expertise."

Tim ignored the dig. "Do we have a name?"

"Leslie Cardover." Thomas nodded at the gallery of photos spread across the table. "Not one of our Gameboys. If it's fake is another question."

Tim wondered if Leslie Cardover drove a low-rider with a hood ornament the size of a bowling ball. "If we're gonna use him, we'd better get to him before Walker turns him into ground beef."

"Or vice versa."

"My money's on Walker."

"Seems to be." Thomas cleared his throat hard into a fist, then swept the remains of his lunchtime burrito from desktop to trash can. "My hook at the Bureau said the Piper's been keeping his name off the boards for a while. He may have been feeling the heat after this Aspen job he allegedly did in January. A launderer for the Colombians."

"That'll do it," Bear remarked.

"So he flies to L.A. and takes out a single mom," Guerrera said. "Safer prey."

Bear noted Tim's troubled expression. "What's bugging you?"

"The hit on Tess was highly competent"-Tim took a breath, held it a moment-"but not meticulous. If this guy's a high-end contract player, why the left-side entry wound? The neighbor sighting? And the paint?"

"The car the hundred-year-old neighbor claimed to see?" Guerrera said. "Who knows if that's real? As for the entry wound, shit, socio, that's a pretty tiny detail, something even a pro could overlook. I mean, Tess Jameson was left-handed."

"Maybe so," Tim said. "Either way, we need more on the Piper, and we need it in a hurry."

Bear asked the room at large, "Any movement from the Vegas Task Force on the Aryan Brotherhood hit men?"

Zimmer said, "I been on it with Summer. They're watching the AB chapter, but there's been no unusual activity."

A court security officer ran in, the door banging against the wall. His neck was flushed. Tim cringed, anticipating another bad phone lead or interview request. "Rack, there's a call you're gonna want to take on line three. Now."

Tim glanced at the phone unit centered on the broad conference table. The red light flashed rapidly, as if to announce a malfunction. "Who is it?"

The officer gestured for him to hurry up. "Walker Jameson."