Middle Of Nowhere

CHAPTER 17

Boldt guessed right-Sanchez had in fact paid a visit to SPD's Tech Services and had asked a lab rat named Tina Ming a variety of questions about cloning garage door openers. Ming confirmed that duplicating the radio frequencies used by such a device was scientifically quite simple. They had not ended up providing Sanchez with a clone however, because their work had been delayed by the Flu. Ming suggested Boldt consult the FBI.

Flu or not, the FBI was never the fastest agency to respond. Boldt would seek solutions elsewhere. He thought he now understood where Sanchez had been headed: a black-market source for a cloned garage door opener. Nine of them, to be precise-over the course of the last several weeks. A way into homes otherwise believed locked up. If he could find that supplier and squeeze out a name of a buyer, he might have the repeat burglar-and quite possibly Sanchez's offender- behind bars by the end of the day. He felt pulled between two theories-cop on cop or burglary gone bad- but the solution to the Sanchez assault seemed paramount to both.

The apartment occupied the floor above the Joke's On You, Bear Berenson's comedy/jazz club that enjoyed an odd combination of a Happy Hour police crowd and a prime-time college clientele. Boldt pulled the Chevy down the back alley and parked, making sure to put the laminated blue POLICE-OFFICIAL BUSINESS card that would keep the tow trucks away. He hoped to only spend a few minutes with Bear, but the pot-smoking, angst-ridden, longtime friend could make a scenic drive out of the shortest errand. He practiced patience, preparing himself for an extended stay.

Required to address a white plastic box housing a badly scratched TALK button and a speaker grid that had inherited some chewing gum, Boldt gained admittance through a buzzing door jamb with Bear's distorted voice welcoming him. He climbed the long, dark stairwell, the smell of stale beer and cigarettes familiar to a man who occasionally worked the Happy Hour piano on the other side of the communicating wall. Where others might gag, Lou Boldt felt comfort. He had spent a lot of good hours at this bar, and its predecessor, the Big Joke. A few million notes had passed through his fingers here.

The steep stairs presented a challenge. His battered and painful body was still unwilling to climb. But he managed. Nearing the top landing, he smelled the weed. Knowing Bear, he had opened a window trying to air out the apartment, but his attempt had backfired and instead was blowing the smoke toward the stairwell. Boldt forgave him the habit, but asked that he not smoke in front of him, for obvious reasons.

"Sherlock!" Berenson had a smoker's rasp, a neatly trimmed black beard with gray streaks coming down like fangs, and something of a beer gut, maintained by the contents of the long-neck bottle gripped casually in his right hand.

"Live, and in person," Boldt said.

"Tea?"

"You think I'd risk contamination?"

"You look a little off," Bear said.

"And you a little sideways," Boldt observed. He won a smile for that comment.

"I'm always sideways."

"Sore is all," Boldt explained. "I've been dodging baseball bats lately."

"Sit down before you fall down," Berenson advised.

Bear loved an audience; he paced from side to side, as if working a stage.

Boldt said, "I'd love to say it's a social call."

"Did I forget to pay you or something?"

Boldt explained, "It's more of a research visit."

"Weed? Women? Retail sales?"

"Frankie," Boldt said.

"Frankie?" Bear asked, wounded.

"I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important."

"Frankie?" Bear repeated. He sucked down some beer and wiped his mouth.

"I'm not after him-even if he's involved. I promise him a free ride. A name is all I'm after. One name."

"Are you paying?" Berenson asked.

"You're his agent now?"

"Just asking," Bear replied.

"I'm paying," Boldt answered.

Bear had a tendency to put himself in the middle of things, and no one wanted to get between Frankie and anything, including Boldt.

"Frankie isn't going to want anything to do with you-for obvious reasons. It had better be a shitload of money. Know what I mean?"

"A shitload of money," Boldt agreed, "and maybe I get the current charges reduced."

"I've known the man a long time," Bear said. "It doesn't mean I know his current status with the PA. And I don't want to."

"There's a woman officer in bad shape," Boldt explained. "Maybe Frankie can help with that."

"I read the newspapers, you know?"

"So Hooked on Phonics actually works."

"You're going to bite the hand that feeds you?" Bear added, "You want a name. Is that all? Maybe I can get you the name myself."

Boldt usually tended not to see the degree of Bear's intoxication. After years of friendship, he took him as he was. But now he saw that he was a little more stoned than usual, and decided to connect the dots for him. "I'm interested in garage door openers."

Berenson spit out some beer as he laughed.

"I've got to do this in person, Bear." He offered, "I'll give you a Happy Hour for free."

Bear straightened up, took another pull off the beer, and said, "No need to be rude. Since when do you and I buy favors off each other?"

Boldt suggested, "Two hundred bucks and reduced charges. Run it by him, would you?"

"Garage doors." A faint grin. Bear read the back of the beer bottle for useful information. He picked at the label. Boldt waited him out, knowing that stoned head of his was debating saying something or not. "You be careful with Frankie," he said. "He'll have a blanket 'cross his lap. Never know what's under that blanket 'til it's too late."

"Got it," Boldt said. The expression reminded him of Bobbie Gaynes; she used it so often, she owned it. The only detective on his squad not to walk. He appreciated the loyalty in ways he would never be able to express. Berenson brought him back to the room with one long draw on the beer bottle and a thundering burp that apparently satisfied him.

"You want me to try to set it up now or later? Your call."

"Sooner the better. Mind if I drift downstairs and play a couple numbers while you make the call?" Boldt asked. "It's been a while."

"Have I ever minded?"

"You know where to find me."

"Yes, I do," Bear said. "At my piano, in my club, waiting for my phone call to my contact." He added, "You don't have a fence that needs whitewashing, do you?"

Frankie Maglioni filled the electric wheelchair from the waist up. A blanket covered his waist and withered legs, sucked dry from atrophy. Nine years earlier he had jumped from the third floor balcony of a Spanishinfluenced estate as the security firm had breached the bedroom door. He'd landed on a steel air- conditioning unit, the impact snapping his spine like a twig and ending a successful career in cat burglary. Though never confirmed, he was believed to be the Dinner Bandit, a name gained for striking the wealthy elderly as they dined in their own house, a floor or two below. He was only convicted of the one crime, his sentence reduced because of the injury, but insurance claims accounted for seven hundred thousand dollars in missing jewelry over a three-year period, all of it attributed to the Dinner Bandit. He was now believed to be a fence.

He lived in a single-floor loft apartment that occupied the entire third floor of a former paste jewelry factory and was accessed by a freight elevator. Boldt slid open the elevator's wooden slats and introduced himself.

"We ain't never officially met," the man said.

"No," said Boldt.

"I guess because you're Homicide I'm told."

"Most of the time."

"But right now, no. You're standing in for Jorgenson and them."

"I've got a Burglary case, yes," Boldt informed him. "And in case Bear didn't make it clear, I'm not after you. He broke a woman's neck, Frankie."

"Yeah, Bear said so. I kinda got me a weakness in terms of that kind of thing. Someone does that to someone else-does this," he said, indicating his legs, "a person like me-in my particular situation-kind of thinks twice about letting that slide. You know?"

"I can imagine that's right."

"Which is on account of why you're standing here. Plenty of businessmen such as myself you could have talked to."

"I needed the best."

"That's bullshit."

"I need to know about garage door openers."

Frankie Maglioni shot Boldt a look of surprise, respect and reluctance. "In regards to?"

"It's his way inside, I think." Boldt added, "It's a new one on us. I need a little education."

Maglioni backed up the chair behind an electronic hum and the whine of tight gears. The chair turned and wheeled forward to a low table. "No, thanks."

"And if I can get your probation tossed?"

"That's a PA I'd be hearing from."

"And maybe you will."

"And maybe you and I have a chat right about that time. Know what I'm saying?"

"We can chat right now."

"A cop can't get probation tossed," Frankie said.

"This cop can," Boldt fired back. "I'll get the probation tossed and the arrest taken off your sheet." Boldt waited for that to sink in. "You want me to make the call?"

"To some dick on your floor who knows the game and makes like a PA? Don't think so."

"So you make the call," Boldt suggested. "An APA, name of Williamson."

"Maybe I will."

"You go ahead," Boldt said. "I know the number." He recited it.

"Don't want no number from you." Maglioni's distrustful eyes reviewed Boldt from his tie to hairline and back down again. He wheeled back to a drawer and a phone book. "Only reason I'm doing this is because that jail ain't no place for a man in a chair."

"The only reason you're doing this, Frankie, is that with probation lifted you can plea your next arrest. Otherwise it's hard time. This gets you back to work."

"You see? Every po-lees-man assumes the rest of us got nothing better to do than to break the law!"

"It's under government-the listing," Boldt instructed.

Maglioni reversed the pages and ran a stubby finger down the page. A moment later, after a brief discussion with Williamson, he motored back over to the table. "So you think ahead," he said. "So what?"

"I didn't say anything."

"You making fun of me?"

"Not at all." Boldt said, "Garage doors."

"Pretty damn simple, Mr. Smart. You bat a car window, lift the registration and the clicker. If you hurry, you're home before daddy. Registration gives you the address, clicker gets you inside."

"And if we're not talking about busting out a car window?"

The man nodded faintly at Boldt. "Yeah, okay. Different deal, you understand. Not that I done it myself."

"Heavens, no."

"Them guys clone cell phones? You know, they got this little box lifts the valid codes?"

"I know about cloned phones," Boldt answered. "I'm interested in garage door openers."

"A white boy was asking around on who could build him a custom scanner-not for no cell phones, you understand."

"When?"

"A couple months back."

"Who?"

"Them clickers work off radio crystals. You got yourself the right kind of machinery, and you're laying by close enough to pick it up, you can lift that frequency."

The thrill of discovery keeps any detective in the game. But outwardly, Boldt sat deadpan, as if dissatisfied with Frankie's explanation. He said, "I know about cloning clickers. What I need is the guy who built the scanner for this white boy you're telling me about."

"That wasn't our deal," Frankie complained, his nostrils flaring again.

"Our deal was: you make me happy, your probation goes away."

"That's bullshit."

"I need a name."

"I don't have no name!" he complained. "You think this is the Radio Shack or something?"

Boldt repeated, "I need the name of the guy who can build these things, or the name of the guy who bought one." He added, "You get me either name- and it proves good-and your probation goes away. If I get the buyer your arrest record disappears."

Frankie negotiated, "The probation goes away now, as agreed. I locate this technician, the arrest is erased."

Smiling, Boldt removed a business card from his pocket and placed it on the table. "My rules, Frankie, not yours. And it's got to be within the next twenty-four hours, or I forget I ever saw you."

Boldt walked toward the freight elevator, his back to the man in the wheelchair.

He pulled the elevator gate shut behind himself and pushed the button.