Play To Kill

Chapter Thirty-five

'Oh my goodness.' John Smith slid into the middle of the Caddie's backseat and started playing with all the electronic controls at his disposal. The back windows went up and down; the rear AC fan went on and off; and some really annoying rap blared out of the back speakers before he figured out how to shut it off. 'I don't know what this orange button does.'

'Lumbar support,' Gino said, snapping his shoulder harness with a proprietary click, as if he thought absolutely nothing of this kind of ride. 'But you won't get it in the middle. Right side, right seat, left side, left seat. The middle passenger suffers. It's kind of a junker.'

Magozzi closed his lips on a smile and backed out of Harley's driveway.

'Is this standard for MPD, or just Homicide?'

'Confiscated from a drug dealer,' Magozzi said, toughing down on the accelerator because Gino was a corrupting influence and made him want to show off. 'Gino bribed one of the garage evidence guys so we had sweet wheels while ours were being fixed.'

What do you usually drive?'

'A tacky brown sedan with no heat and no AC and enough get-up-and-go to get up and fall down.'

'I see. So what's the bribe for this kind of transportation?'

'Gino's wife's lasagna. She'd cook your heart out.'

'Hmm.' John stretched his arms out over the backseat. 'What are the chances of a retired Federal agent tucking into your department?'

Magozzi shrugged. 'We've always had a little problem with the Feds. The SAC here is pretty much of an asshole.'

'And it's a tough gig,' Gino added. 'No picnic. They put me on the dunk tank at the MPD festival last year.'

'What's a dunk tank?'

'That would be man's ultimate humiliation. You sit on this little seat over a tank of water, and the public throws balls at a target that tips the seat so you fall in. If the seat's high enough above the water, the impact flattens your balls.'

John thought about that for a minute. 'Are you serious?'

'I am.'

Magozzi squealed the Caddie's rubber at the turn off Snelling onto Lexington. You want the lead on questioning these kids?'

Smith shrugged. 'Your city, your precinct.'

'I think the Feds trump the cops on terrorism.'

'That is where the working-together part comes in. Besides, when it comes to terrorism, I'd let a Brownie troop take down a possible witness if they wanted.'

Gino turned to look at John in the backseat. 'You're starting to talk like a cop.'

'I'm practicing so I can get lasagna and a Cadillac.'

'Good God, Leo, are you listening to this guy? A week in the Midwest and he's starting to get funny.'

John closed his eyes. Another item for the slippery-slope list. Violating Bureau policy, violating Federal law, consuming alcohol on duty, and now stepping away from stern and proper agent demeanor. He was shedding pieces of who he was, who he had always been, like a dog with mange. He cleared his throat, straightened his tie, and put on his Bureau face. 'I am also certain that both of you have more experience interrogating juveniles. We don't get many offenders that young at the Federal level.'

'They're not juvies,' Magozzi reminded him. 'Eighteen, both of them.'

'Barely. I am also a little uncomfortable questioning these boys in particular. Technically, we don't have a great deal to support their involvement.'

'Bullshit,' Gino snorted. 'Little bastards are in this so deep we're going to have to rip their balls off and stuff them in their ears to get them to talk. And personally, I'm looking forward to that.'

Magozzi caught a glance of John's alarmed look in the rearview mirror. 'Gino hasn't done that in a really long time,' he said genially.

The house was a surprise - one of the largest in a new development of McMansions people bought on credit to impress their neighbors with how much money they supposedly had. Magozzi knew the inside by heart. Lots of electronics, lots of granite and upscale appliances in a kitchen they never used, lots of bills hidden away in a drawer somewhere. People with real money never bought places like this, because there was something tacky that shone through all the pretense of luxury like a Target T-shirt under a cashmere sweater.

The doorbell was a melody - didn't anybody have normal doorbells anymore? - and whoever was inside took a while answering. Magozzi took point, as always; Gino was off to the side, and John Smith hung back a little, ceding the lead to the cops, who did this kind of thing a lot more than he did.

The man who finally came to the door was dressed in what old movies had taught him wealthy men wore at home in the evening. In his peripheral vision Magozzi saw Gino cover his mouth quickly, and he didn't blame him. The idiot was wearing one of those silly shiny robes over his white shirt and suit pants. 'Good evening, sir,' he said respectfully, flipping open his badge case and holding it up. 'Are you Mr. Zellickson?'

'Yes, Officer. What can I do for you?'

'Detective Magozzi, MPD. This is my partner, Detective Rolseth, and this is Special Agent John Smith of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Is your son Kyle at home?'

Mr. Zellickson looked genuinely confused. Yes, he is… did you say the FBI?'

'That's correct, sir.'

'What on earth would you want with my son?'

Magozzi smiled briefly. 'Just a few questions, sir. We think he and a friend of his may have inadvertently witnessed something pertinent to a crime we're investigating and hoped he'd be willing to help us out by answering a few questions.'

'Really. Well, of course he'd be happy to help if he could…' He pressed his lips together and frowned at John Smith. 'I don't understand the FBI connection. Does this have anything to do with the boxes today?'

Goddamnit, Magozzi thought, he wasn't as dumb as his doorbell. Yes, it does.'

'Good heavens. I can't imagine Kyle seeing anything and not mentioning it… this whole thing is terrible, and to tell you the truth, I think it frightened him a little.'

Magozzi nodded. 'I'm sure it did. The point is, witnesses often see things without realizing what they saw, so they never think to mention it until someone asks them about it.'

'Oh.' He chewed on his lip a while and tugged at his pants, which Magozzi thought was always a bad sign. Bull readjusting the jewels before taking a stand. Worse yet, Mr. Silk Robe wasn't opening the door and inviting them in. 'I do want to be helpful, Officers. Please don't misunderstand. But Kyle is my son, and having the three of you show up at my door at this hour wanting to question him about what happened today makes me very uncomfortable. I think I'd like to call our lawyer.'

Magozzi nodded. 'Then that's exactly what you should do, sir. As a matter of fact, if you have any reason to believe that your son might have been involved in the placement of these boxes all over the city- '

'Good God, no! It's not that. I just meant… it's so ridiculous. Kyle was valedictorian of his graduating class. Four-point-oh since he was a freshman. Voted most popular, most likely to succeed…'

Gino made a face and rolled his head. 'Oh, man, you gotta be kidding me. You have a kid with a four-point-oh?

I got a sixteen-year-old who thinks four-point-oh is an IQ score. You're a lucky man, Mr. Zellickson.'

Kyle's dad blinked at Gino, and then smiled tentatively. 'Thank you. He's a great kid.'

Gino gave him a lopsided smile. 'Obviously. Let me know when he's between girlfriends. My daughter may not be the brightest bulb on the tree, but she's a sweetheart, and a looker to boot, and I'd sure like to see her hooked up with a young man who takes education seriously.' He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged at Magozzi. 'Come on, Leo. Let me tell him what's up. The guy's got the army at the door and has every right to be concerned.'

Magozzi looked down at his shoes and pretended to think for a moment.

John was watching the two cops without saying a word, thinking he'd learned more in the past three minutes than in all his years of law enforcement.

'I suppose,' Magozzi finally said.

'Great. Okay, Mr. Zellickson, this is the deal,' Gino said. We got some surveillance video from some of the sites where the boxes were planted, and we caught a pic of Kyle and his friend' - he pretended to consult his notes - 'Clark, something…'

'Clark Bradley?'

Yeah, that's the one. They weren't carrying a box or anything, and we're not thinking for one minute they were involved, but they were pretty close to a spot where one of the boxes was found, so we figured maybe, if we were really lucky, they might have seen something… like somebody setting down a box, for instance. And what's so freaky about that? A guy setting down a box? You'd never think twice about it. But in this case, maybe it means something.'

Kyle's dad frowned. Where was this?'

'The Metrodome.'

The man got manicures, Magozzi realized, wondering why that still gave him the creeps. His hand was pressed against his chest as if to quiet a relieved heart, and his buffed nails glinted on the black silk of the silly robe.

'Oh, for crying out loud,' Mr. Zellickson said, smiling for the first time since he'd opened the door. 'They have open skating at the Dome on a couple of floors whenever nothing else is going on. Kyle and Clark go all the time. They love their Rollerblades.'

Gino opened his hands and grinned. 'And they were blading on the film.' His grin disappeared. 'However - and I'm telling you this as a father, because I'd want to know if it were my kid - neither one of them was wearing a helmet.'

Mr. Zellickson's eyes narrowed. 'I will definitely talk to him about that. Come in, gentlemen. Kyle's in the basement doing some homework. With Clark, as it happens. You can talk to them both at the same time.'

Gino beamed at him. 'How lucky can we get?'

Kyle's mother pretty much hated the basement, which suited Kyle just fine since it meant she didn't come down here very much. Once in a blue moon the tornado siren on the corner blew its brains out and busted everybody's eardrums, and that was the only time she came down to the space Kyle had made his own. He and Clark had tacked up band posters on the wall, and hidden under those were the really fab posters of girls with big hooters hanging down to their belly buttons that made you want to do things to yourself no matter who was looking.

Clark was kind of a superdweeb. He'd been wearing jackets with zippers instead of snaps, duh, when he and Kyle had first hooked up, but he was a pure CSI genius. He'd seen every show about a million times, and watched all the cop and autopsy shows on cable until he nearly fried his brains out with a TV Ph.D. in how to do crime and make assholes out of the cops. Better yet, he carried a bong in his backpack and scored a lot of green from somewhere, because he always had a Glad bag full in his jockey shorts.

They were slumped on the sprung-out couch in the basement room mainlining tortilla chips and chocolate, watching the big screen Kyle's dad had hung on the wall to keep his precious progeny occupied while he and the mother of the year did whatever the hell they did upstairs. Last time he'd checked they'd been watching some reality show about a bunch of weird people trying to beat each other at stupid games on a deserted island. Tonight they were glued to the coverage of all the boxes that were turning the city upside down.

Have you done your homework, Kyle?

We're doing it now, Dad. Clark and I are watching the PBS special on the Civil War for history class.

That's good, Son. I heard that was a good series. So you're not watching the network news?

Nah. It's all about the boxes, and that's a little scary, you know?

It is, a little. Your mom and I were thinking we might all head up to Duluth tomorrow to visit jour grandparents.

'Well, that sucks,' Clark said quietly, just in case Kyle's dad was still at the top of the basement steps, trying to think of something else to say. Most of the time he worked about forty hours a day, which made him the ideal dad in Clark's opinion, if you had to have one at all. But occasionally, when he took a day off because the world was ending or he had a killer hangover, he took a shot at father-son bonding with Kyle, and those days were just plain creepy. He'd come down to the basement and ask them how they were doing, and they'd say they were doing fine, and he'd say, 'No shit,' as if that kind of talk would put him in the cool-dad category or something.

'You and Mom want to watch this with us, Dad?' Kyle called up the stairs. Kyle was kind of brilliant at parental management. He knew damn well if he invited his parents down, they'd assume they were actually watching that stupid Civil War thing and didn't need any supervision; plus, it allowed them to tell themselves they'd be good parents if they trusted the boys and just stayed upstairs, watching the Great Mystery Boxes show while they had a few cocktails.

As predicted, Kyle's dad said thanks very much but they'd stay upstairs so they didn't interrupt the boys while they were watching a homework assignment, which meant it was perfectly safe to light up some green.

Kyle turned on the HEPA air machine, opened the windows, and pointed at the big screen. 'Oh, that is so sweet. Look at the traffic cams.'

Clark focused on the screen for a while, grinning at the endless lines of cars frozen on all the freeways out of town. It wasn't like earlier this afternoon, with all the cars dodging and speeding and one spectacular rollover on 94 into Wisconsin, but all the same, he felt his gut tighten and ripple like that super fool who hip-hopped to super-abs. 'It's kind of weird, watching this, isn't it?'

'Weird, how?'

'Well, they're idiots. Assholes. Freaked out over nothing. They've blown all the boxes, for Chrissake. They know they're empty, and look at those fools, still running'

'They don't know if they found them all.'

'I want to tell somebody,' Clark said.

'Who?'

'Carrie Wynheimer, for one.'

'She's a loser. Wears a push-up bra.'

'So what? It's pushing up something'

Kyle snatched the stick away and pulled a load into his lungs, thinking he might have made a big mistake hooking up with Clark.

They were both mellowed out by the time the sun started sinking and the basement started to get murky. Bad thing about basements and their little window slices at ground level, especially when your parents planted yew bushes to hide the top four courses of cement blocks, as if no one knew they were there.

They'd watched a lot of the news coverage of the panic in the city. At first it had been fun to see the traffic jams and wide-eyed residents packing up their minivans with kids and pets. After a while it got old. And then the doorbell rang.

The door to the basement opened onto the hall just beyond the foyer, so Magozzi was front row center to read the body language of the kids when they came upstairs.

Gino had wanted these kids to be the perps, partly so they could sew this thing up fast, and partly because he hated all teenage males. That kind of prejudice was the price of doing business when you were the father of a drop-dead sixteen-year-old daughter. Magozzi hadn't known what to wish for or what tack to take until he heard the footsteps plodding up from the basement. The way he figured it, you didn't stop running up any flight of stairs until you were at least twenty, unless you were nervous about what was at the top.

Kyle came first. His house, his lead on the stairs. He was a good-looking kid, blond and blue, with a pleasant, intelligent face.

'Hey, Dad. What's up?' his eyes immediately shifted to the three strangers standing in the foyer, and his brows tipped in polite curiosity. No tell there. Total innocence. Christ, the kid was good.

Clark came and stood a step behind his friend, unintentionally showing Magozzi the pecking order. Funny how people positioned themselves in a physical display of hierarchy without ever being taught such a thing. Then again, wolves did it. Why not kids?

Mr. Zellickson, proud papa, put his arm around his son. 'This is my son, Kyle, and this is his friend, Clark. Boys, these two gentlemen are Minneapolis police officers, and this is Agent Smith of the FBI. They'd like to ask you some questions about anything you might have seen at the Metrodome today.'

'Sure thing,' Kyle said pleasantly. 'Although I can't think of anything unusual. Just the usual slew of 'bladers and skaters we see there most of the time.'

Magozzi smiled and nodded. 'How about at the Crystal Court?'

Clark's face went stiff, Kyle's smile faded, and Mr. Zellickson looked puzzled. 'Uh… I thought you said you saw them on surveillance film at the Dome.'

'That's right. And at Crystal Court, and the Mall of America, and I don't know how many other sites where we found boxes. We're still going over the film.'

'Oh, Jesus.' Clark was swallowing hard, over and over again, and beads of sweat popped on his forehead.

Magozzi and Gino both took a step backward as the boy suddenly folded in half and threw up on the Zellicksons' oriental foyer rug. 'It was just a joke,' he wailed, and then threw up again.

'Shut up, for Christ's sake,' Kyle screamed, but as it turned out, Gino barely had time to read them both their rights before Clark started talking.

Magozzi looked down at the mess on the rug and felt bad, then turned up the edge with his toe and immediately felt better. Damn thing was a fake, just like the house and the pretense of a perfect family and the golden boy who was starting to look really tarnished.

Then he saw Mr. Zellickson's world falling apart on his face, and felt really bad all over again.

Officer Haig answered the call for a squad with a cage, which made Gino and Magozzi very happy. The man was in the last quiet year of twenty as a workhorse on the streets, and there was no retirement present that could hold a candle to bringing in some most-wanteds while a hundred cameras were rolling. Magozzi went out to talk to him before Gino and John brought out the little monsters.

'You hit the jackpot, Haig'

Yeah? What have you got?'

'Box boys.'

Haig's forehead wrinkled. You mean the kids who pack up your stuff at the supermarket?' He studied Magozzi's grin for a second, then his graying eyebrows went up to say hello to his hairline. 'No fooling?'

'No fooling. You saw the mess of cameras and reporters at the house, right?'

You mean the ones who've been blocking the streets and sidewalks and the entrances all day? Nah. Didn't notice them.'

'It's worse now than when you went out. All the networks, a ton of cable stations, and a few foreigns have the place surrounded with satellite vans. Looks like the Martians have landed.'

'Don't worry about it. I'll just zip down into the garage like always…'

'No.'

'No?'

'I want you to off-load these boys at the front entrance. Maybe go around the block a couple times before pulling in so the media catches sight of you. We'll be right behind you to help walk them up the steps, but you take the lead with one of them and go slow, got it'

'Wow. I'm going to be on TV.'

'Comb your hair, Haig. The whole world's going to get a look at it by tomorrow morning.'

'Cool.'