The Body of David Hayes

EIGHTEEN

WHEN BOLDT DROPPED LAMOIA OFF at his building, John offered his round-the-clock services, an expression of fraternity that implied there would be no overtime filed for, nothing on the books if Boldt wanted it that way. This reaching out by his former partner, a man Boldt had personally trained to follow in his path, meant the world to him.

“I may take you up on that.”

“Do it. And I can safely volunteer Matthews as well.” Boldt found it amusing that John still referred to Daphne by her last name.

He was about to pull away from the curb when a woman’s figure stepped out of a doorway and headed directly for his car. Boldt couldn’t imagine prostitutes working this neighborhood, but he prepared his shield to display and drive her off to another corner.

The woman opened Boldt’s passenger door, and he had dropped his credentials wallet onto the seat and had his gun in hand by the time he recognized her.

“Maddie Olson,” she reminded him. “We met in the men’s room.”

“If I were the paranoid type,” Boldt said, “I’d say you were lying in wait for me.”

“Word gets around,” she said. “Drive please.”

Boldt pulled the Crown Vic into traffic and started taking random turns through an old part of town where traffic was moderate. “You’re not serious,” he said, when she failed to instigate conversation, “about knowing I’d show up.”

“Sure I am. I knew you had snatched up LaMoia. I’m telling you, there’re no secrets.”

“Geiser,” he guessed.

“… is in the Emergency Room at Swedish Med Center, Central district.”

“I was with him an hour ago.”

“Our guy, the same guy you’re never going to speak to-”

“Alekseevich,” Boldt supplied.

“-got word to us that the shit was flying. Geiser had been scheduled for a manicure. Foreman’s up next, if they can find him.”

“Damn.” Boldt was not surprised to hear Foreman’s name. He’d just fed it to Geiser himself.

“You don’t sound surprised,” she said.

“Two nights ago Danny Foreman led me to a crime scene.” He went on to explain the blood in the cabin. “It made me suspicious of him.”

“Because?”

“Danny had missed an important meet. Claimed he was stuck in traffic. Gave me the same excuse that he gave Geiser. I made some calls. Followed up on those calls just now. We look for patterns, right? I had one I thought worth pursuing, and come to find out, the highway where Danny was stuck in construction traffic while watching a car get towed turns out to be an area watched by a traffic cam. We live and die by the details. Danny tried too hard, said he’d seen a broken-down car to both me and Geiser. Too much information. When Geiser gave me that, my antenna went up.”

“Reporting what he saw on the traffic cam allowed him to pretend to be somewhere he was not?”

“By the look of it, yes.”

“And where was he, in fact?”

“This is all just speculation,” he cautioned, “but my guess is he was doing a damn good job of imitating your Mr. Alekseevich so we’d take the bait. Meanwhile, I thought he was sequestering our primary suspect for the U.S. Attorney’s Office. That is… that’s the direction I was going until what you just told me.”

“And now?”

“If they hit Geiser they don’t have what they need. Maybe Danny tortured Hayes for information and then dumped the body.”

“It will pan out. The Geiser manicure. Foreman being next.”

“And you’re telling me this because…?”

“My sister’s kid.”

“I made a call about that,” he said defensively, thinking she was accusing him of not having acted.

“I know you did,” she said. “What goes around… ” she added.

“I guess so,” said Boldt.

“The next corner is fine,” she said, pointing.

Boldt slowed the car for a red light, glad for the extra minute or two. “You said Geiser is in Emergency. What about Danny?”

“We rolled a car to Geiser’s following the tip. Probably should have kept it off the radio in hindsight, because chances are they were scanning and knew we were coming. Found him in the basement in a bad way. Very fresh. Foreman’s off our radar so far.”

“Are you so sure?” Her words had sparked an interesting idea in him.

“We haven’t found him,” she repeated, missing Boldt’s meaning, and Boldt was in no hurry to correct matters.

“I need you to arrange a meeting for me.”

“Alekseevich? No can do.”

“Pretty please, with caviar on top?”

“I’d love to help out, Lieutenant. But I get off the bus here.”

“Five minutes. Ten, max.”

“Not possible.”

“Then tell your people this. Sunday night, one way or another, I’m delivering Svengrad on the front steps, so they better stop your guy from crossing into Canada or boarding a flight because we’re all going to need him if we’re going to make the charges stick.”

“They’ll go ballistic, I give them that.” She sounded a little desperate now herself. “We’ve been building a case for the better part of a year now. You cannot do this, Lieutenant.”

“I’m not asking permission, Detective. I’m trying to give you a heads-up.”

“And if I can get you the meet with Alekseevich?” she asked. “Where’s that put all this?”

“Now you’re listening,” he said. Pulling the car to the curb as she’d directed, Boldt knew he’d won the meeting. “Your name never comes up in any of this.”

“I don’t know whether to kiss you or throw a punch,” she said, popping her door open.

He made sure she had his cell phone number, and then headed back into traffic, confident he’d led her away from her own very good idea, and wondering if he could now turn it to his favor.

Liz was half out of her mind with impatience and the claustrophobic sense of being watched and guarded. Lou’s last-minute request before he’d left had nearly floored her, but she knew to trust his judgment and instincts-when it came to planning, few were his equal.

To her surprise, the third shop she phoned was open late on Friday nights, the effeminate male voice on the other end trying to cross-sell all kinds of extras she didn’t need. She made this call in secret, as Lou had suggested, from the kitchen’s portable but in the bathroom with the water running, while Bobbie Gaynes babysat her in the living room, leafing through magazines and constantly adjusting the ear bud that linked her with dispatch. Liz had heard Lou talk about such operations dozens of times over the course of their marriage, but being the centerpiece of such a thing proved exhausting despite her doing nearly nothing and going nowhere. The nervous energy alone drained her of physical strength and threatened paranoia. Pickup and delivery of a costume was arranged. She reviewed the arrangements twice, making sure there were no misunderstandings. Lou had given her specific orders, and she meant to carry them out.

“Everyone okay in there, Mrs. B.?” It was Gaynes knocking lightly on the bathroom door. “Out in a minute. There’s another upstairs,” Liz added.

“It’s not like that,” Gaynes said. She didn’t need a toilet; she needed her charge back in her chair in the living room. Cops were territorial animals.

Liz willed her mobile phone to ring-to engage her, give her something to do other than worry. She would not have expected being so eager to be involved, so ready for it. At that point in time, if someone had asked her to clean fish she would have done it. Anything to relieve the stress of waiting.

She kicked herself a moment later for not thinking the way Lou thought, for not realizing her environment and how to handle herself. She left the bathroom and, by her way of thinking, did a pretty fine job of returning the kitchen’s portable phone to its wall cradle. But a moment later she looked back to see Gaynes striking a pose in the doorway shared between the kitchen and living room, one shoulder on the jamb, one leg crossed before the other.

“No,” Gaynes said into the portable phone. “Just checking if you’re open.” She hung up the call with the press of a button. She had pushed redial. She had realized what Liz was up to in the bathroom and had gone straight to work upon the phone’s return.

“What’s up with the costume shop, Mrs. B.?”

“I think you’d better come over here and sit down,” Liz said. “This may take some explaining.”

“I didn’t think you’d take me up on my offer so soon,” LaMoia said from the passenger seat. Less than thirty minutes had elapsed since Boldt had dropped him off. “I just barely wolfed dinner.” LaMoia carefully picked at a thick brownie, nibbling off tiny amounts and savoring each bite.

Boldt couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten. He currently had the remains of a hot tea warming the cup holder. Boldt caught LaMoia up on the surprise visit by Maddie Olson, but did not mention her by name or division within the department, referring to her only as a “female officer.”

“Best kind,” LaMoia said, his teeth black with chocolate.“

It presents two very different scenarios,” Boldt said, driving faster than he normally did, and knowing that John recognized this but was too cool to acknowledge it. “Either Foreman stung us by faking the torture and stashing Hayes for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, or he actually tortured Hayes himself and put it off on others.”

LaMoia reacted sarcastically, one of the only emotional responses he allowed himself. “Oh, well, that second one’s certainly a dandy. Pissed at the system, he decides to take the money for himself?”

“It might account for Svengrad going after Geiser and him.”

“Why do I sense we’re not out for an evening drive?” LaMoia asked, popping the last bit of brownie into his mouth and rolling his eyes as he chewed. Boldt had just run a red light. “These things might come from a box,” he said, licking his fingers, “but Matthews has it down. The trick is undercooking them.”

“The Martha Stewart of Homicide.”

LaMoia, adding a southern twang, said, “And damn proud of it.”

Boldt explained, “First thing I did was try the Sheriff’s Office, looking for Danny, because this cop mentioned having Danny on our radar, and I think without meaning to, reminded me that all the MDTs,” Mobile Data Terminals, “track real-time location of the cars, same as ours do.”

“And you got a fix for his new ride? The Escalade?”

“Not exactly.”

“You’re driving as if you did.”

Boldt suppressed a grin. The first faint acknowledgment from John. It was worth cherishing. “I’ve got a fix, but it wasn’t courtesy of the Sheriff’s Office.”

“Is this supposed to be twenty questions or something?” He eyed Boldt’s tea, still smacking his lips. “You mind if I have a swig of that?”

“Finish it,” Boldt said. LaMoia knew perfectly well that Boldt did mind sharing both drink and food. This was LaMoia’s attempt at being polite while he got what he wanted. “Sheriff’s Office only keeps real-time information, and they currently have nothing on their screens for Foreman’s Escalade. Means the engine’s turned off. They’ll call me if that changes.”

“We call them ‘motors,’ Sarge,” LaMoia corrected, “but I’ll forgive you this time. Motors, because they’re engines that move you.” John was a gear-head of the first order. Boldt should have known better than to wander into his territory.

“Do you want to hear this?”

LaMoia, not wearing his seat belt, had slumped back in the seat, as if tempted by a nap despite Boldt’s erratic driving. The man had some Old West mannerisms like this-the town sheriff tipped back in the spoke chair outside the jail-that he wore effortlessly, and that fit him well. He reminded Boldt of the best of Steve McQueen. As if Boldt had already briefed him, LaMoia said, “I’m way ahead of you. The new Escalades offer an On-Sat service package that gives you twenty-four-hour road assistance, electronic mapping, live operators.” He paused for dramatic effect. “GPS, twenty-four-seven. You’re about to tell me On-Sat maintains GPS data for some specified amount of time; I’m guessing between six and twenty-four hours. That way they know where you’ve been, and this helps their operators look good when you ask for a nice restaurant or motel nearby.” He gave Boldt a smirk. “Voilá! The wheres and whens of Danny Foreskin’s comings-and-goings over the past whatever-amount-of-time.” He looked over at Boldt ponderously, and when Boldt failed to contradict him, slid further down in the seat, saying, “Wake me when we get there, Daddy. I need to close my eyes a sec.”

Boldt felt as if he’d had his pocket picked. “The location is nearby. Southeast, in SoDo. Foreman’s Escalade has been in this area three times in the past twenty-four hours. It’s not a firm address, but it’s got to mean something.”

“When you’re right, you’re right,” LaMoia said. “I stole your thunder. Didn’t I, Sarge?” His eyes remained closed.

“Yes, you did.”

“Good.”

“Why’s that good?” Boldt asked, after a long period of reflection to consider this.

“Because then you’re probably pissed off at me,” he said. “Am I right?”

“Mildly irritated.”

“And if you’re pissed off at me, then your juices are flowing, and we’re going to need our juices flowing by the time we get there.”

“And what about your juices?”

“Sarge? This is me we’re talking about.”

“One of these days, John… ”

“Yeah, I know.” A stifled yawn, well practiced. “I know.”

LaMoia asked about the Escalade’s current location according to On-Sat. Boldt said it was last recorded at the edge of a rail freight yard nearly directly west of their present location.

“And why aren’t we looking there first?”

“Because that, if anything, would give us Foreman, and we want Hayes.”

“Why are we so anxious to get to Hayes, Sarge?”

This was the question Boldt could not allow himself to answer, for it would reveal too much of his upcoming plan. In his own unique way, LaMoia had wormed into the heart of the matter, drilling for the truth and ripping Boldt open in the process. There was little these two men had not shared over the past decade, and Boldt’s silence suggested a line not to cross for LaMoia, and the man was briefly but clearly hurt.

LaMoia placed a call from his cell phone, interrupting himself to ask Boldt for the address where they were headed, which Boldt then supplied begrudgingly, wondering what he was up to. He spoke to a woman, judging by the way he flirted, and she apparently did everything he asked, because he kept continually thanking her. He disconnected the call, clipped the cell phone back to his waist, and sighed.

“Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so smart.”

“Oh, yeah,” Boldt said, “there’s a problem.” Now LaMoia would make him drag it out of him. Unlike Bernie Lofgrin, who had to bore you to death explaining everything in excruciating detail, LaMoia never volunteered his information, his little game.

Southeast of SoDo was a no-man’s-land of brick and cinderblock, chain link and rusted signs, a DMZ-like stretch between the city and Boeing Field. Sidewalks sprouted weeds; broken windows called attention to themselves. For a while gangs had used the area, moving in and then driven out, like livestock crossing neighbors’ property lines. Mom-and-Pop shops, burger houses, delivery businesses, and car repair had started the process that would lead the former warehouse and light industrial space into offices and retail storefronts. The unstoppable evolution of neglected urban space under pressure. Even an unpredictable economy couldn’t stop the city from growing-the bacterium had grown immune to antibiotics.

“Okay, I give up,” Boldt said. “Why are you so smart?”

“There’s a building within a block of where the On-Sat put Foreman’s car that’s on BCI’s impound list.” Law enforcement agencies, SPD included, took possession of assets in narcotics raids and RICO convictions, often to offset taxpayers for a particularly expensive or time-consuming investigation. Vehicles, boats, homes, commercial properties were all impounded. Most of the time these were put on the auction block and the proceeds returned to the public coffers once the court case settled. On occasion, a vehicle or boat would be impounded and later put into service by the agency of possession. Real estate in particular typically lagged in the process, sometimes staying on the books a year or two before auction. Locked and chained and standing vacant, they dotted the urban landscape, tracked by some bureaucratic auditor. On occasion, as appeared to be the case now, an arresting agent later came to believe the car, or boat, or commercial real estate in fact belonged to him or her as long as no one was using it. LaMoia’s discovery of such a property within walking distance from the various locations where Foreman’s parked Escalade had been tracked suggested anything but coincidence.

LaMoia checked an address written in pen on the back of his hand and indicated a turn to Boldt. A moment later they parked and climbed out. “Place was a print shop. Supermarket coupons, some counterfeit lottery tickets, sports tickets. Went on BCI’s impound list a year ago September.”

They faced a sturdy steel door. Looking up through a rusted steel fire escape, Boldt said, “I asked both the On-Sat people and BCI to call me if they saw Foreman on the move, especially returning to this neighborhood. Who knows if they’ll oblige us.”

“So we stay ready to be surprised,” LaMoia said. “You want to take it alone, have me play sentry, or do we do this together?”

“Together. We’ll call for backup if we manage to get inside.”

“I saw you looking at the fire escape,” LaMoia said.

“Yes, you did.”

“You want me up there?”

“We take the dime tour first, aware of the fact that Svengrad may have already gotten to Foreman. If so, Svengrad’s people may have arrived ahead of us, or could even be on their way right now.”

“They got to him once. I don’t see that happening a second time. Foreskin’s got more sense than that.”

“Danny’s playing Lone Ranger. That makes him vulnerable to all sorts of mistakes. If I’m Svengrad, I want to know where Foreman is at all times. That is, if Danny isn’t working for Svengrad. Seventeen million can go a lot of ways.”

“Point taken.”

They walked along the front of the building and then down an alley where they spotted a distinct architectural division that designated a change in structures. A second fire escape led down here in the alley.

LaMoia said, “I could maybe get up there… you see that third-floor window?” Several panes of glass in the window were broken out. “Maybe I can get back down to the first floor from inside.” The impounded print shop had occupied the entire first floor and the basement, according to John’s information.

“We don’t have a warrant. And good luck getting one when it’s a BCI-impound property without involving BCI. Just go ahead and imagine that nightmare. Foreman’s working an investigation, and we’re interfering. That’s how the prosecuting attorney’s office and BCI are going to view this, especially if Foreman ends up making BCI look bad.”

“We’ve got a BCI agent gone missing, and an informant telling you he may have met foul play.”

“That informant’s not on the books and is never going to put herself there.”

“But that right there is probable cause to enter a place our missing guy may have visited several times in the past twenty-four hours.” LaMoia added, “I’ll tell you what: The Sturgeon General sure as shit is not waiting around for a warrant. If Foreman or Hayes is inside this building, we gotta get swinging on some ropes here, Sarge.”

After hours, Boldt thought. Not the greatest time to go hunting down a search-and-seizure. “Mahoney could expedite this for us,” Boldt said. DPA Lehla Mahoney and Boldt had forged a good working relationship over the past few years, and she’d proven willing to go out on a limb for him. He took a moment to call her while LaMoia began his ascent of the fire escape toward the broken window, an act that required them both to push a Dumpster beneath the fire escape to give LaMoia a leg up.

Boldt had to leave a callback number on Mahoney’s service, but to his surprise she returned the call within a minute. LaMoia had reached the second floor. Boldt detailed their situation, and the attorney listened closely, interrupting with a number of interrogatives along the way. In conclusion she said she’d try to get Boldt a paper bag warrant-a verbal warrant from an on-duty judge known to be slightly to the left of Ralph Nader. Boldt warned her that he and LaMoia considered time a factor and were therefore going to kick it, counting on Mahoney to come through. She didn’t like that the initial information came from an informant working for the U.S. Attorney’s Office through SPD’s Organized Crimes unit, seeing that a possible obstacle, and warned Boldt they might not get their warrant.

“Yes,” Boldt said, “but at least I called. That’s got to count for something.”

“Not much,” Mahoney replied. In fact, officers could and did kick doors based on probable cause without ever applying for the proper paperwork. Boldt knew that maybe sixty percent of the time evidence collected in such raids actually made it to court. He didn’t want to lose evidence, but he didn’t want to leave Foreman or Hayes inside this building another minute, and so he made a hasty and difficult decision to give LaMoia a thumbs-up from his place below the man in the alley. Part of his reasoning should have included that they weren’t even sure they could reach the impounded property from that broken window, and that argument might have held up if it had been anyone but LaMoia climbing that fire escape. But as Boldt gave the signal, he moved immediately back toward the building’s locked front door, knowing that at any minute LaMoia would appear there, a shit-eating grin on his face, a wisecrack ready on his lips.

“Welcome to the Hyatt. May I check your reservation?” LaMoia asked.

“I knew you’d have something cute. You just can’t leave it alone, can you?”

“I have a reputation to live up to,” LaMoia said.

Boldt stepped through into a vast, empty space that smelled of cat urine and feces. A poured concrete floor stained from spilled ink, papered with litter. It was dark. Both detectives used small Maglites to light their way.

The central space looked to be about the size of a basketball court but beneath a low ceiling. Boldt experienced an immediate sense of dread, an early-warning sign he’d come to trust over the years and felt inclined to do so now. This “sense” usually proved to be no sense at all, but his picking up on evidence subliminally, evidence that didn’t jump out at first. When Boldt stopped walking to take in the vastness of the space, LaMoia knew better than to challenge him, or even speak. Boldt trusted the man to put the wisecracks away and knew it would be so. Despite all his antics, LaMoia was a serious cop on the inside. LaMoia squatted, also looking around, sweeping his own flashlight across the floor.

LaMoia’s light stopped moving, illuminating a wedge-shaped cone of concrete. “Is that what you’re looking for?” His light held on two thin hash marks, black, like skid marks from a bike tire. Not one, but two of them, and nearly parallel.

“Good work, John.”

The men followed the irregular black lines across the floor. Fat to narrow. Long to short. Boldt discerned the direction of movement from their shape and pattern. “Heel marks,” he said, following them across the cavernous space. A body being dragged. Boldt’s temperature increased and he worked to control his breathing, to fight the adrenaline that wanted to own him. The deeper they moved into this room, the darker, the more dependent they were on the small flashlights. Boldt knew they could be following the markings of a machine being dragged across the print shop or a cart with black rubber tires or a hand truck. But he believed otherwise. A body, his internal voice cautioned. The body of David Hayes, his first thought.

“This is SPD turf, and that gives us jurisdiction to investigate that busted window. We’re cool, Sarge. This isn’t coming back on us.” LaMoia said all this for himself, knowing instinctively as did Boldt that they were on to something, and not wanting to face that they could lose by technicality whatever lay at the end of these skid marks. But both men had experienced such loss enough times to know the truth. They’d taken a gamble. The admissibility of whatever they might discover here remained in question.

They followed the skid marks around a wall to a missing door and a wide set of steel and concrete stairs leading down. Reflexively, LaMoia grabbed for his handgun, checked the weapon for operability, and gripped it along with the flashlight, both hands extended before him. Boldt remained half a step back, avoiding any line of fire, but did not take up his weapon. He checked it once, hooking his sport coat behind its bulge, so that he could withdraw it at a moment’s notice, and only then if LaMoia needed backup. John LaMoia was a crack shot. If anything moved down here without fair notice, Boldt knew the outcome.

The bottom of the stairs presented them with a closed door, and LaMoia tugged it open, standing to one side to screen himself. A pitch-black space faced them, slowly illuminated by their flashlights. This basement level was crowded with discarded printing presses, stacks of white plastic, five-gallon drums, junk of every shape and size, all stacked together without logic or organization. The floor failed to yield the telltale skid marks of a body being dragged, and so the two split up, Boldt heading to the right, LaMoia to the left. Using hand signals they communicated a rendezvous point at the far end of a space that remained so dark that the light they carried died in blackness before reaching a distant wall. The operating theory was that it had to end somewhere, and when it did, they would find each other. Meanwhile, Boldt kept glancing over his shoulder to keep track of LaMoia’s ever-dimming light.

The junk was piled in heaps that created a few aisles to Boldt’s left, and the larger aisle that he continued to walk. He squared a corner, discovering a side wall, and felt tempted to call out to LaMoia when, at that same instant, he felt a vibration travel up his legs, resonate through his body, and he guessed that a vehicle had either just passed by the building or had parked alongside.

Boldt’s skin prickled as he hurried his pace, checking a number of side storage rooms. He had his weapon out now, in hand, and wasn’t sure when that had happened. He reminded himself that he had a Kevlar vest in the trunk of the Crown Vic and that Miles was almost seven and Sarah just four and that they deserved to have a daddy well into their childhoods. He also reminded himself that he had applied for the lieutenant’s shield to raise his pay, but that Liz saw it as a means to keep him out of situations like this, and he struggled with the irony that Liz herself had put him into this situation. It seemed it was always at moments such as these that memories and considerations tried to overrun his thoughts, an involuntary invitation of images that challenged his ability to stay focused and made the job all the more difficult. As a young cop, such images never plagued you; experience had its downside.

The fourth door that Boldt tried failed to open, and his flashlight revealed a shiny new hasp and padlock at head height. He whistled once, and LaMoia whistled back, and at the same instant a muffled voice came from the other side of the door, and Boldt felt his bowels rumble. When it came to victims, Homicide cops rarely dealt in the living.

The muffled cries continued from the other side of the door.

“You feel the shake and bake?” LaMoia asked in a forced whisper, coming up behind Boldt.

“I did,” Boldt said, snapping on a pair of latex gloves before tugging on the lock.

“Visitors?”

“We knew it was a possibility.” Boldt added, “It could be our own guys trying to catch up to us and update us on Foreman’s status.”

LaMoia nonchalantly located a section of pipe amid the debris as they talked, leveraged the lock and hasp, and split the wooden doorjamb as the screws pulled loose and the hasp gave way. Still locked to itself, the hardware hung from the door. Boldt twisted the doorknob and eased the door open an eighth of an inch, aware there could be trip wires rigged to an explosive or incendiary device. If the work of Foreman, as an investigator he knew to destroy evidence and leave a few surprises for visitors. LaMoia leaned in close as Boldt held the door, and without a word of instruction searched the open space carefully with his flashlight held to the crack.

“Nada,” he said.

Boldt pushed the door open another two inches, and LaMoia reached inside this time, his fingers gently inspecting the gap. He shook his head. “No.”

Both men paused as they heard the unmistakable sound of someone entering the building upstairs.

LaMoia whispered, “You did lock the door behind you, right, Sarge?”

Boldt nodded. “Whoever’s up there had the key.”

“Not our guys,” LaMoia said, trying it out as a joke, or releasing tension, or both. The flip remark bothered Boldt, who pushed and held the door open another three inches, allowing LaMoia’s head to fit through. LaMoia sized up the room’s interior, still looking for booby traps.

“It’s Hayes,” he said softly. “Looks in decent shape.”

“The door?”

“Clear,” LaMoia said, tapping Boldt’s hand and swinging it open further.

Boldt glanced only briefly to confirm it was Hayes. The man was gagged and bound to a metal chair in a room filled with cluttered shelves. His left hand had been roughly bandaged and his mouth and face looked bruised and swollen.

“What about our friends?” LaMoia asked.

“Exits?” Boldt asked. He slipped past LaMoia, leaving him to guard the room. He freed Hayes but did not untie the man’s mouth, unsure whether the man would keep silent.

He heard footfalls overhead and guessed there were at least two of them. He didn’t need or want a confrontation where the prize was a man capable of delivering seventeen million dollars. Those kinds of stakes made men stupid, and stupid men did stupid things.

“I passed one, yeah,” LaMoia informed him, “though I can’t vouch for it.”

“Let’s go.” Boldt pulled Hayes out of the chair by the arm. The man stumbled under cramped legs, and LaMoia stepped inside and took the other arm. The room smelled of excrement and urine, and Boldt realized Hayes had fouled himself long before.

“Motherfucker,” LaMoia said, getting a close whiff as the man came out of the chair.

They guided Hayes through the door, his weight hanging between them like that of an invalid. Boldt saw the first sweep of light on the stairs and motioned LaMoia to lead them. They turned and hurried down an aisle created between the stacks of industrial junk. Boldt could feel the pressure of whoever was back there, knowing they drew closer with every step. He shook his hand vigorously, pointing ahead, trying to pick up their speed, and LaMoia responded by carrying more than his fair share of the weight.

LaMoia steered left at the end of the long aisle.

Boldt checked behind him to see through the tangle of metal what appeared to be two lights. They’d reached the bottom of the stairs and now faced the same indecision that he and LaMoia had faced only minutes before. One light went left, and one right, in a mirror image. Boldt looked ahead hoping for an exit sign, but couldn’t see more than a few feet. LaMoia trained his light toward the concrete floor, as did Boldt, all three of their heads aimed down in order to overstep obstacles and avoid making noise.

The visitor on the left turned the same corner that Boldt had, and when he called out, it was in what sounded like Russian, and Boldt felt his legs suddenly move that much faster. He didn’t consider himself scared of anyone; he’d spent too many years on the job for that-they were usually afraid of him-and yet the sound of that particular language, associated with all means and methods of violence, turned his blood cold and he experienced a pang of fear. LaMoia, no coward to anyone or anything, picked up his pace as well. Perhaps it resulted from the burden of Hayes carried between them, and their vulnerability, but whatever the motivation, they moved in unison. Even Hayes seemed to find his feet with the first echo of that foreign tongue. The three reached a rusted steel door bearing an emergency warning not to open it, and Boldt wondered if it was to be their luck that the one thing that still worked in this building was the emergency exit alarm built into the box attached to the door.

No matter what, their attempt to open this door promised to make noise: Old, rusty steel didn’t move quietly. Presently subterranean, they had to hope the stairwell-that presumably led up into an alley-was not also piled with debris, either blocking the door or preventing them from climbing out once through.

LaMoia checked with Boldt in the dim light, his right hand on the door’s panic bar. He was looking for permission from Boldt, and with the moment of truth at hand, Boldt wondered if this was indeed the best course of action. Without a doubt, their departure would attract attention. To do so unnecessarily seemed a ridiculous risk to take. But as the light to the right flickered and died, far closer to their aisle than Boldt had imagined, he gave the nod and LaMoia shoved on the tarnished panic bar.

The door came open with a horror-movie groan of metal on metal, not merely calling attention, but shouting. LaMoia swung it open, and it stuck. He let go of Hayes, threw a shoulder into it, and won enough room for them to pass. The shouting from behind also rose in Russian, followed immediately by hurried footfalls. Boldt, the last to pass through, braced himself for the sting of a bullet, or the pain of a club to his head.

LaMoia awaited him with a bent and battered discarded trash can that looked like an oversized crushed beer can. He rudely knocked Boldt out of the way and braced the can beneath the door’s outside handle, wedging the door shut.

They hurried up the stairs, the first loud bang on the door and the agonized sound of the trash can’s tin bending. Boldt didn’t like the idea of running from thugs, and he knew without asking that LaMoia felt the same. The thing to do was ditch Hayes and stand their ground and make arrests based on breaking-and-entering. But if these two were backed by two more, if SPD backup failed to arrive quickly, with seventeen million on the line, things could get dicey.

“So?” LaMoia asked hopefully, nowhere near as out of breath as Boldt felt.

“We can’t,” Boldt said.

Hayes got his feet under him and no longer needed much assistance. His mouth remained gagged, silver tape holding the gag in place. Bug-eyed he shouted to communicate but neither Boldt nor LaMoia was interested.

“Where to?” LaMoia asked.

“The Slumberjack,” Boldt proposed, naming a run-of-the-mill motel that SPD used occasionally.

“Lucky you,” LaMoia said, forcibly taking hold of Hayes now by his collar and throwing him ahead to keep him moving. “Free HBO and the taxpayer pays.”

“It’s not exactly how it’s going to work, John,” Boldt informed his sergeant, his mind already playing through his and Liz’s needs over the next forty-eight hours. “I’m paying for this one. Let’s keep it between the three of us. Foreman’s got to have access to anything we’re doing, either officially or through his pals. We can’t risk that.” These lies came so effortlessly now, he nearly believed them himself. He wondered if they made it past LaMoia as well.

Hayes appeared nonplussed at the mention of Foreman’s name, leaving Boldt to wonder who had been responsible for the man’s abduction. That, or Foreman had thought to use Rohypnol to erase the man’s memory of the event, and to further tie the abduction to the earlier tortures. Boldt had slipped the name into the explanation hoping for a response, and felt the wind knocked out of him when it failed to register.

Hurrying toward the Crown Vic, Boldt dragged along this man who’d had sex with his wife, his only real wish to find a legitimate excuse to kick Hayes squarely in the balls. Start kicking and never stop.