The Killing Kind

21

A voice in his ear, crackly and delayed-the telephone connection terrible. Henry Garfield strained to hear over the clamor of the FBI’s St. Louis field office on Market Street. Then his eyes went wide. “You serious?” he asked. “Hell yeah, I’ll wait.” He covered the mouthpiece of the office-issue landline and shouted to his partner, one cubicle away: “Hey, Thompson-you’re not gonna fuckin’ believe this.”

Charlie Thompson wearily removed her glasses and closed her eyes, but the ghostly image of the traffic camera footage she’d been staring at remained. She massaged at the knot of tension where nose met forehead that had twisted her handsome features into a scowl, but it did nothing to relieve the march of her headache. “Garfield,” she said, “I swear to God, if you’re calling me over there to see another sleazeball bang some floozy in an alley, I’m going to put a bullet through your monitor. Or you.”

“Right,” Garfield said, “like there’s two guys in one day that lucky in all of Saint Louis. Look around-the lucky people in this town have done moved out. I never seen a city this big this empty.”

About that, at least, Garfield was right. The population of St. Louis had declined by two-thirds since its peak. The results were broad sidewalks and multilane arterials that sat empty, or damn near. Which, theoretically, should have made their current task easier, but in practice made it dull enough to render it unbearable.

Thompson and Garfield were looking for a late-model metallic blue Nissan Versa sedan, rented Monday evening from Reliant Auto Rental-less than a mile’s walk from the airport-by a Mr. Lawrence Landry. Landry was one of Leonwood’s go-to aliases. They’d been at it for going on twenty-four hours-since midday Tuesday, when the footage from the traffic cams, ATMs, and private security feeds started rolling in. Reliant, like most auto rental companies across the country, didn’t bother placing tracking systems inside their compacts or economies-just their luxury options. Paying monthly premiums to track a fleet of low-rent cars unlikely to be stolen wasn’t worth the cost. And either Leonwood was wise to the fact or he was just a tightwad, because moose of a man that he was, when it came time to rent a ride, he opted to cram himself into a compact rather than fork over the dough for something he might actually fit into. And that left Thompson and Garfield hoping somebody somewhere had eyes on him, so they could figure out where he was headed. Even in a town as sparsely populated as St. Louis, it was like trying to find a needle in a pile of other needles-and the St. Louis field office was understaffed, so they were on their own sifting through the literally thousands of hours of video and reams of digital stills. With twenty trained agents, it might have been doable. With two, it was a waste of time.

“So what have you got?” Thompson said.

“What I’ve got is a call from our office in KC. They got a nibble on the pic of Leonwood we’ve been circulating. Seems ol’ Leon got himself into an argument with a fucking ventriloquist of all things at some cheap-ass casino buffet, and security had to step in to talk him down.”

Thompson stood, rising all the way to her tiptoes so she could peer over the cubicle wall. Her cell phone vibrated- a text from Jess-and her headache intensified. She was too busy for family drama right now. “They sure it was our guy?”

“Sure enough to call it in. I’m on hold with KC while they call the casino back to see if they can e-mail me a still from their security cameras.”

“He’s not still there, is he?” Thompson asked.

“No,” Garfield replied. “The place’s got a hotel, but he wasn’t registered. They comped him a dinner to shut him up, and he left just after.”

“Wait-he wasn’t registered? That mean he gave them a name when they talked to him?”

“Yeah,” Garfield said: “Smith.”

Figures, Thompson thought. If he’d used a known alias, they’d have him pegged. But Smith was almost as damning. In fact…“Son of a bitch,” she said, plopping back into her chair and swiveling once more toward her computer.

“What?”

“What’s the name of the casino?”

“Pendleton’s-why?”

Thompson googled, brought up their website. Her cell phone vibrated again, but she ignored it. “That’s where his hit is going down.”

“How can you be so sure? We don’t even know it’s him yet.” Garfield’s e-mail chirped, indicating a new message. A quick click to open it, and another to open the attached image, and he said, “Scratch that-it’s him. But you can’t know that’s where it’s gonna go down. I mean, he’d be crazy to whack a guy with that much security around, wouldn’t he?”

“Leonwood specializes in crazy,” Thompson said. “Besides, when’s the last time you flew halfway across the country to see a ventriloquist?”

“Fair point,” Garfield conceded. “Still, it’s pretty thin. Maybe he’s just killing time until killing time.”

“Cute,” Thompson said, “but I don’t buy it. If he was staying there, I might grant the possibility he just wandered down and plopped himself in whatever show was going on to kill the hours. But he’s not staying there, and he didn’t even dare to drop one of his common aliases. Ergo, he was casing the place.”

Thompson thought she heard Garfield scoff at her ergo, but he had the sense at least not to put words to his derision. Nice to know her threats of violence were starting to pay off. She fired off an e-mail and heard the electronic chirp from Garfield’s cubicle as it arrived.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“The Pendleton’s event schedule for the month. I need you to talk to someone on their end and find out which of these events are scheduled for the same room the ventriloquist is in for, say, the next three days. If nothing pops, then make it seven.” But she knew something would pop- Leonwood wasn’t the type for loads of careful prep.

“You want me to alert their security to the threat?”

“And run the risk they’ll spook him?” she asked. “No. Leonwood’s too slippery. We have to do this right. Tell them to let us know if he comes through again, but don’t tip them that he’s dangerous; make up something white-collar if you have to. Tell them we have agents on the way. And whatever you tell them, make sure they buy it, or you’ll cause a panic, and Leonwood will disappear. If they blow this collar on us, I’ll hold you personally responsible.”

“And what’re you gonna be doing while I tackle all your scut work?”

“I’m going to get us on the next shuttle to KC, and then I’m going to get on the horn with our KC office and make sure their SWAT team’s good to go. Be ready in five.”

“But all my shit’s at the hotel!”

“Which is where you’ll find it when you get back,” she said. “No time to pack a bag, pretty boy-whatever’s going down is going down soon.”