Unlucky 13

Chapter 42

Conklin unfolded his lanky body and got out of CSI Stanford’s low-slung muscle car. As she took off, he walked to our unmarked and got into the passenger seat. We had a good view of Barney’s from our spot in the middle of the block, and there we sat.

It was a long wait. Conklin tipped his head back and caught some of the z’s he’d lost while fighting about the President’s economic policies with Tina, and I scrutinized all traffic—car, foot, and skateboard. There was a plant nursery to my left, a coffee spot to my right, and an elevated BART track across the way. The whoosh and hum of the train added a sound track to the casual afternoon scene. After an hour, I felt I knew the neighborhood as well as my own.

But I didn’t see what I was looking for: a man walking under the red metal Barney’s sign, going through the doors into the vacant liquor store, and coming out with a package.

Three and a half hours after staking out this block, I’d had enough. I nudged Conklin awake and then, along with a half dozen cops, we surrounded the liquor store with guns in hand.

I assigned places, and when we were all ready, I opened the front door.

The interior of the store was gloomy, with just enough light coming through the soaped windows to see the walls of empty shelves and cardboard cartons and one shiny object: the Zero Halliburton case on the counter.

The case was open. The money was gone and a note had been left inside it. Block letters on lined paper.

NO POLICE, REMEMBER? KA-BOOM.

Two cops went to the basement and returned a minute later. They had found that the basement door that opened out to the parking lot was unlocked and that the basement itself was shared by the bakery next door.

Conklin and I exited Barney’s by the front door and then entered the Frosted Fool Bakery next door, where a browsing crowd of shoppers checked out the glass cases and stood in line with numbers in their hands. I fetched the owner from the kitchen and invited the customers to leave. Then I turned the sign on the door to closed while Conklin gathered the salespeople together for questioning.

We interviewed the owner and the three salespeople who’d been behind the counters all morning.

All four agreed. No suspicious customers had been seen in the Frosted Fool. However, they did say that the basement door they shared with the defunct Barney’s was left unlocked during the day for deliveries and garbage removal.

Undoubtedly that basement door was used by the unknown subject who had taken the four packets of cash totaling a hundred grand.

And the game was still on. As the bomber had told Michael Jansing, he was enjoying himself immensely.

That’s when a soft ka-boom went off in my mind.

But was it already too late?

I dashed out to our car and yelled into the radio: “All units to the corner of East Twelfth and Thirty-fifth. Now!”

Three minutes later, we converged on Chuck’s Prime two blocks northeast of San Leandro Street, where grass-fed Chuckburgers were being served by fresh-faced guys and gals in cowboy outfits, every one of them looking too innocent to be real.

In my mind, every employee was a suspect and every customer was a potential victim. Maybe there was a bomb under the broiler lamps now. Or maybe a ticking hamburger had just been served.

There was no time for finesse.

I stood with Conklin and a squad of armed cops at my back and yelled, “SFPD. Everybody stop eating! Put down those hamburgers! Now!”