Boldt 05 - Pied Piper Read online

  “I feel like I should go back to the academy.”

  “Just lucky.”

  “Right,” she replied sarcastically.

  He continued with his theory. “Presumably he liked what he saw, approved of whomever was standing there.” He asked her, “Do you know home electronics?”

  “A little.”

  “Check that mess for an extra VCR. If I’m James Bond Anderson I run a twenty-four-hour video loop of all the action at my front door.” She was on it immediately, checking the gear.

  “Two VCRs,” she confirmed, glancing back at him as if he were some kind of specter. “One’s running.”

  “I’m telling you: just lucky. I know these guys.”

  “You’re freaking me out here, Sarge.”

  “The tape’s long erased itself by now. No use to us. But still, let’s log it as evidence and you take it home with you and play with your fast forward button. Watch it all the way through, just to cover our bases.”

  She turned off the machine and popped the tape. She made a note in her spiral notebook, and Boldt signed alongside as a witness.

  “He goes down to answer the door.” Boldt walked down the stairs, followed by Gaynes close on his heels. “Turns off the security and greets the person at the door. He locks back up but does not arm the system, and the two go upstairs.” He turned, and motioned Gaynes upstairs. “Guests first. He’s not going to give anyone his back.”

  Gaynes preceded him up. In the sitting area, Boldt motioned her into a chair. He said, “Maybe this guy accepts the chair, maybe not. Probably they know each other well enough for Anderson to be relaxed. I wonder. Big mistake, as it turns out. What you look for when you and Dixie have got him on the butcher block is lividity consistent with some kind of choke hold or strangulation. Toxins. Poisons. And make sure Dixie works the earwax; that is extremely important.”

  “Earwax,” she mumbled.

  He turned his back on her. “At some point he made the mistake of offering his back.”

  She looked down at the floor as if seeing the body there. She returned to the carpeted stairs and squatted as Boldt had earlier. She said, “Dragged up the stairs. You can see it in the nap of the carpet.”

  “The visitor is strong enough to haul him up the stairs.”

  “If I hadn’t worked with you before …”

  “Hold the compliments. This is all smoke, no real proof.”

  “This is amazing is what it is,” she said. “You saw that earlier,” she said, pointing up the stairs. “The nap of the carpet.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “I didn’t even look.”

  He shrugged. “Victims talk if you listen.”

  “Undresses him, stages the shower …” She thought a minute. “I’ll be damned!” she exclaimed, when she understood. “Takes one of the three keys off Anderson’s key chain and locks the front door.”

  Boldt agreed, nodding. “Basic to the ruse. The place has to be locked up tight, and Anderson found alone, dead from a nasty slip. Who’s going to investigate that?”

  “But the security is not on. That’s what tipped you.” She showed Boldt to the clothes hamper. “This is where I found the pants. You’ll want to see ’em. Covered in that yellow pollen, Sarge—at the knees, I’m talking about. They’re lousy with the stuff.”

  He said, “It makes Anderson important to us. It’s good work, Bobbie. We can only make an extremely circumstantial case. That’s all. If we’re right, then we’re up against someone who’s thinking. He assumed we would not check for the door key. He understood that the door being locked was crucial. That kind of guy scares me. We certainly have enough to investigate this. We need to bring in SID again, photograph everything. Maybe Bernie and his Boy Wonders can turn up something useful. Carpets. Phone records and finances if we find them. We give it a shakedown. Something falls out, we run with it.” Boldt nodded, unanswered questions all around him. A part of him hadn’t felt this good in ages, but he ached for those missing babies, and their parents who had to endure another night without them.

  CHAPTER

  Several hours later, Boldt was paged by LaMoia while on his way to the University Hospital, making the visit with Liz brief but memorable. She had natural color in her cheeks, light in her eyes, and warm hands. She called him over to sit on her bed and announced proudly, “I’m coming home.”

  He felt a pang of hope. Tears. “You can go back to being an outpatient?”

  “The doctors will tell you it’s the drugs. But I know better.” She looked over at the Bible, and next to it a copy of a religious textbook.

  He gasped, “Liz—”

  “Don’t! Keep that comment to yourself until we have a chance to talk about it.”

  “The chemo took, that’s all.”

  “That isn’t all,” she objected. “That isn’t any of it. But don’t do this now. Let’s wait ’til I’m home, okay? Tomorrow, or Sunday at the latest.”

  He squeezed her hand, thrilled and troubled. “We need to talk about this.”

  “We will. Let me get home first.”

  He nodded. Then he saw a look he knew too well. “Dr. Woods approves, doesn’t she? Of your going home.” A resonating fear penetrated through him: She was giving up on treatment.

  “Dr. Woods is somewhat baffled by my improvement, love. She would like to hold me for observation.”

  “Improvement?” he said skeptically.

  “My count is down significantly. Katherine can’t explain such a quick change, but I can. And I don’t need observation, love, I need to go home. To you, the children. Home. The work that needs to be done is better done there.”

  “The work? You’re scaring me.”

  Speaking like a Transylvanian, she mimicked, “It vill all be revealed to you in time.” And then she smiled a smile that could have filled a stadium with light, or a cathedral with warmth, a smile that had nothing to do with illness, a smile that came from a Liz before their marriage, their children, their trials, a smile that convinced him that she knew what was best.

  “I’ll be damned,” he whispered.

  “No you won’t,” she said, a different, all-knowing smile taking its place.

  LaMoia appeared disheveled and tense. “First hail, then rain. I’m getting a little sick of this.”

  Bobbie Gaynes, on the other hand, looked positively radiant.

  “What did I miss?” Boldt asked. The fifth floor was near empty.

  LaMoia said, “SID discovered a caller-ID box at Anderson’s.”

  Gaynes declared enthusiastically, “The caller-ID unit kept a record of the last ninety-nine calls made to Anderson’s apartment.” She repeated, “Every incoming call.”

  “Technology is a beautiful thing,” LaMoia said.

  Gaynes handed Boldt a list of the calls. “These are the last thirty incoming calls. We’re thinking maybe his visitor might have paid Anderson the courtesy of an advance phone call before coming over. If so, it might be the Pied Piper, if the two had a relationship.”

  “And?” Boldt asked, handling the pages. “What do we have?”

  LaMoia explained, “The guy had an obvious network going. Look at all the pay phones: nine of the last thirty calls he got.”

  Both detectives looked up at Boldt simultaneously with wanting expressions.

  “Oh, I get it,” Boldt said.

  “It’s your field, Lieutenant,” LaMoia fired back, with emphasis on the rank.

  “We’d like to talk to all the people who called Anderson. Including whoever used these pay phones,” Gaynes said. “Maybe we find out why both Anderson and the Shotz crime scene had pollen all over them.”

  “No, no, no,” Boldt cautioned.

  “Sarge, it’s a homicide,” Gaynes pleaded. “A homicide that ties directly to the Pied Piper investigation through that pollen match.”

  “You want me to run the pay phone numbers for you,” Boldt said, scanning the list, “and see if Anderson was running any of our snitches.” A number jumpe
d off the page at him as he said this. He concealed his reaction by forcing a cough. The number belonged to one of his more reliable snitches, the pay phone in a tittie bar by the airport, The Air Strip. He tallied the number of its appearances: three calls, all just prior to Anderson’s demise.

  “Sarge?” LaMoia asked.

  “It’s nothing,” Boldt answered. Intelligence operated in its own sphere. The squad worked autonomously, gathering its information, creating its files, running its snitches, from five-hundred-a-night call girls to mayoral aides. Boldt had to protect the identity of his snitches, even from his own detectives. “Let me work with this,” Boldt said.

  “Sarge?” LaMoia inquired, noticing the change of voice.

  “I’ll run the phone numbers for you. Be thankful for small favors.”

  “Sarge?” Gaynes asked in an equally accusatory tone. She exchanged looks with LaMoia, then back to Boldt. “We’re on the same team here, right?”

  “I’ll run ’em for you,” Boldt repeated a little more sternly, both excitement and concern competing inside him, along with the secrecy the moment required of him. “I’ll handle it.” LaMoia said something else, but Boldt didn’t hear. He was thinking about his snitch, Raymond, and why the hell the man might repeatedly have been calling a chump like Anderson a few days before the man’s murder.

  CHAPTER

  The Air Strip’s facade glowed Pepto-Bismol pink with a metal awning that proclaimed in chipped lettering LIVE GIRLS—ALL NUDE. Boldt had never seen a sign advertising dead ones. He stepped inside, faced with a potbellied doorman wearing a tuxedo T-shirt, black leather Army boots, dark shades and a hoop earring. The doorman said to Boldt, “Five-buck cover. Two-drink minimum.”

  Boldt’s first reaction was to offer his gold badge, but he owed it to Raymond to keep his identity as a cop hidden. He paid the five. Tina Turner blared from the enormous speakers about wanting his love. The doorman said, “Enjoy yourself.” Boldt stepped in, overwhelmed by the smoke and smell of salty flesh.

  There were fifteen or twenty men scattered among twice that many tables. Most wore business suits or sport coats, their ties loosened. The air held a low cloud of cigarette and cigar smoke. Salesmen, Boldt figured. Regulars, a couple nights a week, a couple nights a month. In the dark shadows to Boldt’s right a pair of young women moved like painted horses on a carousel as they lap-danced for two sets of legs and two pair of hands that gripped the arms of the chairs like a strong wind was blowing. To Boldt’s left a girl in her late teens stood with her hands on her hips, her young breasts bare, her crotch barely within a sequined G-string, rocking her pelvis in time to the pounding music, throwing her brown hair forward like a curtain of water. She hooked her thumbs into the G-string, intent to remove it, and Boldt looked straight ahead to the bored bartender and his gaggle of barflies.

  Coming into Raymond’s bar was a blatant violation of their agreement. The man—a darkly handsome Latino—sat at a stool at the far end, leaning against the wall. He wore mirrored sunglasses that fit his face like swimming goggles, trained onto Boldt as he closed the distance and perched on an aluminum stool next to the man. Boldt ordered a ginger ale, winning a snort from the bartender and a comment that the first two cost five bucks no matter what you ordered, and you had to order two. Boldt changed his order to a 7-UP.

  “This is not cool, man,” Raymond said in as much of a hush as he could manage over the music. “Very uncool.”

  “You think she’s eighteen?” Boldt asked of the woman writhing against a vertical bar on stage.

  “No clue, man. Nice jugs and trim. That’s all the man cares about. You don’t see no driver’s license on her, do you?” Raymond enjoyed his own jokes. “What? You gonna pull her over for speeding up your ticker, man?” He lit a cigarette. “A guy your age, she probably gives you a woodie. Don’t do nothing for me.”

  “How about we take it outside?” Boldt asked.

  “Dude!” Raymond called out to the bartender, who glanced over, “We gonna party for a minute behind the curtains.”

  “Don’t bother the girls, damn you.”

  Raymond led Boldt through a pair of velvet curtains, through a door, and into a brightly lit area where three bare-breasted women were in the process of applying too much makeup. Two shared a joint. The other chewed gum. They walked past the women, Boldt careful not to brush up against a bare back. All three seemed fascinated with Boldt’s attempts not to look.

  “Heat?” one of the youngest asked, eyeing Boldt.

  Raymond said, “Get real. Like I’m gonna bring heat on you! This here is my man. We gonna hang back in the coatrack for a minute or two.”

  The coatrack was a wardrobe area: sequins, boas, spike heels, hats of every description and a variety of props including rubber snakes, dildoes, a saddle and stuffed animals. That smell of cigarettes and sour skin was concentrated here, like opening a leftover container kept too long in the refrigerator. Raymond found them both inverted milk crates and they sat down.

  “This sucks, man.”

  “Had to happen. You didn’t answer my page.”

  “One page. I was busy.”

  “So am I. It couldn’t wait.”

  They entered a staring contest. Boldt won.

  “This is bullshit.”

  “We’ve got a guy who slipped in his tub and ate his teeth.”

  “Probably didn’t use one of those rubber mats, you know?” Raymond looked to be in his mid-twenties. He was thirty-nine. In another era he would have been called a dandy. He dressed sharp and greased back his hair into a ducktail so that his chocolate-brown eyes appeared to come right out of his face like a pair of dark olives. His teeth were too white to be real, and his smile approached an icy glee that warned of a stiletto or a piece hidden somewhere on his person. His pants were so tight that Boldt took them as explanation of the man’s unusually constricted voice.

  “You and I are supposed to have a warm rapport, Raymond.” Ray-moan. “A nice fuzzy relationship free of surprises for either of us.” Boldt allowed the comment to hang in the thick air. “Now I’ve got to wonder if I can still trust you, because if I can’t, your name comes out of my book, and the cash stops coming your way. We get off the bus at the next corner. Know what I mean?”

  “Wait one damn minute,” Raymond protested. “What the hell you talking about?”

  “The dead guy in the bathtub went by the name of Andy Anderson.” Boldt watched for a response and won it.

  “Never heard of him.” Raymond knew to stay clear of a dead body.

  “You called him three times in the past ten days and you never heard of him? I’m the one that never heard about him, and I’m not happy about that. Now he’s in the fridge downtown wearing nothing but a string around his big toe, and my Homicide friends come and tell me you two were chummy right before he slipped.”

  “Hey, man, this the first I heard about him going down, swear to God.”

  “Way they’re thinking—my friends in Homicide—maybe someone put a bar of soap under his feet, kind of helped things along. You know?”

  “Don’t look at me, man.”

  “I’m not looking, Raymond, but I am listening. I’m the guy keeping Homicide off your case for the time being.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “It’s me or them. Your choice. Personally, I’d like to keep you as a source—we work well—but if you surface because of this, then our relationship’s over.”

  It was warm in the small room, and Raymond’s face shined with perspiration. He wouldn’t like losing the occasional payoff. Whatever else Raymond did for money he managed to keep his name off the pink sheets, which made him all right with Boldt. “He’s a pussy chaser,” Raymond said, laconically. “A guy gets into some pussy he shouldn’t and Anderson’s the one rigging the motel room for Panavision and Dolby. Know what I mean? A little private screening for the wife. He’s been in here a couple times asking questions. The girls here … some do more than dance. He pays well. We had a little bu
siness from time to time. No big deal.”

  “That’s not answering my question.”

  The man grimaced. Sources did not like discussing their deals. Boldt understood this. He said, “Make an exception, Raymond. The man is dead.”

  “Yeah. But something got him that way,” he said cautiously. “That shit gets contagious and I be a fucked-up dude.”

  “Work with me.” Boldt zeroed in on the man’s eyes and locked up good and tight. He was stoned or high on something. Boldt repeated, “Work with me.”

  “Anderson says the Fremont neighborhood gonna get hit. Some heavy lifting, you know? It’s too big an area to watch by himself—alone, he says—and that any news about such an activity would be appreciated. So I put out the word. You understand. And the only shit I hear about is some white dude about to get fried for using the wrong house for surveillance. Two to five o’clock in the morning some chemists are cooking meth in the basement of this vacant house, see? Three o’clock in the afternoon along comes this white boy who looks like he’s snuffing termites. But no he ain’t. He goes inside for a little hide-and-peek. Up on the second story. The chemists put it out on the street wanting to know if this is heat or just some stupid jackass. Not good business to whack heat. Which is how come my man hears about it, and how come I hear about it after him.”

  “And you told Anderson.”

  “Figured it might play. Could be his boy, you know? Watching for a house to hit.”

  “Did Anderson bite?”

  “You know the drill. Paid me light until he checked it out. More on the back side if it proves good.” He eyed Boldt.

  “Did it prove out?” Had Anderson run smack into the Pied Piper scouting his kidnaps?

  “He was gonna check it out. Get back to me.”

  “Sure he was.”

  “Damn right. And now you telling me he’s tits up! Fucking guy has a fifty belongs to me. This be bullshit.”

  “Address of the vacant house?” Boldt asked. It was quintessential Raymond, just weird enough to ring of truth.