“Which is?”
“I don’t know. But he’s former military. He loves games. He’d have a fallback position, an ace in the hole. I know it.”
“I disagree. I think he blew his wad.”
“Nice mouth.”
She shrugged, took a bite from her sandwich.
“So you want to shut this case down?”
She nodded, swallowed her piece of sandwich and took a sip of Coke. “He’s done. I think we’ve punished him. We didn’t bring Karen Nichols back, but we rocked his world a bit. He had a few million within his reach and we snatched it from him. Stick a fork in him. It’s over.”
I considered it. There wasn’t much I could argue with. The Dawes were fully prepared to face exposure on the baby-switching they’d done. Carrie Dawe was no longer vulnerable to the charms of McGoldrick/Pearse. It wasn’t like Pearse could hit them over the head and take their money. And, I was reasonably sure, he hadn’t been prepared for us and just how hard we can hit back if you make us mad.
I’d been hoping to anger him to the point where he’d do something stupid. But what? Come after me or Angie or Bubba? There was no percentage in it. Angry or not, he’d see that. Kill Angie, and he’d sign his own death warrant. Kill me, and he’d have Bubba and my case notes to deal with. And as for Bubba, Pearse would have to know that it would be like launching an assault on an armored car with a squirt gun. He might pull it off, but he’d suffer a lot of damage, and again, to what end?
So, I had to agree in principle with Angie. Scott Pearse didn’t seem to pose much of a threat to anyone anymore.
Which is what worried me. It’s the exact moment that you perceive an opponent as defenseless that you, not he, are most vulnerable.
“Twenty-four more hours,” I said. “Can you give me that?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, okay, Banacek, but not a second more.”
I bowed in appreciation and the phone rang.
“Hello.”
“Tu-na!” Devin crowed. “Tu-na! Fucking Pah-cells,” he said in his best Revere accent, “I think he’s, like, God, but smahta.”
“Rub it in,” I said. “Wound’s still good and fresh.”
“Timothy McGoldrick,” Devin said. “There’s a bunch of them. But one stands out-born in 1965, died in 1967. Applied for a driver’s license in 1994.”
“He’s dead, but he drives.”
“Neat trick, huh? Lives at One-one-one-six Congress Street.”
I shook my head at the sheer size of Pearse’s balls. He kept a loft on 25 Sleeper Street and another place on Congress. It might seem like a short walk, but it got even shorter when you realized that his building on Sleeper Street also fronted Congress and both addresses were under the same roof.
“You still there?” Devin asked.
“Yeah.”
“No record on this guy. He’s clean.”
“Except that he’s dead.”
“That might interest the Census Bureau, sure.”
He hung up and I dialed the Dawes.
“Hello?” Carrie Dawe said.
“It’s Patrick Kenzie,” I said. “Is your husband home?”
“No.”
“Good. When you met McGoldrick, where did you meet?”
“Why?”
“Please.”
She sighed. “He sublet a place on Congress Street.”
“Corner of Congress and Sleeper?”
“Yes. How did you-”
“Never mind. You thought anymore about that gun in New Hampshire?”
“I’m thinking about it now.”
“He’s ruined,” I said. “He can’t hurt you.”
“He already did, Mr. Kenzie. And he hurt my daughter. What am I supposed to do with that-forgive?”
She hung up, and I looked over at Angie. “I’m not too keen on Carrie Dawe’s emotional state at the moment.”
“You think she still might go gunning for Pearse?”
“Possibly.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Pull Nelson off Pearse, put him on the Dawes for a while.”
“What’s Nelson charging you?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“Come on.”
“A buck fifty a day,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “You’re paying him a thousand-fifty a week?”
I shrugged. “It’s his price.”
“We’re going to go broke.”
I held up my index finger. “One more day.”
She spread her arms. “Why?”
Behind her, on the TV, they’d interrupted the soap opera for a live update from the banks of the Mystic River.
I pointed behind Angie’s head. “That’s why.”
She turned her head and looked up at the TV as frogmen pulled a small body from the water and several weathered-looking detectives waved off the cameras.
“Oh, shit,” Angie said.
I looked at the small gray face as the head came to rest on wet rocks, then the detectives succeeded in blocking the cameras with their hands.
Siobhan. She’d never have to worry about seeing Ireland again.
33
Last night, as soon as the police had passed him on the waterfront, Nelson was supposed to turn around and go back, park a few blocks down on Congress Street and watch Pearse’s building, see if he went anywhere after the police finished up and left.
As long as he did his job, I didn’t mind paying Nelson a grand a week. It was a small price for knowledge of Pearse’s movements.
But it was way too much to pay for a fuck-up.
“I did watch him,” Nelson said when I caught up with him. “And I’m watching him now, too. Dude, I’m on this guy like white on rice.”
“Tell me what happened last night.”
“The cops drove him over to the Meridian Hotel. He got out, went inside. The cops leave. He comes back out and hails a cab, takes it back to the building.”
“He went back to his loft?”
“Fuck no. But he went in the building. I couldn’t tell exactly where.”
“What, no lights went on? No-”
“Fucking place is a city block, man. You got the Sleeper Street side, the Congress side, and two alleys. How’m I supposed to cover all that?”
“But he went in there and stayed.”
“Yeah. Until he left for work this morning. Then he comes back around a half hour ago, looking pissed. He goes in the building, been there since.”