Sting

“Not so much.” Hick tipped his head toward the photo. “The guy in the uniform? Was the jefe.”

“Of the state police?” When Hick nodded, Joe folded the wrapper around the remains of his sandwich and pushed it aside, predicting he was probably going to have raging heartburn.

“But don’t cry over him,” Hick said. “He was as corrupt as they come, playing both sides of the drug wars and taking graft from everybody.”

Joe looked at the photo again. “Who’s body number two?”

Hick slid the top photo aside to reveal the one beneath it. A name had been printed across the bottom in red marker. “Thirty-two-year-old American, originally from Phoenix, middle-class upbringing, son of two college professors. Started dealing in junior high school.”

“The beginning of an illustrious career?”

Hick nodded. “Big-time operator in the guns and drugs markets. The late state police chief moonlighted as his senior bodyguard, but he employed an army of them, and they were needed. In addition to bloodthirsty enemies, he had a price on his head, wanted by an alphabet soup of federal agencies, including us, ATF, DEA. The list goes on.”

Joe studied the picture taken with a telephoto lens of a baby-faced young man sitting in what appeared to be a nightclub booth with a cigarette dangling from his insolent smile. “He looks like a frat boy.”

Hick smiled. “Basically, that was his mentality. An undercover DEA agent reports that he was running afoul of his allies south of the border, making them nervous by living too high off the hog and calling attention to himself. Big hacienda. Flashy cars. Wild parties. He was hosting one such wingding when Kinnard struck.”

“When did this happen?”

“Tuesday night.”

Joe grimaced. “This Tuesday? Our Tuesday.”

“Yep.”

“Can’t be a coincidence.”

“Nope. Kinnard was a houseguest at the guy’s villa. One of the playgirls hired for the evening told the authorities that Kinnard, the frat boy, and the bodyguard left the party together in the Mercedes, Kinnard driving.”

“He shoots them in the car, abandons it with the bodies inside and sure to be found, then what?”

“It’s anybody’s guess,” Hick said. “Nobody knows how he got out of the area or where and how he crossed the border. He arrived in New Orleans midday Thursday on a flight from Dallas / Fort Worth. He grabbed a meal at an airport Chili’s before boarding.”

“How’d he get to Dallas?”

“We’ve got guys working backward from there, but so far, they haven’t found a trail. All that’s known is that he called a taxi to take him to the airport from a local motel, where he spent one night. We have him on numerous security cameras at DFW.” Hick shuffled through photos, pointing out Shaw Kinnard in blurry shots of the busy, crowded airport. “Outside our airport, he hailed a taxi and had it drop him at the Doubletree. But he didn’t check in.”

“He walked through and went out another door.”

“Not before waving to the security camera,” Hick said sourly. “He exited the side-street door, strolled off down the sidewalk, and that was the last anyone saw of him until he showed up at that bar with Mickey Bolden.”

Joe belched behind his fist. “What ID did he use when he went through DFW’s security?”

“Georgia driver’s license. Breezed through. He checked a bag. His weapons must’ve been in it.”

Joe grumbled, “Don’t count on it.”

He stuffed his trash into the carryout sack, then stood up and made a circuit of the small room, giving Hick time to wolf down his sandwich. Joe resumed by asking, “Anything out of Mississippi?”

Mickey Bolden had kept an apartment in Biloxi. Basic shelter. Nothing fancy by any stretch. It was paid for by what he earned as a maître d’ at a restaurant in one of the shabbier casino hotels. He reported his gratuities to the IRS, as any solid citizen would, and paid his income taxes and bills on time.

His hobby, for which he seemed to have a passion, was far more lucrative than the restaurant job. Unfortunately the Bureau hadn’t yet discovered where he banked the fees he earned by snuffing people, which was one reason they were never able to make a case against him that a prosecutor felt would hold up in court.

“Last Wednesday, Bolden told his employer that he needed to take a few days off,” Hick said.

“Which he did periodically.”

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