Kelson drove back to the hospital. The staff had moved Marty, Janet, and Rodman to a smaller room, without a window. Kelson gave Marty Voudreaux’s demand, and the little man said, ‘Fuck him.’
Kelson agreed. ‘He seems like a fool.’
‘He’s a fucking prick,’ Marty said.
‘You’d better do it, though,’ Kelson said. ‘Voudreaux said G&G will go after Neto if they don’t get their money – and go after you too.’
Rodman said, ‘I should’ve gone with. Talked sense into Voudreaux.’
‘Wouldn’t’ve made a difference,’ Marty said. ‘These guys mean it.’
‘Can you get the money?’ Rodman asked.
‘Fuck if I know how. Neto’s got tricks I never learned. Million-buck three-card Monte. I’m good – he’s something else.’
‘Then you should give this to the cops or the feds,’ Kelson said.
The little man looked furious. ‘Don’t be an asshole. I go to the cops, I’m done. The cops kick my ass. Or they listen, and I testify, and then if I’m lucky – if I get a great fucking lawyer who gets me a great fucking deal – they throw me in a single-wide in Phoenix. ’Cause I knew a guy – lasted two months before he hanged himself in his closet.’
Rodman let his lazy eyelids hang low. ‘Then you better get to work. You have all you need?’
‘I don’t know what I need,’ Marty said. ‘I’ve got to go to G&G and find out. They’ve got the info about the accounts and the passwords Neto used to get into them.’
‘You should stay here with Neto,’ Janet said.
‘What fucking good?’ Marty said. ‘I do more for him if I clean this mess.’
‘I’ll go with,’ Rodman said. ‘Maybe they need to see what they’re up against.’
Janet agreed to stay and relay updates on Neto. Kelson agreed to look into the dead victims – Victor Almonte and Amy Runeski. So Marty and Rodman drove to Mundelein, and Kelson drove to the Harrison Street Police Station.
No, said the man at the station desk, Venus Johnson wouldn’t talk to him.
‘Try Darrin Malinowski from Narcotics,’ Kelson said. ‘He used to be my boss.’
‘You’re wasting my time,’ the deskman said, but he dialed the extension for the narcotics unit and explained what Kelson wanted.
Instead of having the deskman send Kelson back, Malinowski came out to talk.
Kelson said, ‘That look on your face – it’s what people do when they meet someone they feel bad for.’
‘Take it how you want,’ Malinowski said.
‘I need to talk with Johnson.’
‘You know that won’t happen right now.’
‘I’ve got information for her. Neto LeCoeur is one of the victims – he’s at the U of C Trauma Center.’ Then, because Malinowski stared at him with flat incomprehension and because Kelson couldn’t help himself, he told him what he’d promised to keep secret. ‘Neto got tangled in a big financial scam. He’s got a record for this kind of thing going back to when he was a teenager. He was doing it again when the library blew up.’
Malinowski twisted his lips. ‘How do you know this?’
‘I’m pals with Neto’s uncle. Sort of.’
‘Jesus, Kelson, what are you mixed up in now?’ But the commander dialed the homicide unit on the deskman’s phone. He got Venus Johnson on the line and told her she should give Kelson a minute. Then he ushered Kelson into the department.
Johnson met them at the door to the homicide room.
‘You look wiped out,’ Kelson said.
‘Yep.’
‘Ragged.’
‘Lousy to see you too, Kelson.’ She walked him to her cubicle.
Styrofoam coffee cups, a Coke can, and a couple of paper plates with the remnants of delivery food littered her desk. An architectural rendering of the Rogers Park Library showed on her computer screen.
She said, ‘Sit. Talk. Then get out.’
‘Tell me about Victor Almonte,’ he said.
‘Don’t even think it. Malinowski said you have information about one of the injured.’
‘Neto LeCoeur,’ Kelson said. ‘What about Amy Runeski’s husband? Any chance he did it?’
‘Did what? We haven’t determined if—’
‘Bullshit,’ Kelson said. ‘You put out the details. Homeless vet. Divorce. The news will name one of them as a suspect by tonight.’
‘Watch the news then,’ Johnson said. ‘Malinowski said you’ve got something. If you don’t, leave. I’m running thirty hours without sleep, and unless things break cleaner than they’re going to, I’m looking at another thirty.’
Kelson said, ‘A holding company called G&G Private Equity hired Neto LeCoeur to transfer funds into their clients’ accounts. Some of the accounts might be legal, but most probably aren’t. It’s offshore money laundering, but I don’t know the details. Neto was sitting next to Amy Runeski when the place blew. He’s sleeping in a hospital bed now. The doctor says eighty percent chance he’ll never wake up, though I don’t believe in odds.’
‘Hold on,’ Johnson said. ‘A company hired him to do this from a library?’
‘I know. G&G uses public computers for their distributions. I guess that keeps their own machines clean. They move around a lot of money. Millions. Tens of millions.’
Johnson breathed in deep through closed teeth. ‘They had a guy – called Neto – move millions – we’re talking about dollars?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Neto moved these millions from a rat-shit computer at a rat-shit library?’
‘You want to write this down?’
Johnson closed her eyes.
Kelson said, ‘You need to talk to a man named Chip Vou—’
‘Yeah, I’ll do that,’ Johnson said. ‘Meantime, I’ve got a shitload of work. And next time you have a story for me, you write down the details, OK? All the details.’
She stared at him. He stared back.
She said, ‘Take your time – write it neat. Use big letters – easy to read. Use goddamned crayons. Then take the paper and wipe your ass with it. Flush it down the toilet. Don’t come and stink up my life with it.’
The news that night said that eleven months after Victor Almonte returned from Afghanistan the police charged him with arson for torching a sofa at his sister’s house. Since then, they’d arrested him twice, once for trespassing and once for shoplifting. After the library blast, the police found a mangled coil of wire and part of a radio transmitter in his shredded backpack. Fox News added a scoop – in Afghanistan, Almonte served as an ordnance disposal specialist, disarming IEDs. And CBS interviewed Emma Almonte, Victor’s sister, outside a little tan-brick house on North Keeler. ‘My brother couldn’t do this,’ she told the camera with a slight Dominican accent. ‘No, no, no, no, no.’
‘Huh,’ Kelson said.
NBC aired a news conference where Amy Runeski’s husband Tom clutched his baby daughter to his chest. He asked for everyone’s prayers. He was tall and blond and wore wire-rimmed glasses. He’d slapped a Looney Tunes Band-Aid on one of his daughter’s cheeks.
Kelson said, ‘Picture perfect.’
The baby daughter worried him, so he turned off the TV and called Sue Ellen. Her voice made him happy.
‘What’s new, honey?’ he said.
‘I hate polynomials.’
‘Tough day at school?’
‘Polynomials suck.’
‘You hear the one about the polynomial?’
‘No dad jokes,’ she said.
‘But where would we be without polynomials?’
‘Good night, Dad,’ she said.
‘Stay away from libraries, OK?’
‘What?’
‘Watch YouTube. Play online poker.’
‘Dad …?’
‘Just thinking – books are overrated, you know?’
‘Really?’
‘I mean, I want you to watch out for yourself. Be safe.’
‘You’re weird, Dad.’
‘I know.’
At eleven o’clock, he turned out the light. Lying in bed, he realized he’d never heard back from Genevieve Bower. He turned on the light again and called. Her line rang and rang, and when it went to voicemail, he said, ‘Huh’ again, and hung up. Then he said, ‘I’ve got to stop saying “huh”.’ He turned off the light and closed his eyes. With Payday sleeping by his feet and Painter’s Lane on the pillow by his face, he dreamed of fire.