IT HAD STARTED TO rain outside Harborview, an insistent drizzle borne on gusts of wind, the drops looping their way under awnings and around corners. Water painted the buildings as negative images. The concrete darkened, and the windows gleamed as the struggling sunlight reflected off the sheen.
I had left the guard from Standard Security by Dono’s bedside with clear instructions to call me if anything changed and to pick up his phone if I called, no matter what the hospital said. I was halfway down the hill toward the parking garage and enjoying the cold trickle of rainwater on the back of my neck after the stuffy hospital room.
Davey and his brother, Mike, were near the end of the street, jogging through the downpour. Davey held his coat up over his head. Mike waved a hand. They took shelter in the entryway of an apartment block.
“My head’s still killing me,” Davey said in greeting when I caught up to them.
“I think I can see and raise you on that one. Was Juliet pissed?”
“Naw. Special circumstances.”
“Were you with Dono?” asked Mike.
“Of course he saw Dono, you moron,” Davey said. “Why else would he be here? How is he?”
“He’s still unconscious,” I said.
Davey nodded. “He’s a tough fucker.” He pulled his leather jacket’s collar up against the wind. “We went by the house first and guessed you’d be here. You gotta come to dinner with us.”
“I’m not up for family time, Davey,” I said.
“Don’t even fucking try that. If you’re not there, I have to make excuses, and Ma will get bent out of shape because she already shopped. And Juliet will grill me about why. Don’t make me sit between them on my own, man.”
I smiled. “I’ll stop by. Let me grab some rest and a shower first. Otherwise Evelyn’s liable to toss me right back outside.”
Mike nodded. “We’ll sit with Dono for a while,” he said.
“They won’t let you in,” I said, and explained about the guard.
“What about the cops?” Mike said.
Davey snorted.
“We could look after him,” Mike persisted. “You don’t need to go broke.”
“Not 24/7,” I said. “And that’s the only way I’ll be able to relax.”
Davey grinned. “So relax a little. Be at our house by seven. Bring beer. Ma conveniently forgot to pick that up.”
*
I WAS PULLING UP to the house when my phone rang.
“Shaw. It’s me.”
Nasal and nasty. Jimmy Corcoran.
“I traced the number that the bug was dialing,” he said. “Nothing special about the account except unlimited capacity on the recorded messages. So the bugs could record for days and days without any problem. The account was opened two months ago. The name on it is George Lincoln. That mean anything to you?”
“No. Sounds fake.”
“I figured. Might as well be Abraham Washington or Franklin Delano Jefferson.”
“Can you get the recorded messages off the account?” Those recordings were what I really cared about. Hearing what had happened at Dono’s house the night he was shot.
“No,” said Corcoran. “That’s the royal bitch of it. The account was closed the night before last. Actually around two in the morning. And the voice mails were erased.”
I wanted to slam my fist through the windshield. That would have been only an hour or so after I’d been hit over the head by the burglar at Dono’s house. The little fucker must have run home and started erasing his tracks right away.
“What about backup tapes?” I said through clenched teeth.
“Nah. My guy there says the company doesn’t hang on to backups of personal voice mails. Too much trouble. But I got more.” He sounded jazzed. The thrill of the hunt. “About a dozen different phone numbers have called that voice-mail account. You got a pen?”
“Go ahead.” Corcoran read me the account number and then a list of phone numbers. Most of the numbers were sequential, ending in 7704, 7705, 7706, and so on.
“The numbers belong to the bugs,” I said, thinking out loud. “He bought a dozen phones from one store, and he cannibalized the works to build the bugs.”
“No shit,” Corcoran said. “There’s hundreds of calls from these numbers to the account during the two months it was active. Almost every call is long. Ten or twenty minutes.”
Making up dozens and dozens of overlapping hours of recorded junk. Televisions playing, shower noises. Even Dono snoring in bed. It would have been a full-time job just to skim through it all.
I ran my eyes down the list. “There are thirteen numbers here. But there were only eight bugs at Dono’s.”
“You sure?”
“I searched. The cops searched. Only eight. So there are more bugs planted somewhere.” I slapped my hand down on the porch railing. “Dono’s not the only person this son of a bitch has been watching.”
“Okay, I buy that. Let’s see if you can spot the real clue, smart-ass,” Corcoran said.
I looked at the list of numbers. Twelve were in the same sequence as the others. One was completely different.
“It’s his personal number,” I said. My pulse throbbed in my temples. “He called the voice-mail account to listen to what the bugs had recorded. Maybe even to download the recordings somewhere else.”
“Not as stupid as you look. But don’t get too excited, kid. It’s probably just another burner phone.”
“But if he’s still using it, it’s traceable.”
Corcoran sighed. “You going to spend all day telling me shit I already know? If your boyfriend turns his personal phone back on and my guy at the company can catch it, then maybe we have a shot.”
“What about the other four bugs? If they’re still active …”
“They’re active. Two calls from them, late last night.”
Where were they planted? Who else was the burglar following?
“Can you zero in on the address the bugs are calling from?” I asked.
Corcoran hummed a moment to himself, thinking it over. “I can find the nearest cell site that caught the calls. It’ll have the GPS coordinates of the calling phones. Within a hundred yards, give or take.”
“Good enough.”
“Unless it’s somewhere in the city. At that point you’re stuck with knocking on doors, looking for a short guy with white hair.”
“Move fast. This asshole is going to ground.”
“I know we have to move fast, you dumb fuck. You think I don’t? Shit.” Corcoran hung up. Right back to his old angry self. Which meant he was feeling good.