LVMPD Detective Len Traver parked the battered beige Crown Victoria on Colton Avenue near the corner of Bruce Street. His partner, Carl “Big Swede” Hansen, pulled a computer printout from his inside jacket pocket and unfolded it. There were thirty-two names and addresses on the list; all but a handful had been crossed out with a red felt pen.
“Look at this, Len,” said Hansen, spreading the paper out on the console so that Traver could see it. “We only got five left. Two on Colton and one each on Wagner, Delhi, and Gorman. That’s all inside four blocks. Why don’t we just park here and shag the rest?”
“Good idea, Swede. My arse is developin’ bedsores from this car seat.”
“We finish this list, we’re outta here. Then I don’t give a shit, ain’t no more overtime for this Big Swede—it’s strictly Miller time.”
“In your dreams, man. You heard what the lieutenant said. Double shifts until somebody makes the collar.”
“I dunno, Len. This is Tuesday. Ingrid and me always go to the movies on Tuesday night. She is gonna be one pissed-off lady.”
“Would you rather have her or Frank Marshall pissed at you?” Traver laid a sympathetic hand on his partner’s shoulder as they trudged off down Colton. “C’mon, Swede, could be we get lucky this time.”
Jurgen Voss frowned in annoyance as the sudden, totally unexpected reverberation of the doorbell shattered the unfrocked card counter’s concentration on his computer programming.
Who the devil could it be? He had not buzzed anybody upstairs. Maybe some door-to-door peddler had gained access by pushing bells until someone
let him in. That was the irritating thing about this building: someone always did. Certainly, he was not expecting anybody. Except for Shiller’s scheduled call to the bank in Panama City tomorrow, preparations for the next two phases of the Thanatos scheme were complete, so neither Shiller nor Malloy had any reason to come by today. And Jurgen had no friends—not in the accepted sense, no one who would ring his doorbell without warning.
He decided not to answer the bell. Let them go away, whoever they were.
He resumed tapping on his computer keyboard.
The doorbell shrilled again, longer and more insistently.
He stopped typing, his fingers poised uncertainly over the keyboard. Perhaps he should answer it. It could be important. Maybe the super had finally arrived to repair the toilet as he had been promising for weeks. With a sigh, Voss pressed two keys simultaneously and the monitor screen blanked out. He pushed back his chair on its rollers and rose from the workstation.
“All right! I am coming!” he yelled down the hall to his unknown visitors as the doorbell rang yet again. “Be patient!” A glance through the peephole revealed two middle-aged men wearing suits, standing stoically outside his door. Jehovah’s Witnesses? Encyclopedia salesmen? Well, he knew how to get rid of those types.
“Yes?” he said, snapping back the dead bolt and opening the door a few inches—without releasing the chain latch.
One of the men, a chunky, sweating type with greasebags under his eyes, held up a badge on a leather flap. “Sorry to bother you, sir. I’m Detective Traver of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.” He indicated his companion, a tall, heavyset man with thinning blond hair. “This is my partner, Detective Hansen.”
A sudden fear gripped the little man, knotting his belly and causing him to blink rapidly. And yet, why should he be afraid? There was no way the police could have traced the murders back to him! He had been so careful to leave no loose ends! It must be a coincidence. He gulped and stammered, “Wh-what is it? I am very busy. Perhaps if you returned later—”
“Do you mind if we come in, sir? This won’t take long.”
“For what reason? I have done nothing—”
Traver smiled affably. “Just routine, sir. There’s been some break-ins in the neighborhood recently, and we’re wondering if you’ve seen anything suspicious.”
“In this neighborhood, there are always break-ins, Detectives. I am afraid I cannot help you.”
“Maybe we can help you, sir. If you just let us in, we could check your windows and doors and your alarm system—”
“I have no alarm system. Now bitte, let me return to my work.” Jurgen still had not released the chain latch, and he started to ease the door shut.
Without warning, the blond detective slammed the heel of his hand against the door, pushing it back to the extent of the chain and nearly smashing it into Voss’s nose. “You got a problem letting us in, mister?” the big man growled. “Something in there you don’t want us to see?” Swede Hansen wasn’t just playing bad cop; he was tired of all the legwork, pissed off at the overtime, and all he wanted was to finish up with this asshole and hopefully go home. But there was something else, and a glance at his partner confirmed that Len sensed it, too. This guy was right. So far, he fit at least three of the points on the profile they’d been given. A small guy, German accent, living near the tracks—what else would they find inside?
The two detectives had no search warrant and, so far, no probable cause to enter the subject’s apartment. But their combined thirty-five years on the job had taught them just how far you could bend the law to serve your purposes. If politeness didn’t work, sometimes bluster would. As long as they didn’t use actual physical force to gain entry, it was strictly their word against the suspect’s that they weren’t cheerfully invited in. And Hansen was determined to get in.
Hansen kept up the pressure on Voss’s door—the scrawny computer expert could no more have closed it than he could have moved the wall—and added with a fierce scowl, “You don’t let us in, mister, we’ll think you’ve probably got drugs in your apartment and we’ll be back with a search warrant. Or maybe there’s stolen goods in there—and you’re the guy we’ve been lookin’ for!”
Jurgen Voss listened with growing apprehension. It was obvious that these gefeckte storm troopers were not going to leave. But then he thought a little further. They had not mentioned the extortion. Was the story about the neighborhood break-ins merely a ploy to disarm him—or was it genuine? Were they really here about the protection of his household goods—or did they suspect his involvement in Thanatos? Maybe it was better to find out. Even if he did let them in, they would find nothing. He had been scrupulously careful to leave no physical traces of Thanatos’s covert activities. With a sigh of resignation, Jurgen said, “Okay, okay, Detective, if you insist. Stop pushing on my door and I will admit you.”
“You are Mr. Voss?” Detective Len Traver asked. “That’s German, isn’t it?”
“How do you know my name?”
“Ah, we got it off your mailbox,” said Traver smoothly as his partner scanned the dingy apartment. “Do you live here alone, sir?”
“Yes. Perhaps if we could arrive at the point—”
“Look, we’re really sorry to bother you, but it’s important we catch these … burglars. So, if you don’t mind, we’ll just look around for a few minutes and we’ll be gone before you know it.”
“What’s in there?” Hansen inquired, indicating the feeble glow emanating from under the door at the end of the hall.
“That is merely … some computer equipment,” Voss replied, nervously gnawing a ragged fingernail. “It cannot be your interest, nichtwahr?”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, sir,” said Detective Traver, thinking quickly. “It’s just the kind of thing that gets stolen around here. Did you have the equipment engraved with your name and Social Security number? That’s one of the services that the LVMPD offers to householders—you know, free engraving of valuables. Could save you a bundle on insurance premiums. Can we check it out?”
Jurgen shrugged helplessly. There was obviously no stopping these men. “If you must.”
“Thank you.” Traver could smell blood now. “Ah, perhaps you’d care to wait here, Mr. Voss, while Detective Hansen and me, ah, just look around in there for a minute. We won’t touch anything, sir, I promise.”
Without waiting for their reluctant host’s formal assent, both men proceeded to the computer room, filed in, and casually eased the door closed behind them.
“What a fuckin’ mess,” said Hansen, repressing a sneeze. “Did you ever see so much dust and cobwebs?”
“Never mind that, Swede!” Traver whispered excitedly to his partner as soon as they were alone. “This is the guy! Every single point on the profile, this asshole fits it to a T! He’s into computers. Plus I’ll lay odds he’s got the exact kind of equipment we’re supposed to look for.”
“Jesus, Len, you think so? What was it again?”
The sweaty detective extracted a typed sheet from his pocket. “Here it is: a Hewlett-Packard 8100 printer and an IBM Itanium computer.”
Hansen crouched and peered under Voss’s work surface. He brushed aside a colony of spiderwebs and dusted the nameplate on a small tower
PC with his finger. “Well, you’re right about the Itanium. It’s under the table.”
“And the printer’s over here on this shelf.”
“Right on! Have we got enough to take this guy in?”
Traver grinned gleefully. “Are you kidding? What else do we need, you big dumb Swede? This little fart’s got everything but ‘perp’ tattooed on his forehead!”
“All right! Let’s bring him in.
“Happy ending, partner!” Len Traver chortled as he clapped his colleague on the back. “Now you can take your old lady to the movies after all!”
“Mr. Voss, would you mind comin’ with us to headquarters?” Detective Carl Hansen asked with disarming courtesy. There was no need for the bad-cop routine anymore. They’d gotten in. They’d seen what they needed to see. He could almost have kissed the little dude for making it so easy. Let somebody else ask the tough questions; his day was almost over.
Jurgen’s eyes bulged behind his Coke-bottle lenses. “Why are you arresting me?” he asked in a trembling voice. “I am no burglar.”
“We’re not arresting you, sir. We just need to talk to you.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“The Southwest Area Command on Spring Mountain.”
“This is not about break-ins in the neighborhood, is it, Detectives? This was a trick to come in my home. Am I right?”
“No, sir. You asked us in. It was all nice and legal,” said Hansen, neatly evading the question.
“What is this really about?”
“They’ll explain that to you later.” The edge had begun to creep back into Carl Hansen’s voice.
Voss swallowed and took a deep breath. “Und what if … what if I will not come with you?”
Len Traver stepped protectively in front of Jurgen, ostensibly shielding the little man from his partner. He spoke in a low and earnest voice to their suspect. “Number one, sir, we’d consider it to be uncooperative behavior on your part. Number two, we’d put a cop on your door while we drove all the way across town to get a warrant for your arrest and then drove all the way back here and cuffed you. Number three, that would really annoy my partner, Detective Hansen here, because it would mean extra work for him. And when he gets mad, I can’t control him.”
Right on cue, the big blond detective growled and took a step toward Voss.
“Wait a minute, Swede.” said Len Traver, apparently restraining his partner only with the greatest difficulty. “I think Mr. Voss will cooperate. Right, sir?”
The little man looked around desperately. Once again, it appeared he had no option. “Yes … all right. You win. I will accompany you. Just … let me get my jacket.”
“No problem, sir,” said Traver with a reassuring smile. “Take your time.”
Jurgen shuffled miserably into the bedroom and picked his windbreaker up off the floor. Was this it? Was the game over? Had Thanatos lost?
Impulsively, he stopped off at the messy kitchenette that adjoined his living room and picked up a couple of small pink packages from a cracked sugar bowl.
“What’s that, sir?” Traver asked politely.
“Only some artificial sweetener, Detective.” Voss showed the paper packets to his captor. “Sweet’n Low. For my coffee. I always bring with me some when I will be away from home … for a while.”
“Good idea, mister,” Hansen said impatiently, glancing at his watch. He and Ingrid could still make the seven o’clock if they hurried. “Now, let’s go.”