Thirty-one

“Here,” Lucy said. “Taste this.”

The next day I found Lucy Three Rivers in Carmela and Sylvia’s kitchen. She held out a tablespoon of her chili for me.

“No,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because I can smell it.”

“You can really be a real dick sometimes.”

“I know. You wanted to see me? Where are the girls?”

“Riding the QLine,” Lucy said, tossing the spoon and chili it held into the sink. “They thought it’d be nice before stopping at the DIA’s café for lunch. They asked me if I wanted to go but I said I’d rather shove red-hot knitting needles in my eyes. Okay, I didn’t say that, but riding the QLine all day? Then eating an overpriced sandwich surrounded by paintings of a vengeful white man’s God? No, thanks.”

“Still,” I said, “you wanted to make the girls dinner. That’s progress. I mean, it smells like a cow fart apocalypse in here, but you’re coming along.”

“A little encouragement might be nice,” she said. “I don’t need two of you man-babies biting my head off.”

“Two?”

“Jimmy,” Lucy said. “I think his girlfriend dumped him. Why are guys such twisted emotional wreckage?”

Lucy opened her laptop on the small kitchen table. “So anyway, I found the place your friend Buddy Lane told you about. 8384 Toblin Circle, Birmingham, Michigan.”

She brought up a street-level picture of the house, an expansive two-story Tudor in a five-house cul-de-sac. Courtesy of Google Earth, we could see the street and most of the house. A local upscale real estate firm provided us with three-year-old 360-degree views of the exterior and video of the interior of the massive house, plus drone video of the house and neighborhood.

“Sold five years ago to a Lincoln and Marybeth Hamilton from Springfield, Ohio, then again two years later to a William Maebourne of Colorado Springs. He leases it out to a Genoa Enno, LLC, as a rental for Genoa big wigs from Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam.”

“Who’s Maebourne?”

“Far as I can make out, he’s an accountant,” Lucy said. “Does mostly Air Force family taxes and financial planning. Owns a couple rental properties. This is the biggest one. He seems pretty active with his other properties, but not so much with this one.”

“It’s possible he doesn’t know he owns it,” I said. “What kind of business is Genoa?”

“A made-up one,” Lucy said. “Website says they supply high-tech autonomous navigation systems for cars, trucks, cargo freighters. Their financials look real, but feel front loaded. Even the warts and blemishes on their quarterly reports look manufactured. For shits and giggles, I did a scan of the faces of the guys on their Frankfurt executive page and ran the photos through my own facial recognition software, which is really awesome. Guess what?” Lucy hit two keys and up popped the smiling, silver-haired CEO of Genoa Enno, LLC, Hans Ruger Gremel. She backed out from the close-up of Gremel. His photo shared a page with seven other portraits of smiling, silver-haired white men. Some were dressed like airline pilots. Still others were dressed like chefs, fishermen and doctors. “Mr. Gremel is a no-name model from a stock photo company out of Paramus, New Jersey. They went bust six years ago. Then I had an idea.”

“Am I gonna like this?”

“Probably not,” Lucy said, grinning. “Okay, so I hacked a NOAA satellite—”

“Jesus, Lucy!”

“—’cause those puppies got everything—high-resolution cameras, infrared, ultraviolet spectrum, real-time layered scanning. They scan over a million square miles of the earth’s surface every freakin’ day, dude! So anyway, I hacked the one that covers the Great Lakes—BR-128NTG, or ‘Benji,’ —and had it do a focused infrared, thermal and layered scan of the cul-de-sac in general and 8384 Toblin Circle specifically . . .”

She pointed to a photo of Toblin Circle and the five houses in the cul-de-sac. Four of the houses had spots of light, streaks and flares of white, red and yellow. Thermal and infrared imaging. The fifth house—8384—was a nearly complete black rectangle.

“Holy shit,” I heard myself say.

“I’m guessing as close as you can get to military-grade radio wave insulation and infrared shielding.” Lucy looked up at me. “It’s a Faraday cage.”

“NOAA can’t trace this back to you?” I said.

Lucy laughed. “You mean us, buffalo soldier. And heck no! The propeller-heads at NOAA’ll probably think they got a tenth of a second of space noise or interference from the bazillion satellites junking it up out there.”

Even though I was a bit shaky with Lucy hijacking a multi-million-dollar US government weather satellite, I was also proud of her.

As a reward, I took her to the Honeycomb Market. We bought ingredients to make proper chili: fresh jalapenos, red and black beans, pinto beans, ground chorizo beef, uncured bacon, Mexican-spiced flank steak, tomatoes, Honeycomb’s own blend of chili powder spices, brown sugar and a six of Negra Modelo beer.

“You put beer in chili?” Lucy said, watching me pour two bottles into the simmering pot.

“You got a better idea?” I said.

About forty minutes into cooking chili with Lucy, I got a heavy-breathing call from an “UNKNOWN” number.

“You’re blind and in the badlands, partner,” the caller said in a hushed, conspiratorial voice. “And you need help. My help. I got info you need.”

“Why so generous, friend?”

“Because I’m a nice guy, motherfucker,” he said. “Now, you want what I got or not?”

“And let me guess,” I said. “You can’t give me this information over the phone?”

“Go ahead. Be a smartass,” the caller said. “More girls are gonna wash up on the river front wearing Barbie clothes. You want to shut this shit down or not?”

“I do.”

“Then I need ten g’s,” the caller said. “You got that kinda bread, right?”

I told him I did. He gave me an address and meet time.

Then he disconnected.

Lucy held out a steaming spoonful of chili to me.

“Good,” I said after a taste. “Add a bit more smoked paprika.”

I called Tomás.

“You’re shitting me,” Tomás said. “Ford Field? You know what security’s like at Ford Field? Even when the Lions aren’t playing?”

“I do.”

“And you’re still doing this?”

“I am. Whoever it is, they’re a serious player and I don’t think they ride Harleys, drink cheap beer, or braid their ear hair. They’ve probably cleared a path for me past Ford Field security. They’re killing me to send a message to anybody else screwing with whatever operation this is.”

“And what about me?” Tomás said.

“I doubt there’s a bounty on you, Tomás.”

“Well, that’s bullshit,” Tomás said. “What am I? A fucking vegan taco?”

Ford Field pushes nearly two-million square feet of red brick, glass and steel at 2000 Brush Street. When the Detroit Lions aren’t bashing helmets and bruising bones with opposing NFL football teams on the field, you’ll likely see Beyoncé, bull riders or monster trucks. I love Ford Field for the exact opposite reason I also love Lambeau Field in Green Bay: At Ford Field, you’re warm and cozy with a cold beer under the skylights, safe from the ravages of a Michigan winter. At Lambeau Field in Green Bay, you’re outside freezing your ass off while watching the Packers hammer it out like gridiron gods in a blizzard. Just like when I was a kid playing football in a foot of snow.

But regardless of the stadium or team allegiance, this is an age of foreign terrorists with pressure cooker bombs and homegrown terrorists with AR-15 assault rifles with bump stocks.

Security at Ford Field was a reflection of the times.

In a waste can outside of Gate A was a Detroit Lions security pass on a lanyard belonging to a Sephus Goins. I cringed to think what may have happened to Mr. Goins. I flashed the pass in front of the reader. The light turned green and the door clicked open. Tomás quickly followed me in. I told him if anybody was going to put me in the crosshairs it would either be on a diagonal from Section H or from the west facing end zone, Sections M or 01. My bet was on a diagonal from somewhere in Section H since the yardage and elevation from end zone to end zone would require fairly expensive sniper skills.

Section H was where a discount killer would perch: Shorter range, clearer and faster shot, less ground to cover for an escape.

Before Tomás left for Section H, he whispered, “How come you don’t got fifty-yard line season tickets?”

“I need to see two consecutive Black-And-Blue championships under their belt,” I said. “Then I’ll think about it.”

“Wow,” Tomás said with a grin. “Real hardass.”

Then he disappeared into the labyrinth that was Ford Field.

Tomás understood there was nothing I could do for him if he got caught. Likewise, if I got nailed I didn’t want a hint of my stink on him.

Even with the security pass, navigating to Section 137L demanded more stealth than had been required of me in a long time. There are very few shadowed corners in Ford Field.

Although none of Ford Field’s security team carried lethal weapons, they were nonetheless lethally trained and smartly deployed. In a post 9/11 world, they couldn’t afford to be anything less.

After five minutes I made it to Section 137L and looked around.

Four men in the opposite end zone were huddled around a large patch of Astro Turf that had been ripped up. Two of the men took turns stepping into the bald spot and bouncing on it. They didn’t notice me. If they had, I doubted very much they would have cared. They had more important business. Like fixing a bald spot in the end zone of a $500 million football stadium.

I figured if I was going to get shot, I might as well get comfortable. I took a seat and imagined myself suited up in a snappy Lions “Honolulu Blue” uniform, taking the hand-off at the twenty-five-yard line, cutting right through the hole, juking left and finding daylight—the thirty . . . thirty-five and first . . . forty . . .

“Hey—”

My football fantasy was interrupted by the echo of a security guard at the fifty-yard line, fifteen rows up in the shadows of the upper level. He was approaching what appeared to be a maintenance man.

“Where’s Mica?” the security guard said. “I thought he—”

“Yeah,” the maintenance man laughed. “Day off. Guess I’m the lucky sonuvabitch, eh?”

“Yeah,” the security guard laughed. “Hey, listen. Mica ever fix that scanner on the promenade?”

“Yeah,” the maintenance man said. “Yeah, he got it.”

“Wasn’t no scanner needed fixing,” the security guard said before speaking into his headset. “Bronze One, this is—”

That’s as far as the security guard got before the maintenance man shot him twice.

With my Glock out, I leaped down the staircase, two, three steps at a time.

Another shot.

This time from Tomás.

He’d caught the shooter in the hip. The shooter had no choice but to jump onto the field. Tomás squeezed off two more rounds.

Misses.

More Astro Turf would have to be replaced.

Tomás spotted me on the field.

“Go!” he shouted, kneeling by the wounded security guard. “Get that fucker!”

The shooter was at least thirty-yards away. Even with a bullet in his hip, he was widening the gap. The four men that had been huddled over the bald spot either hit the deck or ran.

I knew I couldn’t catch the shooter.

But a 9mm bullet traveling at over 800 mph could.

I took a stance, anticipated timing, calculated deceleration, angle of descent . . .

. . . then fired three times.

He dropped.

“Oh, my God!” Tomás bellowed from the stands. “Ladies and gentlemen, he is down at the ten-yard line! And what a hit from the kid out of Wayne State University!”

By the time I got to the shooter he was trying to crawl his way to freedom. He’d caught one of my bullets in his lower back.

“You—fucker,” he growled. “I can’t—feel my legs!”

“And I can’t feel pity,” I said. “Who sent you?”

He lost consciousness just as a swarm of Ford Field security descended onto the field, yelling for me and Tomás to drop our weapons.