“I was returning the watch,” Taylor Brownsford said.
“To Finn’s wife?”
He nodded. “I found it down by the tracks. Where Finn was hit by the train.”
“What were you doing down there? Looting the crime scene?”
“If I tell you the truth, can you promise I won’t get in trouble?”
“No,” Barack said.
The biker sighed. “I was shooting smack, all right? I bought it from a street dealer down in the old warehouse district.”
“What’s your dealer’s name?”
“There’s not one guy. You just drive up—or ride up, in my case—and pull to a stop. Keep your car running. Don’t park. Somebody will come out. Hand them the money, and they spit out a balloon.”
I recoiled at the image. A balloon full of dope, covered in someone’s spit. I didn’t want to hear any more, but I had to keep pressing him, no matter how disgusting the details. These hopheads had seen plenty worse. They shot dope with dirty needles. A little spit wouldn’t make them bat an eyelash.
“Keep talking,” I said. “You decided, what, to shoot up by the tracks?”
Taylor shook his head. “I don’t usually shoot by the tracks. But I needed a fix, so I rode for a couple of blocks until I found an empty lot. That’s where I found the pocket watch. At first I thought it was neat, but then I saw the inscription. I heard about what happened. I might be a junkie, but I’m no thief.”
“And you knew Finn’s wife was in the nursing home.”
“It was on the TV.”
“Which channel?”
“How should I know?”
I looked at Barack to see if he was buying any of this. Darlene Donnelly hadn’t been mentioned by name in any of the newspaper reports that I’d read. I might have believed him if he said he’d read her name in the obituaries.
“When’s the last time you had a fix?” Barack asked.
“A couple hours.”
“Where’s your rig?”
“Why would I tell you? You think I’m stupid?”
“No,” Barack said, “but I think you’re a liar.” He twisted the biker’s arm. Since Taylor’s hands were still cuffed, his elbow bent into a painful-looking position. Barack held it there.
“You’re hurting me,” Taylor whined.
“Where are your track marks?”
“My track marks?”
Barack let go of him.
I got right down in the biker’s face. “Now I want you to go back to the beginning of your story, and tell us the truth this time. No baloney, mister.”
“You can’t do this,” he protested. “I have rights.”
“Not where we’ll take you if you don’t come clean,” Barack said. “I hear Gitmo’s nice this time of year.”
The biker’s face went white. “What? You can’t be serious. I’m an American! I’m—”
We were interrupted by a ringing phone. Barack and Taylor both looked in my direction, as if it was my phone making the racket. But I’d turned my phone on vibrate.
It rang again.
And again.
And again.
“Are you going to answer that, Joe?” Barack asked.
I pulled my phone out. “It’s not—”
It was my phone. Oops.
UNKNOWN CALLER.
The Mayor, calling from a pay phone again?
“Hello,” I answered, using the deepest voice I could muster.
“Hello, Mr. Biden,” said a distorted voice.
“There’s no Mr. Biden here. This is Joe…Tingler.”
“Tingler?” Barack whispered.
I covered the mouthpiece and shooed him away. “Who’s this?”
“The answers you seek are within reach,” the caller said. It was impossible to tell if it was a man or woman through the distortion. “There’s an ice cream stand on the Riverwalk. Be there in one hour. Alone.”
“Who should I be looking for?”
“You’ll recognize me. But leave the police and Secret Service out of this. If you try anything funny, you’ll never get what you want.”
“And what do I want?”
“Justice,” the voice said, and the caller hung up before I could ask what in the Sam Hill they were blabbing about. They hadn’t mentioned Finn Donnelly. They didn’t have to.
My hands were shaking. I was angry—angry with the possibility of walking into a trap. Angry with the entire city, which was falling apart all around us. Angry with the world.
“We need to go,” I told Barack.
“Now?”
“Now.”
We headed for the door.
“Um, guys?” Taylor said. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
We turned around. The biker was still in the chair in the middle of the room, hands cuffed in his lap. Taylor was staring at us like a dog waiting for a treat.
“You’re right,” Barack said. “We did forget something.”
Taylor watched with eager eyes as Barack returned for him. Instead of freeing him, however, Barack clocked the side of his head with the butt of the shotgun. The biker sat there, dazed for a second or two. Then his eyes rolled back and he fell to the side off the chair, like a tree axed by a lumberjack.
I was breathing heavy. If we’d been straddling the legal fence until this point, we were now completely on the other side.
Barack slid into the passenger seat of my Challenger. “We’ll be back after we’re finished. Until then, he can sleep it off.”
I pulled out of the lot, tugging my visor down to keep the glare of the setting sun out of my eyes. After a few minutes on the road, Barack turned to me. “Joe Tingler.”
“What?” I said.
“Are we using codenames now? Because if we are, you need a better one.”
“Joe Tingler sounds cool.”
“You’ve never been interested in being cool,” Barack said. “We’re a couple of politicians. We’re as square as it gets.”
“Oh, cut it. You’re like the coolest guy I know. That’s no bullshit. It doesn’t even have anything to do with you being black.”
Barack’s eyes grew wide. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“The part about you being black or—”
“Just keep your eyes on the road.”