The Merchant of Death (Playing the Fool, #2) Page 2

  Viola nodded, eyes huge. “I think I could go back if the angel was gone.”

  Henry swallowed. “I’ll go there and try to figure out what’s going on. But first, I’m gonna take you somewhere safe.”

  Safe was a relative term. He was going to take her to the only place he knew no one would find her. The only place Henry himself had felt remotely safe in years. It wasn’t an ideal location, especially for Viola. But it was all Henry could offer.

  He’d take her to the Court of Miracles.

  Ryan McGuinness walked into the Indianapolis field office of the FBI wearing his usual frown and feeling as though he had more reasons than usual for wearing it. Not just because he’d recently been shot and was still trying to figure out a way of moving without pain. And not just because he’d had quinoa for breakfast, which wasn’t the culinary experience the girl at the health food shop had suggested it would be. No, that was shit Mac could have handled with his usual cranky equanimity. What really rankled today, what really hurt, was that Henry Page had run out on him.

  Again.

  And Mac had been dumb enough to think there was something there. That somehow he’d dug through enough layers of bullshit and found something real underneath. He wanted to believe that, wanted to think Henry had been genuinely sorry to leave, but how the hell could he? It wouldn’t be the first time Henry had played him for a fool. Or even the second.

  He’d stopped in at Henry’s hotel before work. The hotel that Henry was charging to the FBI, thanks to his status as a witness. He’d expected it to be cleaned out, but Henry’s stuff was still there. A bag, some clothes, and a dog-eared Pocket Shakespeare. A pair of glasses with a bent frame.

  So maybe he hadn’t lied. Maybe he was coming back. And maybe Mac should stop obsessing about how much he was hurt personally, and concentrate on how much losing his witness—again—would cost them when Dean Maxfield went to trial.

  “Hi, Mac,” Paula said when the elevator doors opened. She was doing something to the plant on her desk that involved a tiny pair of scissors and a spray bottle. “Is Henry with you?”

  “No.”

  Her face fell. “He was going to help me feng shui my workstation.”

  “Two things.” Mac tried not to grind his teeth. “First, feng shui is bullshit. Second, Henry doesn’t work here.”

  Paula huffed and hugged her spray bottle to her chest.

  Mac rubbed his forehead. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” Paula said primly. “You just got shot, so it’s understandable.”

  Mac held her gaze for a moment. No, it wasn’t understandable, and he’d been a cranky son of a bitch long before he’d gotten shot. They were both thinking it. “If I see him, I’ll tell him to come and see you.”

  She brightened, and Mac continued on to his office.

  Valerie Kimura knocked a few minutes later and didn’t wait for a response before coming in. “Where’s Henry?”

  Mac turned to her, wincing suddenly. He maybe should have taken another pain pill, but he hated how sluggish they made him. “Did he promise to feng shui your office too?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Mac toyed with the idea of trying to keep Henry’s absence a secret from Val and waiting to see if he came back before anyone found out he’d been gone. But he didn’t keep secrets from Val. “I don’t know where Henry is.”

  He was impressed by how little her expression changed. “Explain.”

  “I was with Henry last night,” he started.

  Now her expression did change, and he couldn’t tell if she was disgusted or impressed. Disguspressed—Henry’s word. And Mac shouldn’t have felt regret, sharp and quick, at that memory. Shouldn’t be nostalgic for the good times he’d spent in the company of a con man. Maybe Val was neither disgusted nor impressed. Maybe she was just pissed off.

  Mac ought to have been pissed at himself too, because he’d come this close to sleeping with a witness. Eight years of an almost compulsive professionalism—give or take a time or two—plus a determination to go down, not as a nice guy, but as an efficient one. All of that had snapped after less than a week with Henry.

  “Mac.”

  “I know.” Mac drew a deep breath. “We didn’t— It wasn’t like that.” It should have been. It almost was. “We were having dinner. Henry got a call. Something that upset him a lot. He was asking where someone was, and he told them he’d be right there. He left.”

  “And you let him go?”

  “He’s not our prisoner.”

  “No, but he’s got a history of disappearing. On your watch.”

  That wasn’t anything more than a statement of fact, a mild reproof, maybe. But Mac felt it like a blow, as if he should lash back. “Who knows when Maxfield will go to trial? We can’t keep him on the short leash until then.” He forced his tone calmer. Val wasn’t the problem here. Henry was. “He promised me he’s coming back. I’m sure—I believe—he will be here for the trial.”

  “He’d damn well better be, or so help me, Mac, we’ll have to charge him with everything.”

  Not that any of them had a clue what everything was. All they knew for sure was that Henry had stolen a car and impersonated a cop. And had run from the FBI. But Mac was pretty sure there was much more to his history than that. Stolen property, forgery, crooked card games, numerous aliases . . . he’d hinted without ever confessing. And he was clever enough that Mac didn’t doubt he was capable of all of it.

  But there was another side to Henry too. A little kid in grown-up clothing. He wasn’t half as bad as he pretended to be.

  “He’ll be back,” Mac said weakly.

  Val’s expression didn’t soften. “You know full well you should have found out exactly where he was going and when he’ll return.”

  “I know. He wasn’t about to tell me, though.”

  Val’s gaze traveled the mostly bare walls of Mac’s office. “When he comes back— Mac, I’m serious. You can’t carry on an affair with him.”

  Carry on an affair. It made Mac sound like some sleazy politician. Carrying on an affair with his campaign manager behind his wife’s back. “I know.” Mac refused to look at her.

  “I needed to talk to Henry. See if he could fill in some blanks in his statement. I couldn’t reach him at the hotel.” There was something off about her tone, something a little strained. She stood beside his desk, and he wished she’d leave. Just wished he could fucking have some time alone to feel sorry for himself.

  “I went by earlier. His stuff’s there. I really don’t think he’s bailed on us. And if he has . . .” Then I’ll find him. “Then at least we’ve got Jeff.” Mac said the name with all the bitterness he could muster.

  Jeff Cavill. Former analyst. He’d been working for Dean Maxfield, the mob boss the FBI had just arrested. He’d also tried to kill Mac. Jeff had been cooperative about coughing up names and details, in exchange for a greatly reduced sentence.

  “Yeah.” Val sighed. “I really can’t deal with another headache right now.”

  “What’s the first headache?”

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “I just got here.”

  “Mac, Jimmy Rasnick’s dead.”

  Well, Jesus Christ on stilts.

  Now there was a piece of news Mac wasn’t sure how to feel about. The memories came in a surge—the years he’d spent tracking Rasnick, the unmatchable high of the day Mac and Val had caught him. The eventual realization that Mac would always be linked to Rasnick—that he wouldn’t be anyone of note if it wasn’t for that bust.

  Mac couldn’t pretend to be sorry the guy was dead. Couldn’t pretend to be ecstatic either. Someone like Rasnick shouldn’t be wasting oxygen or public resources. Yet Mac would have liked him to live a long life, all of it in prison and miserable.

  “Fuck. What happened?”

  “They’re saying he hanged himself.”

  “Who’s saying?”

  “The prison.”

  “And
you’re saying . . .?”

  “I have it on good authority that Rasnick had bruises on his arms when they found him. And the bruising on his neck was not consistent with the belt he allegedly used.”

  “You think he had help?”

  “Rasnick was Catholic.”

  “Prison changes people.”

  “I’m not saying I think anyone should dig into it. I don’t miss the guy. I just want you to be aware that what’s being reported differs from the actual circumstances.”

  Mac snorted. “That’s a first.”

  “Right.” Val almost smiled.

  “Well,” Mac said after a while, “I guess whoever strung him up did the world a favor.”

  Because Jimmy Rasnick was a piece of shit, and if there was such a place as hell, Mac was sure Rasnick was rotting in it.

  “Right,” Val said again, but Mac knew that neither of them really believed it. Whatever had happened in that cell might have been justice for every person Rasnick had ever gotten hooked on the drugs he sold, for every accomplice Rasnick had considered disposable once a deal was done, but it still meant a murderer was free. “I’m going to get a coffee. Want one?”

  “I’m good.”

  She closed the door after her.

  Mac stared up at the framed newspaper article on his wall. Rasnick stared back down at him. Creepy to think of him dead. And not as satisfying as Mac would have thought. Not with all those ruined lives he’d left behind.

  Somehow his death seemed to sour the memory of his arrest. Mac had won the battle with Rasnick; had held on to that victory and gloated over it. And now it was as if by dying, Rasnick had gotten the last laugh. Mac remembered so clearly the thrill of that win: he and Val and their team had finally pinned Rasnick to a house in Meridian-Kessler where he reportedly lived with his wife, Flora. But Jimmy hadn’t come by for days. The AD had wanted to bring Flora in for questioning; Mac and Val thought that would send Rasnick running. Flora seemed timid—Jimmy’s little shadow—but Mac had no doubt that if they questioned her, she’d shut up, lawyer up, and find a way to warn Jimmy.

  In the end, Val had proposed the idea of using Flora. By drawing from phone conversations of Flora’s they’d tapped, the team had put together a recording in which Flora sounded like she was in trouble. She’d actually been calling a financial hotline about her debt trouble, but she’d been panicked enough, and she’d said the right things: “I’m in trouble” and “I’m scared” and “I don’t want my husband to come home to this”—which they’d edited to “Come home.”

  It had been a gamble, but like Mac had told Henry, bad guys did crazy shit for love. Or for a warped idea of love. They’d placed the “call” to Jimmy. And he’d come home.

  Flora had been out when he arrived, so the team had been able to storm the house before Rasnick even realized he’d been duped. He’d tried to run out the back, but Mac had grabbed him. Rasnick had fought. Mac could still feel that frenzied determination as he held Rasnick—Not gonna let you go this time, you fucker.

  And then he’d slammed Rasnick’s head against the wall.

  Left a dent.

  In both the wall and Rasnick’s head.

  He wouldn’t have given have given any more thought to “excessive use of force,” except that Flora had started making noise a couple of months into Jimmy’s prison sentence. “Police brutality,” “abuse of power,” that kind of shit. Someone must have told her to shut her mouth before she got arrested, and she’d quieted down.

  He opened his email. His attention was caught by an item about halfway down the list. It was from Dom Wolman at the BCA. Subject: Request: Sebastian Hanes. Henry’s juvenile record, routed to Mac’s email at last.

  Fucking Jeff.

  Mac had told Henry he wasn’t going to look at the record. That he’d be satisfied with whatever Henry chose to reveal about his past. At the time he’d said that, he hadn’t actually had the record in his possession, but now . . . It was tempting to read the report now that he was face-to-face with it. Besides, he might be breaking his promise to Henry, but Henry had broken his promise to Mac to stick around.

  Mac opened it.

  He didn’t know what he expected. Something more horrible than what he found, or something less horrible? Maybe he just wanted what Jeff would have been looking for: an address. A background. A family.

  There was only one entry on the record: Sebastian Hanes, sixteen years old. Prostitution.

  Mac wasn’t surprised. Henry had admitted as much when they’d been sheltering at the cabin outside Altona. Admitted it only because he’d thought Mac already knew. After Mac had asked him when he’d realized he could make money from conning.

  “When do you realize? Shit, I don’t know. The first time you spin some fucking john a sob story about your poor, sick baby brother who hasn’t eaten in days, and he’s so hungry, mister . . . And they get so guilty they suddenly don’t want their cock sucked anymore, and they’re shoving more money in your hands than you asked for in the first place.”

  Yeah. There were no surprises in the report, except for Mac’s visceral reaction to it. He felt sick. Henry had been sixteen. Just a kid. And logically he knew that kids that age, and kids much younger, worked the streets every day. But now he was imagining every one of them with Henry’s face.

  Dom was nothing if not efficient. He’d attached the arresting officer’s report as well. Mac didn’t read that. Wasn’t sure that he wanted to know which street corner Henry had been hanging around on, whose car he had climbed into. Wasn’t sure he wanted to know the name and address of the asshole who’d paid a kid for sex. He felt a hot rage well up in his gut. The sort of rage that didn’t need a fucking target, not if he wanted to keep his job.

  He scrolled through the report looking for something else. Henry’s next of kin.

  Brenda Louise Hanes. An Indianapolis address at the time of Henry’s arrest.

  He entered the name in the database and tapped his fingers impatiently on the edge of the keyboard while he waited for a result.

  Brenda Louise Hanes: deceased, a year later at a Kansas City address. Drug overdose.

  There was nothing in the file that would help him locate Henry now.

  Mac closed his eyes. What had Henry mentioned about his past? That his mom had been an actress. That she’d been the one who inspired his love for Shakespeare. And that, like Mac, he was from Altona.

  He hadn’t believed that. He still didn’t, not really. But he picked up his desk phone and dialed anyway.

  Three rings, and then: “Hello?”

  “Mom, it’s Ryan.”

  “Are you okay, honey?” His mom’s voice rose. “Do you need us to come back to the city?”

  “I’m fine.” His parents had only just gone home after dropping everything to be there for him after he’d gotten shot. “Listen, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “This is kind of a long shot, but do you remember anyone called Brenda Hanes?”

  “Brenda Hanes . . .” She exhaled slowly. “Gee, I’m not sure. Someone from town, do you mean?”

  “Yeah.” He twirled the phone cord. “She would have had a son, maybe about five or six years younger than me. Sebastian.”

  “Oh, you mean Louise Hanes,” his mom said. “She worked at the market one summer. Oh, that’s going back a ways now. Such a pretty girl. She didn’t stay in town very long though. She had these gorgeous kids. Just beautiful. A boy and a girl. Twins.”

  “Twins,” he said. Fuck. Of course.

  Twins.

  Shakespeare.

  Henry on the phone the night before: “Don’t go anywhere, Vi.”

  It all conspired to tickle something in Mac’s memory that a quick Google search confirmed. Twelfth Night. Sebastian and Viola.

  “They were such cute kids,” his mom said. “I wonder whatever happened to them.”

  He stared at his computer screen. Sebastian Hanes. Sixteen. Prostitution. “Do you know where she moved to
?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t think anyone really knew her that well. Did you just call me to take a trip down memory lane?”

  “No!” He made a face when he realized how defensive he sounded. “I wanted to thank you for coming to look after me.”

  “Uh-huh,” his mom said. “You’re just like your father. You can’t stand it when people make a fuss. But too bad. If my baby gets shot, you can bet I’ll be there being embarrassing and mom-like.”

  “Summer camp all over again.”

  “That was one time, and you forgot your underwear.”

  “You didn’t need to come running through the camp waving it around like a flag. I was fourteen. Do you have any idea how mortifying that is when you’re fourteen?”

  “Oh, please. What else were the girls and I gonna have to laugh about at book club?”

  “I knew you did it on purpose.”

  “Is this line recorded? Because I’ll deny it otherwise.”

  “Yeah, it’s recorded.” Mac smiled.

  “Damn.” She hesitated. “Honey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t you ever get shot again, okay?” Her voice wavered somewhere between laughter and despair, as though it had started out as a joke but she’d lost her way somewhere in the delivery.

  His heart clenched. “I’ll try not to, Mom.”

  “And you shouldn’t be back at work already,” she said. “You should be on leave. You need to rest and recover. Come home for a while. It’s been too long since you were in town.”

  “Ah.”

  “What?” Her tone was immediately suspicious.

  “You and Dad haven’t been to the cabin this week, have you?”

  “No. Why would we? Why are you asking that?”

  Shit.

  “Um . . . It happened at the cabin. That’s where I got shot. Sorry, I thought we’d already had this talk.”

  He distinctly remembered discussing this with his parents, right about the time the talking dog was in the room, and Shakespeare kept interrupting to ask if there was really spanking in Kiss Me, Kate, and how kinky it got. Mac had been on a shitload of morphine.