Criminal Enterprise, page 24
The kid was pale, shaky. He turned to the dog and held out his hand. “Come on, Snickers,” he said. “Come on, be quiet.”
Someone called up from the basement, a girl. “Aaron?” she said. “Is Josh here?”
The kid looked at Schultz, terrified. Schultz put his finger to his lips and motioned down the stairs. The kid swallowed and started down, Schultz behind hm. The dog kept barking up above. Schultz turned around and leveled the gun at the little mutt, was about to pull the trigger when the girl called out again. “Snickers,” she said. “Shut up.”
The dog perked up at the sound of her voice, and raced down past Schultz to the bottom of the stairs. Schultz prodded the kid with the gun. “Keep going.”
The kid, Aaron, led him into the basement, past a couple of dark rooms and into the back, a rec room with carpet and couches and a big-screen TV. Schultz stopped in the doorway. There were teenagers on the couches, on the floor, cuddled up in the corners. Maybe ten kids in total, all focused on the TV and the dog and one another. Schultz stepped into the room, his gun raised. Someone gasped, and then everybody was looking his way.
Schultz walked to the middle of the room as Aaron booked it to the couch and hid among his friends. “I’m looking for Carter Tomlin,” he said. The kids looked at one another. Nobody answered. Schultz pointed the TEC-9 at the closest kid, a scrawny runt wearing camouflage pants. “One more time,” he said. “Carter Tomlin.”
“He’s not here,” said a girl, a pretty blonde. Schultz turned away from the runt and looked at her. “He’s gone,” she said.
“Where the hell did he go?” Schultz asked her.
“He’s just gone.” The girl glanced at another blond girl, who shied back and buried her face in the dog’s fur. “Nobody knows where he is.”
Schultz studied the second girl. “How many of you shitstains live in this pile?”
Nobody said anything. Their eyes all seemed to gravitate to the shy blonde with the mutt. Schultz looked at her. “You?”
The girl was crying. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“She doesn’t know anything,” the other blonde said. “She doesn’t know where her dad is. Don’t hurt her.”
“Stand up,” Schultz told the shy one. The girl cried harder, but she pushed the dog away and stood on shaky, skinny legs. “Come here.”
She walked through the mess of kids to where he stood. Stared down at the carpet. “What’s your name?” he asked her.
The girl swallowed. “Heather.”
“Heather Tomlin?”
She nodded, her eyes screwed closed, tight, her whole body shaking. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he told her. “I just want my money.” Heather nodded slowly. “Your dad robbed me. Seventy grand. That’s what I’m after.”
Heather shook her head. “I don’t know anything. Honest.”
“And your dad’s gone.” Schultz waited until the girl nodded again. “Where’s your mom?” Her eyes shot open. Schultz held her gaze and looked at her mean, watching her nearly piss herself out of fear and already feeling like a first-class shitheel.
Christ, he thought. I just want my damn money.
“Where’s your mom?” he asked her again. This time, the girl swallowed. Looked instinctively to the ceiling. “Upstairs?”
She nodded again, wordless. Schultz turned to the runty kid in the camouflage. “Get her,” he said. “Don’t try anything stupid. Don’t make me be the bad guy.”
The kid’s eyes went wide. He didn’t move. “Hurry, Brian,” someone said. Brian jolted like he’d touched a live wire, and hurried out of the room.
Schultz looked back at the gaggle of teens. He examined the braver blond girl, who stood, staring at him, by the couch. “Who are you?” he asked her.
The girl flushed and looked away. Not so ballsy now. “Andrea,” she said.
“You live in this house?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Then sit down and keep your mouth shut,” he told her. “Mind your business.” He waved the gun at her, and she paled and retreated to the couch as someone gasped from the door behind him. Schultz turned to see the little runt, Brian, returning with two people behind him.
A woman, middle-aged. She looked exhausted but beautiful, a peek into her daughters’ futures. The girl behind her was younger than her sister, still a child. Mom saw the gun and went rigid. “What do you want?”
“You’re Tomlin’s wife,” he said, and she nodded. “I’m here for my money.”
Her eyes were red and swollen, her hair unkempt. She looked like she’d been crying nonstop for a week, but she didn’t look at him scared, and she didn’t look anymore at the gun. “I don’t know anything about your money,” she said. “Carter’s gone.”
“Seventy grand. Then I’ll go.”
She didn’t blink. “We don’t have it.”
“Your husband’s a bank robber, lady. You have it.”
“He took the money.” She looked at him, grim. “We never saw it. We don’t have it.”
“In this whole fucking house.” Schultz stared at her. She stared back, miserable but defiant. Schultz felt his frustration mounting. Could have punched through the wall. “Find him.”
“How?”
“I don’t care. Find him, or I start killing these kids.” Schultz motioned to a side table, where a cordless phone sat amid empty chip bags and soda cans. “There’s your lifeline,” he told her. “Use it.”
104
TOMLIN LAY ON the bed in the dark motel room, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the blizzard rage outside. He wondered how far Tricia would get in the Jaguar. Wondered if she would really escape.
The ten-thousand stack she’d thrown lay on the flowered bedspread beside him, the soggy bills a bad joke at his expense. Ten thousand dollars out of a million five. Odds were better he’d die in this motel room than spend that cash.
“I see you again, I will kill you,” she’d said. Tomlin traced the mottled stains on the ceiling with his eyes and wondered if she’d ever get the chance. Cursed himself for being stupid. For letting her get away. He wondered how long it would take before the police found him. Someone, surely, would notice Dragan’s Civic parked outside. The desk clerk would remember his face. Sooner or later, the police would arrive. Tomlin figured he’d be waiting when they did.
Tricia had taken the money, but she’d left the guns. The big AR-15 waited inside Dragan’s Civic, a pile of ammunition along with it. The shotgun, too, and a couple of pistols. Enough firepower to put a dent in the Saint Paul police force before he finally went down. He cursed Tricia again. The cocktease. The whore. You should have killed her, he thought. You should have watched her die, then taken off with the money. Instead, you let her beat you.
That was the really bad part. The money was a setback, sure, probably fatal. What really hurt, though, was the soggy stack of bills on the bed beside him, the memory of Tricia’s face as she’d driven away.
She’d won. She’d taken the money and the Jaguar and driven off into the sunset. She’d stood at the door with her pistol aimed squarely at Tomlin and laughed at him and dared him to come at her. And he hadn’t done it. He’d stood there and watched as she’d driven away. And then he’d walked back into the motel room and locked the door and lay down and stared up at the ceiling and waited for the police to find him.
He’d kept Dragan’s keys. Could feel them in his pants pocket. But he didn’t drive away, didn’t bother to run. Because he was a chump, after all.
The blizzard raged outside. Tomlin listened to the wind howling and stared up at the stains on the ceiling, thinking about Tricia and feeling plain fucking sick with envy. Then he heard his phone ringing. It had been ringing for a while, he realized. He’d been so lost in his thoughts, he’d ignored it. Now he listened to the tinny ringtone, the police probably, setting a trap. The phone rang a little longer, then stopped. A moment later, it started again.
Tomlin sat up. Let them trap me, he thought. It’s bound to happen soon enough, anyway. He stood up and fished the phone from his coat. Looked at the display. His home number. He waited until the phone was silent again. Then he paged through the call log. Five missed calls. All from home. The phone rang again. The same number.
Here we go. Tomlin flipped open the phone and held it to his ear. Expected to hear Carla Windermere, or Kirk Stevens, or some other cop. Or maybe Becca, selling him out, pretending nothing was wrong. Instead, he got someone different. Someone worse than the cops. “Tony Schultz.” The man’s voice was harsh and triumphant. “You remember me, Brill?”
Suddenly, Tomlin felt even sicker. “What do you want?”
“I want what you took, Tomlin. Can’t make you give me my teeth back, but I do want my money.”
“Your money.” Tomlin laughed, cold. “I don’t have it.”
Schultz snarled. “Bullshit.”
“My partner just robbed me. Took every cent. Sorry.”
“Sorry don’t cut it, brother.” A pause. “You got a nice place here, Tomlin. A nice family. Your baby girl’s got a nice bunch of friends.”
“You don’t understand. I don’t have your money.”
“I understand fine,” Schultz replied. “Maybe you don’t understand. Come home and talk to me, or I make a pile of bodies in your basement. We clear?”
Schultz hung up before he could answer. Tomlin put the phone back in his coat pocket. Then he sat on the bed and looked around the motel room some more.
105
TONY SCHULTZ PACED Tomlin’s rec room, his boots leaving a muddy trail on the carpet. Show the fuck up, Tomlin, he thought. Show up, so I can get my goddamn money.
He’d trashed the house looking for the stash. Dragged Tomlin’s daughter—the older one—with him, and told her mother if she tried anything funny, he’d shoot the girl in her head. He’d searched every room in the house. Tore open mattresses and pulled clothes from the closets. Far as he could tell, Tomlin wasn’t lying. The whole house was clean. Unbelievable.
Schultz dragged the girl into the train room at the end. Stared in at the huge setup, examined it closely. Then he ripped the train table to pieces, ruined it, put holes in the mountains, and destroyed the cities. Trashed the whole room as Tomlin’s daughter wept beside him. He found nothing. Stalked back to the rec room and collared Tomlin’s wife. “Where is it?”
She stared at him and said nothing. He drew back his hand to slap her. She didn’t flinch. “I don’t fucking know.” She spat the curse like she’d been saving it for months. “I don’t fucking know anything.”
He held her before him, his open hand raised. Then he released her. “Shit,” he said. Tomlin’s wife glared at him as she retreated. She didn’t say anything more.
—
SCHULTZ COULD FEEL time wasting. He studied the collage of terrified faces around him and wondered if he could kill any one of them. He’d been asking himself that same question all night.
Carter Tomlin he could kill. The cop outside, maybe. But these damned teenagers, Tomlin’s daughters, his wife? Schultz had hoped Tomlin would jump when he heard his kids were in danger. Prayed the bastard wouldn’t try to test him. But the clock was ticking now, and Tomlin still hadn’t showed. Schultz’s TEC-9 was slick in his hand. He kept pacing.
The blond girl, Andrea, was staring at him. She held his gaze when he looked at her. Still ballsy. Schultz tried to wait the girl out, but damned if she wouldn’t blink. Finally, he rubbed his eyes and looked away. Swore under his breath and paced the room some more, waiting for Tomlin to show.
106
TOMLIN PEERED UP at the lights of his house through the windshield. He looked down the block at the buried cars, the snow in the streetlights. Then he looked at the house again.
Be realistic, he thought. Schultz isn’t going to kill anyone. Not a couple of kids, not over fifty grand and some drugs. He’s waiting for you to turn up, and if you don’t, he’ll get scared and run. Call in a tip. Let the police do their jobs.
He sat in the car and stared out at the house, looming out of the snow like a ghost in the fog. He looked at it and realized he was scared. He was afraid to see Becca again. Afraid to look at his daughters, now that they knew who their father really was. He was scared, most of all, that he would walk into that dream home and find them all dead.
He was scared, all right. Terrified. But he couldn’t walk away from his family, not after all that he’d done. He put his foot on the gas pedal and drove toward home.
—
SPECIAL AGENT Nick Singer sat up in the driver’s seat of the unmarked Crown Vic. He’d been snoozing a little, waiting out the blizzard, and now he rubbed his eyes and stared out at the brake lights in the distance.
Damn it, he thought, but that kind of looked like a Civic. The car made the end of the block and turned left, away from the Tomlin house. Singer stared out the window and wondered if he should follow.
You’re dreaming, he thought. Too goddamned bored. Tomlin would be a fool to show up around here in that Civic tonight. He’s probably in Bermuda already.
Singer looked out at the street, but the Civic didn’t return. The snow kept falling. Nothing else moved outside. He shifted in his seat, slid down a little. Turned up the radio and tried to get comfortable.
—
TOMLIN DROVE the Civic down to Irvine, the long, narrow laneway that passed beneath the backyards of the Summit Hill mansions. Stupid to park the Civic in the driveway, he thought, what with every cop in the state looking for it.
The snow had piled up in the alley, and the Honda struggled to find traction in the drifts, but Tomlin wrestled the car along anyway. He parked below his backyard and looked up through the driver’s-side window. Found the narrow concrete stairs the previous owners had cut into the hillside, and above them, the top of the house. One light in Madeleine’s bedroom. Otherwise, darkness. Tomlin took the assault rifle with him, and a spare magazine. Stuffed a pistol in his pocket and stepped out of the Civic and climbed up the stairs to the yard.
Someone else had been there, and recently. His big footprints were just starting to fill up with snow. Schultz. Tomlin crept through the backyard and stopped in the shadows. He looked out at the street and saw no movement, and he gripped his rifle tighter and steadied his breathing. Then he reached for the door handle and twisted it open.
107
WINDERMERE STOOD amid the mountains of cardboard boxes in Medic’s spare room, listening to the wind howl outside. What the hell am I doing? she thought. What the hell did I do?
Stevens was gone. She’d chased him away. He’d lingered in the hallway, then out by the door, and she’d listened to him and wanted to walk out and say something, apologize, but she didn’t. She stood in Medic’s disaster-zone room until Stevens had walked out of the apartment and into the blizzard. And now she stood alone, cursing Stevens and cursing herself. Cursing Carter Tomlin for good measure.
You idiot, she thought. Making Stevens the bad guy because he doesn’t want to spend his whole life on a stakeout with you. Because he has a family.
Except plenty of good cops have families. And Stevens is damn good. He’d proved it with Pender. He was proving it with Tomlin, until he’d walked off the job. So she was a little overeager. So she took Stevens personally. She’d been partnered with Bob Doughty for a month. Who could blame her?
You smothered him. And when he didn’t want to play, you shut down and chased him away. There’s your problem.
Still.
She wanted to smack Stevens. Grab him by the ears and yell into his face until he understood her point of view. Until he made the connection. The man was wasting his talents at the BCA. And, worst of all, Stevens knew it. He’d liked chasing Pender, and he’d liked chasing Tomlin. But for whatever reason, he couldn’t get his head in the game. Couldn’t accept the risks.
Become a librarian, she wanted to tell him, if you don’t like the risks. You’re the same cop your wife married. Suck it up, grow a pair, and come back to work. But of course she’d said none of this to Stevens. She’d told him to leave, and he’d left. And now she was here, in this messy shitbox room, sifting through soft-core porn and old gym socks and waiting for her big break. And meanwhile, Stevens was gone, and Tomlin probably was, too.
108
TOMLIN PUSHED the side door open, stepped back, and leveled the assault rifle at the doorway. Then he waited. Nothing moved inside the house. The building was silent. It felt empty.
He killed them already, Tomlin thought. He stepped through the open door and onto the landing. Heard nothing, still. Then something moved, suddenly, at the base of the staircase. Tomlin swung the rifle around, his finger tense on the trigger. Then he relaxed.
Snickers. The dog came bounding up the stairs, tail swinging like a whip. He reached the landing and leapt up at Tomlin, his big tongue searching for Tomlin’s free hand. Tomlin let the dog lick his hand as he thought things through. The dog didn’t like the basement. Went downstairs only grudgingly, and only when the girls were watching TV.
There was a light on downstairs. Shit, Tomlin thought. He waited some. Listened. The dog nipped at his fingers. Nothing else moved in the basement. Only one way to do this. Tomlin raised the assault rifle and started down the stairs, slow and deliberate, avoiding the creaky spots. The dog lingered on the landing, whining a little, pawing at the door.
Tomlin reached the midpoint of the stairway and crouched, his rifle at the ready. Saw nobody lurking in the narrow hallway below. A light on, in the back, toward the rec room. He pressed against the wall and slunk forward and down, ready to shoot at anything that moved.
He reached the bottom and paused again. Heard muffled noises from down the hall. Hushed voices. The whisper of socks on the carpet. The rec room. Tomlin started for it, slowly, keeping tight to the wall and tense on the trigger. Midway down the hall, he glanced in his train room and stopped. Stared. The whole layout was ruined. Schultz had destroyed everything, crushed his vast mountains and upended his cities.
