The Never Game

Shaw had backed out of the house, crouched to make sure the minder on the ground was all right — he was — and jogged back to the far side of the clearing to retrieve his bike.

He now stepped outside and secured the Yamaha to the rack on the rear of the camper, locked it in place and returned. Just as he walked inside his phone hummed and he glanced at the screen.

He’d been expecting a call from this number, though the caller was a surprise.

“Colter? Dan Wiley.”

“Dan.”

“Say, people ever call you Colt?”

“Some do.”

“You know Colt’s a brand of gun.”

“So I’ve heard,” he said. Like the one sitting under his bed at the moment.

Shaw glanced out the window at the charcoal tread marks Maddie’s feisty car had left on Google Way. Had an image of meeting her in the Quick Byte. He filed it away in the same room where he kept the images of Margot Keller. He closed the door.

“So. Have some news. It’s about Tony Knight. Ron Cummings — you remember him?”

“I do.”

“He asked me to give you a call and tell you.”

“Go on.”

“Just thought you’d want to hear this. Well, we — at the Task Force — were kind of wrangling with the feds about an op to find Knight?”

“Were you?”

“Yes, we were. And nobody was getting anywhere. Then all of a sudden, who walks into our office and surrenders?”

“Knight?”

“That’s right. We booked him in on homicide, kidnapping and, everybody’s favorite, conspiracy. Nobody knows why the hell he gave it up.”

“Good news, then.” He wasn’t surprised that Cummings had delegated to Wiley the task of calling Shaw. Joint Task Force Senior Supervisor Cummings would want to distance himself from all things Knight. He wondered if the meeting at the Quick Byte had been a way of suggesting that Shaw might want to take matters into his own hands while decidedly warning him not to. This one clocked in at fifty-fifty.

Wiley said, “Oh, a whole n’other thing. We’re getting Crime Scene stuff in. And I was looking over ballistics. The slugs that killed Kyle and that hit LaDonna were from the same gun, that Glock we found on Foyle. But the bullets the metro CS team dug out of the wall and tree near your camper yesterday came from a Beretta, probably. A forty-cal. You find any other weapon Foyle might’ve had?”

The beer bottle stopped halfway to Shaw’s mouth. “No, Dan. Never did... I’ve got to go. I’ll be in touch.”

He disconnected without hearing Wiley’s farewell.

Because Shaw doubted very much that Foyle had another gun — and even if he did, why would he switch from one to the other and back again?

No, somebody else broke into the Winnebago last night.

Three steps across the camper and he was pulling open the spice cabinet door, thrusting his hand through the jars of sage, oregano and rosemary for his Glock.

Which was no longer there. It had been removed while he was outside affixing the Yamaha to the camper.

Shaw heard the door to his bedroom open. He turned, expecting to see exactly what he saw: the intruder stepping forward, holding the Beretta pistol in his hand.

What he hadn’t been expecting to see, though, was that his visitor was the man from Oakland — Rodent, the one who’d been carting around a Molotov cocktail, apparently hell-bent on committing a hate crime, burning down the graffitied homage to early political resistance. Shaw now understood that his mission was a very different one.

75

“Sit, Shaw. Make yourself comfy.”

The same voice. High. Amused. Confident. Clearly Minnesota or Dakota.

Shaw tried to make sense, then just gave up.

He sat.

Rodent pointed to the table. “Unlock that phone of yours and set it down. Thank’ee much.”

Shaw did.

The man picked it up, his hand encased in black cloth gloves, with light-colored finger pads, which he used to swipe his way through the iPhone. His eyes flicked from the screen to Shaw — up, down, fast.

Yes, Jimmy Foyle was the one following Shaw at San Miguel Park and who delivered the eerie stencil drawings of the Whispering Man. That didn’t mean, of course, that someone else wasn’t conducting surveillance too.

Never focus too narrowly.

Rodent asked, “This last call, incoming. Who was it from?”

Easily discovered. “Joint Major Crimes Task Force. Silicon Valley.”

“Well, some kettle of fish that is, don’tcha know.”

“Doesn’t concern you. It was about the kidnapping case I was involved in.”

Rodent nodded. He flipped through the log, surely noting the time stamp, which indicated that Shaw disconnected before Rodent had shown up with his fine Italian gun. Rodent set the phone down.

“Where’re my weapons?” Shaw asked.

“Snug in my pocket. That little tiny thing. And the Python too. Under the bed. That’s smart. And a fine piece of gun making, that model is, as I’m sure you appreciate.”

Confused, yes. But one thing Shaw understood: the man wasn’t here because he was pissed off Shaw had ruined his bonfire in Oakland. That attempted arson had been about creating a diversion so that Rodent could break into Shaw’s Winnebago.

He probably had uttered the words, during the confrontation, “Why’d you do that, Shaw?”