CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“My guys are outside,” Larson explained. Hope sat at the aqua-blue, linoleum-topped kitchen table, her chair a piece of porch furniture. She held her hands cupped around a mug of steaming tea that filled the room with lemon and ginger. She stared down into that tea as if it held some answers. “Two of them, but that should be enough.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I’m leaving for a while.”

His comment lifted her head as if pulled by a string. Her thumbnail rubbed at the red glaze on the mug that advertised The Home Depot. It made a thin scraping sound.

“You still like gin rummy?”

“It’s been years,” she said, deadpan and lifeless. “Probably in this same house, the last time I played.”

“We’ll play a hand tonight, and I’ll let you beat me.”

“You wish.” She returned to picking at the glaze, a futile effort if there ever were one. “Why? Where are you going?”

“Our guys were able to trap and trace that call to you. It came from a pay phone.”

“Here?” Her voice brightened. “In St. Louis?”

“Don’t get your hopes up. But yes, here. The Hill. I’m going to follow it up. Guys like the Romeros, they never do something like this themselves. It’ll be an intermediary, if we’re able to connect it to anyone, that is.” The realization that Penny might be his daughter knotted his gut, pushed him like nothing he’d experienced. Not even his love of this woman measured up against that feeling.

“A dead end.”

“Not necessarily. It’s a lead.”

“If we know it’s the Romeros,” she asked, “why don’t you just kick down a door?”

“There’s a lot we don’t know. Among which is a firm location for the Romero operations. We’re talking with the Bureau-the FBI-their OC unit. See what they have.”

“You don’t know where they are?” Incredulity.

“We don’t-the Marshals Service. Someone does, either in Justice or the Bureau. People like this are generally kept track of, but not always. Gaining access to that information isn’t easy. It’s compartmentalized and protected for the sake of the informers and UCs-undercover agents. I’m sure Rotem’s working on it, but we’re not going to sit around and wait to be cut in. Guys like this… when Donny was convicted… they know we’re coming after them next. They know it’s only a matter of time. And they go to ground. They make it as difficult as they can for us to find them. But they’ve still got to maintain control over their various businesses and interests. Half of what these families do is legitimate. The bad money finds its way to the good. The Romeros are still in business. And because of that they leave a trail. Someone will know something. That’s what we’re working on. That’s why I’m gonna follow this phone lead.”

“She’s five years old, Lars.”

“We’ll find her.”

“By dinner?”

How did he answer that?

Tears had found her again. Floated at the bottom of her eyes. She bunched her face and sniffled, and he could see her trying to keep from spilling them. He wanted to do something, but the only thing he could think of was to get going with what he had planned: follow leads, beat the bushes, stir the nest. Stubby and Hamp were off pursuing similar leads trying to connect Markowitz to the use of supercomputers, and in turn to track him down, and Laena and the Romeros along with him. In the back of Larson’s mind was the nagging reminder that there were seven thousand others out there just like Hope. He knew a dozen witnesses personally. Their families indirectly. When the last name on that master list was finally decrypted, there would be more Pennys, more Hopes than they could possibly save. People were going to die; some of them deserved it as far as Larson was concerned: He’d personally protected dozens of guilty men, killers and loan sharks and losers he’d have rather shot in cold blood than pamper and defend. But their families, their kids, and the whistle-blowers like Hope. If the names on the list were sold off like pigs at auction, there would be untold bloodshed and carnage.

“I gotta go,” he said. He handed her a Siemens cell phone. It was a new phone for her to use, brushed silver with a green screen. “Your number has been forwarded to this one now. It’s also untraceable, like mine is. We programmed in my number. Speed-dial one. You and I can text message, as well. Just so you know: If they contact you-this phone-our guys will know about it, too. But call me the minute you hang up, no matter what.”

“What are their names?” she asked.

Larson was stumped.

“The two guards,” she explained.

“Marland and Carlyle.”

“Are those their first names or last?”

“I don’t know their first names.”

“Do I lock the doors?”

“They’re all locked. I’ve double-checked them. Everything’s blacked out. You can turn on any lights you want. You’ll dead-bolt the kitchen door behind me.”

“And if they want in?”

“They won’t.” Larson thought she would have remembered all this.

“I don’t want to be alone,” she said as his hand found the cool doorknob. “Please stay.”

With his back to her he said, “I can send Carlyle inside if you want.”

“Send Carlyle on the errand. You stay. Please.”

“Listen… I want Penny back, too,” he said, grateful she wanted him to stay. “Right now, there’s no one I trust to follow up this lead… no one I’m going to trust Penny’s life with. But if you ask me once more to stay with you, I will.” How could she still command this kind of response in him?

“I hate this,” she said.

“Lock it behind me,” he reminded.

Larson’s head ached. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. This time of evening he thought about beer. His mouth was dry and tacky.

A tourist visit to St. Louis wasn’t complete without a trip to the Arch, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, and Cunetto House of Pasta. Soon after his transfer, a few of Larson’s coworkers had led him on a somewhat drunken tour of all three. He didn’t like small spaces, so he stayed on the ground instead of riding to the top of the Arch but had found the underground museum and film on the construction of it enough to hold his interest.

Frank Cunetto, the restaurant’s second-generation owner, was considered a friend of law enforcement. He typically offered cops and special agents and deputy marshals complimentary rounds of beverages. He loitered and rubbed shoulders and no one knew if he was a spy for the mob or just a good guy who happened to like cops. He’d done Larson plenty of favors: Cardinals tickets, Rams tickets. Even set him up with a busty Italian woman who hadn’t worked out.

He turned east onto Southwest Avenue, stirring leaves under his tires, driving past the postwar-era row houses, each so similar-if not identical-to the next. Little houses, larger lives. The Hill was all about who you knew and what family you came from. Larson was an outsider here.

“Roland!”

Frank Cunetto lived inside a round face: pale Mediterranean skin, an affable smile, and a bald spot on his head that made him look older than his thirty-eight years.

He pulled Larson by the arm and dragged him past the clot of restaurant-goers who’d been waiting forty minutes for a meal.

“Lemme buy you a drink!” Excitement was a perpetual state of existence for Frank. He wore a thin white dress shirt, an undershirt showing beneath, gray flannel trousers, and an open, matching vest. He had a barrel chest and a dozen pounds he didn’t need. His face glistened beneath the dim lights of the smoky bar. His uncles had started the place, after opening a pharmacy. How the two were connected, Larson wasn’t sure, but black-and-whites hung on the walls in a family pictorial. The uncles looked like they went back to the fifties.

“Draft beer,” Larson told the matronly waitress whom Frank signaled. “Bud,” he added, paying loyalty to the city’s home brew in front of Frank.