Jon ended the call and put the earset away. A few minutes later he heard a car horn beep across the street. He looked over and saw a hand waving to him. His ride at last. The driver was unfamiliar and the windows were tinted so he couldn’t see in, but he crossed the street and went around to the passenger side. He was surprised to see Tom Chandler in the front passenger seat.
“Hello, Dr Masters,” Chandler said. “Care for a ride?” He noticed Masters’s quizzical expression as he looked at the unfamiliar driver. “This is Officer Williams of my division. I rate a driver today, and he’s it. Need a ride?”
“I’ve got one coming, thanks.”
“Dr Masters, listen, I know what you and Patrick are going through,” Chandler said. He lowered his voice so the driver wouldn’t overhear. “Don’t castrate me because I’m doing my job. It would look worse if I showed any favoritism at all. If I let my opinion that Patrick is a hero leak out, I’d be off the case and you and Patrick would have to swim with the sharks alone.”
“You think Patrick is a hero? The other night you thought he was a criminal.”
“I think both you and Patrick are heroes,” Chandler said, “taking on the dirtbags in this city like this. It shows courage, real courage. But Patrick’s in jail, and the city that you and he tried to protect wants to make an example of him. That’s not right. We need to get together and strategize. Come over to my office so we can talk. You can call your people from there and tell them where to pick you up.”
“I don’t know…”
“Hey, c’mon, Doc, I’m doing everything I can on my end to make sure that you and Patrick get every break possible,” Chandler said. “The DA doesn’t have much of a case. They’ve been hammering me and my guys for hours, trying to find even the smallest piece of incriminating evidence. They don’t have it. But now I need your help.”
“Shouldn’t I have my attorney present?”
“This is not an interrogation,” Chandler said. “I’m not going to ask you anything that will incriminate either you or Patrick. You can refuse to answer anything you feel uncomfortable with.” He saw Masters still hesitate. “All right, if it would make you feel better, you can call your attorney and have him present. But I’m not going to Mirandize you, because this is not part of the investigation. In fact, it’s the opposite-I want to talk about ways I can help you and Patrick get out of this mess. Believe me, there are a lot of cops in this town who are very thankful for what you two did.”
“There are?”
“Absolutely,” Chandler said. “Even if it gets to trial. But they want to hear from you. Will you do this for Patrick?”
“Of course I will!” Jon exclaimed. “Man, I’m so glad you came by! I thought you were more concerned about making an arrest than helping us.” Jon hopped into the rear seat as soon as Chandler got the door unlocked.
They headed down I Street toward Interstate 5. Just before they reached the freeway, there was a beeping sound. Chandler turned around and saw Masters retrieve what looked like a Cross pen from his pocket. “Is that your pen beeping, Doctor?”
“My pager,” Masters said with pride. “My own design.” He checked the tiny LCD display on the barrel. “It’s my driver. Probably wondering where I am. I’ll give him a call and let him know where I’ll be.” He retrieved his cellular-phone earset. “What I do is punch up the phone number on my wristwatch. There’s a wireless connection between the earset and the watch. The number I retrieve on my watch is the one that gets dialed. Or I can use voice commands.”
“What other gadgets do you have back there, Doc?” Chandler asked.
“Oh, I got a million of ‘em,” Jon replied. “I can…”
A car pulled out of the on-ramp from I Street and cut in front of their car, and with a screech of the wheels the driver swerved to miss him, blurting out, “Schweinehund!”
“Cool,” Masters said. “Your driver swears in German. About all the German I know is ‘ein Bier, bitte.’” The driver shot a panicky look at Chandler. “German always sounds so mean. A naked woman can be whispering sweet nothings in your ear in bed, and if she’s talking in German it sounds like she wants to rip your heart out with a fork. I once heard…” Jon stopped abruptly, noticing where they were. “Hey, aren’t we supposed to be heading north on I-5?”
“No,” Chandler said. “Dr Masters, give me that cellphone and your watch right now.”
“You want to see how it works?”
“No, I want to take them from you,” Chandler said patiently.
“Why?”
Chandler half-turned in his seat, aiming a SIG Sauer P226 pistol at Masters in the back. Jon blanched. “Dr Masters, you are either a very good actor or just about the most naive and scatterbrained Ph.D. I’ve ever met.” Jon handed over the earset cellphone, his wireless transceiver wristwatch, and the pager pen with shaking hands. “We are going to meet up with some friends of mine. They would very much like to talk with you.”
Jon looked at the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “I suppose they’re German-speaking friends, right? Maybe with a guy who speaks with a British accent?”
“I think you’re finally getting the picture,” Chandler said. “Swing around in the seat and put your hands behind your back. I don’t think my friends would want you to know where we’re going.” Masters did as he was told, and the SID captain reached back and snapped handcuffs on him.
“Why are you doing this, Chandler?” Masters asked. “Why are you working for the bad guys?”
“Simple, Doc: money,” Chandler replied. “It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“Oh yeah-those gambling debts,” Masters said. “What were they-thirty, forty grand?”
“So you did have my office bugged. The department doesn’t even have enough money in the budget for us to sweep our offices of listening devices. Yes, the last time I ever bothered to total ‘em up, forty thousand in gambling debts was about right. Add in a few thousand in back alimony and child support, some maxed-out credit cards, an apartment, car, an allowance for my girlfriend in Las Vegas…”
“Don’t forget Kay in Granite Bay,” Masters said.
“Oh, she’s low maintenance compared to Edie in Las Vegas,” Chandler said casually. “Anyway, even a year of my salary wouldn’t bail me out of this mess, assuming I cared to get bailed out at all-not to mention the fact that I’d join a lot of real hard-timers in prison if any of this ever came out. That’s why I’m doing this, Masters. And it all goes away today. Just deliver you and the suit to Townsend.”
“You’ve got the suit too?”
“Of course I’ve got the suit-it was locked in my property room,” Chandler said. “My new employers want you to show them how to use it, perhaps modify it to fit Townsend himself. Let’s face it, McLanahan is not exactly of average dimensions. I’m sure he has the strength and the endurance to wear it, but let’s be honest, Doc, an army of Tin Men like McLanahan would not be much of an army. It certainly would not strike fear into my heart.”
“You are so full of shit, Chandler,” Masters said. “How can you turn your back on your city and your career? Don’t all the years you spent as a cop mean anything to you?”
“Not a thing,” Chandler said. “In fact, I’ve worked harder over the last five years than I did in my previous thirty years, and I’ve seen this city-and this entire state, for that matter-slide down into the crapper faster than I ever thought possible. What have I been slaving away for?”
Chandler was all worked up by now. “A friend of mine retired after thirty-one years on the force. He gets up to receive his plaque from the city and they’ve misspelled his name and service dates on the plaque. Then he gets home and he’s the victim of a home-invasion robbery. He goes into a coma and dies two weeks later. No recognition from the city, no tribute, not even flowers for his gravesite. I stood over his damned grave and I saw myself staring up from that hole in the ground. I decided right then, no way I was going to check out like that.”