Billy Povich: Loot The Moon Part 15

icedealer177 The old man scratched his scalp and shed dandruff flakes into the air. "That dont make sense," he said.

"Hes a diamond dealer, Pop," Billy said. "By the look of it, not a scrupulous one. Rackers bought a loupe from him, so Rackers must have gotten his hands on a stone. You cant just list stolen diamonds on the Internet, can you? This guy must have offered a black-market deal to fence whatever rocks Rackers had stolen."

"Have there been any diamond robberies the last few months?" the old man asked. "I aint heard of any."

Billy searched his mental record of front-page headlines. "Naw, nothing like that. That would be a big story." He sighed and read the message again. "Maybe Rackers hadnt gotten a diamond yet. Maybe he was planning to steal one, and was preparing ahead to fence it."

"Thats bad luck."

Billy glanced at the dead mans pictures on the table. "Apparently."

The old man would not let go the point. "Do you schedule a victory parade before you play the game?" he asked incredulously.

"I get it, Pop."

"Because Fate-she gets p.i.s.sed when you do that."

"Mm-hm."

"I should know. Ive had it with Fate and shes had it with me. That lady ... is a b.i.t.c.h!"

"That lady is a b.i.t.c.h!" sang Bo brightly as he stomped into the kitchen with the newspaper.

Billy glared at his father, but the old man refused to look at him.

The kid still wore his Atomic Thunderbolt pajamas: red booties and gloves, little blue shorts, and an off-white shirt with a red splotch on the chest, like someone had splattered him with a paint balloon. Billy could not understand why Bo had taken to an obscure comic book character from the 1940s. The Atomic Thunderbolt never even had his own cartoon. This was the old mans influence, of course. Billys father thought everything was better in his day, even the superheroes.

Bo staggered into the kitchen like a four-foot hurricane and threw his arms around Billy.

From the corner of his eye, Billy watched the old man recoil.

So much can happen in a split second. His fathers lips spread into a snarl, and the heat of jealousy burned in his eyes. In an instant, the emotion was gone, forced back beneath his face.

The reaction startled Billy. He held the kid by the shoulders and gently moved him to arms length, then laughed as if it were a game.

"Werent you supposed to change?" Billy asked.

The kid hugged himself, and his costume. "I want to show Stu," he said.

Billy looked at the old man. "Treatment day, Pop," he said. "We should get to the hospital, so the kid here can show Stu Tracy his superhero pjs."

The old man glared bitterly at some spot on the ceiling. "Stus blind, for Christs sake."

"I want to show him," said Bo.

The old man papered a smile over his rage and took the newspaper from Bo. "Fine, then. Well see Stu after I get my blood scrubbed, okay? Why dont you pick a movie for us from Billys collection."

The kid snapped to attention, broke off a crisp Atomic Thunderbolt salute, then ran recklessly down the hall.

"That was s.h.i.tty of you," the old man growled. "A betrayal."

"Lets type a response," Billy said cheerfully, locking his eyes on the screen.

"You only delay what I have decided is inevitable."

Billy spoke aloud as he typed: "Dear icedealer-one-seven-seven, thanks for the e-mail. My friend, Dismas-two-three, is currently, um ... out of commission." He paused, thinking.

"Dismas authorized you to take over the deal," the old man urged, unable, even in betrayal, to resist being part of the action.

"Yup," Billy said as he typed the suggestion. Then he added, "But my friend left town rather suddenly and you need to send me his mailing address so I may pick up the appropriate item for the transaction."

"Thats a f.u.c.king whopper," the old man whispered.

"I hope this guy is greedy enough to buy it."

He sent the e-mail.

They sat together in silence. The old man emitted hot anger like radiation. Christ, like sitting next to a hunk of uranium. Billy sensed that his father could not stand to be near him, but was too curious about the e-mail deception to leave. The old man dumped the newspaper from its plastic bag and snapped the paper into shape. For two minutes he read in silence, then showed the front page to Billy and demanded, "This the case youre on?"

A front-page photo showed the State House memorial for Judge Harmony. Two smaller photos showed June Harmony delivering a speech, and Martin Smothers at the podium, with his jacket open and a nasty black spot on his shirt.

"Thats my case," Billy confirmed. "Not that Ive gotten anything out of the investigation, except a beating and two pounds of sand in my ear."

The computer said, "Missed it by THAT much!"

Billy hurled the paper over his shoulder and banged the key to open the e-mail: To groverwhalen2 ... if dismas23 is your friend, what is the item?

"s.h.i.t, were bagged," Billy said.

"How are we supposed to know what the item is?"

"Exactly, Pop, this is a test. And we need to send the answer fast, or this guys gonna get too spooked to deal with us."

"Well, its a gem. Tell him its a gem."

"Not specific enough." Billy pushed himself from the chair and moaned at the pain. "So G.o.dd.a.m.n close!" He paced the room, ignoring the complaints of battered muscles. He wound up to kick the newspaper, but stopped and slowly lowered his foot.

He stared at the pictures of Martin and June Harmony. Something about the two of them together held his attention ... . What was it?

Holy s.h.i.t.

He needed a phone. Billy barked, "Wheres the G.o.dd.a.m.n cordless?"

"There!" The old man pointed.

Billy s.n.a.t.c.hed the phone from the countertop and began to dial Martin Smothers. "No," he scolded himself. "Not something Martin would know offhand." He hung up, and then dialed a new number: the cellular phone of Martins a.s.sistant, Carol.

His father stared up at him helplessly. "What? Whats going on?" On the second ring, a voice like a phone s.e.x operator oozed into Billys ear: "h.e.l.lo, Billy boy."

"Thank G.o.d, Carol. I need help fast!"

"Mmmmm. I hear that from lots of men. Why should I help you?"

"Because I know youre a G.o.ddess."

She laughed. "You have pa.s.sed the test. What do you need?"

"The police report on the judges murder-somewhere in there it mentions June Harmonys earrings, the expensive pair left out in a jewelry dish the night Rackers killed her husband. I need to know the specifics about those stones. Details, details-whatever you know."

"Her diamond earrings? Of course," Carol purred. "I saw her sashaying in them yesterday at the memorial. Oh, gorgeous stones! Colorless, ideal cuts, just blazing. A pair of perfectly matched solitary diamonds in platinum bezel settings. Mmm-mm. Four carats total weight. Worth about two hundred thousand." She lowered her voice and cooed, "A man gives me stones like that, I might be tempted to overlook a comatta in New York City."

"I am madly in love with you," Billy joked.

She laughed. "Keep that between us. I dont want my business out in the street."

"Gotta go!" He hung up and pitched the phone into his fathers lap. The old man caught it in the housecoat.

"You got the answer?" the old man pleaded. "Billy?"

Billy typed furiously: Dear icedealer177 ... diamond earrings, perfect match, four carats total, platinum bezel settings ... we still on?

Send.

Billy dropped his head on the table with a thud. "I hope that was fast enough."

"Aw sure," the old man said. "This is e-mail. How does he know you werent taking a dump?" He sc.r.a.ped a finger on his white neck stubble. "Whos this person youre madly in love with?"

"Smooth segue," Billy said.

The old mans eyes widened. He shrugged in innocence. "What?"

Despite the pain in his chest and the anxiety crushing him from every direction, Billy laughed out loud.

The answer came two hours later, about the time Billy had convinced himself that his hunch about June Harmonys diamond earrings had been wrong.

Billy waved his hands over the keyboard like a magician for good luck, then opened the e-mail: To groverwhalen2 my terms are unchanged for the stones. you and dismas23 carve your own split. leave me out of it. i dont want to know. this is the address i mailed the loupe ... .

The address was in Providence.

Unf.u.c.kinbelievable, Billy thought. All that searching for Adam Rackers, and his address was a five-dollar cab ride from Billys apartment.

eighteen.

A midnight mist slipped silently up the bay and followed the river into Providence. It spread invisibly, except in the glow of streetlights, where it looked like static. The cold mist landed on Billys skin as softly as frozen spiders silk. The streets seemed especially quiet, as if the city were discouraged by the sudden chill that confirmed the death of summer and foretold another New England winter.

Billy stuck his hands in his pockets and listened to the city. Some unseen foot kicked a can that clanked and echoed. A pa.s.sing car splashed through a deep puddle. Voices shouting over each other at a neighborhood bar momentarily grew louder whenever somebody opened the door. A church bell rang twice, the second dong coming before the first had died out. Billys shoes tapped unevenly on the sidewalk. He limped against the pain of a bruised hip.

Kit Ba.s.s walked in stride beside him. She made no sound at all. Kit wore old Nike racing flats-an outdated model the company had not made for years-loose cotton slacks, black fleece sweater, and a knit watchmans cap. She had tucked every strand of her hair under the cap; if Billy had not known better, he might have guessed she was bald.

A car roared up suddenly from behind. A pa.s.senger laughed hideously at them out of the window, which startled Billy and flushed him with fear. "Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!" the man added as the car sped on, to molest some other pedestrians.

"f.u.c.king drunks," Billy muttered. "A drive-by laughing."

"Why are we going in the middle of the night?" Kit asked. She wrapped her arms around herself.

"If its locked, were breaking in," Billy replied. "Not what you should do in broad daylight. And heck, I took a vacation day to do this."

"Ever been convicted of B and E?"

"Never convicted of anything. Why?"

"Second offense is a four- to ten-year sentence. Thats in the General Laws, t.i.tle eleven, chapter eight-dash-two."

"Whats first offense?"

"Two-year minimum."

Billy whistled and pretended to hike a fedora high on his head. "Working for the court, do you get an employee discount?"

She looked at her shoes. "Im on a leave of absence until I learn who paid to kill the judge. I wont quit until I know what happened."

Billy noted that she no longer referred to Judge Harmony as "Gil." He was The Judge. Her choice of language imposed distance between Kit and her former boss, though the intensity of her words still sounded like love. She grabbed Billys elbow and asked him, "Why did you bring me here tonight?"

There were so many reasons. He shared a few of them. "Because I owe you for saving me," he said. "Because two people can search a house twice as fast as one. Because you worked for the judge, and youre chasing the same truth that I am, and I thought you deserved to be here." Left unsaid was that the encounter with Glanzs goons had rattled Billy, and he did not want to go alone.

"What do we hope to find?"

"I have a little gambling hunch, the kind Ive learned to pay attention to," Billy admitted. "Rackerss payment for shooting the judge didnt come in cash. He was being paid with June Harmonys diamonds, which he apparently believed would be in a wall safe in the judges house. He planned to shoot the judge, and collect his payment on the way out. Rackers had already arranged to sell the stones to a shady rock dealer over the Internet."

Billy paused to let her process his theory, then added, "What I cant get my mind around is why the h.e.l.l didnt he take the stones? They werent in a wall safe-the house didnt even have one. They were lying in plain sight. Hed have to be as blind as Stu Tracy to miss them."

"Who?"

"Not important. As a wild guess, Id say the real killer, the one were looking for-"

"Like maybe Rhubarb Glanz?"

"Or maybe his kid, Robbie, or one of his goons, offered a deal for Rackers to kill the judge, in exchange for the combination to a wall safe."

"But there was no safe."

"Rackers didnt know that. So he killed Judge Harmony first, then looked for a safe. Brock came running downstairs and scared the s.h.i.t out of Rackers. So he put the kid to work checking for a safe, but in his panic didnt see the stones in plain sight."