any noise.
He walked out onto cracked asphalt parking lot in front of the tire shop with his cell phone at his ear, calling Sanchez and Brody, Rudy’s other two street thugs. Rudy’s operation wasn’t big enough to need three goons full-time, so the other two men ran errands too and moved a little coke on the side. Sanchez was Rudy’s main snoop, too, and Brody doubled as chauffeur and gofer. Brody had once explained to Tilly why the boss loved to call at weird hours and get you to do these stupid chores that shouldn’t be your job at all.
“That way he feels like you’re loyal, you’ll do anything he asks. It’s nothing personal,” he added, resting a gritty callused fingertip briefly on Tilly’s huge forearm, “Ol’ Rudy, he’s a equal-opportunity ball-buster.”
After Tilly left, Rudy stayed where he was, sorting the money into piles by denominations. He banded it, entered the total in a tiny spiral notebook that he carried in his shirt pocket. Just the total, everything else was in his head. He packed the cash in the bottom of a yellow plastic toolbox he’d bought on special at Sears twelve years ago, and covered it with a set of socket wrenches glued to a false plastic bottom cannibalized from an identical box. He replaced the cantilevered upper shelf full of screwdrivers and pliers, snapped the lid shut and carried his toolbox out to his three-year-old Buick. The dowdy older car worked for him just as the tire shop did, hid him in plain sight. For the rest of the day he worked his carefully crafted magic, transforming drug money into payments for car repairs, groceries, booze, and the price of two used Toyotas.
But under the stoic busyness of his day, the nagging worry ran like water under rock, Where’s Ace? He knew very well what he controlled and what he could not control, had lived a long time with the fear that must never be mentioned but never went away. It will be some little thing that gets you if you stay in this too long, he had told himself many times, s ome stupid little thing you never saw coming. He was not a fool, he knew nobody beat thesystem forever. He only needed two more years, three at the most. As careful as he had been, he thought, three more years was not expecting too much. But all day Tuesday he asked himself, Is this the day of the stupid little thing?
CHAPTER SIX
Always some stupid little thing. Damn. Sarah folded up her phone, grousing to herself, as she stepped out of the lab into the dazzle of a hot morning. An attorney trying one of her cases, yielding to an anxiety fit, wanted her to review the testimony of a witness— how many times have we been over this? —and call him back before noon. She promised matter-of-factly to do it. “Sure, no sweat.” Because you could never have too many friends around the courthouse, could you? But as she walked to her car she grumbled to herself. She wanted to go back to her desk right now and type up this morning’s notes before they got cold. Damn! Never enough time in a day.
Back at the station she caught a little break, though; Jimmy was still out and all the other detectives in her section were up on third floor, checking in evidence from the shooting out on Speedway. Nobody wanted to talk to her. She grabbed an orange out of the snack bar in the break room, peeled it quickly and ate it a section at a time while she pushed herself through the drudgery of reading through case notes from last spring. When she finished the call-back to the attorney, she laid her notes from today’s crime scene by her keyboard and typed them up quickly with no interruptions.
Pleased with herself, wanting somebody to brag to, she looked around for Ibarra., He was at his desk. She walked back to tell him that Animal had set the time for tomorrow’s autopsy.
“Two o’clock, and that’s pretty firm, there’s only one case ahead of
He walked out onto cracked asphalt parking lot in front of the tire shop with his cell phone at his ear, calling Sanchez and Brody, Rudy’s other two street thugs. Rudy’s operation wasn’t big enough to need three goons full-time, so the other two men ran errands too and moved a little coke on the side. Sanchez was Rudy’s main snoop, too, and Brody doubled as chauffeur and gofer. Brody had once explained to Tilly why the boss loved to call at weird hours and get you to do these stupid chores that shouldn’t be your job at all.
“That way he feels like you’re loyal, you’ll do anything he asks. It’s nothing personal,” he added, resting a gritty callused fingertip briefly on Tilly’s huge forearm, “Ol’ Rudy, he’s a equal-opportunity ball-buster.”
After Tilly left, Rudy stayed where he was, sorting the money into piles by denominations. He banded it, entered the total in a tiny spiral notebook that he carried in his shirt pocket. Just the total, everything else was in his head. He packed the cash in the bottom of a yellow plastic toolbox he’d bought on special at Sears twelve years ago, and covered it with a set of socket wrenches glued to a false plastic bottom cannibalized from an identical box. He replaced the cantilevered upper shelf full of screwdrivers and pliers, snapped the lid shut and carried his toolbox out to his three-year-old Buick. The dowdy older car worked for him just as the tire shop did, hid him in plain sight. For the rest of the day he worked his carefully crafted magic, transforming drug money into payments for car repairs, groceries, booze, and the price of two used Toyotas.
But under the stoic busyness of his day, the nagging worry ran like water under rock, Where’s Ace? He knew very well what he controlled and what he could not control, had lived a long time with the fear that must never be mentioned but never went away. It will be some little thing that gets you if you stay in this too long, he had told himself many times, s ome stupid little thing you never saw coming. He was not a fool, he knew nobody beat thesystem forever. He only needed two more years, three at the most. As careful as he had been, he thought, three more years was not expecting too much. But all day Tuesday he asked himself, Is this the day of the stupid little thing?
CHAPTER SIX
Always some stupid little thing. Damn. Sarah folded up her phone, grousing to herself, as she stepped out of the lab into the dazzle of a hot morning. An attorney trying one of her cases, yielding to an anxiety fit, wanted her to review the testimony of a witness— how many times have we been over this? —and call him back before noon. She promised matter-of-factly to do it. “Sure, no sweat.” Because you could never have too many friends around the courthouse, could you? But as she walked to her car she grumbled to herself. She wanted to go back to her desk right now and type up this morning’s notes before they got cold. Damn! Never enough time in a day.
Back at the station she caught a little break, though; Jimmy was still out and all the other detectives in her section were up on third floor, checking in evidence from the shooting out on Speedway. Nobody wanted to talk to her. She grabbed an orange out of the snack bar in the break room, peeled it quickly and ate it a section at a time while she pushed herself through the drudgery of reading through case notes from last spring. When she finished the call-back to the attorney, she laid her notes from today’s crime scene by her keyboard and typed them up quickly with no interruptions.
Pleased with herself, wanting somebody to brag to, she looked around for Ibarra., He was at his desk. She walked back to tell him that Animal had set the time for tomorrow’s autopsy.
“Two o’clock, and that’s pretty firm, there’s only one case ahead of
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