We were back around the table, me, Rita, and Vinny DeLuca, drinking coffee and trying not to look at one another. Rodriguez had been on and off the phone for an hour, first with his boss, then the mayor, explaining why the city needed to become a dope dealer. It wasn’t a pretty conversation. It wasn’t supposed to be. But it worked.
“I got you a final shipment,” Rodriguez said, returning to the table, “and we look the other way for six months. But the cops involved go down. And the pipeline into our evidence room is finished.”
“So we’re left to find a new supplier?” DeLuca said with a grimace.
“Only way this happens.”
The crime boss tugged at his lower lip and tried hard not to chuckle. Up until now, they’d paid bent cops for their dope. Now the city was going to give it to them for free. And protect them. Nice deal if you could get it.
“Who will bring the product into the quarantine zone?” DeLuca said.
“I will,” I said. “I’ve been down there once. Can get in and out without a problem.”
“You’re not afraid of this fucking virus or whatever it is?”
“All due respect, that’s not your problem. I’ll get the stuff wherever it needs to be. Now if we have a deal, I’d like to see what we just bought.”
DeLuca curled a finger. Johnny Apple came forward and slid into an empty chair.
“My boys got to the Korean’s shop around three on the day Lee got shot,” Apple said. “Waiting for the cops to show up with the stash.”
“But they’d already made the drop,” I said.
“The Korean misinformed us about the timing,” Apple said with a wince and threw a photo on the table. “An hour or two before Kelly showed, this guy came out of the Korean’s alley.”
I looked at the picture. The man was tall, wearing a long leather coat. He had a black duffel bag with gold trim slung over his shoulder.
“My boys didn’t know whether he’d been in the store,” Apple said. “And didn’t know the Korean was already dead.”
I pointed at the bag in the photo. “You think that’s your shipment?”
“What the fuck do you think?” DeLuca said, and I feared for whoever had made the decision to let the man in the picture walk.
“And you don’t know him?” I said.
“You think we’d be talking to you if we did?”
I slid the photo over to Rodriguez.
“That’s our bag of dope,” the detective said.
“What about the guy?”
Rodriguez shook his head.
“Rita?”
She took a look. “Never saw him.”
I tapped the smudge of a face on the photo. “So this guy pops up out of nowhere. Walks into the Korean’s store. And hijacks your product.”
Johnny Apple nodded, leaving unsaid that two of his men had sat across the street and watched it happen.
“We still don’t know for sure this guy’s involved with the body bags,” Rita said.
“There’s more.” Johnny pulled out two more photos-blowups of the same man walking out of the West Side alley.
“This one here,” Johnny said. “When we blew it up, we saw something hanging from the guy’s coat pocket.”
“Looks like a piece of leather,” Rita said.
“It’s the binding from a gas mask,” I said. “What’s in the other picture?”
“His jacket slipped open right as he stepped off the curb,” Johnny said and pointed. “You can see the outline of a rifle he’s got tucked under there. Looks like it’s hanging from a strap, maybe.”
The three of us pored over the photos. Vinny DeLuca put it together for us.
“The man was prepared when he went into Lee’s store. He had a mask with him, and a rifle.”
“So he knew there’d been a release,” I said.
“Hours before it was announced to the public,” Rita said.
DeLuca nodded. “Paid in full. Now let’s talk about my shipment.”