A woman with a stroller, talking animatedly into a headset, ran into me from behind. “You don’t own this sidewalk,” she snapped when I turned around, rubbing my leg.
“And a good day to you, too, ma’am. Be careful in the intersections: you wouldn’t want your phone hurt in a crash.”
I jogged up the street, her angry insults following me. At Wabansia, I collected Martin’s car for the slow slog to Freddie’s place, wondering for the ten thousandth time why they call it “rush hour” when you can’t move faster than a crawl.
Freddie didn’t live in a part of town where cleanup happened in a hurry. Tape still covered the surveillance camera, the car battery I’d stood on was still by the door, which still had police seals on it. Shaq and Ladonna were camped out on a curb up the street.
When they saw me ringing the doorbell, and then once again setting to work with my picklocks, they slowly moved my way. I could hear Ladonna’s labored breathing as I got the complicated dead bolt to click back.
“Freddie made bail,” Shaq volunteered.
I paused with the door partly open. “He home now?”
“Don’t think so. Think he’s at his place up by Lake Geneva. Got himself a big house there, boat, everything.”
Freddie Walker, floating on a tide of coke, nursing his wounds in Wisconsin. “How about the guy Bullet, who hit his head on the stairs?” I asked.
“He still in intensive care,” Ladonna said. “Freddie, he ain’t paying a nickel, and Bullet’s ma, she so far gone, she don’t even understand he’s hurt bad, so it’s up to the county.”
“Makes me proud to be a taxpayer,” I said.
“Police know you’re breaking those seals?” Shaq said.
“Do the police care if I’m breaking these seals?” I said. “Freddie has something that I want, unless the police took it.”
“Ladonna and me, we can keep watch, if you like,” Shaq suggested casually.
I thanked him gravely and held the door for them, but didn’t wait for their slow progress up the stairs. I stopped on the second floor to look at the two apartments there. These seemed to make up Freddie’s home, when he wasn’t living it up in Wisconsin. His outsized bed, with a ceiling mirror, was covered in animal skins, in imitation of Wilt Chamberlain, and the rest of the rooms were furnished in equally expensive if unappetizing taste: glossy varnished liquor cabinet, baby blue piano, giant stereo speakers. A kitchen with Viking appliances that didn’t seem ever to have been used. The refrigerator was full of Charles Krug champagne. Two hundred dollars a bottle and Freddie had a couple of cases stashed in here.
By the time I’d finished my tour, Ladonna and Shaq had huffed their way to the third-floor landing. The police had sealed the drug shop, but I opened that without compunction, too. I couldn’t believe Ferret Downey or his team would ever revisit this site.
When the door was open, Ladonna and Shaq made a beeline for the drug cabinet. The police had taken away the contents, but the two hunted diligently and found enough loose pills on the shelves to keep them happy for a few days. I was even happier: Lieutenant Downey had left the license plates behind.
“That what you wanted?” Shaq said, astonished: he’d obviously thought he’d have to fight me for any loose drugs.
“Yep. You any idea what chop shop Freddie uses?”
Shaq and Ladonna exchanged glances, shook their heads, keeping a nervous eye on me. They were as frightened of car thieves as they were of Freddie, and they lived in this neighborhood. I didn’t.
It didn’t really matter. I wasn’t going after car parts, I only wanted to know who owned the Lincoln Navigator Judy had fled in. With any luck, the license plates would lead me there. I went back down the stairs, but Shaq and Ladonna stayed behind, digging through Freddie’s desk drawers, looking for cash or powder or anything else they had the strength to carry.
I didn’t head straight home, but drove to the Naked Eye, a store that specializes in equipment for the fearful. Surveillance is not fun, especially not for the solo op, so I don’t often do it. I have a few pieces of basic equipment, night-vision glasses and so on, but I wanted something that would tell me if there were any tracking devices on my car. If the Mustang was clean, then I’d know I was overreacting to the threat of being followed. I also picked up four burn phones, each with two hundred minutes, just in case.
What I needed wasn’t cheap, but, as the Naked Eye’s slogan proclaimed, “Peace of Mind Is Worth the Price.” I paid cash, which meant that I also had to stop at a bank to get more money.
I put the Subaru into a covered garage on Broadway, about half a mile from my apartment, where I tested the sweeper on it. Martin’s car seemed clean.