“That’s a classic shape, huh?” he said, motioning at Wells’sCamaro. “Chevy never strayed back then. Same car for decades, am I right?”
“You are wrong,” I said, my eyes not moving off the screen. “In 1983, Chevy added a five-speed manual transmission as standard equipment on the Z28. Two years later, they added the IROC-Z package. They were constantly changing things, and they did well financially until ’87.”
Vincent turned to me. “You a car guy, Agent Camden?”
“No, he just knows everything,” Shooter said. “It’s a blast on long assignments.”
Out of the Camaro’s driver’s-side door emerged Travis Wells, our target. He was six foot one with the broad, muscular shoulders of a tight end. He wore a long-sleeved flannel, and his hand was wrapped in a tan elastic medical bandage.
I looked at Wells. PAR needed this guy to work out.Ineeded him to work out.
And all he had to do was get drunk.
“Here we go,” Cassie mumbled.
But her face changed when the passenger door opened.
“Wait,” she said. “That’s not his cousin Matt.”
We crowded in close to the farthest monitor on the right. A man stood beside the Camaro. Thirties and heavyset, with a beard and dark, slicked-back hair.
“I’ve seen him.” Shooter pointed.
“We all have,” Cassie said. “His name is Daniel Horne.”
I recalled this man. At first, we’d thought he was a soldier in Sandoval’s gang, but when Richie had tailed him two weeks ago, he discovered that Sandoval used Daniel Horne as an errand boy. In his report, Richie had described Horne as “a bit slow.”
The two men moved inside, and we followed them from cameraone at the bar to camera two in the large room, then on to camera three as they grabbed a booth by the pool tables.
“This changes nothing,” Cassie said. “Travis gets drunk. Travis gets pulled over for a DUI.”
A waitress appeared, and the men ordered. But when the drinks came, the one in front of Travis was in a tall iced tea glass.
“I thought these guys did shots all night?”
“Give ’em time,” Shooter said. “They’ll get doused.”
For the next half hour, though, it was the same routine. The two men talking, traffic at the bar light. I squinted at the screen. For the third time, Travis stared over at the door.
“Not for nothin’,” Vincent said, motioning at the monitor as Travis finished his second drink, “but I don’t think that’s a Jack and Coke.” He tapped the screen with his finger. “Look at the color. I think it’s a Coke. Straight up.”
Cassie had taken the captain’s chair, and she swiveled it in my direction.
“Ideas?” I said.
“Could be he’s fresh out of the ER,” she replied. “On meds and not drinking. If so? We come back tomorrow.”
“If patterns hold, though,” Shooter said, “tomorrow Travis Wells drives back to Georgia.”
I sorted through other options in my head.
“We could go in,” Shooter said. “Sluice the machine. Buy a few rounds for the bar. Not that many people in there.”
“That could piss backwards on us,” Cassie said. “If we get in a room with Travis Wells’s attorney, and we’re the ones who got him drunk?”
“How’s your pool game these days?” I asked Shooter. I’d oncewatched her and our old boss Frank play nine ball for three hours at a bar in Jacksonville.
“I can play,” she said.
