“We’re still closed,” the man said, a hard look on his face.
The place was bathed in red light, and the ground had sawdust scattered on it. Cassie joined me, and the man’s eyes moved to her. Then back to me.
“You play live music here?” I asked.
“Every night,” he said, one hand on his hips, the other scratching at a white mustache in the shape of a wide upside-downU.
“Where?” I asked.
He walked closer. “I know a lot of the cops ’round here. That wasn’t a cop badge.”
“FBI,” Cassie said, holding up hers.
The man walked us over to an area along the far wall. He pulled back a curtain, revealing a small alcove. “The band usually hangs out here before the show. When it’s time, we pull back this curtain.”
I turned on my phone light and searched the area. Electric guitar strings are made of either nickel-plated steel or pure nickel. A similar gauge to the wire we needed, but much more elastic. Which would help if we needed to attach it to the existing copper wire outside Hemmings’s house.
“Nickel is conductive,” I said to Cassie. “Look for guitar strings.”
Five minutes later, we’d found two long strings and two short ones. I thanked the bartender and texted Frank.
Copper or silver colored?
He responded as we got back in the van.
Copper.
Shit. I looked at the guitar wire, trying to come up with an idea.
“My purse,” Cassie said. “Look in my makeup kit. I’ve got a bronze eye shadow. Should be good enough to fake it in the predawn light.”
My phone buzzed with a text. Frank.
A light just went on. Hemmings is up.
“Let’s move,” I said to Cassie, and she got on the road. As she sped back toward the house, I used a makeup brush to paint a copper color onto the guitar wire. The phone buzzed again, and I swallowed. But it wasn’t Frank.
This is O’Reilly. I’m ten minutes away.
The ATF agent. I wrote back to him:
Get to the address and park behind a white van. I’ll be in touch.
We made our way back to the neighborhood and pulled up; it was 4:08 a.m. All the lights were on in the house.
I hustled across the street with the wire. The night was still dark, but in the corners of the sky, a purple color was forming that would soon turn reddish-orange as the sun came up.
Frank motioned, and in the predawn light, I saw a long strand ofwire that lay severed on the ground. I followed it across the concrete and saw that the other end was attached to a hose bib by the front door.
I tied one end of the guitar wire to the bumper of the U-Haul, then carefully attached the other end to the lead of copper wire that ran toward the front door.
In my pocket, I felt my phone buzz. O’Reilly.
2 minutes away.
I studied the contraption shoved between the U-Haul’s bumper and the body of the storage unit. Two AA batteries and a fuse. A rocker switch. I looked around and found the shell that had caused the spark. Filled it up with the magnesium powder. I placed it gingerly against the back bumper and pulled the guitar wire taut.
“I gotta meet the ATF guy,” I whispered, handing Frank the batteries. “Replace these. Real slow. Then press that rocker switch.”
