“I don’t know them all, but he had X-11 tattooed on his back.”
Oz nodded slowly. “X-11. And the others?”
“He had a tattoo of a wolf, which I’ve seen in graffiti. So I presume that’s a gang too.”
The police officer tapped on his phone, raised it and showed Egeland an image of a black wolf tattooed on a naked back. “Did it look like that?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“And now you’re worried that if you help us catch him his gang will want to take revenge on you?”
Egeland looked up in alarm. “No. No, that didn’t occur to me until now.” The doctor’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Ought I to…?”
“Absolutely not,” said Oz as he stood up again. “We have a duty of confidentiality too. No one will know that you were my source of information.”
“No one?”
“Absolutely no one.” Oz gave a quick smile. “I’d better be getting back over to the right side of town. Have a nice day and hope to hear from you soon.”
—
It was five thirty and already dusk as Bob Oz walked along the corridor of Regency Hospital. It had been a fairly good day. A day, finally, with a little meaning. He had been able to work undisturbed on the Gomez case since no one else at the Homicide Unit was involved or interested in what he got up to, and so far at least, he’d managed to keep off the Assault Unit’s radar. Luckily for him he’d always managed to keep up good relations with Kari at the Fraud Unit. When necessary, she helped out the Homicide Unit and had always been of invaluable assistance. As he reached room 531 Bob showed his ID to the police officer on guard outside. “Anyone from Aggravated Assault been here?”
“No,” said the police officer. “He’s just come to after the operation.”
“Okay,” said Bob and walked in.
The fat man lying in the bed shifted his drugged gaze away from the wall and onto Bob.
“Marco Dante.” Bob pulled a chair up to the bed and looked at the apparatus the fat man was hooked up to. “I’m from MPD. I want you to take a look at this drawing.”
Bob held his phone up in front of Dante. He’d downloaded the police artist’s sketch from the MPD’s internal site. The face was Latino, broad, prominent eyebrows. Bob guessed that the Assault team had used Mrs. White to help the police artists. “I wonder what it is that this man Tomás Gomez has against you.”
Dante’s gaze slid across the phone screen and back onto the wall again. “No idea who it is. Or who you are.” The voice was thick, with an Italian accent straight out ofThe Sopranos.
Bob hadn’t spotted any sign of recognition on Dante’s face when he saw the drawing. Maybe it was a bad likeness. Or maybe Dante was a good liar. Or maybe Dante and Gomez had never met.
“I’m the man who saved your life,” said Bob.
Dante looked at him, furrowed his brow.
“Mouth-to-mouth,” said Bob.
Dante made a face. “You’re lying.”
“Nope. You threw up your breakfast. Some kind of pasta, right?”
Dante blinked.
Bob pulled his chair closer. Someone from Assault could come barging in at any moment.
“I think a gang is after you, Dante. You fallen out with any of them recently?”
“I don’t know nothing about any gangs.”
“No? Not supplied X-11 with any weapons?”
“I’ve no idea what X—”
