Lucas scratched his head. “I got the name right, but I might have the wrong apartment building... I’m navigating with a description and don’t have an exact address, as such.”
“You need an address,” the woman said. “There are about a million apartment buildings around here. This is a nice one, but there are quite a few that look like it.”
Lucas rubbed his nose. “Well, shoot, I guess I’m going to have to do it the hard way. Getting an exact address is a little harder than it usually would be, since the guy moves around a lot.”
“I wish I could help you...”
“Well, not your fault... Have a good day.”
—
LUCAS WALKED BACKtoward the main entrance, but, instead of going out, he passed the elevators and then took a staircase up to the second floor. Hallways stretched in both directions from the landing, burgundy carpet in one direction, blue in the other. Nobody was in the hallway; the complex was white-collar, and residents were at work. If he needed to black-bag Ritter’s apartment, there wouldn’t be a lot of people around, and he saw no security cameras. He went back down the stairs, headed toward the exit.
At the mail booth, he checked for movement inside and out, grabbed the doorknob and put all of his weight against the door, pushing it sideways toward the door hinges, and with anadditional punch from the shoulder, the door popped open. He looked around again, stepped into the booth. The backs of the mailboxes were all identified by name and apartment number. Lucas scanned them, found Ritter’s. A half dozen pieces of mail sat inside it, and he quickly thumbed through them while listening for footsteps. Three ads, an electric bill, and a bank statement.
He stuck the bank statement in his jacket pocket, replaced the rest of the mail. The lock on the door had a turn bolt on the inside, and he unlocked it, stepped outside, and pushed the door shut behind him. Maybe the mail carrier would think he’d forgotten to lock it.
He walked outside, let the stress fall away in the sunshine. Mail theft: a federal felony, if anybody found out about it, but nobody would.
He hoped.
—
HE WALKED BACKaround the building. The heat was stifling, and though he’d only been out of the Evoque for a few minutes, the interior was already intolerably hot. He started the truck, stood outside briefly, peeling off his jacket while the air conditioner took hold, got back in, and opened Ritter’s bank statement.
The statement listed routine payments to fifteen or twenty different places—gas, electric, water, cable, Visa, Amex. The incoming money was more interesting. He found what appeared to be weekly paychecks from a company called Flamma Consultants.
He stuck the letter in his hip pocket: he’d shred it and flush it down the toilet back at the hotel.
—
AS HE WAS HEADED BACKacross the Potomac, he took a call from Rae Givens. “We talked to your man Forte, and we’re on our way down to New Orleans right now. We’ll be flying back straight into D.C. He got us rooms at the Watergate Hotel. I said, ‘Are you kiddin’?’ and he said, ‘No, why would I be?’ I said, ‘Okay’... So we’ll see you there tonight.”
A second call came from Forte himself, with information about Ritter. “There’s not much on him in the files; we’re not allowed to see his income tax returns, but we did take a look at his Army records and his passport. He did three tours in Iraq, got good evaluations, landed a job with Delta and looked like he was in there for life. Instead of reenlisting a third time, he dropped out. His passport would suggest he’s been out of the country, in Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, for most of the time since then.”
“A guy who knows his way around. A hard guy.”
“Yes... Did you get anything?”
“I did. I’ll tell you, Russell, I’m going back to the hotel to write this up, but, basically, Smalls’s accident was no accident. It was an assassination attempt and a murder, and Ritter was in it up to his neck. His truck was used to run Smalls and Whitehead off the road.”
“Lucas, you gotta be sure,” Forte said. “It’s too hot to be wrong.”
“I am sure now, but I can’t prove it yet. Between us, we have to figure out where to go with this. Think about it.”
“Write it all up, in detail, don’t leave a single fuckin’ thing out of it. If they smell you coming for them, they might not try to beat you up again. And next time they might come with guns.”
“Bob and Rae...”
“Are a good idea, but might not be enough. I need to know everything you get, in case you have a problem.”
Like getting shot, Lucas thought, smiling to himself. “I’ll send you an email, Russell. Later this afternoon.”
—
AT THE HOTEL,Lucas made a few notes, then shredded Ritter’s bank statement and flushed it. That done, he kicked off his shoes, dropped onto the bed, and used his burner phone to call a St. Paul friend named Kidd, a painter and an expert in computer databases. Kidd’s wife, Lucas believed, was a jewel thief, but that was another story.
Kidd came up, and Lucas identified himself—“Oh-oh. Using a burner?”—and asked Kidd what his favorite charity was.
