Bell said, “What?”
Sherwood: “Friday is your business. We’re here for something else. There’s a Russian hit crew in town. They’ve tried to kill a Russian defector twice. The crew needs cars, and somebody local has been getting the cars for them.”
“This isn’t Friday?”
“No. This is about the hit crew,” Sherwood said.
“I know nothing about this thing,” Bell said.
“That’s too bad,” Lucas said. “Because—”
“I can make some calls,” Bell said.
“We need all the information we can get on what they’re currently driving,” Lucas said.
“All I can do is call, and talk. I make no promises.”
“Then do that…”
“You have to leave now,” Bell said. “Give me a phone number, and I will call.”
“If you try to run, we’ll go after you for accessory for first-degree murder,” Lucas said. “So if you have to run, I’d suggest you run very far—like back to Russia. If we get our hands on you…”
“If I need cooperation from local police sometime in the future…”
“Depending on what the problem is, we can help,” Capslock said.“On the other hand, I might look into this Friday business and stick that whole thing up your ass.”
“Don’t do that. Just give me a number,” Bell said. “I might have to talk in person. I might have to go out, play cards. I call tonight.”
“Sooner is better,” Lucas said. “If you think you might need a get-out-of-jail ticket someday, the sooner we hear from you, the bigger the ticket gets.”
Bell nodded. “I know how this works. I have friends in Minneapolis.”
Capslock: “Cops?”
Bell nodded again. “Sometimes, they want dates. I have a dating service here. I am sure you know that.”
“We do,” Capslock said.
Lucas: “Call me.”
• • •
On the sidewalk,Sherwood looked back and said, “Mr. Belov was uncommonly cooperative.”
“Not yet, he isn’t,” Lucas said. “Maybe Minneapolis or some other organization has him in a crack and he needs that get-out-of-jail card. On the other hand, he might decide to disappear. Without a full crew watching him, he could do that. We’re five hours from the Canadian border.”
“That’s another thing we might be onto,” Capslock said. “I wonder if the cops who want dates are getting free sex. I mean, if the BCA were to look into that…it would end, and right quick.”
Sherwood: “I said it once, I’ll say it again. I find these interactions absolutely fascinating. The good cops extort a pimp with an illegalsearch warrant and tell him a bunch of lies and end up possibly helping the pimp by fending off crooked cops.”
“I don’t find it fascinating. I find it depressing, in the nonmedical sense,” Lucas said.
“Now what?” Sherwood asked.
“We have some lures in the water…so we wait.”
St. Vincent never called back about using the Identi-Kit to look for similar faces at the hospital.
