torn out. Someone had dumped what looked to be antifreeze on the floorboards, where it had mixed with the glass fragments and two used condoms. The trunk had also been jimmied and the spare taken. All Roy’s expensive basketball gear was also gone.
“I’m really sorry about your car,” she said.
He sighed. “Hey, this is why people buy insurance policies. You hungry?”
“Starving.”
He checked his watch. “I know this place. Eggs are good, the coffee hot.”
“I guess you need a ride?”
“Guess so. But I don’t have a helmet. And I’m not looking to getting busted again. Once a week is about my limit.”
“Not a problem.”
Mace walked back to the impoundment lot office and returned a few minutes later carrying a motorcycle helmet. A police motorcycle helmet.
“How’d you swing that?” he asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
She slipped her hand into a small black zippered pocket she’d had built years ago under the Ducati’s seat and pulled out her pepper-spray cell phone and zap knuckles.
“Didn’t really want the cops to find these on me.” She put them in the pocket of her jacket. “Popped them in there while we were running from the bad guys.”
“Good thinking,” said Roy. “Because something tells me you might need them.”
CHAPTER 47
THE EGGS were good, the toast slathered in butter, the bacon crispy, and the coffee steamy. They ate their fill and then Mace and Roy sat back. He patted his stomach. “Gotta start playing ball again before I get a gut.”
“So the Captain wants you to rep him?”
He took a sip of coffee and nodded. “I don’t have any details yet.”
Mace fingered her cup. “But you don’t think he did it?”
“No, but I’ll admit that my judgment is probably a little biased. I like the guy.”
“Big teddy bear?”
“With a combat bronze and two Purple Hearts,” he said sharply.
“I’m not making fun of him. It’s shitty that a war hero is on the streets.”
“But if he did kill Diane?”
“Then it’s over, Roy, friend or not.”
“At least he won’t be living on the streets anymore.”
“So you going to rep him?”
“I’m not sure. I work for Shilling & Murdoch. They don’t do criminal defense work. I don’t do criminal defense work anymore.”
“There’s always pro bono. Your firm can’t have a problem with that.”
“I thought you believed he was guilty?”
“Everybody deserves a good defense. Least I heard that somewhere.”
“I’ll meet with him, go from there.”
She pulled the key out. “Do you want me to let you know what I find?”
“Like I said, I’m going with you.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I’ll probably lose my license to practice before this is all over.”
Mace looked confused. “But you still want to come with me? Why?”
“I have no rational basis for answering that question.”
“Meaning you have an irrational basis?”
Roy put some cash down for the meal.
“So how are you going to find out which box was Diane’s?”
“When I think of it you’ll be the first to know. By the way, how much do I have left on my buck retainer?”
“After last night, ten cents. Use it wisely.”
When Mace and Roy came out of the diner, Karl Reiger picked them up from his observation post tucked inside the mouth of an alley. Farther down the block Don Hope sat in a pale blue Chevy van, his glass on the same target. When Roy and Mace climbed on her bike and drove down the street, Hope eased the van forward and followed. Reiger backed down the alley, came out on the next street over, and ran a parallel course on their tail. They radioed back and forth on a secure communication line and switched out the surveillance every three blocks to knock down the odds of Mace picking up the tail.
Reiger settled back in his seat. It should have been over last night. And it would have been if the punk lawyer hadn’t screwed his shot. That would not happen again. Reiger didn’t like killing people, especially fellow Americans, but above all, he was going to survive this, even if no one else did.
CHAPTER 48
THERE WAS ONLY one person working behind the counter at A-1 when Roy and Mace walked in. He was young with ear buds and lines dangling to an iPod hung on his belt. His head was swaying to the music as he sorted the mail on the counter. Mace led Roy over to the wall of mailboxes. A quick check showed that while they were numbered, none of the digits on the boxes matched the one Mace had written down from the original