Into the Fire(67)

“We’re so glad you came in,” Brust said.

Nu?ez chimed in from the back. “Really happy to see you.”

“You’re a solid citizen—”

“—who was put in a terrible position. We understand that.”

Max cleared his throat. “You were working with my cousin?”

“Yes,” Nu?ez said. “Very smart guy. Very capable.” He scratched his cheek. His fingernail was polished, his cheeks shiny from a close shave. He grinned, but the skin around his eyes did not wrinkle in the least.

Max shifted in the chair. Cleared his throat. “Yeah, he was. Grant was good.”

Brust placed his forefinger on the thumb drive as if it were a poker chip he was considering adding to the pot. “Do you know what this is? I mean, have you looked at what’s on here?”

“Yeah.” Max’s unease grew, but he heard himself still talking. “They look like spreadsheets. Real and fake.” He suddenly felt detached from the situation, as if he were floating above the table looking down at himself answering the questions like a good little boy. “Some kind of money-laundering operation, from what I could tell.”

“Ah,” Brust said, the single note holding disappointment.

“That’s too bad,” Nu?ez agreed.

“Has anyone else seen this?” Brust asked. “I mean, did you share your cousin’s work with anyone?”

“No,” Max said, shaking his head. “Just me. I went to Grant’s office, and some guy shot at me, so I got scared and I went into hiding.” Sweat trickled down his neck, burrowed beneath his collar. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. And yet the conversation kept proceeding, and he felt bizarrely incapable of stopping it. “Look, is there…? I mean, is something wrong?”

Those automated smiles once more. “No,” Brust said. “Everything’s finally right. You did great. You did great bringing this here to us.”

He slid the thumb drive off the table and tossed it to his partner.

“Where did you say you went?” Nu?ez asked, coming off the wall to pocket the drive. “When you were hiding?”

Max looked over at the bullet security camera wired into the corner of the ceiling. In the curved black lens, he caught a distorted fish-eye reflection of the room—Nu?ez’s broad shoulders stretched to Olympian proportions; Brust looming over the desk, his torso swirled; and Max in the center, shrunken and diminutive.

His gaze caught on the sticker adhered to the camera’s side: IRONKLAD KAM. The same equipment had been installed in the hall outside Grant’s office, an unsettling coincidence. And something was different. When he noticed what, he felt the awareness as a chill tightening his flesh, making his scalp crawl.

No glowing red dot to show it was recording.

Which meant that Brust and Nu?ez had turned it off.

What reason would they have to be in here with him and not want to be recorded?

“Is there…?” Max’s voice went hoarse, and he had to start over. “Is there someone else I could talk to? Another cop?”

“Oh, no,” Brust said. “I think it’s best we keep this discussion between these four walls.”

Nu?ez’s eyes were shaded by the brim of his baseball cap. “All nice and soundproof.”

Brust keyed to Max’s gaze, traced it to the security camera. “Ah,” he said. “All these budget shortfalls have us operating on a shoestring.”

Nu?ez again. “Sometimes we have to turn off the cameras. You know, to save electricity.”

The words were pleasantly delivered, without a trace of menace. Max was having trouble processing them. Was he reading into some dark intent? Was this all in his head?

Nu?ez fished a digital recorder from his pen-laden shirt pocket. He half turned, shielding Max’s view with a muscular shoulder, and spoke into the microphone softly.

“Wait,” Max said. “What are you saying?” He looked at Brust. “What is he saying?”

Nu?ez’s voice carried to him then. “—can be used against you in a court of law.”

“Guys,” Max said. “What’s—”

“Shit!” Nu?ez shouted so abruptly that Max jerked back in his chair. “Oh, shit—grab him, he’s—” He fumbled the recorder in his hands purposefully and then clicked it off. Immediately he was as calm as before. He tucked the recorder back into his shirt pocket.

Nu?ez and Brust looked at Max silently. Expressionless.

Max had broken out in a full sweat. He stared at the two faces, but they gave nothing away.

And then Brust set his foot on the chair across from Max and hiked up his pant leg. Strapped to his ankle was a banged-up, nickel-plated .22. He plucked the pistol from the holster and set it on the table between them.

“What … what’s that?” Max asked.

“Oh, that?” Once again Brust gave with the grin. And once again Nu?ez mirrored it. “That one’s yours.”



* * *



The bullpen was bustling, abuzz with overlapping conversations, most of them unpleasant. Perched on a hard wooden chair to the side of the detective’s desk, Evan made sure that each breath sounded labored, pushed through increasing pain.

The detective—O’Malley by his nameplate—looked exhausted, dark bags beneath his eyes. He wore sweat-matted brown curls in no discernible style and was slender to the point of frail. Lower body weight would prove useful.