Shot of Tequila Page 6

  “No. He was real. But I wasn’t protecting him because I was afraid for my life.”

  “Why then, Mr. Binkowski?”

  “Because he didn’t take all of my money. He only took two thousand dollars, and the rest he left behind.”

  Jack wasn’t buying. “Herb, go call the squad. We’re going to play Elliot Ness and bust open some booze.”

  “I swear it! He knew the guy he shot. Called him Billy. I think he was collecting a debt from him.”

  “A debt of two grand?”

  “Yeah. Then Billy turned his gun on this guy, but he shot him first. The little guy didn’t even have his guns drawn yet, but he shot Billy before Billy could even swing his gun around.” Binkowski greened like a string bean. “It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve worked retail for over twenty years.”

  Jack studied the man’s face.

  “And after killing Billy, this man forced you to open the safe and give him two thousand dollars?”

  “Yes. And he put the rest in a box for me to hide so I could claim it all on my insurance.”

  “Run through the whole thing, from the top.”

  Binkowski did, painting a much clearer picture then the vague one he’d given an hour earlier. Clearer, yes, but still highly suspect in Jack’s mind.

  “So this guy shot Billy Chico, in self-defense, and only took two thousand dollars instead of the entire contents, which were how much?”

  “About five grand.”

  “So where’s the other three grand?”

  “In a box of Courvoisier Grand Reserve on my cognac shelf.”

  Jack nodded at Benedict, who then went to go check on it.

  “Don’t destroy my store!”

  “We won’t if you’re telling the truth, Mr. Binkowski.”

  “I am. I swear.”

  Daniels looked deep into his pleading eyes and had the feeling she’d finally heard the truth. He’d been holding on to the lie in an effort to make a couple more thousand dollars from the insurance company, and that made some sense. But that was the only part of the story that did.

  “Mr. Binkowski, we’re going to have you work with a police artist, see if you can put together a picture of this guy. How tall did you say he was again?”

  “Under five-six.”

  It would be a simple maneuver to program the computer to bring up the files of all short white males with tattoos. How many could there be? They’d have a name within an hour or two. Unless he didn’t have a record, which was unlikely with the cold-blooded way he had killed Chico.

  Benedict re-entered the interrogation room and gave Jack a nod, indicating they’d found the money.

  “Okay, Mr. Binkowski. Thank you for your cooperation. Someone will be with you shortly to take you to our sketch artist.”

  “What about my money?”

  “You’re money is safe, Mr. Binkowski. But if I were you, I’d make an extra hard effort to remember every detail about this guy. It would be a shame if your insurance company were to learn you were trying to scam them.”

  Binkowski nodded, his frown as long as the night.

  Jack walked briskly over to Benedict and led the way down the hall on the third floor of the 26th Precinct. It was coming up on one in the morning, but the activity in the building was loud enough to force the volume of their conversation higher than normal speaking level.

  “So you think it was a private debt, or that this Butterfly guy was collecting for someone connected?” Herb asked.

  “Someone connected. He’s got to be well paid, or at least well paid enough that he wasn’t tempted to take all of Binkowski’s money. Just what was owed. What kind of killer would turn his back on a free two grand?”

  “He was making sure Binkowski wouldn’t ID him, banking on his greed.”

  “That could be part of it. But there’s something else here. What do you think about this self-defense angle?”

  “Chico had a gun on him. Could be self-defense. If he was really collecting a debt, what good would killing him do? He’d wait for Chico to finish, like Binkowski said. Except Chico didn’t finish. Instead he panicked, turned the gun at Butterfly, and Butterfly shot him.”

  “Maybe.”

  They hung a left at the end of the hall and Benedict led them into the stairwell. Unlike the rest of the building, the stairwell wasn’t heated, and the temperature was a good twenty degrees cooler. Because of this anomaly, lining the edges of the stair on every floor were brown paper bags and lunch boxes, left there by night patrol cops who wanted to keep their sandwiches and soda cold. Benedict and Daniels took the stairs down, ignoring the bags.

  “Doesn’t a threat work better than a bribe?” Daniels asked, still pondering why Butterfly hadn’t taken all the money, just a part of it.

  “Sometimes. Sometimes a bribe works better because then the person incriminates himself, and is then on your side.”

  “You ever been tempted?”

  “Who hasn’t? Christ, remember that time in Vice, when we raided that drug house? More money on the table than I made in ten years.”

  “You take any?”

  “I’ve thought about that night many times. I was the one who found the stash. I could have filled my pockets without anyone else knowing.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I guess,” Benedict said, opening the door for Jack when they reached the first floor, “because I’m an honorable man. It wasn’t my money. I was sworn by my duty not to steal. What would you have done?”

  “Same thing. Did you find drugs on that raid too?”

  “Yeah. I ripped off two keys of Mexican brown.”

  Daniels laughed.

  “Stuffed them down a pants leg,” Herb said. “How do you think I bought a house while still so young?”

  “You mortgaged the hell out of it.”

  “Damn right. Come to think of it, I should have stole some of that damn money.”

  They walked side-by-side to Jack’s office, and Jack plopped down in the ratty swivel chair behind her desk. She rolled over to the table where the computer perched, the screen saver a picture of Homer from The Simpsons. Punching a few keys, Jack accessed the data entry screen and fed in information on the killer with the Monarch butterfly tattoo. She programmed in three searches; one for white males under five seven, another for individuals with tattoos, and the last one incorporating both.

  “So why didn’t Butterfly just kill Binkowski?” Herb asked. “Why risk leaving a witness alive? He’d already killed one guy. Why not kill two and take all the money?”

  “That’s the million dollar question.”

  The dot matrix printer, big as a Studebaker and damn near as old, began to slowly spit out search results.

  “How’s things at home?” Herb asked.

  Jack’s face pinched. Last month, after a particularly mean-spirited fight with her husband, Jack had been off her game and Herb caught her on it. In a moment of weakness she’d confessed to some marital problems, which Herb apparently thought was okay to talk about at any given time.

  The thing was, unlike practically every other cop in the District—all sharing Y chromosomes and waiting to pounce on the female detective if she made the slightest mistake—Herb didn’t seem to be using the information as a lever or a bludgeon. He seemed genuinely concerned.

  Jack had no real friends, either on the Job or on the outside: Her eighty hour work weeks were already causing a big strain on her marriage, and there was zero time left over for herself. It was a high price to pay to be taken seriously in this old boys’ network, and because of that Jack didn’t really have anyone to talk about her problems with.

  Herb engaged in the normal station camaraderie that Jack was excluded from because of her sex, but he didn’t seem to have a chauvinistic bone in his skinny body. He was, in fact, the perfect partner.

  But could she trust him?

  “The usual,” Jack said. She figured she could skimp on the details, downplay the seriou
sness. “He’s worried he’s going to get the call to ID my body at the hospital.”

  “That’s crazy. I’m your partner. I’d be the one who IDed you.”

  Jack saw the humor but didn’t smile.

  “It’s not easy being a cop’s wife, Jack. Or husband. You have to be stronger than the cop you’re supporting. Bernice is much stronger than I am. I’d go nuts if I knew she was on the street, constantly in danger of getting killed. I couldn’t handle it.”

  “Maybe Bernice should talk to Alan.”

  “I can ask her, if you’d like.”

  Jack pictured Alan getting a call from Herb’s wife, how her husband would scream that she was airing their dirty laundry.

  “Probably not a good idea. It wouldn’t go well.”

  Herb opened his mouth to say something supportive, but Jack cut him off.

  “Computer says seven hundred and forty probables in the first search alone. Why don’t you go home, Herb?”

  “You should too.”

  “I will,” Jack lied.

  “See you tomorrow, Jack. Or later today anyway.”

  The skinny cop left the office, and Jack Daniels leaned back in the leather swivel chair and stared at the ceiling, listening to the printer whir.

  She’d stay there tonight. Start going through the list. The prospect of going to her apartment, to Alan, was depressing, and she knew that no sleep awaited her there. If she were lucky, she’d catch a wink or two at the desk.

  Daniels only slept when total exhaustion overcame her. When she tried to sleep, tried to go to bed the normal way, her mind refused to shut off and kept her awake with guilt.

  Jack breathed guilt like most people breathed air.

  She yawned, picturing the bloodbath in the liquor store earlier that night.

  “Are you somewhere in here, my man?” She stared at the printout, which was already three pages long. “And will you do it again?”

  Jack removed the notepad from her jacket pocket and scribbled the word PRIORS, as a mental note for her to check for similar murders once Ballistics came up with a make on the slugs and the casings they had found. It would be interesting to see if others had been killed in such a style. Jack was reluctant to do this, because a search of that scope would mean Federal involvement since it crossed borders, and bringing the FBI into an investigation was like sitting on a screw driver—screwing yourself. Still, it was important to see if the MO had been documented before.

  Because Jack was sure she would see the same MO again. And soon.

  When the phone rang, Tequila knew it was work. No one else called in the middle of the night. No one else called, period. Tequila had no friends, of the female gender or otherwise. His only family was his sister, and she was asleep in her room. He’d tried dozens of times to teach her their phone number, but Sally didn’t understand numbers. The only number he’d managed to drill into her head was 911, if there were ever an emergency.

  He guessed it was around one in the morning from how rested he felt, and a quick glance at his digital clock confirmed his guess.

  This all flashed through his mind during the first ring. He picked the phone up before it rang again.

  “Yes.”

  “Tequila, this is Slake. You better get down to Spill right away. Marty wants you. It’s an emergency.”

  Tequila hung up and held his chin, jerking his head to the left in order to crack his neck. It didn’t crack, because he hadn’t been asleep long enough for the calcium deposits to build up. He dressed in the dark, finding his chinos, shirt, and socks in the drawers where they always were. Instead of putting on his boots he chose a pair of black Reeboks, lacing them so tight they felt like an extra layer skin. Then he slipped into his gun rig and slipped out of the bedroom, walking down the hall and knocking once on China’s door.

  “Mr. Abernathy?”

  “I have to go out, China. Please keep an eye on Sally.”

  “No problem, Mr. Abernathy.”

  China had no qualms about him leaving in the middle of the night, any more than she had qualms about the guns she always saw Tequila with. She had no idea what Tequila did for a living, and didn’t much care either. Which was more than could be said about the previous care-giver. When Tequila had brought home his first gun, after being taught to shoot by Marty shortly after his hire, she panicked and fled. When screening replacements, he told applicants he was a bodyguard and showed them his carry permit. Almost as a rule, women who cared for the mentally challenged had an abhorrence to firearms. Until he found China. She didn’t seem bothered by anything.

  He pocketed the incriminating .45 barrels that he’d taken out of his guns and left in the recycle bin. Then he grabbed his coat from the hall closet and locked the door behind him when he left. As he walked to the elevator he let his mind dwell on what Marty considered an emergency. Marty was an over-reactive type, and several times Tequila had been summoned at odd hours to help track down the latest bimbo in Marty’s life, who had taken off with his car, or some cash, or once his gold chain—the one Marty got from some top dog in the mob hierarchy.

  Marty was also prone to summon Tequila during the wee hours because one of the other guys was sick and couldn’t play bodyguard, or because Marty just caught a line on some big debtor whom they hadn’t been able to find.

  Tequila didn’t think it was any of those, though. Tonight was Super Bowl night. It probably had something to do with that.

  Like most around-the-clock employees, Marty’s collectors rotated work details on holidays. That way none of them had to work two Christmases, or New Year’s Eves, or Thanksgivings, in a row. Super Bowl Sunday was considered a holiday as well, and Tequila had worked last year’s, making him exempt this time around. He should have gotten the night completely off, but Marty had gotten a fix on Billy Chico, and sent his only available collector to track him down. It wasn’t a paid holiday like it should have been, but it beat sitting in that steel vault for six hours while Marty’s accountants counted the day’s take fifteen times each.

  Tequila reached the lobby and took the door to the parking garage. Frank the doorman gave him a friendly nod as he walked past. He disengaged the car alarm with the device on his key ring, which also opened the doors. The yellow metal smiley face keychain he’d gotten from Sally seemed to wink at him as he started the car. Her birthday was coming up in a few weeks. He’d have to think of something nice to get her.

  Once again he had to honk at the watchman, who didn’t open the garage door because he’d been sleeping. Tequila decided he wouldn’t let it slide this time. He’d complain to the association and get the man fired. What if there were some kind of emergency, especially with Sally?

  He drove out into the night, opening his windows and letting the frigid atmosphere slap at him. Spill was only ten blocks away, and he parked in the alley around back. He buried the gun barrels in the bottom of a nearby Dumpster, making sure the prints were wiped off first, and placed some boxes over them.

  The club was located on the first and second floor of a ten story office building, which Marty owned. When Marty had toyed with the idea of opening a dance bar, he’d been able to get this entire building for less than what it would have cost to build a club from scratch. The remaining floors he rented out to a few legitimate businesses, and kept the rest for himself.

  Tequila went around to the front of the building, where a line of people waited to get in, freezing in their miniskirts and dago tees. Looking good was more important than keeping warm at a trendy club like Spill. Tequila walked past the line and nodded at the doorman, who was scrutinizing a young blonde girl’s ID with a penlight. It should have been Terco or Slake at the door, as Leman and Matisse were on money guard duty tonight, but instead it was O’Neal, one of the bartenders. Terco and Slake had probably been pulled away to deal with whatever the emergency was.

  O’Neal gave Tequila a mean face for cutting in line until he noticed who it was, and then the mean became a curt nod and he let the smaller
man pass.

  The interior of Spill was similar to other clubs of its type. Dark, except for the flashing lights on the dance floors, cramped to capacity with people, smoky, and louder than hell. Tequila pushed his way through the crowd of twenty-something partiers and to the back bar by the DJ booth. He used his access key to open the door marked PRIVATE. The door locked automatically behind him, and Tequila walked down a short hall and then up a staircase to Marty’s office, mercifully soundproofed from the rest of the club.

  Marty the Maniac was in his office alone, something Tequila hadn’t expected. He appeared to be hunched over some kind of contract, and he motioned for Tequila to come in without looking up at him. Tequila, without knowing exactly why, felt slightly on edge. He entered the office but didn’t sit, waiting for Marty to say something. As he always did, Tequila took in his surroundings and noticed two unusual things. The first was that Marty’s television, usually on a stand by the wall, was missing. The second was that whatever Marty had in front of him, he wasn’t reading it. Only pretending to.

  Marty appeared to reach the end of his reading, and then pushed it aside on his desk and sat back in his chair, meeting Tequila’s stare. He looked extremely calm. Too calm for Marty. Tequila’s apprehension kicked up a notch.

  “Where’s the money?”

  Tequila assumed he meant the collection from Billy Chico. Maybe that’s what Marty was upset over. The fact that Tequila had killed Chico, and that it might lead back to him somehow.

  “I’ve got it on me,” Tequila said.

  Marty smiled, but the smile was as dead as his eyes.

  “Funny, Tequila. Very funny. Aren’t you wondering how I knew it was you?”

  Tequila didn’t understand the question. He waited for more.

  “You forgot about the videotape. I’ve got the whole thing on tape. Got a great shot of your tattoo.”

  Tequila replayed the words in his head, trying to make sense out of them. He was missing something here.

  “What are you talking about?” he finally asked.

  “What am I talking about?” Marty chuckled. “I’ll tell you what I’m talking about. I want my Super Bowl money, you stupid little shit!”