Once a Spy by Keith Thomson Read Free Book Online

inadequate cleaning compound. Either way, all things considered, he felt as if he and Drummond had reached an oasis.
    They came to the squad room, a big, open space painted a drab beige with few of the wanted posters or softball trophies Charlie had expected and none of the chaos. Three detectives doing paperwork was it for action.
    The duty officer directed Charlie and Drummond to Detective Howard Beckman, a man well into his fifties who looked to have been a bruiser back in his day. His thatchy gray hair was now parted ruler straight. Like his sport coat, his oxford shirt was crisp. His silk tie, knotted with precision, was of the quality usually seen on a cop only if he were commissioner. Charlie took Beckman for a warrior forced to the sidelines by age restrictions, striving to soften his edges with couture—though couture probably wouldn’t be his term for it.
    “So Murph says you fellas’ve got a good one for me,” Beckman said with a smile as he gestured Charlie and Drummond into the chairs before him. Charlie liked the old cop right out of the gate.
    Battling his own incredulity, Charlie delivered what felt like a thorough rendition of events. Drummond sat quietly, occasionally nodding in corroboration, mostly gazing at his slippers.
    Afterward, Beckman cupped his solid jaw in a hand, evoking a general pondering a battlefield map. “Quite a day,” he said. His tone was pure sympathy. Unfortunately his eyes divulged skepticism. He disappeared behind a giant computer terminal. “Let’s start with the fire,” he said, picking up the pace. “I see Chief Morris of Company two oh four ordered plywood over your windows and doorways to keep out looters, which is standard. He requested stepped-up police patrol—same reason, also standard. But there’s no request for a look-see by a fire marshal, nothing like that. If he’d thought anything was fishy …”
    “At that time the gas man and the boiler blowing up seemed like coincidence,” Charlie said. “The two guys trying to shoot us made for a pattern.”
    The detective slurped hot coffee from a tall Styrofoam cup. “I’ve also got the report from the patrol car that the duty officer sent by.” He dipped behind the terminal again and read aloud, “‘Resident officer saw and heard nothing out of ordinary. Officer observed no signs of gunplay, no casings, nothing out of ordinary.’”
    Charlie had the same creeping, itchy sensation he did when a horse he’d bet began to let the lead slip away. “These guys, though, they clearly weren’t amateurs.”
    “Then they would’ve tidied up, yeah. Understand this wasn’t a full forensics team Murph sent over.”
    “What about the bullets in the Plexiglas divider in the cab?”
    Beckman brightened. “That could be something, yeah.” A burst of right and left index finger pecks at his keyboard and he relayed, with disappointment, “No new incident reports from Transit on the system.”
    “How long does it take for them to show up?”
    “Not this long. It’s the cab companies’ first priority, if only so they can put in for insurance.”
    “Wallid said he was going straight to his garage, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he stopped to get a drink first. My luck, the cab was stolen while he was in the bar.”
    “A lot of times, especially late night, the guy’s an illegal with a borrowedhack license. Shelling out for the body work himself beats dealing with Immigration, you know?”
    “Great,” Charlie said. So the cab getting stolen would actually be better luck.
    “We can still get to him,” Beckman said. “I show three licensed cabbies named Ibrahim Wallid in the metro directory, plus a Wallid Ibrahim. We’ll call ’em tomorrow, find out if one of their vehicles is out of service.” He returned his attention to his coffee.
    Charlie’s anxiety escalated into a feeling like that of a cold coming on. “So I guess, from a procedural standpoint, this doesn’t rate any more immediate action than