Watch Dogs by John Shirley Read Free Book Online Page A

filtered window of Verrick’s office window.
     Tranter seemed puzzled as he squinted at Verrick. “So you don’t want an APB out on this Wolfe character after all?”
    Verrick shook his head. “If you can get some of the Chicago Cops in that area to look for Mick Wolfe without telling ‘em why, fine and good. If they pick him up, they should call you and you should call me. And I’ll make it worth their while to turn him over to me directly. But an APB—no. We don’t want a general alert—we don’t want the media in on it. Because, you know, the Four Clubs isn’t legal... aaaaand because I was there with a known hooker. All that could come out.”
    “Oh.” Detective Tranter cleared his throat. “Speaking of that high class whore...”
    “She taken care of?”
    “She’s part of a new parking lot on the North side, about five feet down. As of this morning.”
    “Good, good...” Rose had heard too much of what Wolfe was talking about, which had made eliminating her even more imperative. “Another thing is, Tranter, if Wolfe is caught and he talks to the wrong cops, or to federal agents, you never know what he might say. I don’t think he’s got anything that’d stand up in court, but...”
    Verrick didn’t want to go on. It would mean having to explain to Tranter what it was that Wolfe knew too much about. And Verrick definitely didn’t want to give Tranter that information.
    Tranter never asked about it.
    Detective Tranter just stood there, waiting—and Verrick kept Tranter standing there, as if he were an NCO in the presence of a Major. Which was more or less the way Verrick thought of it. He could see rainwater evaporating from the shoulders of Tranter’s trench coat, blown in the current of warm air from the heating vent.
    “The Club doesn’t want any noise made about what happened at the Four Clubs,” Verrick went on. “CPD knows all about the place, of course, but all the right people are paid off. I assume you’re getting your cut.”
    Tranter shrugged. He wasn’t going to confirm or deny it.
    “If the media runs a story about the fight at an illegal casino,” Verrick said, “then the CPD is going to have to make surprised noises and raid the place. No one wants that.”
    Tranter nodded, slowly. “I heard Wolfe shot you. That right?”
    It was Verrick’s turn to shrug. “Little bit of something in my side. Went right through. Couple of stitches. Not much of a wound. I’ve had worse.”
    Actually it was bothering Verrick enough, along with his aching back, that he planned to go home after lunch. But he’d needed to put in an appearance here to seem like the iron man for Tranter and Luke—Luke Kelly was out in the hallway, keeping watch, in the unlikely event that Wolfe turned up here. There were three other guys hired from Graywater Security watching over the building—two in the alley, downstairs, one in the lobby. Real professional mercenaries.
    Tranter put his hand in his coat, brought out a tissue and blew his nose. “Sorry. I think I’m getting a head cold. So you want to handle Wolfe completely unofficially?”
    “That’s right,” Verrick said. “You got a problem with that?”
    “No. It’s just...harder to find the prick that way, without all those eyes on the street looking for him.”
    “You’re standing in the Blume building, Tranter! We’ve got ctOS in our pockets! And I’m the man with access to every security application ctOS has. Count on it, Tranter. We’ll find Wolfe. And not just him. We’ll run down that loose cannon Aiden Pearce too. We’re starting to suspect that’s who set up Wolfe’s getaway...”
    #
    It was an abandoned building, one of the old Projects, a ten story tenement long slated to be torn down. Most of the windows were boarded over. A fence had been erected around it, the hurricane wire now mostly knocked down.
    That’s where they’d taken Wolfe...
    On the outside, that’s how it looked: Just more abandoned projects housing near