Nick shook the man’s hand, almost expecting to come away with a couple of hundred dollar bills. “Good to meet you.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Gasper said affably.
Silk gave Nick a conspiratorial nod toward the Sheriff’s personal office. Nick glanced at his watch wondering when reinforcements were coming. He waved the two men into Skrugs’ office.
The Sheriff’s private sanctuary seemed of keen interest to Gasper. His head circled the place as if admiring the decor. He gestured toward the tall portrait of Geronimo, “Hey, I know that guy. He used to play second base for the Indians.”
Nick pretended not to hear the remark as he took up a chair behind Skrugs’ desk. Silk laughed hard enough for the both of them.
Gasper sat down across from the desk and leaned back and crossed his legs.
Nick rocked anxiously in his chair, his hands folded to his chest. “You have something for me?” he asked.
Silk stood behind the plump man and patted his shoulders. “Gasper here knows something that you might find interesting.”
Nick lowered his head toward Gasper and raised his eyebrows.
Gasper looked about the room with wide-eyed innocence. “I’m a big fan of the police,” he announced loudly.
Nick glanced at Silk, then back to Gasper. “Excuse me?”
“I donate a couple of dimes each year to the Police Athletic League.” Gasper was nodding as if to verify his own declaration.
Nick bit his lower lip. “Listen, Gasper, I’m not an IRS agent looking for dinner receipts. I’m kind of tied up with—”
“Tell me about it,” Gasper said. “I’ve been watching it on TV all day. They’ve evacuated a square mile around the White House.”
“Look,” Nick said, “speaking for all law enforcement officials nationwide, I truly appreciate your financial support, but if you don’t get to—”
“I ain’t saying a thing until we’re alone,” declared Gasper.
Nick tilted his head. “You want Silk to leave the room, or Geronimo?”
Gasper pointed to a silver sprinkler hanging from the ceiling above them. “That thing ain’t just loaded with water up there. If you look close enough, you’ll notice that the part where the water is supposed to come out, well, it’s filled in with a wire. Probably fiber optic if my eyesight ain’t failing me.”
Nick stared at the man. He thought about Skrugs and his deception. Had Nick underestimated the depth of the man’s betrayal? Had he actually allowed Kharrazi to wire his own office? Nick finally looked up and saw exactly what Gasper saw. The head of the sprinkler was covered with a tiny glass bulb. Behind it, a faint red light beamed its narrow beam of absorption. It never occurred to him to debug the Sheriff’s office, but someone like Gasper probably never entered a room without scanning for bugs.
Nick almost put his finger to his lips, then remembered who he was dealing with. He pulled his duffle bag onto the sheriff’s desk, unzipped a side pouch and produced a narrow metal cylinder topped off with a clear plastic ball. The ball was a gauge with the needle leaning up against the left side of the dial in the green zone. Nick crawled up on the desk and got to his feet. Before he moved the device even halfway toward the sprinkler, the needle was already buried deep into the red side of the gauge. Nick grabbed the sprinkler with his free hand and tugged hard. It came loose, but not completely unattached. He reached into his bag again and retrieved a Phillips screwdriver. A minute later, he had loosened the casing that held the sprinkler in place and yanked down on the device. The sprinkler came free and Nick cursed as he unfurled the black cable that came rushing out of the ceiling behind the sprinkler head.
From below him he heard, “Am I good, or am I good?”
Nick looked into the tip of the cable and said, “You don’t know how much I learned from this little game, Kharrazi. Is this what your daddy used to do to you when you were a kid? Did he spy on you and watch you get undressed, you piece of shit?” He quickly clipped the cable with a wire cutter and rendered it useless. “You were right, Gasper. Fiber optics. State of the art video monitoring.” He waived his wire-tapping detector around the room and found no other devices. He would sweep the reception area as soon as he finished with Gasper.
Gasper’s chest heaved with pride while Silk maintained a steady grin.
“It’s a gift, really,” Gasper said. “Like when people can sense when they’re being watched. I can always tell where the wires are. Actually, I’m pretty good at both.”
Nick hopped down from the desk and returned his tools to his duffle bag. “All right, Gasper, we’re all clear. Tell me what you know.”
Gasper folded his arms across his chest. “So you’re Tommy Bracco’s cousin, huh?”
“That’s right,” Nick said.
“From whose side of the family?”
“Tommy’s dad is my father’s brother.” All male connections. Nick knew this would make Gasper happy.
Gasper nodded toward the ceiling. “Smart guy like you, how’d you let something like that get by you? Aren’t you supposed to be in charge here?”
“Listen,” Nick said with a tight, searing look of impatience. “I didn’t know about the wire because the Bureau didn’t put it there, someone who was trying to spy on us had it installed before we got here. Secondly, Tommy is my cousin, like a brother really. As kids we spent every summer day playing the ponies at Pimlico. I even lived at his house after my folks died.”
Nick gestured toward Silk. “Don must’ve told you that much already. He and Tommy have been best friends since grade school. The three of us were inseparable throughout high school.” Nick leaned forward, his arms flat on the desk in front of him. “I wear a size ten-and-a-half shoe and a forty-two long suit jacket. What else can I tell you before we get down to business?”
Gasper nodded. “Of course. I got just one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I need to know what’s in it for me?”
Nick blinked a couple of times. “Tell me, Gasper. What do you want?”
Gasper shrugged. “Actually, nothing now that I’m thinking about it. I’m just in the habit of asking — wait a second, I know. I got a speeding ticket a couple of weeks back and I have to go to one of those safety-driving classes next month. You ever been to one of those things? Like going to a wake, only without the alcohol. Anyway, I’d like to get out of it without getting points on my driver’s license.”
“That’s it?” Nick asked.
“Believe me, that’s plenty.”
“Consider it done,” Nick pronounced. “Now can we get on with it?"
Gasper turned and gave Silk a hesitant glance. Silk nodded.
“Silk here says you can be trusted. He says that anything I tell you will stay inside of this room.”
Nick grimaced. “Are you going to be telling me anything about dead bodies that you may have contributed to?”
Gasper seemed appalled. “Of course not. I don’t even like the way you said that.”
Silk gave Gasper a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Gaspers runs book down in Scottsdale. Once a week he makes a trip up here to Payson. He simply brings Las Vegas to Arizona for people who don’t have the time to drive back and forth.”
“Sort of a public service,” Nick commented.
“Exactly,” Gasper said, appreciating Nick’s insight.
“The answer is yes,” Nick said. “Anything you tell me will be confidential and won’t go any further than this room.”
“Good,” Gasper said, settling back in his chair and pulling his white cuffs out from the sleeves of his double-breasted jacket. “So this customer of mine up here is the guy who got his head cut off. His name is Fred something,” Gasper snapped his finger a couple of times searching for the name.