Stolen Prey

you, as soon as I look out the peephole, you could shoot me again.”
    “Ah, for Christ’s sakes, Kline, it’s me,” Lucas said. “Call your building manager and ask her to come up and look.”
    There was another long silence, then the peephole darkened, and finally a chain rattled on the inside. Kline, unshaven, white-faced,peeked out, saw Del, looked up and down the hall, and said, “All right.”
    He’d been on his feet, and now he settled back, in the wheelchair, and rolled himself backward into the apartment. He’d been watching a morning talk show: a man stood behind a microphone, turned to a stunned-looking young man, and said, “Sean, you are … NOT … the father.” The crowd cheered, or jeered, and Kline clicked it off.
    “Trying to keep from going insane,” he mumbled, apparently embarrassed to be caught watching the show. “What do you want?”
    “We need to talk to you about this whole case,” Lucas said.
    “I talked to a guy in the hospital,” Kline said, “And he told me that one thing I shouldn’t do is talk to the cops. You’re probably recording all of this.”
    “We’re not recording it, and we don’t want you to say much anyway. We’re here more to make a presentation,” Lucas said.
    “A presentation?”
    “Yes. All you have to do is sit there and listen.”
    Kline looked from Lucas to Del, and back and forth a couple of times, and then, “I guess I can do that. But I’m not answering any questions.”
    “Just listen,” Lucas said.
    Kline said to Del, “Nice tie, dude.”
    “Hermès,” Del said, in his best French.
    T HE PLACE smelled weird, like hot dogs and sweat, brittle yellowed wallpaper and dry rot, with a little old-bathroom smellthrown in. The couch was covered with newspapers, and when Lucas looked for a place to sit, Kline said, “Throw those papers on the floor,” and Del did that, making a stack and dropping it beside one couch arm.
    Lucas took the paper out of his briefcase, put the case between his feet, and started talking:
    “Don’t say anything. Don’t argue with me, just listen,” he said. “Now, we know you were involved in this theft from Polaris. There’s no question in our minds about that.”
    “Oh, bullshit, you’re—”
    “Shut up,” Lucas said. “Just listen to the case.”
    Lucas laid it out piece by piece. How ICE had found two back doors into Polaris and had documented them before she took them out. How they had to be done from the inside. How Kline had migrated to Hennepin National, where he’d hooked up with three other people for the theft: Turicek, Sanderson, and eventually, Albitis.
    “We can tie you to the other three. We can tie Turicek to Albitis, and Albitis to the gold purchases. We believe we can tie Sanderson to the attack on Albitis—she called nine-one-one on a phone Albitis used to call Turicek, and I recognized her voice on the tape. The tape is being analyzed in our laboratories now, and after we get the forensic voice analysis done, we’ll be able to hook that to Sanderson. So, we’ve got you all in a bundle.”
    Kline broke in, shaking his head: “You don’t have me. All you have on me is that I sat in the same office. And I’ll tell you what: banks deal with each other all the time, system to system. I think Ivan found a way into Polaris from our system, picked out an account to loot, and did it. He never told me about it. I thinkit was him and Albitis, and everything else you’re telling me is bullshit.”
    Lucas shook a finger at him: “Not bullshit. I think we can make a powerful case. But you’re right about one thing—our case against you is the weakest. We don’t care about Turicek, because he’s dead. So it comes down to you and Albitis and Sanderson. We’ve decided to settle for two out of the three. We’re going to give somebody partial immunity, in return for testimony against the other two.”
    “Partial immunity,” Kline scoffed. “That’s worth a lot. Go to prison and get killed for being an informer … get banged by a bunch of faggot convicts … that’s an attractive deal.”
    Del said, “Listen, Jake, you know what happened here. The Brookses, David Rivera, the cop from Mexico, Pruess, the VP from Polaris … we’re not going to come after you for stealing a little money. We’re coming after you for multiple murder. You and the others touched this off. How old are you? Close to thirty? You’ll be sixty years old, under Minnesota law, before you’d have your