Page 109 of Sting
Chapter 27
A taut silence followed that fiery exchange, which Joe and Hick had tacitly agreed to let play out without interruption. Adrian Dover softly asked Jordie if she would like to take a breather. “Maybe some water?”
She declined with a brusque no.
“I’d like some,” Kinnard said. “I’m supposed to be getting fluids.”
Joe got up and walked over to a small table stocked with bottles of water. “You should be readmitted to a hospital,” he said as he uncapped one and passed it to Kinnard. “Under an assumed name, naturally.”
“Maybe later.”
When he finished drinking, Hick asked him where he’d had his burner phone hidden. “It wasn’t on you. The barn was searched. Wasn’t in the car.”
“I left it in the woods where I stopped to switch car tags. Sealed in a ziplock and stuffed in a hole in a tree trunk. I told Morrow where he could find it. He retrieved it and brought it when he came to the hospital.”
Joe thought, This son of a gun doesn’t miss a trick. He wanted to throttle him, but he couldn’t help but admire his craftiness. Of course, his life depended on outsmarting people. On deception.
Hick asked, “What about the barn?”
Shaw smiled wanly. “Belonged to my grandfather. He called it the garage. He had a couple of old Chryslers he restored and kept there. Before he died, he sold the cars, but the building came to me. I hadn’t been there in years and was surprised to find it still standing.”
“You grew up around here?”
“No. I only visited my grandparents from time to time.”
He didn’t volunteer where he hailed from, and Joe didn’t bother asking. Neither did Hick. He probably would have told them that it was classified.
“The bow-and-arrow set was mine,” Kinnard said, addressing Jordie. “It came with a canvas target stuffed with straw. I don’t know what became of that. I never knew my grandfather owned a boat. Maybe he didn’t. I don’t know what that busted outboard was doing in there.”
She didn’t respond except to stare at him coldly.
Joe went back to something Kinnard had said earlier. “You want Panella.”
“That scam he had going with Josh was little more than a hobby. He’s into much more that than. After Katrina, he swooped in like a vulture and cashed in on the corruption and chaos. Racketeering, money laundering. No aversion to blood. My unit wanted him long before you guys got on to him.
“He’s old-school. Tit for tat. Sicilian shit. For instance, on Panella’s order Mickey Bolden slit a guy’s belly open and threw him off a fishing boat into the Gulf.”
As an aside to Jordie, he said, “That was no empty threat. It happened. Another agent witnessed it. Nothing he could do to stop it without blowing his cover.” Coming back to Joe, he continued. “To get inside his operation, I made my initial contact with Bolden and told him that I was available for speciality work like that.”
“Like gutting people,” Jordie said.
Kinnard looked across at her. “Too messy. I’m tidier and more efficient than that.”
“Like blowing Mickey Bolden’s head to smithereens.”
“Would you rather have had him blow yours to smithereens? Or me to take the time to say, ‘Freeze, FBI, you’re under arrest’?” When she declined to say anything, he added, “I kill only the bad guys, Jordie. To keep them from killing other people.”
“But you still lie and deceive.”
“I do, yeah. Most times. Not always.”
The atmosphere between the two crackled. Joe couldn’t help but wonder the nature of some of the lies that Kinnard had told her while she was his captive. He tabled that interesting thought for the time being and concentrated on what Kinnard was saying.
“Bolden didn’t immediately take me up on my offer. I couldn’t look too eager or he would’ve smelled a rat. When that DEA agent got crosswise with the two key men, I had to take them out. I got myself arrested on purpose. It looked better, and jail is often safer than the streets. By the time What’s-his-name Dupaw released me, Panella had vamoosed to parts unknown and Josh was in protective custody pending testimony.
“So I worked the other case in Mexico, planning to wait out Panella like he’s been waiting out Josh. I think he forecast that Josh would renege.”
“Why do you think that?”
