Chapter 9

Part Of A Larger Whole

There was no reason for Ed to move, so he rested against the wall, mulling over what had happened, trying to keep calm and trying to figure out what his next move should be. There were many possibilities for how this could play out; clearly, if they had wanted him dead, surely they wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of getting him in the first place?

He thought about the other men, the ones they'd fished out of the Bay, remembering the autopsy photos he'd seen. It was a pretty safe guess that whatever had happened to them was going to happen to him. He tried not to panic, but trapped in this darkened room. It wasn't easy, especially since he had nothing to do but sit there and wait for something to happen.

But at last, after what seemed like interminable hours, there seemed to be some sort of activity at the other side of the door, so Ed moved across the room to press his ear against it, trying to make out what was going on.

There was a younger, lighter sounding voice, mumbling about nothing much, almost as if he was talking to himself. Also audible was the nervous shuffling and scuffing of feet on a bare floor. The noise continued for a few minutes then there was the sound of heavy footsteps coming down a flight of nearby stairs and walking across to stop near to the door. Ed thought that there was a slight change in the intensity of the light that seeped under its base, so the man's shadow could have been close by. There was a short silence.

'You'd better make this good,' the new voice was a deep, older voice. Whoever was speaking was clearly in charge, an Ed felt he should have recognised it. But it wasn't John Carlson.

'It is good, boss,' said the first voice. 'Real good. It's going to be a fine show.'

'Did anyone see you? Anyone at all? Carlson? The girl?'

Ed's breath caught. Eve. What had happened to Eve?

'No, Carlson didn't see anything, or that blonde chick he was showing off at the bar. They didn't see nothin', too busy with their evening out.' There was a slight snigger to his voice.

Ed's stomach lurched in relief. Eve was ok, they hadn't made her as a cop. They hadn't gotten to her too. The Chief would have killed him twice if he'd let anything happen to her. Always assuming that there was anything left of him to kill…

'What about his badge and gun? You'd better have those or it's off. We're going to need them.'

Ed frowned, leaning closer. His gun, yes, he could understand that. But his badge? Why would they need that?

There was a rustling noise, then a sharp hiss of breath. Something slapped a table very loudly and Ed recoiled from the door.

'You idiot!' bellowed the older voice. 'You stupid idiot!'

'Hey…! Wh-what's wrong, boss?'

'What's wrong? Don't you know who he is, for God's sake?'

'No, he's just a cop. He was tailing Carlson, so…'

'He's Ironside's goddamn sergeant, you hear me!'

Ed jerked his head up slightly, the conversation suddenly a whole lot more meaningful.

'So what?' said the younger man.

Something like a growl came from his companion.

'Don't you have any idea about the cops in this city? We do anything to one of his boys and he won't stop until he'd brought us all in! I'm not crossing Ironside! We're not paid enough for that!'

In spite of the situation, Ed gave a small, proud smile.

'But Jim said…'

'Jim should stick to chauffeuring!' the man shouted. 'You don't take his orders! You take mine! Why didn't you check?'

'There wasn't time to get hold of everyone. I checked with Ron, afterwards, and he said that was the one at the apartment too. It seemed to be a good connection. They'll go for that.'

Ron…? Apartment? Ed narrowed his eyes. That could have been Ron Lincoln from Thompson's building. That son of a bitch, he knew that man had been up to something!

'I know!' growled the older man. 'I know he was! Lincoln told me too, you know. You just didn't think! He was bound to be the one, with Ironside sniffing around. He's Ironside's man!'

'Well, if you knew, you should have told us!'

'Shut up!' the other man snapped. 'I need to think.'

So it wasn't just that they knew he'd been at Scott Thompson's apartment, they also knew he'd been with Ironside at Carlson's house. Suddenly, Ed realised to whom the older voice belonged: it was Pete Paxton, Carlson's right hand man! He shook his head in disbelief, but it all made sense. Paxton was the man behind it.

'Well, what are we gonna do?' said the other voice. 'One way or another, we've gotta do it quickly!'

'Shut up, then!' snapped Paxton. 'Gimme a chance to think!'

'What's there to think about? Let's just put a bullet in him right now and get it over with, if this Ironside is a tenacious as you say he is!'

A stab of panic went through Ed. If they did that, he wasn't going to get much of a chance to get out of here alive. He might be able to take them on if they came through that door, but they'd be expecting something and his chances were poor, bordering on bad.

'Are you crazy?' said Paxton.

'But he's seen us. We're already in for seven others, what's one more going to do to our sentence?'

'He's a cop!'

'I thought you hated cops as much as the rest of us. I thought you wanted to off one? That's what this is all about!'

'There are rules,' said Paxton more angrily. Ed could just imagine his face as he spoke. 'And the reason for those rules is to make sure we don't get caught! It's all very well killing, but the trick is to keep out of the gas chamber!'

'Well, if we don't do something, we're going to get caught anyway!'

'It's different with a cop, we've got to be careful. That's why we waited. That's why there was a plan, remember?'

'Well…?'

There was a short silence. Ed realised he had pressed himself up close against the cold, steel door, waiting like a prisoner for news of his execution. His fear had been growing steadily more acute. It was clear that, either way, they were going to kill him.

'No one knows he's here,' the other man said. 'There's no link with the club so there's nothing to link him back to any of this. If we put a bullet in him and dump the body somewhere real quiet, they'll have a hard time tracing him back to us, or anyone else.'

Ed frowned. The man had a good point. But there was always the link to John Carlson.

'But what about Carlson,' Paxton said. 'Johnny's going to put two and two together eventually, we were supposed to get him put away before he did. But more to the point, this Sergeant Brown was supposed to be tailing him. That's enough of a link to tip off Ironside! That man isn't like other policemen.'

The thin smile spread over Ed's face once more. He was oddly pleased that the reputation of his boss was so great, even in the criminal underworld. The Chief would likely be pleased too, if he ever got the chance to tell him.

'This isn't getting us anywhere,' said the younger man. 'One way or another we've got to get rid of him.'

'Shooting him would be the simplest way,' said Paxton with a sigh. The stab of panic in Ed's chest grew stronger. 'But then… what about all the rest?'

There was a long silence. Ed hardly dared to breath, so anxious to hear what they were going to say.

'They've all had the nod,' said Paxton at last. 'They're on their way and they'll be a big turn out for a cop. Who knows they might even pay more for one of Ironside's staff. In a few hours everyone will be here. With their money.'

Money, though Ed with a sneer. That's what my life comes down to, is it? Just money?

There was the sound of pacing footsteps.

'We don't have any choice. They're all on their way. We'll just have to let Archie kill him and worry about how to get Ironside off our case later.'

At those words, the panic was replaced by a cold resolve. The matter was settled, and so was his fate; there was no other choice. But he did have time. Somehow, he had to get himself out of there. And he only had a few hours in while to do it!

Back at his office, Ironside went immediately to the files. There was no doubt in his mind that he had only a limited time before the Commissioner became involved, and only added to his problems. So he had to make something happen, and fast.

On the drive back from the totalled car, he had said very little to either his driver or to Eve. In some ways it was cruel to keep her in the dark like this, but he needed time to think. He almost had it. He could almost see the pattern, and how Ed fitted in. But what he saw filled him with fear. And he didn't want to worry Eve unnecessarily.

If he was right, all he had to do was check a couple of things. Then he would be sure. And then he would tell her.

All the information was laid out in front of him, all the work that Ed had done on the case, all the information neatly collated and written out.

Ironside flicked open the report Ed had made from his visit to Scott Thompson's apartment, reading through it once more, searching for the information he needed.

Eve waited in a chair by his side, tapping her foot anxiously. But she knew better than to interrupt her boss when he was in this sort of mood.

At last, Ironside put the file down. Then he placed the seven files, one for each body, in a line in front of them. He looked at Eve, who looked back with a steady gaze.

'Ok Chief,' she said. 'I've gone through this in my mind and I don't see that any of this makes sense. But you do. Don't you?'

'I'm not sure,' he said slowly, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

There was a pointed pause.

'But you do have a theory,' said Eve. 'I can tell.'

'I do.'

'Are you going to share it with me?'

Ironside thought about his response carefully, suddenly having second thoughts. But Eve was a trained policewoman, there was nothing to be gained by not taking her into his confidence. Except that he didn't like what he had to say. Ed and Eve; there was never any question of anything more than a professional friendship and they cared a lot about each other, and they worked well as part of his team. He didn't want to upset her.

But he had to play fair, she wouldn't want him to do anything else.

'Maybe Ed saw something he shouldn't have,' started Ironside. 'Maybe Ed found something he shouldn't.' He paused. 'Maybe they wanted him, for some particular reason. But maybe he was selected like all the others that we've pulled out of the Bay.'

'Selected?' her voice was full of tension, but her face remained fixed. 'Chief, what do you mean?'

'Chosen. Picked. Deliberately!'

'Chief, you're starting to scare me.'

Ironside turned to look at her.

'These deaths, they all have something else in common. If you wanted to watch a fight, no holds bared, all out to the end, who would you watch?'

Eve clearly found the whole conversation distasteful, but she replied anyway.

'I would watch people who knew who to fight. Make a good fight of it.'

Ironside pointed to the first four files on the table, Ronnie Stevens' file at the front and Scott Thompson's file just beside it.

'Stevens was the first, he fought someone who almost killed him, and then was taken out later by a hit and run. And Thompson was next. These were all fighters,' he said, pointing at the files. 'Except Thompson, he wasn't a pro, but he was handy and in need of money. Maybe they were well paid for it, I think they probably were. But they all knew how to fight.'

'What about the others?' asked Eve. The look on her face showed that she was beginning to see where he was going with this. 'Why would they do it? Fight like that, all the way to the end? They couldn't know.'

Ironside nodded.

'Most likely they didn't know what was waiting for them. They just thought it would be a tough match and the money would be worth all the pain.'

Eve stared at him incredulously.

'That still doesn't explain the others. They weren't trained to fight. What's the pointing watching them?'

'Fighting's a hard game, you watch a few fights and you get to know the moves. And maybe you grow tired of watching trained fighters. Maybe you've seen it all and death has grown dull.'

'Chief…'

'And say you have a grudge,' continued Ironside glowering at the table, challenging it to find fault in his logic. 'Maybe your lawyer overcharges you. Or your mechanic damages your car. Maybe you'd want a little payback. And say you had means and money to make it happen.'

Eve had turned white.

'That's… that's horrible!' she whispered.

'There are illegal fights all over this city, young men getting paid to beat each other without mercy. All it would need is a bit of nerve and the right connections, and someone happy enough to kill, or maybe who's killed before. Get all these things together and you have an organisation that kills people in the ring, for money.'

Eve gulped. Though he didn't want to keep going and cause her more worry, he continued anyway.

'How many people would like to see a cop fight for his life?'

'Chief…' Eve could barely speak.

'Cops don't have a good rep on the street, do they. Traffic cops, beat cops, Undercover, Narco, no one likes us, but they complain loud enough when we don't do our jobs. What if someone wanted a little payback for all of that, as well? I bet there would be a lot of people on the scene who would pay to see a cop get their just rewards.'

Eve couldn't answer, and she just shook her head. It took her a few minutes to form the next, obvious, question.

'But even if you assume that's true,' she said at last. 'Why Ed? Why not just any cop on the beat?'

'Cops look after other cops,' said Ironside. 'It's different for the police, we look after our own. The others were nobodies, with no one to miss them. But this time, they would need a fall-guy to take the blame.'

'John Carlson!'

Ironside nodded.

'Ed was tailing Carlson, Ed was also with me, asking awkward questions about Carlson. A lot of people would put two and two together and see John Carlson as the prime suspect. Carlson was also connected with Scott Thompson. I'm sure with a bit of digging we could come up with other connections for the rest of them. With enough small pieces of evidence, plus the sordid details of Carlson's past, he could easily go down for it.'

There was another long silence. Ironside looked at Eve as she sat there, her expression one of fear and confusion as she looked away to the far distance. But though she was shaking, she didn't break down, or over-react. At last she turned around and looked back at the Chief.

'Ok then,' she said. 'But even if you're right, that doesn't get us any closer to finding Ed. What are we going to do? We could try and find Mark, tell him what to look out for…'

'And blow his cover wide open?' interrupted Ironside. 'No, we need another angle.'

'We're still looking for the same criminal! And we still don't know where to start!'

'But we also need someone in a position to set Carlson up,' said Ironside. 'Someone close enough. Someone who knows him.'

'One of his business associates?'

'Did he mention anyone in particular to you?'

'Peter Paxton, he was the only one, I think. And there was someone called Ron who used to be in the ring that occasionally gave him good tips. I think that's all.'

Ironside frowned. Perhaps it was just that simple, Paxton or this Ron could be the one in charge. Or maybe they were both involved. It would help if her knew Ron who… His train of thought suddenly jarred to a halt. There had been a Ron somewhere else, it could be the same man.

Still frowning, he picked up Ed's report from Scott Thompson's apartment and the folder full of letters.

'What about this Ron Lincoln,' said Ironside, handing the file to Eve. 'Anything about him strike you as familiar?'

Eve read the report in silence.

'I'm not sure,' she said. 'But Ed seemed to think something was off there.'

Ironside nodded. Eve flicked through the rest of the file, looking at the letters Ed had brought back from the apartment building. Those letters were meaningless, but it had taken this Ron Lincoln five minutes to find them, or so the file said.

Eve looked at Ironside, still fingering the letters.

'You know, maybe he was doing something more productive with those five minutes than finding these letters,' suggested Eve.

Ironside nodded.

'Maybe.'

'But Scott Thompson was the last to be found!' she reminded him. 'But not the last to be killed, he was killed long before that.'

Again, Ironside nodded.

'From the timing, he was most likely the first or second. And maybe they were trying to hide that fact, and keep suspicious away from anyone connected with him.'

Eve drew a deep breath, a look of worry on her face.

'There are a lot of assumptions with this, Chief,' she said. 'And if we're wrong…'

'Well, let's turn them into facts!' interrupted Ironside.

'How?'

'Let's go and see this Ron Lincoln for ourselves!'