Chapter 25
"Good news or bad news first?" Sam asked, sitting at the head of the conference table furthest from the door.
Max sniffed every corner of the room, looking for crumbs from Sam's conference-room meals.
"Bad. Goes with this bitter coffee." I handed him a fresh mug and sat on his lap. I'd forced myself to rejoin Sam in his efforts to compile a case against Stone, more out of solidarity than courage to face my nightmare. Besides the cheap drug-store coffee, cowardice was a lingering taste in my mouth.
"I'm sure Vilet would approve an order of your fancy city roast." He leaned around me and pulled a couple slips of paper from his legal pad.
"Trust me, he did. But the men prefer this motor oil, so Vilet and I are the only ones who drink the stuff, and we're all out. Your boss drinks more coffee than you do."
"Scary." He sighed at the report in his hand. "We can't locate the Mo's bartender. We've got BOLOs out in every county of New York, but no luck. Let's hope we get to him first."
I lowered my mug. "First, as in before Goliath finds him and executes him."
"When we broadcast our efforts, we're inviting Goliath to track our moves. Cost of business, baby."
Putting more innocents on Goliath's radar strained my conscience. "Maybe we should call off the search, Sam."
"Hey, stay on board. This is more than just clearing up our conflicting stories. We need witnesses to take down Goliath and that Prick. And we can better protect witnesses when we know where they are."
"Protect. That's a four letter word around me, you know." I sipped my coffee, hiding my smirk. Sam didn't need me rubbing his nose in my horrendous experience of federal protection. "You said New York, but not surrounding states. If he couldn't find action in Manhattan, maybe he tried Atlantic City."
Sam set aside his mug and patted my leg. "Good thinking. New Jersey, you're up next." He scratched a couple notes on his legal pad. "I'll add Boston, Philly and D.C. to the search. Hate to call attention to our case in districts where I don't know the players, but we're getting down to the wire here."
Vilet had given us two more weeks to make our stories stick and hand off reports to the ADA. We needed a break in the case, and soon.
"I've been thinking." I pinched playfully at his chest when Sam responded by giving Max that run-for-the-hills look. "Goliath must want Stone out of the way as much as we do. He told me he has information he can hold over their heads, if they ever try to kill him. Maybe we're doing Goliath a favor. Maybe they won't interfere." And maybe I was sniffing too much natural gas over the kitchen stove and frying brain cells.
Sam swiped a hand over his face. "You're probably right, but we can't exactly collude with the enemy to get what we need."
"No, but if they think we are only after Stone, not them, they might stay out of the way." The thought of colluding with Goliath turned my stomach to lead. Or maybe it was the coffee.
"Boss will never drop the case against Goliath."
"I didn't say to drop the case officially. Reynolds is dead. So Stone's the only one involved with the incident at Mo's, and his case is the only one they need to know we're pursuing."
I waited for Sam to think over my idea while he stirred his coffee. "Might be worth a shot."
"So tell me some good news already. Or I'll be forced to interrogate you in Vilet's nasal voice."
Sam cringed. "Don't even threaten that." Another sheet of paper from the pile appeared. "We dumped Burke's call log. I was right, you were wrong. I never called Burke that night from my cell phone."
