Free The Death Box by J. A. Kerley

Gershwin’s new ID card. “Provisional Investigator?”
    “I let him in the door, but he’s not getting the big key. This’ll let him do whatever odd jobs you need.”
    I thanked Roy and turned for Gershwin’s private Siberia. On the way I dropped the badge in my pocket and patted its weight. It felt good.
    “Provisional?” Gershwin asked when I got back, staring between me and his new ID.
    “Don’t start with me,” I said. “I’m a four-star general.”
    He slid the card in his wallet. “That mean I have to salute you, Alabama?”
    “No. It means you call me Detective Ryder. You have to keep your ass on the concrete firms, our only lead. There’s a lot to do in digging up employees with records.”
    Gershwin reached for the Yellow Pages and opened to a sticky tab. “There’s over twenty concrete companies in the area, more if you include surrounding counties. If each company has twenty employees to be checked out, that adds up to—”
    “I knows how math works, kid.”
    A smirk and waggled finger. “Ah, Deee-tective Ryder, but what if there’s a short cut that names ex-cons working around concrete trucks?”
    “Sure. And what if there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?”
    He handed the book to me. “What do you see?”
    “Ads for concrete companies.”
    “Look closer. A lot of them have little logos: Better Business Bureau, Business Alliance of Florida, American Association of Concrete Haulers, that sort of thing.”
    I nodded. “True. What I don’t see is a listing of the criminal backgrounds of the employees, which is what we’ve got to get working on.”
    “Check out the Redi-flow company, lower right.”
    A half-page ad featuring a drawing of a truck dispensing concrete into a foundation as workers looked on. The ad had the usual listing of professional-organization logos plus an outline of a fish holding the letters CPP. “It’s all the same except for the fish logo,” I said. “You know what it means?”
    “It stands for the Christian Prison Project, religious businesspeople who mainstream ex-cons back into civilian life, get them starter jobs. I figured that’s what Redi-flow does, and if so, they have ex-cons on the payroll, right?”
    I’d thought the kid was joking, but he’d combined brains and observation and come up with gold.
    “So we’re going to the Parole Board next, Gershwin?”
    He waved a sheaf of pages. “Nope. They just faxed me a list of company hires. The business is owned by a dude named George Kazankis. Turns out Kazankis has hired twenty-six ex-cons in twelve years in business.”
    I felt my pulse quickening. “Light-timers or hardcore?”
    “Anyone’s fodder for Kazankis’s personal ministry. He’s also got a good record for keeping them straight: most have managed to stay out of the joint.”
    I shot a thumbs up. “Sounds like we pay a visit to Mr Kazankis. But first we stop by the motor pool.”

12
    “Son of a bitch,” Gershwin said, staring at yards of gleaming black metal and chrome. “That’s yours?”
    I looked to the guy who just handed me the keys, a label on his stained blue work shirt embroidered with the name Julio. He nodded. “All yours, Detective Ryder. Captain McDermott said you were senior status. That means the Tahoe.”
    I climbed inside. After my pickup, the thing felt like I was in the pilot house of a destroyer. The instrumentation appeared to have been pulled from a Cessna. The new-vehicle smell made my head light. I jumped out.
    “Got anything smaller, Julio?”
    Julio stared at me like I’d asked a waiter to return a prime filet and bring a can of tuna instead. “But this is what all senior personnel drive, Detective.”
    “Dude,” Gershwin said. “I mean Detective Ryder, this is hot wheels deluxe.”
    “What else you got, Julio?”
    “All the others are standard cruisers.”
    I saw a line of cars and trucks across the lot. “What are those?”
    “Seized contraband, vehicles taken from criminals. When