Madman on a Drum Read Online Free PDF

unharmed. Afterward, we’re going to get the men who took her. We might be rough about it.”
    â€œAgent Honsa,” I said, “you’re starting to grow on me.”
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    â€œDo you want to hear the tape again?” the tech agent asked.
    â€œYes,” Bobby said.
    â€œNo,” I said.
    Bobby glared at me.
    â€œI’ve heard that damn thing fifty times,” I said. “Maybe the name will come to us if we stop listening for a while.”
    Bobby glared some more.
    â€œYou need a break,” I said.
    â€œI’ll decide that.”
    Bobby readjusted the headphones over his ears. A moment later he pulled off the headphones and tossed them on the table. “I need a break,” he said.
    We went to the kitchen. Bobby rummaged through his refrigerator. I thought he might be looking for a beer. Instead, he removed a Pepsi, popped the top, and drank greedily.
    â€œRemember Jolt?” he said. “It was pop that they claimed had ‘all the sugar and twice the caffeine.’ ”
    â€œI remember.”
    â€œI could use some Jolt right now. I wonder what happened to it.”
    â€œYou can still get it,” I told him. “You can buy it over the Internet in longneck bottles. Although, when you think about it, you can get the same amount of caffeine from regular coffee.”
    â€œNever been a coffee drinker.”
    â€œNina likes to eat chocolate-covered coffee beans.”
    â€œThat’s another reason why I question the woman’s judgment. That and the fact that she’s been seeing you for, what, nearly two years now?”
    â€œI like to think it’s a tribute to her good taste.”
    â€œYou know, sometimes I’ll access the Department of Corrections Web site and study the Level Three sex offender information. I find out the exact location of every sex offender who lives within ten miles of here. I make the girls look at the mug shots. I tell them that if they ever see one of those guys… Shelby thinks I’m being overprotective.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œI’m a cop. I carry a gun. I spend my days hunting down murderers and rapists and thieves and every other piece of trash you can think of, but I can’t protect my own daughters.”
    â€œIt’s not your fault.”
    â€œWho said anything about fault? I know whose fault it is. The bastards who took Victoria, it’s their fault. Still, a guy’s supposed to protect his family, isn’t he?”
    â€œAs best he can, yeah.”
    Bobby finished his soft drink and hammered the empty can against the kitchen counter.
    â€œThere are things that I can’t do, that I can’t get away with because I’m a cop,” he said. “Do you know what I mean by things?”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œYou can do them.”
    â€œYou mean after we find out who took Victoria. After we make sure she’s safe.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œYeah,” I said.
    From the expression on his face, I knew Bobby would hold me to that promise.
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    Bobby and I returned to the tape recording. A few minutes later, Harry approached us with a handheld radio in his mitt.
    â€œGentlemen,” he said, “we have something.” He spoke to the tech agent. “Map.”
    â€œCity or state?”
    â€œCity.”
    The tech agent spread the map over the table. Bobby and I and all four agents gathered around it.
    â€œSt. Paul PD found the van on Jackson Street near East Seventh,” Harry said. It took him about ten seconds to locate the spot in the northeast corner of downtown St. Paul.
    â€œThat’s the Badlands,” I said.
    Honsa wanted to know, “Badlands?”
    â€œIn the twenties and thirties, when St. Paul was a haven for gangsters”—I circled the area immediately east of the state capitol campus casually with my finger—“they called this the Badlands because of the speakeasies and the bootleggers and