Red rain 2.0 (10 page)

"Yessir. Got some very attractive rates, especially on a thirty-six-monther."

"Ballpark on the payments?"

"Well, come on over to my desk, we'll do some math," he says. "That one is really loaded, just came in this week. There's not a lot of them on the road. Production's pretty limited, we even got waiting lists for buyers who want particular colors and options. Hey, let's take it for a drive first?"

"Nah, let's talk money first," I say. I know I'm gonna pay more than I have to, but I don't give a damn.

"Okay. Now, I'll have to clear this with my manager, but I think I can let it go for about $850 off the sticker, say $33,100 to keep the numbers round. Ten K down, that leaves $23,100 at thirty-six months, five and a half percent if we finance." He uses a pencil to punch burtons on his calculator. "I'm getting monthly payments of about $600."

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Michael Crvw

"I don't like that. Say I put another ten down. What then?"

"Ah, let me see, now we're looking at $460 over thirty-six."

"Close."

"But no cigar? C'mon, let's drive it. The TT'll rock you."

I pull out onto York Road, run up fast through all five gears until we hit 100. The salesman starts sweating. "Listen sir, you gotta slow down. I mean this is trouble, it's illegal, it's fucking dangerous."

"No sweat. I'm a cop," I say, fishtailing off onto a side road that runs around and behind the fairgrounds, just gliding through the loops and the curves. The gear shift and clutch are smooth and flawless as the trigger and action on my HK, the little TT seems to love the road. I'm in love. I gear down, get back onto York, and pull into the dealership like a little old lady.

The salesman's shook up. I show him my badge and photo ID. "I want the car."

"Gotta talk to the manager." He disappears into an office. A few minutes later he pokes his head out and beckons me over. 'This is Sam Limbaugh, our sales manager, Mr.... ?"

"Detective Ewing, Luther Ewing, BCPD. How ya doing?" I shake Limbaugh's hand. He grins. "Like that little baby, do you, Detective? Gave it a pretty good workout?"

"Yup."

"Numbers Pete here gave me sound doable. Gotta run a credit check, of course you understand that, Detective? So I need some ID, your social security number, your bank, your employer. No problems?"

"None," I say. I give him what's needed.

"If you wouldn't mind stepping out for a moment and letting Pete show you all the features of the TT ..."

Limbaugh comes over about ten minutes later. "We got a deal, Detective. All you have to do is sign a few papers. Leave us the check, but you'll need a certified check for $13,250 tomorrow. That extra three grand is tax, title and tag fees. You come by at 6
p.m.
with that, sign the loan agree-

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ment and you drive away. We'll have it all cleaned up, temp tags on, everything ready to go."

Shit. I'd forgotten about taxes and stuff. The hell with it. I'm doing it.

Back in my apartment, I take off the HK and the SIG. No Helen tonight. So I put two Stouffer's meatloaf dinners into the microwave, let the molecules collide as long as the package says they have to. Meanwhile I get a John Lee Hooker CD going, pick up the Dave Robicheaux mystery I've been reading and put it on the table. When the microwave buzzes, I peel off the plastic wrap, burning my fingers a bit. I pour a glass of Coke. Then I dump both meatloaf dinners onto one Dcea plate, sprinkle garlic salt all over everything and begin to eat.

Then I think about what kind of dinner I'll be having Thursday. I push the food away.

The phone rings. "What?" I say.

"Robbed your files for nothing." It's Annie. "Toxicology found just two things in the girl's blood—Valium and chlo-rahiydrate. Chloralhydrate's been around forever, it's what they used, I don't know, sixty or eighty years ago to dope somebody in a bar. The old Mickey Finn, they called it. You slip some drops into somebody's drink, he passes out, the bad guys drag him out into an alley and steal everything he's got. He wakes up a few hours later and can't remember a thing."

"So it's none of my guys then," I say.

"Probably not. I was thinking some brand-new designer drug, hard to come by, which would limit the field to medical people, pharmaceutical people. Or much more likely, one of your dealers. But any housewife in the county can find a doc who'll write a script for Valium. And chloralhydrate's even easier. It's prescription, but not a four-parter, not a controlled substance. No way to track down buyers of that."

"So a dead end?"

"Yeah, dead end."

7

When I hit the squad room next morning—late—-Tommy and Gus are juked up and jamming.

"It's double-bonus time now," Tommy says, grinning. Turns out last night they popped a young Ecstasy merchant they'd been watching for a week or so outside the Cineplex at Dulaney Mall. Not a huge haul, maybe twenty-five Zip-Iocs in his backpack. Two pills, as usual, but two glassines of smack, four good lines.

"The asshole'd been sampling his own wares," Gus says, laughing. "A line was missing from one Ziploc. Just one line and the punk's practically asleep on his feet. I don't think he even realized we cuffed him, put him in the car and brought him here. He couldn't get a coherent word out for at least an hour. And when he could he didn't know where the fuck he was."

"You should've seen the look on his face when it dawned on him, Luther," Tommy rattles. "It was like, Say what? I'm sitting here with
copsl
I'm busted! How the fuck did that happen?"

"Complete moron," Gus says. "Naturally he spills his guts."

"And?" I ask.

"Same old same old," Tommy says. "Some guy he met at a club. Can't remember what he looked like, only ordinary, real short hair. Gave him an Ecstasy tab, though. Talked a

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little biz. They meet two nights later, he gives him five hundred dollars and he gives him the twenty-five Ziplocs. Claims he never got the chance to sell even one before we popped him. Said since he paid twenty dollars a bag, he was figuring on retailing at fifty dollars.

" 'But hey,' he goes, 'I never sold one. So like, how come I'm busted?'" Gus says. "Tells us we can go ahead and count 'em and we'll see all twenty-five are there. Said he was sorry he snorted that one line and he wasn't going to get into trouble or anything for that, was he?"

"Dumbest fuck yet," Tommy says, shaking his head in disbelief.

They walk away laughing way too loud.

I'm thinking we've got someone very savvy out there. Very smart, good business plan. Introduce new product to your consumers a taste at a time. Totally nonscary—hey, you can't get addicted from snorting a couple of lines every now and then. The kids get comfortable with it. Then add a couple more lines. Hey, this is cool. We can handle this, no problem. Big problem. 'Cause they get used to it, they imagine they're handling it, and then a day or two goes by and they can't get any and they find out they
need
it. Pretty soon they need it bad. Pretty soon they'll do anything to get it.

Don't want to think about that, so I stop.

The room starts to empty out around lunchtime. I remember I need that check today for the TT, so I run over to the bank, get it, pick up a ham and swiss on rye at the deli and come back to the squad room. It's empty. I go back to my own cubicle. Annie settles into the other chair there. She's looking sleek and groomed, but not at all pleased with herself.

"Could be another dead end," she says. "The girl's parents are giving me grief about talking to her again."

"Tell 'em we're issuing a press release otherwise."

"I did. They're going to get back to me, but the tone's changed. I'm not sure they'll cave. Ah, I don't know, Luther.

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I feel like I've got to get this bastard quick. I think maybe I've got to stay on it. No weekend in Virginia."

"Listen, Annie. You know very well you're not going to nail anyone in the next three days. You've got your team on the case, they know their business or they wouldn't still be on your team, right?"

"Yeah, but I feel I need to be here."

"When's the last time you had a vacation?"

"Um, last March, I think. I took a week."

"Where'd you go?"

"Well, nowhere actually. I worked on my house."

"Give your brain a break. You need a little distance maybe. Maybe pieces'U come together when you're not so consciously concentrated on making them come together. Meanwhile, you've got your people out doing all the scut work, trying to find witnesses, checking the car angle, all that."

"Yeah, but I feel—"

"Friday around six, unless you get a sudden breakthrough, you drive down to Virginia with me. Just like we planned. Anything happens over the weekend, your people can reach you and we'll be back here in three hours. Okay?"

"Ah Luther, I don't know."

"C'mon Annie. I'm right about this."

"Maybe you are. Let's see what happens in the next few days."

"Good enough."

"I'll try to make it happen." Annie smiles. It's low on the scale of her range of smiles.

"Do me a favor? Drop the Gulf War cliches you learned from me." I grin. "They date you."

I'm at the Audi dealership at six. The car looks like a dream. Limbaugh's beaming when I've signed the last of the forms, hands me the keys like they're the keys to heaven. The man must believe in his product. "Let 'er rip, Detective. Drive

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her hard, she wants it that way. But don't forget the scheduled maintenance. That's very, very important."

I'm as smooth as I've been in a long, long time when I pull out of the dealership. The TT feels good, it smells good, it sounds good, it moves good. I spend the next four hours driving around, just cruising past spots where we know some dealing goes down, checking out the malls, watching the young girls leaving stores and cinemas. Then I take it out on the expressway and push it up to 125, just touching that for a moment, than easing back down to the speed limit.

I feel like I want to take the TT into the apartment with me, park it right in the main room and just stare at it. But I lock it up, go in alone and go to bed. Sleep's a while coming; my legs are still, but I can feel them moving clutch and accelerator pedal. It's some time before I realize my mind's been blanked, not a thought about Bonus Packs, Russians, the reservoir girl, even my Alpha homies in Iraq. I just forgot the fucking world for at least fifteen minutes. For the first time in years.

Over a goddamn car. I pay for that when it all floods back, hours of images moving on fast-forward into one long stream, images tough enough to bear when they only come one at a time. Then, finally, a freeze-frame that kills any chance I had for sleep: Vassily's face, eyes fixed on mine.

8

Hausner's: hi-rez. Tang of Old Bay seasoning filling my nostrils, sharp crack of crab claws and shells bursting loud and distinct out of the low rumble of talk and laughter. The wood of the tables and chairs has been waxed and rewaxed for so many years it looks black. On the walls are old but almost grainless and glowing photographs of fleets of Chesapeake skipjacks under sail dredging for oysters, Bay watermen tonging from skiffs or hauling in wood-and-wire pots full of blue channel crabs, armadas of log canoes heeling hard during a race. A lost world. I get lost in it for a minute. Slack. I go to superscan, checking every face, hearing every sound, totally alert to movement, to comings and goings.

Not alert enough. Strong, thick-fingered hands seize my head before I sense the presence behind me, pull it back almost as far as my neck will bend. I feel my hand moving for the HK, just manage to freeze the reflex. The fingers are probing all around my skull. One finds the dent. Almost strokes it for a moment. Then the hands are gone. Somebody's laughing.

"Shooter! A lot you changed, these years. I don't recognize you." I turn and see Vassily beaming down at me. He's wearing a navy linen suit, hair's cropped so close it's just a white-blond stubble, face round as round can be except that his cheeks are bulging 'cause he's grinning so broadly. "But

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hole in the head, I know it's you. So, they put a plate in there, yes? You more crazy now than then?"

"Guess about as crazy as you." I stand up. "You scared the shit out of me just now."

"Oh sure, I see how you tremble." He chuckles. "Very frightened man." He seizes my head again and plants a big kiss on the top. No trick, since he's about 6'6". Then the big Russian hug, meaty arms almost cracking my ribs. "Thin like a bird. Nobody would believe little guy like you could do some things I see with my own eyes. Nobody!"

Then that laugh again. Eyes cold blue like a Siberian husky. And shiny, a little wet. He releases me, rubs his eyes with those huge hands. "Excuse me please, too much emotional. So much time ..."

"The river flows, Vassily," I say, moving the talk into Russian. He follows my lead.

"Ah, it's like some miracle, our paths crossing again," he says, moving around the table and sitting down. "Never did I think to see you again, my friend. It is too good. Some times we had, no? Remember the night we go up that hill?..."