Red rain 2.0 (15 page)

Dog's an odd one. Put him in a suit, and nobody here would look twice. They'd be right not to. He's got a BS from Maryland, his family's solid. Dad's been earning good money at a union job at Bethlehem Steel since before Dog was born, mom's active in their neighborhood Baptist Church. But the city's the city. Dog's older brother went bad early, ran wild with some gangstas, wound up all wet and messy on a sidewalk, shot dead in a drug deal gone bad.

The man was skeptical of me, first meet back when Dugal lent me out to the city. Not that I gave a shit. He turned anyway on the second bust we did. Dog and his team got four guys of a crew on the floor of their crack crib, enough evidence lying around to send them all away for ten to twenty. I'm easy, leaning against the wall next to the kitchen door. Peripheral only; fifth crew member slips out, Tec-9 cocked and locked, Dog and his guys swivel, know they're dead. I stop that. No biggie. All training, all instinct. Before anybody can blink I've broken the fuck's gun arm so bad there's a jagged point of bone sticking through the skin of his forearm, he's down, the Tec-9's skittering across the floor, I've got my boot on his thorax, and he'd have been dead as he lay if Dog hadn't moved fast and pulled me off him.

Pure instinct, from the training. Don't remember what moves I used. They just happened. Muscle memory. Don't really remember moving at all. Dog remembers, though. His
_;
homies remember. We get fairly tight after that. Dinner every couple of weeks or so at this Chinese place that specializes in Peking duck. Dog's a fiend for that, heaping on

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the hoisin and shredded scallions. A few times he has me over to his mother's for fried chicken and greens. "Doesn't get any better than this, Mamma," Dog says the first time.

"Now Lincoln, you just have another thigh," his mother replies. Lincoln. Dog's real name is Lincoln. But he gives me a look that makes it real clear I'd best never call him that, or tell anybody.

I ease down next to him, I see the suits pick up their pace as they pass us. "What you know good, home?" Dog says, not looking at me, not asking a question either. He's wearing baggy jeans and a real loose Tommy Hilfiger athletic-style shirt, sleeves pushed up his corded forearms. Six small gold hoops adorn his left ear.

"Jammin', Dog," I say. "What's goin' down?"

"You heard that already from my man."

"I heard two narcs, in South. White shooter."

"You ignorant? Or you be playin' dumb?"

"I'm real stupid," I say. A shadow falls across us. Look up, there's a young uniform, trying to be cool, but having a lot of trouble keeping his right hand a decent distance from his holster. He's black but he's still scared. The suits really start scurrying now. Dog flips open his gold shield. "Sorry," the uniform says, backing up a step and turning to move on.

"You wanna be watchin' that racial profiling, dig, Officer?" Dog says softly, then takes another bite of his cannoli.

"Nosir, it wasn't... I mean yessir," the young patrolman says, scuttling off. Dog permits himself a small chuckle. He's not a laughing sort of man.

"So you dumb, Luther? Here's what it is," he says, crumpling up the paper that cradled the cannoli and stuffing the little wad into one of the many pockets of his jeans. "Besides two cops down on a buy-and-bust with two gang-bangers."

"Bad?"

"Whacked, man. Past week, we got three Crips killed in the head, two Bloods killed in the head. One Crip we make

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as an LA import, the other two local recruits. One Blood's from LA, one's another local."

"So it's turf?"

"Wish it was. Here's what's whacked. The Bloods and the Crips, far as we can take it, ain't shooting each other. They've had their territories marked off clean for nearly a year. Lookin' like we got a white shooter on these five. Lookin' like the same shooter, or motherfuckers who went to the same school as the motherfucker tapped our two guys."

"That is whacked. You thinkin' the Italians figure the bangers are rippin' them off? Lesson time?"

"Fuck no. The Italians, they all too fat and happy. They don't have the stones for no war no more. Shit, they all living out your way in big houses now, takin' life easy. They got the gamblin', the track, the loansharkin', and they sourcin' the crack and smack the niggers be street-sellin'. Why they want trouble?"

"Like I said, maybe the Crips and Bloods are shortin' them."

"Easy answer. But wrong. Doesn't tell me why they'd hit two of our guys, leave two niggers alive. Never been a hit on a cop by a mob guy in my twenty years on this shit-ass job. And the hits are weird, man."

"Weird?"

"Everybody uses 9-millie hollows here. Dome shots, usually from behind. Bone and brains splashed everwhere, looking all shitty. But all seven of these shootees was tapped in the face by three very small pills, like .22 size small. No mess at all. And forensics, they can't
even find
these pills. So you tell me, soldier boy, what we dealin' with here?"

AKSU-74s, submachine guns not much larger than a big pistol like the Eagle. Standard set-up: 3-round burst, full-auto rock 'n' roll. Slightly longer, thinner bullet, shorter and fatter cartridge than our 5.56mm M16 round. Russian.

"Hey Dog, mystery to me," I say. "Don't sound like anything I've ever seen."

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Dog gets up, looks down at me. "Give it some of your fine, fine thought, Luther. Then give me what I know damn well you know, jive motherfuck," he says, chill. Then he walks away.

I'm twisted, driving back to Towson. Have to face what I was trying hard to keep in denial. It's Vassily. No way there's two Russian crews on the same turf. And Russians are all muscle, crude boys, no nice rules against cop killing. I'm thinking I can't let IB anywhere near this — got to keep him and MJ safely out of the way. How the hell will I manage that, unless I cut out Dugal and the squad entirely, go freelance? Or go just with Dog. Either way, it means stepping straight into the deepest shit in the world.

The digital flash on my answering machine, the one I've ignored all week, is up to number five. Last thing I feel like doing, but I check the messages out.

One: "Hey, Luther, I'm back. Are you? Call me." It's Helen.

Two: "Missing you, babe. Still not back? Awfully long holiday. Love ya." Helen again.

Three: "O lhat I knew he were but in by the week! How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek...." English Lit major. Sounds like Shakespeare or someone like him. The girl loves her poesy.

Four: "Luther, it's me, Helen. Listen, I'm getting really worried about you. Are you okay? Call me soon as you can, or I'm calling the police."

Five: "Fuck yourself, Luther. I'm sure not going to anymore, if you don't call me in the next twelve minutes. Goodbye."

Yeah, well. I would miss that. I spend a long time in the shower, though. Wash my hair twice with some herbal Body Shop shampoo Helen left last June, before she went home for the summer. Shave, which I really only need to do every three or four days, thanks to those Vietnamese genes. Deodorant. Then I slip into my yukata and call Helen back.

"Damn, Luther! Where've you been? Why didn't you call?" she says.

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"Tell you all about it, if you come over."

"Give me an hour," she says. "And you better have some good excuses." She giggles. "You better be all-around good to me tonight, as a matter of fact."

I put on a tape I'd made—a mix of Crash Test Dummies, Nirvana, new Pearl Jam, and easing off with a lot of tracks from Dido and Sinead Lohan—and lie down on the sofa to wait. Thinking a lot about 5.45s. Mean little bastards got a small air pocket behind the tip, do horrendous damage when they hit flesh, ten times worse than our 5.56s. Afghans called 'em "poison bullets" because any man hit by one, anyplace on his body, was almost certain to die of the wound.

Kill that thinking. Start trying to picture Helen. Hannah the baby vixen shows up instead. Wicked. Wonderful images. I'm asleep when Helen rings the bell.

She comes striding long-legged into the place like she owns it, I see her eyes quarter the room almost like a trained investigator. Looking for what?

"So, babe," she grins, "How'd it go with your parents and your little cop-ette friend? Good times roll? Was it, like, what you expected, or a sweet surprise?"

Did I tell her I was taking Annie to Tyding's Landing? Did I even tell her I was going there at all? How much had I told her about the rift between Gunny and me, if I'd told her anything at all? Damn tabs. They grease your memory so things slide away, but there's no pattern, no structure to it, you can't tell what'U go and what'll stick in the Save file. And even stuff you're sure is saved and stored sometimes just won't call up. Then when you aren't looking for it, it'll often pop open.

The girl's got me off-balance in less than a minute. Plus she's looking terrific in a thin white linen shirt—Club Monaco, I guess—hanging loose over tight black linen pants that flair a bit at the bottom. I can just make out slightly darker points where her nipples press the shirt, and the way the shirt moves when her breasts do.

I wrap her up tight, body to body, and run my tongue over

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her lips. Her mouth opens slightly. She pushes me away after a moment, stands hip-shot, one arm bent and hand grasping her waist, head cocked so her hair sways a bit to one side and hangs there.

"Well?" she says. "Account for your whereabouts and your goings-on. Where were you on the nights of September fifth, sixth and seventh? Anything you say can and will be held against you."

She's grinning but she wants some answers. I give her the short version—Tyding's, my job. No details on what was said, just things went okay, I was hopeful. No mention of Dog. Or Vassily.

"So. You have an alibi, except about the cop-ette. Are you messing around with her or what, Luther?"

"Hell no." I laugh. Then I make a tactical mistake. "Though I admit it might be fun. If she'd have anything to do with me, which she won't.

"She's got a real tight body, like this one here," I add, touching her in a couple of crucial places.

"At her age?" Helen says. "Cellulite time already for that woman, I bet. And she's way old for you—given your kinky tastes, Luther."

But Helen loosens up, no serious jealousy trip, she's just yanking my chain for fun. We drink some wine she'd brought down from her father's cache, a Chateau Trotanoy, maybe $80 a bottle. Then we indulge some of those kinky tastes. Hard to tell which are mine and which are hers, they're such a slick fit. I catch myself wondering where the hell she got her training, since I never taught her a thing. Stifle that brainwave quick. Luther's rule—don't ask, don't tell.

The Halliday kid sets up the meet. A Friday afternoon, the light soft and buttery but still strong enough and hot enough to send up wavery mirages off the black asphalt of the parking lot. It's going to be a drive-by, this first contact. We decide to drop the young plainclothes idea, I'm doing it

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myself. The buyer has to look like someone serious, not just another local kid.

James's man is no rookie. Crowded mall lot, hundreds of cars, shoppers picking up things for the weekend flowing back and forth from the stores to their rides. The kid's man will cruise the lot until he sees the TT, with me in the driver's seat and Halliday outside sitting on the hood. He'll stop if he feels safe, roll down his window as I roll down mine, exchange a few words, drive off. Nobody notices a thing, no citizen even registers what goes down.

It does go down, just like that. The guy's in his twenties, blond hair buzz cut, sunglasses with thick, black plastic frames, blue T-shirt. His car's too common to make, the sort of generic sedan that could be a Toyota, a Nissan, a Mitsubishi, a Honda. Who the hell knows? It's beige, though the maker probably calls it Desert Moon or Pearl Taupe or something. It needs a wash.

"Your bud?" Buzz Cut says to Halliday. Voice as beige and generic as the car. The kid nods. Buzz Cut turns his head to me, though I can't see where his eyes are focused, with those glasses. "'What's your name?"

"People call me Snake," I say.

"Weird name, man. Nasty connotations. You ever think of encouraging people to call you something less provocative?"

"Nah," I say. I'm not wearing shades, I want him to see my eyes. People get nervous when they can't see your eyes.

"I would. I wouldn't want to be known by that."

"Does it make a difference?"

"Not really. Whatever you can live with."

"I live with it just fine."

"Just fine, right. What else would be just fine?"

"Some of what makes Jimmy fine. But a fuck of a lot more of it. Plus a fuck of a lot more of those little surprises in glassine envelopes that come with it."

"Very vague, man. Fuck of a lot? What's that supposed to tell me?"

RED
RAIN

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"About fifty times what Jimmy got last go. About five hundred times of the surprise packs. Just to get started."

"Unusual proportion. This maybe sounds like the beginning of competition, not a deal."

"I don't do biz around here. From Rockville and Gaithersburg way out toward Frederick, Hagerstown. Lot of high schools out that way," I say. "Had a wholesaler in D.C. Need a new one."