Red rain 2.0 (6 page)

"I'm gone, boss."

I start looking at my arrest files. I catch one on a boy IB and I took down just last week. Had enough stuff, and yammered enough, for a sure felony conviction. But I remember him, maybe feel a little sorry for him. Son of a corporate gypsy named Halliday, been to six schools in six cities in twelve years, no friends here yet, probably never has made many. Reminds me of somebody else as a kid. I liked his parents when they came with their attorney to make bail the same night we busted him. They were concerned. They didn't want him spending even a night in jail. Said he'd always been good, never been in trouble. They all say that, of course. But these people didn't try any of that bullshit of blaming us, like most of the ones who come in.

Good people, it'd seemed to me.

Use 'em.

I call the father.

"Mr. Halliday, Detective Ewing. Yes, the one who arrested your son the other night. We talked at the station, yes.

"Sir, I may have a way to get this business changed from a felony to a misdemeanor. It would mean no jail time for James if that happens. Would you care to talk about the possibility?

"No sir, it's not necessary for you to come in with your son right away. This is all very preliminary and informal."

I tell the father that if James will agree to contact his supplier, claim he has a friend who wants to deal on a scale much larger than James was, and go with this "friend" to meet his supplier, my chief and I would encourage the DA's office to reduce the charges.

"We do this a lot. The DA's very supportive of it. The fact is, sir, we're not here to put away kids like James. We want the bigger guys, the ones who got James into trouble."

No danger, I tell him. The "friend" would be a narcotics officer, very highly trained. There'd be close backup. James would never be alone with the dealer, never out of our hearing or sight.

"Yes, I understand James may be fearful of his supplier, sir. That is natural, perfectly natural. But he'd be with us. No risk at all. It would, sir, clear his record and, most importantly, keep him out of jail.

"No, of course I don't need an answer now, sir. This is something you need to discuss with your family. I'd also suggest calling your attorney and informing him of everything I've said. If you decide you'd like to pursue this course, phone me anytime. You have my office and cell numbers, correct? Very good, sir.

"No, no trouble at all, sir. I hope to hear from you."

I put down the'receiver and stare at James Halliday's file on my screen. I'm not really seeing anything. If his supplier is really connected, I think, the kid's gonna be in deep shit for ratting. But nobody has to know, we work it right. Anyway, James'd be dead meat in jail from the moment he walks in. Pretty boy like him. .. some hard-time dude's new wife before he can blink.

I call Dugal, tell him about Halliday. He isn't impressed.

"Hell, Luther, we made the same offer to a dozen or more of these little rats. All of them were too scared."

"Got a feeling about this one, LT," I say. "I think the dad really wants to do the right thing. I can feel it's going to happen."

"I'm not holding my breath," Dugal says.

"Just had an inspiration, made the call."

"Let me know if you ever get one back." Dugal hangs up.

On the way to the parking lot I give myself my routine pat-down. HK in a paddle holster on my right side, SIG-Sauer compact chambered for .357 SIG on my left ankle, spare clips for each, SOG knife belt-sheathed in the small of my back. Oh yeah, badge and ID in my shirt pocket. I feel like a clown in baggy khakis and a dobby-weave cotton shirt three sizes too big from Banana Republic, tails hanging down around my thighs. But I need all the billows I can get to cover up the hardware.

Out in Cockeysville, I stop at this overpricey pseudo-Italian deli. I like a treat now and again, and I've got one coming tonight. I buy some fresh figs and prosciutto di Parma, some local tomatoes I'll dice and saute with garlic, some radicchio and mesclun, a loaf of Tuscan bread, a bottle of Pinot Grigio. I park the black Camaro I've had since I was seventeen, go up to my apartment. Dump my hardware, shuck those clothes, quick shower, slip into some soft jeans and a jersey T-shirt, put Sarah McLachlan in the sleek Sony mini-stereo. Then I stretch out on the sofa and look around. Could be anywhere. There isn't a truly personal thing in the place. Even the good books on the shelves are pretty generic, and the CD holder's full of whatever I liked when I heard it on the radio over the past three or four years. Say Luther Ewing lives there, and all you're saying is that some single guy in his late twenties, early thirties lives there. Except for this one thing.

I reach under the sofa, get my fingernail in the crack, and pry up a square of parquet flooring. I lift out a framed 8X10.

I put the photo face down on my chest; I can't just look at it right away, I've got to have my mind squared and steady. Then I look. My monster dune buggy in the Iraqi sands, oh so loaded, twin .50s mounted on the roll bar, a rack of Stingers along one side. There's Snake up behind the .50s, no shirt, just a flak vest, head wrapped in a blue bandana, like a pirate. There's JoeBoy, no Kevlar beanie either, behind the wheel, wearing night-vision goggles up on his head and looking like some killer insect, waving his M4. And there's the Comanche, full warpaint and long black hair blowing, a ferocious Franchi SPAS 12-gauge Velcro'd to the dash in front of him, an HK MP5 submachine gun fitted with sound suppressor in each hand, pointing right at the camera. And we're grinning our asses off. There's four or five other buggies with three-man teams parked close around us.

I look at Snake and JoeBoy for a few moments, scan some of the fainter, grainier faces of men on other buggies—there's Radar, Ricky B, Tark, Loose Bruce, The Duke, Squeaky, Chris, Tony Ducks, Matty—then glance quickly again at mine. Brothers once. Fuck it. I slip the photo back in its cache and replace the parquet square.

I'm way down the hole, deep into the dark and paralyzed, REM in control. I imagine a ringing. How the fuck did it get here? Another, sucking me up from sleep. Another, then another.

"Yeah," I mutter, picking up the phone beside the bed.

"It's me," I hear. I check my watch: 2:47.

"No kidding."

"Sorry I went all bitchy on you this morning," Annie says.

"S'okay."

"You were just..."

"Don't explain. I get it."

"Luther?"

"Huh?"

"What if I come over to your apartment, put a little something in your drink, do anything I want to? And when you wake up, you'll never even remember me or the drink, never mind the dirty stuff. Total amnesia."

"Sounds shitty."

"What?"

"I'd wanna remember every dirty detail, with you."

"Yeah, well, the dope the reservoir girl got put a nine-hour blank spot in her head that could be there forever."

The girl next to me shifts, murmurs, "Luther, why you on the phone, babe?"

"Whoops," Annie says, catching it. I can't tell if the little giggle she lets out is amused or sort of disappointed. "Five-O's busy. Sorry. Bye."

"Just police crap. They never care what time it is when they phone," I say to the girl, who's crawled up under my armpit and draped a smooth, smooth leg languorously over mine.

"Yeah ... seen that on
NYPD Blue.
Get an unlisted number, hmmm?"

"Great idea. Back to sleep now, pretty."

4

Waking next morning, I have the sense I'm looking at some digital page from an Ikea catalog, one they only release in Sweden. There's a naked girl in it, though I don't notice right away. I see a Stromstad sofa in gray chenille ($699) facing two bright blue Arjang easy chairs ($49 each) across a Morke wool pile rug (six-by-nine, $149). In between is a plain pine Krokshult coffee table ($149), and over by the kitchen nook an Igesund dining table and four chairs. Near the bed, in the Nyland standing mirror in a blue-stained spruce frame ($179), I see a pair of endless tegs and a flawless ass, toned by years of tennis and riding, slipping away from me into a pair of tight black cotton capri pants, a taut but softly modeled back and just the slightest curve of one small breast vanishing under a black sleeveless cotton blouse with a spread collar.

She's only twenty; she'll never look exactly this perfect again.

Sascha roman blinds mute the daylight. Full set of glasses, knives, forks, spoons, plates, towels, sheets and blankets in their appointed places. Assorted table and floor lamps. Bought it all in one day—took me five trips to get it home.

The girl wasn't part of the package.

There'll be a day, I think then, when a catalogue or a DVD may be the only place I'll see a woman this fine. And
feel idiotic grieving over a loss far in a future I don't even believe I'll have. Christ, I'm only thirty.

I need my morning tab.

Helen—yeah, the old-fashionedness of her name suits her so well—Helen's back from summer break only yesterday, ready to start her final year at Goucher College. There'll be plenty of mornings like this. Keep your horizons short, Ewing, I remind myself. You live in the present tense only. Don't let yourself go the way you did a couple of mornings last June, just before Helen was going home for the summer to New Canaan or whatever rich Yankee enclave she comes from. Don't start imagining what it'd be like to see Annie's legs slide into those pants, Annie dressing fresh from your bed ...

Helen tosses her honey hair and glances over her shoulder as she bends to slip on her sandals. "Jammin' night, Luther," she smiles. "Hadn't realized how much I've been missing you."

"So come on back here. Linger a while. I'm not going any particular place."

"Gotta book," Helen says. "Dorm rat stuff, see my adviser, make some plans on what classes to take this semester."

"It's Saturday, for Christ's sake."

"Hard-working college people don't enjoy the luxury of leisure our police apparently do. Have to register first thing Monday morning," she says, laughing, leaning over me for a kiss. I slip my hand into the gaping neck of her shirt, kiss her hard, feel her body tauten. She breaks away, just a little bit flushed.

"Oh, did I miss you," she says, grabbing her bag and heading for the door. "Call you later?"

"Use the cell, in case I'm out wandering."

"I'll track you down, babe. Maybe I'll just handcuff you to the bed, so I know you'll be here when I get back."

Door closes. I sit up. Damn. She
has
handcuffed my left wrist to one of the bedrails. The key's on the bedside table,
sitting pertly on a white piece of paper that bears the imprint of her lips in pale red.

When she's gone, Helen's all gone. Like most everybody in my life. I grind up some beans I buy at Starbucks, put 'em in the gold filter of my coffee machine, and smoke a cigarette while it brews up. I start thinking of calling Annie, find out what she was up to last night. The coffee's done. I microwave some cream in my mug, pour in strong, dark Suma-tran, add a spoon of sugar.

Then I light another cigarette, take a deep draw and a first deep sip of coffee. Immediately I feel semihuman. I lay my finger into the dent along the side of my head, open the prescription bottle and down a Klonopin with a second smooth sip of coffee. Two, maybe three cups with one or two cigarettes each, I know I can face the day. Caffeine, nicotine, modern pharmacology already doing good, good.

Too good, maybe. Start zeroing on Vassily, more pixels in the picture than Sony or Toshiba dare dream of, it's that sharp: how I met him, what we did together. How damn good he was. One of the best I ever saw. That's the baddest news, if Vaseline is my Vassily and we're on opposite sides in this tussle, instead of comrades in close-quarters combat.

Shut it down, Luther. Now.

I clean up last night's dishes, put fresh sheets on the bed, tidy up here and there. Then I sit at the table again, smoking and fidgeting and restless as hell. I call McKibbin, ask if he wants to go out to the range, shoot a little. He'd love to, but he's taking the kids to the Aquarium. I think of calling Ice Box, but the man doesn't really like firearms, doesn't dig the aesthetics of firing fine weapons. Pure curiosity made him want to shoot the Eagle. I go down to the basement, where every tenant has a padlocked wire cage for overflow possessions. Mine's filled with a 1,500-pound gun safe. I sprayed over the "Winchester" logo with black, no need to alarm anyone, but it's still faintly visible after three coats. I work the combination dial, bolts thicker than your thumb slide back into the door when I move the lever. There's only
five or six guns in there—it's built to hold sixteen. I pull out a cased rifle, two boxes of shells, a spotting scope, a handful of targets. Then I go out to the Camaro, put it all in the trunk and head for the outdoor range.

It's nice there, far from any road, forest all around, grass neatly mowed. Nobody shooting, ten o'clock on a Saturday morning. I pin up my targets down at the butts, then walk back and keep going another 100 meters past the 100-meter bench. I open the case and withdraw the Weatherby Ac-cumark in .270 Weatherby Mag with a Leupold 3x9 scope. I bought it a few years ago, thinking I'd go out to the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico, ride into the mountains twenty or thirty miles from any road with just a Mescalero guide, and get a monster elk. With a flat-shooting round like the .270 screaming out of a 26-inch heavy fluted barrel, the Weatherby's deadly out to 400 meters in expert hands.