The Blue Place

by Nicola Griffith

  “So what did you find?”

  “Coke. A lot. Six, seven keys.”

  “Coke?”

  “What with that and the professional torch, and the guy who died, he figured it for a drug hit. Revenge, or a lesson.”

  It sounded plausible, until you stopped to think about it. “Recognize the torch?”

  “Nope. Haven’t come across this one before.”

  “Who died?”

  “Name of Lusk. Jim Lusk. Some kind of art professor.”

  “Any close relatives show up yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “He was found in the house?” He nodded. “And the coke was in here?”

  “Right here.” He patted the shelf that ran the length of the garage. “Interesting, don’t you think?” It was, very. “I have to get back to work. Feel free to take a look around.” He grinned, a hard grin that said: You owe me a favor now.

  I took a closer look at the shelf. Swollen with damp, pulling away from the wall at one end. Powdery holes and termite wings. A faint outline of white powder crisscrossed with silvery snail trails. It made absolutely no sense. No one in their right mind would store coke in a damp, insect-ridden garage. And if the torch had known the drug was here, he or she would have taken it.

  I knew what Bertolucci wanted: someone outside to know that he knew the obvious explanation didn’t make sense. It would make him feel better when the APD accepted the obvious explanation and shelved the case. There was too much work to keep chasing after a murder that already had an explanation, even such a flimsy one. Politically, too, it made sense. Mayor Foley was fighting hard to get a special federal grant for the war on drugs. The APD, being smart enough to know that the war was unwinnable, would take the money and use it on something that might make a difference: five new cruisers, six months’ worth of ammunition, a week-long training course for half the SWAT teams. Jim Lusk’s death was just another ledger entry on the grant form, something to be used as a weapon in the increasingly bitter fight for money. The detective second grade who was in charge of the investigation would have four other homicides and dozens of assaults to deal with. His lieutenant would spend most of her time juggling meetings, writing duty rosters, dealing with an increasingly angry public. The precinct captain would be faced with a nightmare of budget stretching, trying to decide whether the squad room should have new terminals, which it needed, or that new air-conditioning system to replace the one that was responsible for the sick-building syndrome that meant officers on his precinct were overrunning their sick time and bringing down the wrath of the city accountants. Lusk’s killer would never be found.

  But that wasn’t my concern. I wanted to know about the woman who thought this was something I had done, but I wasn’t in any particular hurry. Let her come to me.

  I was halfway to the embassy when the car phone rang. It was Denneny. “Denneny. I was just thinking of you. Made that decision between the air-conditioning and the new terminals yet?”

  “Terminals this month. Air-conditioning in June. I hear you were at the scene of the impromptu Inman Park barbecue last night. I thought we could observe the formalities and get a statement.”

  “Do you have any plans for lunch?”

  “Not so far.”

  “How about Deacon’s at eleven-thirty?”

  A very young man in button-down shirt and silk tie was waiting in the sunshine outside the consulate. He opened the Saab door for me smartly, and I handed over the leather key fob. He was practically salivating at the prospect of hopping inside.

  “It has quadraphonic CD sound, too,” I said.

  An uncertain blink, pink lower lip caught between his teeth. “Ma’am?”

  I just smiled, and hoped he would have to drive around for a long time to find a parking place. He was probably some kind of admin intern who would be spending the next three months chained to a workstation freezing to death in the air-conditioning, all to pad out his résumé. I was willing to bet he’d never parked a car for anyone but his parents in his life. Consulates don’t usually provide valet parking. Most people don’t ask for it. I always ask for as much as I can get. It’s a matter of principle.

  I hummed as I went through the heavy teak and glass doors. The carpet was a beautiful deep green. Much nicer than the cold marble of the English consulate. “Aud Torvingen,” I said to the woman behind the desk. Her hair was sleek as a seal’s and though she had the dark skin and eyes of Sevilla, her grooming was Southern: big nails, gold jewellery, an unnecessary bow on her blouse. As jarring as a beard on a drag queen.

  I sat down in a comfortable chair. She glanced up at me once, then got on with her work: probably wondering who I was, probably also sure she would never find out. That’s what life is like in a consulate. A series of closed, comfortable rooms that most of the help never get to sit in.

  Philippe came to get me himself. I would have been surprised if he hadn’t. He had deep gold hair and very long limbs. According to the check I had done on him after his initial phone call, he liked to play racquet sports—squash, racquetball, tennis—and was pretty good at it. I imagined he surprised a lot of his opponents who expected his arms and legs to tangle and clutter together, but his walk was efficient, fast. I rose.

  “Glad you could come.” We shook hands. My mother once showed me a dozen different handshakes. This is the one that means I don’t think you’re worth my attention: a quick shake, with her hand already sliding from mine before it was properly finished. This one shows I hold you in great contempt: a snakelike up and down, bending at the wrist, fingers stiff as though she couldn’t wait to shake off my sweat. There were others. Cordova’s was a mixture of reserve and haste: fast, light, whippy.

  His office had a beautiful oak floor. We sat opposite each other on surprisingly comfortable Georgian chairs. He handed me a manilla folder. “Beatriz del Gato.”

  Consular officers love details: dates, times, places; mother, father, lovers; education, employment, illnesses. I took the folder and put it down next to me unopened. “Why haven’t you informed the Atlanta Police Department of her arrival?”

  He folded his hands onto his lap. “Miss del Gato will only be here for four days. She wishes to remain incognito and believes her visit is a matter of some…delicacy.”

  I smiled, understanding. “She’s doing something that she would find personally embarrassing to have reported in the press, but that you wouldn’t, particularly?”

  His mouth gave away nothing but there was a smile in his voice. “Miss del Gato wishes to work in an advertising agency. She wishes to be offered a job without her prospective employer giving her any special favours.”

  “Why didn’t she try New York?”

  “She did.”

  “Ah.” Beatriz was too stupid, or unimaginative, or something, to be offered a job on her own merits. “I still don’t see why you can’t tell the APD.”

  Now he did smile. “I did. They have no objection to you taking the job.” Why should they? It saved them money. Besides, I doubted Miss Beatriz really was important enough for either the consulate or the police department to go to any trouble. But Philippe was only doing what the diplomatic service of any country does best: saving everyone’s face.

  I leaned back. “Tell me, what’s she like?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Earnest, boring, and unreasonably stubborn. Would you like some coffee?”

  I gave the admin intern who wished he was a valet parker a ten-dollar tip because he had polished the pollen off my wing mirrors, and because it really was a beautiful day. There was still a slight breeze and the humidity was below sixty percent. Even the etiolated young birch trees that were spaced as carefully as nursery seedlings every ten yards on the concrete sidewalk looked fresh and clean.

  I played Diamanda Galas all the way to Deacon’s. I got there five minutes early. Denneny was already there.

  Years ago, when he still wore a uniform, when his wife was alive, he would have been joking with the women dishing up
the fried chicken and greens behind the counter, talking them out of a free side of cornbread, inhaling the rich steam of grits and gravy and grease until his ruddy complexion darkened to plum; but this morning he was sitting at one of the rickety Formica tables, looking around at the clientele as though he were a stranger, out of place in his city suit and silk tie.

  “You look more like an executive than a cop,” I said.

  He stood. “I am, these days.”

  “Anything good on the menu today?”

  It was an old joke—Deacon and now his heirs had always served exactly the same thing—but Denneny just shrugged.

  We stood in line and loaded up our trays with chicken and greens and potatoes and gravy and bread and iced tea. I paid for both of us and got a handful of paper napkins. I took the seat facing the door.

  “You look as though you’re doing well. Watch your clothes with all this grease.”

  “That’s why napkins were invented.” I tucked two around my neck, draped one across my lap, and picked up a chicken wing. The best fried chicken in the city. “So. You wanted a statement.”

  He took one of those miniature tape recorders out of his pocket, put it on the table and looked at his watch. “I forgot to pick up a fresh cassette, so there’s only about half an hour’s worth of tape left.”

  “That should be plenty.”

  So in between bites of hot chicken and forkfuls of mashed potato loaded with enough cholesterol to stun an elephant, I told him about crashing into the woman, about the explosion, and the flames. I gave him times, descriptions, even a weather report. He didn’t ask any questions, just nodded and ate. When I’d finished he turned the machine off and slipped it back in his pocket. “I’ll get it transcribed this afternoon. You can come in and sign it anytime. That should take care of the formalities.”

  “Any leads?”

  “Just the drugs.”

  “Surprising, that.”

  “I’ve passed the point of being surprised by anything those people do.”

  “I don’t think it was drug dealers.”

  “The drugs were there, and there isn’t a single other angle to pursue.”

  “And why even try when there’s a nice, neat explanation?”

  “Something like that. You know how things stand, Torvingen. If we don’t get our share of the fed payout, not only won’t there be any air-conditioning in June, we won’t even be able to afford batteries and tapes for this little machine.” He tapped his pocket. “So unless you have the address and confession of the guy who did it, butt out.”

  I shrugged. “Just making conversation.”

  He wouldn’t let it go. “Do you have some special interest in the case?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Good, because I’d hate to get our wires crossed on this.”

  “Why should I care who killed whom and over what? I’m not a police officer anymore.”

  “And you never cared much even then.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.”

  He applied himself to the potatoes for a while. “Do you miss it?”

  “No.”

  “Not even a bit?”

  “Not even a bit.”

  “I still don’t understand why you didn’t take that liaison job I offered you when you were pulled off the streets.”

  “You know as well as I do that the mayor would have had kittens at the thought of me still walking around with a badge and gun in an election year.” I had better things to do with my life than be photogenic for the police department.

  “True. So if you don’t miss being a cop, why did you take that job in Dahlonega?”

  “It was work. Only now I don’t need to work.”

  “Lucky you.” It came out sounding bitter.

  “Sounds as though you could do with a vacation.”

  “I’m taking one. Two weeks in the Napa Valley starting Saturday. Nothing but sun and the scent of the vine.”

  When I’d first known him, he drank only beer and bourbon. There again, he wouldn’t have known a silk tie if it had bitten him. People change.

  We looked at each other. I realized that his spectacle lenses were bifocals. He wiped his fingers carefully on a napkin. “Well, it’s been good talking to you. Come in to sign this thing tomorrow, after you finish with the rookies.”

  “Anything in particular you want me to cover with them?”

  He stood. “Nah. Just tell them how it works in the real world, so they don’t get themselves killed the first time they step out of the car.”

  The real world. We had always disagreed about what, exactly, that meant. He had always believed in the rules, but rules are useless when lives are in danger. He never seemed to understand that.

  two

  There used to be several distinct kinds of gym. When I was growing up, school gyms—in whatever country—were sunlit and silent, the air dead and dusty with the scents of climbing ropes, ancient pommel horses sweat-soaked and bare on the handles, and a thin, greasy overlay of plimsoll rubber scraped off on the wooden floor during countless skiddings and bumpy landings. All very genteel and closed off. Working gyms in the city were meatier, more burly, with dim overhead lights, chalk dust, labouring fans, and metal everywhere: clanking Nautilus, ringing free weights, clinking dog tags. Male sweat and Ben-Gay. Hoarse huff-huff of pumping, the occasional burst of loud boy conversation: the game, the fight, the conquest. Dojos, on the other hand, were defined more by body sounds: the slap of open hands on arms, thud of bare feet on kick bags, the heavy, almost soundless impact of a rolling fall…and the voices, karate kiais like the cry of a stooping hawk; the very particular half-swallowed hut-hut, like a gun with a sound suppressor, of a whole school of people going through their katas; the endless, rhythmic susurrus of breath as half a dozen students meditate in zazen.

  The precinct gym in City Hall East was less than a year old: beautiful sprung-wood floor, whispering air-conditioning, full-spectrum lighting. The sweet, cloying scent of new plastic and rubber grips on the weight machines vied with cologne and a very faint perfume. Rookies smelled different these days.

  The fourteen newly minted police officers were wearing a variety of tees and shorts. I had told them to wear long sleeves and sweatpants. It doesn’t matter how nice the floor is; if you miss the mat, it’ll skin your knee. Two were very young but most were in their mid-to late twenties. One man had some grey at his temples. They all looked freshly showered. It was six-thirty in the morning.

  “None of you are stretched out and ready. I have ninety minutes today. We don’t have the luxury of using any of that time on something you could do on your own. Take five minutes now.”

  I watched them. How they chose to warm up told me a great deal about their experience and personalities. The older man started jumping jacks, probably what he had learned at school, which was probably the last time he had done any structured physical activity, apart from the mandatory classes at the academy. Two well-muscled men paired up and stretched each other’s hamstrings. A big woman was doing what looked like the kind of thing track athletes do in the last moments before an event. None of them looked very competent.

  “Gather round. The first rule of survival is: pay attention. Usually that means paying attention to what’s going on around you. Today it means pay attention to me. Very close attention. I won’t tell you twice. You can call me Lieutenant.” I wasn’t, anymore, but I found it got me a faster response time. That and the Red Dogs sweatshirt I was wearing. “This isn’t the academy. Today you’re here to learn how to protect yourselves, first, and how to restrain a perp without injuring him, second. You can’t protect yourself from someone when you don’t know where he or she is. If they’re in cuffs and on their belly, you’re a bit more safe. You,” I said to a wiry man with red hair who looked as though he was supple enough to not hurt himself. “Pretend you’re trying to pull me off balance and run away.”

  I held out my right wrist. He reached for it.

  If thi
s was real and I knew my attacker intended to hurt me, I would have crippled him without thinking: a kick to the knee, an elbow slammed into his floating ribs. But this was, perhaps, an elderly drunk who didn’t deserve to be hurt, so as Red grabbed with his right hand, I turned my wrist, drew it back just enough to pull him off balance, stepped behind him on the diagonal, and whipped his right arm straight and against the joint. He froze in pain and I swept his feet out from under him. He went down on his belly.

  “If you keep hold of his arm like this, he won’t struggle, because if he does, you can pop it out of its socket as easily as pulling the wing off a turkey. Make sure you keep his palm turned up, like this.” I moved it just enough to show them and Red squealed. “As soon as it starts to hurt, slap the mat and your partner will stop.” Red slapped the mat. I eased off. “Your grip will be firmer if you keep your thumb on the back of his hand, and your elbows close in to your body.” I pulled cuffs out with my left hand and snapped them on. “You should practice with the cuffs until you can do this with either hand. Keep him on his belly while you pat him down, and when you let him up, keep that wristlock on until you can get him in the car.” I unlocked the cuffs, tucked them back into my waistband. “Questions?”

  “How did you turn your hand over his, right at the beginning?”

  So I showed them; in a group, singly and in pairs. Over and over. Some of them were quicker to grasp the concept than the others. Some didn’t bother with technique at all. The big woman was relying on her strength to simply overpower her opponent.

  “You. Yes, you. Over here.” We stood eye to eye. I took her wrist. “Try with me.” She tugged. I shifted easily. She tugged harder. “Don’t use your muscles. Besides, what if I was a seven-foot biker on PCP?”

  “I’d shoot you,” she said, looking around, playing for a laugh.

  “Guns are vastly overrated,” I said mildly. “Go get your weapon and belt.” She smiled uneasily, obviously wondering if she’d heard right. “What’s your name?”