Marcum started to say something, but Meredith cut him off.
“Ben,” she said quietly. “Let’s take five.”
Marcum’s face was bright red. His arms hung quivering at his sides. Finally, he nodded with a jerk of his head and the three of them trooped out. I was alone for another thirty minutes. They came back in and Meredith sat across from me in the same chair and said, “No federal charges. Conspiracy and aiding and abetting, with a recommendation for one year max behind bars, the remainder of the sentence under house arrest.”
“Plus, you testify at the federal trial,” Marcum put in. He had recovered some of his FBI cool.
“Teddy,” Meredith said. “It’s our best offer.”
“Here’s the thing,” I said. “I’ve never been able to let go of my lifelong dream of being a detective. I’ve failed the exam three times now, but I’m still clinging to the fact that miracles happen and maybe one day I’ll pass it. If I take this deal, passing is moot: A convicted felon can’t hold a PI license. The dream is dead.”
“Oh,” said Marcum, “well.”
“You don’t have to decide this very minute,” Meredith said. “Take all the time you need.”
“As long as you don’t need more than twenty-four hours,” Marcum said. “When the offer expires.”
“We’ll put ours in writing,” Meredith offered. “Would that help?”
She motioned to Kennard, who opened the door and followed her through it. I was alone with Marcum. He swung the empty chair around and straddled it, folding his arms over the back and regarding me from a foot away.
“Painted yourself into a corner, haven’t you?” he asked. “Happens when you lie down with the devil, Ruzak. Take the deal and spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop—you know firsthand what the Nation does to snitches. Don’t take the deal and risk getting the max, twenty-five to life. You mentioned leverage. You think Dayton won’t flip on you when we offer him a reduced sentence and no time served in the state pen with Rache and his boys? He’ll do anything to stay out of Brushy Mountain; you know that and I know that.”
“The only thing I know for sure,” I said, “is she’s safe now. Quinton Stiles is dead and she is safe.”
5:04 p.m.
I was working on my desktop, trying to remove the fingerprinting dust with a Pledge wipe, when Farrell came in carrying a paper sack and two glass tumblers. I tossed the wipe into the trash; it wasn’t picking up the fine black powder, just smearing it.
“This crap is everywhere,” I said.
“Murphy’s,” Farrell said. “I’m telling you, Ruzak. Nothing better on wood.”
“I used it all up on the stain,” I said, nodding at the floor.
“Stain?”
“Felicia’s blood.”
He plopped one tumbler in front of me, one in front of him, pulled a bottle of scotch from the sack, and filled our glasses.
“What’s this?” I asked.
He picked up his drink. “A toast.”
“I won’t drink to him being dead.”
“Then how ’bout to our girls being alive?”
That was okay. I took a big swallow and nearly spit it back up. I wasn’t a huge fan of scotch.
“She isn’t my girl,” I said.
“Still, she’s alive.”
“She isn’t even my secretary anymore.”
“She quit?”
“Well, I haven’t got anything in writing, but I’m pretty sure she has, yes.”
“Maybe you ought to give her a raise. Hazard pay.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with compensation.”
“You made your move, didn’t you?”
“Very circumspectly.”
“Bob know?”
I nodded. “I don’t think he’s worried about me.”
“You know what you ought to do? Get laid.”
“I did.”
“You did?”
“Didn’t help much.”
“That’s not good.”
“No, it was pretty good.”
“I mean, it means it wasn’t just about sleeping with her.”
“Well, she is married.”
“I mean Felicia.”
“I didn’t sleep with Felicia.”
“Jesus Christ, I’m not talking about Felicia!”
“Then who are we talking about?”
“I’m saying the fact that getting laid didn’t help means you want more than just that from Felicia.”
“Oh, absolutely. Although that would be nice, too.”
Farrell nodded slowly. He refilled my glass, topped off his, sipped. I left mine in front of me, untouched.
“So what are you doing to do?” he asked.
“Not sure yet. Probably what I usually do. Go limp and let events control me.”
“She fessed up,” Farrell said. “Isabella. Been talking to him the whole time. He asked her after you went to his momma, ‘You know anything about this Ruzak?’ ”
“And she said no.”
“Scared her shitless.”
“What he might do to her for siccing a PI on his ass.”
“Which convinced him you had to be on Richie Rache’s payroll.”
“Which got Archie killed and put Felicia in the ICU.”
“You know what I told her? I told her this was where all her lies led to. You know she actually cried for the bastard?”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I said. “There’s a difference between responsibility and guilt.”
He was shaking his head. Trying not to smile? I couldn’t tell. He leaned over the desk and I smelled the scotch on his breath.
“You hit it, didn’t you?”
“Hit what?”
“The button.”
“What button?”
“The button you were talking about. The Hitler button. You capped Yellowstone.”
“I’m not denying I’ve got motive,” I said. “But something like that goes against everything I believe in, Farrell. Something like that makes me judge, jury, and executioner.”
“You didn’t do it to punish,” he insisted. “You did it to prevent. They told Quinton that Felicia ID’d him. You knew what was coming. You knew what would happen.”
“I thought she might be in some danger,” I said. “But they promised protection.”
He shook his head. “Not good enough. The one percent doctrine.”
“Oh, come on, Farrell. How long have we known each other? You really think I’m capable of something like this?”
“So now you have to choose between losing everything that ever mattered to you and the very real chance of losing your life.”
“Not very attractive alternatives, but sometimes, you know, you just gotta play the odds.”
Farrell nodded, knocked back the dregs of his drink. His face was a little flushed. He’d probably started without me.
“You know what you got, Ruzak?”
“Unplumbed facets?”
“A real mess on your hands.”
He was looking around the office when he said it.
SUNDAY
10:05 a.m.
Meredith Black took her coffee that way. She watched without saying anything as I loaded mine up with cream and sugar. The Sunday-morning breakfast crowd at Pete’s had thinned out; we were the only people in our waitress’s section, a table by the window. Looking over her shoulder, I could see the bank where I used to work nights, when life was a heck of a lot simpler. I was a night watchman and Felicia waited tables at the Old City Diner, my usual haunt after the shift ended, and I would linger at the same table for a couple of hours, slugging down sweet, creamy coffee while she wore out a path keeping my cup full. Her boss insisted she wear that silly white nurselike uniform, down to the white stockings and soft-soled white shoes, and it wasn’t until she came to work for me that I saw her long blond hair freed from a bun, which was when it first struck me how much she resembled Lauren Bacall. I
was a sucker for old movies and starlets from the golden age. Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, that chick who ended up on a TV Western when she got older—what was her name? Barbara Stanwyck. Meredith reminded me of a femme fatale from that era, with the fair skin and the dark hair and the ruby red lips and the smoky eyes glowering under the dark eyebrows. Like Kathleen Turner in that movie with William Hurt—what was it called? Basic Instinct? No. That was Sharon Stone. Of course, you could say that Sharon Stone was the quintessential femme fatale in that movie, but I thought the character was a little too slutty for that honor. Body Heat. That was it.
“Earth to Ruzak,” Meredith said.
“You ever see the movie Body Heat?” I asked.
“Wasn’t that Sharon Stone?”
“No, that was Basic Instinct.”
“Stupid title. What’s a nonbasic instinct?”
“You remind me a little of Kathleen Turner.”
“She wasn’t in Basic Instinct.”
“No, she was in Body Heat.”
“Never saw it.”
“She was also in Peggy Sue Got Married.”
“Isn’t she a blonde?”
“More a Turneresque quality than a resemblance.”
“I’m guessing you mean that as a compliment.”
“Only her interest was more in thwarting justice.”
“I never thwart.”
She raised the cup to her mouth, pursed her lips, blew gently on the surface.
“Speaking of which,” she said with a glance at her watch. “Your twenty-four hours are up.”
I nodded. I figured she hadn’t invited me for coffee to talk about movies.
“It got to me,” I said. “I couldn’t stand it, not knowing what was up with him, where he was, what he might be planning, why he had disappeared. Even when it was in my best interest to let sleeping dogs lie, I kept at it until mine was in a pool of his own blood, and Felicia, too—not in his, in hers.”
“So you figured you didn’t have a choice.” She was nodding empathetically. Meredith Black was very good at her job.
“Oh, I’m not of that school,” I said. “You always have a choice.”
“Maybe yours was of the false variety, though. Quinton was Marcum’s boy. The feds put up with a lot of shenanigans from their UIs, but rarely shenanigans like capital murder. You made a huge leap assuming Felicia’s ID was a death sentence.”
“There’s another way to look at it,” I said. “Risk management.”
“The only way she’ll be one hundred percent safe?”
I nodded. “Force everyone’s hand. Quinton’s. Dayton’s, too: If he knows Quinton’s a snitch…”
Now she was nodding. “Even Marcum’s. Quinton’s ‘suicide’ forced him to move quickly to protect his case, not to mention his career. They raided the Nation’s compound at five A.M. this morning. Guess what they found?”
“A Caucasian paradise on earth?”
“Nothing. He’s vanished. Probably already south of the border.”
“I’d vote for Argentina.”
“Which means either Dayton has a mole within the FBI or somebody tipped him off.”
I thought about it. “Quinton.”
“And then Dayton blows his brains out to thank him?”
“Blows his brains out to protect himself.”
“Which also protects you. No deal for Marcum to offer because there’s no one to offer a deal to. Everybody walks.”
“No, not everybody.”
She leaned forward and lowered her voice.
“Now let’s talk about risk, Ruzak. I’ve never met the guy; I only know him by reputation. But what do you think a man like Dayton is going to do about this? How do you think he’s going to manage the particular risk of a witness who can hang a murder rap around his red neck?”
“Right, talk about risk.”
Surprisingly, she put her hand on top of mine.
“We can protect you,” she said.
I pulled my hand away.
“Ah, come on, Meredith. You know better than that. You know me better than that.”
She shook her head.
“Mr. Ruzak, I don’t think I know you at all.”
1:11 p.m.
Before her outfit (including the scarf to hide the bandage), before the subtle change in hair color (a couple shades lighter), before the hand-lettered sign in her right hand, I noticed what she was wearing on her left. She stopped in the doorway of my office, leaning against the jamb as she’d done hundreds of times before, crossing her legs at the ankles and cocking her head slightly to one side. She held up the sign.
“There’re only three s’s in business,” she said.
“Look at this,” I said, holding up an old receipt. “From that Chinese buffet place on Papermill two years ago. I guess I kept it for tax purposes, but should I really amend my return for seventeen dollars and fifty-two cents? See, these are the kind of decisions that paralyze me and fill my world with clutter.”
She shook the sign at me. “Explain.”
“I don’t have a license to practice detection.”
She pointed at the framed certificate hanging on the wall beside the print of the Little Pigeon River and the guy in waders landing a trout the size of which only exists in paintings.
“That’s your license,” I said.
She broke the threshold, and as she came toward me, I felt that familiar expansion of my psychic space, like a star going supernova. She sat in the visitor’s chair, crossed her legs. The scarf had fallen down a little and I could see the bandage.
“Isabella lied,” I told her. “Told him I wasn’t working for her. So he must have figured it was his old pals from prison.”
“Is that your way of saying none of this is your fault?”
“No,” I said. “I put her in that position by meeting with them.”
“You know what I think killed him? The fact that you never met him.”
“How so?”
“Makes him less human. Like a bomber pilot dropping the napalm from twenty thousand feet. Antiseptic.”
“That analogy assumes I had something to do with it.”
She tipped her head to one side. “You turned down the deal.”
“There are some things,” I said. “Things that if you let go of them, something in you lets go, too. Something you can never get back.”
“What kind of hell is your life going to be now, Ruzak—always looking over your shoulder? You know too much.”
“The whole problem was, I didn’t know enough,” I said. “I didn’t know what they’d do once you ID’d him.…”
“No, you didn’t. But you thought you did.”
“Felicia,” I said. I looked her right in the eye. “You know I’d do almost anything for you—”
“Shut up,” she said.
“It’s starting to bug me, like everybody is trying to get me to cop to things—”
“Shut up,” she said.
“Some homicidal lunatic kills himself while I’m ten miles across town playing Bunko, and suddenly everybody is asking me if I—”
“Shut up, Ruzak!”
“No, you shut up.”
“Don’t you tell me to shut up.”
“That’s the whole damn problem,” I shouted. “Nobody knows when the hell to shut up!”
“What’re you talking about?”
“If you’d shut up, I’d tell you!”
“Oh, I get it. That’s rich. That’s nice, Ruzak. Is that how you’re dealing with it? It’s my fault?”
“This is where it brings you,” I said.
“What?”
“Lying.”
“How do you know I lied? Maybe I really did see him.”
“Okay, so how do you know I am? Maybe I really didn’t have anything to do with it. I don’t understand why you’re harping on at me like this, like you’re trying to coax something out of me, get me to say something about something. If I didn’t know better.…”
“Oh
, for the love of Christ!”
She jumped up and came around the desk and then she was standing a foot from me, lifting her face toward mine, and her left hand was on the desktop, as if to steady herself, and she was standing in the middle of the stain made as she lay bleeding because of me. Her eyes sparked with anger.
“Maybe I’m wearing a wire. Why don’t you frisk me, Ruzak?”
I didn’t frisk Felicia. Instead, I kissed her. I cupped her face in my hands and I kissed her. In a span of time that could have been measured in nanoseconds, her body pressed against mine, her lips parted slightly, her eyelids fluttered, and there was this sensation of something expanding and collapsing at the same time, something being born, something dying.
She pulled back. Her eyes no longer burned. They had softened. They glowed.
“Don’t ever do that again,” she whispered.
I looked down at her hand. “I guess I should congratulate you.”
“It scared him,” she said, self-consciously rubbing her thumb across the diamond while the other hand rose to touch her neck. “He thought he was going to lose me.”
“And you said yes.”
“Absolutely not. But it’s a really big diamond, so I decided to keep it.”
I touched her cheek. “Felicia…”
She pushed my hand away. “Don’t touch me,” she said. “Don’t say my name like that.”
“What happened?” I asked. “Why did you come down here that night?”
“We had a fight. I needed to get out of the house.”
“A fight.”
“Yes, a fight. Couples do that.”
“But why here?”
“Why not here?”
“What was the fight about?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Because we keep our personal lives personal.”
“You’re not in love with me, Ruzak.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t say ‘okay’ like that.”
“How do you want me to say it?”
She fought back a smile.
“So what’s she like?” she asked. “Your new girlfriend.”
The Highly Effective Detective Crosses the Line Page 17
