by Lee Lamothe
“This Captain guy? Phil Harvey? Anybody?”
Djuna Brown shook her head. “Not Harvey, anyway, unless the hammers figure out he killed Agatha Burns and where he put her body. We got nothing on the Cook guy. Maybe the old fuck at the lab will give us something we can chase down, lead us back to the players. But right now? At least a couple of hundred thousand double Chucks for probably maybe, the super lab for a maybe maybe.”
“Nice. Decent. Fuck, guys, I didn’t think you could do it.”
Ray Tate shook his head. “What the fuck, skip? You thought we were, what, riding around the countryside looking at property to buy? Ace investigators you called us.”
Skipper held up his hands. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I knew you could do it. But how tight is it? Can I call the Swamp, put them on alert? What’s the next move?”
“We wait. We’re gonna get a call, probably later today, maybe tomorrow. Then we move in.”
Djuna Brown said, “We’re going to need to move fast, once we get the word. Tactical guys in case there’s a cadre of speed demons on the site. Some Haz-Mat guys in bunny suits to take the lab apart. The place where we think it is is about four hours north of here in Indian country, so a helicopter wouldn’t hurt. My people are going to want a piece of it. It’s their turf. We gotta keep the Staties happy, right?”
“I got it, I got it. An example of what can be done when all levels of policing work together, target organized crime groups where they live … yak yak yak.” He clapped his hands together then squinted in pain at the noise. “All right. Do me a continuation report and an action plan. Best case, worst case. I’ll start things moving with the dep.” He was smiling. Djuna Brown had never seen it before. “Ray, stay a second, okay?”
After Djuna Brown had left the office, he said, “You’ve got somebody, right? Inside? Someone feeding us this stuff?”
“Djuna’s got a guy, skip. You can’t do this without a guy.”
“Do I want to know his name?”
“Believe me, skipper, you don’t.”
“But the organization’s been penetrated, right? I can say that?”
“Sure. We’re burrowed to the very heart of the murderous double-Chuck conspiracy.”
“Beautiful. And the guy, he’s a working guy, though, right? A guy in the know? Will he testify? You didn’t promise him anything?”
“This guy is Djuna’s guy. She worked him, she turned him. I just held her coat. But, I think, no way does he come out into the light. We’re not taking down bodies, anyway, so no need for nobody to testify to nobody about nothing.”
The skipper looked through the glass at Djuna Brown on the telephone. “What’s up with that other thing? Anything going on, there?”
“Not yet. I’ll drop her soon, skip.” He had no inflection at all in his voice. “She’ll go down.”
“Bullshit. You fucking guys are partners. I can’t fucking believe it. The gunner and the dyke. Sounds like a fucking fairytale for test-tube babies.”
“Tell you what, skip. You go two weeks with the coffee and the airline pills then we’ll talk, okay? I’ve been there. In two weeks it’ll all look different and, if you don’t mind I say so, you’ll shake your head and go, Fuck what an asshole I was back in those days.” He got up. “And you can pull those fucking mutts off, that’s following us around. I think I’m putting my papers, after this, so it’ll be win-win for you.”
The skipper shook his head. “Not me, Ray. I got nobody behind you. Must be the dep. The dep don’t like you, man. If you guys don’t tank, I’m going to be holding my nuts. One in each pocket.”
Ray Tate laughed. “Great. You’ll feel like a copper again.”
* * *
While they waited for word from Phil Harvey they each went home. Djuna Brown thought she scoped a car down the block, backed into a driveway. She didn’t care. The dep or the skip, she didn’t give a shit. She and Ray Tate were on their way to making the case and after that, well, Tate had been talking about Paris. She’d heard they dug blacks in Paris, thought they were cool, and she felt she kind of was.
In her duplex she cleaned up the mess from the night before, smiling. With her cellphone beside her ear, she stretched out on the couch, thinking about Ray Tate and slept.
* * *
Ray Tate went home. The apartment was musty and he opened the windows to let the cold air in. It smelled like snow. He took a long shower then sprawled out on the futon but couldn’t sleep. He got up and mixed colours. The yellows and oranges and bright reds meant nothing concrete to him, yet, but he had an inkling. He put the pallet aside and with a number six charcoal stick and a fluid hand he sketched Djuna Brown from the back, standing at a sink, her reflection in the window in front of her, looking at him. He used his knuckle to fudge the lines of everything except her face.
Chapter 27
Phil Harvey had Cornelius Cook drop him off at a city bus. He slung his knapsack over his shoulder and said he’d call once he had something set up to pick up the groceries. All the way down from the rib place Connie Cook had talked about getting a backhoe into the farm and making an underground cavern. Like a pantry, he said. For when the hunger really comes over me. Phil Harvey, who had a good strong imagination, shuddered but laughed and made suggestions for piping in air, for soundproofing, for waste disposal. If they built it close to the lake, he said, they could have water. A generator could heat up several dozen gallons, and the place would be pretty homey, he said.
He stood in his bat coat, leaning on the Mercedes. “I’ll call you, Connie, we’ll work out the moves.”
“Perfect, Harv. Once we get the fun stuff out of the way, though, we’ll be wanting to get to work. You okay for money right now?”
“I’m okay, Connie.” He saw the look of pleasure on the Captain’s face. Connie Cook always looked for signs that friendship wasn’t based on his wealth, that he was loved for who he was. “I’m in good shape.”
Phil Harvey went to the back of the bus and sprawled out. He felt crawly. He’d spent time with degenerates but that was inside when that kind of thing was squeezed to your surface by the weight of time and the repetitious madness of cellblocks and footsteps. Anyone could slip a little and could come back from it unless they were serving time for so long their souls warped for keeps, and after that really there was no point. He watched people boarding. Most spotted him and stayed toward the front, near the driver.
There was no way, he thought, he was putting anyone in. Not even the crazy fat fuck. It wasn’t done, although it had been done to him. Phil Harvey didn’t have much, but what he had he kept. If he had to lift the weight then he’d lift it. Just because he was leaving the life didn’t mean he had to leave wreckage and bad feelings behind him.
He rode the bus to the end of the line, part of his mind daydreaming out how to notch logs together to make a stable house. Flitting through his thoughts was the black chick, the cop with the soft voice and her sudden anger that he’d branded the girl in Chinatown. He’d wanted to tell her it wasn’t him, but that meant it was someone else and even that, Harv felt, was too close to ratting. The Chem Squad could have all the double-Cs he could make, but no way anyone — even that loony, fat bastard — was going to do time because of anything Harv did.
At the end of the line the driver called to him. He disembarked and waited until the driver turned to retrace his route. Then he boarded the next bus and rode it to a convention hotel where he squirreled himself away in a pay phone kiosk.
* * *
The gym guy, Barry, was leery about going back into east Chinatown. “We’ve raised some havoc, there, Harv. There’s a bounty on us.” He paused. Harv heard the rhythmic clinking of weights. “Ah, that other thing? You know? Is that solid?”
“Yeah, the guy’ll be okay. He took off. I can guarantee he won’t talk, you know?”
“Whoo. Okay.” The gym guy grunted for a few seconds. “Okay. This thing, can you get them to come out? Out of Chinatown? Maybe downtown someplace? Wher
e we got some control.”
“Sure, I’ll ask him. I just need you for some stand arounds, you know? Nothing heavy.”
“I’ll get the same guys as last time. Ah, Harv? They were a little … concerned with that guy. The blond guy. My guys are solid, but for sure he won’t come back and talk?”
Harv made bubbling noises. He hung up and walked down the station to another pay phone. He called the manager of a restaurant on California Street. “I’ve got forty at two.”
The man jabbered. “No, no, this is a restaurant, not for dirty business.”
“Forty at two, tonight.”
“You call some other place, eh? Call a friend. You need crazy help, mister.” The man hung up. Harv waited a minute then redialed.
Another man, with a deeper, less accented voice, answered. He recognized Harv’s voice. “Come down and have dinner. Tonight there’s crab. Good stuff, not the stuff in the tanks.”
“Naw, I need takeout. You deliver downtown?”
The man laughed. “Come to Chinatown, Mr. Harvey. See the exotic sights. Meet old friends. Learn a new culture. Bring a fat friend. Bring a blond friend.”
Harv laughed. “Yeah, yeah that was bad, I admit. But I straightened it out for you. One for one.”
“You’ve driven the market down. Say, forty egg rolls for a dollar twenty-five?”
Harv didn’t care. The man knew he couldn’t go to Willy Wong; Willy Wong was of a sensitive type, who view brandings and rip-offs and shootings as an encroachment. Harv wanted to get as much cash together as he could, as quickly as he could. The mountain cabin of his imagination was a constant image in the front of his mind. Once he was escaped from the life he’d need little to live on. But there might be suspicion if he caved. “One and seventy-five. And the next delivery at one and fifty.”
“When, this other takeout? How many egg rolls?”
“Day after tomorrow,” Harv said. “At least this many, again.”
The man clicked his teeth. “One and fifty for this one, and one and seventy-five for the next, depending how crispy are the egg rolls, how much meat inside.”
“Done.” Speaking in circular terms, Harv arranged a meeting at an upscale steakhouse just on the edge of Stonetown. “I’m bringing some friends.”
“Friends,” the man said. “Friends are good to have at any time of life.”
* * *
Barry the gym owner said he’d bring his little crew to a coffee shop near the steakhouse a half hour before the transfer. He asked how heavy Harv wanted them to be. Harv said it was a Chinatown deal and probably it wouldn’t hurt to bring some drills.
Harv sat in the coffee shop and ran through his moves. He didn’t allow himself to think of chinking the logs in his new log house on the edge of a western river. Whether he’d square the logs or leave them naturally rounded wasn’t a concern he needed to deal with, yet. A fireplace or a wood stove could be determined later. More than anything he looked forward to original thoughts, even though he doubted he’d ever had one. The roots of a tree underground had been Agatha’s. The slim little black cop had responded cannily, confirming Harv’s own tentative theory that people were indeed like that. He tried to determine when to call her, to let her know where her double-Cs were without giving up the super lab. The cops might be able to unravel the Captain’s complex paper trail and find him hiding in the ownerships. And there were dead people around the property. As much as he had mixed feelings about the fat fuck, Harv recognized it was the luxury of not having to chase a buck every day that made the leisure of thought available to him. He owed Connie Cook something for that.
Barry slid into the booth opposite. “Deep thoughts, Harv? You look like one of the stone philosopher guys down in front of the museum, sitting here. State of the world, daydreaming?”
“Nah. Just figuring how to get out of there with the money, without the hounds of Chinatown chewing on my ass.”
“Well, no fear, Harv,” Barry said. “That’s what we’re here for. The guys’ll be along in a sec.”
They sat a moment. Barry went and got a coffee and a refill for Harv. He sat heavily, all steroid neck and shaved head with a long pigtail left at the back. “That guy? What’s up with him?”
“My blond guy?”
“No. You say he’s square, he’s square. The other guy. The fat guy.”
“Well, he’s around, we’re doing some stuff. He’s a little odd, but a lot of people earn off him.”
“A little odd.” Barry looked uncomfortable, but determined. He had something to say. “You and me, we’ve done time, right? We’ve done some tough stuff. We’ve come up the old way, before the Chinks and the blacks and who all knows who all. We may not be friends, but we’re pals. Am I right?”
Harv nodded.
“And if I was doing something with someone and you knew that someone was wrong, say, a rat or a cop, you’d tell me?”
Harv nodded.
“Because you know how things are, right? Don’t matter to you, at the end of the day, if I get pinched. That’s the life. But if you knew, before, and if you could, you’d give me a heads-up, no sweat off your ass? Barry, you’d say, that guy, he’s a rat or a cop, walk away, man. And because we’ve pulled time and we’ve done tough stuff, I wouldn’t say a fucking thing. I’d drop whatever it was I was into and I’d go home and pack and go down to Antigua for a month. It’s like that, am I right, us?”
“Barry, you’re right. What are you thinking? I can tell you, the fat fuck’s no cop. He’s no rat.” He saw for the first time that Barry was intelligent, that he had a human component that, although it didn’t get as much exercise as his muscles, it was there. Tree underground, he thought.
“No, I don’t think he’s a rat or a cop.” Barry leaned forward. “He’s worse, Harv. He isn’t of our life. He isn’t of anybody’s life. He’s a fucking spaceman. I’ve done stuff and for a while afterwards I’ve said to myself, Fuck but that was bad. I’ll never forget how that guy looked. I’m gonna have nightmares about that poor prick. That’s okay, that’s normal. Because after a while you do forget, you go, Fuck it, that’s the life. But this guy …” He kept his eyes on Harv’s. “I’ve seen stuff happen to guys inside and outside, it was worse inside where guys got no real control over themselves sometimes. I seen guys where a message had to be sent, a message that was serious and had to be done to make things work. But your guy there? Last night I’m going to sleep beside my woman still thinking about him and his fucking branding iron, that girl’s tits. That smell. I can still fucking smell it.”
“I know, Bar’, he went a little far. I’ll talk to him.”
Barry saw he wasn’t getting it. “Let me try again, I’m fucking this up, must be the ’roids.” He looked out the window where his guys pulled up in an Escalade. He held up his palm to the window and turned back to Harv. “I like you, I’ve always respected you. Everybody does. When you had no dough, well, you didn’t whine, you went out and made some. When you had some, it was party time on Harv. You’re of an older generation than us guys, you took the beatings and you stood up, and when the judge said three years or four years or five years, you pulled your time. But this guy, this fat fuck? Me and my guys’re going to do this thing with the Chinamen tonight for you. If it flies right, we’ll make some dough off you. If it goes sideways, well, we’ve got the equipment and those fuckers won’t have to click their heels to find out they’re not in Chinatown anymore, but they’re gonna think it’s Chinese New Year anyway. But after this? After tonight? No. Not if he’s anywhere near it.”
“Fuck, Barry, c’mon. It’s the life, man.”
Barry shook his head. “It isn’t, Harv. I don’t give a fuck what a guy does to make some dough at his end. But think about it: where was the end there, in the basement? We already had what we went for, right? Pills, dough. If you can tell me what the fuck that was about, where the end was in what he did, well, I’ll listen. Maybe you can convince me, but I doubt it.” He waved his guys in. “We do man�
�s work you once told me, when I was young and I needed a talking to because I missed something for some guys and those guys sent you over to explain things to me.” He grinned fondly. “A painful lesson, it was, Harv, that much I remember. But it stuck. You know that in the basement with the girl, that wasn’t man’s work. That’s some other kind of creature and I don’t want me or my guys around it.”
“Jesus, Bar’, you all feel like this?”
“Yeah, Harv. We talked and this is where we’re all at. We see him around, we’re going to take him out. No profit in it, no end for us. That’s okay.” Barry smiled. “He’s a rabid fucking dog, Harv, and he’s had his one free bite. Community service, think of it as.”
* * *
There was nothing to do in his rental van speeding north except think and crunch little pills to keep his eyes open and the car on the road.
The Chinamen and Barry’s crew had been well-behaved. One of the Chinamen glared at Harv throughout the entire transaction, relentless as the bags were moved across the restaurant, as the steaks were ignored on their bloody wooden platters. There was a shuffling of personnel as each side took their bag to the basement washroom and came out nodding. A Chinaman flashed a gun on his lap. Barry, who had a shopping bag on the top of his table, saw it and poked the end of a sawed-off at the Chinaman and smiled as though he’d like nothing better than some gunfire with his tenderloin.
Harv, in the basement, checked the wads of money, mixed up hundreds and twenties, trying to determine if any was fake. He couldn’t tell. No one could. The Chinese were in with some Koreans and the Koreans ran print shops across the city, turning out currency so perfect that even if you got bogus you could still run it through a teller at a bank.
When Harv came up out of the basement he made a sign. One of the Chinamen walked past Barry’s table and smoothly picked up the knapsack. He went to the basement. When he came out he made his own sign to his people. Protocol called for one guy on each side to leave the restaurant and call on a cellphone to the next guy on his team, who would wait until one of the other side left. The Chinamen didn’t bother. They got up and swaggered out as a gang. Harv and Barry discussed possible problems when they hit the street. Finally, Barry said, Fuck it, and, with his scatter in the bag, went outside. He stood pumped and prowling by the door until Harv and the rest of his crew came out and headed for their vehicles. After Harv paid him off, Barry made a point of shaking hands and saying Goodbye, Harv, while the others shuffled their feet near the Escalade. They wouldn’t look at him.
