Ray Tate and Djuna Brown Mysteries 3-Book Bundle

by Lee Lamothe

  “How about …” Preston was where he didn’t want to be, but he’d come to the diner ready to be there. “How about, I solve your problem, you solve mine?”

  “Yeah? You’d do that?”

  “How much you got?”

  Marko shrugged: “Maybe … nine? Ten?” His face was sheepish, the rapscallion Marko of old. He giggled. “Eleven?”

  “Jesus, Marko.” It was stunning. Preston had to laugh. It was like the years had fallen away. He realized how much he’d missed Marko. “Man, how’d that happen?”

  “Business’s been good. The Juans are into credit now, each load pays for the next and you get slack on the one after that, if you want it. You know what they’re like: take it, take it, take it. They just want to move product, make the market. So I did. I took it and I shoulda wholesaled, paid it back, but I didn’t. I was an asshole. I ran down the whole nine yards, down to quarters. That brought a lot of dough, little dough. Then then they tightened up the border. And there was this Green Squad and the rat fuckers. Now I’m plugged. Pavo is getting all douchey about it.”

  “You boil it down yet? Into something manageable?”

  Marko laughed and sipped his coffee. “Bobby, if I didn’t have these rats all over me I’d jam it into a fucking truck, grab my nuts, and head for the border. March or die. But they’re just little fishes: tens, twenties, some fifties, some hundreds, not many.”

  “Okay. We’ll work something out. But you’re going to have to get it boiled into something I can take through.”

  “I got Jerry working on it. He’ll come up with something.” He studied Preston. “I’m paying ten percent for the transit over the border, another ten for the boiling, if you want it.”

  Bobby Preston shrugged. “Boiling’s not what I do.”

  “Okay” Marko didn’t want to mention Julia Gurr. “Jerry’ll get it boiled, he’s got an idea. You get it over the border, I’ll take it from there.”

  “And Zo’?”

  “I’m on it right away. I’ll eat the grease and I’ll eat the transport to get her back. The last bank note hits Canadian soil, she’s out of Mexico.”

  “I want her out right away.”

  “No can do. House arrest, okay? You can call her, she can lay out in the sun, she can sip Margaritas. But she doesn’t leave the country until we’re done.”

  “Bring her home now, Marko. You got my word, I’ll come up with a variation for you.”

  Marko looked down at his coffee cup, then up at Preston. “A few years ago, Bobby, you and me, we could live on mixing blood. But lately I’ve been running with a bad bunch of people and frankly, I’ve lost my faith in human nature.” He shook his head, morose, and casually rubbed the long serrated scar on his thumb with his forefinger. “You know, I think you were maybe right about this business. God, the things I’ve seen; treachery, betrayal, no loyalty. You know what I mean, don’t you, Bobby, about loyalty? Betrayal? Sure you do.” After a pause of reflection he stood up. “You need anything right now? To put it together?”

  “I got it covered.”

  “Take a walk down the street at noon tomorrow. Jerry’ll pick you up and take you for a drive to meet me. I’ll take you to the stash. You can do your measurements, your calculations, whatever.”

  “I’ll want Zo’ on the phone, first.”

  “See, Bobby? Nobody trusts nobody. I’ll have to track her down, get her out, and get her to a phone. Give me til noon.” He put a ten dollar bill on the table top. “Ain’t you gonna thank me, Bobby?”

  In the Chrysler, Ray Tate triangulated the mirrors with a view to the diner and began molesting her. “Just technique, Djun’. We’ll look like teenaged lovers having a night to ourselves.”

  “Right,” Djuna Brown said. “Teenagers in a cop car with grill lights and a crash bar. Nice try, Bongo.” But she unfastened her seatbelt and slipped sideways in the passenger seat. “I can guess what you’re after.”

  “Necessity. One of us has to be able to see, right?” He racked his seat back and ran his fingers down the back of her neck when she leaned in to kiss him. “A cruiser comes down the road and you just stay down there and I’ll badge them. They’ll think … Well, surveillance isn’t all beer and pizza, right?”

  She grinned her little teeth at him. He could see the whites of her eyes. He felt pretty good and he hoped she could finish before Markowitz, who he saw was sitting with a lean blond man with a beard, finished his rendezvous. The window looked like an Edward Hopper painting, with the wall of daily specials inside and the garish lights and somnambulant waitress slumped at the cash register, staring into the middle ground of a lost life. He felt pretty good about making the art connection with the stress Djuna Brown was applying.

  The blond man left first. He climbed into the old Chev beater and spit gravel off the diner parking lot, heading for the Eight. Mellow, Ray Tate was tempted to just let him go. Djuna Brown, looking pleased with herself, adjusted the rear-view mirror and spiked her hair with her fingers. “Take him, Ray.”

  He took the Chev to the Eight, closing momentarily to get the plate number, then hung well back, playing it loose. The Eight was three lanes each way, a figure eight with city hall inside the top loop, the Jank police headquarters and municipal offices inside the bottom. Above the top loop the road ran straight, north to the interstate with ramp-offs every few miles. South, it dispersed traffic into the city.

  The blond guy went through some scrubbing, speeding, and slowing before ramping off onto Upper Middle Avenue above city hall, then ramping back down onto the highway.

  “He’s heated up. Or just careful.” Ray Tate let him go and gunned the Chrysler on UMA, hit the grill lights and ran ahead, running each traffic light, then he killed hot lights and swooped back down onto the Eight, running north with the Chev in his rear-view mirror.

  “If he gets off behind us, we’re going to lose him. I’ll see where he might be going.” Djuna Brown took the freddy from the rack. “Radio, Green Squad Four, rolling DMV, we’ve got a grey Chevrolet, looks about nineteen nine-four, dealer tag niner niner sixer Alpha Charlie Charlie.”

  The tag came back to Truong’s Autobody in East Chinatown.

  “If he’s nesting there, he’ll take the next ramp,” Ray Tate said, signalling for the Fairgrounds exit. As he climbed the ramp he watched the mirror, waiting for the Chev to come up behind him. “Fuck, where is he?” He pulled the Chrysler to the side of the road at the top of the ramp. A line of luxury vehicles rolled up, carefully stopping at the stop sign, all turning left toward the Alps. “This’ll be the rich old folks from the ballet.” He watched the mirrors. “Nothing. He’s gone.”

  “Let’s roll Chinatown.” She saw he was happy, finally doing cop work in the night, the Sector band radio whispering. She didn’t feel too bad herself; the streets weren’t having the negative effect of terror she’d expected. “We’ll look at this autobody shop in case he took another route.”

  “What about the Whistler?”

  “You ready already?”

  “Well,” he said, “give me another ten minutes.”

  They were barely nested in shadow across the street from Truong’s Autobody when a heavy-set bearded young man in a backwards baseball cap, a Chicago Bears sweatshirt, and baggy blue jeans came up on Ray Tate’s window. “Amscray, kids. We’re sightseeing here and you’re blocking the view.”

  “Asset Recovery. Tate and Brown.”

  “Oh. Yeah, you the guys just put over a vehick to this address? Truong’s? Grey Chev? Pop the back, we’ll go around the corner, get this piece of shit out of sight.”

  Ray Tate unlocked the back passenger door and when the man was aboard he crept the Chrysler away from the body shop, leaving the headlights off. The heavyset man introduced himself as Joey Jeff Watson, investigative support squad. He directed Ray Tate meticulously. “My partner, there in the big-ass old Cutlass, she’s got the eye on Truong’s so I need the eye on her. Roll back a couple of feet. There … another foot. Good, pe
rfect.” He had a curly wire plugged into his left ear.

  Djuna Brown leaned for a look. The Cutlass was parked nose first in a strip mall parking lot with the rear of the car squarely facing the body shop. “My dad used to drive a cab, one of those. Guzzler. How come she’s parked so close? Don’t the bad guys take a look inside, burn her?”

  “When your dad had one, you ever look in the trunk? Lots of room in there.”

  “She’s in the trunk? What the fuck?”

  “Relax, dearie,” Watson said, yawning, speaking without taking his eyes off the Cutlass. “She’s just little, like you. Chinese. She’s got a lotta room. Probably cooking up some rice in there for our dinner.”

  “How can she see anything? In the trunk?”

  “Magic.”

  Ray Tate studied the Cutlass. “Rear left tail light. You busted it out, slapped masking tape over it, left a peep hole. She’s inside peeking through, right? Sweating like a hog?” He laughed. The creativity of the ISS was boundless. “You fucking guys.”

  ISS was wallpaper. Moving or still surveillance, eyes or ears, it was all the same to them. They were given their target and left alone. They never knew the reason for the surveillance unless officer safety was an issue. Someone who needed work done called up their secret satellite location with a site and ISS went active. There were ISS operators in wheelchairs and on crutches, driving telephone repair trucks or pizza delivery vans, there were ISS ops who spent hours in alleys on sheets of discarded cardboard boxes puking vegetable soup, there were ops who sat with begging cups on street corners. There were ISS ops who hadn’t been in a police station in years, who’d forgotten how to operate handcuffs.

  Ray Tate said, “What play are you up on?”

  “Dunno.” Watson, his arms on the back of the front seat and his chin on his arms, kept his eyes on the Cutlass. “Someone called the shop, said go paint a fence. We don’t ask. We paint. But I know this guy that runs the place, from when I was in cars. Tiger Truong. Busy, busy guy. Could be car parts, animal parts, migrants, gambling, loansharking, Native smokes, dolls, counterfeit shoes. Last year when chickens were a lot cheaper over here than up in Canada, he ran frozen birds through the border. Giving a shit is above my pay grade.” He yawned again, cracking his jaws, and excused himself. “So. The plate you put over from here. What’s up with that?”

  Ray Tate said, “We’re doing a thing on a guy and this guy with that plate rolled in and met our guy and rolled out, then dumped us. We’d like to put a name on that guy.”

  Watson nodded appreciatively. “Hang on …” He pressed a finger where the wire went into his ear, then spoke down into his shirt front. “Ah, okay, May. If you gotta, you gotta.” He said to Ray Tate, “Weak bladder. She’s only been in there four hours or so. I need one of you guys, you, June …?”

  “Djuna.”

  “Sure. Take this key and go move the Cutty, okay? Tiger usually has a nosy guy outside, smoking and wandering around. Drive it over to Blanchard and Geary. Can you do street?”

  “I’m on it.” Djuna Brown slipped her holster off her waist and her handcuffs and handed them to Ray Tate. She took the key ring from Watson.

  She crossed the street in her slippers, weaving a little, then broke into a spinning dance up the middle of the block and did a perfect cartwheel. She looked like a high school cheerleader. They could hear her laughing and singing as she bowed deeply and accepted acclaim from a non-existent audience. A cigarette glowed in a shadow beside the double doors of the body shop. At the Cutlass, she bobbled a little and tried three times to get the key into the lock, dropped it twice. Once inside, she started the engine, then started it again. The ignition grinded. She banged it into reverse and did a tire-smoking back-out, rocked to a loud lurching stop, and peeled away with her headlights off and the radio blaring.

  “Fuck, she’s good. I find these little broads are great at this work. Her thing in your thing, is that permanent? Wanna trade?”

  “She’s a Statie, on secondment.” Ray Tate felt a little jealous. “Specialist.” He didn’t say what she specialized in.

  “She’s so little I could put her in the tailpipe of a Honda.”

  Chapter 10

  While Bobby Preston went to meet Markowitz, Julia Gurr stayed in his flat in the Annex. She kept all the lights on and tried to sleep the night away. It had been a long time since she slept in a bed that smelled of a man. He used too much fragrant detergent in his washer. The sheets smelled sickly sweet. There were no female scents. She wondered if he’d seen anyone since she’d left him.

  She’d made a mistake, somehow, before. She’d taken a contract to boil cash for the Ibrahaims, out of Spicetown. She’d gone to discuss rates and timelines. Greedy to make some dough, she didn’t wonder why the Ibs, who had their own networks, needed her. And she was snared, hooded, and gagged and in the trunk of a car.

  And she suffered a week of night.

  She’d screamed pathetic pleas and it did nothing to stop the zombies plundering her. She’d been abducted for no reason she ever determined. She hadn’t picked up the money yet. She’d been held for a week, a carnival of fetid grunting flesh. With a little imagination she could smell the salty sweat of the leather dog mask they’d strapped to her face. It was zombie life and somehow she’d become part of it. Finally, someone kicked her in the head and someone swung a bat and her face exploded into fireworks and pain and she ended up staggering and reeling, naked at dawn in Spicetown, her cheekbone powdered. There was a Samaritan, a woman who couldn’t stop tsk-tsking and patting her arm and tell it her that although it was painful, it was Jesus’ plan. Then a hospital and cops. She wouldn’t speak. They ran her through and figured out who she was.

  “We grow ’em a little different in Spicetown, honey,” a biker squad detective said staring directly at her wrecked cheekbone. “But I guess you figured that out all by your lonesome?”

  She didn’t bother trying to reach Bobby Preston. She called Marko, he was there fast, flanked by muscle and lawyers. The cops put him through too and drug squad showed up, and organized crime guys. Marko told them all to go fuck themselves and arranged to get her out of there. He rented a jet and took her west, to new landscape near Santa Barbara, and found a little house on a beach not far from a treatment centre and they sat for weeks on the edge of the Pacific while she healed, watching the sun sink into China.

  Marko subtly worked on her.

  “Come over with me, Jools,” he said as seagulls screamed overhead in blurred grey wheels against the perfect blue sky above the perfect blue ocean. “This is no business for an independent. Things are rough and they’re getting rougher. I still love Bobby, but Bobby can’t give you the protection you need, not now. He’s broken. You need a strongman.”

  She knew he’d loved her from the time they were kids. Moony Marko, the neighbourhood called him. Grownups got him to go pick up stuff for them, telling him they saw Growler Gurr’s kid, the blondie, at the bootleggers, pick me up a bottle. Marko the mope went every time, just on the off chance.

  “I know, Marko, I know. I don’t feel that way. I’m sorry.”

  When she came back, Marko moved her into his apartment in Stonetown. She tried to stay there while she recovered. She thought he was cool about it, just being there in case she needed him. He was in for the long game; he’d waited twenty years for his shot and he wasn’t going to fuck it up with a hard-on. He noticed she resisted going out at night and when he could he stayed home with her, watching old movies. When he had to go out on business he made sure she was secure in her little suite in the corner of the apartment, had old romantic DVDs, had food, whatever she needed. He gave her a panic pager and a gun.

  But Jerry Kelly was around. Silent, hovering, staring. He was sympathetic, saying, “Wow, you came through. That musta been hell. But you came through and look at you now.” Before Spicetown he’d been disinterested in her; now he was a creepy presence. “We’ll look after you.”

  Once, while Marko was out,
Jerry Kelly was suddenly in the apartment, eighteen inches behind her in the living room and his soft breath like cobwebs on the back of her neck just killed her. She just pissed herself. He was kind and got down on his knees with wadded paper towels to sponge the carpet. When he turned away she thought she heard a soft snicker, but maybe it was her imagination.

  The next day she was gone. She found an anonymous apartment two blocks off Harrison Hill. She kept the mirrors covered with towels. Some days she showered hourly. No one knew where she was. She never let herself be caught outside alone after dark, no matter what.

  In her hideout apartment she kept heavy items always within reach, items she could use to brain anyone who invaded, or to throw through a window for help. She could find the door in the dark. She felt safe with Marko’s pistol until she found herself tentatively sticking the barrel into her mouth to see if it might taste of bliss. She was a mother, for Christ sakes, she told herself, she had a beautiful, good daughter. She threw the gun away.

  Life recreated itself. She had money stashed, something she’d learned from her dad, the ultimate weatherman of criminal rainy days. She didn’t have to work, didn’t have to go out and rut in the muck for a buck. Zoe came back on a visit and they had a long talk before she shipped herself back to Mexico. There was a breakthrough night where Julia Gurr and Bobby Preston met for a drink and he opened up about the river and she about Spicetown. They recognized they were both suffering but couldn’t help each other. They were over.

  Their only bonds were Zoe and Marko.

  Every light was on in the flat in the Annex when Bobby Preston quietly came in. She was in the kitchen, smoking, with a small framed photograph of Zoe in her hand. A glass of white wine was in front of her. “What did he say? Bobby? Is he going to help us? Help Zoe?”