A Cool Breeze on the Underground nc-1

by Don Winslow

  She brushed past him and headed for the driver’s door.

  I didn’t want to do this, Neal thought. He grabbed her by the elbow, stuck his foot behind hers, and threw her down. She got over her surprise in about half a second and started to get up, but he lifted her up by the shoulders and tossed her down on her back. She landed hard but got up and headed back toward the car. He stood in her way and she took a swing at him, a clumsy, looping swing that he caught easily, turning her wrist and bending her arm in back of her. He grabbed her hair with his other hand and forced her to her knees. He bent her over until her face grazed the ground.

  It shocked him that he wasn’t sorry, that this felt good, and he wondered whom he was so goddamned angry at, and he wondered where his mother was and whether she was even alive, and he wondered whether Allie was the only fucked-up person on this barren, beautiful hill, and why he had taken this job in the first place.

  He lifted her up and turned her around so that they were face-to-face. It didn’t help. He wanted to hit her. Hard. In the face. He wanted to tell himself that he would do it to settle her down, to get her in the house, part of the job and all, but he knew it wasn’t true. He wanted to hit her because she was a woman and a junkie and a whore, just like the girl who hadn’t married dear old Dad. That knowledge sickened him, tired him out more than everything he’d been through. He let go of her shoulders.

  She knew, though. He saw in her eyes that she had seen it in his: the rage, the violence. She had flinched and braced herself for the slap she knew was coming. He saw that to her he was just another man who beat up women.

  The slap didn’t come. They stood on the windy hill staring at each other. Neal could hear his heartbeat all right; it pounded along with his lungs reaching for breath. Finally, he said, “I ripped Colin off. He thinks you helped me. I let him think that-”

  “Jesus… you asshole… who told you to-”

  “Because I don’t want you to be with him anymore. I don’t want you shooting smack anymore.” The words came out between gulps of air, and it was as close to telling the truth as he could go right then. He walked past her into the cottage.

  Allie caught her breath for a moment and then walked to the car.

  Neal was trying to build a fire when she came back in. The afternoon had turned suddenly cold. He wasn’t having much luck and thought that maybe he should have joined the Boy Scouts instead of Friends of the fucking Family, when she came through the door.

  “Where are my drugs?” she demanded.

  “Somewhere on the M-11.”

  “You sleazy cocksucker!”

  “‘People who live in glass houses…” He touched the match to the old newspaper and it caught flame. He blew gently on it, as he’d seen in the movies, and had a modest success. “Don’t you think it’s cold in here?”

  “It’s fucking freezing!”

  “That’s because you’re starting into withdrawal. It’ll get worse. There are some wool sweaters upstairs in a wardrobe. I suggest you get a couple.”

  “I suggest you get me some dope, or I’m driving right back to London.”

  “Good idea. Call Colin when you get in. I’m sure he’d love to see you.”

  He let her draw her own conclusions.

  “Thanks for fucking up my life!”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You at least owe me some dope!”

  Neal added a small piece of wood to the fire and almost smothered it. He shifted things around with the poker and the fire came to life. He was concentrating hard on making the fire. It settled him down.

  Then he took his shot. Carefully, because he knew that she wouldn’t be lucid much longer.

  “What I owe you,” he said, “is ten thousand pounds. I figure that’s more than fair, seeing as you didn’t do a goddamn thing to earn it. But that’s not your fault. What I owe you is a chance to get off the junk and stay off, because that was also part of our deal. No more junk, no more dates.”

  “What deal? We didn’t make any deal.”

  “Yeah we did. Feeding the ducks. There are all kinds of ways to make a deal, Alice. Sometimes it’s on paper, sometimes it’s in words, and sometimes it’s just understood. We had an understanding, and you know it.”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Okay. How crazy am I? I have the books and I have you. I cool out here for a while, then go back to the States. I call the buyer, he gets on the next plane, and I get twenty thousand pounds. Crazy? Okay.”

  He poked the wood around a little more, as he’d seen in the movies. He could feel Allie thinking behind him.

  “Now let’s ask how crazy you are,” he said. “I’ll give you… give you… half the money… ten thousand pounds. All you have to do is get off the stuff, come to the States with me, and still be clean when I make the sale.”

  Her hands were starting to shake. Soon her whole body would start in.

  “Why?” she asked. “Why would you do that for me?”

  She wasn’t grateful, she was suspicious. That was okay with Neal; suspicion was easier to deal with.

  “I’m not doing it for you, I’m doing it for me.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “What a surprise. Listen, you didn’t think I was going to trust Colin to hide me out and keep me safe, did you? Why would Colin take half when he could get it all? He’d stab me in the back- literally-the second I turned it on him. I was always planning to screw him, just like he was always planning to screw me.

  “I didn’t plan on… liking… you. I didn’t want to leave you behind to be on the street for Colin until he used you up and booted you out. So I took you. We can say it was against your will if that’ll make you feel better, but we both know the truth.”

  “Maybe you think-”

  “Shut up and listen. So now that I’ve got you, what do I do with you? We have some time to spend together up here, and I don’t want to have to tie you up and all that shit, I don’t want to have to worry about you running off to the cops screaming that you’ve been kidnapped, and I especially don’t want you deciding that heroin and hooking are your true lifestyle and getting to a phone and taking your chances with old Colin.”

  “Yeah, so…”

  “Yeah, so I’m making you my partner. I want you to have a rooting interest in my survival. There are going to be a lot of angry people looking for me over the next few months, and I don’t want you standing there, pointing and saying ‘He went that-away.’”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Let’s just say I’m giving you a little motivation.”

  She tried to come up with her best spoiled-brat smile, the same one he’d seen her use with Colin. “Motivate me with some smack.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I need to trust you, and I won’t trust a junkie. Junkies will do anything. You get the money if and when you’re off the stuff.”

  She was starting to shake but she was also listening. It took an effort. “So you think you can buy me.”

  “Sure. Ten thousand pounds. Current exchange rate… about sixteen thousand dollars. You could be a very comfortable runaway for a long time on sixteen large, if you don’t have a habit to support. It’s called a fresh start, and they don’t come around too often. Not this easily, anyway. I’d take it if I were you.”

  Her eyes were starting to tear up. Pretty soon, her knees would start to rattle and her ears would hum, and it would be no good talking to her. The, smack would do all the talking, and she would listen. It was starting already.

  “What if I don’t take your ‘deal’? What if I say no?”

  “You won’t. I’m only doing what you told me you wanted. Keep you off the smack and off the street.”

  She put her hands over her ears and shook her head. Thinking was hard-her junkie body was telling her brain to get out of the way. “I can’t get off the junk, Neal. I can’t. I thought I wanted to, but I can’t!”

  “I’ll help you
.”

  “What do you mean, help me?”

  He turned away from the fire to look at her. “I mean help you. Couple of hours, things are going to get bad for you. You’re going to get pretty sick. I’ll help you get through it.”

  She looked scared. It surprised him. He’d never seen her look scared before. She said, “Who are you, Marcus Welby?”

  “I know a little bit about this stuff.”

  “You were a junkie?”

  “No, I wasn’t a junkie. I just know about it.”

  Yeah, okay, Diane. More secrets, more holding back. More not trusting. Fuck you. Why is every woman in my life coming to visit just now?

  Allie started to pace around the room. She ran her hands over the stone walls. “You bastard. You prick. You got me into this! Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?” Good goddamn question.

  “I don’t want to quit!” she continued. Her pacing picked up. Neal saw she was starting to panic. “I can, I just don’t want to! I like it, all right? Who the fuck are you to do this to me?” Another good goddamn question.

  Neal stirred his coffee. Allie sat on the floor. She wrapped her arms around her knees and hung her head on her hands. She started to rock, slowly at first, then faster and harder, back and forth. Neal barely heard her crying, and when he looked over, he had to look hard to see the tears wetting her face. The pain in his chest felt like his heart breaking.

  He fought it. It was like his body was wrapped in barbed wire and he couldn’t move. It was like being ten years old and watching his mother fight it and lose, and walk out of the apartment and come back stoned. It was the rage he felt, and the hatred and the contempt, and the heartbreak, and it wrapped him up so tightly, he wanted to scream. He remembered stroking his mother’s head with a wet cloth, and holding her hand and telling her it was all right, she could do it. But she couldn’t. Not for him, not for her, and he hated her for it. For leaving him. For loving it more than him. For what she did to get it. He heard Allie’s quiet, choking sobs, and saw her hugging herself, holding on to herself, and he couldn’t move. Damn it, why couldn’t he move? Grief and anger kept him pressed into the chair, and he couldn’t breathe, and he wanted to scream, to yell, to shout out his fury, and he couldn’t. Instead, he got up, and went over to her, and sat down beside her, and held her while she rocked. She grabbed his wrist and he rocked her then, back and forth, saying “I know, I know.”

  He left her a little while later to build a fire in the oven to heat water for tea. He couldn’t find any sugar, but there was a large jar of honey in the cupboard. He spooned a large dollop into the tea, and held the cup while she sipped at it. Then he rocked her some more.

  26

  Colin was in trouble.

  He knew it as soon as he wheeled his bike down the old home street and saw two Chinese hanging around the corner. They were Dickie Huan’s boys, and no mistake, and Colin flashed on the meat cleaver doing its bit on his fingers, and he turned the bike around. The two lazy effin’ bastards hadn’t seen him, and he headed toward East London and the old neighborhood, hoping Crisp would have the sense to do the same thing.

  He didn’t, of course. His first instinct was to find Colin, so he trudged dutifully back to the flat. Some good hash and a pint had helped to soothe his pains, and as he turned the corner to home, he was even thinking that the new facial arrangement might make him more interesting-looking.

  “He won’t be here,” Vanessa said, pouting. Her head hurt, her man looked as if he’d been at a football game, and she figured that Cola had fucked everything up, anyway.

  “We’ll wait.”

  They didn’t notice the leather-clad Chinese kids on the corner. Chinese usually just fought Chinese and stayed in their own neighborhoods, so Crisp had no problem with them. He just wanted to quaff a couple more pints, toss some dollers, and go to bed. It just wasn’t his night. They were good, these Chinese kids. They gave the two kweilo, the shitty-looking boy and his strange girlfriend, enough of a head start and then followed them into the building and up the stairs, timing it so they arrived at the door just as Crisp was opening it.

  The larger one jumped Crisp from behind, hauled him through the door, and landed on his back. He drew the knife out and stuck it in Crisp’s neck, just enough to bring a trickle of blood. The other one put a revolver to Vanessa’s head and pulled the hammer back. She kept her mouth shut.

  “Where’s Colin?” the big one asked, edging up the pressure of the blade.

  The day had really gone to shit, Crisp thought, it really had. “Dunno.”

  “He owes money.”

  “I dunno where he is.”

  “He owes money.”

  “I’ll get some. Let me up.”

  “You know where he is.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No, I don’t.”

  The Chinese kid stuck the point of the stiletto into Crisp’s ear, just short of the eardrum.

  Crisp wondered whether the incredible thump of his own heart pounding was the last thing he’d hear.

  “You know where Colin is.”

  “He’s on a bike chasing some Americans who stole his money!”

  The sound of Vanessa shouting this surprised Crisp, who was trying to lie absolutely, perfectly still. He breathed a little, then he felt the blade slip out of his ear.

  What might be described as a heavy silence ensued. Finally, the aural surgeon asked, “Colin doesn’t have the money?”

  He didn’t sound real pleased.

  Colin wasn’t exactly filled with delight to be skulking back to the old neighborhood, either. But he could go under here, get lost and stay lost, at least until he could figure out a way of finding Neal and getting his money. Because, if he didn’t, he was finished in London.

  It isn’t easy trail someone who knows you, especially when your mark also knows you’re a detective, and especially when you’re working on the same case. It makes for a long day.

  However, Joe Graham didn’t care how long the days were, or the nights. He did care that the last tune he had heard from Neal Carey, the boy was trapped and about to get it but good. And he also cared… cared a whole lot… about what Neal had told him on the phone. That he’d been set up-by their old buddy Ed Levine.

  From some angles, it made sense. There were no files in the office on Allie’s previous adventures and there should have been. So maybe Ed had destroyed them. And Ed was working real closely with John Chase, and Ed was ambitious. And Senator Chase had been diddling his stepdaughter, which didn’t make good campaign material So maybe it was possible that Ed had sent Neal to London not to make sure that Allie came home but to make sure she didn’t. And Ed hated Neal. So maybe it was possible that old Ed was cleaning a bunch of troubles off his desk, and settling an old score. Maybe.

  But then from other angles, it just didn’t fit. He’d worked with Ed for over ten years, and in ten years you get to know a guy. And Ed had a good career going already; why fuck it up to go with a prick like Chase? And Ed wasn’t the sort of guy who stands for somebody abusing a kid… he had proved that in an alley years ago. Which was another thing-Ed liked to settle his scores in person. If he wanted a piece of Neal, he’d take it himself.

  No. Neal was wrong. It wasn’t Ed.

  Unless Ed was following orders. From Kitteredge, who got them from Chase. No, that wasn’t possible. The Man wouldn’t do that, not for a crummy Vice-Presidential candidate, not for the Prez himself. It couldn’t be Kitteredge, either.

  So who else? Who had access to information? Keyes’s address?

  The answer was where it always was: on the street.

  And it wasn’t easy staying on the street with a guy who knows who you are, but now they were dealing with me, Joe Graham thought, and I’m the best there is. I taught Neal Carey everything he knows.

  27

  “How did you find me?” Neal asked Graham. Neal was nineteen then, and disgusted. Graham had given him the simple assignment to get lost. In a city of some 13 million
people, Graham had found him- in two days.

  Graham smiled his filthy smile and looked around the small third-floor apartment on Waverly Place. “Easy. I told you to get lost, and you didn’t. So you got found.”

  Neal wasn’t in the mood for this bullshit. Spring break was too short and he had a paper on the Romantic poets to write. He had seen this stupid training exercise as an opportunity to get some work done. “Are you going to be cryptic, or are you going to tell me?” he asked.

  “What’s ‘cryptic’? Does it mean smart? Smarter than a stupid nineteen-year-old who picks a classmate’s apartment to get lost in? Are you going to get me a coffee or anything?”

  “I’ll have to grind some.”

  “Oh, yeah, this is the Village, I forgot.” He pointed to his crotch. “Grind this. Just make some coffee. You know, if you were the Fugitive, that series would have been over after the first episode. You’re easier to find than rice on Mott Street.”

  Neal took some expensive mocha blend out of the refrigerator. He had bought it specially to help him work on the paper. The coffee shop around the corner was his favorite in the city.

  “Are you going to lecture me, or just sit there?” he asked Graham. There were days, many of them, when he hated Graham.

  “I’m going to lecture you. I’m just dragging it out because I’m enjoying it so much.

  “You see, Neal, when you want to get lost, the first thing you got to lose is yourself. You got to become a different person, otherwise you bring all your habits, and likes and dislikes, and all your connections with you. Anybody who knows you has a good shot at finding you. And I know you, son.”

  “Yes, you do, Dad.”

  “I know you got this spring vacation. I even know you got a thing to write. I know you want peace and quiet.

  “I also know you’re too cheap to rent a hotel room, even though Friends would have picked up the bill, and I know you haven’t got your driver’s license, so you didn’t drive out into the country, where you probably should, have gone.”

  Neal carefully poured the ground coffee into the filter and measured out the water in the carafe.