Betrayers nd-35

by Bill Pronzini

  On the way home I’d worked up a different approach than the ones we’d used before-an appeal to her good judgment and common sense. “Emily, I know you hate to break promises, but this cocaine business is different-it’s a serious adult issue. A promise to your parents is more important than one to a friend or schoolmate.”

  Her gaze held steady on mine. “I didn’t break my promise to you.”

  “Not about using drugs, but bringing cocaine home amounts to the same thing. Unless you had an innocent reason for doing it. Did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then tell me what it was.”

  “I can’t. I don’t want anyone to be hurt.”

  “It’s too late for that. You’re hurt; Kerry and I are hurt.”

  “Not as bad as they’ll be hurt.”

  “They? More than one person?”

  “No. Just… no.”

  They. Meaning “he or she.” Grammar was one of Emily’s best subjects; she’d used the plural on purpose, to disguise the person’s sex.

  What I said next went against my principles, but if it was the only way to pry the truth out of her, then I was willing to make the sacrifice. Kerry would be, too. You can’t police the entire world, especially the complex and volatile segment inhabited by teenagers. “It doesn’t have to be that way, Emily. I’ll make you a promise. If all you did was bring that box home to protect a friend, and that friend isn’t pressuring you in any way, then all you have to do is tell us who and why and we’ll let the matter drop. No one will ever know you told us.”

  She shook her head. “That’s a promise you wouldn’t keep, Dad.”

  “Why do you say that? I’m not a promise breaker any more than you are.”

  “I know, but…”

  “But what?”

  Silence. Her gaze shifted to the computer screen. You could almost see her withdrawing again, the muscles in her face tightening, the remoteness coming back into her eyes.

  “Tell me about the box,” I said.

  “What about it?”

  “Did you talk to the person it belongs to today?”

  No immediate response. Thinking about it, and squirming a little in her chair as if the memory was causing her some discomfort. It was almost a minute before she said, “The person I thought it belonged to, yes.”

  “Thought it belonged to?”

  “It doesn’t. It’s not theirs, the box or what was in it. I was wrong.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “I believe them,” she said, but there was something in her voice that made me think she might not be completely convinced.

  “Did the person ask you what happened to the cocaine?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told them. How Mom found the box… everything.”

  “Were they upset?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Did they want you to get it back? Turn it over to them?”

  “No, they’re not like that. They don’t have any idea who it belongs to.”

  “Ask you not to tell us their name?”

  “… Yes. But it’s not what you think. They don’t want anyone to get the wrong impression.”

  “That they’re the one doing coke, you mean.”

  “Yes. Because they’re not.”

  “Emily, where did you find the box?

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Emily…”

  “You’ll know if I tell you and I can’t… I can’t. ”

  “All right. You didn’t see it being lost, did you?”

  “No. I found it afterward, later.”

  “Then why did you think it belonged to this person you talked to today?”

  Headshake.

  “Did somebody else tell you who owned it?”

  “No. I… saw it once before.”

  “In this person’s possession?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the person right away after you found it?”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Why couldn’t you?”

  Headshake. Like trying to pry out splinters with a fork.

  I said, “Did you open the box before you brought it home?”

  “No. Not until after I got home. I wish I hadn’t; I wish I’d never seen what was inside.”

  “Would you have returned the box with the cocaine still in it?”

  “I don’t think so. I might’ve just thrown it away. Or come to you and Mom, asked you what to do.”

  “But once you were sure whose box it was, you felt you couldn’t do that.”

  “No, I… No.”

  “Why? Why is this person so special to you?”

  “Please, Dad. Please. They didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t do anything wrong, I don’t want them to be hurt.” The raspy breath she drew seemed to make her small body tremble. “I just want everything to be the way it was before.”

  “That can’t happen, Emily.”

  “I know it can’t,” she said, and she started to cry. Suddenly, without sound-tears leaking out of her eyes, glistening silver on her smooth cheeks. My immediate impulse was to go around the desk and take her in my arms, hold her, tell her everything would be all right. But it was the wrong thing to do; the time for comfort and reassurance was after confession, not before.

  I left her alone, went and sat in my chair in the living room, and tried to make some sense of the few little snippets of information I’d gotten out of her. She’d found the box somewhere, had seen it before and knew who it belonged to, but hadn’t known what was in it until she got it home. All right. But why had she later gone to him or her and promised to keep the person’s identity secret? Why so protective?

  An idea occurred to me, one I should have thought of before. I’d locked the box in the mini-safe in Kerry’s and my bedroom closet; the little plastic vial was still in it, but the cocaine was long gone down the sewer. There was a strong halogen lamp on the desk in Kerry’s home office, a twin to the one in Emily’s room; I took the box in there, shut the door, switched the lamp on, and emptied out the cotton and the plastic vial. Then I rummaged around in the desk drawer until I found her big fold-out magnifying glass.

  On the first squint through the glass I couldn’t make out anything on the inside or outside of the box except scratches, wear marks, and a couple of tiny dents. I looked again, examining both sides of the lid, all four outer sides, the bottom. Nothing. One more time-

  Something.

  I was holding the box at an upward angle, with one lower corner in the center of the lens. What had seemed like random scratches before, one on each lower corner edge, took on a different aspect then. And I was seeing what Emily must have seen when she studied the box as I was doing now. Smart kid-smarter in some ways than her sometimes slow adoptive father.

  Initials. Two of them, etched into the soft bronze-colored tin, probably a long time ago, because handling and rubbing had made them virtually invisible to the naked eye.

  Z.U.

  My first impulse was to go back into Emily’s room and confront her again. Wrong move; I didn’t do it. She wouldn’t tell me who Z.U. was.

  There was another way to find out. Z.U. was a fairly uncommon set of initials, and whoever owned them figured to be somebody Emily knew at Whitney Middle School. As Tamara said often enough, you can find out anything on the Internet if you have a starting point-anything at all.

  11

  TAMARA

  Deron Stewart called her cell late Thursday morning. Pretty fast response time, but she’d hoped it would be even faster-last night, before she went to bed. She hadn’t slept much. Pins and needles, waiting. Shouldn’t be this wired; the phony Lucas hadn’t hurt her that badly, not nearly as much as he could have. But she couldn’t help how she felt. Hunger for revenge can do funny things to you.

  Bill was in his office, with the connecting door open as usual. She told Stewart to hold on, took her phone out through the anteroom into the hallway.
Nobody out there. She moved away from the door, over toward the stairs.

  “Okay, go ahead.”

  “Hawkins just called,” Stewart said. “Suggested we meet for drinks tonight at six o’clock.”

  “With Zeller?”

  “I asked him that; he said he wasn’t sure. So I left it there. Didn’t want to push him.”

  The right way to handle it. But frustration dug at her again anyway. “Where’re you meeting Doctor Easy?”

  “Place called the Twilight Lounge, on Ocean near his office.”

  “Twilight Lounge. Okay. Make sure you take the voice-activated recorder along.”

  “No worries. I’ve got it covered.”

  “Call me afterward, soon as you’re alone.”

  “Right. You sure you don’t want me to follow Zeller if he shows up?”

  “I’m sure,” she said.

  The Twilight Lounge was in the three-block business section of Ocean Avenue that ran between 19th Avenue and Junipero Serra Boulevard. Professional offices, shops, restaurants, taverns, and the usual limited street parking.

  Tamara got there a couple of minutes after five, heading west off Serra. Neither Doctor Easy’s office nor the Twilight Lounge was in the first block, and that was fine, because she lucked into a parking space close to the intersection. She was wearing her coat buttoned all the way up, a scarf, and a wool cap she’d had for years and kept in the car. Not because of the weather, although it was cold and foggy out here near the ocean. Wasn’t much chance Hawkins or the phony Lucas would be on the street this early, but when you were setting up a stakeout you never trusted to chance. Another lesson Bill had taught her.

  She walked down toward Lagunitas, not dawdling, checking out the storefronts lining both sides of the street. The Twilight Lounge was mid-block on the south side near where the M line streetcar tracks crossed. Hawkins’s office would be somewhere in the next block west, down toward 19th. Over where she was on the north side, diagonally opposite the Twilight, there was a Chinese restaurant with a window overlooking the street and tables set next to it inside. Perfect.

  As early as it was, there were only two customers in the restaurant, and neither of them was sitting by the window. She claimed the table with the best view of the Twilight’s entrance. A middle-aged Chinese waitress came over and Tamara ordered a pot of tea. Quarter past five now-forty-five minutes to wait. Longer, maybe a lot longer, if the phony Lucas showed up. She could linger over the tea until six, but not much past that without ordering food. Worry about that when the time came. Right now, as tense as she was, the thought of food made her stomach clench up.

  Sip tea, watch the people on the street. Three men went into the Twilight Lounge, all of them white. Not too many black faces on this part of Ocean; the few that came along were easy to spot.

  Five thirty.

  Five forty-five.

  The tea was making her feel queasy; she pushed the cup away. Here came the waitress, asking in stern tones if she wanted anything to eat. Lord. She hadn’t looked at the menu, hadn’t taken her eyes off the Twilight’s front door. “Potstickers,” she said. It was the first dish that popped into her head.

  Five fifty.

  She kept thinking about Lucas. If he showed, would he still be driving the five-year-old Buick? Probably. She began watching the cars that rolled by in both directions, looking for a light brown LeSabre. Dark now and hard to tell makes and colors. Streetlights, building lights, headlights helped some, but not enough. Would she recognize the Buick if it came along? Sure… if he hadn’t had that banged-up fender fixed by now.

  Five fifty-five.

  And here came Deron Stewart, over on the south side. Suit, tie, overcoat, and that swaggering walk of his. Don’t overdo it, man, she thought, they’ll see right through you. But then she thought, No, he’ll play it right, the way he did with Hawkins on the phone. He knows his job; he won’t screw up.

  Stewart paused outside the lounge, adjusted his tie, and went on in.

  Six.

  The potstickers came. She didn’t even look at the plate.

  Six-oh-four.

  A short black man in a trench coat came walking up from Lagunitas into her line of sight. Doctor Easy. He moved in long, quick strides, kind of a glide, straight to the Twilight’s entrance and on inside.

  Tamara waited, leaning forward with her hands flat on the tabletop and her face close to the window glass.

  Six-oh-five.

  Six ten.

  “Something wrong with potstickers?”

  “… What?”

  The waitress was standing next to her. “You not eating. Something wrong?”

  Yes, dammit! “No,” she said, and picked up one of the potstickers and bit into it. Greasy. She managed to swallow without gagging.

  Six fourteen.

  Damn him, she thought, he’s not going to show up.

  But ten seconds later, somebody else showed up.

  A light-colored car swung into a slanted parking space downstreet from the Twilight, on this side, and a black man stepped out. She had a pretty good look at him and his ride both in the lights from a passing car. BMW; her lawyer sister Claudia drove one, so Tamara knew what they looked like. He was on the heavy side, middle-aged, well dressed, his hair close-cropped. She watched him jaywalk across the street and enter the lounge.

  Another of the down-low clubbers, or just a businessman wanting an after-work drink? She hadn’t seen any other African Americans except Stewart go in there, but that didn’t mean he and Hawkins were the only ones who patronized the place.

  The restaurant was beginning to fill up, and the waitress came sidling over again. “More food?”

  “Not right now.”

  “More tea?” The woman’s tone said she’d better buy something more or get out and make room for paying customers.

  “Okay. Another pot of tea.”

  Six thirty.

  The waitress arrived with the fresh pot, set it down harder than necessary, and went away again. Tamara poured her cup full, left it untouched. Watched and waited and tried not to keep checking the time. Yeah, right. Tell yourself not to do something and you end up doing it twice as often.

  Six forty-five.

  Bastard definitely wasn’t coming. Just Hawkins and Stewart tonight-and maybe the guy from the BMW.

  Seven.

  The waitress again, looking even more annoyed. The place had filled up; she didn’t want a customer who hadn’t ordered anything except tea and potstickers taking up space and she said so, more or less politely. Tamara didn’t argue. She dredged up another Chinese dish from her memory-kung pao chicken-and the waitress went away again, satisfied.

  Seven fifteen.

  Tamara picked at the kung pao chicken and then, out of frustration, began shoveling it in until the plate was empty. Good-bye, diet.

  Seven thirty.

  Bill hated stakeouts and, man, the hate was justified. This was only the second one she’d been on, and the surroundings were a lot safer than the first time, over in the East Bay, when she’d screwed up and let that psycho kidnapper grab her. But before all the crazy stuff started happening that night, she’d been terminally bored sitting in the cramped Toyota on a dark and unfamiliar street. This was different because the case was personal, but the edge of boredom and impatience was there just the same.

  How long would they sit around drinking over there? Sooner they got it done with, the sooner Stewart would call with his report and she could arrange to meet him and listen to the recording.

  The wait finally ended five minutes later. Out they came-Stewart, Hawkins, and the heavyset stranger, all in a bunch. They stood talking in front of the Twilight for thirty seconds or so, then shook hands all around and went their separate ways-Hawkins down toward his office, Stewart in the opposite direction, the stranger to the curb to wait for a break in the traffic so he could cross to his Beamer.

  Tamara was already on the move by then. Decided what she was going to do as soon as she
saw that the heavyset guy was part of it. She tossed a ten and a five on the table and hurried out, keeping her head down as she turned upstreet. Stewart had reached his parked car, was unlocking the door; he didn’t see her and she didn’t try to catch his attention. Behind her, the heavyset dude had come on across the street and was taking his time with his keys.

  Impulse prodded her into a loping run. At the Woodacre intersection she darted diagonally across to where she’d left the Toyota. She was inside, with the key in the ignition, when the BMW’s brake lights flashed and Heavyset started to back up. Traffic kept him from getting all the way out of the space until Tamara managed to back out herself, in front of an SUV whose driver had to brake so sharply he blatted his horn at her.

  A red light at 19th Avenue stopped the BMW, gave her enough time to get down there with only one car separating them. When the light changed, Heavyset turned right and the intervening car went straight, so she was right behind the Beamer when she made the swing onto 19th.

  At the Sloat Boulevard intersection, he turned right again and angled over into one of the lanes that would take him onto Portola Avenue. Tamara moved into the second lane, behind another car. The BMW’s rear end and taillights were distinctive enough, and the avenue well lighted enough, so she’d be able to keep him in sight from a distance.

  Excitement bubbled in her. This was more like it! Following somebody in the dark, trying to keep pace… there was a thrill in that kind of thing. Not a dangerous thrill like that time in San Leandro; a small and relatively safe one. Mostly her job consisted of putting in a lot of desk time at the agency, combing the Net, answering phones, compiling reports. Monotonous after a while. Fieldwork now and then, even on a grim mission like this one, was a sure cure for boredom. She’d intended to do it more often, but there never seemed to be enough time. From now on she’d make the time.

  The Beamer headed straight up Portola, not fast and not slow. No problem keeping pace. A red light stopped them both at Claremont. And while she was waiting for it to change, the ringtone on her cell phone began chirping.