The car eased to a stop ten feet from my toes. The lights died and left ghosts and blobs in my sight that I blinked away. The driver’s door opened, closed, and a man in a long black coat approached. The top of his head and ears were covered by a hat with flaps. A scarf tight around the mouth. He was unarmed, his hands in thick gloves. Like me when I first arrived, he didn’t seem to function well in the cold weather. Closer, daring me to keep the gun trained on his eye. The chill caught up with me. I lowered the gun when I realized the eyes weren’t those of an Asian, but a Caucasian.
I thought I knew them.
Then he spoke. “My guess is you’ve got one bullet in that gun, and you didn’t win again.”
I thought I knew those eyes but I was sure I knew that voice.
“I never won either.”
The voice dug up a face from the past, something I’d repressed. Yeah, I knew this man. He had been my partner on the Gulfport Police. He had saved my life a few times, and I had saved his. Together, we killed a gangbanger and covered it up.
I said, “Paul Asimov.”
“So, are you going to invite me in or shoot me?”
*
Inside, he shed himself of the winter garb. It had been nearly two years since I had last seen Paul, and the time hadn’t been good to him. He was thinner, and his hair was speckled gray. He was only thirty-seven. I made a pot of coffee and we pulled a couple of chairs closer to the wood stove. His posture was closed up, but he wasn’t shivering as bad as I expected from someone new to the area. How did he hunt me down?
He shouted at me while I poured two full mugs in the kitchen. “Not doing so bad for yourself, Billy.”
“The house is falling apart. I can’t hide as much of my rebel side here as I could on the coast. It’s too goddamned cold.”
“It’s still a life.”
I walked to the stove, handed Paul a mug of black coffee. Mine was sugared and creamed. “Sounds like trouble in your world.”
“We backed you because you backed us. But then the bottom fell out. It was like everyone got a chance to start over except guys like us. All goodie two shoes and shit, those hypocrites.” He took a sip. “Still making it strong.”
“Doesn’t pack the same punch as French Market.”
“You can have that shipped up, you know.”
“Trying to forget it as best I can.” I stared into the darkness. “How’d you get the address?”
“You get mail here, so there’s a trail. Mapquest draws a line right to your front door.”
“That was you the other night, stopping and then leaving?”
A devil’s grin. “Maybe I tried once before, couldn’t get up the stones. I’m here now, buddy. Happy to see you.”
He gripped my neck, a real good buddy vibe coming out of him. Back in the old days we got along, saved each other’s ass, but we were never as brotherly as other teams. We could drive for a half-hour without talking. On calls, though, we were in sync. More like twins or something.
“So life isn’t easy street for you?” I said.
Paul shook his head. The hair was cut short, scars on his scalp like borders on a map. He kept the sides high-and-tight. Lost his goatee. Lost a couple of teeth, too. “Maybe you didn’t turn, but someone still had my strings. The brass waited until you were gone a couple of months before bringing me in for questioning. On that nigger’s shooting, on the Katrina shit, on our side action.”
“How’d they know about that?”
“You tell me.” Eyes locked on. Leery? I couldn’t tell. Heard a voice in my head: What if he’s wired up? I didn’t want to believe it, but I had to find out.
“You need anything? Want something stiffer in that coffee?”
He lifted his mug. “Bring it on.”
I started towards the kitchen. Set my own mug on the table before grabbing my revolver and turning back. I wrapped my arm around Paul’s throat and stuck the gun in his ear. Whispered, “Don’t say a word.”
Felt through his shirt, chest and back, then his legs, his balls. Couldn’t find anything obvious. I wondered how small mikes had gotten, if he could have a wireless bug smaller than a dime in his pocket.
“Jesus, Billy.”
“You swear you’re on your own? Not trying to trap me or anything?”
“Yes, yes, I swear.”
“And I mean fucking swear, man.”
“On my grandpa’s grave, I swear. On his good name.”
I could accept that. The man worshipped his grandpa, who practically raised him. I eased the gun away and stood back. He had spilled his coffee on his jeans.
“Got any sweats?”
He might have been suspicious, but he had been my partner once. “You can have the bed. I’ll take the couch.”
It was just good manners. The guest deserved the bed. I wasn’t sure I could sleep anyway.
*
I refilled his mug, poured in too much scotch, and he caught me up on his life. I was careful with every word of my responses. The whole thing felt weird, the timing either way off or perfect.
“My girl, she left.” Paul had been engaged to a blackjack dealer for half a year. She was good for him. Tempered his dark side. “Just left. Before everything came down. She told me she was evacuating to her parents’ house in Birmingham. Three weeks later I hadn’t heard from her, so I called. Her mom told me Viv’d only been there a week before she went on to Nashville with an old boyfriend, already found an apartment.”
“That’s tough.”
He shrugged. “I needed to do something to make use of my skills. I knew who to talk to. I’m not proud.”
I had already guessed where he was going. That could have been me. “Yeah?”
He nodded, eyes on his mug. “They needed me in Atlanta. I spent the winter collecting old debts, enforcing new deals. Jesus, I hated it. Used to crack these niggers’ heads and now they treated me like the hired help. Goddamn hard to turn down a monthly bonus that was your choice of a PT Cruiser or a Mustang. Hard to turn down free rent in a loft apartment.”
“But how much real money did you get?”
That got a nervous twitch. “Couple thousand a week. But it went fast.”
“You’re broke?”
“Mostly. I’ve got pocket money. And I found some new people to work with once Atlanta went sour.”
I sighed. “Shit, what did you do?”
“Motherfucker got pissed because I roughed up his cousin. It was sort of a test, they didn’t tell me. Trying to drag me in deeper, to make up for my trespass, that’s what he called me being a cop. I shot his kneecap. I walked out without a scratch on me, and even stole his Hummer.”
His grin spread, then a smile, and I couldn’t help but join in. “His fucking Hummer?”
“All pimped, but still, you know.”
“You’re driving a piece of shit Toyota. Where’s the tank?”
He rubbed his neck with his fingers. “Left it behind in Detroit. That was the next stop, only spent the summer there. Laying low, doing a little work-for-hire so I wasn’t anybody’s bitch.”
“Never figured you to be.”
He was quiet a long moment before saying almost too softly for me to make out: “We did all right on the Coast, right? We were solid cops.”
“Cheers to that.”
We clinked mugs. Another minute of listening to the wind, not so fierce any more as Spring started to win out.
Then Paul said, “I knew where you were before Detroit. It wasn’t until then that I figured out a way to reconnect. Something I thought we could do together.”
I laughed, barely, hoping he would tell me some crazy plan—start a private eye business or fake our IDs and run off to Mexico, join the police force down there. Learn all about grift from the masters.
It sounded like he said, “I’m sorry.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry. For it not working like it was supposed to. I’ve come to make it right if I can, explain myself.”
“What did you do, Paul?”
A drunk grin. “Hey, remember when you called me Asimov instead? Like we were tough guys—”
“No, back it up. What did you do?”
He said, “It was just, you know, a good looking deal. Some guys looking for a good place to make some quick money, and me thinking of you out here in this vast untapped resource.”
“Jesus, don’t tell me this.”
“They’re out of my control. Goddamn slant-eyes have no idea about good business.”
My head hurt worse than it had since losing Ginny. I was blacking out, wanting to ask if he knew what they really were, how much shit he’d sunk us all in. Paul kept going, “I told them you were the man, but they needed to wait for me to touch base first. They didn’t want to. I tried, I swear.”
“Shut up, Paul. Go to bed. Just…shut up.”
After that, dreams mixed with things he had said or might have said while I was losing consciousness. I thought of the Asians, of Elvis Antichrist, of a blond man in a Saints cap attacking Drew. Then drifted into dreams of the Coast, of zombies coming after Ginny and Paul and me in the middle of a thunderstorm. Zombie dreams were the worst. Every time I had one, I woke the next day thinking the world was more dangerous than I had first thought.
SIXTEEN
Waking up was a bitch. Something in a dream I couldn’t remember startled me conscious. I fell off the couch and banged my head into the coffee table. Last night’s mugs half-full of cold coffee crashed onto the floor. Shards and puddles, my revolver right in the middle of one, wet and sticky.
I was sweating. The dream came back to me—a zombie nightmare, another one. I’d had too many of those lately. This time the Asians were the zombies. They had gotten to my kids. My kids wanted to eat their mother’s brains. I was helping lead them to her. Don’t know why. All I know is that zombies creep me out. Maybe dealing with all the scabby tweaking meth fiends triggered my subconscious to dream about zombies. Single-minded and dead to the world.
Another ten seconds and the details of the night before came to me: careening over to the couch seconds before I passed out, pushing Paul out of the way and telling him to find the bedroom, we’d talk come morning. Then it got worse¾the white man who tried to get Drew in Minneapolis, could that have been Paul? If so, then how did I play this? Goosebumps. Chilled from the sweat, cramps and hunger pains from too much booze. Checked my watch—six forty-five, the sun working its light into my front room. Time for coffee and toast.
I was too wiped out to tackle the mess I’d made. Cheap table, anyway. I started a new pot of coffee dripping and checked in on Paul. He had ended up fully clothed, on his side in a fetal-curl. Hardly a sound from him. I listened until I made out a breath, then retreated to the kitchen. Didn’t look forward to confronting him over collaborating with terrorists, killing my citizens, thinking they could infiltrate American society through our weak spot—our addictions. It would have been a brilliant plan if they hadn’t picked up all their info on running a drug ring from B-movies.
My cell phone light was blinking. I couldn’t get reception for shit in the house, so I stepped outside to listen to my messages. Needed open sky. I peeked into Paul’s car on my way to the mailbox at the end of the driveway. There was a Saints cap in the passenger seat. My stomach cramped up. I listened to a couple of useless calls from when Graham and Layla were hunting me down the night before.
Then one from Rome, after the dig: “I’m sorry about this, man. It looks like we’re taking over from here, so I will need to talk to you again soon. We can protect you should any charges come up, so don’t worry.”
Sounded like code for “Kiss life as you know it goodbye.”
The next call. Drew.
“Listen, I know it’s not your fault, but I’ll never understand why you lied to me about Ian. I…I don’t get it, Billy. I thought you of all people…”
I checked the time of the message. Three in the morning.
She kept on: “We probably shouldn’t speak to each other anymore. I just…I can’t trust you. I guess I never really did, but I wanted to. Please don’t call back.”
The robovoice said I didn’t have any other messages.
The mailbox was full of bulk-rate circulars, bills, credit card offers, and an unstamped envelope with only my initials written on it.
Inside were photos on cheap copy paper. Probably from a digital camera and an ink jet printer. Heather and Ian, beaten, their mouths taped, eyes dead even though they were still alive at the time. The next picture, Heather being forced into oral sex. Her face bruised. My heart broke. Poor kid. I hoped she had fought back, bit the guy’s package clean off, something, anything. I wanted the motherfuckers to suffer. I flipped to the next one. Ian, his captor standing behind him, hooking his fingers on the inside of his lips and stretching them to a horrific smile, the lips split and bleeding. If only I’d acted faster, taken him with me instead of going back for a piece of tail. I choked down a scream.
The next, holding a knife against Heather’s neck. My knife—the white “X” my dad had marked on the handle so obvious this time. They wanted me to see. Since his hands were gloved and his face hidden, the man with the knife could have very well been me.
I felt that it was me as I turned to the final photo, exactly what they wanted. Typed neatly across the bottom: If you’re not with us, you’re against us. The photo showed Heather and Ian’s heads, cut from their bodies, side-by-side on a table.
My stomach lurched and I heaved sweet coffee and wine and bile onto the pages and then the ground as I knelt down, too weak to stop myself. Another wave of nausea, eyes tearing up. Like gravel in my throat.
“Jesus, Billy!” Shouted from up near the house. Asimov ran towards me. “You okay, buddy?”
The anger steeled me, helped me choke back the acid. When he reached me I landed a fist in his crotch. He dropped like a bomb. I grabbed the wet photos, held them to his face.
“Was this part of your fucking plan? Was this how you were supposed to get me to play along?”
He babbled, but I kept those pages in his face, gripped the back of his neck.
“Fucking murderers! Not drug dealers!”
“What the hell are you—?”
“Goddamn it, they’re terrorists.”
Paul shoved a palm against my chin, the pressure getting me. I fell away. He kicked me. He tried again, but I rolled away, crouched. We faced each other like wrestlers under the spotlights.
He was breathing hard, hands out and ready to strike. “I didn’t know, okay? Why would I get you wrapped up in something like that?”
“They’ve killed five people in two days. You were there! You went after Drew!”
“I swear, I wasn’t going to hurt her. I was trying to scare her away. Man, I had no clue they were going to kill those guys. Listen to me. I came here last night because I need to stop them. It was a huge mistake, I know. But it’s out of the bag and we need to shove it back in.”
I was too tired to keep up the pose, sat my ass on the rocks and dirt, tried not to cry in front of Asimov, but the floodgates were open. I dropped my head to my knees.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Why did you play along?”
“Fuck, I don’t know. I haven’t been all there the last few weeks. These guys are freaking me out. I escaped, Billy. Out of it. We can beat them.”
I rubbed my eyes dry. “This is what happens to you? Digging a hole in your gutter? Jesus.”
I brushed myself off. My jeans were soaked with morning dew and melted snow. Helped Asimov up. I picked up the photo pages, knew I’d need to hand them over to Graham. Still wet. Talk about tainted evidence.
“So now what?” Paul said.
“There is no ‘now’ for me. The sheriff wants my badge. I’m a two-time loser. I have no clue what’s next for me, but I can’t afford to fuck it up any more than I already have. I still send checks to my kids.”
“But we got into this, maybe we’re th
e best to get us out.”
I shook my head. Fucking moron. “We didn’t do shit. This is all you. And we’re not Starsky and Hutch. We’re half-assed adrenaline junkie cops. I’m done with it, that’s all.”
I left him standing in the yard as I trudged back to the house. The coffee was waiting for me.
*
The meeting with Graham was pretty much what I expected. He tried to make me feel comfortable, keep up the brotherly vibe. He offered coffee. I was floating in it already. A glass of water, sure. I could deal with that. Layla set it on the desk between Graham and me, and I lifted it for a long pull, all down in one shot, so he couldn’t see that my hands were shaking.
Rome was the hard-ass. Soon as he saw the first shots, he began to pace. The way he looked at me, something shifting.
Graham said, “It’s terrible, all this. You live out here, think you’re isolated from all the world’s problems. The meth is bad enough, but, wow.”
I nodded. Rome must have filled him in on the full story. I wondered how long it would be before the local newspaper got hold. Then the national news. Then I would be center stage in what looked like a conspiracy.
He said, “I mean I know how it looks to the Homeland Security guys.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s more than just what you know. They think you really had something to do with it. Like you were at least a middleman for the meth operations, but more likely one of the cell members.”
“Oh, fuck no. That’s what they want you to think, but that’s crazy.”
Rome spit a laugh, kept pacing. “Is it? Because if that’s the case, these bastards are doing one helluva job making all the dots connect.”
Rome was hoping I’d confess. Graham was praying I’d give him solid proof I didn’t have anything to do with the Asians. As soon as I turned over those photos and told him what Paul had done, thinking he could work with wannabe terrorists and keep clean, I had my chip in the game. But not as a cop. No, as soon as I spilled on Asimov, he could roll right back over on me about the gangbanger I’d killed in Mississippi. If I were him, I would’ve done it to me. And that’s a friend talking.
Yellow Medicine Page 12
