Devil's Corner (22 page)

Vicki looked at the dealership with satisfaction. "This is perfect."

Reheema curled her upper lip. "I said, a
new
car. This is the brokest-ass car lot I ever saw."

"We're supposed to be inconspicuous."

"We can be inconspicuous in a new car. And we can look good doin' it."

"Come on." Vicki slid her keys from the ignition and grabbed her purse, but Reheema stayed put.

"I thought we were
cooperating
."

"I'm paying, you're cooperating."

"Oh no, you didn't just say that."

Vicki got out of the car, yanked on her mittens, and walked onto the plowed lot, making a beeline for a grimy white Camaro with a dented front end. She skimmed the sign: AS IS, 1984 CHEVY CAMARO, 60,374 MILES, BUY FOR $1250, RENT FOR $50/WEEK. MPFI FUEL-INJECTED, TRANS REBUILT 10,000 MILES AGO. "Sounds good, and the price is right. We'll rent."

Reheema came up behind her, hands shoved deep into the pocket of her pea coat. "What is it with you and white cars?"

"I'm suburban, with a little H."

"Crimson, not red."

"Correct. Details matter."

"Hold on, check this." Reheema went one car over, to a sports car that had been repainted cobalt-blue, with metallic shimmer. "That's what I'm talkin' about!" She read the sign aloud. " ‘1986 Nissan 300ZX, 110,000 miles, Z-bra included.' "

"How much?"

"Three grand to buy, a hundred a week to rent."

"That's some bra. No."

"But it's in great condition."

"Too much money."

"I would look damn good in this thing." Reheema couldn't stop gazing at the sports car. "You're single, right?"

"Yes."
But he's not.
"Got a boyfriend?"

"Not a prayer."

"Not for long." Reheema spread her arms wide. "In this."

"No," Vicki said, with regret. She shifted over to the next car, a black sedan with a dented fender and a black rubber strip peeling from its side door. She skimmed the sticker out loud. " ‘1995 Pontiac Sunbird, four cylinders, 120,000 miles, $1,500 to buy, $75 a week to rent.' Not bad."

Reheema walked over. "I'm not feelin' it. S'boring."

"Exactly." Vicki peeked inside. "Only one problem. It's a gearshift. I don't drive a stick."

"Can't you learn, Harvard?"

"You know how to drive a stick?"

"Sure, I went to a real college. Temple." Vicki was distracted by a short white man in a gray coat, coming out of a one-room building in the middle of the lot, presumably the office. A Fotomat sign was a painted ghost under the building's grimy white. Vicki said under her breath,

"Let me do the talking."

"No, I'll do the talking."

"But I know how to negotiate."

"So do I."

"
I'm
the lawyer."

"You couldn't get me to plead out."

Ouch.

"And you can't even drive a damn stick."

"Okay, fine. Go get 'em, girlfriend."

Reheema's eyes shifted under her cap. "Black people stopped saying girlfriend a long time ago. We talk just like you white folks now, since you done give us the vote."

"Gimme a break," Vicki said, just as the little salesman came chugging up, his breath puffing in the cold air like a toy locomotive.

"Welcome, ladies!" he sang out. His bald head looked cold and the tip of his nose had already turned red. His blue eyes were bright behind thick glasses and he clapped his gloved hands together, as if to generate excitement. Or heat. "How are you two lovely ladies doing today?"

"Fine," they answered in unison, with equal enthusiasm, which is to say, none.

"Great day to buy a car! You girls have my undivided attention! No waiting, right? Ha ha!"

Reheema stepped forward. "I want me a cheap car that don' look like crap. And don't be rippin' me off. You messin' with the wrong girl."

Huh
? Vicki did a double-take at the appearance of Street Reheema, especially after the lecture she'd just received.

"Certainly, certainly." The salesman edged away from Reheema and looked at Vicki. "And, miss, you are?"

"Her life partner."

Reheema burst into startled laughter, and Vicki smiled to herself.

Half an hour later, Reheema was driving the Sunbird off the lot with Vicki in the passenger seat, because they didn't have time for her stick lesson after dropping the Cabrio back at home and going to the bank, where she had withdrawn the cash to rent the car. They had jointly negotiated ten bucks off the price, and the dealer had agreed to "detail" the car, that is, hose it down and spray the interior with Garden in a Can. The Sunbird was a washed-out light blue inside, and its floor was covered with aftermarket shag rugs, somebody's idea of pimp-my-ride. Armor All greased the blue vinyl bucket seats, and there was no cute little H on the rear window, in crimson or even in red.

By noon, the two women were rolling, and one of them was missing her Cabrio very much.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Vicki and Reheema staked out Cater Street, parking the Sunbird behind a tall snowbank made by a city plow when the cross street had been cleared. The tall, triangulated mound hid them from view of the lookout, smoking a cigarette halfway down the block. And both women were in extraordinarily professional disguise; Reheema's knit cap covered her hair and Exxon-station sunglasses hid her eyes, and Vicki wore Dan's Phillies cap and Chanel sunglasses, to fashionably conceal her forbidden whiteness. Even so, she was pretty sure that they looked like two women, one white and one black, driving while blind.

Cars couldn't drive for the snow on Cater, which hadn't been cleared yet because the street was too narrow to fit the conventional wide plows, and only a few row houses had their walks shoveled, but it didn't deter steady foot traffic to the vacant lot. The pace was as brisk as the other day, and addicts braved the elements, showing unusual hardiness. Vicki wondered if watching them bothered Reheema, so soon after her mother's murder.

"You okay?" she asked, looking over at that perfect, if impassive, profile.

"Fine." Reheema nodded, her sunglasses reflecting the snow.

The woman of few words had become the woman of no words. Vicki had been previously unaware that you could be a woman and say so very little. It seemed biologically impossible.

"Is this weird for you, since what happened to your mother? Is it upsetting?"

"I look upset?" Reheema didn't move, just kept gazing out the windshield, and then Vicki gave up and looked, too. A bundled-up couple, a man and a woman, walked in the snow to the vacant lot, arm in arm, like a crack date.

"You recognize them?"

"No."

Vicki had hoped otherwise. This was Phase One of the Master Plan. They'd been here an hour, and Reheema hadn't recognized either of the lookouts or any of the customers. "But they're your neighbors."

"I don't know the neighbors."

Vicki didn't get it. "You lived here, right?"

"Moved here senior year high school, and not since then."

"Where were you before you moved here?"

"Somewhere else."

That clears things up
. "And your mother stayed here. When did she start using, if I can ask?"

"I was in college."

"Is that why you didn't come back?"

"Yes."

Now the conversational ball was really rolling
. "It must have been hard."

Reheema didn't say anything.

"What did you major in?"

"Business."

"Did you like it?"

"No."

Try another tack
. "You know, my dad lived right on your street. He had the corner house on Washington. He went to Willowbrook, too."

"Where'd you go to high school?"

"Episcopal."

"Private school."

"Guilty," Vicki said, and she was. They both watched as a young man in long dreads and a brown coat walked down the street, kicking snow as he shuffled along, heading for the hole. "How about him? Do you know him?"

"You know, he does look familiar."

"Goody!"

"Did you just say
goody
?" Reheema peered at Vicki over the top of her sunglasses. "Never. Again."

Excited, Vicki handed Reheema a pair of binoculars she'd brought from home. She'd packed her backpack full of equipment they might need for the Master Plan, including guacamole Doritos. Episcopal Academy taught its grads to plan well for their stakeouts.

Reheema turned and raised the binoculars to her eyes. "Yo, that's Cal!" she said, dangerously animated. "Cal what?"

"Cal Moore. Was in my math class. I think he dropped out, and now he's a crackhead." Reheema lowered the binoculars.

"Always was a loser."

"It's sad."

"No, it isn't." Vicki let it go and noted Cal Moore's name in the Filofax.

So far his was the only name. Phase One wasn't working out so hot, but then again, it took only one name for a lead. She dug inside the backpack again, grabbed the silvery Cybershot camera, pressed the button so the lens was on telephoto, and snapped a digital close-up of Cal Moore.

"Why're you doin' that?"

"In case we need it."

"Why would we need it?"
Good question
. "I don't know yet. But this is what the ATF would do on a stakeout, and so I'm doing it, too." Vicki knew the basics from Morty, but she was trying not to think about him today. "If it turns out we need an ID on Moore, we have a picture." They both watched as Moore trudged though the snow to the vacant lot, then went inside, past the bare trees. Vicki couldn't help but wonder. "What do they have in there anyway? Like a shack or something?"

"You mean, what's in the hole? Just the man, standing there, behind some trash cans and an old wood wall from one of the houses."

"A wall in the middle of the lot?"

"Toward the back. Looks like the house got torn down and the old wall, like maybe the backyard, got left. It makes a screen, so you can't see what's goin' on from the street."

Vicki tried to visualize it. "So this guy just stands outside, in the hole?"

"Yeah."

"I guess the overhead's low."

"'Cause there's nothin' overhead," Reheema said, and they both laughed.

More bonding! Bonding like crazy
! Then Vicki sobered up. "They won't do business outside forever, will they?"

"No, not for long. They're just gettin' a hold. Established. They'll move into one a the houses soon."

"When do you think?"

"Soon as they find one." Reheema snorted. "Hell, I'll sell 'em mine."

Vicki assumed she was kidding. "And that will be the end."

Reheema didn't say anything.

Vicki set the camera down and skimmed the Filofax notes she'd made today, in her lap. She had counted foot traffic again, and business was better than yesterday; sixty customers in the past hour, even in the bad weather. At sixty bags an hour, for a dime bag, which was conservative, the dealer made six hundred dollars an hour. Vicki looked up from her notes. "Wonder when the go-betweens will show up, the black leather coat or the Eagles coat. They're late."

"Maybe he stocked up because of the snow."

"Funny that they started an outside business in winter."

"Lotta competition in the city right now. Everybody wants to open a new store." Reheema's tone was so certain, Vicki had to wonder.

"How do you know that?"

"Just got outta jail. The FDC's fulla crack dealers. All the talk is turf, who's stealing customers from who. Who's expanding, who's not."

Vicki considered it. "Maybe we can put the word out in the FDC. See what anybody knows about Jay and Teeg, or Brown-ing's operation in general."

"Did that already."

"You did? When?"

"Soon as it went down with my mother."

Vicki felt a twinge. "Did you learn anything?"

"No. Everybody's afraid to talk about it. Hey, Cal's back." Reheema raised the binoculars, and Vicki raised the camera to watch the young man walk out of the hole, hands thrust in pockets and head down, his dreads coiled into a thick rope that came to a point like an alligator tail.

"What's with the hair? This would be a black culture question."

Reheema snorted. "Don't ask me, I hate it. Cal had his that way since high school. Hasn't been washed in five years."

At almost the same moment, a shiny maroon Navigator turned onto Cater from the opposite direction and powered toward the vacant lot, spraying fans of fresh snow in its wake, like a speedboat. "Lookout," Vicki said, taking a photo, and Reheema whistled behind the binoculars.

"Nice ride!"

"Four-wheel drive."

"We got Daddy's car today!"

Vicki snapped another close-up as the Navigator stopped in front of the hole and the driver's door opened. In the next instant, the short man in the black leather coat and cap stepped out into the snow. Vicki took his close-up when he turned. She had never been so happy to see a criminal before. "Bingo!"

"Goody!" Reheema said.

Vicki let it go and took another photo. "Do you know him?"

"No."

"Damn."

"More like it," Reheema said. Vicki looked though the telephoto lens to see him better. Mr. Black Leather had large, round eyes, a short nose, a tiny little mustache, and photographed rather well. He hustled inside the vacant lot, raising his knees high to avoid getting his feet wet, kicking snow as he went. The Navigator idled in the street, sending a chalky plume of exhaust into the air. Vicki eyed it through the camera but, because of the snow's glare on the windshield, couldn't tell if somebody was in the passenger seat. Only a drug dealer could leave a car like that unlocked and running in this neighborhood.

"He might come past us on the way out. Get down." Vicki lowered the camera and slunk down in her seat, and Reheema laughed.

"Sit up. You're embarrassing yourself."

Vicki edged up in the slippery seat and watched the scene again through the camera. Moore was at the top of the block and turned right. "Wonder where he lives. Do you know, from high school?"

"We didn't travel in the same circles."

"He wasn't in National Honor Society, huh?"