Right as Rain (32 page)

“Wilson was surveilling now in his street clothes, by the Junkyard and on the corners. I guess that’s when he got those pictures of me. He knew he couldn’t go up against Coleman’s army himself, and he didn’t know who to trust anymore inside the department. But by now he was all fucked up over his sister, and he was gettin’ out of control. He threatened Delgado outside of Erika’s one night. He threatened me.”

“You and Delgado went to Coleman.”

“Delgado did. They decided to get rid of Chris Wilson. For Delgado, it was easy. By then I’d found out he’d killed before for Coleman. It didn’t matter what I knew at that point; I was damn near one of them. They wanted me all the way in, locked in for real.”

“They wanted you to kill Wilson.”

“That’s right.” Franklin dropped the towel at his feet. A drop of blood burst from his cut and trickled down his cheek.

“They had Kane call Wilson out?”

Franklin nodded. “Kane told Wilson he’d gotten his sister back. To meet him on D Street at a certain time. They knew Wilson would lose it when he got there and found Kane alone. I drove us up on the scene. You know what happened next.”

“You tell me, Eugene. You tell me what happened next.”

“I never shot a man. Never even shot at one, Terry. I had my gun out and I had it pointed at him, but —”

“Why
didnt
you shoot him, Eugene?”

“Because you shot him first.”

Quinn looked down at the gun in his hand. “You knew I would.”

“No, I didn’t know. But I knew you were more capable of it than I was. And I knew …”

“What?”

“I
knew you.
I knew what you’d see when you saw Chris Wilson holding a gun on Ricky Kane.”

Quinn raised the gun to his hip, pointing it at Franklin on the couch. Franklin’s lip trembled, and his eyes filled with tears.

“You won’t do it, Terry. There’s a part of me that wishes you would. But you won’t.”

“You’re right,” said Quinn, and he moved the muzzle of the Glock, pointing it at the pad on the table. “Write it out. All of it, Gene. Go ahead. I’m going to disgrace you to your family, and your fellow cops, and to all the folks you came up with over in Northeast. They’re all gonna know what a lowlife you are. And I’m gonna make good and goddamn sure your fellow inmates know you used to wear the uniform when they haul your ass to jail.”

“I’m sorry, man.”

“Fuck you, Eugene. Fuck your apologies, too. Write it down.”

FRANKLIN
wrote a full confession out on the yellow pad, signed and dated the bottom of the last page, and dropped the pen when he was done.

“I’d like to talk to my father before this makes the news,” said Franklin. “When are you going to turn this in?”

“After we get the girl home.”

“She’s not in D.C.”

“I know it,” said Quinn. “Me and Strange, we were out there today. We followed those rednecks out to their property, where they’re keeping her.”

Franklin dabbed at the cut on his temple. The bleeding had stopped, and he lowered the towel. “I’m going to be there with Delgado tomorrow night.”

“Why?”

“We’re dropping off money and bringing back a load of drugs.”

“Thought you never had to do anything but drive around the block.”

“We met with Coleman earlier,” said Franklin. “Those rednecks you followed, the Boones: the short one’s named Ray, and his father’s name is Earl. They killed a couple of Colombian mules, out at that property. Coleman wants us to kill the Boones, to make himself right with the Colombians.”

“What about the girl?”

“They didn’t mention the girl, maybe because they knew I wouldn’t like what they had to say. Delgado used to hit it himself, and he still has her on his mind. He starts killin’, though, I don’t see him stopping until everyone’s put to sleep.”

“And you’ll do what?”

“I can’t shoot anybody, Terry. I already told you —”

“This is going down tomorrow night?”

“I’m meeting Delgado at eight… . That would put us out there near nine o’clock. They’re going to pick us up somewhere else, then drive us back to the place.”

“There’s a barn and a house there.”

“Yeah. Coleman says the Boones like to do business in the barn. They got a full bar in there; it’s set up like one of those old—time casinos or some shit like that.”

“Sondra stays in the house?”

“Far as I know.”

Quinn holstered the Glock in the waistband of his jeans. “Tomorrow night, you keep them all in the barn, hear? Give me and Strange the chance to get Sondra Wilson out of that house.”

“What am I gonna do when Delgado starts all that killin’?”

“I don’t care what you do. It makes no difference to me.” Quinn picked up the legal pad off the coffee table and slipped his pen into the breast pocket of his shirt. “Whatever you decide to do tomorrow night, I want you to know it won’t change what I’m going to do with this.”

“I didn’t think it would.”

“So long, Gene.”

Quinn walked away. The door clicked closed behind him.

STRANGE
was sleeping on the couch when the doorbell buzzed. Greco’s barking woke him up. Strange opened the front door after checking the peephole. Quinn stood on the porch, his breath visible in the night.

“I got it,” said Quinn, holding up Franklin’s confession for Strange to see.

“Fill me in on what I don’t know,” said Strange.

Quinn told him everything, standing there.

When Quinn was done, Strange said, “Tomorrow night, then.”

And Quinn said, “Right.”

Chapter
31

S
TRANGE
hit the intercom-system buzzer on his desk and spoke into its mic: “Janine?”

“Yes, Derek,” came the crackly reply.

“Come on in here a minute, will you?”

Strange leaned over, picked up a package, a padded, legal—sized envelope, off the floor, and placed it on his desk. In the package, addressed to Lydell Blue at the Fourth District Station, was the full evidence file Strange had collected on the Wilson case.

Strange had come in early that morning, made Xerox copies of the evidence, and dropped the duplicate package in the mail, addressed to himself. Next he’d called his attorney and confirmed that his will was up to date. He had filled his attorney in on the whereabouts of his modest life insurance policy, for which he had named Janine and Lionel joint beneficiaries.

Janine Baker came into the room.

“Hi,” said Strange. “Hi.”

“I’m gonna be gone for the rest of the day, maybe a little bit into tomorrow.”

“Okay,” said Janine.

“You need me, you can get me on my beeper.”

“Just like always. Nothing unusual about that.”

“That’s right. Nothin’ unusual at all.” Strange rubbed an itch on his nose. “How’s Lionel doin’?”

“He’s doing well.”

“Listenin’ to you, gettin’ all his homework done, all that?”

“He’s got his moments. But he’s fine.”

“All right then.” Strange leaned forward and tapped the padded envelope on his desk. “You don’t hear any different from me, say by noon tomorrow, I want you to take this package here and drop it in the mailbox, understand?”

“Sure.”

“Keep it in the safe until then. There’s another package like it, will be coming
here,
in the mail, a couple days from now. When it arrives, I want you to put
that
one in the safe.”

“Okay.”

“You got the billing done for Leona Wilson?”

“Soon as you tell me you’ve concluded the case, it’ll be done.”

“It’s done. Bill her for eight more hours, and don’t forget to add in all those receipts I collected in the way of expenses, too.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Good. I guess we’re all set.” Strange got up from his chair, took his leather off the coat tree, and shook himself into the jacket. He walked up close to Janine and glanced at the open office door. “Ron out there?”

“He’s off on an insurance fraud thing.”

Strange slipped his arms around Janine’s waist and pulled her to him. He kissed her on the lips, and held the kiss. She looked up into his eyes.

“First time you ever did that in here, Derek.”

“I’m not all that good at putting things I got in my head into words,” said Strange. “Listen, I’m tryin’ to say —”

“You did say it, Derek.”

Still in his arms, Janine wiped her thumb across his mouth, clearing the lipstick she had left there.

“I need to be gettin’ out of here.”

“It’s early yet.”

“I know it. But I wanted to spend the day with my mom.”

Janine watched him walk away, through the outer office and out the front door. She picked up the package off his desk and headed for the safe.

QUINN
put in an early shift at the bookstore, then came back to his apartment, worked out in the basement, showered, and dressed in thermal underwear, a flannel shirt, Levi’s jeans, and hiking boots. He microwaved a frozen dinner, ate it, made a pot of coffee, and drank the first of three cups. He put
London Calling
on the stereo. He listened to “Death or Glory” while he sat on the edge of his bed. He put on
Born to Run
and turned “Backstreets” up loud. He paced his bedroom and found his gun and belt in the bottom drawer of his dresser.

Quinn stood in front of his full—length mirror. He wrapped his gun belt around his waist and buckled it in front, the holster riding low and tight on the right side of his hip. He had taken the Mace holder, bullet dump, pen holder, and key chain off the belt, leaving only his set of handcuffs, in their case and positioned at the small of his back. He holstered the Glock, cleared it from its holster, holstered it and cleared it again.

Quinn released the magazine and checked the load. He picked up the Glock, closed one eye, sighted down the barrel to the white dot on the blade, and dry—fired at the wall. The black polymer grip was secure in his palm. He slapped the magazine back into the butt of the gun and slid the Glock down into its holster.

The phone rang, and Quinn picked it up.

“Hello.” Quinn could hear symphonic music on the other end of the line.

“Derek here. I’m ready to go.”

“I’m ready, too,” said Quinn. “Come on by.”

Strange hung up the phone. He was sitting at his desk at home, the Morricone sound track to
Once Upon a Time in the West
filling the room. The main title theme was playing, and Strange briefly closed his eyes. This was the most beautiful piece of music he owned, and he wanted nothing more than to sit here and listen to it, into the night. But the sky had darkened outside his rain—streaked window, and Strange knew that it was time to go.

ADONIS
Delgado’s black Maxima cruised north on 270, its segmented wipers clearing the windshield of the rain that had lightly begun to fall. The rush hour traffic had thinned out an hour earlier, and the road ahead was clear.

“They like to do their business in the barn,” said Delgado, sitting low under the wheel. Delgado wore a black nylon jogging suit, his arms filling the sleeves, with a gold rope chain around his horse—thick neck.

“I know it,” said Eugene Franklin, beside him in the passenger bucket.

“Back when the Colombians were still breathin’, they used to laugh about it with Coleman, tell ’em how it went down. We call ’em after we get off Two—seventy and they meet us in the parking lot of a strip mall. They drive us back —”

“I know all this.”

“They drive us back,
Eugene.
They like to pour a few cocktails out in the barn before the business gets transacted.”

“I don’t drink.”

“Have one or two to be polite, but don’t go gettin’ drunk. What I’m gonna do is, I’m gonna excuse myself, pay a visit to that little junkie. I’ll take care of her, then come back to the barn.”

“You think that’s a good idea?”

“Fuck you mean by
that?”

“Maybe you better take care of the girl after. I mean, the sound of a gunshot in that house is gonna travel back to the barn.”

“I’ll take care of the sound.”

“You got a suppressor or somethin’?”

“You got a suppressor or somethin’?” said Delgado, imitating Franklin’s shaky voice and issuing a short laugh. “Shit, Eugene, I don’t know who in the fuck was ever stupid enough to give you a badge. I don’t need no goddamn suppressor, man. I’ll put a pillow over her face and shoot her through that.”

Delgado kicked up the wiper speed. The intensity of the rain had increased.

“Now,” said Delgado. “When I come back in the barn, and I mean as soon as I come back in, I’m gonna walk straight up to Ray and do him quick. You do his father the same way, hear? I don’t want to have to worry about you backin’ me up.”

“You don’t have to worry,” said Franklin.

“There’s our exit,” said Delgado, pushing up on the turn signal bar. “Grab my cell phone out the glove box, man. Call that little cross—eyed white boy, tell him we’re on our way in.”

RAY
Boone broke open a spansule of meth and dumped its contents onto a Budweiser mirror he had pulled off the wall. He used a razor blade to cut out two lines and snorted up the blue—speckled, coarse powder. He threw his head back and felt the familiar numbness back in his throat. He swigged from a can of beer until it was empty and tossed the can into the trash, wiping blood off his lip that had dripped down from his nose. “Phone’s ringin’, Daddy.”

“I hear it,” said Earl. He had a cigarette in one hand and was playing electronic poker with the other.

“That’s them.”

“Then answer it, Critter.”

Ray lifted his cell phone off the green felt table where he sat. He spoke to one of Coleman’s men briefly, then pushed the “end” button on the phone.

“They’re down the road,” said Ray.

Earl nodded but did not reply.

Ray had everything he needed on his person. His Beretta 92F was loaded and holstered on his back, in the waistband of his jeans. He had a vial of crystal meth spansules in one of his coat pockets and a hardpack of Marlboro Reds in the other. As for the heroin, he had brought the rest of it out earlier and placed the bags behind the bar.

Ray had brought the heroin out because he didn’t want to go back in that room more than one time tonight; it was beginning to smell somethin’ awful back there. His daddy had been right, and knowing that made Ray even more disturbed than he already had been since Edna up and left him. The weather had warmed unexpectedly, and those dead greasers down in the tunnel were get—tin’ ripe.