Winter and Night (21 page)

Sting Ray and I negotiated, smoked a cigarette or two together, made some gun-guy small talk: reloads, black powder, the five-day wait to buy at a gun show that could be law by this time next year. I tried every way I could think of to get Ray to give me anything Premador had said, anything that would help me know who he was, how he knew Gary, what the guns were for. In the end I decided, not that he was holding out on me, but that he really did, as he'd said, make it his business not to know anything about his customers' intentions. Whatever Premador had said, Sting Ray hadn't listened.

If I were in his business, I had to admit, I'd have done the same.

Finally, I peeled two hundred dollars from the roll in my pocket, took the 9 mm automatic and a high-capacity magazine. I told Ray I was interested, now that I'd seen the merchandise, in the Uzi, maybe a few grenades, that I'd have to come back for them.

"Listen," I said as we stood at the door, business concluded, Lydia and I about to leave. "If they come back, either one of them—"

"Who?" Ray asked.

"Premador, or my nephew," I said. "The one who looks like me."

"Oh. Yeah, him," Ray said without interest.

"If they come back, tell them to call me. I don't want them spending money on the wrong things."

"No problem," said Ray; though I had a feeling that if they did show up with money to spend, Ray would forget to mention I'd ever been there.

"My name's Smith," I said, just in case.

"Smith." Ray grinned. "Man, it's amazing. Every goddamn asshole who comes here, you know his name is Smith?"

"I have a lot of relations," I told him, and Lydia and I turned and left.

As soon as we pushed out the street door Lydia started striding fast and hard down the sidewalk, away from Ray's building. I followed beside her; only the fact that my legs are longer let me keep up.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. I'll buy you dinner. I'll buy you a vacation. I'll buy you a car. I'll buy your mother a car."

"You better never let my mother know you ever took me anywhere near a place like that."

"Never. Ever. Not in a million years."

"Why is it," she turned her head to me without stopping her downfield momentum, "that guys who sell guns from under their beds have to be so disgusting, too? Why couldn't he be doing that from some other part of Queens, someplace with nice houses on pretty streets?"

"I'm sure they're doing it there, too," I said.

"Gee, that's reassuring. What I need now is a bath. In Clorox. You have plans for that gun you bought?"

"Why, you want to go back there and blow his head off with it?"

"His head," she said, "would be second. And after I was through with him, there would be you to think about."

I grabbed her as she was about to charge across the street into traffic. "Calm down," I said. "Forget about useless, revolting lowlifes like him and me. Think about not getting your own, um, self flattened here."

"I can take care of my own, um, self, thank you," she said. "And you better not have thought a single word he said was even faintly amusing. Driver's seat." She snorted.

"I didn't. Honestly, I didn't. You know, your mother makes that noise."

"Leave my mother out of this. And just remember, I can read your mind."

"I remember."

"And if you even smiled, even once, just a little bit—"

"Not me. Not once."

"Yes, you did."

"Only when I thought you were really going to demolish him."

"I wanted to."

"I could tell. It clearly took tremendous strength of character to hold yourself back."

"Well," she said, straightening her jacket, smoothing her hair, "well, there you go, then."

I wasn't sure where we went but at that point I'd have agreed it was July and we were in Tahiti, if Lydia had said so.

Thirteen

We found a coffee shop and Lydia had a cup of tea and everything came back to normal again.

Except, as Lydia said, returning from the bathroom after washing her hands— I wondered briefly if she'd managed to find any Clorox— "This is not good news."

My coffee had already come, and I was already drinking it, sitting in the booth staring down the length of the restaurant, thinking the same thing.

"Can I say, 'Maybe it's coincidence,' so one of us said it and we can get past it?" she asked.

"I'm already past it."

"We have to tell Detective Sullivan," Lydia said, and her voice was soft. I shifted my gaze to her.

"I know." I made no move toward the phone in my pocket.

"You'll be doing him a favor. Gary. Whatever trouble he'll be in for buying guns, he'll be in a lot more trouble if he uses them."

"I know."

"The cops can make a deal with Ray. They can use him to find Premador. Then maybe we can find Gary."

She said we, not they, but that was just to make it easier for me and I knew it. It wasn't the way it was going to work.

But I didn't think it was going to work at all.

I shook my head, drank my coffee.

"What?" she said.

"He can't find Premador. I don't know much about computers, but I know anonymity is the whole point in a setup like this."

"They have experts—"

"They have anyone better than Linus?"

That stopped her. She picked up her teacup, sipped at it, said nothing.

"But," I said, "I have an idea. I—" My cell phone rang before I could tell Lydia what I was thinking. "Goddamn," I said. "Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn."

"Are you going to answer it?"

I took it out and flipped it open, though right then I'd rather have flipped it across the room. "Smith."

"Jim Sullivan."

Hell, I thought. The mountain comes to Muhammad. "Sullivan," I said, so Lydia would know who it was. "You need something?"

"I need you to tell me what you did to get my chief's balls in an uproar."

"Your chief? I never even met him. Letourneau, is that his name?"

"He just pulled me from the field into his office. Forthwith, now, immediately. He wanted to know who the hell you were, what I knew about you, what you knew about the Wesley case."

None of this was surprising; what was, was a new note in Sullivan's voice. Not yesterday's wary friendliness, not last night's irritated dressing-down. It was a tone I hear sometimes in the voices of repeat clients, calling to offer a new job, a lousy one they know I'll take because I don't want to lose them. Or from sources, calling with information they're hoping will net them a few bucks. It's not something I hear often from cops.

I looked a question at Lydia, though she had no idea what I was asking.

"What'd you tell him?" I asked.

"What should I have told him?"

"Oh, Christ," I said. "Do we have to do it this way?" Sullivan said nothing, so we did it that way. "You know who I am. I'll fax you my goddamn resume if it'll help. I'm a PI, I'm Gary Russell's uncle, and I don't give a shit who killed Tory Wesley if it wasn't Gary." That wasn't quite true, but it was good enough for government work. "You know everything I know about that case, including the fact that you threw me off it, and you know everything I know about where to find Gary, which is zilch." After where Lydia and I had just been, that wasn't a hundred percent true, either. But I wanted to see where this was going, whether I was right about the tone behind Sullivan's words, and if I was, what the offer was.

"He knew all that already," Sullivan said. "Before he called me in."

"And?"

"The chief," he said conversationally, "grew up around here. I think I told you," he added, "that I didn't?"

"You didn't mention your early years."

"Oh. Well, I'm from Asbury Park. But the chief's from Warrens-town. In fact, he played varsity with Al Macpherson."

"Well, then maybe that's all it is. He's pissed off at me because his old buddy Macpherson slipped getting out of the car last night."

"I asked. Macpherson did call him, see if there was any way to back me off and simultaneously throw your ass in jail. Chief told me on the q.t. that he's inclined to like anyone who can knock some wind out of Macpherson's sails. But that doesn't seem to include you. He still wanted to know what the hell you were up to."

"I'm not up to a damn thing," I said. "I spent the morning in New York passing out pictures of my nephew to kids on the street."

"Any luck?"

"No, but the word's out."

"Word's also out the NYPD wants him, for us."

"Any luck?"

"So you have no idea what my chief's problem is?"

"No," I said, "I don't. Maybe he's just in a bad mood."

"Everyone is, around here," Sullivan said. I heard the ripping sound of a match being struck, the brief pause of a smoker drawing on a cigarette before speaking again. "About the warrants, and me pulling all those boys, especially Randy Macpherson, out of Hamlin's."

"You know," I said, wishing I were somewhere I could be smoking too, "I hadn't thought about it until just now, but I'll bet you're about the least popular guy in Warrenstown today."

"Department's getting screaming phone calls, not just from Macpherson," he agreed. "Got four at home last night before I unplugged the phone. Found two 'For Sale' signs on my lawn this morning. Last time that happened was Coach Ryder's lawn, five years ago, when the Warriors didn't make the play-offs."

"Sounds bad." And it did, to me; but I could swear I'd heard the small, distant smile in his voice.

"Yeah, well, market's soft, so I think I'll stay. But the chief told me to back off the boys, until I get something definite. I asked if he meant until after the Hamlin's game."

"You must have a good union contract."

"That I do. I hear Coach Ryder's trying to negotiate with Hamlin, get him to take back the boys I pulled out."

"Will he?"

"Don't know. Hamlin seems to be getting a kick out of this."

"Hamlin gets his kicks in strange ways. But this means the boys you arrested, you let them go?"

"I can't hold anyone without evidence."

"You could have scared up something."

"I can't hold anyone without evidence," he said again.

"On this case, according to your chief, you mean."

He didn't contradict me. "Chief also said, you come back to Warrenstown, I have to pick you up."

"You told me you were going to do that yesterday, on your own hook, before the chief ever heard of me."

"Now every cop in town's heard of you. Got your picture in the briefing room."

"I'm flattered."

"Wrong answer. And Smith, whatever you're doing that's pissing my chief off?"

"Yes?" I said.

"When you figure it out," Sullivan said, "let me know."

He hung up. I lowered the phone, wondered if by some miracle of the city council you actually could smoke at coffee shops in Queens. I looked around: No one else was, so I settled for finishing my coffee. It was cold.

"You didn't tell him," Lydia said.

"No."

"Why?"

"Withhold judgment," I said. "Until you hear."

"Working with you is often a matter of withholding judgment. I'm listening."

"His chief just chewed him out over who I am and what I know."

"And?"

"Usually, a guy's boss is teed off, it makes the guy teed off."

"I appreciate your delicate use of language. Sullivan isn't teed off?"

"He told me, when I figure out what I'm doing that got to the chief, let him know. Not stop doing it, just let him know."

"Hmm," she said. "This is a guy who threw you out of town yesterday."

"Just what I was thinking. He's also a guy who's been told to ease up, by that same boss."

"Really?"

I told her the whole thing.

" 'For Sale' signs?" she asked, when she'd heard it. "They're crazy out there. That whole town is nuts. But."

"But what?"

"But, I think you're saying that Sullivan's been told to back off, which he understands, but he's also been told that you're a menace, which he doesn't. And he's asking you to find out why. Am I right?"

I nodded.

"So you're not telling him about Sting Ray and the guns because of that?"

"I just wanted a minute to think about it."

"Have you thought?"

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying, there are two boys out there who bought guns yesterday and said they were coming back for more."

"One boy. Premador was alone."

"Bill." Her voice was sharp, her black eyes hard as coal. "It doesn't have to be Sullivan. But we have to tell somebody."

We sat like that in the diner, looking into each other's eyes, for a long few moments. I slid out of the booth, dropped a five on the table, pushed out the door into the cold afternoon. I knew Lydia was right behind me; I didn't look at her as I shook a cigarette from the pack, cupped my hands to light it, or as, drawing deep on it, I pulled the phone from my pocket, thumbed the number at the Warrenstown PD.

A young cop on desk duty, a long wait, and then, "Sullivan."

"Smith."

"You're telling me you figured it out already?"

"No. I've got something big and I'm giving it to you for free."

"Nothing's free."

"That's true. Maybe I just don't know what I want, yet."

"Well," Sullivan said, "if it's big enough I'll make a note that I owe you. Unless it's something you should've already given me. Then I'll make a note to bust you."

"Just happened." I told him: Ray, Premador, the gun locker. I told him the meaning of Premador's name and I gave him Ray's description, his address. Then, at the end, when I couldn't cover for it anymore, I gave him the link. "I got to this Premador guy through Gary's e-mail. And there's someone who thinks she saw Gary a couple of blocks from there yesterday."

"Oh, shit," Sullivan said softly. "You're telling me we have a couple of kids think they're cartoon mutants or something, buying guns off some asshole in Queens?"

"I don't know. Ray only saw Premador. He asked if I was Premador's father, so he must be a kid. But he never saw Gary."

"But someone did."

"Thinks she did."

"Yeah. Shit. All right." Sullivan blew out a breath. "This is the kind of thing, has to go through channels. Christ, Smith, you shouldn't have bought that gun."