Cobra Clearance (19 page)

“Sounds like a plan but I'll pass. 'Preciate it though.” He cleared his throat. “About my cabin. I'll take another, if you don't mind.”

“I got no more to let out.” She folded her arms across her breasts and gave her head a casual toss toward the cabins. “You can crash at my place till something opens up. But on the couch.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Levi didn't buy her story about renting out his cabin.

She handed him a key. “Go on now. Make yourself to home.”

Sure, he thought. And when it gets physical, it gets physical. But I don't have to let it get emotional. Levi went to her cabin. The place reeked. Dirty dishes and clothes were scattered about, and a filthy bare mattress on the grimy floor served as the bed. A roach skittered across the floor. On her bureau were several grams of coke, some chunks of heroin, needles in sterile packets, and a yellow, surgical-rubber tourniquet. He revised his drug-use strategy while searching for her wallet. Finding it, he got her driver's license and copied the data.

Returning to the Sunset, he ordered a beer and went to the men's room. While washing his hands at the sink, the door opened and someone walked in. When Levi heard, “Hey, you scrawny punk,” he turned and gripped Michael's outstretched hand.

“Hey, Brother.” Levi pulled a pad and felt pen from his back pocket.

I'M ONTO SOMETHING. FOR SOMETIME IN MAY
KRUGER'S HOT TO ACQUIRE MORE SOLDIERS
CAN'T GET ANY DETAILS YET. STILL BEING VETTED

He jotted Brenda's full name and DOB.

RUN FULL BACKGROUND CHECK ON HER

Then he held up the torn sleeve of his leather jacket.

PART OF BEING VETTED

Michael examined the superficial wound as Levi wrote:

ALL HERE INDIFFERENT TO MELCHIOR
AND FT. LAUDERDALE

He tore off the sheet and handed it over.

Michael slipped a small package the size of a paperback book from his coat and gave it to Levi, who in turn concealed it in his jacket. Then Levi walked out. A minute later Michael emerged also, and perched himself on a stool far from everyone else.

Levi said to Brenda, “Be back in a few.” He went to the cabin and opened the package. It contained a replacement cell phone, a miniature radio/GPS detector, and a tiny device that used a laser to find hidden surveillance cameras—even those the size of a tear drop. He swept the room and his clothes and found nothing, but when he checked his cell he discovered a bug. Then he went outside and discreetly swept his Harley. Finding it clean, he conducted a subtle check of the area for surveillance cameras. Returning to the cabin, he hid the devices among a jumble of boxes near the fridge. Michael would have already swept the Sunset, but bugging devices could be put in place later, so Levi would guard his conversations. Walking back to the bar, he tossed his old cell in a trash can. If Potts ran a follow-up check, Levi would claim that he'd lost the old one.

Brenda closed the bar and selected a tune on the juke box, then she and Eric slow-danced. When it ended, she pecked his cheek and led him to the cabin. Once inside she began laying out six lines of cocaine on a small mirror while Eric took off his shirt, shoes and socks. His O.D. pants hung from his hips and Brenda pictured her two brothers, who habitually rendered themselves shoeless and shirtless on entering a home. She'd heard on Oprah or somewhere that this behavior was emblematic of boys raised in dire poverty.

As he squatted and rummaged through his knapsack, she studied his swimmer's shoulders, tight butt and unblemished back. She said to herself,
He has such pretty skin
. Maybe he sensed her eyes on him, because he turned and gave her the most charming smile ever. She felt a thrill run through her, and watched with interest as he got out some cigarette papers and rolled a joint with practiced ease. When he offered it to her, she pushed it aside. “Here.” She thrust the mirror and a rolled-up Andy Jackson at him. “We're doin' lines first, baby.”

He said at once, “Okay, sure.” Still squatting, he pushed around some grains with the end of the bill. “Hey, quality product.” Then balancing the mirror on his knees, he stuck Andy Jackson up a nostril and leaned over a line. It disappeared up his nose. A second later he steadied himself with a hand and blinked rapidly. “Wow.
Nice
.”

Brenda snorted the next line, vigorously rubbing the end of her nose afterward. Then the rush hit and her knees almost buckled. “
Wow
is right.”

They sat and joshed each other for the next twenty minutes. She found him to be playful and even endearing as he kidded around. But her high was already fading as he glanced at the heroin atop the bureau. “Go on,” she said wearily. “Help yourself.”

He sprang up and hovered over it. “God, it's been so long since I done any.”

“So slam some.”

“Hmm, sure looks sweet.” He caressed his bare belly. “Nah, better not. Ain't good doin' junk on top a blow—which I'm ready to hit again.” Grabbing the mirror, he got back down on his haunches and worked the bill up his nostril, then leaned over a line. He snorted it and was about to do another when he backed off. “Hell, I friggin' forgot. I can't do blow. Kruger said not to, an' I told him I wouldn't.”

She pouted and stamped her foot. “Come on. I won't say nothin'.”

“No.” Standing, he went back to the heroin. “I swore off junk, too.” But his gaze lingered; he wet his lips; shifted from foot to foot; rested his fingertips atop a bent spoon with dark residue in its bowl. Picking up the tourniquet he toyed with it, then clenched it in his fist and quietly asked, “Them needles there. They safe?”

She instantly said, “Yes,” and easing the tourniquet from his grasp she cinched it around his bicep and said in a low voice, “Get a vein ready while I cook the smack.”

A heartbeat passed. Then he sat on the edge of the soiled mattress and began slapping the inside of his elbow while she grabbed the bent spoon and a chunk of heroin. He said as if mentioning the weather, “Gimme five mills.” Then he looked up. “How much are you doin'?”

“Me? I don't use it. Ain't even mine. Been keeping it for a friend.”

Levi regarded a bulging vein, then ripped the tourniquet off. “Well it ain't no fun doin' it alone. Besides, I promised Kruger. So that's it.”

Brenda felt a spring unwind. She liked Eric, and though she'd goaded him into shooting up she was glad he wasn't going to. They made idle talk for a while, then she gave him a blanket and watched as he stripped and stretched out on the shabby couch. “Leastways you ain't bashful,” she said, and turned off the light. “Well, good night.”

“Yeah. G'night. Thanks for letting me crash, an' for everything else.”

She undressed and lay on the mattress-only bed. A minute passed, then another before she got up with a gentle creak of floor boards and went to the couch. Lifting the blanket she lay next to him. “I can't sleep. The blow.”

“Yeah. It's keepin' me awake, too.”

Silence. Then they were all over each other—gasping, groping and groaning, their sex loud, long and lusty. His stamina amazed her and she reached ever higher summits, until finally they both exploded and collapsed in a sweat-drenched heap. It had been, she thought, perfect sex.

But the second go-around was even better. They kissed and touched and tasted one another, and in time he locked her in his embrace, established his rhythm, and took her on a fresh and singular journey—whispering to her, running his fingertips along her body, and gently urging her on until he brought her to a newer, more exotic destination. When their breathing returned to normal she coaxed him to her bed, and after propping his back against the bare sheetrock wall, he raised a knee and planted his foot flat on the soiled mattress. Then she cuddled against him as they shared a joint and some laughs.

Levi woke up at dawn with Brenda's arms and legs entwined with his. Her breasts felt firm and fine against his chest, her smooth legs warm; their juncture inviting. He eased away and got up, and after stepping over soiled clothes and dirty dishes he padded to the window and studied the dirt parking lot. He needed to look outside. The unkempt room depressed him. He felt the desiccated decay beneath his bare feet; smelled the dust and the old grease coating the stove; spotted rat droppings near the mattress; saw a roach crawl along the base of the fridge. He also found half a dozen flea bites on his body. The mattress was obviously infested and probably harbored bed bugs as well.

After a bit he watched the steady rise and fall of her chest. Kruger's interest in his relationship with her, combined with the non-verbal message she'd passed to Jackson had raised storm flags, and by flirting with the drugs he'd solidified his image as a doper.
He was never going to do the heroin, of course. But he trusted the Bureau's intel, and he was convinced that Kruger's caveat to avoid hard drugs was a ploy: provide an excuse to avoid hard stuff, then regard non-use with suspicion. But a bonafide druggie would push the limits, and ironically that might put the paranoid Kruger at ease. Levi would now wait and see if his gambit worked or backfired. Then there was the sex. It had also been necessary, but unlike his dance with drugs it couldn't be faked.

As for Brenda, even if she played no role for Kruger, when it came to dealing with major criminal enterprises he trusted no one. Either way, he had to manipulate her to establish credibility with Kruger—and the Ft. Lauderdale event made him redouble his efforts. To begin the process, he got back in bed and grazed a finger along her cheek.

They rested afterward and later she cooked breakfast on the kitchenette's tiny stove. The scrambled eggs were runny and rife with streaks of white, and the bacon was soggy. But when he told her how good they were she said, “You're welcome to stay.”

“Yeah?” He put down his fork and looked at her. “Why me?”

She reached out and touched her fingertips to the tiny silver rings in his eyebrow. “‘Cause you're cool. And you got that Harley.” She showed a tiny smile. “Fair enough?”

Levi grunted. “Don't expect me to support no kids when I knock you up.”

“Already figured that.” Brenda turned quiet, then said. “I know how things work so I know you're gonna screw other women.” She fidgeted and looked at him. “Please don't bring 'em here. Okay?” She bit softly at her lower lip and waited.

Levi felt genuine pain for this woman and the hard reality that she must've known all her life. But he had to be a vulgar brute. “Don't bug me.”

“Of course, I won't be messing 'round on you.” She looked beyond him and whispered, “‘Cause I know you'd beat me if I did.”

“Just shut up an' gimme some more eggs.” Levi finished his meal and left for the compound, letting the early-April winds lash at him as he thundered down the road. He hated this sordid, woman-hating society he had to inhabit and felt repulsed by the persona he had to present to Brenda. But every move he made last night, every word he'd spoken since, had been deliberate—and he had Michael to thank for teaching him how to pass as a product of poverty. He felt confident that his actions had been the correct ones, and these stakes were as high as they got—so high that he'd decided that if he had to get her pregnant to validate his role, he would adopt the child. Damn this world. He twisted the throttle with savage force and took the wind full in the face.

Brenda waited until the Harley's engine faded in the distance, then stood beneath a warming shower. Her body still tingled with pleasure. She'd been with five men in her wretched life but none had ever made love to her. All they did was screw her and knock her around. Slam, bam. But Eric had been so attentive to her every need all three times, so she thought he'd be different. Even kind. And he had such lovely blue eyes. But he was just another thug. At least he was gorgeous—and great in the sack. She turned off the water and watched the last little bit trickle from the rusted-out shower head.

She got dressed and picked up her cell. After a moment's hesitation she made a call. When a voice at the other end said, “Yes,” she closed her eyes and held the cell tight. “It's me. I'm goin' to see Mama. Should be back around one.” She listened and replied, “Okay. Two o'clock.”

Leaving the cabin, she got behind the wheel of her green '94 Impala. Holding her breath and praying it would start, she turned the key. The engine caught the third time and an hour later she
arrived at the hospice. After winding through antiseptic-smelling hallways she reached the room and spent the next three hours caressing her mother, talking to her all the while about the life she would lead once she finished medical school. “Two more years, Mama. Then I'll be a doctor.” The comatose woman didn't stir, and when Brenda saw that it was noon she said, “Don't worry, Mama. I'm doin' what I gotta do so you'll be taken care of.”

She forced herself to leave and when she reached the nurse's station she asked a young nurse if her mother had shown any improvement. The nurse had a pleasant face but her reply was sad. “I'm sorry. Her condition hasn't changed.” Brenda left, got in her Impala and returned to the Sunset.

Kruger took Levi to the compound's range and pulled a Colt .45 from beneath his jacket. He turned it over in his hand. “Good American gun.” He thrust it at Levi.

A harsh wind fanned Levi's hair as he took the weapon, grimacing as if it was about to bite him. “It ain't loaded is it?”

“It has no value if it's not.”

“What do I do? Pull the trigger?”

“Cock the hammer first. With your thumb.”

Levi used both thumbs, and after pointing the pistol in the general direction of a paper target fifteen feet away, he closed his eyes and jerked the trigger. The pistol roared and the heavy slug kicked up a mound of dirt five feet to the left of the target.

Kruger said without looking at Levi, “We'll work on it.”