Gatekeeper (12 page)

"Do you want to see her?" she finally asked.

Debbie shook her head. "See myself in someone else's body? Don't think so. I'll get there quick enough on my own."

Gail was startled at both the depth and the starkness of the comment. "Is that what you want?" she asked.

Now it was the young girl who seemed caught off guard. She looked straight at Gail—the first time she'd actually done so. "Sometimes."

Gail pursed her lips for a moment, trying to think of the right way to respond, knowing a misstep now could break the wispy, hair-thin bridge they were building toward one another.

"It must be hard."

Debbie smiled just barely. "It's what it is."

Gail nodded. "If I promise not to bug you about it—not even talk about it, if you want—could I buy you lunch?"

"Now?"

"Yeah."

Debbie Holton looked uncertain. "I don't—"

"I promise," Gail repeated, holding up her hand, as if in a pledge.

Debbie laughed a little. "You gonna put that on a Bible or something?"

She didn't actually accept Gail's invitation, but the two of them started down the stairs side by side.

* * *

"What were you doing in there?"

Bill Dancer was clearly put out, trailing behind Sammie Martens as she walked quickly toward their car.

"Getting an address on Johnny Rivera," she said without looking back.

"That's his name? Rivera? I never heard of him. That can't be good. The guy must be a punk."

She circled to the passenger side and opened the door, getting in. He joined her in the car, his face closed down with frustration and anger. He was supposed to have been the main operator here—the guy to depend on. The guy who got the girl, even. Now he didn't know what the hell was going on.

"He might've been a punk once," Sam agreed, "but lover boy in there says he's come into his own as of late."

The reference fired Dancer up again. "What the hell was that, anyway? What did you do with him?"

Sam laughed. "What d'you think, Bill? A fast fuck against the wall? I asked the man a few questions. I stroked his ego. Made him feel like a real dude. You gonna give me shit for that? So we can drive back to Vermont with nothing but the shit on our shoes? That's not why I came down here."

He stared straight ahead, not saying a word.

Repressing a heavy sigh, Sam reached over and laid her hand on his upper thigh. "Billy," she said softly, feeling like slapping him instead. "We came down here to get something going—to give us a jump start to something better. You want that to happen, right?"

"Sure," he conceded, adding, "It just made me feel weird, you know? You doin' that."

She brushed the back of her finger against his cheek. "That's sweet. I didn't know you felt that way."

He stared at her. "Shit yeah, I do. What do you think? I mean, damn. Since I known you, I told you that."

She laughed. "I thought you were just horny."

He smiled awkwardly. "Well, sure. That, too. But . . . you know."

"Yeah. I do. It's okay, Bill. Let's just see this through, okay? There'll be time for us later."

His face lightened at that, and he started the engine. "Cool. First things first. You said you had an address?"

She gave it to him, happy to have him back on track. In the long run, Bill Dancer was disposable, probably the sooner the better. But for right now he gave her the best cover she could ask for—not too bright, locally known, and with past history of purchase and sales. All she had to do was be his bimbo long enough to get in under the tent flaps.

"Tell me about all the head honchos they keep talking about," she said as he pulled into traffic. "The doorman said Johnny Rivera had stirred things up when he made his move."

Dancer was back in his element, feeling good again, at the wheel in more ways than one. "This town's run by about four of 'em, and each one's got turf spread over three areas—the Flats, South Holyoke, and Churchill, which is basically downtown. Those are the screwed-up parts of town, and the best placed, 'cause what with the Mass Pike, I-91, and I-391, complete with on- and off-ramps—not to mention the river and Chicopee and South Hadley on the other side—gettin' away from the local cops is pretty easy. You should look at a map of Holyoke, Greta. It's a laugh. The city's laid out so it looks like someone flipping the finger. I shit you not. Holyoke says, 'Fuck you, America.'"

"Cute," Sam murmured. She had seen a map. The image was there, but only if you were looking for it.

Dancer nodded, lost in his patter. "Yeah. Thought you'd like that. Anyhow, even though there's enough trade to go around, they chew on each other out of habit, you know? It's the macho thing." He lapsed into some indistinguishable accent. "Hey, man, you dissin' me? You insulting my mudda?" He laughed at his own theatrics. "So they cut each other and try to steal each other's turf. Kind of like warlords. Each head guy has maybe thirty or forty street guys, depending, and some of the street guys have people, too. They work it different ways, but it's the corporate thing all over again. Friggin' AT&T. That way the boss never gets dirty, never puts his hands on the product, and supposedly never gets busted. Course they do—all the time. Cops grab 'em for one thing or the other. Never sticks for long, but it keeps things stirred up at ground level. I don't know this Johnny dude—probably an independent, 'cause there's a shit-load of them, too—but I bet that's how he did his thing: moved when the powers-that-be were busy, if you get my drift. Happens all the time. They huff and they puff. They do some drive-bys and rough a few competitors up. Sometimes it works and sometimes it don't. Maybe somebody gets killed now and then. But it's all showing off. There's so much money changing hands, nobody has time to fart around with a real gang war. Plus, sounds like Johnny did it the smart way, grabbing business that nobody owned in particular."

He pulled over to the curb. "Here we are."

Sam looked around. "Pretty nearby."

"Whole goddamn town's pretty nearby. Shit, I mean two of the bosses I was talking about? They live a block and a half apart. The turf's pretty clear cut, but you can see one from the other. Holyoke's a small place. Oh, oh—here we go."

He was looking out his window at a short, stocky, twenty-something man who was approaching them from one of Holyoke's interchangeable brick housing blocks carrying a metal baseball bat. Instead of chains, this one had opted for fat shiny rings on all his fingers.

Bill rolled down his window. "Hey, man."

"What're you doin' here?" the bat wielder asked.

Sam leaned over to look up at the man, allowing him a view down the front of her V-neck sweater. "We're here to see Johnny. From Vermont."

"He know you?"

"Miguel Torres knows me," Bill answered. "I used to do business with him. Word is Johnny's the new man, so screw Torres, right?"

"Yeah, well, screw you, too, you don't have no appointment."

"Hey," Sam protested in a high voice. "Come on. We're lookin' to buy quantity here. Johnny's setting up business. We're here to help him do it."

"He don't need no help."

"You sure about that? You telling us to bring our business someplace else?"

She kept her eyes glued to his, driving home the implication.

He blinked. "Get out of the car."

They did as ordered. The man escorted them into the lobby of the building, where a number of others were standing around looking watchful. The hands-against-the-wall routine was followed again, but with none of "Don Juan's" blatant self-interest. This doorman was all business.

"Follow me," he told them afterward, and led them deep and high into the building, not just along staircase and hallways but also through several wall openings that had clearly been made with sledgehammers. Sam had no idea where they finally ended up, or even which wing of the block they were in, but she had a good notion they were at the heart of a modern day fortress, specially customized to both ward off attack and create a multitude of ambushes. If Johnny's enemies were interested in putting him out of business, they'd have to do it away from here.

Their escort finally knocked loudly against a steel-reinforced door. It opened a crack, he exchanged a few words in Spanish with a man inside, and then the door swung back.

The room they stepped into was square, small, window-less, and had five young men in it, all armed with semiautomatic weapons, all decked out in jewelry and designer clothes nobody could appreciate. They said nothing to the new arrivals, and Bill and Sam kept silent, waiting for directions about what to do next.

A door on the wall opposite them opened, and a slim, attractive man in jeans, a designer shirt, and a single thin gold chain around his neck appeared. He smiled pleasantly, nodded to both of them, and said in a quiet voice to Bill, "So, you used to work with Torres."

"Till I heard you were running things."

"He send you to me?" he asked dubiously.

Bill opened his mouth, but Sam answered, "No. He told us to drop dead. We found out about you from one of his people."

The smile widened. "And how did you do that?"

"The same way we got up here. I showed him my tits."

Johnny Rivera laughed. "Tits and brains both. Come on in."

He turned on his heel, leaving the doorway empty. Bill and Sam glanced at their escort, got nothing from him, and followed Rivera's invitation, stepping into a moderately clean, large, furnished room—half living room, half office—where every window was blocked by a steel plate reaching halfway up its length, permitting only a view of the sky from a standing position—a compromise that allowed sunlight but not sniper bullets.

"Have a seat," Rivera offered, settling into a beat-up armchair.

Bill and Sam shared a couch opposite him.

"I hear you've come to help me set up my new business."

Sam glanced around until she saw the intercom on a small side table. Very efficient.

"We've got something to offer, yeah," Sam answered him.

"And what would that be?"

Sam jerked a thumb at Bill Dancer. "His contacts, my business savvy, and our skin color."

Rivera narrowed his eyes as Bill shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Sam smiled. "You're a good lookin' guy, but you're the wrong color for the whitest state in the whole country. You want to pull this off, you're going to have to fly under the radar—have someone who'll blend in."

"Who says I haven't already pulled it off?"

Sam waved her hand around the room. "This what you call the big time? If it is, we're in the wrong place."

"Pretty full of yourself."

"I'm full of potential," Sam answered. "I'm also full of being treated like a piece of meat who's going to end up with nothing at the end. I'm full of the assholes making promises and delivering jack, and I'm full up to here"—she touched her forehead—"with other people's bullshit. I can be an asset to you. You want to blow that off and miss out on a golden opportunity, fine. It's a free country. But I'm making my move, and I'd like to make it with you."

She worried that last line might've been a little hokey and watched his expression as if he were a drama critic.

But he was fascinated. The women in this line of work rarely looked and spoke like Greta Novak, and he knew for a fact that she was right about the skin color issue. Profiling or not, cops in Vermont took a very close look at nonwhites traveling their roads with out-of-state plates.

Johnny Rivera gave her an approving nod. "Okay That all sounds pretty good. What's your plan?"

"For years, Vermont's heroin pipeline has started here, gone through Brattleboro, hung a left just below Springfield, and ended up in Rutland. That's where I'll go. I know you're there already, trying to keep the locals in line. I also know you're not having much luck."

"Says who?" he asked, obviously irritated.

She took the plunge, blindfolded, but kept her exact wording carefully vague. "Says the guy hanging from the bridge. Real subtle way to quietly infiltrate a town. You know who the chick was they found dead in that motel room?"

She paused to force him to ask, "Who?"

"The daughter of a bigwig politician, that's who—a guy who gives shit-loads of money to the governor. If you did have anybody working for you up there, you can bet your ass they'll either be in the slammer soon or as far from Rutland as a tank of gas will take 'em. The heat's on, Johnny—you got people all around you down here looking to knock you off, and now you have your little start-up operation staring straight down the shit hole. You don't think you need help, fine. But I think you're wrong."

It was the perfect time for Rivera to throw them out in a fit of bluster, or at least let Sam know that she was blowing pure smoke. Of course, she wasn't sure she wasn't. She had no idea how the deaths of James Hollowell and Sharon Lapierre were connected to Rivera, if at all, much less anything about Rivera's Rutland operation.

Which made his response all the more satisfying. "How do I know you won't just rip me off?"

"You try me out," she told him, sitting back against the cushions. "After all, how do I know I can trust you? We need to do a little business first. See if we like it."

Her tone of voice with these last words was purposefully ambiguous, letting him wonder if she might not be interested in more than just a business relationship.

"I sell you some shit at a discount, you stick it in your veins, and I never see you again? Great plan," he said, although she sensed it was more ritual than a challenge.

She arched her eyebrow at him, willing to keep playing. "I'm going through all this for an ounce of horse? Get real. Tell me straight, Johnny: Do you use the product?"

He looked at her in surprise. "I'm no junkie."

"Well, I'm not, either. That puts us above almost everybody else in the game. This is about money, and I'm ready to make some."

There was a lull in the conversation as Rivera turned in his chair and gazed out the top half of one of his armored windows. Sam felt like she'd just pitched a truck full of used cars to the man.