Gatekeeper (17 page)

"Jesus," Manuel was saying. "What happened?"

"It was a setup. That idiot Bill set us up to get ripped off and killed. Probably bragged to the fat bastard that he had a fortune worth of dope to sell, or some damn fool thing. Guaranteed to get everyone good and greedy."

"Johnny's not going to like this."

Sam pulled over suddenly, killed the lights, and yanked Manuel down onto the bench seat with her. Two patrol cars went screaming past them, unaware the car wasn't empty. She straightened and resumed driving at normal speed, the car's peaceful progress at direct odds to the hammering of her heart. But not from fear, or even postaction nerves. It was excitement. Sam was feeling on top of the world, as if she'd confronted the lion of legend and bearded it thoroughly.

"Johnny's not going to know," she said confidently.

Manuel stared at her and pointed out the back window, his anger boiling over. "What the fuck you mean? We almost got killed. I'm going to tell him you're a fucking crazy bitch. What do you think?"

"I think," she said calmly, "that you can tell him whatever you want, but not till we're done selling his junk."

"Selling? Who the hell're you gonna sell to? You gonna hang out a sign? Maybe the cops'll chip in."

"Nah," she told him, casting him a smile. "That wouldn't work. Relax. Brattleboro may be blown for tonight, but we'll get a few customers in Bellows Falls and Springfield."

He stared at her in stunned silence as she hit the turn signal and headed toward the northbound ramp.

"See what you can find on the radio."

She kept both her hands on the wheel, not daring to show him how much she was shaking. 

Chapter 12

"You crazy piece of shit. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Willy Kunkle was leaning over Joe's desk, one large hand planted on top of a pile of paperwork like a club.

"Sit down," Gunther told him.

"The hell I will. Answer me."

Gunther's voice didn't change, nor did he back away from the other man's glowering face. "Sit down."

There was a long, tense silence as the two men stared into one another's eyes, before Willy straightened and finally accepted the chair Joe had indicated.

"What's your problem?"

"As if you didn't know," Willy snapped back. "I expect everyone else to jerk me around. Par for the course. But you had me thinking you were a straight shooter."

Gunther didn't respond, refusing to rise to the bait.

"I'm talking about Sam, duh," Willy finally said in frustration. "What the hell did you think?"

"What about her?"

Willy stared at him and then jumped to his feet, knocking the chair over backward. He began storming around the small office, waving his good arm as he shouted, "What about her? You think I'm an idiot? She's gone undercover, for Christ's sake. You put her undercover, risking her life for a bunch of dope-sniffing losers and the sorry bastards that feed them." He froze and glared at his boss. "What the 
fuck
 were you thinking?"

"You were once one of those losers yourself, even if your drug was alcohol."

Willy's mouth dropped open. "You asshole," he finally said.

"Maybe. You saying she's not qualified?"

That put him in another box. His face darkened with fury. "I'm saying there's a good reason nobody sends a cop undercover in this state anymore. We can't give them the support they need."

"You may be right." Gunther pointed to the overturned chair. "You want to try using that again?"

Reluctantly, Willy complied, righting the chair and sitting in it.

"How'd you find out?" Gunther asked.

"I couldn't find her anywhere. Then I dropped by to see who they jailed last night from the OK Corral blowout and heard that prick Bill Dancer whining about how some bitch named Greta Novak had screwed him royal. I know we're tied into the drug task force. Rocket science it wasn't."

Gunther nodded. "She turned a bad situation completely around. Les and I were there, saw it go down. She was thrown a can of worms and she sorted it out."

"I heard nobody knows what the hell happened."

"That's what we told the papers. We do think Sam shot somebody in self-defense and that whoever it was has vanished, probably down to Massachusetts or New York to get patched up. But otherwise, we nailed everyone else for probation or weapons or drug charges. Your old pal Bob Ryan was at the top of the list, in case you missed that detail. And Sam not only made it happen, but she got out without being blown and even made points with her bad boy escort."

"Who is?"

Gunther shook his head. "Need to know, Willy, and you already know way more than you should."

Kunkle bristled at that. "Yeah, no shit. I'm the one guy who'd catch a bullet for her and I'm being kept in the dark. Fucking Lester's on the inside, for crying out loud. What the hell gives you the right to screw with people's lives?"

Joe smiled at that. "You think I put this together?"

Willy instantly grasped his meaning. "You could've stopped her. You can still stop her."

"How'd you react if you were me?"

Willy Kunkle seemed suddenly deflated by all the sparring. His shoulders slumped, and he stared at the floor for a few moments before conceding, "Crazy bitch. One of these days she'll get into a crack . . ." His voice trailed off.

Gunther took pity on him, now that it seemed safer to do so. Willy's ex-wife, Mary, had recently died in New York City. They hadn't kept in touch, but the guilt over how he'd treated her while they were married—and the fact that afterward she'd fallen on hard times—had propelled him to go AWOL in order to solve her death. He hadn't lost his job over it, although he'd come close, and he had been successful in his pursuit, but he'd been typically reckless and had almost cost Sam her life. The irony of that had been lost on none of them, and it had certainly done nothing to smooth Willy's rough edges. Life's lessons seemed as baffling and contradictory as ever to him.

"What she's doing isn't risk-free," Gunther admitted, "but we do have a good bunch watching her back."

"Why not me?" Willy suddenly asked, looking up at him hopefully.

"You know why," the older man said gently.

Kunkle might have blown up again at that, but he knew the ground rules, even if he so rarely followed them. With his personal attachment to Sam, neither he nor anyone else would know for sure how he might react in a crisis. Among cops, it was like not letting a surgeon operate on his own wife.

Joe watched him sympathetically for a while before saying, "I am sorry I kept you out of the loop. I tried calling you twice at home, but I couldn't find you. And I didn't want to leave a message."

Willy nodded wearily. "I know. I've been doing my usual night crawling, keeping tabs on the scumballs." He sighed and stood up quietly. "Could you give me an update now and then? I mean, I'm guessing she's under till the end, right?"

Gunther nodded. "I'll keep you informed." He paused, rubbed his chin, and added, "But you keep out of it, okay?

I don't want to see you anywhere near this operation. For Sam's sake."

Willy addressed the floor, his voice almost mournful. "Right."

* * *

Sam sat on one of Johnny Rivera's chairs, facing the window, her feet propped up on its sill, staring out at the clouds she could see floating by over the top of the metal sheet blocking the rest of the view

"You ever get out of here? This would drive me nuts. Where do you actually live?"

Rivera ignored her, sitting at his worktable, counting the money she'd brought in. Manuel was leaning against the wall by the door, smoking a cigarette.

Sam got up, pulled her chair closer to the window, and then stood on it to see over the top of the obstruction.

That caught Rivera's attention. He glanced up. "What're you doing?"

She looked over her shoulder at him. "Admiring the view. It's not half bad. All the missing buildings, you can see pretty far. What's the town across the river?"

But Rivera was back to counting.

"Chicopee," Manuel answered quietly.

She smiled at him and he nodded, just barely. After escaping from the shoot-out in Brattleboro, they'd continued north, to Bellows Falls, Windsor, White River Junction, making phone calls and stops along the way, selling off the contents of the infamous paper bag in dark motel parking lots and back alleys. Unbeknownst to Manuel, all the buys had been rigged. But hidden from all of the buyers had been Sam's true identity. The task force had merely put the word out that a new operator was making a swing-through and that they'd appreciate all the help they could get in building a case. Confidential informants, "CIs" in the trade, cut both ways. Usually minor criminals who were working for the police to stay out of jail, they also maintained their ties to the underworld and could be trusted to spread the word of any new players. Thus the benefit to Sam's new image was doubled.

After the way the night had begun, it had almost become fun, and Sam had used the opportunity of their baptism of fire to get chatty with Manuel. It hadn't been entirely successful. He'd stayed reserved to the end, if no longer sullen, but at least the first impression she'd made of being a racist jerk had been removed, and by the time they'd arrived back in Holyoke, shortly after dawn, she was hoping the first flickers of a friendship had begun to catch hold.

Rivera finally sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. "Fifteen thou and change."

"I told you that when we walked in," she said, climbing down from her chair. "That's better than your highest hopes, right? Admit it."

"It's good."

"It's great. And four thousand of it's mine." She crossed the room with her hand out.

"Cute," Rivera said, but he was smiling. He already had the agreed-upon $3,000 in a separate pile, which he handed her.

She riffled through it happily, making a sound like a card against a bicycle wheel's spokes. "So I pass muster?"

"You did fine," Rivera conceded.

"Manuel give me good grades?"

He nodded. "He said you handled yourself okay. What about your boyfriend? What was that?"

"He's an asshole and he was never my boyfriend. I got what I needed out of him, which was a bunch of contacts. I hope he got his butt shot off."

"You were lucky," Rivera said, watching her.

"I was smart," she countered, jerking her thumb at Manuel. "Ask him. I knew damn well the bouncer wasn't acting on his own. That's not how it works. You smell a rat, you do something about it. I did."

"And you abandoned your friend. That might make me nervous."

"I cut out some dead weight you never liked in the first place. You unhappy we're rid of Dancer?"

"No," he admitted.

She put the money back onto the table and leaned toward him. "Then let's keep going. You got problems in Rutland, I'm a problem solver. You want to keep baby-sitting me with a partner? Fine. Manuel and I got along pretty good, but give me whoever floats your boat and let me have a shot at it." She got even closer, bending at the waist, fixing his eyes with hers. "I can make us a fortune up there, you know I can. To hell with the boy-girl, Latino-white shit. You broke the mold when you went independent and took turf away from Torres. Keep showing how smart you are by putting me to work."

She tapped the pile of money he'd given her with her fingertip. "I'll even invest in the business. Take two thousand back and buy some more product with it. I'll trust you to keep honest books."

He smiled and reached out to stroke her cheek. "You're quite the little firecracker, aren't you?"

But she straightened and pulled away. "Maybe, and maybe you'll get to find that out. But not now. This is business. We make a bundle, we can talk again." She smiled to cushion the rejection. "By then I might be up for a little R and R—on a sandy beach with no bulletproof windows." She stuck out her hand. "Deal?"

He glanced at Manuel, if not for approval, then simple confirmation. Manuel stayed as he was, smoking his cigarette.

Rivera shook her hand. "Deal."

* * *

Not expecting more success than he'd had the last few times he'd tried, Joe dialed Gail's cell phone number.

"Hello?" Her voice sounded almost eager.

"Hi, it's me. I've been trying to find you—see if you were all right."

"I'm fine."

He was disappointed the eagerness had clearly not been for him. "I was just worried, given all you've been through. How's Laurie doing?"

"The same."

"Your sister come up yet to be with her?"

Gail's tone turned bitter. "Yeah. She carved out some time from her schedule. She'll be arriving this afternoon. God knows how long that'll last."

"She staying with you?"

"That's the plan. I don't know if it'll work out, given our past history."

"You can stay at my place if you want."

Her response came almost too quickly. "No, that's okay. You're sweet, but I ought to tough it out. Maybe if things fall apart."

There was an awkward pause, which Joe filled with, "Are you sure you're okay? You don't sound like yourself."

Her reaction surprised him with its hard edge. "Well, I wouldn't, would I? At least I hope not. It's not every day you have your niece lying in a coma because of your own inattention."

He was surprised she was still stuck there. And worried. "Gail, you know that's not the way it is."

She almost cut him off. "I know, I know—that's the same crap I tell people, too. Look, Joe, I appreciate the call, but I gotta go. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

The phone went dead before he could respond.

He and Gail had shared some rough roads and not just when she'd been the one in a jam. But he was starting to wonder about this one. He couldn't get his hands around it—it lacked a cause-and-effect lineage he could track, her concern with Laurie's condition notwithstanding. He sensed there was more at work here, perhaps an accumulation of past ghosts: the rape, the alienation between her and her sister, his and her peculiar relationship, at once solid but noncommittal. Even her restless pursuit of a variety of professions and causes through the years. Laurie Davis's influence on Gail's state of mind was real and profound, but he didn't think it told even half the story.