The Clouds Roll Away (16 page)

“About what?”

“Nice disguise, but you can forget it. You're not coming in with me.”

Another temptation swept over me. It was harder to resist.

“Why can't I come in with you?” I asked.

“Why?”

“Tell them I'm your girlfriend.”

“What're you, crazy?”

“That's it, the crazy girlfriend. Good thinking, Sully.”

“You can't.” His voice cracked. “You can't do this.”

“Come on. I even wore my red cape.”

His pale face wadded with worry. I could see all the sneaky ideas, all the schemes and double-crosses, snaking through his narrow mind. Behind him, the bridge's streetlights clicked past, the water sparkling like a jewel.

“Turn around,” he said.

“You set up the buy. We have to go.”

“I'll make up something. Turn around.”

“They'll get suspicious. You know that.”

“Okay, how about I tell them some crazy woman kidnapped me?” he said. “How about I tell them she works for the FBI? Huh? How about that?”

When I looked over, I'd successfully wiped the perma-sneer off Sully's face. Stewing in his own rancid juices, his cramped face almost looked human. But it wasn't normal fear. It was the anxiety of the compulsive manipulator, a guy who was afraid he wouldn't get the final twist, the last dig, the ultimate lie. I would have liked to instill authentic fear in Sully, but he belonged to the detective.

And the task force needed him.

“Relax, Sully,” I said. “I'm not going in with you.”

He didn't move.

“Seriously, I'm not.”

“Then why are you dressed like that?”

“I was at a Christmas party.”

“And your hair?”

“I got a haircut, that's all.”

“You don't look like a cop anymore,” he said.

“I promise, you're going in by yourself.”

He closed his eyes, sighing with relief. When I pulled into the parking lot of the abandoned mill off Decatur, he was already unzipping his fanny pouch. I counted out the bills. Sully licked his lips, yanking the bills from my hand.

“You're still walking across the bridge,” I said.

He stuffed the bills into his marsupial nylon pouch, got out, and slammed the car door.

I drove back across the bridge and up to Main Street. White Christmas lights framed the buildings, delineating their shapes and making them look like enormous presents. Circling down to Seventh Street, I parked where I could watch the bridge that clasped the city's opposing sides like a bejeweled broach.

After ten minutes of rubbing my bare arms, tapping my feet against the floorboard, and slapping the dashboard, I pulled out my cell phone and called my mother.

“Will you be late?” she asked.

“Yes. I didn't want you to worry.”

“I'd only worry if you came home early.”

I stared out the windshield at Riverfront Towers. Inside, a janitor guided a polishing machine across the marble foyer. On the phone, in the background, I could hear canned laughter from some television show my mother was watching.

“Is it beautiful?” she asked.

“What's that?”

“The party—is it beautiful?”

Something landed on my chest, the full weight of it. The white Christmas lights on the buildings blurred.

“It's a very nice party.” I swallowed.

“Who have you seen?”

I tossed out names, tightening my throat as I told her about MacKenna's dress and Mr. Fielding's toast and seeing Flynn Wellington and her husband, and when I finished the lights were rivers of white light.

“Tell DeMott you'll see him Sunday for church,” she said.

“We're going back?”

“And I made a Bundt cake for breakfast. And eggnog from scratch, just the way Daddy liked it.”

I closed the phone and watched the janitor finish polishing the floor. The K-Car felt like a meat locker. Uselessly, I put my hand over the heat vent. It felt like the air conditioner was on. Pulling the cape around my body, shivering, I stamped my feet to stay warm. By the time Sully came sauntering across the bridge, my teeth were clacking.

Nobody was following him.

Rather than drive under Riverfront Towers, I raced across the bridge, pulling an illegal U-turn to drive up beside him. He didn't seem particularly surprised and dropped on the seat. I hit the gas, holding out my hand for the product.

He sat up, as if suddenly remembering the point of this exercise, and unzipped the little fanny pack. He tossed me a plastic baggie.

My fingers felt like popsicles. There were six stones, just like last time. “Thizizit?”

“What?”

I clenched my jaw, forcing out the words without chatter. “This . . . is . . . it?”

“You look cold,” he said. “It's freezing in here. Can you turn the heat on?”

“Money,” I said. “Where's the money?”

He reached over, twisting the knob already cranked to hot. “This thing doesn't even have heat?”

“Sully.” I gritted my teeth. “What did you do?”

“I bought drugs.”

“You had twice as much money. Where's the rest?”

“You think it's some kind of store?” he said. “I walk in and ask for change? Maybe in your little white bread world, that's how it works. But this is the real world, babe. Quit nagging and start driving.”

I hit the brakes. Cranking the wheel, I pulled another U-turn and raced across the bridge, heading south. The bridge lights zipped past.

“What the—” Sully said. “What are you doing?”

I headed up Semmes. The light turned red; I slammed on the brakes. Two women on the corner walked toward the car. They were not dressed for the cold and stared at the K-Car, a little uncertain. When the light turned green, I stepped on the gas and looked over at Sully. His pale face was starting to show fear. Real fear.

“Hand it over, Sully.”

“I gave it to you,” he said.

“Then give me the rest of the money.”

“I used it all.”

“Don't play games with me, Sully. We've got one rule, and you know it. Stick to the routine.”

“I did.”

“There's barely enough in that baggie for possession.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he said.

“Okay, I'll just go in and ask them what happened.” I turned left on Cowardin. “Are they down this street?”

“You wouldn't.”

“Try me. Because whatever you pulled tonight, I guarantee you sent up red flags.”

“I didn't. I swear.”

My radar went screaming red. It did that whenever a self-serving creep uttered the words “I swear.” What could they possibly swear to except themselves?

I stopped at Perry Street. It was nothing but shadows. The streetlights were shot out, the copper wires cannibalized for cash. I felt an urge to lock the doors. But showing fear would give Sully the upper hand. I looked over. Sully was licking his lips, eyes darting.

“When these guys get nervous, Sully, people die. Tell me what you did.”

“Prices went up,” he said.

I stepped on the gas, barreling down Bainbridge Street.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Look. It's no big deal. I just took some of the—”

Four men stepped from the shadows. My headlights hit them, twenty yards ahead in the middle of the road. They formed a line, arms crossed, and Sully cursed. When I hit the brakes, the back wheels locked, fishtailing the K-Car to a stop.

The men walked toward us.

Sully cursed again. His voice high and scared.

They wore black jackets marked with the eye patch and crossbones of the Oakland Raiders. The man in the middle placed both hands on the K-Car's hood, staring through the windshield, as the other three moved to both sides, disappearing from view.

A fifth man stepped off the curb.

Sully cursed again.

I kept my voice at a whisper. “Are these the guys?”

He answered with another curse. I glanced in the rearview mirror. One of them was running his hands over my square trunk. The other guys were somewhere in the shadows. Reaching under my cape, I found my purse and wrapped my palm around the Glock, placing my index finger alongside the trigger.

The fifth man walked over to Sully's side.

Sully was hyperventilating.

“Don't talk,” I whispered. “Let me handle it.”

He knocked on Sully's window.

“Roll it down,” I said.

Sully was wild-eyed, paralyzed with fear. Pure fear.

I leaned across the bench seat, cranking the handle with my left hand, my right still tucked under the cape and inside the purse.

The man leaned down. He was big. His brown scalp was shaved bald, a Raiders headband covering his ears. He placed one hand on the window frame. The other hand went to the K-Car's roof, presumably to signal the Raiders. He stared at Sully, a flat expression in his dark shiny eyes. The dead expression perfected in penitentiaries.

I started shivering again. Not from the cold.

“Yo,” he said to Sully. “We got a problem?”

Sully shook his head.

“Yeah, we got a p-problem.” I shivered and stared into the big man's eyes, not even trying to hold back my shakes. “How m-much m-money did he give you?”

With one glance, he took inventory of the car. The backseat held my beat-up duffel bag. No briefcase. I wasn't supposed to be working tonight.

“Who am I talking to?” he said.

“His buyer.”

Sully let out a squeak.

I lifted the baggie. “I paid a g-grand,” I said. “Does th-that look right to you?”

He opened his palm, holding it just inches from Sully's sweating face. I gave him the baggie and he rubbed the grains between his thumb and finger. The expression in his eyes never changed, never exposed one thought or feeling or suspicion, and his next move cracked like lightning.

He grabbed Sully's jacket and yanked him out the window. By the time I realized what was happening, Sully's dirty tennis shoes were caught on the frame, toes twisted backward.

“You stealin', Sully?”

Sully gurgled.

“I asked you a question.” He yanked Sully all the way out of the car, holding him in the air like a rag doll. “Check the little purse.”

One Raider stepped forward, unzipping Sully's fanny pack. He pulled out a fat roll of bills bound by a rubber band.

The big man let go. Sully dropped like a stone.

Licking his fingers, the man counted the money. My pulse jumped in my neck. I ran through the scenarios, narrowed it down to two. Both ended badly. The third idea started worse, but could end better.

The man scratched the side of his face, flicking fingers across his skin.

He nodded.

The Raiders rushed forward, kicking. Dull, ugly thuds.

Sully screamed. The big man leaned down into the open window, staring at me.

I held his gaze. “Thanks, I—”

“Get out of the car,” he said.

chapter twenty

I
t was a shotgun-style house, one long rectangle stinking of mildew and scorched microwave popcorn. I waited inside as they dragged Sully over the threshold, throwing him on the dirty floor. Dirtier than any floor I'd ever seen.

The bald man had a lumbering walk, scuffing the heels of his Timberland boots. He unzipped his black down jacket, motioning for me to follow down the long hallway where clumps of dog hair stuck to chewed-up baseboards. Somewhere far away music played, a sound muffled by the blood whooshing through my ears. My heart banged against my chest.

The hallway ended at the kitchen. I combed my eyes over the back door, checking the dead bolts. All three were locked. Dogs were scratching on the other side. Their barks were deep and slobbery and hungry. Pit bulls. Rottweilers.

Killer dogs.

Keeping the door to my left, I turned slowly to the right, taking in a torn-up countertop and electric stove whose coils burned crimson under dented aluminum pans. A man stood at the stove and poked a sharp knife at bubbles that rose in a thick white substance inside the pans. He wore horn-rimmed glasses. His eyes were large and sloe and mean.

“You nailed it, XL,” the big man said. “Sully was up to something.”

I took a swallow of the rancid air and pulled the cape tighter, wedging the small clutch under my left elbow. For several long moments I stared at the cooking white paste, trying to detach. I decided to think about the drugs, not the people. I thought about the chemical structure of cocaine hydrochloride. I thought about how it changed from salt to freebase if heated with an alkali. Staring at the tip of his knife, I listened to the metal-on-metal scrapes until I trusted my eyes to conceal their knowledge.

XL was size S.

Five-foot-five in oxblood penny loafers, he wore a white polo shirt and wide-wale cuffed blue corduroys. With the horn-rims, he looked ready for the Ivy League. His mean eyes traveled from my face down to the cape, to the dress, my legs, finally resting on my high heels.

“He rip you off, baby?” His voice was as sweet as rancid honey, nothing like the cold voice I'd heard on the phones.

I nodded, letting my teeth chatter. I pulled the cape closer.

The big man took off his coat. The kitchen was hot.

“Moon,” said XL.

“Yeah?”

“Where's Sully?”

“In the living room, filling his pants.”

“You're telling me he came back?” XL glanced into the pan, stabbing the paste.

Moon took him through the details, describing the sight of the K-Car flying down the street, screeching to a stop. As he spoke, I trained my eyes to the side of his face and tried to remember how tiny Zennie Lewis controlled this large ruthless man. Her voice, I recalled her voice. The way she spoke on the phone. She always sounded . . . offended. Inconvenienced.

I let out a short impatient sigh. I shook my head, flicking my hair. Something caught my eye. In the corner. By the back door. Guns. Submachine guns, leaning against the dirty wall like toys.