Right as Rain

31

Strange hit the intercom-system buzzer on his desk and spoke into its mic: 'Janine?'

'Yes, Derek,' came the crackly reply.

'Come on in here a minute, will you?'

Strange leaned over, picked up a package, a padded, legal-sized envelope, off the floor, and placed it on his desk. In the package, addressed to Lydell Blue at the Fourth District Station, was the full evidence file Strange had collected on the Wilson case.

Strange had come in early that morning, made Xerox copies of the evidence, and dropped the duplicate package in the mail, addressed to himself. Next he'd called his attorney and confirmed that his will was up to date. He had filled his attorney in on the whereabouts of his modest life insurance policy, for which he had named Janine and Lionel joint beneficiaries.

Janine Baker came into the room.

'Hi,' said Strange.

'Hi.'

'I'm gonna be gone for the rest of the day, maybe a little bit into tomorrow.'

'Okay,' said Janine.

'You need me, you can get me on my beeper.'

'Just like always. Nothing unusual about that.'

'That's right. Nothin' unusual at all.' Strange rubbed an itch on his nose. 'How's Lionel doin'?'

'He's doing well.'

'Listenin' to you, gettin' all his homework done, all that?'

'He's got his moments. But he's fine.'

'All right then.' Strange leaned forward and tapped the padded envelope on his desk. 'You don't hear any different from me, say by noon tomorrow, I want you to take this package here and drop it in the mailbox, understand?'

'Sure.'

'Keep it in the safe until then. There's another package like it, will be coming here, in the mail, a couple days from now. When it arrives, I want you to put that one in the safe.'

'Okay.'

'You got the billing done for Leona Wilson?'

'Soon as you tell me you've concluded the case, it'll be done.'

'It's done. Bill her for eight more hours, and don't forget to add in all those receipts I collected in the way of expenses, too.'

'I'll do it.'

'Good. I guess we're all set.' Strange got up from his chair, took his leather off the coat tree, and shook himself into the jacket. He walked up close to Janine and glanced at the open office door. 'Ron out there?'

'He's off on an insurance fraud thing.'

Strange slipped his arms around Janine's waist and pulled her to him. He kissed her on the lips, and held the kiss. She looked up into his eyes.

'First time you ever did that in here, Derek.'

'I'm not all that good at putting things I got in my head into words,' said Strange. 'Listen, I'm tryin' to say-'

'You did say it, Derek.'

Still in his arms, Janine wiped her thumb across his mouth, clearing the lipstick she had left there.

'I need to be gettin' out of here.'

'It's early yet.'

'I know it. But I wanted to spend the day with my mom.'

Janine watched him walk away, through the outer office and out the front door. She picked up the package off his desk and headed for the safe.

Quinn put in an early shift at the bookstore, then came back to his apartment, worked out in the basement, showered, and dressed in thermal underwear, a flannel shirt, Levi's jeans, and hiking boots. He microwaved a frozen dinner, ate it, made a pot of coffee, and drank the first of three cups. He put London Calling on the stereo. He listened to 'Death or Glory' while he sat on the edge of his bed. He put on Born to Run and turned 'Backstreets' up loud. He paced his bedroom and found his gun and belt in the bottom drawer of his dresser.

Quinn stood in front of his full-length mirror. He wrapped his gun belt around his waist and buckled it in front, the holster riding low and tight on the right side of his hip. He had taken the Mace holder, bullet dump, pen holder, and key chain off the belt, leaving only his set of handcuffs, in their case and positioned at the small of his back. He holstered the Glock, cleared it from its holster, holstered it and cleared it again.

Quinn released the magazine and checked the load. He picked up the Glock, closed one eye, sighted down the barrel to the white dot on the blade, and dry-fired at the wall. The black polymer grip was secure in his palm. He slapped the magazine back into the butt of the gun and slid the Glock down into its holster.

The phone rang, and Quinn picked it up.

'Hello.' Quinn could hear symphonic music on the other end of the line.

'Derek here. I'm ready to go.'

'I'm ready, too,' said Quinn. 'Come on by.'

Strange hung up the phone. He was sitting at his desk at home, the Morricone soundtrack to Once Upon a Time in the West filling the room. The main title theme was playing, and Strange briefly closed his eyes. This was the most beautiful piece of music he owned, and he wanted nothing more than to sit here and listen to it, into the night. But the sky had darkened outside his rain-streaked window, and Strange knew that it was time to go.

Adonis Delgado's black Maxima cruised north on 270, its segmented wipers clearing the windshield of the rain that had lightly begun to fall. The rush hour traffic had thinned out an hour earlier, and the road ahead was clear.

'They like to do their business in the barn,' said Delgado, sitting low under the wheel. Delgado wore a black nylon jogging suit, his arms filling the sleeves, with a gold rope chain around his horse-thick neck.

'I know it,' said Eugene Franklin, beside him in the passenger bucket.

'Back when the Colombians were still breathin', they used to laugh about it with Coleman, tell 'em how it went down. We call 'em after we get off Two-seventy, and they meet us in the parking lot of a strip mall. They drive us back-'

'I know all this.'

'They drive us back, Eugene. They like to pour a few cocktails out in the barn before the business gets transacted.'

'I don't drink.'

'Have one or two to be polite, but don't go gettin' drunk. What I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna excuse myself, pay a visit to that little junkie. I'll take care of her, then come back to the barn.'

'You think that's a good idea?'

'Fuck you mean by that?'

'Maybe you better take care of the girl after. I mean, the sound of a gunshot in that house is gonna travel back to the barn.'

'I'll take care of the sound.'

'You got a suppressor or somethin'?'

'You got a suppressor or somethin'?' said Delgado, imitating Franklin's shaky voice and issuing a short laugh. 'Shit, Eugene, I don't know who in the fuck was ever stupid enough to give you a badge. I don't need no god-damn suppressor, man. I'll put a pillow over her face and shoot her through that.'

Delgado kicked up the wiper speed. The intensity of the rain had increased.

'Now,' said Delgado. 'When I come back in the barn, and I mean as soon as I come back in, I'm gonna walk straight up to Ray and do him quick. You do his father the same way, hear? I don't want to have to worry about you backin' me up.'

'You don't have to worry,' said Franklin.

'There's our exit,' said Delgado, pushing up on the turn signal bar. 'Grab my cell phone out the glove box, man. Call that little cross-eyed white boy, tell him we're on our way in.'

Ray Boone broke open a spansule of meth and dumped its contents onto a Budweiser mirror he had pulled off the wall. He used a razor blade to cut out two lines and snorted up the blue-speckled, coarse powder. He threw his head back and felt the familiar numbness back in his throat. He swigged from a can of beer until it was empty and tossed the can into the trash, wiping blood off his lip that had dripped down from his nose.

'Phone's ringin', Daddy.'

'I hear it,' said Earl. He had a cigarette in one hand and was playing electronic poker with the other.

'That's them.'

'Then answer it, Critter.'

Ray lifted his cell phone off the green felt table where he sat. He spoke to one of Coleman's men briefly, then pushed the 'end' button on the phone.

'They're down the road,' said Ray.

Earl nodded but did not reply.

Ray had everything he needed on his person. His Beretta 92F was loaded and holstered on his back, in the waistband of his jeans. He had a vial of crystal meth spansules in one of his coat pockets and a hardpack of Marlboro Reds in the other. As for the heroin, he had brought the rest of it out earlier and placed the bags behind the bar.

Ray had brought the heroin out because he didn't want to go back in that room more than one time tonight; it was beginning to smell somethin' awful back there. His daddy had been right, and knowing that made Ray even more disturbed than he already had been since Edna up and left him. The weather had warmed unexpectedly, and those dead greasers down in the tunnel were gettin' ripe.

Earl picked up his six-pack cooler full of Busch, patting his coat pockets to check that he had brought his cigarettes and his.38. He and Ray left the barn. Out in the yard, Earl flicked his cigarette toward the woods and said, 'I'll be back. Need to check on the girl.'

Ray knew that his father was going in the house to give that colored junkie a bag of love, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He wasn't even mad at his father for pushing him down the day before. He had problems of his own that were weighing on his mind.

Ray went to the edge of the woods and looked into its darkness, letting the rain hit his face. Where the fuck was Edna? All right, so she'd gone into his stash and smoked it up, and now she was scared. But a day had passed, and he'd heard not one thing from her. He'd called that big-haired, smart-as-a-stump girlfriend of hers, Jo-hanna, and she claimed to not know where Edna was either. Lyin'-ass bitch, she had to know where Edna was, the two of them was asshole buddies goin' way back to grade school. That Jo-hanna, she'd even acted suspicious when he called, like he'd done somethin' to Edna his own self. Shit, he'd never hurt Edna. Course, he'd have to slap her around a little when she did come back, but that was something else.

'You're gettin' wet, Critter,' said Earl, standing behind Ray. 'Gonna mess up the leather on them boots of yours, standing out in this rain.'

'Just thinkin' on something, Daddy,' said Ray.

'I know what you're thinkin' on. We get through tonight, you can buy a whole bunch of heifers, you want to, take your mind off that

girl.'

'I guess you're right. C'mon, let's go pick up those boys.'

They walked to the car. Earl said, 'Startin' to smell back in the barn.'

'I'll bury 'em tomorrow,' said Ray.

'Told you that warm weather was comin' in.'

What with Edna, and his daddy always tellin' him what to do, and the speed rushing through his blood, Ray had a mind to bite clear through his own tongue.

'You all set?' said Strange, standing in Quinn's bedroom, nodding at the day pack in Quinn's hand.

'Yeah,' said Quinn. 'How about you?'

'Spent the day with my mother. Doctors say she's shuttin' herself down. She's just kinda layin' in her bed, looking out her window. Wanted to be with her, just the same.'

'I worked at the bookstore myself. Kept me busy, so I didn't have to think about things too much.'

'How's Lewis doin'? He keepin' his hand away from it?'

Strange and Quinn chuckled, then stared at each other without speaking. Strange handed Quinn a pair of thin black gloves.

'Wear these when we get out there. They'll warm you some, and they're thin enough, you can pick up a dime with 'em on.'

'Thanks.' Quinn dropped the gloves into his pack.

Strange looked toward Quinn's bedroom window. 'Rainin' like a motherfucker out there. Gonna be messy, but the rain'll cover a lot of noise.'

'And the clouds will cover our sight lines, goin' through those woods.'

'My NVDs will get us through those woods.'

'You and your gadgets,' said Quinn. He looked at Strange's belt line, where his beeper, the Leatherman, the Buck knife, and the case holding his cell were hung.

'Speaking of which,' said Strange, 'put this on.' He took his beeper off his hip and handed it to Quinn. 'We'll take two cars in case we don't leave at the same time.'

Quinn nodded. 'Otherwise I'll meet you at that No Trespassing sign on the second curve.'

'Okay, but if we get separated or somethin'-'

'I'll see you,' said Quinn, 'back in D.C.'