Thick as Thieves

16

Monday noon is too early for Lamp. He grimaces at the sky, adjusts his sunglasses on his peeling nose, and fiddles with the visor on his open-top Jeep. Then he hoists up his iced coffee and takes another needy pull. He does it all very slowly, as if he’s half asleep, and the other half is in some pain.

Carr watches from a wine bar across the street and decides that Lamp looks like his job. Not the pimp job, but the other one, which, according to Dennis, is owner and manager of Lampanelli’s Surf n’ Sport, in Riviera Beach. He’s fortyish and tall, with sandy hair, a tan, and a gut edging toward sloppy. He’s wearing a pink T-shirt and khaki shorts, and has a tattoo of a parrot on his left calf and a look of annoyance on his unshaved face.

Lamp glances around the parking lot. The Grigoriev brothers’ Brazilian restaurant is closed today, and the lot is empty but for his Jeep. He checks his watch. Carr hopes that Lamp finds some patience, or is tired enough to stay put for a while. Bobby and Latin Mike have called to tell him that Howard Bessemer is en route, but moving slowly due to traffic and what seems to be a lethal hangover.

“Looks like he’s been living on bad fish and toilet water,” Bobby said, laughing. “We’re about half a block back of him, and twenty-five seems to be his top speed today.”

“Hungover or reluctant?” Carr asked.

“Both,” Bobby said.

Definitely reluctant, Carr thinks, and for several days now also reclusive. Bessemer didn’t leave his house for his usual weekend poker and whore festival, or for anything else. Lunch and dinner were delivered three days running, along with parcels from the local liquor store. And televisions were on around the clock in the kitchen, the living room, and the bedroom, though Bessemer watched none of them, but wandered from room to room drinking gin and smoking joints. When he did pause, it was to collapse wherever he was standing, and to sleep for a few hours. Then up again and back to work. The only other breaks in the action-besides his occasional puking-were when Bessemer tried calling Prager. None of his attempts was successful.

The waitress brings Carr another soda water. He watches Lamp drain his iced coffee cup. On the street beyond the far side of the parking lot, Carr sees the van where he parked it, long before Lamp pulled in. Dennis is in back, with a couple of laptops and wireless broadband cards. He looks for Bobby and Mike, but doesn’t really expect to spot them. They’re good enough that he won’t see them climb into the van. There’s movement in the foreground and Bessemer’s BMW rolls into the lot.

Despite the clear skies, Howie’s got the top up, and from Carr’s vantage he’s no more than a ghost at the wheel. He leaves a parking space between his car and the Jeep and kills the engine. And then he sits. And sits. Unmoving, with his white hands on the wheel, as if at any moment he might drive off again. Lamp is as puzzled as Carr, and after a while he holds his wristwatch out toward Howie’s car and taps the face with his finger. Howie gets the point.

He opens the door slowly and cringes like a vampire in the midday sun. Lamp looks Howie up and down and shakes his head. Howie leans against the Jeep and starts talking, and Carr curses another conversation he isn’t going to hear.

Whatever Howie’s saying, he’s saying it fast, and Lamp holds up a hand and looks irritated. Howie pauses, rubs a hand over his face, and starts again, more slowly this time. Lamp listens and begins to shake his head, and the look of irritation is replaced by one of vague disgust. Carr’s phone vibrates.

“Me and Mike are in the van,” Bobby says. “You see this?”

“I see it,” Carr answers, “but I have no idea what he’s saying.”

“Whatever it is, Lamp’s not crazy for it. You’d figure a guy like him has heard it all before.”

Lamp is still shaking his head, and Bessemer is still talking, leaning more heavily now against the Jeep. Finally Lamp holds up a hand and points at Howie’s car. Howie begins to speak again, but Lamp points once more and pulls a cell phone from the pocket of his shorts. He waits until Howie is back in his car, and then he makes his call.

“Who do you think he’s calling?” Bobby asks.

“Wish I knew,” Carr says.

Lamp talks for a while, glancing now and then at Bessemer. Then he nods his head and punches off. He rubs a hand across the back of his neck, rolls his shoulders, and punches in another number.

This conversation is longer, and Lamp walks around while he has it. He circles his Jeep slowly, inspecting bumpers and kicking tires. Finally Lamp pockets his phone and walks over to Bessemer’s car. He raps on the window and Bessemer runs it down. Lamp leans over, props his forearms on the sill, and starts talking.

“Put this on speaker,” Carr says into his phone.

And Bobby does. Lamp’s voice comes on, hollow, choppy, but the New Orleans accent clear.

“You on for Friday night,” Lamp says, “but don’t let’s make this a regular thing. This kinda product’s not for me-too many problems. Too much fucking risk. Your pal want something like this again, you gotta go elsewhere, you get me, bro?”

Howie nods.

“And the folks that bring her, you pay them up front-in cash-or she don’t get out of the car.”

Howie nods again.

“And best not to fuck with these folks, Howie, you know? Or even talk to them too much.”

Lamp doesn’t wait for another nod, but climbs into his Jeep and drives away. A cloud of dust hangs over the asphalt, and Bessemer rests his forehead on his steering wheel. He sits this way for five minutes, and then he too leaves.