by Urban Waite
The woman handed him over the coffee. "Mostly we get people heading up for the mountains, more in the winter when the lifts open up. But we get a good amount in the morning."
"Not a lot of people walking up and ordering coffee."
"No. Mostly it's drive-through."
"Were you here last night?"
"No," the woman said. She was using a dish towel to wipe a bit of spilled coffee by the register. "I have a few girls who do nights for me."
"Think they know anything about what happened over there at the motel?"
"I don't think they know much about anything yet. They're both a little dreamy at times."
"Who was working last night?"
The woman paused and gave him a look. "Are you with the sheriff?"
"In a way."
"What kind of way is that?"
"If you can believe it, I was told this would be a vacation."
"Nice vacation."
"Yeah, that's pretty much how my wife put it."
"You want me to have the girl give you a call when she gets out of school?"
"Sure, I just want to talk to her. We have statements from everyone staying in the motel, but I'd like to know if she saw anything."
"We close around sunset. I don't know if she would have seen any of that mess."
Drake wrote down his number and gave it to the woman. "Let her know I'd like to talk to her." He paid for his coffee and thanked the woman.
IN THE CITY THE RAIN HAD BEGUN TO COME IN WAVES, windswept sheets of water moving up the street like ocean rollers. The two Vietnamese men sat in the Lexus, a half block down from Grady's house. The car was parked on the opposite side of the street, with a clear view of Grady's porch and front windows.
The house clung to the back of a small hill, overgrown grass lining the foundation and a set of cement stairs that climbed up from the sidewalk and briefly flattened into a path that led to the porch.
No car in the driveway, just the empty carved-out feel of the house, no lights on, the rain falling everywhere. The patter of water spilling from the sky onto the windows and pinging on the Lexus. The driver watched a cat skitter out from under a torn couch and run half-crazed across the street, where it disappeared into one of the neighbor's yards.
The man in the passenger seat dialed a number on his phone and raised it to his ear. Two hundred feet down the block a light came on, silver blue, through the windshield of a darkened car. "Anything?"
They were waiting, all of them. The rain falling was the only thing to keep them company. No conversation. No jokes.
The driver slumped down and rested his head against the seat. The rain still falling. Nothing to do but watch the house. Large- shingled siding, scraped gray paint, dull brown in places where it had been swept clean by time.
Smells of the car, the sour, upturned odor of cigarettes, and the old smells of food. Hands still raw from hefting the boulder. Arms still sore. The man in the passenger seat finished the call and clapped the phone closed. Down the block, the other light went off. They went on waiting.
GRADY PULLED THE LINCOLN UP ONTO THE INTERSTATE, a forest of white pine surrounding him. He pushed the accelerator and felt the engine take him, leveling the car south on the interstate toward Seattle. Nora's cell phone rested on the dash. He watched the phone and waited till a strong signal showed on the display. With one hand, Grady toggled down through the numbers, and when he found Hunt's number he pushed Send.
Hunt answered, and the first thing Grady said was, "Found her."
After a moment, Hunt said, "What do you want to do?" His voice came out shaking and he fought to calm it.
"I want you to come find me."
"How do I do that?"
Grady gave him the address of his place in Seattle.
"It's that easy?"
"It's that easy."
"What do I need to do?"
"You'll bring me the drugs."
"What if I don't have them?"
"Of course you do."
"They're inside the girl."
"Get them out." Grady put the phone on speaker and dropped it to the seat beside him.
"How am I supposed to do that?" Hunt's voice filled the interior of the Lincoln with the hollow, carved-out echo of speakerphone.
"I'd use a sharp knife," Grady suggested.
"She's in the hospital."
"I don't know if I have the patience for this," Grady said. "If I have to go up there and dig them out of her, I will. But it would be better for your wife if you did it yourself."
"I'd like to talk to Nora."
"Might be a little difficult." Grady picked a small sun-dried fly carcass off the dash and examined it. He put the windows down a sliver, letting in the cold early winter air, wet smell of pine and low farm air, dust and granite. With his finger he flicked the fly out the window.
"You better not have done anything to her."
"She's still alive, I think."
"What do you mean, 'I think'? I want to talk to her."
"Like I said, it could be difficult."
"Why is that?"
"She's in the trunk."
"What trunk?"
"The car trunk."
"I'm going to kill you."
"I doubt that."
"No 'doubt' about it."
"Let's do a little experiment. What do you say? "
"First, I want to talk to my wife."
"Here is the experiment: I'll let her live if you bring me the drugs. You'll bring them to me and I'll let her live. You put them in my hand, I'll let her go."
"Yes, I get it."
"I'm not finished. The drugs are really only the bonus. You can do what you want with them. Really, the question regards you. I am paid to kill you. The loss of the drugs can always be blamed on you. Really, what I'm telling you here is that you're not trading the drugs for your wife, you're trading yourself."
"What kind of crazy deal is that?"
"The best one you're going to get."
"That's not any kind of deal at all."
"What did you expect?"
"Something better."
"I don't think you understand the situation at all. I am paid to kill you. If you don't die, I don't get paid. It makes complete sense."
"You're crazy."
"Okay." Grady laughed. "You bring the drugs, and I'll give you a ten-second head start. How does that sound?"
"You really are crazy."
"That depends on if you think you can get away. I think that you're dead anyway. This is a great deal you're getting here. I think the first one was better, but I'd like to see what you're going to do about it."
"How was the first one better?"
"Well, let's treat it like an experiment. If we know that the conclusion of the experiment is that you die, then I guess you would have to go back and look at the choices you made to get there. You don't bring me the heroin, you die but your wife lives. You bring me the heroin, you get a ten-second head start, your wife lives, and then when I catch up to you I kill you, and depending on the circumstances maybe I kill your wife, too. You see how the first one is the better deal?"
"What kind of circumstances?"
"Traffic accidents kill thousands every year."
"You're going to give us a ten-second head start?"
"Yes."
"What if I said I don't believe you?"
"That's what you'd be saying." Grady paused to look over at the phone on the seat beside him. Hunt didn't say anything. After a second had passed, Grady thought perhaps Hunt just didn't understand the terms of the agreement, and said, "There is only one thing certain."
"I'll die?"
"One way or another."
"Let me talk to her, Grady."
"You have the address." Grady reached over and closed the phone.
DRISCOLL STOPPED AT A GAS STATION OFF THE INTERSTATE. They filled the tank and stood for a moment looking at the wet roads. Drake hadn't caught the exit number or the name of the town they wer
e in. He knew they were getting close to wherever Hunt had picked the car up, but he didn't know if it was an hour or fifteen minutes away. While he waited for the tank to fill, he measured the dirt on the streets with his eyes, like a thin layer of mud from the previous night's rain. He was still in a bit of shock over what they had found at the motel. There was something inside him that didn't want to go on. Some fear of what they might find.
"Can you drive?" Driscoll asked.
"Sure, I can drive."
"How's your defensive driving?"
Drake gave him a look.
"What?" Driscoll said.
"Just give me the keys."
Driscoll threw them to him. Drake walked around to the driver's side and got in. After Driscoll had finished filling the gas tank, he tapped on the roof and leaned down into the open passenger window. "You want anything?"
"I'll take a black coffee if they have some."
"I'm sure they have some, I just don't know if you'll want it." Driscoll smiled, and Drake could see him straighten and put his hands behind his back. Drake heard a crack. Driscoll had taken off his jacket to drive and he wore only his holster and his badge on his belt, the Desert Eagle in plain view.
After Driscoll left, Drake stared off toward the end of the lot. The cement curved down and met the street. The street ran on for a ways until it met the interstate rumbling above. With the windows opened he could smell the spilled gasoline on the cement. The sun broke through the clouds and shone down on the lot, the cement seeming to evaporate under it, water vapor rising in the morning light.
It felt like a bit of peace in an otherwise tragic series of days. What did this woman have to do with all of this? Would they find her dead, too? Though Drake knew it was more than just the wife, that it was more than this. The idea came to him that if he had just let Hunt and the kid through in the mountains, none of this would have happened. What would he have done if Hunt had been his father? Drake honestly couldn't say. He didn't want to think about it anymore, didn't want to make that decision. He hoped he'd never have to. The thought was enough to drop his throat into his stomach, and when he tried to swallow, he felt a little bile rise back up like a bitter reminder.
WHEN GRADY GOT TO HIS HOUSE HE PULLED UP IN the rain and sat looking down the street. He was a full two car lengths past his driveway, idling the engine with his hand halfway into the knife bag, searching out Eddie's.22. He'd counted two heads in the Lexus behind him and another three in the car up ahead. He didn't think Hunt would have done him like that. He didn't figure Hunt for that sort. No, he thought, Hunt would come at him alone. It wouldn't be like this.
Grady took his hand back from the bag and shifted the car into reverse. He backed it up and angled up the drive with the Lincoln's hood faced out onto the street. With the engine off, he was thinking it over. He guessed them to be the fellows he owed the heroin to. Guessed they'd come after him when he hadn't delivered on time. But he still had only half the drugs. About fifty pellets he'd dug out of the girl he'd picked up at the airport. A real screamer, she'd been a pleasure to put the knife through, just to shut her up. Hell, he thought, if they wanted her back, he could do that. He had her packed up real good in the downstairs freezer, sectioned out and ready for disposal. But he didn't think they were here for her, and he didn't think five of them had come just to collect the heroin. He knew these men had come to do him harm and he thought he'd let them try.
He sat in the Lincoln with the heat going. Better just to keep the heroin. Better for everyone. The heroin was inside the house, in the downstairs freezer. Nothing moved on the street, the rain still falling and the five men just sitting there waiting for him.
WHEN SHE WOKE, THE TRUNK WAS STILL CLOSED over her. The car had stopped. She heard the patter of rain on the metal above her. Her first breaths brought the smell of asphalt and dampened upholstery to her nostrils. With her hand she felt the swollen skin of her face, the raised cheek, the welt along her temple, skin pulled tight with the swelling.
Nora thought of the woman in the motel parking lot. What had she done to deserve a thing like that? What did anyone deserve? Nora felt she deserved it. Felt she had been deserving it all her life, ever since she'd met Hunt. She'd fallen in love with him, drawn to him and his past, someone hurt, the wounds still visible. Nora there with the salve, with the bandage and the desire to heal.
The motel clerk had come out of the office. She must have seen some of what had gone on. Certainly not the gun, that wasn't possible. No one would have walked out that way had they seen a gun. Nora struggling, her kidnapper with his hands wrapped around her, his big arms holding her, stronger and more solid than he looked for a man of average height.
One, two, three. It was that quick. Still holding Nora by the waist, he reached his hand out, and there was the whisper of the bullet as it left the.22. The woman looked down at herself, at the spread of blood coming across her stomach, and a millisecond later her shoulder sprang back, and then her head. The woman hit the gravel. She had probably put that gravel in, she had probably raked it and filled it in, smoothed it out, cleaned it, made sure it was always welcoming, always professional. Never did the woman picture herself laid out on it. Nora knew that, just as surely as she knew her own situation.
Now something had brought her around, something had woken her. There was nothing but the sound of rain patter on the metal hood above. From somewhere deep inside the car, she heard the sound of water collecting, dripping through the inner workings of the car. Then, half-expectantly, the Lincoln's driver''s-side door opened and she felt the springs ease up and the door swing shut. She closed her eyes. Nothing changed, the same black darkness, the same closed-in, shut-off solitude.
"THAT HIM?"
"Yeah," the driver said. "That's him."
The two of them slumped down in the Lexus, waiting to see what would happen next.
"What's he doing now?"
"He's just sitting there."
The man in the passenger seat rose and gave the Lincoln a look. Grady's reverse lights came on, a dull gray in the falling rain, Grady shifting the transmission up into park and turning off the ignition. The man in the Lexus ducked, and when he looked again, Grady had gotten out of the car with his bag and was walking around to the back of the car.
"What's he doing now?" the driver said.
"Looks like he's getting something out of the trunk."
The driver popped his head up over the wheel and gave Grady a look. "That our girl?"
"Can't see anything in this fucking rain."
"Well, who else would she be?"
"You want to wait and see if he delivers?"
"I want to get our heroin."
"Well, then, how do you want to go about that?"
"YOU'RE SAYING HE STOLE THE CAR?" DRISCOLL SAT ON the couch, Drake at the window looking out on the charred edges of the drum in the backyard. Roy and Nancy had brought two chairs from the kitchen into the living room. They kept their eyes on Driscoll. "But you didn't report it stolen?"
"We were going to."
Driscoll gave them a doubting look, then wrote something in his notebook. Thus purse sat on the coffee table between them, contents separated into evidence bags. Nancy picked up the picture of Thu with her boys and stared at it for a long moment, then put it back on the table.
"What do you use the canister for?" Drake said.
Roy looked over at Drake. "We use it for burning papers, that sort of thing."
"Things you don't want anyone else to see," Drake said.
"I don't know if I'd put it that way," Roy said.
Driscoll waited for the two of them to stop. "You know your car was involved in a double homicide."
"You said that," Roy said.
Nancy, who had been looking at her hands, asked, "Do you have a picture of the man you're looking for?"
Driscoll gave her the picture of Phil Hunt.
"Are you sure this is him?"
"That was taken about thirty years ago. He sh
ot a store owner with his own gun. It's the only reason he got second degree as opposed to first."
"Didn't seem like he had much of a plan when he showed up here either," Roy said.
Driscoll turned and looked at Roy. "Would you mind looking at the picture."
Nancy handed the picture to her husband. "This is the guy?" Roy said.
"This is the first time you've met him?"
"Of course. Why would I know someone like this?"
Driscoll brought out a second packet of paper. On the front was a picture of Roy. "You and Phil Hunt were both in Monroe together. We could start there."
"Monroe is a big place," Roy said.
"Come on," Drake interrupted.
"I don't know him," Roy said.
"Relax," Driscoll said. "For the moment, let's say you don't know him. We find out otherwise, you could be in a lot of trouble. Do you understand, Roy?"
"Yes."
"What happened with the drugs?" Driscoll asked.
"We don't know," Nancy said. "Thu passed them that night, and Phil took them when he left."
"Did you see him with the drugs?"
"No, but I didn't see him take my car keys either."
"Can you tell us what the drugs looked like to you?"
"Little pellets, about this big." Roy made a circle by putting his trigger finger and thumb together.
"How many were there?"
"Fifty, maybe. Thu probably had one still in her. None of the ones we saw looked to be open."
"They didn't tell you when you called to check on her at the hospital?"
"They asked us a bunch of questions," Nancy said. "Made us feel uncomfortable, made it seem like we were the ones who had done this thing to her. I work there. Doesn't make sense."
"We saved that girl," Roy said.
Driscoll wrote something down in his notebook. "Probably so she can do it again in a couple years."
"I don't believe that at all," Nancy said. /
Drake walked over and picked up one of Roy and Nancy's framed pictures. He rubbed a smudge from the frame with the end of his thumb. "How much is that worth, Driscoll? Fifty pellets?"