I sipped my coffee and looked at the man across the table.
“You down here to stay?” he asked quietly.
“I think so,” I said. “I may go back to school. I don’t know. Jim said come on down. Here I am. But I didn’t realize this was quite what he had in mind.”
“Raynor will be all right.” Rob put his cup down gingerly and leaned back in his chair. “He’ll be all right. But I’ll say this. When my kids get a little older, I’m out of this end of the business. I see these bastards knocking down major bucks and I wonder what I’m doing. You know? I think about joining the winning team for awhile.”
“Do you know an agent who hasn’t?”
“Hell, baby, dudes I know working the border patrol say their job isn’t busting dealers, it’s eliminating the competition.” He pulled at his beard. It was trimmed close, but coming in dark enough to cover the scar on his jaw. The agent’s cycle: grow the beard and hair, get down and dirty, make cases, cut it all off, keep the appearance changing constantly, the thing to be avoided was recognition. His hair was down over his earlobes and shaggy on his collar, dark as ever, straight and brown.
“I’ve thought about it lots of times,” he said. “But then I get home and see my little girl playing kickball out in the back yard. It’s hard, man.”
“I guess we could get all philosophical,” I said, “and decide that’s the reason why. Easy to do at five in the morning. But when you get right down to it, see what it does to people, you can’t fade that kind of action.”
“Who the hell knows.” He leaned back and clasped his hands behind his neck. “You gonna call that chief?”
“In a few hours. No sense dragging him out of bed. Not much to do except wait it out.”
“Listen,” he said, “I’m not trying to tell you how to run your business, man, Jim’s a good dude, but, he’s working right now, you know. You know how it can get. Things happen. You wonder whether to shit or go blind.”
“I think I’ll settle for letting this guy Nettle know what’s going on.”
“Good idea,” he said. “Very good idea. Cover Jim’s ass. And your own.”
He plucked a donut from the box on the table, took a huge bite, and threw it back toward the box. It landed in the middle of the cocaine on the tabletop.
“Oh Christ,” he said, “look what I did. No slack anywhere. Jesus H.” He carefully lifted the donut and began licking it, dropping powdered sugar all over his beard. I used a matchbook to try to scrape the sugar way from the coke rails.
“Man,” he said, “I fucked this up real good, looks like to me.”
“It was probably already full of sugar,” I said.
He handed me the tooter.
“Yeah probably,” he said. “Ain’t much pure around these days. Not on the streets anyway.”
5
Chief Nettle’s kitchen was Ajax clean, Better Homes and Gardens neat, and smelled overwhelmingly of Lysol. His wife answered the door and waved me inside. She had on a pale pink jumper with an antique lace collar, and wore her blond hair braided, wrapped in a neat bun at the back of her head.
“Donald will be in in a moment,” she drawled lightly. “You’nt some ice tea?”
“No thank you,” I said.
She walked toward the sound of a sitcom, which came from somewhere in the front part of the house. I sat down at the table, a round, pine thing in the middle of the large kitchen. Jim hadn’t said exactly why his boss wanted to talk to me, only that it was something about the overdose, and that I was to see him alone. It had been nearly two weeks since I’d called Nettle and explained what had happened. He hadn’t seemed terribly concerned. “Keep an eye on him,” he’d said. “Let me know if he gets any worse.” Though Jim seemed to be recovering, there were still days when he had a rough go. One morning I’d found him sitting on the landing outside of the apartment, staring through the wrought-iron railing. When I’d asked what he was watching, he looked at me oddly and said, “I’m not sure. Some days I look around me and it’s like the whole world is shivering.”
There was a picture of Mrs. Nettle on the wall next to the window. She was in a blue formal, holding roses, wearing a yellow sash with silver glitter that spelled out miss beaumont. Standing in front of an oil derrick. Beaumont had been carrying on a long-running love affair with the stuff. When the Lucas Gusher blew at Spindletop in 1901, spewing liquid dinosaur remains hundreds of feet skyward, Beaumont, like most of east Texas, was overrun by all those who would get rich quick. In a single month, the village became a town of thirty thousand, entrepreneurs all. It must have been chaos. And muddy. Very muddy. Enter Texaco and Mobil. Du Pont Chemical. The ship channel. The unions.
I had been deep into East Texas once before, in high school, for the track and field regionals. I was the white girl on the mile relay team. When we stopped at a Chicken Shack in Lufkin to get lunch, the six black women on the team refused to leave the van. I was astonished that they were actually scared; I’d never seen that kind of fear up close. But when I finally got them into the restaurant, I saw why they’d wanted to wait outside. The whole place got suddenly quiet when we entered, and people leaned across tables to talk and glance over at us, and then talk some more. The waitress had an ugly sneer in her voice when she took our order, and when our food arrived, it looked like it had been thrown at the plates from a great distance.
Why Jim had chosen to come here I didn’t know, except that Rob was close, and Denny, and it was a chance to work undercover, start clean.
When Nettle strode into the kitchen, he jerked his head once in a military nod before sitting down opposite me. He was slick like motor oil, shiny and tall and even in his own house didn’t take his suit coat off. His tie, a loose-knit strip of light blue polyester, was hitched tightly around his skinny white neck, and he sat with his tiny, fresh-from-the-manicurist hands folded neatly on the table between us. Every hair on his head was in its place, every single red hair, and his mustache was trimmed pencil thin beneath his rounded nose. He had on translucent black ankle-high socks and black patent loafers with gold clasps, and picked, every so often, at an invisible piece of lint on his suit.
“Thank you for coming,” he said.
I nodded, not sure how to respond. I wanted to trust this man; it was important to me that he be someone I could speak honestly to, but he was giving no indications. I got the feeling that protection from the elements was what he desired, like the furtive white-male Christians who scream Jesus and weep in front of television cameras so people will send them money.
He folded his hands and rested his pointed chin on the tops of his fingers. He sighed his very best world-weary sigh.
“Perhaps you’re aware,” he said, “of the considerable effort, and expense, the city has put into this investigation. I initiated it. I’m responsible for its success. I need to know how my number-one agent is doing.”
“I told you already,” I said. “And Sergeant Dodd’s seen him twice since the O.D. Why ask me?”
“You’re his woman, aren’t you? You’re with him every day. You know him.”
Jim’s woman. That’s what I was to Nettle.
“I guess you would say that,” I answered. “Or you might say we’re engaged, or almost. That’s why I’m here. Not to babysit.”
“I’m not asking you to. You’ve got experience. I’m asking for your opinion.”
“My opinion is that not only does he need rest, he needs to be pulled up. Look at the case log, he’s barely made a buy in the last two weeks. You should end this thing now and take the cases you’ve got.”
He shifted in his chair and crossed his legs, looping one elbow over the carved wooden chair back.
“That’s not possible,” he said. “We do have a primary target. Jim doesn’t even seem to be close to him yet.”
“Gaines.”
“You’re familiar with him.”
“Not really,” I said. “I know he’s supposed to be some kind of pornographer.”
<
br /> “At least. He owns four clubs, two here, two in Houston. That health spa out near China is his, and he’s got two car lots out near the edge of town. You know that place, Lovelace, that underwear store?”
“Fredericks of Hollywood goes Western Wear. Yeah. I’ve seen it.”
“That’s his, too.”
“None of that sounds terribly illegal to me, Chief.”
“He’s got legitimate fronts.” He pulled a paper from his inside coat pocket, unfolded it carefully, and began reading. “T.C.I.C. Two assault, three exhibiting obscene materials, two obstructing police, one D.W.I.” He refolded the paper and slid it neatly back into his pocket. “No convictions. In addition to that, we understand from the Lubbock P.D. that some ‘known associates’ of his are suspects in two murders. One in New Mexico, one in Texas.”
“How long ago?”
“The most recent? About a year and a half ago, April of ‘seventy-seven.”
“Well if they haven’t got the case together by now, they’re not going to.”
“They got close, very close. The victims did some work for X-tra Special Video, that’s one of his companies too, and were found in the desert, single shot to the head, .357, entry at the rear of the skull. The ring and pinky fingers on their left hands had been broken.”
“Nasty stuff.”
“Every agency in this county, clear down to the damn constable’s office, wants Will Gaines. And I can deliver him. I stood up at a task force meeting and said I had a man under. And that man is going to stay under and this investigation will come to a successful conclusion. There’s a lot riding on it.”
From what I could gather, what was mainly at stake was Nettle’s confirmation as Chief of Police. He’d been an assistant chief for three years before his boss left the scene. It was common knowledge that Chief Duane Anderson had come home one night, drunk as usual, but in such a bad mood that he threatened to kill his wife. His four-year-old twins sat on the floor with their brightly colored blocks while Anderson made his feelings known and then they watched as he staggered over the Early American couch and out the patio door to get his MAC 10 from under the front seat of his car. When he came back through the sliding glass door, his wife cranked off a single round with the .357 he’d given her for Christmas. She hit him smack in the left eye, ending his screaming, alcoholic life right there in the living room of their home. A jury saw the merit of her self-defense argument.
Assistant Chief Nettle had been immediately promoted to Acting Chief Nettle, and everyone knew that Acting Chief Nettle wanted nothing more than to drop the present participle from his title.
“Look,” Nettle said, “whatever the reason you came down, the important thing here is you can help Jim out. He told me himself that he’d like to have you on board.”
“I’m doing what I can,” I said. “I’m there for him. But I want to go back to school.”
“What if I said you could go to school and work for us at the same time?” And resign as soon as this thing’s over? Do you really think a man like Gaines needs to be on the streets?”
“Of course not,” I said.
“All right then. We make a porn case on him he’ll get a couple of years. If we’re lucky enough to get a conviction. But if you and Jim buy cocaine from the man, we can put him away for a long, long time.”
“Jim’s not well,” I said. “He needs a rest.”
“Genesis two, verse eighteen,” he said. “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
“Amen,” I answered. “What are you saying?”
“Jim needs you. I want you to come to work for us.”
“What, I just do this thing and then resign whenever I want?”
“When we have the case. If you still want to by then. Absolutely. No strings.” He shifted his chair back around and leaned across the table toward me. He had tiny gray eyes. “But you know, this isn’t such a bad little city. It’s a great place to raise kids. We intend to keep it that way.” He smiled. “Jim said you’re a runner.”
“Used to be.”
“Well, Beaumont is the birthplace of a very famous lady athlete. You’ve heard of Babe Didrikson, I’m sure. And you can’t tell me the countryside isn’t beautiful.”
“I didn’t come here for the scenery.”
“You should understand,” he said. “I’ll write you a recommendation that will get you any job you want. I have friends at the university. School could be breeze, a matter of a little paperwork. I can get things done.” He picked at his lapel and flicked his thumb against his index finger, frowning. “And you could make a big difference in this investigation. You could help us get this guy off the street.”
There was that. And there were the Willy Reds of the world. If I decided to do it, well, this time around I would know how. I thought I understood what discretion was. I thought I could do a good job, do some good in general. And I would be Jim’s partner. I didn’t want to think about the rest of it, I wanted to believe I could maintain my balance. That I could go under and make the cases, make the sacrifice, and come out and clean right up. It would be one hell of a party. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was trying to prove.
“Give me a yes or no,” Nettle said. “Either way, Jim’s staying under until the job is done. That’s all there is to say.” He leaned back and snugged the knot of his tie up tight against his collar.
I sat there for a moment, wondering if there was any way I could talk Jim into quitting. Absolutely not. What else did he know? He was a cop. He loved it. And part of me did too, whether I could really admit it to myself or not. This guy Gaines sounded major. It would be a thing worth doing.
“Well?”
“I guess I’m in.”
He cleared his throat and clutched his hands on the table.
“We have to run you through the hiring procedure. You can take the test and the obstacle course next Wednesday, out IH-10 at Pine, the end of Happ Street. Be there at ten. I’ll get you before the review board first thing Thursday. And I’ll arrange for you polygraph. Don’t worry about anything. In your case it’s all just a formality.”
* * *
I’d had few brief doses of Sergeant Larry Dodd since moving to Beaumont, mostly when Jim had to drop off evidence. He was a genuine good old boy, originally from Arkansas, newly appointed by Nettle as head of Vice. I put my seat belt on after he busted his third red light on the way out of town. He had a voice like a wrecking ball.
“I tell you,” he yelled, shouting over the noise of the engine, “I could have done it, but it was just too damn hot, I mean ass-blistering hot. About the third day of getting my dick knocked in the dirt and sweating my skull off beneath that helmet, I said that’s enough of this. Fuck training camp. Fuck the Houston Oilers. Ain’t worth it. Been policing ever since.”
He was big enough to be a defensive end, or maybe a tackle. He drove hunched over the wheel, his curly, hillbilly-blond hair touching the roof of the Dodge, mashing his foot on the accelerator as though he were trying to grind it right through the floorboard. It sounded like we would either become airborne or blow up any second.
“One of these days though,” he said, “I’ll find out what I was put on this earth for. I ain’t gonna hang around Beaumont all my life.”
We were doing an even hundred, scenery breezing by in a brown blur, when I spotted a Visibar sticking up from the bar ditch off the highway and yelled, “Hi-Po!”
“Huh?”
“Too late. Highway Patrol, we’re busted.”
“Aaawwww sheeeyut!” he moaned.
He pounded the wheel and braked down to forty while we looked for the troopers. They were down the highway about three-tenths of a mile, standing well off the road shoulder. One of them struggled with an enormous Black woman while his partner stood with his thumbs tucked in his Sam Browne and rocked backward with laughter.
Dodd pulled over and hung his badge case in front of him as he got out of the car.
&
nbsp; “Police!” he shouted. “Beaumont! You fellers need a hand?”
I sat feeling the wind rock the car until Dodd waved me out. It blew the door back when I opened it, yanking it from my hand and slamming it open until the hinges groaned. I crunched across the gravel into the weeds where Dodd and the trooper were standing with the woman. She was a heavyweight to be sure, up there around two-eighty, and easily six feet tall. Her hands were cuffed behind her and her pants were down around her ankles. She had on huge white bloomers, and even with the wind I could smell booze when I got within a few feet of her.
“Damn,” Dodd said, “she’ll blow a point-two-oh easy.” His hair was flattened against his head by the wind. It was blasting so hard that it seems to suck the breath right out of my lungs. I stood leaning into it until Dodd feinted back and threw a pulled punch at my arm.
“Help them out. She can’t file no harassment charge on you.”
I bent down and pulled the wad of red plaid double-knit from around her ankles. I got them up, but there was no way the zipper would close. I raised my palms to the trooper.
“Best I can do.”
“Thank you,” the woman slurred. He pulled her toward the squad and folded her into the back seat and slammed the door.
“Y’all slow down now, hear?” he called.
“You bet,” Dodd said.
He held the car to sixty until we were down the road, but the minute he had a few mild hills between us and the radar trap, he gunned it again.
“We’re late,” he explained.
“Not even the police yet and already I’m dressing drunks,” I said. “I don’t need this.”
“Aw hell,” Dodd said, “she didn’t puke or nothing. But I don’t like handling niggers either.”
“Do me one favor,” I said.
“Sure,” he said. “Name it.”
“Don’t say that around me.”
“Say what?”
I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep the rest of the way to Houston.
The waiting room was decorated in nouveau funk, the floor a dirty beige linoleum. There were a few chrome and white Naugahyde chairs scattered about, and several ancient magazines tossed on a rust-spotted chrome coffee table, mostly antique copies of Law Enforcement Today.
Rush Page 7