Dumas looked at the younger man quizzically. “Bottom mapping? What for?”
“Damned if I know. I just know no work today and probably tomorrow as well.”
Dumas rubbed his chin. The storm Wednesday would keep all the boats in the harbor, but no need to tell Jacob that he was going to miss at least three days of work. He glanced at the bag Jacob was carrying. “That wouldn’t be a six pack of beer, would it?”
Jacob grinned. “Just enjoying my day off, Oncle Paul.”
“And would this day off include a certain dark-haired beauty that I’ve seen you hanging around with lately?”
Jacob laughed, but didn’t answer.
Paul Dumas smiled back, but inwardly he cringed. He had known Katie Montgomery since she was a leggy ten-year-old following her daddy around the docks. He was pretty sure she was whoring to feed a drug addiction, which meant that one way or another, Jacob was in a world of hurt. He sighed – Jacob just couldn’t seem to catch a break.
“Enjoy your day off,” he told him, slapping the boy on the shoulder. “But be smart. I don’t want to hear you were driving that motorcycle of yours after you’ve had a few beers, okay?”
“I’ll be careful, Oncle Paul, don’t worry,” Jacob promised. But somehow Dumas was not reassured.
Paul Dumas watched his nephew put the beer into a pannier on his motorcycle, then drive off with a wave. He couldn’t escape a nagging foreboding. Katie Montgomery. Shit, he was going to have to talk to his sister, Danielle, about it. And wouldn’t that be fun?
______________
Jacob was fucking Katie Montgomery every chance he got. He couldn’t get enough of her. Today he’d shown up with the beer and ten minutes later they had both chugged their second can and torn off their clothes.
The sex, as always, was frantic and greedy and mind-blowing.
But afterwards, as they lay next to each other, skin glistening with sweat, breath still rapid, Katie rolled over and reached under her side of the bed, coming up with a small glass pipe and what looked like a lump of white paste. Ignoring Jacob, she propped herself up against the pillows, tamped the paste into the bowl of the pipe and lit it slowly with a kitchen match. Once it was lit, she breathed in the pungent smoke and held her breath, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back.
“Christ, Katie, is that what I think it is?” Jacob blurted.
Katie blew out the smoke and sucked in another lungful. “I just use it to take the edge off,” she said.
“I thought that was what we just did,” Jacob said.
She just glanced at him noncommittally and went back to the pipe. “You know that nice feeling you get after really good sex, when you’ve come and you whole body feels all relaxed and tranquil?”
Jacob knew; he’d been experiencing it often since he and Katie had been having sex. “Post-coital lassitude,” he said.
Katie giggled. “I love the words you know. That’s what this is for me. It’s like that feeling, but one hundred times stronger and it just lasts and lasts. Makes you feel so good that nothing else matters.”
“Until it wears off and you come down,” Jacob countered.
Katie shrugged and took another hit of the pipe. “Nothing in this world lasts forever.” She took another lung full, then leaned close to Jacob and slowly blew the smoke into his face, until he was shrouded in it and couldn’t help but breath some in. Then she leaned over and took him in her mouth. “This makes you feel good, doesn’t it?” she asked softly. Jacob groaned under her ministrations. “It’s just about pleasure, Jake,” she whispered. “We all deserve pleasure in our lives. All of us.” She sucked on him until he was fully erect, then she straddled him and lowered herself onto his penis. “See? Doesn’t that feel good? Nothing wrong with that, is there?”
Then she sucked another lung full from the pipe, leaned so close that their noses touched, and slowly blew the smoke into his mouth and nostrils.
And Jacob felt himself swept away.
______________
Hours later, Jacob stopped on the top of a hill and listened to the thunder of the ocean. The first winds from the storm whipped at his face.
The thought had been nagging at him for some time, but now it burst forth: Katie was as poor as a church mouse. Where did she get the money she needed to buy heroin?
Then the first fat rain droplets began to strike all around him, the forerunners to the impending storm. He started his bike and put it into gear.
The lowering black clouds chased him all the way home.
Chapter 38
Tuesday Afternoon – We Need to Talk
Howard Honeycutt pulled alongside of Frank Finley as he was walking back to the station from lunch. Finley was surprised to see him, usually Honeycutt only met in out-of-the-way places where the chance of them being seen together was small.
Honeycutt rolled down the window. “Hey, Frank, got a few minutes you can give me?”
Finley glanced up and down the street to see if anyone was paying attention to them. “Corcoran’s out of the office most of the day. What do you need?”
“We need to talk,” Honeycutt replied ambiguously. “Get in, Frank.”
Alarm bells started ringing in Finley’s mind. “What’s going on, Howard?”
“Frank, I’m asking you to get in.”
Then Finley noticed the two cars behind Honeycutt’s, each with two men.
Staring rather intently at him.
Finley opened the door and slid inside. Almost immediately, the back door to Honeycutt’s car opened and a man slid into the seat behind Finley’s. Finley recognized him as one of the men who was at the scene when they brought in Henry Mitchell’s body. Very slowly, Finley turned in the car seat so that he could face Honeycutt and see the DEA officer in the back seat out of the corner of his eye.
“Okay, Howard, you have my full, undivided attention,” he said slowly. “What is going on?”
“Are you armed, Frank?” Honeycutt was as serious as a heart attack, and just as charming.
Finley gritted his teeth. Whatever the hell it was, he wasn’t going to like it. “My service weapon in on my right hip. Safety strap is buckled and, I might add for the benefit of our friend in the back seat, my hands are in my lap, away from the gun.”
“Frank, I am going to have Tommy remove your weapon, just so we can talk without me having to put you in cuffs. Okay?” Howard asked.
Finley stared at him in disbelief. At the same time, he knew objecting would get him nowhere...or maybe shot. “Okay, Howard, but tell your man Tommy that I am ticklish as hell and if he touches my side, I am going to twitch. Also tell Tommy that if he tickles me on purpose, I am going to break his nose. And then, Howard, I am going to break yours.”
The corner of Howard’s lips pulled in the slightest hint of a smile. “Tommy will exercise the utmost prudence,” he assured Finley.
Tommy got out of the car and opened Finley’s door, never taking his eyes off Finley’s hands. There was the slightest of tugs as he undid the safety strap, then he slid the gun out and returned to the back seat. Honeycutt gave a wintery smile.
“Howard, for the love of God, what is going on?” Finley said in exasperation.
“You know we have a source in the Dominican gang?”
“Sure, you told me so just a few days ago.”
Howard nodded. “Well, two things have happened, Frank. First, the source reported that he overheard a conversation between the Dominicans and somebody in the Sinaloa Cartel. He specifically heard the Dominican say that you, Frank, had reported to the Dominicans on the latest efforts the DEA is making to track down the smugglers.”
Finley blinked, stunned at what Honeycutt had just said. Somehow he knew it was going to get worse. “You said there were two things, Howard. What’s the second?”
“My source has gone dark,” Honeycutt replied grimly. “He missed two scheduled calls. We left an emergency signal, but he hasn’t responded.”
In other words, the source
had been murdered.
“And you think I told the Dominicans who your source was?” Finley asked conversationally.
“You know I have to check it out, Frank,” Honeycutt replied.
Finley thought it through. Lie detector test. Had to be.
Finley snorted in something approaching amusement. “’Course you do, Howard, ‘course you do.” He clapped his hands together, inadvertently scaring the hell out of the DEA agent in the back seat, who fortunately did not have his finger on the trigger of his pistol.
“Knowing you, Howard, you’ve already got someplace set up to question me, right?”
Honeycutt gave the slightest of nods.
“Got a lie detector machine there, and somebody who knows how to use it?”
Another nod.
“Good, let’s go!” Finley demanded. “I’ve got to be back at work within two hours, but it won’t take that long, Howard, I promise you that.”
Honeycutt opened his mouth to say something, but then just nodded and started the car.
______________
The someplace turned out to be a motel room on Rte. 1, just outside of Ellsworth. Honeycutt opened the door with a key and walked in, followed by Finley and three of the four men who had come with them. One of them shut the door and stood in front of it, arms folded, never taking his eyes from Finley.
The lie detector technician sat in one of the two chairs in the room. He was fifties, balding, and exuded that sense of quiet competence that highly technical people do when surrounded by technical illiterates.
“You the operator?” Finley asked brusquely.
The technician glanced at Honeycutt.
“You can tell him,” Honeycutt said.
“Yeah,” the man said.
“Police, FBI or DEA?”
“I was with the FBI for twenty-five years, retired and then went to work for Mr. Honeycutt.”
“You already got your questions ready?”
The man nodded.
“Okay,” Finley said, pulling off his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt. “You strap me up and we’ll do it. But I’m telling you, I have sat through countless lie detector interrogations, so if I think you are screwing around, biasing the answers, I’m going to break your nose. Got that?”
The man bristled. “I do not bias answers,” he said firmly.
“Good, good,” Finley smiled. He believed him, sort of. He motioned for the man to get out of the chair, then he sat in it. “Wire me up and let’s get this done.” He turned to look at Honeycutt. “And Howard, you can ask me any fucking thing you want about your source. But I’m telling you now that you’d better start thinking about what it means that they’ve taken out your man and have tried to blame me, because the only reason I can think of is that they need you off-balance for the next couple of days. And that, my friend, means something is coming down real fast.”
The technician finished attaching the necessary sensors and stepped back.
Honeycutt nodded to him.
The technician stood behind the monitor, flipped a switch, then said: “Please answer these questions with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ Is your name Frank Finley?”
An hour later the technician stepped back and shook his head. “He’s either been trained really well or he is being entirely truthful.”
“I’m willing to take sodium pentothal or whatever new generation of truth serum that you’ve got,” Finley told Honeycutt. “But the outcome is going to be the same, so let’s stop wasting our time, Howard.”
Honeycutt pursed his lips in thought, then motioned to the technician. “Get him out of the rig, John. Thank you for your work.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Honeycutt.” The man bent to free Finley from the sensors.
Honeycutt turned back to Finley. “I’m sorry to put you through this, Frank, but I had no choice.”
Finley chuckled, but there was no mirth in it. “I’m just glad you prefer lie detectors to rubber hoses. I bruise easily.” He got serious. “But I meant what I said – the only reason for them to take out your guy now and put me in hot water is because something is about to happen and they need you chasing your tail.” He paused, then asked, “Are you sure they got your informant?”
Honeycutt nodded grimly. “I lied to you about him disappearing. Lowell police found him late last night in a dumpster. It wasn’t pretty. His body showed signs of extensive torture.” He paused, face twitching, obviously trying to keep a grip on himself. “The body was in pieces.”
Finley shuddered. Every DEA agent lived in fear of being captured by one of the cartels or the gangs they worked with. Better to get killed in a gunfight.
“And Frank, if they are using you for bait,” Honeycutt said, “then they probably know you work for me. Watch your back.”
Chapter 39
Tuesday Evening and Wednesday Morning
The Lovers, and Those Who Would Kill Them
Tuesday night. Dumas stood in his studio, staring once again at the enormous block of marble that contained an Indian warrior riding into battle on his horse.
Try as he might, he still couldn’t see it. The more he looked, the more opaque the walls of the marble became, until they shimmered with nothingness. Sighing, he tipped back the wine bottle and took a long swig. Dumas’ mental image of despair was red-eyed crows perched on a white picket fence. His fence was black with the little bastards.
And his deadline with the casino crowded closer every day, until it threatened to suffocate him.
“Staring at it won’t do you any good,” his wife scolded.
Dumas grimaced. “Best I can do until I’m ready. I don’t want to start cutting this thing only to find I’ve started wrong.”
“There are other ways you can get what you need,” she said tartly.
He scowled. “Céline, if you tell me one more time I should pray for guidance, so help me I’ll scream.”
She sniffed dismissively. “If you want to shake hands with the Lord, you first have to extend your hand in humility and gratitude. And you, Luc Dumas, are too damn stubborn to do that. Fifty-six years of marriage has taught me that much. Besides, you’ve got as much humility as a porn star running for President.” She moved closer, rubbing the back of his neck and shoulders. “But even an old dog like you should know you need to relax now and then.” She leaned over and kissed the back of his neck. “Don’t tell me you’re so old and cranky you don’t remember how to relax,” she whispered.
Dumas sat up in sudden interest. “Excuse me, my dear woman. I am in the midst of a serious artistic enterprise, requiring imagination, creativity, enormous skill and insight, painstaking attention to detail and perseverance of the highest order.” He looked down his nose at her. “And you are trying to distract me with…with…”
“Sex,” his wife murmured in his ear. “It’s been a little while, lover boy, but you still remember how, don’t you?”
He swiveled in his chair to face her. She sat on his lap and took his face in her two small hands. “I love you,” she told him, managing to be serious and sultry at the same time. “And I seem to recall a few times when some good old-fashioned intimacy did wonders for your peace of mind.”
Dumas slid his arms around his wife, marveling again at the delicate bones in her shoulders and the graceful curve of her neck. He still recalled the first day they’d met as fellow art students in Montreal. There had been some interest, some chemistry, but neither had made any moves. Then weeks later the class had been assigned the task of painting a nude, and Céline had offered to model for him if he would model for her. They agreed to switch roles – model and painter – every two hours. Céline had even agreed to pose first.
They used her apartment because the lighting was better, and he made a small platform out of a coffee table. She disrobed shyly and stood on the platform, turned three quarters away from him, glancing back over her shoulder. Dumas was utterly captivated. She was so petite, this lithe eighteen-year-old, with her slender body and smooth skin and
flowing hair that reached to the tips of her breasts. So alluring. So…
He struggled mightily to concentrate on his painting, but the mischievous forest sprite on the platform kept looking at him through hooded eyelids and, adding to his growing discomfort, from time to time bit her lower lip. Luc stared at Céline Charbonneau, then wrenched his gaze back to his canvas, and was dismayed to find it was mostly empty. It had been almost an hour, hadn’t he painted more than this?
Then he felt a warm hand on his. Céline, still naked, stood beside him. “I think it is your turn to disrobe, Luc,” she said in a low voice, and he saw that her chest and forehead were damp with sweat.
She unbuttoned his shirt, one slow button at a time, pausing once to run her hand across his bare flesh and try, unsuccessfully, to stifle a moan of desire.
“Mon Dieu!” he croaked, and when her fingers reached his belt buckle, he swept her up in his arms and kissed her ardently, first her mouth, then her lovely throat and finally her small breasts. She bit his shoulder, marking him, claiming him, and he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.
They were late for class. Very late.
“You know what I’m thinking of?” he asked his gray-haired wife of so many years.
She snorted. “Of course I do! I’d never tried to seduce a man before.” She smiled wickedly. “I had no idea it would be so easy. Or so enjoyable.”
“Lot of years,” he murmured.
She touched his cheek. “And two beautiful children, and grandchildren.”
Dumas grinned. “Lots of fun making those children.”
She stood up, taking his hand. “Come on, old man, let’s see if you can show your gray-haired wife a good time. I just happen to have a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape breathing in our room. Let’s put it to good use.”
“What?” he asked in mock horror. “No Romanee-Conti Grand Cru Cote de Nuits, 2015?”
She shot him a look. “I save that for my younger lovers. Much younger.”
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