ADDY PROCTOR AND I were sitting at a circular table on her narrow front porch, taking advantage of a sudden spell of bright sunshine in between the winter drizzles. I was rewiring one of her table lamps. Addy was reading a novel by Pat Barker and diligently eating oatmeal cookies.
Sunlight or not, it was still cold. Addy had encased herself in a couple of thick blue sweaters and a black cloak, of all things. Even Stanley, lying at her feet, had a wool plaid blanket over him. The blanket had many gnawed patches. He kept his eyes open just in case a cookie rolled off the table.
Guerin’s silver Lexus turned onto the block and pulled up in front of Addy’s house. Stanley noted my attention and a growl started somewhere down around his pelvis. I put the toolbox on my lap and put the tools on the table away in its plastic tray. While the open lid concealed my hands, I slipped the Smith & Wesson from under my coat and into the bottom of the box and covered it with the tray as Guerin got out of the car.
“I’ll put your tools in the coat closet,” Addy said. She hadn’t missed my little sleight of hand. “If we’re away when you come back for them, you use your key.” Stanley stayed with her as they went inside.
“You should have called,” I said to Guerin. “What if I’d gone to Rio for Carnival?”
“Then I would have assumed you’d fled the country,” he said, without any levity.
He sat down in the chair Addy had just vacated. There was something in Guerin I hadn’t seen before. He looked as shipshape as ever. But he carried an unseen weight underneath the spotless glasses and starched collar. Like the detective had gotten plenty of sleep, but no real rest.
“This isn’t official,” he said.
I nodded. He wasn’t holding cuffs. I wasn’t calling Ganz. That was the only way an official visit could go, right now.
“Got something new on Broch?” I said.
“Broch,” he said, like I’d asked whether the cops were working on who shot President McKinley. “We got other things than Broch. We have a suspected terrorist, identity as yet unknown, who blew himself up so completely I’m glad there’s any DNA left. We have the manager of a boathouse next door, who was meeting a client he knew as Mr. Algin. That’s about the last thing he remembers. The poor prick was so doped up that night that even if he fingers Algin someday, which I doubt will ever happen, any defense attorney can blow holes in it like—well, like the dead fool who left his size twelve boots as his suicide note. And we have one very large firebomb which, from the whispers, has been missing from an Air Force base for over a year. Not that the Pentagon will confirm that.”
“Where’d this happen?” I said.
He ignored me. “We also have a stolen truck from the petro site, which crashed into a Russkie shipping company on the other side of the island. Another dead body there, looking like Godzilla stepped on him. The stiff is clearly Russian, based on his dental work, but damned if anybody will ID him, either. The Feds and Customs agents are going over BerPac splinter by splinter.” He pointed at me. “And of course, there’s your buddy Leo, who happened to be wounded that same night.”
“Injured. He was injured. Fell down the steps over there at the house.”
Guerin glared at me. “You are too fucking cute by half. You think you can’t get nailed? Usable prints are on something, somewhere. Or we’ll find a camera somewhere that wasn’t knocked out that night, with your very identifiable mug right there on high-def.”
I took a sip of Addy’s lemon tea. “Let’s say any of that happens. Nail me for what?”
He kept up the cop stare for another moment before leaning back in his chair. A fire engine drove down the block, probably on its way back to the Madison Park station. We both watched it pass.
“Yeah,” Guerin said, still looking at the street. “Everybody knows we dodged something really goddamn nasty. One of the Feds couldn’t even stand to be in the middle of the petro tanks while they were dismantling all the bombs and checking for booby traps. Said it was like being in the middle of an inhale, with the scream about to happen.”
I raised my eyebrows. That was how it had felt to me, too. I didn’t share the thought. But maybe I understood why Guerin looked the way he did.
He turned back to me. “So all this crap goes public and it takes six months to get your ass into court. Maybe you wind up visiting Gitmo for a while. Maybe you’re a fucking national treasure, for as long as the news cycle lasts.”
Guerin stood up.
“Or maybe it’s a sleeping dog,” he said. “We haven’t decided yet. But keep Rio out of your plans. You don’t want people getting the wrong idea.”
“I’ll be right here,” I said. “I got a house to build.”