Dinah Schwind watched Joe from her apartment. He had been by the building at least twice, but she had a feeling that he had been by more than that. She stood at the fourth-floor window, gazing through the muslin curtains. She had to smile. He looked goofy as hell, she thought. Where did he get that outfit? He was in jeans, very fancy cowboy boots, and even a hat. His mustache was full, already, she saw, and it had a western look, too— kind of droopy at the corners. Goofy but also, she had to admit, attractive. She couldn’t imagine many men capable of carrying off this absurd drugstore cowboy look.
She had not liked very many men in her thirty-four years. She liked her dad. He was not what some would call a successful man—a finish carpenter. He didn’t make a lot of money. He took too long. He was not a union carpenter. He worked in upstate New York. A nice guy. A family man. Her mother was nice, but she seemed to favor Dinah’s older sister, who was pretty. Her sister had married a doctor, had babies, and that was her mother’s interest: Jennifer and the kids, and Dr. Swanson. Her mother almost never called Jennifer’s husband Glen, but Dr. Swanson. She was appalled that Dinah had become a federal agent. They sent her to law school for this? She’d done so well at the state university in Rochester. She had offers from many fine law firms but went into enforcement. What a waste.
Joe had disappeared. She moved the curtain aside, looked up and down the street. It was not a busy street, one of those north side Chicago streets with a store on the corner, a tavern, cars parked. Where had he gone? She let the curtain drop. Damn! Well, he’d no doubt come knocking when he was ready. But he must be pretty strung out, nervous as a cat. Although he hadn’t looked nervous down there.
Some people, she thought, seemed to have a kind of unself-consciousness. Certain athletes, for instance. They moved about with remarkable grace but didn’t seem aware of it. Joe had that. He’d looked natural as hell down there, a cowboy in a ridiculous outfit, perfectly at home on a residential street in Chicago. But he must be running scared.
She hoped he wouldn’t be long. She was cooking something that she hoped he would like, braised lamb shanks. It had to be something of that sort, something that could be kept warm, because she hadn’t been sure when he would show. It was a very tasty recipe; she’d picked it up in the Mideast.
She wasn’t sure why she’d bothered. Maybe she felt that she owed him something. She had tossed him into a losing situation, as she saw it, and he had come out smelling like a rose and making her look like a genius. From Joe’s point of view, of course, it was an opportunity. It had gotten him out of the hospital, headed off an indictment, almost certainly a long stretch in prison. But he’d hardly blinked. And now that she thought about it, she wasn’t so sure that she had actually saved him from anything. His budding deal with the deputy sheriff had looked lame, grasping at straws, but now she thought he might have made that work. He might have been better off.
The problem was the colonel. He had absolutely insisted on Joe. You’d have thought he would be pissed, the way Joe had snookered him. Joe had, in fact, left the colonel handcuffed to a pipe in a house the colonel himself had staked out. The hunter wasn’t supposed to be caught in his own trap. But the colonel was like that: extremely practical. No, the colonel just shrugged it off.
“Sometimes it’s not the horse,” the colonel said, “it’s the jockey. That doesn’t mean you want to trade horses, of course.”
She looked at the lamb shanks. They were getting pretty tender, but the onions and raisins and cinnamon …
“Smells good,” Joe said.
She somehow prevented herself from whirling about. She looked over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “It’s an old recipe,” she said. “Want some?”
“I’m starving,” he said. He smiled.
White teeth. Some people were born with even, white teeth. That would be Joe. She was willing to bet that he’d never been to a dentist in his life, that he did not floss regularly.
He was leaning against the doorjamb, facing into the kitchen, his hands in his jeans pockets. He seemed totally at ease. For a man who had spent weeks in the hospital, he looked as fit as a gymnast. Good color. He appeared taller than five-whatever. Maybe it was the high heels of the cowboy boots. But he had such an elegant shape; even in the floppy ER greens he’d escaped in, he’d looked taller. He had a swimmer’s build: wide shoulders, slim hips.
Dinah Schwind was suddenly shocked. For the first time in her life she had looked at a man and wondered what his belly was like, what his thighs were like, his penis. She had never had such a reaction in her life.
“Something wrong?” Joe said.
“I have to put on the rice,” she said.
“I should have called to set a time,” Joe said. “Put it on! I’m starving. Do you need some help?”
“No, no, I’ll get it. I already made the salad, and I bought some flat bread. I saw you hanging around on the corner.” She turned to her tasks, eager to be busy.
“Not too cool, eh?” Joe said. “Well, I came by earlier, but I guess you weren’t here.”
“Came by?” She looked at him. She was stirring the rice in the oil, before adding the stock. “You mean, you came in?”
“I didn’t think you’d mind,” he said. “We’re partners, eh? I thought it was better than getting a place.”
“You’re not thinking of staying here?” She poured the hot stock over the rice and set it on a low burner.
“Whatever you say,” Joe said indifferently. He pulled out a kitchen chair and sat on it, casually. “We going to eat in here? Or do you want me to set the dining table?” He nodded toward the nearby dining room.
“Open the wine,” she said. “Will this Oregon pinot do? It’s kind of full-bodied, but it has a dryness that should go with the lamb and the sauce.”
He thought it sounded fine and he opened the bottle and poured for both of them. They tasted it. She was right. It was good, a solid wine, but a little young.
She didn’t ask him how he’d gotten in. She might later. It was worth knowing. In the event, he volunteered the information: he’d told the super that he was her brother. Just back from Paris. Very friendly guy, the super. Thought Joe and Dinah were very much alike, not in looks, so much, although the nose…. She laughed. Later, she considered that he obviously had conned the super, but there were still a couple of details, field craft … that hadn’t been the whole story.
The lamb was very good and they ate it all, and all of the rice and the salad. They drank two bottles of the wine. She couldn’t wait to tell him how pleased they were with his work.
“It was surgical,” she declared. She said it several times, with an enthusiastic emphasis on the first syllable, surgical.
“Just luck,” Joe said. “Five minutes before the bell, I was ready to bolt. But then … everything worked out.”
“You’re kidding,” she said. “You seemed cool.”
“Where were you?” he asked.
“Inside the fence,” she said.
Joe doubted that, but he didn’t say anything. There was nothing she could do inside the fence. Unless … “You were set to pop Echeverria when I didn’t?” he said.
She shrugged. “We considered it. If the operation didn’t go well.”
But then, he thought, you would be inside the fence. Maybe that would be all right, but he was skeptical. “Well, luckily, everything went well.” He raised his brows. “How is Mr. E?”
She shook her head. “He didn’t make it,” she said. “You didn’t know?”
“You did a good job of press management,” Joe said. “Anyway, I did what I could. If I didn’t succeed, well, that’s life. Have to wait for another chance.”
She was amazed. She thought she’d seen just about all there was on offer, killers, robbers, con men, revolutionaries, high-rolling mobsters, hardened janissaries … but she had never seen anyone so cool. “Do you enjoy this … work?” she asked.
Joe looked puzzled. “It’s fun,” he said. “It’s exciting. Besides … well, what are we talking about this for? You know what I can do.” He leaned forward, suddenly. They were sitting not across from each other but across a corner. “You know what I’d like to do?”
She shook her head, flustered. “What?”
“I’d like to go to bed with you.”
That’s what she heard—at first. But then she realized he’d said, “Do you have a bed I can use?”
She had a bed, in a guest room, for when her parents visited. But Joe told her he preferred her bed. “Don’t get excited,” he said, “I don’t have any amatory plans. I just think I’d like you close by. Anyway, the last time I got amorous I ended up in the hospital. I think I’m going to have to ease into that.”
When they were lying chastely, side by side but not touching, he said, “What happened with Echeverria?”
She explained that the fire had quickly engulfed the ambulance. Echeverria hadn’t had a chance. It was a fluke. The driver of the ambulance had thought he was protecting the patient by driving around the plane. He’d thought the danger was from the guard shooting. But then, seeing the plane on fire, he’d panicked and fled. Nobody blamed him. Perhaps the attendants could have dragged Echeverria out, but…. Nobody was blamed.
“How about me?” Joe said. “Do they connect me with it?”
“Not so far,” she said. “The cops might have, if they’d gotten hold of the truck you abandoned. But one of our guys spotted it and just hopped in and drove it away. Good thing you left the keys.”
Joe didn’t comment. He was asleep, but with his arm flung over her body. Presumably, he just wanted to make sure she didn’t get up without him knowing, but she couldn’t help hoping there was more to it. She lay there for a long time, willing him to wake up. They could talk, maybe make love. Then she drifted off.
In the morning, she woke to the sound of the shower. Joe came out shortly. He was naked, toweling himself dry. She looked up at him and tossed the covers back, frankly invitational. She was naked, too. Joe looked down at her and smiled. She looked a lot better naked. He admired that kind of lean, hard fitness. He sat down on the bed and laid his hand on her hip. She was very warm. She shifted lazily, her thighs opening. She laid her hand on his penis. It grew.
Joe was tempted. He had the desire, he was sure it would be satisfying, maybe even thrilling, and he didn’t want to disappoint her … but he wasn’t ready to trust her. He didn’t want her to see that, however, so he opted for lameness. He leaned over the bed and kissed her cheek.
“Not today,” he said.
“Scared?” she teased.
“You bet.” He stood up and took his stiff cock in his left hand. “When this gets like this”—he shook his cock, while tapping his head with the forefinger of his right hand—“it’s like the circuits get overloaded. Sometimes, fuses blow.”
“It looks like it’s functioning all right,” she said. “Maybe a little exercise would be good for it.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe later.”
He dressed and went to make coffee for them. “Now tell me again,” he said, as they sat at the kitchen table, “how you’re going to pay me.”
“Pay you?” She shook her head. “You got paid, for this one. We got you out. Maybe another time, another scenario, there’ll be some money. You can keep what you find.”
“You mean the scenario where I knock off some dope dealers?”
“Something like that,” she said.
“Well, how about that,” Joe said, disgustedly. “I bust my buns for you, I’m on the run, and you guys say ‘Thanks, your country is grateful, but …’ You are grateful, aren’t you?”
“I said we were grateful, last night. And we’ve got more plans. Don’t get so uptight. Of course, we can provide you with some money, a little, if you need it. But it’s not like you’re making a big score, you know. I explained all this from the start.”
“You painted a rosier picture in the hospital,” Joe said. He considered the situation briefly, then decided. “All right, this one’s gratis. I’d have gotten out anyway, but you helped, you made it easier. So what’s next? Do we fry another dope dealer?”
“First, the others have to meet you. It’s absolutely essential,” she said.
“What if I don’t want to meet them?”
“Joe.” She sighed. “Don’t be this way. Don’t force me to use pressure.”
“You mean blow my cover?” He laughed. “And then I’d blow your operation. But you figure that A, I wouldn’t do that, and B, who would believe me?”
“Something like that,” she said. “But it’s more, ‘Why should you do that?’ Your old role with the mob is blown, pretty much. You need something to do. This is a good job for you.”
“You mean lots of kicks, fighting the war against drugs, Our Nation’s enemies, that sort of thing?” he said. He paused and eyed her thoughtfully. “You said, ‘pretty much.’ What does that mean?”
“You caught that, did you? It means that we don’t think you’re completely blown with the mob. You’ve still got friends there.”
Joe nodded slowly. He saw it. They figured he still had a connection. With Helen. So she must have been taken back under Humphrey’s wing. And maybe they thought that Joe could still approach Humphrey himself. He wasn’t so sure. But if it were so, what would be the point? Then he got it.
“You want me to hit Humphrey,” he said.
“Gosh, what an idea! It’s so crazy, it just might work!”
Joe was surprised. It wasn’t like Schwind to joke. His amazement sobered her.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make light of it. Actually, we weren’t thinking of that, particularly.”
“Any more than you were thinking Echeverria should get toasted,” he said.
“No, really. It’s just…. Here’s the situation.” She explained that recently they had become aware of a change in activity in Detroit. Humphrey seemed to be pulling back, or at least realigning his enterprises, changing his focus. People were being shuffled around, Humphrey wasn’t making his normal appearances, money was being shifted. These phenomena were more felt than strictly observed. But the overall picture was getting distorted, hard to see.
“Something is happening,” Joe prompted, with a musical lilt in his voice, “but you don’t know what it is.”
“Yes,” she said. “We had an agent in there, a very good man. But he disappeared. A little while back, his body floated up, without a head. We think Humphrey tumbled to him and had him killed. We want to know what happened, and what’s happening now. We think you could find out.”
“And what’s my end?”
“Your end?” She sighed. “You know, over the years I’ve had my hands on … oh, I’d guess about ten or twenty million bucks. Contraband, confiscated loot. I never took a penny, although in many cases there was not another person who could have said that I had, or even noticed, really. I was never even tempted, Joe. It wasn’t my money. I couldn’t have said, in most cases, whose money it was. Maybe it was no one’s. But it wasn’t mine. If you want money, Joe, I’m sure we can supply you with money, from those sources. It wouldn’t bother me. Just because I don’t take it, that doesn’t mean that you can’t … assuming, of course, that it isn’t otherwise accounted for.”
“That’s nice to hear,” Joe said, “but it’s kind of iffy. I don’t work on those terms. I like to know what I’m putting my ass on the line for. And,” he continued, carefully emphasizing each word, “I want to collect. You see, that’s what started all this: Carmine hired me to do a job, but then he didn’t want to pay off.”
“Okay, we’ll pay you,” she said.
“Pay me what? You keep saying that, but you don’t mention figures. I’m just a simple guy, Dinah. I don’t go in for philosophy. What’s the payoff?”
“What do you want?”
“I want immunity. Freedom. Money. A new car. Time to myself. Better movies. Let’s see …”
“I see,” she said. “Immunity is the problem. You’re in the system now, Joe. You have a number of charges pending against you. In order to get any of them dropped, to obtain official protection, we’d have to employ you. We’d have to be able to say what you were going to do for us. And we can’t do that. But …” She pondered for a minute. “There may be something. I’ll have to confer with the others. Possibly … I’m just thinking out loud, now … we could get you some kind of protection, get your name removed from the wanted computers, give you some kind of cover. But I think you’d still be vulnerable to arrest and detention, and prosecution, if some obstinate cop or prosecutor or judge insisted. I’ll try, if you’re content with that.”
“It’ll do for now,” Joe said. “It just means being careful. But then, I’m always careful. The guy I have to watch out for is Mulheisen.”
“The Detroit cop?” Schwind was surprised.
“I guess you don’t know Mulheisen,” Joe said.
“I’ve met him. He wasn’t impressive. Seemed a little dense, even, a time server. I mean, the guy is a little long in the tooth to still be a sergeant of detectives, isn’t he?”
“What is that, a joke? Look, I don’t care what his rank is. The guy is a force of nature, or something. Water flows downhill, at thirty-two degrees it turns to ice, at two twelve it turns to steam. Mulheisen keeps looking. He probably doesn’t even know why he does it. You’ve heard the story of the fox and the goose?”
“The fox wants a ride across the river?” Schwind said. “Is it like the scorpion and the frog?”
“I think so,” Joe said. “The fox pleads mutual self-interest, but then he bites the goose’s neck in midstream—”
“They’re both going down and the goose cries out, ‘Why?’”
“And the fox says, ‘It’s my nature.’ Well, enough of fables, go ahead, find out from your pals.” Joe gestured at the telephone. She seemed reluctant. He said, “I’ll leave.”
The next time she heard from him he was in Detroit and he wanted a boat.