The D.C. duty sergeant showed them to an interview room on the third floor, next to the detectives’ squad room. It was a bland featureless cubicle with walls covered in industrial burlap and a framed photograph of Bill Clinton. There was a coffee urn on a side table, and an old ceiling fan churned in the smoky air. Doc Hollenbeck and Luke sat down on opposite sides of the steel table. They wore nearly identical blue suits and black loafers. When Luke had picked Doc up in Adams Morgan, Doc had laughed and said they looked like a dance team.
Luke lit a Kool, and Doc watched him do it.
“You look like shit, Luke.”
“Thank you, my son. I feel like shit.”
“You get any sleep at all?”
“I got a room at the Holiday Inn. I think I got three, four hours. I had a shower. Got home and changed. I’ll be okay.”
“So you told her, hah?”
“Yeah. What else was I gonna do?”
“And she was okay with it?”
“She’s a pro, Doc. Reed Endicott should have known that. Or Canaday, anyway. She was the toughest trainee I ever saw at Glynco. Not ball-busting tough, either. She was just cool and steady and … a pro.”
“How do you think it will go?”
“I talked to the CO out there. She’ll do what she can.”
“Aurora’s out, isn’t she?” asked Doc.
“What? Out of the Marshals?”
“Actually, I meant out of jail. I don’t know if she’s out of the Marshals. There’s things that can be done.”
“Yeah. Well, we’ll see. We’ll see about that. What’d you tell Fiertag?”
Doc looked puzzled.
“About us. About why we’re not beavering away in Target Acquisition this morning. Try to keep up, Doc.”
“Oh. I told him we were chasing a fink. It’s kind of true.”
“How’d he take it?”
“Not well. Fuck him.”
Luke considered the variables.
“Doc, if we can put the boot to Treasury in this, we might be able to cut her a deal of some kind. Endicott was way out of line, crossed all sorts of boundaries when he contacted Aurora—”
“He covered himself there, Luke. Dennis Swayze works in the Public Affairs Office at Justice. Letting an agent know about Rona could be passed off as routine. He never said it directly. They can call it a mix-up, whatever. Totally deniable. Aurora leaped to conclusions, that’s all. He said it was ‘a courtesy.’ Endicott’s nowhere near that call, in any way you could prove.”
“We don’t have to prove it in court. All we have to do is make Justice nervous enough to cut her some slack. She sure as hell deserves it. If we can find Rona, we can give Endicott a hard time. I gave Doug Powys a few suggestions too. I think the New Jersey CO will help out. Anyway, I got her released.”
“Own recognizance?”
“Charges are pending, let’s say. The lab work was really late. Now they’re saying she passed the test, so there’s no DUI. Careless driving. Speeding, certainly. Doug got there around eight. The CO sent him over to the Holiday Inn.”
“That’s where she was?”
“Yeah.”
“In her own room, I trust?”
Luke flashed him a hard look.
“Yeah. Of course she was. What kind of an idiot do you take me for?”
Doc smiled.
“I’m still trying to work that out.”
“Anyway, I got the CO to wake up the local circuit judge. She arranged for Aurora to be arraigned right there. I wasn’t gonna leave her in that cell.”
“What happened about the turnkey?”
“I told the CO about him. He’s with the county. Not a trooper. They hire them on for jail supervision, so they don’t have to tie up an operational trooper. She called the county and said she didn’t want him at the jail anymore.”
“What’d the guy have to say for himself?”
“He said he tripped.”
The door to the interview room popped open, and a large squared-off black cop came into the room in a patrol uniform. They got up as he came across.
“You Zitto and Hollenbeck? I’m Baxter Cullen.”
They shook hands, made the introductions. He grinned at them, his hard face breaking up into lines and planes, his white teeth vivid against the blue-black skin.
“You two look like a dance team. Which one plays the white guy?”
“I do,” said Doc. “It’s not as much of a stretch for me.”
Cullen laughed. “Okay, what can I do for you?”
“You signed an incident report yesterday?” said Doc. “That Treasury takedown on Constitution?”
“Yeah. Those numb-nuts.”
Doc looked at Luke.
“Why numb-nuts?” asked Luke.
“You’re Marshals, right? Federales?”
They nodded, waiting.
“Why is it you guys never want to let the city know what you’re up to, hah? Lay out a takedown like that, what if one of our guys sees it, thinks it’s some kind of gang thing. You could have had a bloodbath.”
Doc hesitated. What the hell.
“I’m not trying to cover for Treasury. But your force has some … problems. Sometimes people get warned. Somebody calls his brother-in-law, warns him. It happens, okay?”
Cullen bristled a bit at that. Tried to hold his temper.
He failed.
“Don’t blame us for that. Blame the goddamn OEEO! Blame quotas. You feds ram hiring policies down our throats. You jack the standards around. Hire more Laplanders. Hire more albino lesbian dwarves with clubfeet. You scrape the bottom of the barrel and shovel it off into the city police forces. So, yeah, now and then, one of these gangbangers in a blue suit makes a call. What the hell do you expect?”
“Jeez. I guess it’s a sore spot, hah?” said Doc, grinning.
Cullen frowned, shook his head, finally grinned back. “Sorry. It’s just … we used to be a good force. They made us all social workers. D.C.’s not a police force now, we’re a science project.”
“The Treasury thing?” prompted Doc.
“What? Oh yeah.”
His face changed a bit, his eyes became wary.
“Why not ask Treasury?”
“Good question.”
Cullen stared at them, thinking it over.
“They busting your balls, boys?”
“Yeah.”
“Welcome to the club. The takedown was okay. Guy showed a tool, they popped him. So far so good. We get the usual, shots fired. I’m on duty at the monument, I scoot over. There he is on his back. Only thing was, I recognized the guy. I started to say something, this suit shows up with a couple of bodyguards, tells me I don’t recognize dick. Blows me off, puts my guys on crowd control.”
“What did he look like? White hair? Brown suit?”
“No. Tall, trick haircut. Real smoothie. Had Justice all over him.”
“Reed Endicott,” said Luke, looking at Doc.
“I don’t know,” said Cullen. “All I know is, I got shut down and dusted off. Be a good darkie there, run along and play crowd control. Fine, I figure, fuck them. I filed an incident report, signed off on the DOA sheet at Municipal. They don’t want help, why should I sweat it.”
“How’d you know the guy?”
“He was at the needle. In a big green van, with another guy. I rousted them. This guy, the one who got killed, breaks into a cold sweat and pisses all over himself.”
“Who was the other guy?”
Cullen’s face tightened.
“Now, I’d like to know that myself. He was scary. Yellow guy. Not chicken, I mean. His skin color. Looked Indio. Mean eyes. Smiled at me like I was an entree. Gave me a chill, if you want to know. Black hair, big heavy hands. Face all pocked up, as if he had measles or something when he was a kid. Looked like he was made of leather. Had a scar on his lip that twisted it around. I wish now I’d rousted the guy. I’ll give you eight to five he was holding a piece.”
Doc and Luke exchanged looks. Cullen caught the exchange.
“That means something to you guys?”
Doc nodded. “I had a fink describe a guy yesterday, sounds like the same guy. He was grilling a cab driver about a takedown we had on Saturday night—”
“That was you two? That cluster-fuck on K Street?”
Doc’s face darkened. Luke held up a hand.
“He’s connected to what we’re looking into.”
“How?” asked Cullen.
“We don’t know. We think he’s looking for the same guy we’re after.”
Cullen’s eyes narrowed. “What? He’s with another agency?”
That was a new thought. A new, and depressing, thought.
“Not likely.”
“I’ll tell you what he is,” said Cullen. “I’ve seen his type before. He’s a chaser, just like you guys. No, no, I don’t mean that. I mean, this guy, he’s some kind of enforcer. Maybe for Cali, maybe for the wops, maybe for the Mexicans. I looked at him from this far away, boys. It was like looking into a dead man’s eyes.”
“Christ. He give you a name?”
“Not from him. The sweaty little guy, he called him Ernest. Ring any bells?” Doc and Luke shook their heads. Luke had his notebook out.
“What was the truck? You get the plates?”
Cullen chuckled, reached up to his shirt pocket.
“The little guy—the one who was pissing himself? Guy gives me his card, for chrissake. Like I’m gonna send him my cleaning. Here it is.”
Cullen handed him a business card.
QUALITY INDUSTRIAL CLEANERS
“The Best Deserve The Best”
2900 NORTH CAPITOL STREET
JORGE RAGUNDO—MANAGER
“Can I keep this?” asked Luke.
“Sure.” Cullen checked his watch.
“Gotta go?” said Doc.
“Yeah.” He got up, straightened his uniform. Luke could see the Kevlar under the dark blue shirt. It was brutally hot in D.C., had been since May first. He did not envy the man his work on the D.C. streets today.
Luke stood up, and they shook hands again. Cullen stopped at the door. “Do me a favor, will you?”
“If we can,” said Doc.
“Let me know what happens. This is my beat. That guy with the yellow skin, he’s serious trouble. If you get a line on him, I want to hear about it. And not through channels. I want to hear it from one of you guys. Nobody else. Deal?”
“Deal,” said Luke.
“One other thing?”
They waited, their expressions careful but open.
“Whatever you do, no offense, you’re gonna have to do it better than you did last Saturday night. This is not a guy you wanna screw around with. If you get a chance at him, don’t talk. Kill him. Kill him a lot.”
Luke and Doc looked at the man.
“You hear me, hah?” asked Cullen, his face stony.
“We hear you,” said Doc.