and moving fairly fast. Nobody in a car was going to notice much. The problem was pedestrians. There was enough cause for people to be on their feet in this part of Belltown—a few battered bars, hopeful new ones, restaurants dotted here and there. Most people would mind their own business. Some would not.
“Go over and ring the buzzer,” I said.
Fisher went across the street. I watched the windows of the upper story as he leaned on each of the buttons in turn. The sky was overcast and dark enough that the reflections were muted, but there was no discernible change behind any of them. Gary looked back at me. I held my right hand up to my ear, nodded upward. He got out his phone, dialed. He shrugged. Nothing changed.
He walked back. “So now what?”
I went into a convenience store, and then we met L.T. outside the coffeehouse on the next corner up from the building, the one Gary had been sitting outside when he took his photos of Amy. L.T. was on the sidewalk with a friend, a tall guy who looked so disreputable you could have arrested him just for being alive and probably made it stick. He regarded Fisher and me with something between hunger and open hostility, but he probably looked at his own reflection that way, too.
“I said to meet inside,” I reminded him.
“Threw us out,” L.T. answered.
I offered him a cigarette, a folded fifty lying on top of the pack. He took the note, along with two cigarettes, winked at his friend.
“So?”
“Nobody come out,” he said. “They still inside.”
“You want to earn another fifty? Each?”
“Shit,” L.T. said, which I took as assent.
“Either of you holding?” They shook their heads. “No, really.” After a beat, both nodded. “You don’t want to be,” I said. “Stash it somewhere. Now.”
They touched hands with the lightness of magicians, and then the tall one trotted around the corner to hide their drugs.
“Okay,” I said when he got back. “Here’s what we’re going to do.” I pointed down the street. “I want one of you on each of those corners.”
“And do what?”
“Just stand in the middle of the sidewalk. Eyefuck anyone who looks like they’re heading your way, but don’t do or say anything. To anyone. Okay? I just want five minutes without too many people passing that building.”
“What this shit about?” L.T. asked.
“None of your business.” I gave him the money. “When you can’t see us anymore, you can go.”
L.T. took the cash, nodded at Fisher. “This dude ever say anything?”
“He’s choosy. Only talks to other narcotics cops. And he’s seen where you hide your shit. Understand?”
L.T. made the money disappear. “Don’t you want to know about the girl?”
“What girl?”
“Little girl I told you about, man.”
“Not really,” I said. “Why?”
“See her again, last night. She come back later, go right up to the door. Keep pressing a buzzer. But there ain’t nobody answer. And then I see her later watching outside some new bar, a couple blocks downtown. Way after little-girl bedtime, you know?”
“Great,” I said. “Now go stand where I told you to.”
Gary and I waited as the two guys crossed the street. L.T. took the corner nearest us. His friend loped down to the other end of the block. Within a couple of minutes, most pedestrians were electing to cross to the other side rather than walk close to either of them.
“Let’s go,” I said.
I went across the street and straight up to the door of the building, Gary following right behind. “Get out your phone,” I said. “Make it look like you’re placing a call. Glance up at the building once in a while.”
I got out my key ring. I took it slow, trying to feel confident that the combination of a largely empty sidewalk behind me and a colleague who looked like he was trying to get hold of someone in the building to achieve legitimate entry, would make me invisible for long enough.
“Christ,” Fisher said after a couple of minutes. “There’s a police car.”
“Where?”
“Down at the intersection.”
“Keep an eye on it.”
I kept moving the tool. Trying just to feel the metal inside the lock, the balance of tensions, the ways the hidden components did and did not want to move. It wasn’t happening. I switched to a more flexible tool.
“Fuck—he’s gone,” Fisher said, looking up the street the other way.
“The police?”
“No—your friend. L.T. Just vanished, didn’t even see him go.”
“What are the cops doing now?”
“They’ve pulled over. Where that other guy is.”
“He’ll be fine.”
“He’s running this way.”
“Oh, crap,” I said. I glanced around and saw L.T.’s friend pounding up the sidewalk. One cop was running after him, the other stood at the car, on the radio.
“Stupid fucker kept L.T.’s drugs,” I said. “You can’t trust any one.”
“Jack, he’s heading toward us.”
“I know that. Put your back to the street.”
I turned to the door again, closed my eyes. I heard the sound of the foot pursuit, the cop shouting at the running suspect, but tried to concentrate only on the feel of the thin piece of metal in my hands.
“Jack—”
“Shut up, Gary. I’m nearly there.”
The sound of chaos got closer. “He!” someone was bellowing breathlessly. “He, there! He the man!”
L.T.’s friend had stopped running. He was twenty feet away, pointing straight at me. The pursuing cop was slowing, hand on his gun, figuring this new twist. His partner was heading our way, too, now. I could hear sirens in the distance.
“He,” the tall guy said again, jabbing his finger in my direction. The closest cop was approaching him warily, but casting looks in my direction. “He pay me, he tell me be there. I ain’t sell no shit to no one.”
The second cop had made the sidewalk now. While his partner grabbed the tall guy’s arm, he walked toward Gary and me.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said loudly. “You got any idea what this guy is talking about?”
“Sorry, no,” I said, looking at him with an honest citizen’s unthinking deference. There was a faint click at my hands as the tumblers finally fell. I pushed the door open behind me as if it were a twice-daily occurrence. “Is there a problem?”
The cop looked at me a beat longer, then lost interest and went to help his colleague subdue the tall guy, who was kicking and shouting and raising hell.
I stepped into the building, Fisher right behind.
chapter
THIRTY-SEVEN
After the door closed, we were in pitch darkness. I hadn’t wanted to fumble for a switch with the cops right there.
“Christ,” Fisher said. “That was…”
