‘Andrews, she’s got a bee in her bonnet. She might be about to shop someone.’
Porter wanted to ask who but settled for:
‘She’s young, she’ll learn.’
Roberts face was a mask of restrained fury, he said:
‘She fucking better.’
There was an uneasy silence and Porter was unsure where to go. Roberts asked
‘What’s the story with Brant?’
So Porter filled him in, gave the breakdown on their encounter with Rodney Lewis.
Roberts was smiling, not a smile of warmth or humour but the one that said it was exactly what he expected from Brant. He said:
‘This Lewis, he has juice I’d say.’
Guys who worked in the city, they usually had an in with the Super: money, Freemasons, golf, all the usual old boys’ network. Porter said:
‘If he reports Brant and I’d imagine he will, Brant might be up the creek.’
Roberts mulled it over, said:
‘Brant is always up the creek.’
No argument there.
Roberts asked:
‘Your own instinct, is Lewis the guy, the one who contracted the shooting?’
Porter considered carefully. With Roberts, you committed yourself, he’d hold you to it. He said:
‘He sure has motive and certainly has the cash to hire a shooter.’
Roberts went through some files, said:
‘The dead shooter, Terry Dunne, he had a girlfriend. Go see her, find out what she knows, maybe she can shed some light on the deal.’
Porter thought it wasn’t a bad idea, and before he could say so, Roberts snapped:
‘You still here, she isn’t going to come and see you, get your arse in gear.’
Porter had a lot of responses to this but none that wouldn’t involve violence, he stood said:
‘Right away, sir.’
And he was at the door when Roberts added:
‘You see Andrews, you put her straight, got it.’
He did.
Outside, he muttered:
‘Fuck.’
The American cop, Wallace was striding down the corridor, a large Starbucks in his fist. He went:
‘Porter, what’s up?’
Porter looked at him and, on impulse, asked:
‘Want to see how we intimidate would be witnesses?’
Wallace lobbed his Styrofoam in a long wide arc and… slam dunk, it landed in the waste bin, he said:
‘What are we waiting for, intimidation is my speciality.’
They got a car from the pool, and to Porter’s disgust, only a Volvo was available. He said:
‘Might as well write Cops on the front.’
Wallace asked if he could drive.
He could.
He made a grinding mess of the gear shift, asked:
‘The fuck is the matter with you guys? Didn’t you ever hear of automatics?’
Porter was amused, said:
‘We heard of them, we just like to do things the hard way.’
Wallace finally got the swing of it, said:
‘Yeah, I’ve had piss you guys call beer.’
Wallace ’s bulk took up most of the front seats, and Porter had to squeeze himself against the window. He asked:
‘Shouldn’t you be doing counterintelligence stuff?’
Wallace gave him a look, impossible to read, asked:
‘What makes you think I amn’t?’
18
Falls paid a visit to McDonald, she’d checked the duty roster, it was his day off, she got to his place early, checked the names of the apartments, he was on the ground floor, she rang his bell and smiled, thinking:
I’ll be ringing his bell in more ways than one.
Her smile was grim, tinged with foreboding. She heard:
‘Yeah?’
He sounded half asleep, she said:
‘It’s Falls, I need to speak to you.’
A pause, then:
‘Can’t it wait?’
She said:
‘Only if you’re not worried about going to jail.’
He buzzed her in.
He opened his door, cautiously, looked her over, she registered the thin white line of powder on his upper lip, thought:
Uh-oh.
He waved her in and looked down the corridor before closing the door. She asked:
‘How paranoid are you?’
His face was the ashen grey of the habitual coke fiend, the eyes but pinpoints, his movements jerky, and the set of his body wired. She knew it from bitter experience.
He was wearing track bottoms and a T-shirt that had the logo: THUGS GET LONELY TOO
Tupac.
She wondered if he knew that.
Then she noticed the Browning in his right hand, and chided herself, losing it. She should have spotted that right off. She asked:
‘Expecting company?’
He looked at the pistol as if seeing it for the first time, said:
‘They’re shooting cops out there.’
Theapartment was a tip, takeout food containers strewn everywhere, clothes on the floor, empty bottles lining the walls, and a smell of weed mixed with desperation. He said:
‘Take a seat.’
She perched precariously on the edge of a chair. He was pacing, asked:
‘Get you something?’
To buy some time, she said:
‘Tea, a nice pot of tea would be good.’
Hegave a crazed laugh, said:
‘How fucking British is that, and you… black as me boots. I love it, want a nice shot of rum?’
Where did he think she was from… fucking Jamaica.
The gun was still in his right hand, held loosely but there. She kept her tone neutral, said:
‘I’d be easier if you put the weapon away.’
He zoned out for a moment, his eyes with that lost look, and she considered taking the Browning from him.
