following, but then that would alert the son of a bitch if he and Miss Washington with the swiveling little ass were trying to pull something funny here.
So he went back to the squadroom and told Eileen he thought the Washington woman had made him, and he suggested that Eileen pick up the surveillance. Otherwise they’d go down that friggin basement on Tuesday night—
He actually used the word “friggin” in deference to Eileen’s delicacy. Eileen found this amusing; in her many years as a cop, she had certainly heard the word “fuck” in all its derivations. But even if she weren’t a cop, which she most certainly was, all she had to do was go to the movies on any given Sunday, and she’d get an education she’d never received in church, believe me, Father Mulahy.
“Go down the friggin basement this Tuesday night,” Parker said, “and find nothing there but cockroaches and rats. I think Palacios may be tryin’a pull something funny here.”
“Why?” Eileen asked. “No bust, no money.”
Which was a thought.
“Maybe she’s paying him more than we are,” Parker suggested.
“Why?” Eileen asked.
Another good thought.
“To steer us in the wrong direction.”
“You think Palacios would risk that?”
“I don’t know what he’d do. I just don’t want to look foolish on this thing.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Go down that basement tomorrow. Thirty-two eleven Culver. Check it out. Make sure we won’t be walkin into some kinda booby trap there.”
“Why don’t you go there yourself?” Eileen asked.
“Tomorrow’s my day off,” Parker said.
“Then let’s go there together. Right now.”
“It’s almost quitting time,” Parker said.
“It’s only two-thirty,” Eileen said.
“Yeah, but the clock is ticking,” Parker said. “Time we got there, it’d be time we went home. Let it wait till tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Eileen said, and shrugged.
“What’s that, that shrug?”
“I’ll let it wait till tomorrow,” Eileen said, and shrugged again.
“You know, there’s some things you ought to learn if you plan to stay here awhile,” Parker said.
“Oh, and what are these things?”
“These things are you don’t try to second-guess your partner, and everything can always wait till tomorrow.”
“I didn’t know I was second-guessing you.”
“And you don’t sass him, either.”
“I see,” Eileen said.
“Just so we understand each other.”
“Oh, yes, perfectly. But tell me, Andy. Would you think I was second-guessing you if I checked out that basement right now? Because I have to tell you, the friggin clockisindeed ticking, and I don’t want to walk into a mess of shit Tuesday night.”
“Be my guest,” Parker said, thinking he’d won the argument.
“You have the address.”
“I have the address,” she said, and turned and walked off with a hooker’s strut, the bitch.
AINE DUGGANwas sitting in the hallway outside Emilio’s apartment when he got back from Majesta at three that afternoon.
“Where you been?” she asked, rising and dusting off the back of her skirt.
“All over Majesta,” he said. “There’s no Reve du Jour Underwear.”
“Gee, that’s too bad,” Aine said.
She didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.
“I walked all over the area. There’s no such thing as Riverview Place, either.” He was unlocking the door. “Not that I’m surprised,” he said, and retrieved his key. He swung the door open, and walked in ahead of her.
There was a mattress on the floor near the windows, an unpainted dresser he’d bought in a junk shop off Leighton, a floor lamp with a soiled and split linen shade, and that was it. Your everyday, garden variety junkie’s pad. His toilet hadn’t been cleaned since the day Julius Caesar got assassinated. Even Aine, who you could bet had seen some fine toilets in her life, was reluctant to pee in there.
“You running out of underwear?” she asked.
“No, I got plenty underwear.”
“So why were you looking for underwear?”
“I wasn’t. I was looking for the diamonds.”
“What diamonds?” she asked, and flopped down on the mattress.
“In Livvie’s report.”
“Livvie, right.Ihaven’t worn underwear since I was seventeen,” she said. “No bra, no panties, either.”
“That’s evident,” he said, and glanced over at her where she lay somewhat carelessly on the mattress. Aine smiled like a blushing maiden, and pulled her skirt down over her knees.
“You still looking for that bar near a police station?” she asked.
“I am.”
“I think I found it.”
“Really? Where is it?”
“It’s not called O’Malley’s, though. It’s called Shanahan’s. And it ain’t two blocks from the Oh-One, which as I suspected don’t exist. It’s two blocks from the Eight-Seven.”
“The Eight-Seven,” Emilio said, trying to place it. “On Grover Avenue?”
“Facing the park, yeah. But the bar ain’t on Grover. It’s on St. John’s Road, two blocks over.”
“Too many streets in this damn city,” Emilio said.
“It’s easy to find,” Aine said. “I’ll take you there, if you like. You ever feel like fucking anymore?”
“Not very often, no.”
“Neither do I. Smack’s the best fuck I ever had.”
“Me, too.”
“Yeah,” she said.
They both fell silent, thinking about this basic truth, almost cherishing the knowledge that they were each and separately married to heroin.
“I think there’s a big drug buy going down soon,” Aine said out of the blue.
“Good,” Emilio said. “How do you know?”
“I heard these people talking in a cuchi frito joint on Culver. This Spanish broad, she looks Spanish, is selling ten-kilo lots at twenty large a lot.”
“That’s a lot of lots,” Emilio said, making a joke, but Aine didn’t catch it because she was doing arithmetic.
“Selling it for three hundred thou, that comes to fifteen lots.”
“That’s a lot of lots,” Emilio said again, but she still didn’t catch it. “When’s this gonna happen?”
“That’s the only thing I don’t know,” she said. “A basement at 3211 Culver is where the buy’s going down. A hundred and fifty keys of cocaine.”
Emilio looked at her.
“You don’t think all that stuff’s already down there in that basement, do you?” he asked.
THE BASEMENTwas clean.
A table, four chairs around it, a wash sink in the corner.
Door at the back leading to the alley outside.
Steps coming down from the ground floor of the building above.
