drove it out of the compound.”
Bullock thought about that. “I don’t know. Maybe we should go talk to him, this Mr. Jones.” He smiled at me. “I understand he ran into a little difficulty, but that he’s still among the living. Maybe he’d be up to a few questions.”
“I’m telling you,” I said, “I’ve had the car the whole time.”
Bullock considered that. “Then that means the drugs were taken out of the car before it went up for auction. But we know the cops never found them, because they were never entered into evidence.”
“Which means someone else knew what was in the car, and got to it before we had a chance,” said Blondie.
Bullock’s head went up and down, very slowly. “I think we’re going to need a little more help with this,” he said, and then took in a deep breath and shouted so loud it made my ears ring, “Trimble!”
What?
There seemed no mistaking what Bullock had said. He hadn’t exactly whispered it.
And then the side door to the garage opened, and Detective Steve Trimble stepped in. He strolled over to where Bullock and I were standing.
“You called,” he said to Bullock.
I had a feeling my situation had gone from bad to much, much worse.
32
“IT’S GOT TO BE EDDIE MAYHEW,” Trimble said.
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Bullock said. “Mayhew, that son of a bitch, and after all we’ve done for him.”
I thought back. The man I’d interviewed, for my feature on the government auction.
“Don’t we pay him enough, that he shouldn’t double-cross us?” Bullock asked.
“He knew you were interested in the car, right?” Trimble asked.
Bullock nodded. “So if he knew we were interested, he had to suspect why, and he got into that car before it went up on the block.”
“And sold the stuff himself.”
“I’m betting the Jamaicans,” Bullock said.
“What an absolute moron,” Trimble said. “First, crossing you; second, dealing with the Jamaicans. They’re crazy. They can’t be trusted.”
“Pay him a visit,” Bullock said. “He either coughs up the stuff, or the money he got for selling it to someone else.”
“Even if he sold it, he won’t have got for it what you would have,” the police detective said.
“Either way, bring him back here so that I might have a word with him,” Bullock said. “And you know what, why don’t you take your new friend along with you.” He nodded in my direction. “Only a minute ago he offered to do whatever he could to help us get our goods back. As long as the girl’s here, I don’t think he’s going to give you much trouble.”
Trimble shrugged. “Sure,” he said, and turned to me. “I love company.”
“You know where Eddie lives?” Bullock asked.
Trimble said he did, out in Delton, a town just beyond Oakwood.
“And call in,” Bullock told Trimble. “Every half hour. I don’t hear from you, then our friend here doesn’t have to worry about coming back here for his daughter.”
I swallowed hard. And I wanted some clarification. “You mean a half hour from now, which would be, like, 1:16 A.M., or every half hour on the 12 and the 6, which would be a lot easier to keep track of?”
Bullock stared at me, rolled his eyes. The kinds of decisions you had to make when you were in charge. “On the 12 and the 6. First call, 1:30 A.M.”
“Okay,” I said. “I just wanted to be sure. And can I say goodbye to Angie before we leave?”
Bullock shook his head. “Would you just fucking go?”
“Come on,” Trimble said to me. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we get back.”
We walked down the cobblestone drive together, neither of us speaking, then hiked up Wyndham to where he’d left his unmarked cruiser. “Ever get to drive a police car?” he asked. I said no. “Here’s your big chance.” He unlocked the car, and once I was behind the wheel and he was in the passenger seat, he tossed me the keys.
“You know the way to Delton?”
I nodded, turned the engine on, and started taking us in the direction of the expressway. It was dark in the car, the only light coming from the gauges on the dash and the streetlights as we passed under them. I suspected the gun was going to slip out of the bottom of my pants any time now, but the odds were that Trimble wouldn’t notice. My foot, down by the accelerator, was shrouded in darkness, and the police communication system in the center of the dash further obscured the view.
“I guess you’re thinking you’d have been better off calling 911,” Trimble said, turning slightly in the seat so he could watch me without getting a crick in his neck. I figured he wanted me behind the wheel so I wouldn’t have my hands free to try anything.
“Yeah, in retrospect,” I said. “Although it proves Bullock’s no liar. He has someone on the inside.”
“Yeah, well, I doubt I’m the only one. Lenny Indigo was pretty resourceful that way, developing friends where he could best use them.”
“It didn’t keep him out of jail.”
“Yeah,” Trimble said. “Things finally caught up with him.” He paused. “It happens sometimes.”
“I’m just gonna go out on a limb here and guess that, back on that night when you and Lawrence Jones were partners, and that kid took a shot at him, and you hesitated?”
I glanced over at Trimble. His eyes had become slits.
“I’m guessing you didn’t just hesitate out of fear or anything. I’m guessing you recognized that kid. I remember Lawrence saying that he worked for Indigo’s organization, and when you saw him, in the light, you recognized him. Maybe even knew him. And you also knew that he and you reported to the same guy, which made you think that maybe it wouldn’t be such a good idea to shoot him.”
Trimble’s tongue was poking the inside of his cheek.
“So you didn’t just freeze. You chose to protect a partner in crime instead of your partner on the force.”
“Just drive, okay?” Trimble said. “If I want entertainment, I can turn on the radio.”
“Bullock’s never going to let me and Angie walk away from this, is he?”
“I don’t know that. We get his goods back, he might look a lot more favorably on your situation.”
“That’s not how he dealt with Lawrence.”
I got onto the expressway ramp, gave the cruiser some more gas. It roared ahead. “I don’t suppose I could use the siren,” I said.
“No.”
“Did you know that Bullock did Lawrence? Did you know he was going to?”
“You don’t have any proof that Bullock, or any of those clowns working with him, tried to kill Lawrence. I asked him about it, he says he didn’t do it.”
I shook my head. “And you believe that.”
“There’s no reason for him to lie,” Trimble said, but with little conviction.
“Maybe Bullock thinks if you knew he killed your former partner, that might be too much of a test of your loyalty to him. And open your eyes, man. You deal in evidence. Bullock has my check. The one I gave to Lawrence. But that’s not enough. This one goes into your cold-case file.”
“Someone’ll take a fall for it.”
“Let me guess. You get that switchblade off Bullock, plant it on some punk who tries to resist arrest, or maybe some kid who dies of an arranged overdose, you plant the knife on him, they test the blood, figure out he did it. Something like that?”
“Sure, why not. Maybe I could even find it on you, or in your car.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That would make sense. Feature writer stabs detective. What possible motive could I have?
