HE SIGN ON the library door said closing time was seven. I was ready. I could wait all afternoon. I could have picked up a book. This was my day for thinking of things too late. I wasn’t much for reading though.
At only two-thirty I saw her through the glass panels in the door. No other staff entered the building while I waited. Nor any borrowers with books under their arms. No visitors arrived or left. I watched her turn the key in the lock. For the first time since I was fourteen, I had butterflies.
She turned and raised her head in the sunshine. Even before she saw me, my heart banged like a steam hammer. Her frizzy curls and the peach fuzz of her face caught the sunlight and held it. Kept it to make a glow. The face of an angel and steady eyes like a ten-thousand dollar whore.
When her eyes found me her face lit up. It took on a power. A surge electrified me like every hair and every inch of my skin came alive. I felt bigger. And part of me was a lot bigger.
And then her face changed. She saw someone. I followed her eyes. Walking toward her. A man. I stiffened. He was a plain-clothes cop. And I heard the sound of her voice. A cavern inside me glowed. Anger boiled in my stomach like sulphur.
Was I certain that the man was a cop? One look and you know. The walk, the shoes. Look at those fucking shoes. Somewhere in every town, every city, there must be a shoe store where only cops go shoe-shopping. They sell extra-robust, thick-soled, hard-wearing brogues, Oxfords, lace-ups of every kind. And boots. Buckled boots with heavy welted soles. Like this flatfoot wore.
You can see it in the way they act in a public place. The assumption of authority. It’s there in the clothes they wear, especially when they try to dress like normal people. Always there’s some detail, some combination of color and style that nobody else would make.
And the walk. Cops walk in a way that shows they think they’re better than you. They can go anywhere. Do anything. Say anything they like to anyone. So they think. They’re trained to march, but they never lose the swagger.
From across the street I couldn’t make out what she said to the man. The plain-clothes cop. He was obviously glad to see her. I wanted very much to hear what she said. Almost as much as I wanted to knock him down and take her away.
Her face was a mass of hasty yesses and no’s as she shielded her eyes from the sun. Her other hand was palm down, flat toward the ground. Her feet shuffled. Like she wanted to escape.
Escape to me? With me? Or from me, perhaps. I would be an idiot if I didn’t take account of the facts. She saw me kill a man. She was frightened. In a woman, fear and a powerful arousal can look a lot alike. Especially if you don’t know the woman.
Sometimes, the two go hand in hand. Had she told anyone she’d been at Beary’s office last night? Did someone see her there?
I don’t do regret. Never have. But I was fighting down the feeling that I could have missed the chance. The most important chance I’d ever had. And I let it go. When she said, “Not now.” I could have pressed it. Pressed her.
Not against her will. But it’s not wrong to ask more than once. Ask in a couple of ways.
Seeing her led away by a cop did nothing to raise my mood. I could do nothing about it. But I walked across the street anyway. Got a better view.
She didn’t look back. I was sorry and glad. There was a thought. I didn’t believe it, but it was possible. She could have called the cop. Told him to meet her. Said she had something they ought to know. Something about a killing.
I didn’t believe it but you can’t go assuming things. That was my platoon’s motto. Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups. She walked away. With him. Her hand behind her. Flat to the ground. Like a fucking schoolboy my heart jumped. Just because she was talking to me.
The fact that she’s talking to you, I told myself, And even when she’s talking with her hand, still doesn’t mean she’s not lying. I didn’t believe that she was. Not for a second. But you don’t discount a thing just because you don’t believe it.
I wanted to follow her. Even though I knew it was a bad idea. More than that, I wanted to drive up alongside her. Pull her into the car. Get gone. I had a strong sense that she’d like that. The more I thought about her, the more I saw her, the deeper and stronger my feelings got. That could cloud my judgement. I knew that. But I wanted her.
For a moment, a hot moment, the thought caught fire in my head. Go. Get her. Grab her. DO. IT! Just the thought of action made my body hum. Bad idea. But I wanted it. I wanted her. Now.
Messing with a cop though. Now. Right now. That could turn out pretty bad. Before you go into anything, make sure of your exits. I always expected the work to lean hard on my training. I never thought that meeting a girl would do the same thing.
There was nothing that I could usefully be doing, nothing worthwhile that I could gain or learn. I should get gone and cool my fucking heels. Hide out in a hotel bar. Leave town. Come back in a week. Or not.
Either way, chill. The fuck. I went up the library steps to get out of the street. If I’d stood there any longer, I could have been conspicuous.
Did she arrange to meet the cop, where was she going with the cop, how did she know the cop, how close were she and the cop, inside my head I was raving like a nut. If I didn’t get calm and get a grip, I would be jabbering.
The fact that it was a man, and that the man was a cop made it hard. I read the library opening hours again. That didn’t distract me much. My phone rang. I put my hand in my pocket. Pushed the button to make it silent. That only made it buzz. I wasn’t going to answer it. It stopped. Looking down the street I could still see the two of them.
I wanted to break something. I went down the steps and crossed the street. I walked to my car as normally as I could. All the while knowing that trying to look normal is the surest way to make yourself conspicuous. It makes you look suspicious, too. You act suspicious. Your movements are all wrong. I got into the car.
The smart thing, the sensible thing would be to sit in the car for five minutes. Wait. Put on something soothing on the stereo. Something gentle. Or calm radio. It was a rental car. They have radios. I put my phone on the cradle.
Then I jammed the car into drive and floored the gas pedal. Cutting right across the traffic, I made a huge u-turn. Dust flew and the tires howled. I took off at speed. Just before the lights changed I took the first right. Then the first right again.
I raced down the block and parked near the end. I may have been conspicuous but the gray rental Toyota was anonymous. The mid-range saloon was as invisible as you could get. As long as I’d got parked without her cop seeing me, I should be safe to wait here. I was sure they were going pass the end of the street. Should be in about a minute and a half.
Great thinking, I told myself, As long as you can keep this up, you can follow them all over town. Right. The cop is never going to notice the same Toyota at every intersection. Especially after the genius bit of discretion where I carved up the street back there. I was acting like a hormonal teenager at the height of a critical outbreak of acne. All I needed to complete the picture was a random stranger to start a fight with.
Are you seriously trying to get arrested? Okay. I let my head cool for a few moments. If they passed this way I would just watch. Why? Just to know. Information gathering, intelligence, is always a basis for action.
There they were. Crossing at the lights. Headed toward me. The phone rang. I’d gotten used to being on my own. The car’s phone system was set to auto answer. Distracted, I didn’t stop it in time. The screen said ‘number withheld,’ but I knew who it would be.
“Can you talk?” Arden didn’t ever say his name.
Resigned, I said, “What?”
“There’s another piece of work. Nearby.” I didn’t say anything. I was looking down. The couple were passing just ten feet in front of the car. I was trying to watch. Without appearing to watch.
Arden said, “Nearby that is if you haven’t left yet.” There was something like a bum note in his voice. When he said it I got the feeling he knew where I was. Maybe he could have gotten a tracker on my phone. I wondered if he could do that.
Could I fix it just by getting another phone, or would I need a new chip? There was a guy I could call.
As the couple passed, I saw the cop was leaning his face toward hers. He’s trying, I thought. Well, I couldn’t blame him. It did make me want to detach his head, though.
Arden said, “Are you listening? Do I have your attention?”
“Of course.”
“It’s no more than sixty miles away. I need an early delivery. I’m messaging you the details now.” I pulled the phone off the cradle. The message screen was a URL. A link to a document on the web. That was how Arden liked to do that stuff. Through a fucking ‘cloud server.’ Whatever the fuck a fucking cloud server was.
The pair were walking away. I watched their backs. As his arm went onto her shoulder, then slipped down to her waist, I drew as slow a breath as I could.
I asked Arden, “Are the two things linked?”
“This and the one yesterday?” He was stalling me. I hadn’t found Arden an easy man to like. He was evasive in all the wrong ways. He put me on my guard always. Rubbed me the wrong way. I waited. He didn’t answer. It made me suspect that they were. Why the fuck wouldn’t he just say?
Eventually, he said, “If you know there’s no point me telling you. And if you don’t it’s best we keep it that way.”
I shook my head. Told him, “I’ll read the material. Get back to you later.”
“Early delivery. I’ll add something to the advance.”
“How much?” Farther down the street I saw the pair climb a few steps up to a diner. He held the door for her. Then he looked around. I didn’t like that too much.
After was a long pause, Arden said, “An extra fifty percent.”
“No,” Arden had shown his hand and he knew it. “Double.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Alright. I’ll get the first part to you straight away. Same bank?”
“No. Make it a different outlet.”
“Early delivery. Forty-eight hours.”
I said, “I’ll have to see what’s involved.”
“Non-negotiable.” He hung up. What if I said ‘No’? Would he have someone else ready? My guess was that he would. I hoped my judgement was working well. To say that my feelings were complicated right then would have been an understatement.