“Not much.” Ray Tate gave him the address of the Beach condo, a précis of Phil Harvey’s pedigree, and the description of the black Camaro. “I had him in a box the other night, but he evaded. He was pushing a rental. He’s our lead to a guy named Captain Cook, some big fat fuck who runs a chemistry set. Your guys are doing that Chinaman murder out at Willy Wong’s place? We think Phil was out there leading the charge.”
“Okay, we’ll take the Burns case. We gotta. When we look for Harvey we’ll pass on any bits to you, especially if we see a fat guy. That sound cool?”
“I don’t give a shit, Sam. The way this is going we’re going to wind up with nothing anyway, the way it looks in there.”
Inside the office the dep had his hand on the doorknob. He let go of it and rounded again on the skipper. When he left he slammed the door behind him and boiled out without looking at anyone.
The Homicide hammer left after him and the skipper waved Ray Tate and Djuna Brown in. He was pale and had sweat on his forehead. His hands shook. “Those fucking cocksuckers, oh, fuck.” He sat down and shivered the vibrations of a boozer too far from a bottle. He looked at his desk drawer.
“We’ll be back in a couple of minutes, skip. Do what you got to do.” Ray Tate led Djuna Brown out of the office and down to reception. Gloria had fresh coffee going and Tate poured three cups. He added two inches of sugar to one and they went back in.
The skipper had some colour back and he looked embarrassed. Ray Tate could smell Canadian rye in the air. He passed around coffees and he and Djuna Brown sat.
“So, Ray, what’s with this new look on you guys. You look like a horny college prof and she looks almost … Anyway.” He shook his head.
“You get two new guys this way, skip. The bad guys are used to a beatnik and a bleached dyke. Instead … the new improved Chem Squad.”
Djuna Brown nodded, “Ace detectives, masters of disguise.”
“Okay, the deal is this, you guys. We leave off the Burns thing, give anything we turn up to the hammers. On Captain Cook, we gotta get out there, root him out. That’s the way it looks, anyway. The only thing that’ll save any of us is we stack up a mountain of pills for a press conference and pin this Captain Cook to the wall. Tie him to the overdoses, the brandings in Chinatown, then whip him through the streets for the chief. We got a week then we’re all fucked.” He looked at Djuna Brown and seemed about to say something but didn’t. “So, Ray, what next?”
“Well … we got a lead. Nothing we want to tell the Swamp about, but we maybe got a guy into Phil Harvey. The F-250 from the Willy Wong thing last night comes back to a guy we think is hooked to Harvey. He’s from up north, so we’re going to head up there, strap him to the truth machine.”
Djuna Brown wrinkled her brow. “That up north thing. It seems a lot of stuff is up north. Harvey gets a speeding ticket, he’s heading up. The F-250 is from up there. The camper fire that we think was Agatha Burns is up there. This super lab’s gotta be out in the boondocks: it stinks and if anyone else was around, there might be complaints.” She nodded to herself. “Indian country or the badlands.”
Ray Tate nodded. “Yeah. This fishing gear Phil was buying, the sleeping bag, points north.”
“Okay, go to it. Keep track of your overtime and I’ll get it for you later, somehow. You need anything else?”
“Just a good fucking leaving alone.”
“Done.”
Djuna Brown looked up from her coffee. “There’s got to be something between Agatha Burns and Phil Harvey. Like, how’d they meet? How’d this fat Captain get his hands on her? How come she stayed in the stash house and when she could get out, she didn’t go home or call the cops?”
“We’re not going to worry about that, Djuna.” The skipper was startled that he’d used her first name. “Don’t even fucking go there. Focus on Phil Harvey, focus on the Captain motherfucker, and my mountain of pills.”
They went to leave. The skipper said, “Ray, stay a minute, okay?”
* * *
Through the glass they could see Djuna Brown working the phones.
“What’s with this makeover madness, Ray? She looks almost fuckable and you look … Well, Gloria better look out. For the both of you.”
“New faces for old places. We’re going to need a new car. The Intrepid’s burned off. And not some fucking Taurus either.”
But the skipper wasn’t listening. “Why’d she do that? When the dep reamed me? She could’ve put me in the deep shit, letting the Burns thing go by. What’s her game?”
Ray Tate shrugged. “We’re just working the case, skip. It’s our case. Right now, we’re all in the same gang. Your problem with her? Her with you? That’s something else.”
“Fucking weird.” The skipper glanced out the window and fished his bottle from the drawer. He topped an inch into his coffee. “Let me talk a minute, okay?” He held up the bottle and raised his eyebrows.
Ray Tate put his palm over his cup and shook his head.
“Back before I got on the rocket I was part of a search party, looking for a missing little girl. She —”
“Sheila Battersby.” Ray Tate shook his head. “Don’t go there, skip. I know the story. Everybody knows the story. Let it go.” He nodded at the skipper’s cup. “You could let that go, too.”
“It’s hard. You know it’s hard. This fucking job.”
“This is the best fucking job in the world, skipper. You know why? Because you’re never alone. You need help you don’t even got to ask.”
The skipper drained his cup anyway. “Yeah.” He looked embarrassed and smiled. “So, the dyke, Ray. How’s that going? You going to spike her in the ground for me?”
“Oh yeah, skip. Head first, so hard you’ll see maybe just the bottom of her tiny little slippers.”
“Good man.”
Chapter 20
Frankie Chase leaned against the door of his F-250 as Phil Harvey headed north. Harvey’s arm was starting to throb and he let his left hand rest on his lap. The radio news went through several half-hour cycles, each leading off with the murder at Willy Wong’s. On the sixth cycle, Willy Wong gave a brief interview, describing himself as shocked at the events. He said it was getting too dangerous to do business in the city. He wanted a meeting with his friend the mayor to get police to root out the bad elements terrorizing Chinatown. A police spokesman came on and gave various descriptions of the bandits. Black or white. A black pickup or a dark car.
Frankie Chase turned off the radio. “Fuck. Black pickup.”
Phil Harvey kept to sixty miles an hour. “Lots of black pickups. We’ll put this one on ice for a while.” He laughed. “You’ll have to get something else. If this shit keeps up my place up north is going to look like a used car lot.”
“Fuckin’ guy died. Unbelievable. That one I gave him in the head? He jerked. I thought his timing was okay and I just took his ear off and was going to give him another one.” He giggled. “I thought he’d cranked you in the fucking head. I thought you were gone, man.”
Harvey became concerned. “Frankie. Listen to me, okay?” He took a deep breath. If the kid didn’t absorb this stuff right he was going to have to go. Six weeks ago there’d’ve been no question; the kid would already be in the ground. But things were different now. Phil Harvey had a plan, maybe an actual future. “We’re not going to