Ray Tate and Djuna Brown Mysteries 3-Book Bundle. Lee Lamothe
hear. I hear.” His head bobbed, the whites of his eyes were orbed out, and when he smiled the long thin cords of his neck stretched painfully. “Peace out, peace out.”
As Ray Tate left the parking lot he heard a yell and the beer can cracked off his back window. He laughed. “Oh, you fucking douchebag.”
* * *
He headed out to the west end and cruised his wife’s house. It wasn’t quite dark outside but there were upstairs lights that he recognized as lamps he’d strategically positioned to make the place look occupied. The garage door was closed and he couldn’t tell if his wife’s Neon was inside. Someone had left a package of cigarettes in the Taurus and he fumbled at the lighter. Before things had turned he hadn’t smoked more than two dozen cigarettes in two years, and most of those were while he and his lawyer were pacing out the results of the shooting team.
The house looked like somewhere he’d lived once, maybe, when he was another person. With some chargers from the Accident Reconstruction Unit he’d re-shingled the roof, with some firefighters he’d put in a new front porch and a deck in the back. The brother-in-law of a duty sergeant had sodded the lawn with something he said was Kentucky Blue. Twenty years in the house and Tate knew every piece of trim and moldings, every hidden flaw he’d covered with careful manipulation of plaster and paint, where every seam in the drywall was poorly sanded, where every edge of tile didn’t quite fit and was disguised under baseboards. It was a trade you learned by doing, just like policing. You were as careful as your experience let you be and you had to make mistakes. You covered them up as best you could and swore to never make them again. And you made less and less as time went on. Just like being a cop. The house was a place of hidden but educational flaws and he’d been proud of all of them. He’d been a doorstep baby of the State and had lived in many houses, but never as more than a guest, cheap labour, or a sufferance.
It was good work, being a cop. At first it was just a job. But then it became something else, something that overtook him, something that he was good at, could be perfect at. In a drunken evening at the kitchen table once, after he’d been punched out in a bar fight and was recuperating, one of the visiting old-timers had called it a religion and used the words Faith and Duty.
“If you weren’t a copper, young Ray,” the old-timer had said, “what would you have been?”
Drunken Ray Tate had fallen for the sympathetic eyes of the old interrogator and said, “A painter.”
But the oldster misunderstood. He’d nodded and said, “A good living. People always need their houses painted, you can make a good dough if you hustle, build up a client base.”
He watched, smoking, as a firefighter two houses down carried an old armchair to the curb then went back and brought out a set of end tables and a box with magazines poking out the top. The firefighter put out a cardboard sign: Free. He’d been among the neighbours questioned by Internal Affairs after the second shooting. The buff firefighter had told the shoo fly to get off his property. You fat fucking slob, he’d said, you should be ashamed of yourself, going out in public like that, on the taxpayers’ dime.
The whole enclave was men in uniforms: city cops, firefighters, emergency crews, a few Staties, two Federales who did consular security over in Chicago and commuted home for three-day weekends.
Ray Tate went to get out of the Taurus to say hello to the firefighter when the dash radio went off.
“Any Chem Squad bodies out there?” Djuna Brown waited out a few seconds of silence. Her voice was of islands and sand and she put even the honeyed dispatcher to shame. “Anybody? We got a good live sighting for Phil Harvey downtown.”
Ray Tate double-clicked the handset and headed for the highway downtown. He called Djuna Brown on the mobile. She sounded excited. “Bernie spotted him. You fucking believe that? Bernie.”
“Where at?”
She began laughing. “Well, old Bernie’s at that discount sporting goods place on Huron Street and he’s lined up to buy some hooks or something and two aisles over at the cash is Phil Harvey, checking some stuff out. Bernie gets outside first and out comes Harvey. Gets into a rental, grey G6, and he’s away, southbound. Haven’t heard from Bernie since.”
“Nobody on the air?”
“Nope. Me and ye, Bobby McGee.”
“Fuck that.” Ray Tate scooped up the handset. “Chem Squad, anybody? C’mon.”
A reluctant voice dragged up. “Yeah?”
“Wally? Ray. Where you at?”
“I’m off. Left the rover on by accident.”
“But what’s your twenty, Wally?”
“Ah. Ah, east Chinatown.”
“We got Phil Harvey heading down Huron Street in your direction. Can you scope him?”
“Who the fuck’s Phil Harvey?”
“Fire face. Guy on the wall in the office. Long, black hair, he’s got a grey G6 under him.”
“Ah, Ray, c’mon man. I’m off. I got issues.”
“Just get over to Huron and see if he rolls by, okay?”
“Who’s authorizing the overtime? I’m off, Ray, I can’t work for nothing. The union.”
Djuna Brown came on. “I’ll authorize it.”
Silence.
Ray Tate put the rover down, activated his dash flasher, and found some shoulder. He voiced out: “I’ll authorize it, Wally. You’re golden, man.”
“Yeah, Ray. But are you authorized to authorize?” But he was moving. The gambling club Wally favoured was a long block from Huron Street. Wally was puffing. “You gotta … you gotta sign my notebook … Ray … Before shift ends …” But he didn’t make it. “Nah, nah … No fucking way, Ray … I gotta stop … Fuck, my legs …” He sounded like he was in tears. “Oh, fucking Christ. My lungs. Man.”
Djuna Brown came over. Her voice had a different timbre and Ray Tate knew she’d abandoned the office and was in play with a rover. “Chem Six B rolling. Ray, where you at?”
“Ramping off at River. You head to the fishing shop, find the clerk, see what he bought. I’ll come in to Huron.”
“Hey, Ray.” Bernie came on. “He got fishing rods, some line, some hooks and lures, weights. Duct tape. Rubber gloves. He’s one of those guys thinks you need a six-pound test to catch a six-pound fish. He also bought a sleeping bag.” He laughed. “He’s a cooker, maybe, but this mutt’s no fisherman.”
Wally came on, his breathing under control. “Bern, you get the lures? The ones on sale? Mepps, right? It said Mepps in the ad. Any left?”
“Yep. Cleaned ’em out. Spinners, spooners, everything. We’re in business, Wall. Dumb fucks.”
“Beautiful.”
Djuna Brown came over. “I’m heading downtown, Ray. I’m in a blue 500.”
Ray Tate dialed the skipper’s mobile. “Skip, we got Phil Harvey on the move downtown. We need more bodies.”
“What’s he doing? Where is he?”
“Someplace in the core, I think. We need some bodies.”
“Where are the slobs? The fisherfuckingmen?”
Ray Tate told him Bernie eyeballed Harvey. He lied. “I got Bernie and Wally on perimeters. We need some cars to go into the core, flush it out.” There was silence. A television set spoke in the background over a laugh track. “You want to roll the Federales?”
“No, no. Fuck, no. This could be our breakout. Let me see if I can scare up someone from the downtown sector.”
Ray Tate gave the coordinates for the box. “He