Grega played along, also pretending to be affable. “I don’t see you stealing my action. I’m doin’ okay.”
“You weren’t aiming for the top spot?”
To Alan’s satisfaction, Grega looked genuinely surprised. “Roz’s?” he asked. “What the fuck I want with that? Bunch of headaches.”
“What
are
your ambitions, then, now that there’s been a change of leadership?”
Grega looked thoughtful.
“Depends on the leader,” he said.
Alan found that acceptable. In fact, what he’d discovered about Luis Grega was that the man had a kind of old-fashioned work ethic. As far as Alan could determine—ironically by also consulting Bernie, among others—Grega was in the game for the money, the adrenaline, and the chance to tell society to screw itself. No tales of betrayal or double dealing dogged his heels, no reports of violence that hadn’t seemed appropriate and properly surgical, no troubles with women that might come back to haunt him. As societal fringe operators went, Grega had appeared to be a good soldier.
Which was precisely what Alan was looking for.
Budney pursed his lips. This was a turning point—a final stage in his plan. Matt Mroz had taken the conventional route to his moment in the sunshine. He’d used violence and coercion, a modicum of brains, and the rudiments of leadership to hammer together a loosely knit, porous amalgam of illegal products, import routes, and marginally capable people—the likes of Bernie and Grega notwithstanding—all to create an operation as substantial as a spec house built on sand. It had been a recipe for short-term profits and long-term disaster, at best. Under his aegis, this wobbly, inefficient, careless operation had grabbed for everything, let a lot slip through its fingers, and had largely trusted to luck for its success. Bernie had admitted as much in a frustrated outburst days earlier. Had it been run in a less rural state, according to Bernie, where there was more law enforcement and a hotter sense of moral outrage, it would have
collapsed long ago. That had explained why the bookkeeper had stayed out of the limelight.
But Mroz had been lucky—he’d lasted for quite a while. Until Alan had taken him on.
Now, things were ripe for an overhaul, where the product line would be streamlined for maximum profits, diminished loss, and minimal exposure to assault from the police.
It was in this last category that Alan saw a role for Luis Grega.
“Well,” he told him, “this leader’s big on recognizing hard work and loyalty. I’d like to talk to you about a role you may not have thought about before.”
Grega nodded silently, not really understanding what this man was babbling about, but not much caring, either. In the short term, it meant more money—so much was becoming clear. Beyond that, it didn’t matter, since Luis had his own big plans.
“Hey, there,” Joe said into the phone, shoving the motel’s thin pillow more comfortably behind his neck.
“Hey, yourself,” Lyn answered him, her voice low and soft. “How’s my favorite cop?”
“Not bad. It took us forever to get here. I always forget how big this state is.”
She laughed. “I remember. We used to bug Dad about that every time he took us on those so-called vacations, asking him to pull over so we could eat, or stretch our legs, or have a pee—or do
anything.
He always held on to the wheel like Ahab at the tiller. What is it about you men that you can’t mix fun with business?”
“I don’t know,” Joe told her honestly. “The hunter/gatherer instinct?”
“Right,” she came back. “Blame the caveman. Any progress?”
“Some,” he said. “We met the Maine team—good bunch. There’s a woman who reminds me a bit of Sammie, except she talks a lot more. Mostly, we just kicked around our options.”
“You better have a better spiel before you come back to Vermont,” she warned him. “That’s not gonna wow ’em.”
“Wow who?”
“The press. They’re grumbling about an informational black hole. Who’s Stan Katz, by the way?”
Joe’s eyebrows shot up. Opposite him, across the room, the muted TV tried informing him about the vagaries of dandruff.
“He’s the editor of the
Reformer.
Why?”
“He called me,” she said.
“At your home?” he exclaimed, impressed by both his old nemesis’s lack of decorum and the accuracy of his information. Joe’s relationship with Lyn was not a secret, but he, like all cops, liked to keep his personal life private. “What did he want?”
“He was looking for you. He was really nice.”
Joe struggled to remember if he’d ever heard that adjective applied to Stan before. When Joe worked for the Brattleboro police, Katz was a constant source of irritation, his integrity and accuracy barely compensating for his holier-than-thou, voice-of-the-people arrogance. He was a reporter back then, of course, always hot on the scent. They’d eventually moved him up to editor, and the paper changed hands to become a corporate pawn of
some midwestern behemoth. Finally, even Stanley had aged and slowed down a little. But, become nice?
“He didn’t just hang up when you told him I wasn’t there, did he?” Joe asked, anticipating the answer.
“Oh, no,” she answered cheerfully. “We had a great talk.”
Joe rolled his eyes.
“He got a little worked up toward the end, trying to get me to agree that the cops should be less close-mouthed, and that paranoia was a poor substitute for the—what did he call it? Oh, right—the responsible management of information.”
“That sounds like him,” Joe murmured.
“I didn’t disagree,” she added, “but I also told him squat. He ended up telling me that he thought we made a perfect couple.”
Joe now understood what she’d meant by having had a great chat. Katz must have been ready to reach through the phone and kill her.
“How
is
the news about the case?” he asked. “Have you gotten a sense of that?”
“I’d have to be deaf and blind. It’s all over the place. Katz, I just told you about, and some guy named McDonald is on the local radio every day griping about it. TV has it on every night. It’s a big deal, a cop getting shot in the head.”
Joe closed his eyes briefly. “Yeah—that it is.”
When she spoke next, her voice was softer—more concerned. “You sound a little down. It’s not going well, is it?”
“Not particularly. Everybody’s on board and helping, but we don’t have much to go on. Grega’s the proverbial
needle in a haystack; the guy he was last seen with has vanished; we can’t seem to get a break, despite beating the bushes.”
After a brief silence, Lyn softly asked, in part to herself, “I wonder if Steve might know anything.”
Joe frowned at the phone. “Your brother? I thought you weren’t talking.”
It came out too bluntly, and he regretted it immediately. “I’m sorry.”
“No, no,” she answered. “You’re totally right. We haven’t talked since he got out. But it wasn’t because we were mad at each other. Disappointed …” Her voice trailed off.
“Anyhow,” she continued after a moment, “he used to know people up there. I suppose that kind of information changes all the time …” She added a small, ineffectual laugh. “God knows, it did for him. I certainly don’t mind asking.”
“Wouldn’t that be a little awkward?” Joe asked.
“Not like you’d think,” she told him. “Steve and I were always pretty straight with each other. That’s one of the reasons all this hurt so much. But the more I think about it, this may be exactly what I need to open things up again, or at least try … I’m not so sure what he’s like anymore.”
Joe considered what she was offering. “Lyn, I really appreciate it, but think about this, and only do it if you believe it might help you get back together, okay? It’s a long shot—like you said—so it’s certainly not worth breaking your heart all over again.”
“I love you, Joe Gunther” was all she said before hanging up.
Lester slapped his face several times in succession. “Christ almighty. How can a place
have
so many bugs? I thought we were bad, but this is ridiculous. Aren’t they driving you nuts?”
Joe glanced at him sympathetically, reached into his pocket, and handed over a small bottle of high-test repellent. “May shorten your life, but do you care?”
“No,” his colleague said forcefully, reaching out. “Give me that.”
He began lathering it onto his neck and into his ears.
“Watch your eyes,” Joe cautioned. “It’ll sting like hell.”
“Who’s this guy supposed to be?” Lester asked, keeping his voice low and daubing his cheeks and forehead. He’d just returned from an emergency trip back home, where his daughter had broken an ankle in a soccer game. They were lying side by side under a huge blue sky, the prickly, heatherlike undergrowth poking at them through their clothing, and the black flies forming clouds around their heads. They and several others—some of whom were wearing head nets—were positioned just shy of the crest of a low hill, overlooking a
house that sat in the field before them like a toy left on a rough wool blanket by a giant child.
“It’s a woman. Remember Bob? The dealer Cathy Lawless was trying to hustle when Grega popped up and started shooting? It’s his common-law wife.”
“What’s her name?”
“Jill Zachary, according to Dave Beaubien.”
Lester stared at him. “You got him to talk?”
Joe smiled and shook his head. “Hardly—that’s all he said.”
He cupped his chin in his hand, the stink of fly dope strong in his nostrils, and went back to studying the house. There was nothing extraordinary about it, aside from its setting. It was two-storied, with an attached garage, slowly losing its coat of pale blue paint. Its foundation was still girthed in plastic and hay bales against the winter chill, although such weather had long gone. But that detail, and the cheery color, had already struck Joe as a distinctly Maine attribute. Winters were long here, and bleak, especially in those parts without either mountains or seascape to relieve the eye. The need for warmth spoke for itself, but the thirst for color was important. And while both may have seemed unnecessary during the summer months, they spoke to the inevitable forthcoming cold, along with this state’s admission that, like it or not, it would always be a grandchild of glaciers.
But the condition of the building’s paint was as evocative as its isolation. Maine was a vast piece of real estate, some of it remote and difficult to reach, not to mention ill-suited to sustaining a living. Most Mainers admitted that the two southernmost counties, York and
Cumberland, carried the financial load for the rest. These others tended to be thinly populated, economically depressed, and politically undermuscled.
Jill Zachary’s home, peeling, worn, and looking as if it could be wiped from the earth with a sweep of the hand, was testimony of both grit and fragile impermanence.
Joe took a moment to scan the bare horizon, realizing that some of his conclusions were being influenced by the starkness around him. Of course, this wasn’t typical—Maine encompassed almost every geographical trait natural to the continent. There were entire sections of swamps, fields, mountains, and forestland—areas where you would swear that all the land around you had to be exemplary of the whole.
But none of it was. Maine evolved as it spread across the map, changing at an almost leisurely pace from one topography to the next. Vermont, by contrast, was known for being lumpy—big lumps for the Green Mountains; smaller ones for the rolling farmland edging Lake Champlain. Each of Maine’s characteristics, however, was distinct and placed far apart—the coastline was at odds with the peaks around Katahdin; the forests of the north country out of synch with the bracken fields farther south; the rushing white rapids inland belied the broad, lazy, watery boulevards pouring into the ocean.
It was as if Maine had been created when both a lot of spare parts and the leisure to spread them out had been available.
This very house, for example, was surrounded for as far as the eye could see by blueberry fields—low, curvilinear, painted rust red and ochre and dull green. It
was too early for the berry harvest, so the scene merely looked wild, although it was a highly prized and much tended environment. But to Joe, it seemed like it would all make more sense located in Greenland, or near the Hudson Bay. Huge, extended, and billowy—a near-barren landscape better suited to the Wessex of Thomas Hardy seemed odd in a state whose symbol was a lobster.
“We sure Bob’s in residence?” Lester asked, breaking into Joe’s reverie.
“One of Cathy’s CIs told her he was here two days ago,” he said.
Lenny Chapman, sporting his dark blue windbreaker with “ICE” stenciled across the back, sidled up to where they were lying, making sure not to show himself beyond the top of the rise. He carried a pair of binoculars and also smelled strongly of repellent.
“Hey, G-man,” Lester greeted him, “got any skin left?”
Chapman laughed. “Amazing, ain’t it? Worst bugs in New England. Everybody’s in place around the perimeter,” he told them both. “We got vehicles hidden and ready to block the road in case someone makes a run for it, and one of the MDEA people just got a movement sighting from inside the building.”
“That movement attached to anyone like Bob or Zachary?” Joe asked.
Chapman gave the hint of a shrug, still intent on the house. “One step at a time, Joe. At least we know the place is occupied.”
It was certainly that, as was proven two seconds later when the front door banged open far below them
and a young boy, ten or twelve, stepped out into the yard, a large plastic trash bag in his hand.
The three men on the back side of the knoll instinctively hunkered down. Chapman muttered into his radio, “We have someone at the front door—pre-teen male in sneakers, jeans, and white T-shirt, holding a black garbage bag. Everyone hold their positions.”
Instinctively, Lester twisted his dark baseball cap around so the bill faced the nape of his neck before he raised his head just enough to take a peek.
“What do you see?” Joe asked him.
Les ducked back down. “It ain’t good.”
Chapman finished for him by saying over the radio, “Subject is heading uphill, toward the east, still carrying the bag.”