Gatekeeper Read online

  "Not so fast."

  Bill sounded incredulous. "I just called, for Christ's sake. Lighten up. Bob said to come ahead."

  "And now you stop," the man said, "until I tell you different."

  He looked at the other two. "You stay outside while I check him out."

  He grabbed Bill by the shirtfront and began dragging him inside.

  "The bag," Sam quickly said.

  Catching her meaning, Bill back-passed the bag to her as he vanished through the door.

  In the few moments it took the bearded man to check Bill for weapons or wires, Sam whispered to Manuel, "I don't like this divide-and-conquer shit. If anything goes wrong, we grab the product and run."

  Manuel spoke for the first time since they'd met. "What about your friend?"

  "If this goes wrong, he's on his own. I got bigger fish to fry than that loser."

  The door reopened and the doorman motioned to her. Sam handed the bag to Manuel. "See ya."

  The bearded man pulled her by the arm into a small room off the entryway and pushed her up against the wall, holding her there with one hand hard against her breast.

  "You're cute."

  She smiled back. "You're not. You want to get this done?"

  His expression froze. He extracted a .40 Glock from under his shirt and shoved it painfully into her stomach, making her gasp for air. "I had a wife with a mouth like yours. You don't wanna know what happened to her."

  Sam spoke through gritted teeth. "She probably got bored."

  The bouncer's search was thorough and painful, leaving Sam at the end of it walking bowlegged for several minutes. He pushed her by the scruff of the neck into an adjacent room, where Bill was waiting.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  She glared at him. "You are a total moron. You know we're going to get ripped off here, right?"

  His voice climbed to a plaintive pitch. "That's not true. Bob and me go back."

  She held up her hand. "Shut up." She moved to the door she'd just entered by, paused a moment to listen, and then walked through fast and low. Ahead of her, his gun to Manuel's head, the bouncer had just torn the bag from his hand. At the sound of her entrance, he turned and began swinging the gun in her direction. He was too late. Crossing to him quickly, Sam grabbed a lamp off a small table and in the same gesture smacked him across the side of the head, breaking the lamp, exploding the bulb in a bright flash of light, and bringing him to his knees. She kicked the gun from his hand and finished him off with a chop to the side of the neck. He fell over without a sound.

  Manuel stared at her openmouthed, as did Bill, entering behind her.

  Through the open door to the entryway, they heard footsteps descending the stairs. A fat man in a stained T-shirt and electric-green sneakers appeared, looking shocked and apologetic in the remaining light from a dim lamp in the far corner. He spread his hands wide to his sides, looking at Dancer and shaking his head. "Jesus, Bill, what the hell happened? That crazy bastard didn't try to rip you off, did he?"

  Bill was still staring at everyone wide-eyed and mute. "Bob," he finally said, "what's the deal? You and me go back—"

  But the fat man interrupted him, approaching and patting his arm with one meaty paw. "No, no, Bill. I'm real sorry. The guy's a maniac. High most of the time. Crazy bastard. I shouldn't have him around."

  As if to prove the point, he took a halfhearted but solid shot at the downed man's head with his sneaker and then draped his arm around Bill's shoulders. "I'm real sorry. Come on up, all of you. I gotta make this up."

  Bill paused long enough to stoop and retrieve the paper bag. After he and their host had turned their backs to address the staircase in the cramped entryway, Sam picked up the bearded man's abandoned gun, sticking it discreetly into her waistband at the small of her back. Just before she fell into step behind Bill, who was following Bob upstairs, she leaned in close to Manuel, who started slightly in surprise, and murmured, "If I yell go, you go. No questions."

  * * *

  "Les, update, goddammit." Joe had seen the flash of the lamp being broken over the doorman's head, without knowing the details.

  Spinney hesitated, still squinting through a pair of binoculars from his position closer by. "Sorry, boss. Had to figure it out first. I'm still not sure, but Sa—shit—Gatekeeper may have thrown a lamp at somebody, maybe the guy who met them at the door. I saw some shadows when the light flashed. Looked like she was still standing."

  "What're they doing now?"

  "It's quiet. I can see movement at the windows upstairs, but all the shades are drawn."

  Gunther swore silently to himself. This whole operation was falling apart. He should never have let her do this.

  "Call for backup, Les. Have them stand by at first, but let's you and me get ready to move. I don't like this at all."

  * * *

  Sounding like a herd of cattle, they all stomped up the narrow wooden stairs, each person's eyes on the heels of the one before him. Except for Sam, who was trying her best to peer around the bulk of the big man leading the parade who was still talking in a loud voice about how hard it was to get good help.

  His voice was too loud, she thought, and his mood too falsely upbeat given what had just transpired. And she didn't like the fact that while they were climbing under a single light high above, the top of the stairs and the landing doubling back above them were cloaked in darkness.

  Surreptitiously, she reached back and wrapped her hand around the gun butt.

  Which is when she heard a small metallic click—as with a safety being released—above and over her right shoulder, where the landing gave way to a shadowed door on the second floor. She spun around, her gun out, just in time to see the glimmer of the overhead light on the black metal of a semiautomatic.

  There was an enormous flash as the shooter fired at her, thrown off by her sudden move. She fired back, heard a yell, and spun around to snatch the paper bag from Bill Dancer's hand as everyone began shouting at once.

  "Go, go, go, go," she screamed at Manuel, pushing at him and kicking him to get him going back down the stairs. Another shot rang out and a piece of plaster snapped next to her head. She paused a moment, fired four times wildly overhead, and heard several people diving for cover.

  She and Manuel stumbled, jumped, and half fell down the staircase as more gunshots flashed like lightning, punctuated by a bedlam of voices.

  Incredulous they were still alive and unhurt, Sam propelled Manuel out the door, yelling, "To the car, to the car," just as she saw Lester Spinney dive out of sight behind a bush near the front walkway.

  But Manuel was too stunned to notice much of anything. He staggered toward Bill's car as instructed, looking over his shoulder at her and the house beyond, clearly expecting a small army to burst out in hot pursuit.

  "Get in," she ordered, circling the hood to reach the driver's seat. She could hear sirens approaching in the distance, and as she slid behind the wheel, she caught a glimpse of Joe Gunther crouching behind a nearby parked car. Unseen by Manuel, she gave her boss a quick nod and a thumbs-up signal out the window.

  She turned the key, fired up the engine, did a tight, wheel-squealing U-turn in the middle of the road, and retreated the way they'd come, heading for the interstate.

  "Jesus," Manuel was saying. "What happened?"

  "It was a setup. That idiot Bill set us up to get ripped off and killed. Probably bragged to the fat bastard that he had a fortune worth of dope to sell, or some damn fool thing. Guaranteed to get everyone good and greedy."

  "Johnny's not going to like this."

  Sam pulled over suddenly, killed the lights, and yanked Manuel down onto the bench seat with her. Two patrol cars went screaming past them, unaware the car wasn't empty. She straightened and resumed driving at normal speed, the car's peaceful progress at direct odds to the hammering of her heart. But not from fear, or even postaction nerves. It was excitement. Sam was feeling on top of the world, as if she'd confronted the lion of legend an
d bearded it thoroughly.

  "Johnny's not going to know," she said confidently.

  Manuel stared at her and pointed out the back window, his anger boiling over. "What the fuck you mean? We almost got killed. I'm going to tell him you're a fucking crazy bitch. What do you think?"

  "I think," she said calmly, "that you can tell him whatever you want, but not till we're done selling his junk."

  "Selling? Who the hell're you gonna sell to? You gonna hang out a sign? Maybe the cops'll chip in."

  "Nah," she told him, casting him a smile. "That wouldn't work. Relax. Brattleboro may be blown for tonight, but we'll get a few customers in Bellows Falls and Springfield."

  He stared at her in stunned silence as she hit the turn signal and headed toward the northbound ramp.

  "See what you can find on the radio."

  She kept both her hands on the wheel, not daring to show him how much she was shaking.

  Chapter 12

  "You crazy piece of shit. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  Willy Kunkle was leaning over Joe's desk, one large hand planted on top of a pile of paperwork like a club.

  "Sit down," Gunther told him.

  "The hell I will. Answer me."

  Gunther's voice didn't change, nor did he back away from the other man's glowering face. "Sit down."

  There was a long, tense silence as the two men stared into one another's eyes, before Willy straightened and finally accepted the chair Joe had indicated.

  "What's your problem?"

  "As if you didn't know," Willy snapped back. "I expect everyone else to jerk me around. Par for the course. But you had me thinking you were a straight shooter."

  Gunther didn't respond, refusing to rise to the bait.

  "I'm talking about Sam, duh," Willy finally said in frustration. "What the hell did you think?"

  "What about her?"

  Willy stared at him and then jumped to his feet, knocking the chair over backward. He began storming around the small office, waving his good arm as he shouted, "What about her? You think I'm an idiot? She's gone undercover, for Christ's sake. You put her undercover, risking her life for a bunch of dope-sniffing losers and the sorry bastards that feed them." He froze and glared at his boss. "What the fuck were you thinking?"

  "You were once one of those losers yourself, even if your drug was alcohol."

  Willy's mouth dropped open. "You asshole," he finally said.

  "Maybe. You saying she's not qualified?"

  That put him in another box. His face darkened with fury. "I'm saying there's a good reason nobody sends a cop undercover in this state anymore. We can't give them the support they need."

  "You may be right." Gunther pointed to the overturned chair. "You want to try using that again?"

  Reluctantly, Willy complied, righting the chair and sitting in it.

  "How'd you find out?" Gunther asked.

  "I couldn't find her anywhere. Then I dropped by to see who they jailed last night from the OK Corral blowout and heard that prick Bill Dancer whining about how some bitch named Greta Novak had screwed him royal. I know we're tied into the drug task force. Rocket science it wasn't."

  Gunther nodded. "She turned a bad situation completely around. Les and I were there, saw it go down. She was thrown a can of worms and she sorted it out."

  "I heard nobody knows what the hell happened."

  "That's what we told the papers. We do think Sam shot somebody in self-defense and that whoever it was has vanished, probably down to Massachusetts or New York to get patched up. But otherwise, we nailed everyone else for probation or weapons or drug charges. Your old pal Bob Ryan was at the top of the list, in case you missed that detail. And Sam not only made it happen, but she got out without being blown and even made points with her bad boy escort."

  "Who is?"

  Gunther shook his head. "Need to know, Willy, and you already know way more than you should."

  Kunkle bristled at that. "Yeah, no shit. I'm the one guy who'd catch a bullet for her and I'm being kept in the dark. Fucking Lester's on the inside, for crying out loud. What the hell gives you the right to screw with people's lives?"

  Joe smiled at that. "You think I put this together?"

  Willy instantly grasped his meaning. "You could've stopped her. You can still stop her."

  "How'd you react if you were me?"

  Willy Kunkle seemed suddenly deflated by all the sparring. His shoulders slumped, and he stared at the floor for a few moments before conceding, "Crazy bitch. One of these days she'll get into a crack . . ." His voice trailed off.

  Gunther took pity on him, now that it seemed safer to do so. Willy's ex-wife, Mary, had recently died in New York City. They hadn't kept in touch, but the guilt over how he'd treated her while they were married—and the fact that afterward she'd fallen on hard times—had propelled him to go AWOL in order to solve her death. He hadn't lost his job over it, although he'd come close, and he had been successful in his pursuit, but he'd been typically reckless and had almost cost Sam her life. The irony of that had been lost on none of them, and it had certainly done nothing to smooth Willy's rough edges. Life's lessons seemed as baffling and contradictory as ever to him.

  "What she's doing isn't risk-free," Gunther admitted, "but we do have a good bunch watching her back."

  "Why not me?" Willy suddenly asked, looking up at him hopefully.

  "You know why," the older man said gently.

  Kunkle might have blown up again at that, but he knew the ground rules, even if he so rarely followed them. With his personal attachment to Sam, neither he nor anyone else would know for sure how he might react in a crisis. Among cops, it was like not letting a surgeon operate on his own wife.

  Joe watched him sympathetically for a while before saying, "I am sorry I kept you out of the loop. I tried calling you twice at home, but I couldn't find you. And I didn't want to leave a message."

  Willy nodded wearily. "I know. I've been doing my usual night crawling, keeping tabs on the scumballs." He sighed and stood up quietly. "Could you give me an update now and then? I mean, I'm guessing she's under till the end, right?"

  Gunther nodded. "I'll keep you informed." He paused, rubbed his chin, and added, "But you keep out of it, okay?

  I don't want to see you anywhere near this operation. For Sam's sake."

  Willy addressed the floor, his voice almost mournful. "Right."

  * * *

  Sam sat on one of Johnny Rivera's chairs, facing the window, her feet propped up on its sill, staring out at the clouds she could see floating by over the top of the metal sheet blocking the rest of the view

  "You ever get out of here? This would drive me nuts. Where do you actually live?"

  Rivera ignored her, sitting at his worktable, counting the money she'd brought in. Manuel was leaning against the wall by the door, smoking a cigarette.

  Sam got up, pulled her chair closer to the window, and then stood on it to see over the top of the obstruction.

  That caught Rivera's attention. He glanced up. "What're you doing?"

  She looked over her shoulder at him. "Admiring the view. It's not half bad. All the missing buildings, you can see pretty far. What's the town across the river?"

  But Rivera was back to counting.

  "Chicopee," Manuel answered quietly.

  She smiled at him and he nodded, just barely. After escaping from the shoot-out in Brattleboro, they'd continued north, to Bellows Falls, Windsor, White River Junction, making phone calls and stops along the way, selling off the contents of the infamous paper bag in dark motel parking lots and back alleys. Unbeknownst to Manuel, all the buys had been rigged. But hidden from all of the buyers had been Sam's true identity. The task force had merely put the word out that a new operator was making a swing-through and that they'd appreciate all the help they could get in building a case. Confidential informants, "CIs" in the trade, cut both ways. Usually minor criminals who were working for the police to stay out of jail,
they also maintained their ties to the underworld and could be trusted to spread the word of any new players. Thus the benefit to Sam's new image was doubled.

  After the way the night had begun, it had almost become fun, and Sam had used the opportunity of their baptism of fire to get chatty with Manuel. It hadn't been entirely successful. He'd stayed reserved to the end, if no longer sullen, but at least the first impression she'd made of being a racist jerk had been removed, and by the time they'd arrived back in Holyoke, shortly after dawn, she was hoping the first flickers of a friendship had begun to catch hold.

  Rivera finally sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. "Fifteen thou and change."

  "I told you that when we walked in," she said, climbing down from her chair. "That's better than your highest hopes, right? Admit it."

  "It's good."

  "It's great. And four thousand of it's mine." She crossed the room with her hand out.

  "Cute," Rivera said, but he was smiling. He already had the agreed-upon $3,000 in a separate pile, which he handed her.

  She riffled through it happily, making a sound like a card against a bicycle wheel's spokes. "So I pass muster?"

  "You did fine," Rivera conceded.

  "Manuel give me good grades?"

  He nodded. "He said you handled yourself okay. What about your boyfriend? What was that?"

  "He's an asshole and he was never my boyfriend. I got what I needed out of him, which was a bunch of contacts. I hope he got his butt shot off."

  "You were lucky," Rivera said, watching her.

  "I was smart," she countered, jerking her thumb at Manuel. "Ask him. I knew damn well the bouncer wasn't acting on his own. That's not how it works. You smell a rat, you do something about it. I did."

  "And you abandoned your friend. That might make me nervous."

  "I cut out some dead weight you never liked in the first place. You unhappy we're rid of Dancer?"