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  He held her gaze a little longer than was comfortable. Sam became even more aware of being wrapped in Styro-foam beams. "That supposed to mean something?"

  He slid off the table and pretended to stretch, exposing his pale, soft, hairy stomach. "Well, you know . . . the boyfriend disappears where no one will find him, Jimmy dies right on cue, Dancer gets busted as soon as you meet Rivera. Almost too good to be true."

  He lowered his arms, shifted his feet slightly, and stood facing her silently like a boxer, ready to start. Sam knew not only that she was in trouble but that she'd been there from the start. The beanbag was a trap. If she'd had a gun, she couldn't have reached it, and in any case, she was hard-pressed to move without real effort.

  Nothing left to lose.

  She pitched violently to her left, spilling out of the bag and scrambling to gain her footing. Simultaneously, Stuey Nichols snatched a baseball bat off the table beside him, swung neatly around on his heel in a windup, and came up like a golfer, hitting her in the upswing, right across the abdomen as she was still on all fours. The blow lifted her off the floor and sent her rolling against the wall, doubled over with pain.

  She opened her eyes just enough to see him standing over her, the smile gone and the bat held ready. "Who do you think you're shitting, lady? Think I'm a fucking moron? You're a Brattleboro cop. I know you. You busted me five years ago, for Christ's sake. You must take me for a fucking idiot."

  "I do," said a male voice behind him.

  Nichols swung around. Sam saw Willy Kunkle smack the other man across the head with a heavy metal flashlight, dropping him like a cement bag at Sam's feet.

  Willy knelt down next to her. "You okay?"

  "Don't know yet," she said weakly. "He dead?"

  Willy barely glanced at Nichols. "He's breathing. What the hell were you thinking? That he wouldn't recognize you?"

  She rolled her eyes. "I didn't recognize him, for crying out loud. How did you know?"

  He smiled slightly. "I been tailing you, just in case. Soon as I saw him through the screen door, I pegged him. I just couldn't figure out what your plan was. Pretty clever, getting yourself almost killed. Good way to gain his confidence."

  "Up yours."

  Willy sat back on his heels. "You must be feeling better. You want to try moving?"

  He held out his hand to help her. Slowly, she straightened her legs, getting her stomach to relax, and palpated her abdomen. Other than feeling tender and nauseous, however, she sensed nothing vital was broken. Slowly, groaning with discomfort, she rolled onto her knees and used the wall to help her stand, Willy's strong right hand on her elbow for support.

  She stood there a moment, the room spinning around, her throat constricted and her stomach in turmoil.

  "You gonna puke?" Willy asked, the sensitive nursemaid.

  She spoke through clenched teeth. "If I do, I'll make sure I hit you."

  He didn't laugh as he might have normally, but steered her over to a nearby legitimate chair. "Sit. Looks like you'll live."

  He returned to Nichols and checked his pulse. Apparently satisfied, he glanced down the hallway to make sure it was still empty and then sat on a small side table opposite Sam. "So what the hell went wrong?"

  She gave him an exasperated glare. "I don't have your encyclopedia brain, Sherlock. Nothing triggered when I saw him."

  Willy shook his head. "Well," he conceded, "he used to have a lot of hair and a mustache. Still . . . What about our flawless boss? Didn't he tell you the guy had a Brattleboro rap sheet? That might've been vaguely helpful."

  Given all that Gunther had done over the years to ensure Willy's employment as a cop, Sam could never believe the latter's constant lack of gratitude. "Give it a rest. It was a screwup. Everyone survived."

  "This time," Willy said disgustedly and stood up again. He began looking around the room. "But I knew this would happen. This whole thing's been half-cocked from the start. He never should've okayed it."

  "I forced him to. I'd already signed on with Rivera before I told him."

  He turned to face her. "That's not how it works, and you know it, Sam. He's the top guy. He calls the shots. He was playing politics and you were helping him. That's not police work. It's . . . I don't know . . . bullshit."

  She watched his face, its intensity showing more concern than anger, and she realized once more how oblique he could be in showing affection. Christ almighty—she could pick them.

  "What do we do now?" she asked, to change the subject. "This jerk's punching-bag girlfriend isn't going to stay in her corner forever."

  Willy was back in motion, poking around, searching for something. "Yeah, yeah. I'm working on that."

  He finally lifted up a pale blue baggie, filled with the familiar dusting of white powder. "Bingo. Okay. You call your pals on the task force, tell 'em you got burned and you need a cover team to pretend to bust this guy for this." He waved the baggie back and forth. "That'll legitimize their crashing in here and tossing the place and making it look good for tomorrow's paper. After that, they can put him under guard in the hospital or shoot him in the head. Anywhere he can't flap his gums."

  He handed her his cell phone so she could make the call.

  But Sam was looking at the baggie in his hand, the memory of what she'd been trying to recall earlier, just before the Ecstasy took over, coming back to her.

  "That's Torres's stuff," she said.

  Willy glanced at it. "So?"

  "I saw his lieutenant packing it when I was in Holyoke. Same pale blue baggies. It's a signature, like the panther stamp Rivera uses on his. You ever see any like that before?"

  "No. Maybe he just got a good deal on them."

  "Maybe, but Rivera's supposed to have taken over the run. And, like I said, he uses regular bags and his own stamp."

  "Yeah, but he took over just recently, right?" Willy countered. "Couldn't this be a leftover from the Torres days?"

  Sam wasn't convinced. Something wasn't right.

  Stuey Nichols let out a small groan from the floor.

  "Make the call, Sam. We gotta get going."

  Chapter 19

  Spinney kept trying to slow down, control his breathing, keep at the speed limit. He was driving from Rutland back to Springfield on Route 103, fresh from another session with Peter Bullis and young George backer. They'd been grilling the kid for his knowledge of Rutland's peripheral drug traffic—Bellows Falls, Fair Haven, Castleton, Springfield, and elsewhere—when the name Sherman came up.

  "Sherman?" Spinney had asked, sitting up.

  "Yeah," Backer had confirmed. "He's been operating out of Springfield for a long time—years and years."

  "Moving heroin?"

  The Schemer had shrugged. "Not always. it's just what I heard lately."

  "You know this guy?" Bullis had asked Lester.

  "Yeah. But never connected to heroin."

  Spinney passed another car on a curve, causing an angry blast of the man's horn. That had been the extent of backer's knowledge—a vague rumor, really. Except that given the young man's accuracy so far, even a rumor carried weight.

  It certainly did with Lester, who'd begged off attending the afternoon session for some emergency personal time off.

  He had yet to speak with Dave about the blunts Wendy had found in her bedroom—his son was still supposedly on a camping trip. As a result, the growing anxiety about that inevitable confrontation had combined with hearing Sherman's name linked to heroin like a match with a fuse. Simple surveillance was no longer the issue. Now Spinney was acting as a firefighter might, running into a burning building with the sinking sensation that it was already too little, too late.

  And the stimulus wasn't restricted to a father's love. There was guilt, as well, for not having acted sooner, for having put harmony over honesty and experience. After all, who better than a cop to know how, statistically, marijuana leads to harder drugs? And how a parent is always the last one to admit there's trouble?

  Spi
nney entered Springfield from the west, sped through the intersection near the Zoo, and burned the red light downtown, cutting off several cars in the process. All self-restraint gone by now, the only thing he could see in his mind's eye was putting his hands around Sherman's neck.

  He hit the South Street hill hard, only a small part of his brain wondering how he'd react if he was pulled over right now, and proceeded to where Sherman had his half-hearted garage business not far from the high school.

  He came skidding to a halt before the open garage door, launched himself out of the car, and strode into the service bay. A pair of legs was sticking out from under a car with its hood up.

  "Sherman?" he shouted.

  "What?" came the startled reply. "You almost gave me a heart attack."

  Not answering, Spinney grabbed both the man's ankles and pulled him out as if he were yanking a tablecloth from under a plate. Lying on a small, wheeled creeper, Sherman went shooting across the floor and crashed against a tall metal tool cabinet.

  He rolled off the creeper, both hands wrapped around his left knee. "Jesus Christ," he moaned. "You son of a bitch. Damn, that hurts. What the hell's your problem?"

  Spinney dropped down next to him and grabbed his collar to pin him to the ground. His face was inches from Sherman's. "My problem is what you're doing to my son, you asshole, not to mention god knows how many other kids. You know who I am?"

  Natty Sherman was not a street smart bad guy, big on attitude and striking a mean pose. In outlook, at least, he was like the hippies of yesteryear—peace-loving, self-indulgent, careless of the rules, and generally aimless. Confronted with this kind of rage, he was not one to fight back.

  "Sure I do," he answered, his eyes wide with fear. "You're Spinney's dad—the cop. What're you doing? What did I do?"

  Lester bore down, making Natty squirm with pain against the hard concrete floor. "You're breaking the law, you're fucking up people's brains, and worst of all, you're messing with my family."

  The other man was now red in the face, gasping for air, and could only just get out, "I just blow a little weed."

  That made Spinney even angrier. "Don't you get it? We're not on the record here. I'm one inch away from breaking your neck, and I'll do it to save my kid. Don't give me the 'blow a little weed' crap. You're pushing heroin, and you will go down for it."

  Sherman was flopping around by now, his feet flailing and his hands pulling at Spinney's forearm. "No heroin . . . It isn't me."

  Spinney loosened his hold slightly, and Natty gasped for air like a man breaking free of deep water.

  "I swear to god," he continued, "I wouldn't do that. Heroin kills people. It's not like weed. Ask anybody. They'll tell you. I wouldn't allow it in the house. It's weed only. Never anything else. I make sure my kids know that. That they spread the word. I don't even let 'em smoke cigarettes."

  Lester Spinney stared at him for a moment and then released him. "Where're your kids now?"

  Sherman blinked. "My kids? What? . . . Hold it."

  Lester grabbed him again. "Focus, Natty. Answer the question, for both our sakes."

  Natty's eyes widened. "Andy's at home. Jeff's . . . I don't know. He said he went camping."

  Spinney let go again and pounded his fist against the cabinet just above Sherman's head, making the latter wince. "Shit," Lester yelled in frustration, and then took hold of Natty's face. "That's the line Dave gave me. Now, think about this: Is that likely? Is it likely the two of them would go camping together?"

  Sherman tried shaking his head. "No. I was happy when he told me because it's not something he's ever done before. I was surprised. And he didn't mention Dave."

  "Who did he mention?"

  "Nobody. He just said 'with friends.'"

  Lester pulled Natty up to a sitting position and propped him against the cabinet. The mechanic moved his neck around and felt the back of his head for any damage.

  Spinney leaned in close to him once more, crowding him. "Natty, you better be flying straight here. You see where I'm going with this?"

  "You think Jeff's been doing heroin."

  "Maybe, maybe not. What I know is that a grade A source just told me someone named Sherman had been dealing the stuff lately. I'd like to think Andy's too young. You claim it's not you. That leaves Jeff. Look me straight in the eye and tell me that's impossible—that there's no way in hell he would do that."

  Natty Sherman dropped Lester's gaze. His voice was a monotone. "He might."

  Spinney backed off and sat on the dirty floor next to Sherman. They looked like exhausted runners after a marathon.

  "So, if they didn't go camping, where are they?" Lester asked tiredly.

  Natty rubbed his forehead, leaving a dirty smear. "Christ. I don't know."

  "Think of Jeff's friends. If it's possible he's doing this, then you can probably think of the people he hangs out with you wish he didn't."

  "There's Craig Steidle."

  Lester closed his eyes briefly. "Right," he murmured.

  Steidle was the young hood driving the car the night Dave was picked up at the Zoo—the one Dave had claimed he wasn't seeing anymore.

  "That sounds right," Lester said. "You know where he lives?"

  * * *

  Westview is one of Springfield's poorer neighborhoods. Developed in the early forties to house the overflow of factory personnel needed for the war effort, it was once probably considered pretty upscale, or at least solidly middle class. It was that no longer. Its dominant feature—a large affordable housing development—had become a regular stop for police and probation officers alike, along with a steady flow of welfare, social, and drug rehab workers.

  Typical of an impressively topsy-turvy town, Westview was placed on top of a steep hill, accessible only from a single road connecting it to Springfield's downtown artery, and as shielded from the rest of the world as a distant suburbia. The comparison was apt. In what was becoming a signature of modern affordable housing, the Westview development at first glance looked for all the world like a trendy Connecticut condominium village. Spread along a pleasant tangle of short, winding streets essentially leading nowhere, these plastic-sided, two-story, beige-colored apartment buildings looked as perfect as a planning committee's proposal—and as tidy on the outside as the lives within them were not.

  "It's up this way, I think," Natty said, half to himself, craning forward to better see the buildings gliding by.

  Spinney slowed to a crawl. "You know the address?"

  "I know Steidle's car," he said, predictably enough. "I worked on it enough times."

  "You know him well?"

  Natty grunted equivocally. "He comes by a lot, but I can't say I know him. He's Jeff's friend."

  "Is he why you thought Jeff might be dealing?"

  The other man sighed. "I don't like him. Never have. But you can't tell your kids who to hang out with."

  Spinney didn't argue the point.

  "Steidle has a record, leads a wild life. Jeff looks up to him for that, I guess. I hoped I was setting an example for a better way."

  Spinney couldn't stop himself. "By smoking weed with him and his pals? You're famous all over town for that. I told my kid to stay away from your place."

  Natty didn't take it personally. "Yeah. I heard that. People get so bent out of shape. If they just legalized the stuff, everyone would see it's just like beer."

  "And that's better? Drinking with underage kids?"

  Sherman looked at him, appalled. "Oh, come on. Get real. You think they're not doing that already? I thought you guys knew what was going on. I should lay down the law at home so they'll go off and drink and get high Christ knows where? I'm as protective as any parent. I want them where I can see them. You play ball with your son, I bet—go fishing with him. What's blowing a little weed except more bonding?"

  "We're looking for Jeff right now because he's suspected of dealing heroin, Natty. What does that tell you?"

  Natty shook his head at Spinney's densene
ss and went back to looking out the window A minute later, he pointed to the right side of the street. "There it is." He was looking at a Firebird with more miles than flash left on it. "And that's the house, too. I'm sure of it. I been here once or twice. Didn't know if I'd remember it. They all look the same."

  Lester didn't need convincing. His son's bicycle was leaning against the wall. He pulled over across the street. "You stay here."

  "What're you gonna do?"

  "I just want to get Dave."

  "What about Jeff?"

  "I don't care about him, Natty. He's your problem."

  Spinney got out, checked for traffic, and took in a few people loitering up and down the block, several of whom were watching him closely, knowing his profession from experience. He crossed the street, climbed the porch steps, and knocked on the door.

  The man who opened up was a familiar type, even if unknown to Spinney personally. It seemed that no matter their social status, humans veered toward uniformity. From skinheads to millionaires, we find comfort in cloning one another. This guy was dressed in boots, jeans, tight black Harley T-shirt, long hair, and the requisite tattoos.

  "You Craig Steidle?"

  "Who wants to know?"

  "I'm looking for my son, David Spinney."

  Steidle smiled lazily. "You're the cop. He's not here."

  "His bike is."

  "I wouldn't know about that. People leave their junk around all the time."

  "Mind if I come in?"

  "Sure I mind. You got a warrant?"

  Spinney forced a smile. "Look, Mr. Steidle, I'm not shopping here, not looking to cause any trouble. I just want my son. I have absolutely no bone to pick with you or anyone else inside."

  Steidle leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms. "Got that right, 'cause you're not comin' in."

  "He's underage, Mr. Steidle."

  "Tough. He's here of his own free will."

  Spinney laughed. "God, you guys are stupid. You just admitted he was here. I'm his father. You don't give me access, that's custodial interference. Get out of the way."