Джеймс Паттерсон - The Inn

“Uh-huh. How so?” I asked, not interested in the answer. A hand reached into the basket of potatoes beside me and plucked one out. Susan Solie gave me a friendly smile.

“Sorry to interrupt.” She glanced at Angelica. “Bill, could I speak to you for a moment? I’m having an issue with my room.”

Angelica gave the sigh of the unheard and unappreciated artiste and walked off. Susan took a small knife from the drawer and started peeling beside me.

“That creaky shutter still giving you trouble?” I asked.

“No.” She laughed. “I just didn’t want your ears to fall off.”

“Oh, right. Thanks. I only have three pairs left after these.”

“Speaking of body parts, is that a doorknob in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?”

I blushed and put the doorknob on the windowsill. I like Susan, but she makes me nervous. I’m well aware that she could use her Bureau contacts to find out what Malone and I did in Boston that got us fired. She’d hinted that morning that she knew, and she seemed like the type to check on those sorts of things, not only for her own peace of mind but to ensure Effie’s safety. I didn’t know all the details, but I sensed that Susan had brought Effie with her to the house so she could keep an eye on that mysterious, scarred woman. I sometimes saw the two of them in the forest or on the beach, Susan talking about what were apparently grave and troubling things as Effie bent her head and listened. I didn’t know if Effie was an undercover operative or a witness in need of protection or what, but I felt like Susan would have vetted me and probably everyone else in the house.

We peeled together in silence for a while.

“So what did you find out on your little mission today?” she asked.

“Oh.” I sighed. “I might have a lead on a regular user of the same stuff that Minnow had. I might be able to use him to find the distributor. I think we’re dealing with fentanyl.”

“I think you are too,” she said. She peeled the vegetables like a machine, slipping three perfect potatoes into the bowl for every misshapen one of mine. “I did a little digging around on your behalf,” she went on. “The Bureau tried to intercept a big shipment of fentanyl headed for Boston six months ago and got a decoy instead of the real batch. From what the informant says, there might have been up to a hundred pounds of the stuff, and the Bureau thinks it’s all heading north. They’ve had concentrations of fentanyl deaths in Lynn, Manchester, and Beverly.”

“This stuff must be pretty bad if the Bureau is interested in it.”

“It’s serious. Fentanyl is seventy-five times stronger than morphine. One of its analogs is carfentanil. That’s a thousand times stronger. They use it to tranquilize elephants.”

“I can’t remember the last time I tranquilized an elephant myself,” I said.

Susan snorted.

“I do remember when the big drug causing everyone panic was cocaine, though.”

“Me too.” She smiled. “My parents were terrified.”

“So people are actually dealing this stuff on the street?” I turned to her. “To kids ?”

“They’re dealing it to whoever will take it,” Susan said. “But kids make good customers because they spread information via social media about where to get it and how good it is.”

“This is making all the weed I smoked in high school sound pretty tame.”

“It was.” She gave me another wry smile.

“Why do people need it when there’s heroin? Isn’t heroin enough?”

“Well, see, that’s the problem. After a while, it’s not.” She shrugged. “If you’ve been a heroin addict for a decent length of time, it doesn’t get you high anymore and you have to hit just to stay well. Fentanyl gives you that high again, and once you build up a tolerance to that, there’s carfentanil.”

“And what’s after that?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

“A body bag,” she said. “And the dealers don’t mind. In places where it’s really bad, like Baltimore, a few overdose deaths around a particular block just tells the addicts where the good stuff is. The stuff that hasn’t been cut up with baby formula or laundry detergent.”

“Is this what you did in the Bureau?” I asked. “Drug trafficking?”

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” she said. Her smile was broad; she was someone who wasn’t afraid to enjoy her own humor. Siobhan had been like that. Susan’s wet fingers touched mine as we both reached for the same potato, and the collar of my shirt was suddenly hot and tight. “My job wasn’t so glamorous. I didn’t do anything that would get my picture in the paper.”

“All the more intriguing,” I said. “International woman of mystery shying from the camera behind aviator sunglasses. Anti-terrorist secret agent.”

“Hardly.” She rolled her eyes.

“Whatever you were involved in, it must have been hardcore stuff,” I said. “Effie’s no pencil pusher, and from what I can tell, she’s your responsibility. Is she Bureau too or is she just someone you encountered in your job? Maybe she’s a spy. Maybe her name’s not Effie at all. Maybe those are her initials, F. E .”

“Cut it out.” She looked mildly alarmed for an instant. “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you and these deadbeat dealers. I want to help you, Bill. I believe in what you’re doing. These people don’t belong in Gloucester.”

I finished peeling the last potato and looked out the window. Marni was wandering on the beach beyond the trees, her cigarette trailing smoke from her fingers into the wind, her eyes on the pale yellow sky wedged between the clouds and the sea.

“They don’t belong anywhere,” I told her.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SLEEP WAS ALMOST impossible. When I dozed for a few minutes, I dreamed about little girls eating elephant tranquilizers and immediately snapped awake.

I left my basement bedroom and went up to the kitchen, where I found Sheriff Spears in front of the refrigerator, his belly illuminated by the interior light. He turned and smiled at me, a jar of pickles, a package of ham, a loaf of bread, and a bottle of mayonnaise hugged to his chest. I try not to look into the fridge too often. There’s a bottle of champagne in there that Siobhan and I had been saving for our anniversary, now a permanent fixture on the bottom shelf.

“Heading out on the night shift?” I asked the big man.

“No, I just got back. Full day of it. Jeez, I’m starved.”

I noticed a blue bruise on his fleshy brow as he dumped the ingredients on the counter and started putting together an enormous sandwich.

“Looks like you brought the fight to crime-fighting today,” I said.

“You wouldn’t believe it.” He slathered a half-inch layer of mayonnaise on the bread. “We’ve got a bag snatcher in town. I was out all day in an unmarked unit trying to spot the guy. Finally I see him make off with an old lady’s handbag outside the barbershop on Burnham Street. I called it in and pursued, lost the guy in the Oak Grove Cemetery.”

I sat at the table and listened as Clay pressed the tall sandwich flat with his huge hand, Godzilla squashing a tower of apartments. He took a couple of glasses down from the cupboard, poured a bourbon in one and a shot of pickle juice from the jar in the other.

“So after a while, I find the guy again near Riverside Avenue. But I’m so excited I’ve finally got him, I accidentally jump the curb with the unit. I go through a fence and a flower bed and knock over a big statue that’s standing in this woman’s front yard. I get out to chase the snatcher but I’m not in uniform, so the lady thinks I’m just some asshole who crashed on her lawn and is trying to run away. She comes out and smacks me in the face with a dictionary.”