Archer Mayor - Gatekeeper

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."

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?

Spinney 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."