Jeffery Deaver - Solitude Creek

‘That’s your opinion, whoever you are. Were you one of those watching me in the goldfish bowl the other day?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fooled you pretty good, didn’t I?’ he gloated.

Dance said, ‘Yes, you did. But my colleague’s right. It’s not going to work out how you want.’

The young man said evenly, ‘You said nothing good comes from killing law. Well, you know what? I’m thinking a lot of good’ll come of it. You been on my ass since Wednesday. I been hiding here, hiding there. That’s a pain I don’t need. So I think a lot of good is going to come from having you both fucking dead. Okay. Enough.’

Dance said, ‘You shoot us and you think the agent out there won’t hear? If he doesn’t nail your ass, he’ll keep you pinned down until a TAC team...’

Fishing in his back pocket, Serrano pulled a silencer out and screwed it onto the muzzle of his weapon. ‘I like the way you say “ass”.’

Dance glanced at Foster, whose expression remained placid.

‘So. Here. I’m a religious man. You take a few seconds to make your peace. Pray. You have something you want to say? Somebody up there you want to say it to?’

Her voice ominous, Dance said defiantly, ‘You’re not thinking, Joaquin. Our boss knows we’re here, a dozen others. I could get a call any minute. I don’t pick up and there’ll be a dozen TAC officers here in ten minutes, combing the area. Lockdown on the roads. You’ll never get away.’

‘Yeah, I think I take my chances.’

‘Work with me and I can keep you alive. You walk out that door and you’re a dead man.’

‘Work with you?’ He laughed. ‘You got nothing. What they say in football, I mean soccer? Nil. You’ve got nil to offer.’

The gun was already racked. He lifted it toward Foster, who said, ‘Lamont.’

The young man frowned. ‘What?’

‘Lamont Howard.’

A confused look. ‘What’re you saying?’

‘Don’t act stupid.’ Foster shook his head.

‘Fuck you saying to me, asshole?’

Foster seemed merely inconvenienced, not the least intimidated. Or scared. ‘I’m saying to you, asshole , the name Lamont Howard.’ When there was no response he continued, ‘You know Lamont, right?’

The Latino’s eyes scanned their faces uncertainly. Then: ‘Lamont, the gang-banger run the Four Seven Bloods in Oakland. What about him?’

Dance said, ‘Steve?’

Foster: ‘You been to his house in Village Bottoms?’

A blink.

‘West Oakland.’

‘I know where the Bottoms is.’

Dance snapped, ‘What’s this all about, Steve?’

Foster waved her silent. Back to the young man. ‘Okay, Serrano, here’s the deal. You kill me, Lamont will kill you. Simple as that. And he’ll kill everybody in your family. And then he’ll go back to his steak dinner, because he likes his steak. I know that because I have been to his crib and had a steak dinner with him. A dozen of them, in fact.’

Dance turned to Foster. She whispered, ‘ What? ’

‘Fuck you saying, man?’

‘Are you catching on? I’m Lamont’s inside man.’

Dance stared at him.

‘No fucking way.’

‘Yeah, well, Serrano, I can say yes and you can say no way until you have to take a crap. But wouldn’t it make sense just to ask him? ’Cause if you don’t and you take me out, Lamont and his crew lose their one connection to CBI and points beyond. DEA, Customs and Border, Homeland. And I wonder which dry well you and your mother and sister will be sleeping out eternity in.’

‘Fuck. Wait. I hear something. A month ago. Some Oakland crew was getting solids from Sacramento.’

‘That’s me.’ Foster seemed proud.

Dance looked out of the window. Stemple, still gazing away into the waving grass. She growled to Foster, ‘You son of a bitch.’

He ignored her. ‘So, call him.’

The Latino looked him over, not getting too close. Foster was much larger. ‘I no got his number. You think him and me, we asshole buddies?’

Foster sighed. ‘Look, I’m taking my phone out of my pocket. That’s all. My phone.’ He did. ‘Ah, Kathryn, careful there.’

Her hand had dropped toward a table on which a heavy metal lamp sat.

‘Serrano? Could you...’

The young man noted that Dance had been going for the lamp. He stepped forward and roughly pushed her against the wall, away from any potential weapons.

Foster made a call.

‘Lamont, it’s Steve.’ He hit the speaker.

‘Foster?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What you calling for?’ The voice was wary.

‘Got a situation here. Sorry, man. There’s a hothead, from one of the Salinas crews, with a piece on me. He’s out of the...’ Foster lifted an eyebrow.

‘Barrio Majados.’

‘You hear that?’

Howard’s voice: ‘Yo, I know ’em, I work with ’em. What’s this about? Who is he?’

‘Serrano.’

‘Joaquin? I know Serrano. He disappeared. There was heat on him.’

‘He’s surfaced. He doesn’t know who I am. Just tell him we work together. Or he’s going to park a slug in my head.’

‘Fuck you doing, Serrano? Leave my boy Foster alone. You got that?’

‘He with you?’

‘The fuck I say?’

The gun didn’t lower. ‘Okay, only... any chance he undercover?’

‘Well, he is, then he’s the only undercover took out a Oakland cop.’

‘No shit.’

Howard said, ‘Asshole show up at my place unexpected. Foster, pop pop, took him down.’

‘Steve, no!’ Dance whispered, dismay in her voice.

Howard called, ‘The fuck’s that?’

‘Another cop, works with Foster.’

‘That’s just fucking great.’ The banger in Oakland sighed. ‘You two take care of her. I got shit to do here.’

The call ended.

‘Serrano,’ Dance began, ‘what I was saying before. You need to be smart. You—’

The Latino snapped, ‘Shut up, Kathryn.’

With a cold smile, she said to Foster, ‘The story you told me before. You don’t have a son, do you? That was a lie.’

He turned to her, offering a nonchalant shrug. ‘I didn’t know what was going down. Needed you on my side.’

Dance sneered, ‘You can’t be running a network on your own. You’re not that smart.’

Foster was indignant. ‘Fuck you. I don’t need anybody else.’

‘How many people’ve died because of what you’ve done?’

‘Oh, come on,’ the man said gruffly. Then: ‘Serrano, let’s get this done. Do her, I’ll get the asshole outside in here. We take him out. I’ll tell the response team I got out the back and hid in the hills. I’ll say it was somebody else here, not you. One of the crews from Tijuana.’

‘Okay with me,’ was the matter-of-fact response.

Then Foster was squinting. ‘Wait.’

‘What?’

‘You... you said, “Kathryn”. You called her “Kathryn”.’

A shrug. ‘I don’t know. So?’

‘I never used her first name here. And I was at the interview last week between you and her. She never said it either.’

I’m Agent Dance...

A grimace. The Latino accent was gone as the young man said, ‘Yep, I screwed up on that. Sorry.’ He was speaking to Kathryn Dance.

‘No worries, José,’ she said, smiling. ‘We got everything we needed. You did great.’

Foster stared from one to the other. ‘Oh, Jesus Christ.’

‘Serrano’ who was actually a Bakersfield detective named José Felipe-Santoval, aimed his weapon center-mass on Foster’s chest, while Dance, relieved of her weapon but not her cuffs, ratcheted the bracelets on.

Adding to Foster’s shock, the agent who’d been pretending to be the deceased Pedro Escalanza hopped to and dusted off his jeans, drawing his own weapon. He’d been lying face down, head hidden from the trio in the hotel room.