Don Winslow - A Cool Breeze on the Underground

Then he’d think about calling Diane. Hell, he thought one night, you have two women in your life and you’ve lost them both. One you can’t find, and the other can’t find you. Brilliant.

And you’re about out of time-with Diane as well as Allie. So call her. And say what? Tell her all about Friends and your fascinating line of work? Tell her that grad school is finished because you’ve fucked up the dirty job of finding an abused child and taking her back to her abusive father?

So he’d think better of it. Try to read. Give up and drink scotch.

Day after day, night after night. And the nights were bad. Worse as the days went by and he hadn’t found the kid. Worse as images of the Halperin kid crept into his head when he tried to sleep, infecting his thoughts with images of death.

Face it, he thought. Allie could be anywhere. She could be sick and she could be hurt. She could be beat-up aching, or clapped-up aging, junked-up dying. Dead like the last kid they’d sent him after.

More and more, he went to sleep with the picture of Allie in his mind. And in his mind, she was dead.

She looked great.

He saw her reflection first as he was passing by one of the more expensive eateries that flanked the square. He happened to glance up, and her reflection caught his eye and jerked his head up and around. She was inches away. Behind a pane of glass. And she looked great.

Her blond hair glittered from the light of the lamp hanging above her, and even in the shadowy light of the restaurant, she looked healthy, alive. At this moment she was laughing. She wore a black sleeveless T-shirt tucked into black jeans tucked into black ankle boots, sort of a demonic female Peter Pan. Her hair was cut short and uneven, above her ears, and her left ear sported a delicate silver chain that hung almost to her shoulder. She wore blood-red lipstick. She was drinking beer from a bottle. She was a beautiful girl having a wonderful time. And she was stoned out of her gourd.

For one awful second, Neal thought he might actually tap on the glass and yell, “Allie, come on. Time to go home.” But he backed off quickly, found an eddy in the traffic flow, and watched. He was surprised to hear his own heart beating.

Allie was sitting with three other people. One was a young man of about Neal’s build. His head was roughly shaved to a stubble, and he wore an impossibly filthy T-shirt that had been white in a time beyond memory. The shirt was torn in several places and the message FUCK THE WORLD had been crudely stenciled on the chest. He had a safety pin jammed through his right earlobe. He showed outrageously bad teeth when he grinned, which was often, as he was pointedly laughing at the witticism of the other man at the table, the dominant one. The laughter of the fawning ape. This one would be no problem.

A young woman sat beside him. She sported an orange, purple, and yellow crew cut, black eye shadow and lipstick, and had enormous boobs barely contained in a black leather jacket. She was chunky, her hips and butt jammed into leather pants, and Neal could barely imagine the rivulets of sweat that flowed underneath. She might have stretched toward attractive, but she was pretty enough for the laughing boy, who was all over her. She could be trouble, Neal thought, but not too much.

The other man was trouble. He was the A male, the leader of the pack. This was his table, his party, and his guests; his Allie.

He was of medium height, wide, stocky build-rugby type. He wore a pale khaki suit over a plain black T-shirt; no socks under soft brown loafers. A tiny stone that looked like an emerald adorned his left ear, and three fresh shallow cuts ran straight down from his left eye to his cheekbone. They had just scabbed over and Neal guessed they were self-inflicted. He was drinking something that looked like a tall gin, and he sipped at it as he looked over his glass at Allie and smiled. He was trouble: major league.

He uttered some fresh snippet of wit that sent Fuck the World into a new paroxysm of laughter. This was for Allie, and FTW probably didn’t realize the joke was on him.

One very pissed-off waiter came to the table. Neal saw from his look that the staff here would like nothing better than to throw this punk quartet out into the alley and maybe set fire to them if the chance arose and they had a spare match. But the punks had money and lots of it. The manager probably just wanted to get them fed and get them out before the regular customers got the idea that this was more than a fluke. The other customers were already getting nervous but looked too intimidated to complain.

The Suit ordered for all four.

Neal stepped back for a minute to think it over. He had a choice to make here: stand back and follow them or move in. Following was probably the safer choice. There was a small chance that the smart one could make him, but he doubted that. He could follow them through the night, get an address, and then make a nice slow move. But there was a chance, as there always was with a one-man tail, that he would lose them and he might never get another shot.

On the other hand, if he moved in unprepared, he might blow it for good.

He took a deep breath, edged his way through the crowd on the sidewalk, and entered the restaurant. The headwaiter greeted him with the wooden smile reserved for lone diners that says, “I have to seat you but you ought to have gone to a counter, where you wouldn’t take up a whole table, so please, at least run up a big liquor tab.” That smile.

“Table for one, please.”

“Yes, sir. Follow me, please.”

Neal pointed to an empty deuce across the aisle from Allie. “How about that one?”

“Really, sir?”

“Honest to goodness.”

The man shrugged. “As you wish, sir.”

He seated him at the table and handed him the menu. “Enjoy your meal.”

Now what? Neal thought. Come on, genius, what next? You could reach over, tap her on the shoulder, and say “Gotcha.” You could explain that you’re on a scavenger hunt and you have to bring home a seventeen-year-old girl to a Vice Presidential candidate and get twenty thousand points, you could… actually smell her perfume, which was some wicked variety of musk. You could suddenly understand how some poor prep school teacher could…

Steady, lad. Let’s take it easy. Let’s wipe the sweat off your palms. Christ, you’ve only done about a thousand undercovers, and the basic rule is always the same: Get close, stay close, wait for an opening.

He studied the menu. Might as well get a good meal out of this. But there was nary a cheeseburger to be found. He decided on the lamb. “Waiter. Oh, waiter!” he heard the Suit say. So he was local East End. But he did a fine parody of an Oxbridge twit. The harried waiter came over.

“Where are our steaks?”

“Cooking, sir. Did you want them raw?”

“When I want any shit out of you, I’ll squeeze your head.” His eyes narrowed. He didn’t like being fucked with.

“Kill ’im, Colin,” laughing boy said.

A name. Colin. Thank you, baby Jesus. “If sir isn’t satisfied…” said the waiter.

“Sir isn’t leaving, if that’s what you’ve got on your mind. Now get us our bloody food. Wimpy’s have better service.”

“Better food, too.” Laughing boy was serious.

“Run along,” Colin said.

Laughing boy chimed in dutifully, “Now!” The shout lifted every head in the place.

“Easy, Crisp,” said Colin. “There’s an art to this. Eat your salad.”

“If you don’t, I will. I’m starving.” Oh, Allie, if you knew how long I’ve waited to hear you say that… or say anything.

Crisp pushed his plate to her. “You’re always hungry. How come you don’t get fat?”