Matt Hilton - Dead_s men dust

She'd already swallowed a cup of black coffee and was asking for more when we walked in. Harvey, playing chaperone, was sitting opposite her in the same booth. He looked as sharp as Samuel L. Jackson did in the remake of Shaft.

In contrast, I felt, and probably looked, like someone who'd slept in his clothes and tended to his ablutions in a tiny bowl in a cramped bathroom. Though washed and shaved, my body felt gritty and as rumpled as my shirt. The splinters of wood in my cheek itched like hell.

I sat down in no mood for wasting time.

"So what've you got to tell us, Louise?" I asked.

Louise shook her head, reaching for her coffee. I put my hand over her cup and she snapped her face to mine. There was fear there, but not a little anger. Good. It was the ideal mix. "You haven't come up with anything that'd help us?nd John?" I asked. "No," she said. "I haven't exactly had the time, considering I was held captive all morning."

"Have you seen the news?"

From the tight grimace on her face, I could tell that she had.

"Have you spoken to the FBI yet?"

"Yes. They were at my place half the night. Another reason I didn't get around to looking for clues." "So what did you tell them?" "Just what I told you." "Which is just about nothing," I said. Sarcasm was heavy in my voice, but I was in no frame of mind to worry about hurting her feelings. In my estimation, she wasn't the sensitive type anyway.

"I don't know anything."

"Bullshit!" I said a little too loudly. The waitress behind the serving counter shot me a concerned look. I raised an apologetic hand. The waitress nodded and went on about her business. She knew when to keep her nose out of other people's affairs.

"The men who were in your house," I said. "What did you tell them?"

"Nothing," she said. Her voice was strident. She pawed at the tail of her blouse, hitching it up. Her ribs were red and swollen from repeated whacks from the Yellow Pages. "Why do you think they were hitting me?"

Okay, then. She did have a point.

She didn't tell them anything. But it didn't mean there was nothing to tell.

Her hands were icy cold when I took them in mine.

"Now, Louise. We're going to start over again. This time you tell me what you know. Okay? You asked me here to help?nd John. I've traveled thousands of miles. The least you can do is tell me the god-damn truth."

Louise prized her hands free, then looked down at the table. I thought I detected a tear at the corner of one eye, but I could have been mistaken. She pushed her hair off her face, maybe surreptitiously wiping away the tear. When she looked up at me, it was with clear, de?ant eyes.

"John's no killer," she said.

"I know that," I told her. "But he has been up to something illegal. And you know exactly what it is."

She shook her head, a lock of hair breaking loose and?oating across her features. "If I say anything, he could go to prison."

I snorted. "If you say nothing he'll be going to prison for a damn sight longer."

"If he doesn't go to the gas chamber, that is," Rink added for emphasis.

"He didn't kill anyone," Louise said. She was adamant. Her?ngernails dug at the tabletop. "He was with me when some of the murders took place. I can swear to that!"

"You have to prove it, though," I pointed out. "Your solemn word isn't worth shit, Louise. Can you also give him an alibi for the other times of death?"

"That's the problem," she said. She glanced over at the waitress, checking that she wasn't listening. She leaned toward me and whispered, "If I say where he really was, he'll get put in prison anyway."

I looked at Harvey, then at Rink, for support. Both sat with frowns on their faces. It was helpful having such sage council at hand. When I spoke, I'd lost the hard edge to my voice. "Tell me what he's been up to, Louise. If I'm going to help John, I need to know."

She chewed at the corner of her lower lip. Any other time it would have looked as sexy as hell. Not now, though. She simply looked like a woman terri?ed of the consequences of her next words. "The delivery job," she said.

"Oh," I said.

She shook her mane of hair. "It's not what you think."

"Not drugs?" I asked.

Louise looked like I'd just thrown salt in her face. "No. Not drugs. Do you think I'd stand by him if he ever went near that crap?" I placed my hands?at on the table, leaned forward to stare in her face. "Depends on how much you love him."

Louise snorted and gave me the dead eye.

"Okay. Sorry. I don't doubt that you love him."

"It wasn't drugs," she stated.

"Okay," I said, relieved. "So what was he doing?"

Louise picked up her coffee in de?ance, drained it, placed the cup back down. A stall while she ordered the words in her mind. "He was couriering."

"Couriering what?"

"It wasn't so much what as who he was doing it for." She glanced around again. "Like I said, if the police?nd out, he'll be in deep shit." "Let's worry about?nding John?rst," I said. "We can worry about the police later."

Louise dropped her head in acquiescence.

"He stole something. Something big."

I blinked. "Something big?"

"That's all I know. He wouldn't say what it was."

I pushed my hands through my hair, back down over my face, then leaned my elbows on the table. "You've got to be kidding me," I?nally said. Though I knew she wasn't. John had got very good at hiding secrets toward the end.

"Honestly. He wouldn't say, so I didn't ask. Whatever it was, he said he could sell it, to make life better for everyone," she said. As if that made things all right.

I swore under my breath. I knew exactly where this was taking us now. Who the fake CIA agents probably were. "Who was he working for?"

"Sigmund Petoskey," she said.

"Uh-huh," I said. "But who was he collecting from?"

"I don't know for sure. A gangster from up north. Henry-somethingor-other."

"Hendrickson?"

"Yes. That's it."

"The men who were beating you this morning," I said. "They work for Hendrickson, huh?"

"They're the ones that John's running from," she agreed. She turned her face to the table, began playing with her empty cup.

"Have they been pressuring you for John's whereabouts?" I asked. "Before this morning, I mean."

Without answering, she leaned back, lifted up her blouse. I saw a toned abdomen. She pulled down the waistband of her skirt and there were three de?nite cigarette burns peeking above her panty line. "I'd show you more," she said, "only I don't know you as well as my gynecologist."

I bit down on my lip. One thing I was sure about: there was going to be a reckoning with the two who'd escaped us this morning.

"Why didn't you say something, Louise? We could've stopped them from hurting you again."

Her downcast eyelids trembled. "I was trying to protect John."

I looked at Harvey. "Any word on the street about the two who got away from us?"

"Nothing, Hunter," he replied. "You ask me, they heard the news and took off to the Mojave to try an' pick up John's trail. Which I suggest is probably your best play, too."

"I've been thinking the same thing," Rink told me.

Yeah. Me, too. But there were still a few loose ends I wanted to clear up?rst. When we'd raided Petoskey's building, I thought he'd been too ready to talk. Made me wonder if he'd been hiding something else about John. His anger at my brother had never been about a gambling debt. It had all been about this something big Louise mentioned. "Louise, what involvement did John have with Petoskey?"

She pulled her hair into a rope with her hands. "Petoskey was paying him decent money to drive up-country. I don't know where he was going, but he was gone about three days each time. He'd come back with his van loaded with packing crates and he'd drop them off at a warehouse Petoskey owns. That was his only part in it."