Jeffery Deaver - Bloody River Blues

"Yeah, basketball. Wheelchair basketball. And some guys do the marathon. I guess you can coast downhill. Man," he said, smiling, "that's me-doing a marathon sitting on my ass. Hey, you want something to eat?"

"Thanks a ton. Hospital food?'

"Naw, I got some good stuff here. Ruffles, dip. Cookies."

Pellam shook his head. Buffett ate half a cookie and stared into the cellophane bag for a moment. He rolled the top of the bag tight. Set it on a tray.

Pellam did a tour of the greenhouse by the window. He said, "So how long you been on the force?"

"Close to seven years."

"You say that? Force?"

"Sure, you can say that."

"And you walked a beat, like in the old days?"

"Some neighborhoods aren't so good anymore. Mad-dox's really gone to the dogs. So you make movies?"

"Not me. I just find locations."

"How'd you get into that?"

"Fell into it, I guess. I like to travel."

"You meet any Hollywood honeys? You must, huh?"

"I stay clear of the Coast. Not my scene, really."

"Then why're you in movies?"

"Why're you a cop?"

Buffett shrugged.

"Oh, I forgot." Pellam lifted the stained bag he carried. "It's beer. Can you drink it?"

"Hell, yes, I can drink it."

Pellam sat down on the sturdy gray chair. They opened two cans and drank them down. "You know," Buffett said, "all these guys I work with? Mean sons of bitches some of them, it's like they turn into pussies when they come to see me. They bring me flowers. They bring me magazines. Nobody's brought me any beer. A lot of guys don't come. I think they're nervous or something about seeing me, about what they're going to say."

Pellam stood up and slipped two fresh cans in the water pitcher next to the bed. He filled it with cold water. The lid did not close completely. "If you got a spacey nurse, maybe you can get away with it."

'"Predate it, chief."

Pellam sipped his beer. He waited a moment, then said, "I guess I wanted to say this last time, but, well, you looked pretty upset and I held off."

"Say what?"

"I'm really getting hassled. Your buddies-and the FBI now-they're really on my case. They've been on the set and it's messing up the film. I'm worried about my job. I can't afford that right now."

Buffett shrugged. "If you didn't see anything, you didn't see anything."

"Yeah, but they don't feel that way and they're all over the place. The FBI's talking about looking into the company's tax returns and corporate documents." Pellam made a helpless gesture with his hands.

"Oh, the feds're pricks from the git-go," Buffett said as if explaining something as basic as gravity. Then he nodded. "Ron Peterson-he's the U.S. Attorney-he's a maniac." He explained about Gaudia and Crimmins and the 60 Minutes program. "Peterson's going to get Crimmins and nothing in this world is going to stop him."

Pellam continued, "I want to help. I don't want to be a GFY but-"

This brought a spark to Buffett's eyes. He started to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Pellam was irritated.

"Somebody called you a GFY?"

'Your friends. The detectives."

"Gianno and Hagedorn." Buffett laughed again. "Nobody told you what that means?"

"They told me it meant a reluctant witness."

"Pellam, believe half of what cops tell you. It means, go fuck yourself."

"Very funny. Very goddamn funny."

Buffett continued to laugh.

After a moment, Pellam's mouth curled upward and he laughed loud. "GFY. That's good, I gotta admit."

"Listen, Pellam, I got a deal for you. I want you to do me a favor. You do it and I'll tell the department to lay off. I can't do anything with the Bureau but they'll listen to me at Maddox Police."

"You'd do that?"

"You got my word."

"What's this favor?"

"No big deal. There's something in my house I want you to get for me."

"Me?"

"If you wouldn't mind."

"No, I guess not." Buffett saw Pellam's eyes flick to Buffett's wedding ring. He asked, "Why not have your wife bring it when she comes to visit?"

'The thing is," Buffert said, as his determined and cheerful eyes moved from Pellam's face to the fuzzy TV screen, "it'd upset her."

It was a small neighborhood of bungalows set on postage-stamp-size lawns five minutes from downtown Maddox. Both the dark brick houses and the grass were well tended and trim. Pleasant. Pellam believed he had cruised along this street on his quest for the perfect Tony Sloan bungalow. The traffic from a nearby expressway was an irritating sticky rush that filled the air and yellow haze from a half dozen brick smokestacks hung thick over the yards.

Pellam climbed off the Yamaha. He paused in front of the house and checked the address. There was a white Nissan in the driveway and behind it a brown Mercury station wagon with Illinois plates.

The small garden in front held the corpses of flowering plants. Stalks mostly. Bleak. Pellam knew nothing about gardening but if this had been his lawn, he would have added some evergreens. He walked up the winding brick path to the small porch.

One other thing he noticed: There were no tricycles or other toys here as there were in all of the other yards.

He pressed the bell. There was no answer. He opened the screen door and banged a large brass knocker. A moment later the door opened. He was looking at a thin brunette with a long face, cautious and nondescript. Late twenties. She had flawless skin. Every time he glanced away from her he forgot what she looked like.

"Mrs. Buffett?"

"Yes?" She held the door as far open as the thick brass chain would allow. A sickening sweet scent- maybe air freshener, maybe cheap perfume-flooded out.

"I'm John Pellam."

A blink. Then understanding. "Right right right. Donnie said you were coming by." A formal smile. She didn't offer her first name. Buffett had told him it was Penny.

"I have to pick up a few things."

"That's what he said."

The door closed then opened, the chain unhooked. She motioned him inside. He saw two other people. Her parents, he guessed. The woman was what Penny would be in twenty years: thin, white-haired with beautiful skin. And very cautious. Penny's father was in his late fifties, with a businessman's paunch under his pink, short-sleeved shirt. They both stared at

Pellam. He introduced himself.

"Stan Brickell," the man said. "I'm Penny's father. This's my wife, Ruth." The woman nodded.

It occurred to him that if he said, "I'm sorry" by way of general sympathy, they might think Buffett had died. He asked,

"You live in the area?"

"Carbondale."

Pellam nodded. "I just saw him an hour ago. Donnie. He looked pretty good."

"You on the force with him?"

"I'm a friend."

Penny said, "Donnie's mentioned you a couple times."

He had?

"What do you have to pick up?"

"Some forms for the office."

Penny said, "I could take them."

"I have to stop by the Criminal Court building. It's pretty grim down there, Donnie said." This was the lie that Buffett had coached him on.

"I would, though. If he wanted me to take them there, I would." She said this with great sincerity.

It was then that Pellam noticed the burning candle. It was a funny thing. Red, thick, about three feet high, with charms stuck onto it. It had been burning for a long time; there was a slick puddle of wax in the black saucer the candle rested on, two burning sticks of incense angled out of the shaft. That's what was stinking up the house. Sandalwood or something. It reminded him of high school-black lights, the Jefferson Airplane, peace symbols that meant peace and tie-dye that was fashionable, not nostalgic.

He looked around the living room. The candle was a hint but it did not prepare him for the collection of paintings, statues, and icons. All religious, mostly crudely done. Pellam wondered if Penny had made them herself. There were pictures of native Africans, thin black men and women, with intense, euphoric gazes. There were wooden crosses, spattered with dark red paint. Posters of pentagrams and star charts and crystals. A large glass pyramid, inside of which was a shriveled-up brown and flesh-colored object. It looked like a dried apricot. Like many of these objets d'art the pyramid was covered with dust.