Lisa Scottoline - Devil's corner

But Vicki had lost her appetite. Guns. HIDTA. Bill Toner .

Maybe they were in over their heads. For the first time, she felt afraid, and ironically, it was because they were armed now, too.

"By the way, can I take you up on your offer last night, about the money?"

Good . "How much do you need? I got some cash."

"To get started, three hundred, if you can manage."

"I think I have it on me. I took out extra for the new car." Vicki reached for her wallet, counted out the bills, then stopped. "But I want collateral. The gun."

"What?"

"Give me the gun and I'll give you the money. I need collateral."

Reheema cocked her head, her lovely eyes narrowing. "You just don't want me to have a gun."

"No, really?" Vicki made a duh face, but Reheema didn't laugh.

"It won't help either of us if you have it. You don't know how to use it. You're good with a computer, but a gun is something else."

"You're no better than I am."

"Am, too."

Vicki clucked. "Have you ever shot a gun?"

"Yeah."

Oh . "At somebody?"

"Of course. How else you gonna hit 'em?"

Maybe National Honor Society only goes so far . "Still."

"Fine." Reheema shoved her hand into her pea coat and took out a gun as easily as car keys. It was a revolver with a silver barrel and a black handle, and she set it on the red table with a clunk .

"What are you doing?" Vicki snatched up the gun and put it on her lap before anybody saw it, not that there was anybody around to see. And even on her lap, the gun felt unsafe, as if it might spontaneously combust. Vicki had never been this close to a loaded weapon that wasn't pointed at her.

"Now gimme the money." Reheema stood up, hand outstretched, and Vicki handed her the cash. She folded it into a wad and stuffed it into her jeans pocket. "And don't think I can't take that gun from you, anytime I want it."

"Be that way." Vicki slid the gun into her purse, then stood up and tried to recover her dignity. It seemed oddly beside the point, now that she was carrying concealed.

Vicki and Reheema circled Lincoln Street a few times in the Intrepid, getting a bead on the new Cater Street operation since Browning's death. There were unfamiliar lookouts at both ends of Cater, but the same steady stream of customers flocked to the hole. The smaller snowplows must have come, because Cater had been cleared, permitting car traffic and curbside crack takeaway to recommence, busy as Outback Steakhouse.

Vicki had given up trying to figure out why having a gun made her feel less safe, and they forgot their lovers' quarrel and focused on the goings-on on Cater, once the Intrepid was parked behind their favorite snowbank.

"Same wine, different bottle," Reheema said, and Vicki nodded. Bright light flooded the car's crappy black interior, reflecting off the leftover snow. They actually needed the sunglasses, if not the dumb hats.

"Wonder if it's a whole new crew."

"Crew?" Reheema looked over the top of her sunglasses. "Where'd you learn that?"

"MTV."

"Proud a you." They both laughed, and Reheema asked, "So what's the plan, we wait for the go-between?"

"Right. I still wanna go up the chain, especially now that we're on to something. I think it's Toner's crew that hit Jack-son's house that night and killed her and Morty. Now we have to find the equivalent of Browning, but in Toner's crew, then go on up to the connect." Vicki started digging in her backpack for her camera. "I assume this organization works the same way."

"Gotta sell the crack, then gotta get more, and somebody got to bring it to you."

"Right." Mechanical . "So we watch and wait. We are the stakeout professionals."

" 'Xactly, lil' home."

Two hours later, they had moved the Intrepid a few times because the lookouts in Toner's crew were more watchful, spending no time smoking or talking to the customers, which made sense because they didn't know them. It got Vicki thinking. "This is a tougher organization."

"Why?"

"They're not from the neighborhood. This is a business, to them."

"It was a business to the others, too."

"It seemed more like a party, in comparison. Not like these guys, and the go-between doesn't come as often." Vicki checked her watch. "Browning's crew would've had Mr. Black Leather here once already."

"Might mean they got more than one seller in the hole. Double the supply." Reheema eyed the customers. "Weather's better, volume increasing. They're more competitive. Survival of the fittest."

"I stopped counting customers, but I could start again."

"Don't bother, it's a lot."

"Sure is," Vicki said, taking a picture.

Half an hour later, a black van barreled around the corner from the far end of Cater and stopped in front of the house, idling exhaust. "Look alive," Reheema said.

"The company car." Vicki snapped a photo as a man got out of the driver's seat in a puffy Eagles jacket and black knit cap. "Finally, a Philly fan."

"Got a passenger, too."

Vicki took a picture even though she couldn't see a thing through the windshield because of the glare. In the next minute, the man reached back inside the van and came out with a black Nike gym bag, then turned and hustled with the bag into the hole.

"Ain't that nice? He works out." Reheema put on her seat belt, but Vicki felt too tense to joke around and put on her belt, too. In the next minute, the man hustled back to the van with the Nike bag, jumped inside, and the van took off toward them. The women ducked in unison, and as soon as it was almost out of sight, the Intrepid took off.

With a nervous Vicki riding shotgun.

"Look, in the front seat, the passenger seat." Vicki worried, three blocks later, that they'd been spotted by the go-betweens in the black van.

"So what?" Reheema maneuvered the Intrepid behind a Toyota pickup but stayed on track. They were traveling down a numbered street, and in her panic, Vicki had lost her sense of direction.

"The passenger has a ball cap on, so you can see the brim every time he turns his head."

"Okay, so?"

"He turns around a lot. I can see the brim every two minutes, practically. I think he's watching us."

"Calm down. It's only been five minutes."

Vicki tugged down her Phillies cap. "They know we're following them."

"No, they don't."

"Yes, they do! They could. These guys are smart."

Reheema stopped at the traffic light, two cars behind the van. "So what do you wanna do?"

"Let 'em go."

"Oh, come on!"

"It's daylight and this is too risky. Better to be safe than sorry."

"Don't be stupid."

"Take a left. Bail. Abort, abort, abort."

"Oh, all right." Reheema steered the Intrepid to the left and they turned onto the side street.

"We can pick them up after dark. We'll come back."

"Dumb." Reheema pulled up to the curb and found a parking space behind a PECO truck. She cut the ignition and looked over. "Why you so damn jumpy?"

"I don't know."

"You all right? You look white." Reheema smiled. "Too white."

"I'm fine," Vicki said, queasy. "My stomach feels funny. Either it's the plastic eggs or the thought that we're gonna get killed."

"You want some water? I know you put a bottle in that backpack." Reheema reached back and got the backpack.

"No! Wait!" Vicki shouted, a moment too late. Reheema already had the backpack and was pulling out Ray James's arrest record and mug shot.

"Yo, this guy's from my neighborhood. This address is near me."

"Yeah." Vicki reached for the papers but Reheema was already reading the record.

"Why do you have this? Says here he's done time for assault, with a knife."

Vicki shuddered. For a minute she didn't know what to say.