Jeffry Lindsay - Dearly devoted Dexter

“GodDAMN!” he said. “I’m totally soaked!”

“What the fuck was that all about?” Deborah demanded.

Chutsky cocked an eyebrow at me and pushed the hair off his forehead. “Don’t she talk elegant?” he said.

“Kyle, goddamn it,” she said.

“The smell of ammonia,” he said. “No surgical use, and no commercial cleaning crew would use it.”

“We did this already,” Deborah snapped.

He smiled. “But ammonia IS used for cooking methamphetamine,” he said. “Which turns out to be what these guys are doing.”

“You just walked right into a meth kitchen?” Deb said. “What the hell did you do in there?”

He smiled and pulled a Baggie out of his pocket. “Bought an ounce of meth,” he said.

DEBORAH DIDN’T SPEAK FOR ALMOST TEN MINUTES, just drove the car and stared ahead with her jaw clamped shut. I could see the muscles flexing along the side of her face and all the way down into her shoulders. Knowing her as I did I was quite sure that an explosion was brewing, but since I knew nothing at all about how Debs in Love might behave, I couldn’t tell how soon. The target of her impending meltdown, Chutsky, sat beside her in the front seat, equally silent, but apparently quite happy to sit quietly and look at the scenery.

We were almost to the second address and well into the shadow of Mount Trashmore when Debs finally erupted.

“Goddamn it, that’s illegal! ” she said, smacking the steering wheel with the palm of her hand for emphasis.

Chutsky looked at her with mild affection. “Yes, I know,” he said.

“I am a sworn fucking officer of the law!” Deborah told him. “I took an oath to stop this kind of shit-and you-!” She sputtered to a halt.

“I had to be sure,” he said calmly. “This seemed like the best way.”

“I ought to put the cuffs on YOU !” she said.

“That might be fun,” he said.

“You SON of a bitch!”

“At least.”

“I will not cross over to your motherfucking dark side!”

“No, you won’t,” he said. “I won’t let you, Deborah.”

The breath whooshed out of her and she turned to look at him. He looked back. I had never seen a silent conversation, and this one was a doozy. Her eyes clicked anxiously from the left side of his face to the right and then left again. He simply looked back, calm and unblinking. It was elegant and fascinating and almost as interesting as the fact that Debs had apparently forgotten she was driving.

“I hate to interrupt,” I said. “But I believe that’s a beer truck right ahead?”

Her head snapped back around and she braked, just in time to avoid turning us into a bumper sticker on a load of Miller Lite. “I’m calling that address in to vice. Tomorrow,” she said.

“All right,” Chutsky said.

“And you’re throwing away that Baggie.”

He looked mildly surprised. “It cost me two grand,” he said.

“You’re throwing it away,” she repeated.

“All right,” he said. They looked at each other again, leaving me to watch for lethal beer trucks. Still, it was nice to see everything settled and harmony restored to the universe so we could get on with finding our hideous inhuman monster of the week, secure in the knowledge that love will always prevail. And so it was a great satisfaction to cruise down South Dixie Highway through the last of the rainstorm, and as the sun broke out of the clouds we turned onto a road that led us into a twisty series of streets, all with a terrific view of the gigantic pile of garbage known as Mount Trashmore.

The house we were looking for was in the middle of what looked like the last row of houses before civilization ended and garbage reigned supreme. It was at the bend of a circular street and we went past it twice before we were sure that we had found it. It was a modest dwelling of the three-bedroom two-mortgage kind, painted a pale yellow with white trim, and the lawn was very neatly cropped. There was no car visible in the driveway or the carport, and a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn had been covered with another that said SOLD! in bright red letters.

“Maybe he hasn’t moved in yet,” Deborah said.

“He has to be somewhere,” Chutsky said, and it was hard to argue with his logic. “Pull over. Have you got a clipboard?”

Deborah parked the car, frowning. “Under the seat. I need it for my paperwork.”

“I won’t smudge it,” he said, and fumbled under the seat for a second before pulling out a plain metal clipboard with a stack of official forms clamped onto it. “Perfect,” he said. “Gimme a pen.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked, handing him a cheap white ballpoint with a blue top.

“Nobody ever stops a guy with a clipboard,” Chutsky said with a grin. And before either of us could say anything, he was out of the car and walking up the short driveway in a steady, nine-to-five-bureaucrat kind of pace. He stopped halfway and looked at the clipboard, turning over a couple of pages and reading something before looking at the house and shaking his head.

“He seems very good at this kind of thing,” I said to Deborah.

“He’d goddamned well better be,” she said. She bit another nail and I worried that soon she would run out.

Chutsky continued up the drive, consulting his clipboard, apparently unaware that he was causing a fingernail shortage in the car behind him. He looked natural and unrushed, and had obviously had a lot of experience at either chicanery or skulduggery, depending on which word was better suited for describing officially sanctioned mischief. And he had Debs biting her nails and almost ramming beer trucks. Perhaps he was not a good influence on her after all, although it was nice to have another target for her scowling and her vicious arm punches. I am always willing to let someone else wear the bruises for a while.

Chutsky paused outside the front door and wrote something down. And then, although I did not see how he did it, he unlocked the front door and went in. The door closed behind him.

“Shit,” said Deborah. “Breaking and entering on top of possession. He’ll have me hijacking an airliner next.”

“I’ve always wanted to see Havana,” I said helpfully.

“Two minutes,” she said tersely. “Then I call for backup and go in after him.”

To judge from the way her hand was twitching toward the radio, it was one minute and fifty-nine seconds when the front door opened again and Chutsky came back out. He paused in the driveway, wrote something on the clipboard, and returned to the car.

“All right,” he said as he slid into the front seat. “Let’s go home.”

“The house is empty?” Deborah demanded.

“Clean as a whistle,” he said. “Not a towel or a soup can anywhere.”

“So now what?” she asked as she put the car in gear.

He shook his head. “Back to plan A,” he said.

“And what the hell is plan A?” Deborah asked him.

“Patience,” he said.

And so in spite of a delightful lunch and a truly original little shopping trip afterward, we were back to waiting. A week passed in the now typically boring way. It didn’t seem like Sergeant Doakes would give up before my conversion to a beer-bellied sofa ornament was complete, and I could see nothing else to do except play kick the can and hangman with Cody and Astor, performing outrageously theatrical good-bye kisses with Rita afterward for the benefit of my stalker.

Then came the telephone ringing in the middle of the night. It was Sunday night, and I had to leave for work early the next day; Vince Masuoka and I had an arrangement, and it was my turn to pick up doughnuts. And now here was the telephone, brazenly ringing as if I had no cares in the world and the doughnuts would deliver themselves. I glanced at the clock on my bedside table: 2:38. I admit I was somewhat cranky as I lifted the receiver and said, “Leave me alone.”