Дэвид Гейтс - The Blue Mirror

“Like a moonshiner’s,” Kitty whispered to me.

It was a small shed built on a platform over the brook with outside ductwork to a hood on the roof and a tangle of copper piping that went under the surface of the water. It was a distillery, in effect, to condense and filter the residue, disguising the smell. Creek’s work, I figured.

“A peculiar genius,” Kitty remarked.

I nodded. “But why did they kill him?” I asked.

“They’re closing down,” she said.

Which made sense if the operation was compromised, but how sure of that were they?

We made our approach to the shed incrementally, move and then crouch, move and crouch, trying to make as little noise as possible. The running water chuckled in the stream bed loudly enough that we weren’t heard. When we got next to the little outbuilding, we hunkered down outside the windowless plywood sheathing. Nobody had raised an alarm.

Whoever was inside wasn’t listening for trespassers. They were too intent on something else. There was an indistinct murmur of voices and then an involuntary whimper and ragged, heavy breathing. What it sounded like was an interrogation, and a painful one.

Kitty and I probably had the same thought at the same time: Andy was being tortured.

We ducked around the corner of the shed and took up our positions on either side of the plank door, both of us with guns up, cocked and locked, fingers alongside the trigger guards. There was another sharp whimper of pain.

I nodded to Kitty, stepped back, and kicked the door open. We were inside before anybody had time to react.

Everything stopped for maybe a long three count, all of us taken by surprise.

Three guys, one tied in a chair. The guy in the chair was battered and bruised, but it wasn’t Andy. It was the redheaded biker from Charlestown. Andy was standing behind him with a pair of bloody pliers in his hand. The third guy was in front of the chair, caught in a half crouch, looking over his shoulder at us. I knew he was Chip McGill.

Sometimes things slow down, like it’s happening under water, but this was sudden and abrupt. McGill snapped out of his crouch, coming up with a stainless autoloader in his right hand. It was incredibly stupid of him, and he made the same mistake I’d made in back of the Blue Mirror, not watching the girl. Kitty shot him twice in the chest with the nine, punching two holes in him you could have covered with a quarter. He was dead when he hit the floor.

Andy jumped back, and Kitty shifted her aim. I thought for a second she was going to shoot Andy, too.

“Oh God, Kitty,” Andy bleated, dropping the pliers. “Look what he made me do.”

Kitty wasn’t having any. “Shut up,” she said tiredly. “Don’t give me any more reason to hate your guts.” But at least she lowered the gun.

They’d wired Red’s wrists together behind his back, and I had to use the pliers to get it off. I tried not to think about what else they’d been used for. “DEA,” he croaked, rubbing his hands together to bring back the circulation. “Working undercover with the state police.”

Well, at least he’d gotten my gun away from the speed freak before she killed me with it, I remembered.

We started back up toward the house. Red needed my help, which I didn’t wonder at. He was in bad shape. Kitty seemed to have gone numb, too, which I didn’t wonder at, either. It was a delayed reaction from shooting McGill. You don’t shake it off that easily.

We were still below the orchard when Andy took it into his head to make a run for it. He just suddenly bolted, pumping his legs through the tall grass, plowing uphill. None of us had the energy to chase him, and there wasn’t much point in shooting him. How far was he going to get, after all? Maybe he thought he could outrun his disgrace, his life in a shambles.

“Andy,” Kitty called after him wearily.

But he didn’t look back. He charged recklessly through the orchard, flailing at the aroused bees.

“Oh Jesus,” Kitty whispered.

I didn’t quite get what was happening. I saw Andy stumble and find his feet and then stumble again and go down.

Kitty had stopped where she stood, stricken.

Andy managed to stand again, his angry shouts turning into a terrified wail. The air around him was thick with insects, and bees had settled on him like a carpet, so many they obscured his shape. He fell a last time and didn’t get up.

The clamor of bees subsided in the gathering twilight, and the light breeze rustled through the maples.

We made a wide circle around the orchard, not speaking. If any of us had thoughts, we kept them to ourselves.

~ * ~

Stanley died two days later. He’d gone into a coma and hadn’t come out of it. Maybe it was for the best, since he didn’t have to learn about his grandson.

Andy had cut himself in on McGill’s racket early when Creek Fortier had come to ask his advice, not daring to bring it up with Stanley. I’d guessed right about that part at least.

Stanley had held the paper on Creek’s land, intending to put it in trust with Andy as trustee. The part I’d guessed wrong about was why Chip McGill had gone after Stanley. It was insurance, plain and simple, in case Andy got cold feet. McGill thought like a thug, which he was. What nobody figured out until afterward was that Andy had already decided he’d throw McGill over the side. If the Disciples thought McGill were a liability, they’d take him out for their own protection. Andy just needed a credible story, one that would sell on the street, and he had it in the case he was preparing, the townies who had bought product from McGill. If word got out they were going to plead down in exchange for giving him up, he was dead meat. His big name in the neighborhoods wouldn’t buy him a pass.

Why had Andy gone bad? Maybe somebody had finally met his price, but that doesn’t really explain it. Kitty Dwyer believed in him right up until she saw him with the pliers in his hand.

And that’s where my own thinking led me. Andy had gotten tired of living up to other people’s expectations. He stepped over the line because the line was there. They say in the trade that the dealer always gives you the first taste for free.

~ * ~

Then there was Max Quinn.

I knew that Kitty had terminated his contract with Ravenant & Dwyer, and by an unhappy coincidence I met him a couple of days later, lugging his files out of the office. I was there to take Kitty to lunch.

Max put the box he was carrying down on the tailgate of a station wagon parked in the loading zone and looked me over with bland venom. “You queered me good, pal,” he said, smiling.

The smile was for show. “Not my intention,” I said.

“Well, the good Lord save us from honest intentions,” Max said. He leaned back and rested his elbows on the carton. “You ever stop to think I had those vermin in the palm of my hand and I was ready to close my fist? I coulda had every one of the bastards, and what do you have to show for it? Chip McGill on a slab and a dead lawyer.” He shrugged. “‘Course, I guess a dead lawyer ain’t the worst thing. You take the bitter with the sweet.” He smiled that crocodile smile again.

“I’m not arguing,” I said. “But our interests weren’t the same. You were looking for it to go your way. My client wanted a different outcome.”

He snorted. “Your client ,” he said. “Jesus, you take the prize. Your client is dead, for Christ’s sake. He had one foot in the grave when he hired you. You should of showed me some professional courtesy, for openers. Not to mention that I saved your ass from a whipping. “

“I wasn’t forgetting,” I said.

“Me, either,” Max said.

“You had a personal axe to grind,” I told him, “and you were looking to buy chips so you could get back in the game.”