"We've got something to offer, yeah," Sam answered him.
"And what would that be?"
Sam jerked a thumb at Bill Dancer. "His contacts, my business savvy, and our skin color."
Rivera narrowed his eyes as Bill shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Sam smiled. "You're a good lookin' guy, but you're the wrong color for the whitest state in the whole country. You want to pull this off, you're going to have to fly under the radar-have someone who'll blend in."
"Who says I haven't already pulled it off?"
Sam waved her hand around the room. "This what you call the big time? If it is, we're in the wrong place."
"Pretty full of yourself."
"I'm full of potential," Sam answered. "I'm also full of being treated like a piece of meat who's going to end up with nothing at the end. I'm full of the assholes making promises and delivering jack, and I'm full up to here"-she touched her forehead-"with other people's bullshit. I can be an asset to you. You want to blow that off and miss out on a golden opportunity, fine. It's a free country. But I'm making my move, and I'd like to make it with you."
She worried that last line might've been a little hokey and watched his expression as if he were a drama critic.
But he was fascinated. The women in this line of work rarely looked and spoke like Greta Novak, and he knew for a fact that she was right about the skin color issue. Profiling or not, cops in Vermont took a very close look at nonwhites traveling their roads with out-of-state plates.
Johnny Rivera gave her an approving nod. "Okay That all sounds pretty good. What's your plan?"
"For years, Vermont's heroin pipeline has started here, gone through Brattleboro, hung a left just below Springfield, and ended up in Rutland. That's where I'll go. I know you're there already, trying to keep the locals in line. I also know you're not having much luck."
"Says who?" he asked, obviously irritated.
She took the plunge, blindfolded, but kept her exact wording carefully vague. "Says the guy hanging from the bridge. Real subtle way to quietly infiltrate a town. You know who the chick was they found dead in that motel room?"
She paused to force him to ask, "Who?"
"The daughter of a bigwig politician, that's who-a guy who gives shit-loads of money to the governor. If you did have anybody working for you up there, you can bet your ass they'll either be in the slammer soon or as far from Rutland as a tank of gas will take 'em. The heat's on, Johnny-you got people all around you down here looking to knock you off, and now you have your little start-up operation staring straight down the shit hole. You don't think you need help, fine. But I think you're wrong."
It was the perfect time for Rivera to throw them out in a fit of bluster, or at least let Sam know that she was blowing pure smoke. Of course, she wasn't sure she wasn't. She had no idea how the deaths of James Hollowell and Sharon Lapierre were connected to Rivera, if at all, much less anything about Rivera's Rutland operation.
Which made his response all the more satisfying. "How do I know you won't just rip me off?"
"You try me out," she told him, sitting back against the cushions. "After all, how do I know I can trust you? We need to do a little business first. See if we like it."
Her tone of voice with these last words was purposefully ambiguous, letting him wonder if she might not be interested in more than just a business relationship.
"I sell you some shit at a discount, you stick it in your veins, and I never see you again? Great plan," he said, although she sensed it was more ritual than a challenge.
She arched her eyebrow at him, willing to keep playing. "I'm going through all this for an ounce of horse? Get real. Tell me straight, Johnny: Do you use the product?"
He looked at her in surprise. "I'm no junkie."
"Well, I'm not, either. That puts us above almost everybody else in the game. This is about money, and I'm ready to make some."
There was a lull in the conversation as Rivera turned in his chair and gazed out the top half of one of his armored windows. Sam felt like she'd just pitched a truck full of used cars to the man.
Finally, he turned back to them and pointed at Bill Dancer, whose grasp of all this was still undergoing development. "What about him? He your boyfriend?"
Sam laughed. "He'd like to be."
Bill looked confused as his face turned bright red.
"But he's better as my contact man," she continued, being more truthful than Rivera knew. "Been at this for years. Got a good little black book. I can put the moves on people, get them working together, but he's my passport."
Rivera nodded, paused a moment, and then said, "Okay. We give it a shot. I sell you some junk, you show me your stuff."
* * *
Two hours later, Joe picked up his office phone. "Hello?"
"It's Sam. I'm in. You can tell the task force and everybody else that Johnny Rivera has a new Vermont operative, and I'm it."
Gunther could almost see the shine in her eyes from her tone of voice. "Sam, slow down. What the hell've you been up to? Where are you?"
"Holyoke. I didn't want you to say no, so I just went ahead and did it. Rivera's having me run a test flight-which'll cost us two thousand bucks, by the way-but I'm pretty sure he's hooked."
Gunther grimaced as he stared out across the empty office. He hated the way this was going-had hated it from that first meeting with Allard. Every corner, it seemed, was producing people bent on pulling the rug out from under him. Politicians were dictating policy, Gail had fallen into some outer orbit, and now Sammie was setting up an undercover operation without clearance or consultation. It seemed everyone he knew was going maverick.
It was time to catch up, to apply a little steadiness, and to mold into something of value the bits and pieces he'd been handed.
"Nice work, Sam," he said to keep her in good spirits, even though he had no clue who Johnny Rivera was. "Come on in so we can put it all together."
Chapter 9
"I've been following Dave, putting him under surveillance, going through his room-like I was getting ready to arrest him."
Susan Spinney put her things down on the kitchen table and sat opposite her husband. It was late. She'd just returned from the hospital and had found him sitting in the glow of a single lamp, staring into an empty coffee cup as if it held an oracle's solution.
"Why?" she asked quietly, a chill settling in her chest. "What's going on?"
"That call I got from the PD, when I had to pick Dave up? I told you it was just an open container bust and that I'd talk to him. Well, it wasn't, and I didn't. I mean, I asked him if he knew what he'd done wrong, and he said he did, and I asked him if he'd do it again, and he said he wouldn't. And that was it. Got us both off the hook. But there was more. Stuff I didn't tell you."
He paused. She resisted pounding the tabletop to get his attention, asking calmly instead, "What stuff?"
"The driver was a loser named Craig Steidle. He had some pot on him as well, and when the cops drove up, it looked like he was about to score some crack off a local hooker who hangs out near the Pearl Street walkway."
Susan felt her irritation growing. Despite Lester's profession, she'd always felt she was the family cop, having to enforce the rules and mete out the punishment. Being the bad guy while he came off as the Dad from central casting.
"And you figured you wouldn't tell me for what reason?" she asked, unable to disguise her anger.
He continued addressing the coffee cup. "I don't know, Sue. I'm sorry. It wasn't 'cause I was trying to duck the issue. I searched his room when no one was here, I staked him out when he was at the Sherman place last night. I can't get it out of my head."