"My parents saw too many old movies."
He gave her a blank expression. "Right. You want a drink?"
Sam stood in the middle of the room, wondering if anything might jump out and bite her ankle. "I'm all set. You got a lot of kids?"
He spat on the floor, to little effect. "Little bastards. You can have 'em if you want. I'll even wrap 'em up. So you're next in line to Jimmy, huh? That mean you're gonna get strung up, too?" He laughed uproariously before turning on his heel and beckoning to her to follow him. "Let's go to my office if we're gonna talk business."
She picked her way through the debris, noticing the smell of diapers and rotting food increasing the deeper she entered the building, making her feel she was progressing through the innards of some beast. Stuey Nichols turned left down a short hallway, proceeded through a door at its end, and stopped to usher her through before closing it behind her.
"Have a chair," he offered, pointing to a half-deflated beanbag propped against the wall.
She glanced around for something a little less absorbing. "That's okay."
He looked offended. "What? Not cushy enough? You don't want to catch somethin'? Nice start. You came to me, lady. I'm being polite here. Don't need to put on airs."
Sam shook her head and sat-actually half collapsed-into the low-slung beanbag, feeling like her butt had just been grabbed by mud. "Jesus, Stuey Don't make a federal case out of it, okay?"
Nichols himself perched on the edge of a debris-strewn table nearby, one leg up, the other still planted on the floor, all offense vaporized. "How'd you know Jimmy?"
"An ex-boyfriend and him were friends."
"Long time ago?"
She tilted her head slightly, looking up at him. "This twenty questions time?"
"Yeah. You got a problem with that?"
"No. About four years."
"Where?"
"Where what?" she asked. "Where did I meet Jimmy? Springfield. We were living there then. He came by to sell some stuff to the boyfriend."
"What was the boyfriend's name?"
"You wouldn't know. He was a flatlander-bum-jerk-off named Nicky Meadows. We split up and he went back to New York."
"How'd you meet him?"
"Nicky? What do you care?"
"Humor me," Nichols persisted.
"I work winters at Tucker Peak. You meet a lot of people in a place like that."
Stuey laughed. "And do a lot of dope. That what wet your whistle to get into the business?"
"That's where it started, yeah."
"So how'd you make the leap from meeting Jimmy to taking over after he got whacked? That's a big gap."
"Jimmy worked for Rivera. Now I do."
Stuey shook his head as if confused. "Rivera. . Johnny Rivera? He's a Holyoke nobody."
"He took over Torres's Vermont run."
"You hook up with him through Jimmy?"
Sam had hoped to avoid this part. "No. Bill Dancer from Bratt led me to Torres. That's how we found out about Rivera. Just my luck we walked in right after Jimmy died."
Stuey smiled sympathetically. "No shit. You sound like one lucky girl. A lot luckier than Dancer, from what I heard."
He held her gaze a little longer than was comfortable. Sam became even more aware of being wrapped in Styro-foam beams. "That supposed to mean something?"
He slid off the table and pretended to stretch, exposing his pale, soft, hairy stomach. "Well, you know. . the boyfriend disappears where no one will find him, Jimmy dies right on cue, Dancer gets busted as soon as you meet Rivera. Almost too good to be true."
He lowered his arms, shifted his feet slightly, and stood facing her silently like a boxer, ready to start. Sam knew not only that she was in trouble but that she'd been there from the start. The beanbag was a trap. If she'd had a gun, she couldn't have reached it, and in any case, she was hard-pressed to move without real effort.
Nothing left to lose.
She pitched violently to her left, spilling out of the bag and scrambling to gain her footing. Simultaneously, Stuey Nichols snatched a baseball bat off the table beside him, swung neatly around on his heel in a windup, and came up like a golfer, hitting her in the upswing, right across the abdomen as she was still on all fours. The blow lifted her off the floor and sent her rolling against the wall, doubled over with pain.
She opened her eyes just enough to see him standing over her, the smile gone and the bat held ready. "Who do you think you're shitting, lady? Think I'm a fucking moron? You're a Brattleboro cop. I know you. You busted me five years ago, for Christ's sake. You must take me for a fucking idiot."
"I do," said a male voice behind him.
Nichols swung around. Sam saw Willy Kunkle smack the other man across the head with a heavy metal flashlight, dropping him like a cement bag at Sam's feet.
Willy knelt down next to her. "You okay?"
"Don't know yet," she said weakly. "He dead?"
Willy barely glanced at Nichols. "He's breathing. What the hell were you thinking? That he wouldn't recognize you?"
She rolled her eyes. "I didn't recognize him, for crying out loud. How did you know?"
He smiled slightly. "I been tailing you, just in case. Soon as I saw him through the screen door, I pegged him. I just couldn't figure out what your plan was. Pretty clever, getting yourself almost killed. Good way to gain his confidence."
"Up yours."
Willy sat back on his heels. "You must be feeling better. You want to try moving?"
He held out his hand to help her. Slowly, she straightened her legs, getting her stomach to relax, and palpated her abdomen. Other than feeling tender and nauseous, however, she sensed nothing vital was broken. Slowly, groaning with discomfort, she rolled onto her knees and used the wall to help her stand, Willy's strong right hand on her elbow for support.
She stood there a moment, the room spinning around, her throat constricted and her stomach in turmoil.
"You gonna puke?" Willy asked, the sensitive nursemaid.
She spoke through clenched teeth. "If I do, I'll make sure I hit you."
He didn't laugh as he might have normally, but steered her over to a nearby legitimate chair. "Sit. Looks like you'll live."
He returned to Nichols and checked his pulse. Apparently satisfied, he glanced down the hallway to make sure it was still empty and then sat on a small side table opposite Sam. "So what the hell went wrong?"
She gave him an exasperated glare. "I don't have your encyclopedia brain, Sherlock. Nothing triggered when I saw him."
Willy shook his head. "Well," he conceded, "he used to have a lot of hair and a mustache. Still. . What about our flawless boss? Didn't he tell you the guy had a Brattleboro rap sheet? That might've been vaguely helpful."
Given all that Gunther had done over the years to ensure Willy's employment as a cop, Sam could never believe the latter's constant lack of gratitude. "Give it a rest. It was a screwup. Everyone survived."
"This time," Willy said disgustedly and stood up again. He began looking around the room. "But I knew this would happen. This whole thing's been half-cocked from the start. He never should've okayed it."
"I forced him to. I'd already signed on with Rivera before I told him."
He turned to face her. "That's not how it works, and you know it, Sam. He's the top guy. He calls the shots. He was playing politics and you were helping him. That's not police work. It's. . I don't know. . bullshit."
She watched his face, its intensity showing more concern than anger, and she realized once more how oblique he could be in showing affection. Christ almighty-she could pick them.
"What do we do now?" she asked, to change the subject. "This jerk's punching-bag girlfriend isn't going to stay in her corner forever."
Willy was back in motion, poking around, searching for something. "Yeah, yeah. I'm working on that."