With a hump and then a hiss the engine stopped moving.
Scarlett jumped down and picked up on the chase. As he came around the western end of the stationary train, the wind and rain off the water slammed into his face. Katherine Spann shot by in front of him. To his left the Indian was running beneath the rampway that led up to Burrard Street, to the Marine Building and to the ritzy Vancouver Club. A man at the club window stared out with a bemused look as he sipped his Beefeater gin.
Just as Spann was about to collar the fugitive man, he threw himself into an opening under the ramp where wooden pilings rose out of the sea to give the structure support. As Scarlett ran up, the Indian was starting to shinny along a crossbeam soaked with creosote.
"Damn!" Spann said as her grip closed on empty air. Then she crawled in after him.
It was dark under the ramp. For here was a murky claustrophobic space where water dripped down from holes worn in the asphalt above and the sea slapped angrily against the barnacle-encrusted old wooden pilings below. The air stank of rotting fish and sea salt and creosote oil carried up on the ocean spray tossed off by the lurching waves. From several of the crossbeams water rats sniffed at the intruders and blinked their seedy eyes. Both the Indian and Katherine Spann inched slowly forward. There was seven feet between them.
Ahead of the fugitive there was a second opening. Through it he could see the pier that jutted out into the sea. That opening and freedom was only five feet away. Then four. Then three. Then two. Then Rick Scarlett jumped down from the ramp above to land on the pier and stick his right hand through the opening.
"Police," Scarlett said quietly from behind the gun in his fist.
In resignation, the Indian stopped creeping along the beam.
Spann closed the gap between them and reached out to grasp his foot. Suddenly a violent kick knocked her hand away. Then with a shove the cornered man pushed himself off from his perch and tumbled down into the water. The splash from his body hitting the sea drenched the woman above.
"Damn!" Spann said again, filling her lungs with air and plunging in after him.
Up on the pier Rick Scarlett stood and waited for both heads to surface. It was certainly not his intention to join these midday swimmers, preferring instead to wait up top where it was high and dry. Then abruptly it occurred to him that Spann would make the collar. That she would get first credit if something big came out of this Good God! Scarlett thought. She'd one-up me again.
"Damn!" the man said aloud, then he too crawled in under the pier and tumbled into the water.
His timing was perfect. For no sooner had the Indian surfaced to get a breath of air than Scarlett landed squarely on him with his uniform boots. The Indian went back under. Crushed between the descending cop and the slope of the submerged shore he crumpled into a ball and choked out the last of his oxygen. By the time that he surfaced again, he was sputtering, wheezing and gasping. The man was in no condition to fight as they dragged him out of the water.
Scarlett snapped on the cuffs as Spann frisked him down.
"Jesus, Blondie!" the Indian exclaimed, recognizing the woman. "I never made you for a narc!"
"It's a world of deceit," Spann said, and she tugged off one of his boots. When she turned it upside down a red balloon fell out.
"You dropped something," she said, holding out the heroin bundle.
"I never seen it before. You must have planted it on me."
Scarlett unsnapped a button at the man's right wrist and yanked his shirtsleeve up to the elbow. The needle tracks exposed were more than seven inches long. The veins had long since disappeared, retreating down toward the bone to escape the incessant probe of a needle.
"I want a lawyer," the Indian said. And then he started to shiver.
"I want information," Katherine Spann said in reply.
As she spoke she watched the handcuffed man. His pupils were not pinned so he hadn't recently fixed. His body was beginning to move in jerks as if his clothes were made of poison ivy. She knew that the feel of water on skin was unpleasant to an addict, that this was why junkies were reluctant to take a bath. The Indian's nose was starting to run and he was beginning to sweat despite the chill in the air. She concluded that the man's junk-clock was running down. And that soon it would stop.
All cops know that addicts have a fear of time. For time leaves them jerking with no place to go. The only escape from external time is another stab of the needle.
Now all we do is wait, she thought, shivering herself.
"I'm freezing," Scarlett said. "Let's take this guy downtown."
The Indian shivered and shook, his spasms slipping out of control. "Oh, my skin," he whispered.
Spann nonchalantly took a look at her watch, wondering in her mind if the water had ruined it. "I'm waiting," she said.
"F-f-f-fuck you!" But no sooner had the man spoken than a stomach cramp doubled him up.
"Make it easy for yourself. First tell us your name."
The Indian said nothing.
"Tell me what I want and I promise I'll let you fix."
"Y-y-yeah sure," the man said. "It's a w-w-world of fuckin' deceit."
"I mean it," Spann said, dangling the bundle before his nose.
The Indian jerked his head away and looked her in the eye. "W-w-what do you want?" he asked, the withdrawal taking hold.
"Where do we find John Lincoln Hardy, that black dude that I saw you score from?"
"Go on!" the man said, trying to spit on the ground but his throat was just too dry.
"Tell us now or tell us later. We can wait it out."
"Lemme fix now, cunt, if you're so fuckin' honest."
Rick Scarlett lashed out to grab the man by the hair, but Spann was able to intercept and knock aside his hand. "No Mutt and Jeff," she said, scowling at her partner. Scarlett merely grunted. Then he dropped his arm.
"Look!" the woman said sharply, turning back to the Indian. "You don't have much choice here, so let's not screw around. You're wanted on three held warrants out of that undercover operation, all for trafficking. In addition we've now got you cold nuts on possession of junk for the purpose. And then to top it off, the state of your condition tells me that you need a fix. I think you just scored that bundle from Hardy and we got to you before you cranked yourself and farmed the rest of it out.
"Now, don't take me for stupid. If your idea of a good afternoon is writhing around on a jail cell floor while your guts try to squirm out your mouth, be my guest. I don't care. We'll get Hardy all the same. If you talk all it does is save us time.
"So here's the deal. I know Hardy's your pusher, and I know you know how to find him. I can't do anything about the warrants from the undercover trip. They're already in the courts. But I will forget this beef. And I will let you fix. So there's the choice. Take it or leave it. A fix for John Lincoln Hardy."
Out on the water a float plane droned across the harbor. The Indian winced as another contraction closed its violent fingers around the entrails in his belly. The drone died away as the seaplane banked and made for Vancouver Island.
"Take all the time you want," Spann said and she opened the knot in the plastic balloon and shook out a Number 5 gelatin capsule. She pulled the pink half from the white half and tapped each rounded end to release the powder within. It blew away in the wind before it hit the ground.
She shook out another cap and emptied it also. Then another, while the Indian watched in horror.
"Where's Hardy?" Spann asked. The powder blew away.
A fourth cap lay in her hand before the junkie broke.
"Ah, fuck, Blondie! Don't be such an a-a-asshole. I don't know where he is! Gimme a fuckin' fix!"