Jimmy said, “She’s smart.”
Camy and Tasker just stared at him.
Sutter made Tasker and Camy drive over to South Beach to meet him in a little restaurant he liked off Collins. He couldn’t see the beach, but the food was seventy-five percent cheaper. He wanted them to come over the bridge because he’d spent the morning clearing his eyes and face of the pepper spray Alicia Wells and the cop had zapped him with the night before. This was the modern stuff that was easier to rinse away, but it still stung. To make matters worse, as soon as he had arrived home, around dawn, he had tried to relieve the effects by going into the ocean, for the first time in the three years he’d lived on South Beach. The salt water had aggravated the condition until he had finally parked himself in his shower and run cold water over himself until he shivered uncontrollably. Now only his red eyes burned as he sat in the booth, waiting for his partners. He saw them pull up outside in Camy’s Ford, appreciating the movement of Camy’s lithe little body. Tasker and the others might think she’s gay, but Sutter knew better. The little glances she stole at him. The red-faced anger he could cause. She was no dyke, and she had an eye for him.
He stood as they reached the booth.
“You up all night?” asked Tasker. Camy was silent as she slipped in next to Tasker.
“I was up and, no, wasn’t drinking.”
“You look like shit.”
“I ran into Alicia Wells.”
“Great, where is she? What’d she have to say?”
Sutter was quiet as he gathered his thoughts.
Camy said, “You did question her? Find out where she lives, didn’t you?”
“It’s a long story.”
Camy kept up the pressure. “Can’t be that long. What happened?”
He started slow, avoiding eye contact. “I saw her outside the Orion. She ignored me, and when I caught up, she, she…”
Camy said, “I can’t wait to hear this. She what?”
Sutter narrowed his eyes at Camy. “Back off, girl. I’m not happy about it, either. She gave me the slip.”
Tasker said, “Alicia Wells outran you?”
“After she pepper-sprayed me.”
There was ten seconds of dead silence, until both of his partners broke out in a wild fit of laughter. He waited, then said, “Are you done?”
That question was answered with more laughter. Suddenly, Sutter wasn’t hungry. He stood to leave, but Camy reached across the table, taking his hand. She squeezed it and said, “C’mon, Derrick, we’re just kidding. It’s funny. Stay and we’ll figure out where we’re going on this thing.”
Sutter sat back down, with Camy still holding his hand and wondered what thing she meant. This investigation or this thing between them. Either way, he was interested.
twenty
Daniel Wells was mad at himself as well as at the Big Rig Academy of South Florida. He’d just mangled another row of orange cones, but he’d also learned to accelerate smoothly and was cornering much better. That didn’t seem to matter to the teacher. After he’d paid for the second chance, the school had changed instructors on him. This guy, a big tree trunk with a gigantic wad of tobacco in his mouth, oddly named Baby, had bitched about everything from the weather to the cops that had whipped his ass at a bar a few nights before. Wells wasn’t sure if the change in the instructors was because they thought he needed a fresh perspective, like they’d told him, or because the other instructor was sick of him.
Wells had listened to the man brag about how it had taken four cops to stop him, then bitch about how they hadn’t let up once they had him cowed. He ended by saying, “Fuckin’ cops. Always around when you don’t need ’em.”
Wells had listened to this as he tried to concentrate on the course. He stopped the big truck and turned to his mountain of an instructor.
“That sucked,” said the man. “If we’d turned you loose with one of these over in Vietnam, we woulda won the damn war.”
“That’s why I’m here. Wanna learn.”
“Learn? Son, they’s some things you can learn and they’s some you can’t. You can’t learn to drive one of these babies.”
“But I need to.”
“No, son, you don’t. Ain’t that much money in driving, and there ain’t enough money to cover what you might do in one of these things.”
Daniel held back a smile, thinking, If you only knew.
The big man continued. “You seem like a smart fella. You could probably do anything. Get a big-ass lawn mower and start a landscaping business. You don’t need a big rig, and we don’t need people thinkin’ you learned to drive at our school.”
“But I paid.”
“And you done got your money’s worth, too. Now, unless you want to try an take it outta my hide, it’s time for you to skedaddle.”
Wells looked at the man’s earnest expression and opened the door to the big training vehicle with BIG RIG ACADEMY painted on the side. He slid out of the cab and walked away silently. He let a small smile escape as he pocketed the truck’s extra key he’d taken off the ring. There were three more keys, so no one would notice, and he had one more piece of his plan in place.
Tasker and Sutter walked up the driveway to Wallace Training Academy. The school’s main curriculum revolved around teaching people how to handle large trucks. From step vans to eighteen-wheelers.
On the walk up the long concrete driveway, Sutter said, “I think Camy is about to switch back to the coed team.”
“What makes you think that?” Tasker could hardly hold back his smile.
“I just know these kinds of things.”
“You know all about women, huh?”
“Enough that I know she’s got a thing for me.”
“What if someone else was already aware of her interest in men?”
Sutter looked at his partner. “You dog. Did you beat me to her?”
Tasker held up his hands. “No, my brother. That fem is out of my division.”
“What? Why’re you talking like Lail?” He froze and put a hand out on Tasker’s arm. “I know you’re not saying that the FBI version of Shaft is hitting Camy?”
“You know everything. You’d know if she was never a lesbian and just never corrected the rumors that circulated about her. You’d also know that she and Lail have been together for five months. You’d also know that she thinks you’re a conceited ass.”
“That’s a little harsh. You’re my partner.”
“I’m just filling you in on what she thinks.”
“The only thing that worries me about her is her judgment. Unless that boy Lail is rich or hung like Wilt Chamberlain, she has no business even talking to that idiot.”
“No argument from me.”
Sutter nodded to himself as they started walking again. “Just a different challenge, that’s all.”
Camy walked to her car from the office of a construction business in Homestead. When they’d split up jobs, she’d taken the one she thought might produce a valuable lead; she was talking to any regular customers of Naranja Engineering. Tasker and Sutter were going around to truck-driving schools, and Jimmy Lail was searching all possible intelligence databases to see if Wells was listed anywhere. He kept saying that the FBI wasn’t allowed to keep that kind of information, but everyone knew they had some indices. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to claim that Wells was associated with a terror group in the first place. Jimmy could also check the county, and they had some big reports on the various crazies. Since they only had to concentrate on Dade County, they put some real effort into creating a broad database on members of extremist groups, and they didn’t have to worry about the Department of Justice looking over their shoulders. This was Dade County; there wasn’t time to worry about outsiders.
This construction company was straight up. They had hired Wells to repair some of the small Bobcat tractors and specially configured trucks. The manager liked Wells because he did good work at half the price of the companies that were certified to repair the Bobcats. Camy just moved down her list to a pressure-cleaning company in Florida City. On the short drive down US 1, she found herself thinking about Billy Tasker. He was a sweet, good-looking guy, but she’d checked around and found out he had two kids. That was a lot of baggage. He did have a good body and those blue eyes. But he had kids.