“I don’t like it,” I said, adding, “I don’t guess you got a wire warrant.”
Now they were standing side by side. Willy tapped his breast pocket. “Signed and sealed by the judge.”
“It’ll go down in the Tuckaway,” Sammie explained. “He asks me to step outside and we pull the plug. I’ll be watched all the way.”
“That’s where you think he’ll do the deal?” I asked incredulously, “right at the bar where everyone can see him? Of course he’s going to ask you outside.”
But she was shaking her head. “No, no, he doesn’t. We know that. We’re not going in blind here. We have done our homework, Joe. I promise. Peterson does do all his business in the Tuckaway, probably for his own safety-and in front of everyone, literally under the table, money for dope, tit for tat.”
“She’s just going to fan his cock a while,” Willy chimed in, “do the deal, and we’ll bust him, right there. No muss, no fuss.”
I passed my hand across my face, every instinct fighting this scenario. I finally glanced at Spinney. “What do you think?”
He shrugged. “Sounds okay to me. We don’t do it now, we will lose Sammie’s cover story and any inside track to this guy.”
Spinney and I sat in the car, the engine on to run the heater, a radio receiver plugged into a tape recorder between us. We were positioned out of the lights on the edge of the parking lot behind the Tuckaway. The only sound came from the recorder’s small speaker-the monotonous ruckus of voices common to all bars, and the steady back-and-forth between Greta Novak and her date-made scratchy and hard to hear by the typically poor reception of all undercover wires. In addition to the two of us outside, Willy Kunkle sat at a table inside, silent and alone and watching from a distance, a minuscule earphone in his ear through which I could reach him on a radio. He was pretending to tie one on with a string of ginger ales, which, as a recovering alcoholic, was an act he had down pat-I’d seen him do it.
We’d been there an hour already, listening to Sammie and Kurt Peterson play mental tag-he trying to get her out of the bar and into the nearest bed, she trying to get him to supply her with the coke she claimed would make the experience all the more memorable.
They were beginning to get on each other’s nerves.
“Come on, Kurt,” she pleaded. “Give me something. I’m hurtin’. I’ll pay you, if that’s your problem.”
He laughed. “Oh, I want payment, all right, but not with money.”
Spinney and I heard a sudden scraping on the microphone that made us both jump in our seats.
“Hey,” she said. “Hands off. You want to turn this into a business deal, that cuts both ways.”
He didn’t seem fazed. “Ooh, the brass cupcake surfaces. And I thought you liked me for my potential. Maybe we could swap a sample first. I get a feel, you get a teeny, weeny sniff.”
“You got some on you?” she asked.
I winced slightly in the dark, worried she’d push him too hard. Deals like this took patience, sometimes several repeat encounters, and this had been moving at breakneck speed from the start.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he answered her. There was the familiar rattling of ice in a glass, followed by, “Boy, who knew? Greta Novak, a cokehead. First time we met, I pegged you as a total jock. Figured you were probably a vegetarian, too-body a temple and all that shit. Not that I’m complaining about the body. I’d just like to see more of it.”
“I am a vegetarian,” she lied. “Coke comes from a plant, right?”
He laughed. “Good point. All right, you win, but you better be as good in the sack as you are on skis. I’m talking major league here. You do that and I’ll not only not charge you, I’ll make this a standard arrangement.”
“You kidding me?” She made her voice soft and seductive, “It’ll be the best deal you ever made. You won’t be sorry.”
“You got it, babe. Let’s get outta here.”
I looked sharply at Spinney.
“Give it to me here,” Sammie said. “I’ll do it in the bathroom.”
Peterson laughed unpleasantly. “Oh, right. And then tell me to fuck myself. I don’t think so, Ice Queen. I got ‘stupid’ written on my face somewhere? No, no. We do this at my place or you can get somebody else to powder your nose.”
“Come on, Kurt. You won, okay? I do it now, I’ll be in the right mood when you’ll really appreciate it, instead of waiting around. I mean, where’m I going to go? We work together. You’ll see me tomorrow morning on the mountain. I won’t stiff you. I just gotta have it now.” She tried softening her voice again. “I won’t let you down.”
But it wasn’t working. We could hear his voice grow distant as he stood up. “Sorry Greta-my ball, my game.” Now was the time to either call his bluff or break off the engagement, either way guaranteeing that Sammie stayed inside the safety of the nightclub. Predictably, she did neither.
“All right, but don’t bitch to me later that I wasn’t in the mood.”
His voice was closer now, and we could hear the background noise varying as they worked their way through the crowd. “Don’t you worry about the mood, sweet meat. I got enough for both of us.”
I picked up the radio I had cradled in my lap. “Willy, you on them?”
There was a pause during which I could visualize him digging his own radio out of his pocket and finding a discreet place to use it. “What do you think?”
Just before he keyed off, Spinney and I both heard a loud crash. Then Willy’s radio went dead.
“What the hell was that?” Lester asked.
“Sounded like a tray of glasses. Maybe a waitress dropped it.”
I waited for thirty seconds before calling him again. “Willy. We heard a loud noise. You still on them?”
Nothing came back.
A cold dread swept over me. I told Spinney, “I knew this was a bad idea. Drive around to the front door. We’ll see if we can pick them up there.”
Suddenly, Willy’s voice filled the car, almost drowned out by what sounded like a riot behind him. “I lost ’em. We got a bar brawl in here. I got cut off.”
Spinney slammed on the brakes as a car pulled out of a parking place ahead of us. “Shit.” He rolled the window down and blew his horn. “Move it, goddamn it.”
I laid my hand on his arm. “Quiet. Listen. Roll up the window.”
Between us, Sammie’s voice was saying, “What’s happening back there?”
“Beats me. Sounds like we got out just in time. Here, this way. I’m parked over here.”
“I thought we we’re going to your place?”
He laughed. “The dorm? No way, baby. First time I fuck you, I want it done in style. We’re borrowing a condo for the night.”
The car ahead apparently stalled, since it stopped moving at a diagonal, blocking the exit entirely. Swearing, Lester threw the gearshift into reverse and began backing his way around the parking lot. “We know what he’s driving?”
“Of course not,” I muttered angrily. “We didn’t take enough time to find out. Nor do we know where this condo is, assuming it exists.”
Sammie was obviously aware of the same things. “That’s really cool. I used to have a Camry. And the same color, too-dark blue. I loved that car. I thought it had class.”
There was a slight pause before he said, “It runs. That’s all I care about. Get in.”
We heard the thud of two doors closing. Lester finally found an opening in which to turn around and began driving recklessly fast toward the front of the building.
“But if you want class, baby,” Kurt told her, his voice muffled by the coat Sammie had been forced to put on, “you won’t be disappointed. This is some place we’re goin’ to.”
“Sounds beautiful. Where is it?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
Spinney squealed around the corner and almost collided with one of the mountain’s security cars, its bar lights flashing off the nearby trees and snowbanks. Just as we were about to speed by it, the driver’s door opened and an officer stepped out in front of us, shining his flashlight directly into Lester’s face.