“Damn it to hell! I can’t see their faces.” Vicki still couldn’t tell if either was Browning and she gave up trying, for now. The two men walked close together, and she could tell they were talking because little clouds puffed from their mouths. It had to be twenty degrees outside and ten in the Sunbird. Circulation to her extremities had stopped four thousand Doritos ago. Reheema turned on the ignition as the two men walked to a snow-covered car, three down from the row house. The two men straight-armed snow off the car, clearing the hood and roof in one swoop.
“They’ll never get it out. Look at the wheels.” Reheema pointed at the car, and Vicki took pictures as the one man cleared a cake of snow from the back window with his arm and shook the powder off, and the other pounded the car door to break ice on the lock and get the key inside. She laughed behind her camera.
“It’s not easy being a drug dealer.”
“Maybe we should help ’em out.” Reheema smiled.
“The car’s a white Neon, same one as the other day.” The women watched with amusement as the men struggled for fifteen minutes, then went back inside the house and came back out with a Back-Saver snow shovel, a blanket, and two cans of beer. “Drug dealers care about their backs, too.”
“Nobody wants back trouble.”
“So the maroon Navigator is Browning’s good car.”
“Yeah. He lends the go-between the four-wheel drive to get down Cater.”
“He has to take the chance, because of the snow. When it clears up, he won’t. He can’t risk the car being spotted.”
Vicki raised the camera and took a picture of one of the dealers shoving a blanket under the car tires and digging them out, while the other slid into the driver’s seat and hit the gas. “Tell you which one I think is Browning, if it is Browning.”
“The driver.”
“Right.” Vicki laughed. “I still can’t tell if it’s Browning for sure.”
“So let’s follow him anyway. We got nothin’ better to do.” Reheema sat up, and after ten more minutes of struggling, the dealers had freed the Neon. She leaned forward in her seat and rested her hand on the ignition key. “Okay, good to go.”
“Finally!” Vicki said, and when the Neon took off, Reheema started the engine and so did they, following from a safe distance and at lawful speed. There was enough traffic to provide the Sunbird great cover, especially since it was dark and nondescript, and Vicki was able to take as many pictures of the Neon’s license plate as she wanted, though one would have sufficed. She felt her adrenaline ebb away. “Not quite the high-speed chase I imagined.”
“These guys don’t want to get picked up for anything. This’ll be the safest ride you ever took. Sit back and relax.”
So Vicki did, but when she looked over, Reheema’s mouth was tense.
“Home, sweet home,” Vicki said, when the Sunbird pulled up at the end of the block. They had been driving for an hour and had ended up in one of the middle-class residential neighborhoods in the city, Overbrook Mills. The brick row houses here were semidetached, sitting together in pairs, like happy couples. Each double house had a front yard, bisected by a cyclone fence and dotted with children’s bikes and plastic playhouses, padlocked to the fences.
“We don’t know if this is home or his supplier’s,” Reheema said.
“It doesn’t look like a drug supplier’s house.”
“Tells you nothin’.”
“It’s the end of the day. Browning has to get tired sometime, doesn’t he? I’m gonna say this isn’t his supplier’s, it’s his house.”
“How you know he hasn’t been sleepin’ all day? When do you think he makes his pickups, in broad daylight?” Reheema’s mouth formed a grim line, and her eyes glittered in the dark interior. “If they both get out of the car, it’s the supplier.”
Vicki nodded. Reheema was right. They were making assumptions, but reasonable ones. They both leaned forward as the Neon’s doors opened and the two men got out. Vicki took pictures of the driver, albeit too dark and too far away, as he hurried from the car and toward the row house. The streetlights were brighter here, but the man’s features remained impossible to discern, so she still didn’t know if he was Browning. The passenger went around to the driver’s side of the car, got inside, and drove off. Vicki lowered the camera. “So if it’s Browning, it’s his house.”
“How you know the one got dropped off is Browning? You didn’t recognize him. We got two players.”
Vicki sighed. She was getting tired, and ATF legwork was harder than she’d thought. “Our theory was that the driver was Browning, or the boss, and this confirms it. I say, the boss gets dropped off.”
“I agree, but we need to cover all bases.” Reheema started the ignition.
“We’re leaving? I wanted to get another picture.”
“Get it another time. We know where he lives.”
Vicki took a final picture as the Sunbird took off and snagged a close-up of the back of Browning’s knit cap, where a shiny silver shield caught the light. She recognized it in the telephoto. “He wears a Raiders cap.”
“Everybody likes football,” Reheema said, and hit the gas.
Half an hour later they were in a lesser neighborhood closer to the city, with attached brick row houses in various stages of disrepair. The Sunbird followed as the Neon drove around, evidently hunting for a parking space. Huge piles of plowed snow sat at the corners of the block and cut down on the number of available spaces.
Vicki said, “The only thing more boring than watching a drug dealer dig a car out is watching him find a parking space.”
“A day in the life.”
“I’ll have the same problem when I go home,” Vicki said.
“No, you won’t. You can’t drive this crate, remember?”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“No sweat. I’ll drop you off. I’m a night owl.” Reheema turned the car to the right, lingering almost a full block behind the Neon, and Vicki realized that one of them would be going home to a very cold house tonight.
“Reheema, you don’t have heat in your house, do you?”
“I got a coupla blankets.”
“You want to come over my house, to sleep? I have a pullout couch.”
“Like a pajama party?”
Vicki smiled. “We don’t have to do our nails or anything.”
Reheema was silent a minute. “Nah.”
“You sure?”
“Wait. Here he goes.” Reheema slowed the Sunbird to a stop as the Neon finally found a space, when another car pulled out.
“It’s almost two. Doesn’t anybody sleep in this neighborhood?”
Reheema didn’t answer, and Vicki sensed she had withdrawn again. It was the invitation that did it, somehow. They watched as the second man got out of the car, hustled to one of the houses, and went inside.
“So that’s where Number Two lives,” Vicki said.
“Right.”
“Can we find it again? I’m not even sure where we are.”
“I can.” Reheema started the engine. “Let’s get you home, sleepyhead.”
“Thanks.” Vicki felt a twinge. “You sure you don’t wanna—”
“No. Thanks.” Reheema kept her eyes straight ahead and they drove in silence to the expressway, which was the last thing Vicki remembered before they pulled up in front of her house and Reheema was jostling her shoulder, waking her up, saying, “You’re home.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Vicki straightened in the car seat stiffly, stretching and vaguely bewildered. “How did you know where I live?”
“Got it from information, on your cell. I don’t have my own yet.” Reheema handed Vicki her own phone. “Soon as I turned it on, though, it started ringing and it’s been ringing off and on all night.”
“I slept through it?” Vicki held the phone and reached down for her backpack, and Reheema laughed.
“You woulda slept through anything.”
“Sorry.” Vicki felt off balance. The Sunbird clock read
3:30. Her street was quiet, still, and frigid. She grabbed her purse, and her phone beeped, signaling she had voicemail. A tiny electric envelope appeared on the screen. “There’s a text message, too.”
“That’d be the wrong guy.”
“I know,” Vicki said, with a tired smile. She reached for the door handle.
“Take my advice and leave him be.” Reheema nodded. “No married man should be callin’ any woman other than his wife this time of night.”
“I started getting over him, today.” Vicki meant it. “Nothing’s ever going to happen with him. It’s time to let him go, for good.”
“Right.”
Still. “He’s a friend, maybe he’s worried about me. I don’t usually keep the phone off all day.”
“Don’t be stupid. That man’s a dog.”
Yikes. “Thanks for everything,” Vicki said, and got out of the car.
“Be back at eight in the morning.”
“Okay,” Vicki called back softly, so as not to wake the neighbors, and trundled up the front walk, dripping backpacks, purses, and cameras. She’d check the messages when she got inside, not in front of Reheema, who was waiting out front with the Sunbird idling. Surprising. Vicki let herself in and waved from the front door, and the Sunbird took off.
Once inside, Vicki dropped her stuff on the floor, hit the light switch, and checked her text message, which was from Dan.
NEED TO C U TONITE. CALL MY CELL
“No,” Vicki said aloud. “Fool me once, fool me twice.” She wasn’t about to call him again and catch him in bed with Mariella, and she doubted he’d meant her to call him this late anyway. She double-bolted the front door, turned off the living room light, and went upstairs with the cell phone, but the bedroom phone started ringing almost the moment she hit the landing, a jarring sound in the still house. She went down the hall and picked it up on the third ring. It was Dan.
“You home? Where were you?” Dan sounded stricken, not angry. “I was worried out of my mind! Or were you with that guy?”
“What guy?”
“The guy from the wake.”
Delaney. “Of course not.”
“Then can I come over?”
“Now? It’s after three!”
“Vick, please. I wanna come over.” Dan’s words came out in a rush. “See you in five.”
TWENTY-NINE
It was a reverse of their usual situation, with Dan sitting at her kitchen table, unusually calm for the situation, and Vicki pouring them both a half glass of cold Chardonnay, left over from the other night. His eyes looked a washed-out blue, with anxious circles underneath, and his mouth formed a slash of resignation. He wore khaki pants and a blue-plaid flannel shirt, put on so hastily it was buttoned wrong.
“Drink up.” Vicki brought Dan’s glass to the table, set it down in front of him, and took her customary seat opposite. “Now, begin at the beginning.”
“Mariella’s been having an affair with another doc, a big-time plastic surgeon, an older guy, in Cherry Hill.” Dan’s voice remained even, and he took a drink of wine. “She’s divorcing me to marry him. She’s been cheating on me for three years. We’ve only been married four.”
Vicki sipped her wine, for something to do. She was shocked and sympathetic, hurt and confused, all at the same time. “How did you find this out?”
“I’ll tell it in chronological order, to make it easy. This morning, she served the papers on me at work. Can you believe that? Right at work?” Dan shook his head. “I’m in a meeting with Bale, and they get me out and say Louie’s in reception for me. You know, Louie the process server?”
“The process server we use?”
“Mariella, or her lawyer, musta hired the same outfit. What a coincidence, I know.” Dan shook his head in amazement. “So here’s Louie, serving papers on me. I open them up and they’re my own divorce papers! So, obviously, I think it’s a joke. One of Bale’s pranks, you follow?”
“Oh, God.” Vicki’s mouth fell open.
“Wait, this is when it gets good. So I go back to the meeting, I tell Bale, you dumbass, I wasn’t born yesterday, to fall for this one. He tells me it’s no joke and he’s lookin’ at me like ‘you poor slob.’ ” Dan kept shaking his head. “And I mean, he’s not kidding, and it’s no joke.”
“Oh no.” Vicki cringed, humiliated for Dan. No wonder he’d been calling her all afternoon. His world had exploded today. Her heart went out to him.
“After I get the papers, I call Mariella on her cell, and she doesn’t answer. I go to the hospital because she told me she’s on call, but it turns out that my bride hasn’t been on call for two days.” Dan paused, significantly. “Then I go home to see if she’s there, and the house is cleaned out! Cleaned out!”
“What?”
“The whole house is empty.” Dan’s eyes widened, and he smiled, incredulous. “Everything is gone, every stick of furniture, everything but my clothes. The old lady next door told me Mariella had the moving van there an hour after I left for work. She even took Zoe.”
“The cat?” Vicki couldn’t believe it. “You love that cat!”
“I know, and she doesn’t even like the cat! She didn’t even take her meds.”
“Whose meds?” Vicki was confused.
“Zoe’s. She needs atenolol for a heart murmur, but Mariella didn’t take the medicine with her. She doesn’t even know the cat needs medicine, half a tab, every morning.” Dan shook his head. “I must sound so friggin’ stupid. God, I mean, it’s a cat, suck it up!”
“You don’t sound stupid.”
“Or gay. So gay.” Dan raked fingers through his hair, already out of place.
“No, you don’t. Then what happened? How did you find out?”
“Okay, so, at home, taped to the living room mirror, is a note that says call her at this number I never heard of, in the 609 area code. I do. She answers the phone and tells me that it’s over, the marriage is over.” Dan waved at the papers on the table. “That I better sign the property agreement. That she’s in love with this other doc, who’s Brazilian. He’s forty-five or something. He’s leaving his wife and two kids, and she’s leaving me.”
Vicki winced.
“Oh yeah, and then she says, ‘Have your lawyer call my lawyer. Good-bye.’ ”
Vick felt stunned. She couldn’t imagine it.
“That’s when I realized, that’s why she accused me of cheating on her!” Dan’s eyes flashed with sudden anger. “You know, that fight the other day, the big one I told you about?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why she accused me, to hide the fact that she’s been cheating, all along. To throw me off. The best defense is a good offense.” Dan smiled ruefully. “How cold is she?”
“Wow.” I always knew that.
“So I spent all this past year, since you and I have known each other and done nothing wrong, being so careful about her feelings, when, the whole time, she was cheating on me! And accusing me of cheating! Ha!” Dan smiled. “Diabolical, isn’t she? She’s an evil genius!”
Vicki couldn’t smile. “On the other hand, maybe she really thought it, since she was doing it. People do project themselves onto others, the way liars always think people are lying.”
“No, it was a scam and it worked.” Dan curled his upper lip, where reddish stubble sprouted. “I never suspected her of having an affair. I thought she was working hard, to become a surgeon. I knew what that job took, and I figured she’s paying her dues, like you are. A woman in a man’s world. I just got suckered.”
Aw. “That’s awful!”
“I tell you, what’s awful is being lied to, all that time. I don’t like thinking that all those calls she got, emergency calls, weren’t really from work. That, I don’t like. I was stupid. Blind.”
“No, you trusted her.” Vicki remembered one of those emergency calls herself. They were in a restaurant and Mariella took a cell phone call, then left the dinner. “You can’t question somebody when she leaves to
save a life.”
“Exactly.” Dan exhaled and leaned back in his chair, his manner surprisingly accepting. “So, my marriage is over, but it’s weird, I’m not even that upset. I don’t even feel sad, not about the marriage ending. I didn’t even cry.”
Vicki eyed him with doubt, and Dan read her mind.
“Really, Vick, believe me, I know it’s okay to cry. I know I’m supposed to cry. But I don’t feel like crying.”
“Are you in denial?”
“No, I’m in reality.”
“But you loved her, didn’t you?” Say no.
“I don’t think I did, really. It wasn’t a very good marriage.” Dan shrugged. “Funny. After she told me, I went to the gym, but there was no game that late, so I took foul shots until they closed. Then I went home to my completely empty house and took a good, long shower. I think I sweated that woman out.” Dan smiled. “And I dried myself off with toilet paper, because she took all the towels.”
Vicki laughed. “Did that work?”
“Yes, if you like white balls stuck in your leg hair.”
“That’s so hot.”
Dan smiled. “Bale said there’s like starter marriages, practice marriages. He thinks that’s what this was.”
“Bale’s been married three times.”
“He’s still practicing,” Dan shot back, and they both laughed. Then he grew serious. “So that’s that. She can have the stupid furniture. I’ll sign the agreement, which gives her half our money, and it will be over and done with.”
Vicki frowned, sipping her wine. “But didn’t you earn most of it? I mean, what does she make, as an intern?”
“What’s the difference?” Dan paused, as if waiting for an answer, but Vicki didn’t have one. “She can have it. I don’t want to fight, I want to move on. We’ll sell the house and split the proceeds.”
“Don’t you want to talk to a lawyer first?”
“No, I am a lawyer. But I want Zoe back. A man needs his kitty cat.” Dan got up with his full glass and took it to the sink, and Vicki rose.
“You don’t like the wine?”
“It’s fine, I’ve had enough. I’m going to be a good boy and wash my glass.”