“Why don’t we leave it to the law to decide, shall we?” Maura turned away from me and examined the damage to her car, clucking her tongue and tsk-tsking along the way.
Something broke in me. A slow egg yolk oozing. I leaned back into Blake’s car, opened the glove box and put a hand on his pistol. My palm seared on the metal. My body didn’t want me to do this, but I pushed through the pain and lifted the gun.
I got as far as the front seat and had to drop it. Progress, but baby steps, y’know?
I’d held a gun on Sam, but couldn’t fire. Could I hold a gun on a perfect stranger?
I didn’t have time to find out so I went with plan B, which, in a way, turned out even more intimidating.
“Maura?” I said. “Come here.” I tried to channel Sam. What would she do? And after all, I reminded myself, she was me. I had it in me, just needed to find it again.
The bitch stepped over to me, hips swinging. I think she expected a profuse apology, maybe some groveling. Not today, Maura.
“See that?” I said, pointing to the gun resting on the front seat. A seat soaked in dried blood. “Don’t make me take it out a point it at your f-f—” I stammered, struggling to get the word out. “F—fucking face.”
As she looked inside the car at the blood stained upholstery and the pistol resting on the seat, she turned white as a sheet. Her mouth gaped open and shut like a ventriloquist dummy.
“You don’t want me to get the gun, do you Maura?”
She kept her eyes on the gun and shook her head violently side to side.
“Good. Then can I go now? I have things to do.”
She took two steps back, nodding her head. She reached her car again and fumbled with the door handle. Inside, her husband looked confused.
“Maura? What happened?”
I got in and left as fast as I could, hoping my little detour hadn’t given Sam the advantage.
THE SCENE OF THE (OTHER) CRIME
Even after all the crap I’d been through that morning, when I pulled in front of the Eisenhower building housing the city offices the clock outside pointed two dagger-like hands up at the twelve. What’s that the Army used to say about doing more before lunch? Even those jock-heads don’t do as much killing as I’ve seen.
Parking was grim. I ended up two blocks down at a meter. Before I got out I closed my eyes and tried to get an idea of where to find her. I got a bit of a shock.
I watched as she walked through the front doors of the Eisenhower building. Damn. She beat me there. My view came in clear. She had other things on her mind, like where and how to find Lucas, so her blocking my view had been put on hold.
I fished in my pocket for some change and came up with lint. I opened the cup holder, ashtray, glove box in Blake’s car, but not even a penny. I sucked in a breath like getting ready to rip off a band-aid and I tried walking away from the car without feeding the meter.
I felt a weird sensation, like a force field or something. I got a few paces away and gravity became stronger, the air around me thicker. I kept walking, powering my feet forward like walking in mud at the bottom of a lake. And do you know what? I made it out the other side. My feet moved easier, the air thinned out. Each step I took away from the violation came more normally. Before long, I broke into a jog down the sidewalk toward Lucas. Balance returned faster now each time I pushed through the pain.
I knew for sure when the gun in my waistband stopped burning my skin.
All I could think of was the last time I’d been there. The poison. The people dying all around me. The look of fear in the survivor’s eyes when they thought I was the one who’d done it.
Things could go two different ways. I could march into the lobby and have it out. Though I doubted I could shoot, still. But, I could create such a distraction I could stop her from getting very far. With security on high alert after the poison I’d surely start a shootout and either me or Sam or both would be shot. It would be a hell of a trick shot for some lucky lobby security guard. Shoot one and get the second for free. See them explain that in their report.
Before I stormed in guns a-blazing, better to get the lay of the land. As I approached the front of the building I zeroed in on her view. I watched until I knew what to do. It took a while.
Here’s what I saw:
Sam held her DEA I.D. out (bitch had it the whole time!) and spun a tale of bullshit about needing to see assistant district attorney Lucas Royston on a confidential matter. The security guard, a young guy an awful lot like Brad Pitt from Thelma & Louise, a comparison I bet he didn’t mind at all, listened to her while shaking his head.
“Mr. Royston isn’t in today, ma’am. I have the sign in sheets and the card key logs from as soon as five minutes ago. He’s not here.”
“You do see this says DEA, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You now that means Drug Enforcement Agency? Federal drug enforcement?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry I can’t help you.”
Sam played it smart. She wouldn’t make it far acting like a bull in a china shop. Go in low key, throw the weight of the agency around. Solid plan. Looked like it wasn’t working for her, though. That meant I wouldn’t have any more luck. I sat still, let her do the legwork for us both. Of course, her methods are a little different than mine.
“Listen,” she read his name tag. “Mackendrick, can we talk in private?”
He paused, a little wave of excitement passed over his face. He’d become necessary to a DEA case, in his own tiny way. A lobby security guard gets so few chances to be relevant. A keeper of a sign-in sheet that gets filed and then shredded without anyone ever looking at it. A man with his name on his chest for all to see and yet none of the people who walk past him every morning and afternoon know his name. A young man with Brad Pitt-good looks forced to put on a polyester rent-a-cop suit and ergonomic shoes, the most dangerous thing on his utility belt a moderately heavy flashlight.
So did Brad Lite jump at the chance to be in-the-know on the hot case Lucas and the DEA agent were working? You bet he did.
Making it seem like his idea, Sam steered him into the stairwell behind the security desk. She tried hard to disguise her limp. I don’t think he noticed.
I started moving quickly across the tree-lined courtyard. I stepped over another plaque with a supreme court justice quote:
“A child born to a Black mother in a state like Mississippi…has exactly the same rights as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States. It’s not true, but I challenge anyone to say it is not a goal worth working for.”
Thurgood Marshall.
I kept the gun tucked in my waistband, my shirt untucked over it. Quickly entering the lobby of a government building, sight of a recent mass poisoning, with a gun out seemed like a bad idea.