“Methadone,” the big marshal grunted.
The pretty Polynesian nodded slowly, adding another term to her lexicon of street slang, and returned her focus to the wet street.
Ranucci set the sandwich in his lap, exchanging it for a paper cup and straw he held between his knees. He’d already drained it twice.
Cutter poured him some more water from a plastic bottle.
Nicky drank it all immediately. The water gave him a little courage. “Ma’am,” he said, earning himself a side-eye from the big deputy beside him.
Deputy Lola looked in the rearview mirror. “Yes?”
“Can I ask what you are?”
Her eyes were stones in the mirror, unreadable.
“What I am? I’m a deputy US marshal.”
“No,” Nicky said. “I mean, I was just wondering if you were Samoan or Hawaiian or what.”
She made a buzzer noise. “Wrong,” she said. “None of the above. Cook Island Maori.”
“Maori,” Nicky said, giving a little nod like he understood, though he did not. Then it dawned on him. “Like the New Zealand guys with those scary tattoos, who do that dance.”
“Very good,” Deputy Lola said.
“I read they were savages until the eighteen hundreds, when the missionaries came.”
“Savages?” Lola chuckled.
“That’s what I read,” Nicky said. “I read they were cannibals.”
“You know,” Deputy Lola said, staring at him in the rearview mirror. “Those are my people you’re talking about. I’m one of those savages.”
Nicky gave a nervous chuckle. “But you’re not a cannibal.”
Deputy Lola’s eyes grew wide as saucers in the mirror, showing their whites. At the same time, she drew her lips back in a horrifying grimace that nearly made him piss his pants.
“I could be,” she said.
Ranucci looked away, then gave the chains another rattle.
“How about it, Marshal? What do you say about the cuffs?”
Cutter looked him in the eye long enough to make him uncomfortable—which didn’t take very long—and then gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, less than Mount Rushmore moved in the wind. “You’re doin’ great.”
Lola spoke over her shoulder again. “Sure you don’t want a burger?”
Yeah, she was hot all right. She looked like she could kick his ass, but it would almost be worth it for the physical contact . . .
Deputy Lola snapped her fingers to bring him out of his stupor. “A Big Mac or something? Jailhouse bologna can’t be very tasty.”
“I’m good.” Ranucci used the shoulder of his tan scrubs to wipe mustard off the corner of his mouth. “Guys in my cellblock would smell it on my breath and beat my ass. Snitches get stitches. Know what I mean? They’d figure I did something to earn the reward.”
Ranucci’s mouth watered at the idea of an actual hamburger. He closed his eyes and tried not to imagine food beyond what he got in Cook Inlet Pretrial. Life inside was hard enough for a wigged-out junkie. It would be impossible for a snitch with a burger on his breath. He groaned, and craned his neck again to reach the last of his sandwich, since he wasn’t about to get any help with the chains.
Deputy Cutter was obviously the boss, but for some reason the big guy had opted to sit in the back of the SUV with the prisoner and let the pretty Hawaiian drive. Maybe the two of them had something going. Ranucci had enough experience with cops to know that the senior guy rarely took a seat next to a junkie. Hell, Nicky Ranucci wouldn’t have sat next to himself if he could have avoided it. And there was the whole partner thing, friends, confidants, badges with benefits . . . He’d heard about the PD’s no booty on duty policy. Policies like that didn’t happen without a reason.
Deputy Lola shrugged, working something out in that beautiful head of hers as she made the block.
“So,” she said, “Twig’s cousin owns that car lot?”
“As I understand it,” Ranucci said. “They’re not close or anything. Fact is, Twig don’t trust him. You know—”
The big guy cut him off. “Does Sam deal heroin?”
Ranucci chuckled. “Nah. He just has the poor luck to be related to an asshole like Twig. I never even saw the guy until a couple of days ago. Twig was trying to score some black tar from my dealer for resale, earn a little money to live on. Know what I mean? My dealer thought he might be a cop, so we followed him to Sam’s . . . you know, to establish his bona fides.”
Cutter raised an eyebrow. “And they trust you enough to let you come along?”
“I needed a ride to midtown,” Ranucci said. “APD put my Nissan in car jail after my last DUI. They get you every which way. Know what I mean?”
Lola slowed, swerving around one of Anchorage’s numerous car-eating potholes. “You sure Twig’s still with him?”
“I think so,” Nicky said, forehead knitting in concern that his information might not buy his freedom. “He was before I got arrested. Twig makes sure they’re attached at the hip so Sam don’t rat him out. You find one, you find the other, but you better do it quick. My dealer says Sam’s wife wants Twig gone, so he’ll be moving on any day now.”
“Tell me more about Sam,” Cutter said.
“Twig is big, but Sam’s bigger. Know what I mean?”
“You mean fat?” Lola said.
“Kind of,” Nicky said. “Sure, Sam’s got some weight on him, but he’s got the muscle to carry it around. He seems harmless enough. Twig, on the other hand, I once saw him bite the head off a guy’s pet lizard. For the sport of it. Know what I mean?”
“That’s stuffed up,” Lola said under her breath. There was a hint of Kiwi there, which made Ranucci catch his breath a little, even with the scary faces she made.
She took a painfully slow right off Arctic beside the car lot. “Looks like the shop is locked up tight,” she said. There were a half dozen cars on the lot, dusty, rained on, unkempt, like all the other cars in Anchorage at this snotty time of the year. “Maybe this place is just a front. You know, money laundering or something.”
Ranucci wolfed down the last of his sandwich.
The big deputy’s phone buzzed. He checked it, then looked out the window at the dealership. At length, he raised a handheld radio, keeping it low enough that casual passersby couldn’t see it from the street.
“Hello, Sean.”
The radio broke squelch. “Go ahead, boss.”
“That hearing in front of Judge Markham is still going strong.”
“I just saw,” the other deputy said.
Cutter spoke again. “We’re taking our guest back to the courthouse so he can catch the late jail run. You two keep an eye on this place while we’re gone.”
“Copy.”
Ranucci began to bounce in his seat, twitching at the prospect of going back into lockup. His words came out whinier than he’d intended. “Hold up, now . . . I thought we had an arrangement.”
“We do,” Cutter said. “I’ll call your probation officer and tell her you helped us as soon as we get Twig in cuffs.”
“What if you don’t?” Ranucci felt tears welling up at the prospect of spending another night in lockup. “I did my part by showing you where Sam works.”