The Inside Ring. Mike Lawson

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      Mr William, the Monocle’s afternoon bartender, brought DeMarco his martini, the expression on his face as solemn as if he were bearing the Eucharistic wine. Mr William was in his sixties, black, skinny, and six foot six. He had inherited from his forebears the dignified, mournful face of an undertaker – a face which belied a filthy, adolescent mind.

      ‘You watch the Birds against Seattle last night, Joe?’ Mr William asked.

      ‘We have discussed this before, sir,’ DeMarco said, ‘and you know my feelings on this subject. I will watch the Orioles only when the Senators return to Washington.’

      In 1971 the Washington Senators left D.C. and moved to Texas to become the Texas Rangers, and all good D.C. baseball fans mourned the team’s departure as if their sainted mothers had expired. For years Washingtonians had lobbied to return a major league team to the capital but the owner of the Baltimore Orioles blocked every effort, rightfully concluding that a team in D.C. would take butts out of the seats at Camden Yards. It appeared that Washington might finally prevail in the coming year, but only by giving major financial concessions to the Orioles’ owner, a man DeMarco had come to loathe with a passion that could only be understood by other baseball fanatics.

      ‘Then you didn’t see Rodriguez’s triple play followed by Rodriguez’s inside-the-park home run?’ Mr William said.

      Shit. Either a triple play or an inside-the-park home run was as rare as dinosaur droppings. And he’d missed ’em both. Fuckin’ Orioles. Their owner was an avaricious spoiler, their front office cheaper than Scrooge’s offspring, and their pitchers not fit to play at the high-school level – but they had Alonzo Rodriguez, currently the best player in either league. But DeMarco would not lift his embargo. Ever.

      ‘Screw Rodriguez and his triple play,’ DeMarco said, trying to act as if he meant it.

      ‘You’re a stubborn man, Joe.’

      He was. DeMarco sipped from his martini, nodded his gratitude to the martini’s creator, and said, ‘Excellent, Mr William. May I use your phone please?’

      ‘You don’t have a cell phone, like all the other yahoos who come in here?’

      ‘Yeah, but I don’t want to use up my minutes. Come on, gimme the phone. It’s not like you pay the bill.’

      DeMarco dialed. ‘It’s Joe,’ he said when Emma answered.

      ‘Say it ain’t so, Joe,’ Emma said.

      ‘You sound cheery, Emma.’

      ‘I’m healthy, wealthy, and wise – and unlike you, I have an active sex life. Why shouldn’t I be cheery? So what do you want? I’m doing my nails.’

      ‘I’d like to borrow one of your associates for surveillance duty.’

      ‘The Mattis thing?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘Goin’ whole hog, are you?’

      ‘What’s an investigation without surveillance, Em? I’ll have your man tail Billy for a day or two then I’ll report back to Banks that he’s as pure as the fallen snow.’

      ‘The fallen snow is black from pollutants, Joe. Anyway, what will you be doing while my guy’s tailing Billy?’

      DeMarco told her.

      ‘I think Mike’s free,’ she said. ‘I’ll have him call you.’

      ‘Is this the same Mike you loaned me in February?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Good. He’s an okay guy. By the way, Emma, what’s his background?’ DeMarco rolled his eyes when he asked the question, knowing he was wasting his breath – but as Mr William had observed, he was a stubborn man.

      ‘Oh, the usual,’ Emma said. ‘Navy SEAL, licensed to kill, that sort of thing.’ Emma hung up.

      The truth was Mike could be licensed to kill. DeMarco had discovered in the years he had known her that Emma had access to a wide variety of talented people: ex-cops, ex-soldiers, and, he suspected, ex-criminals. She knew wiretap experts, document forgers, and computer hackers. They were all competent and for reasons he was sure he would never know, completely loyal to Emma.

      DeMarco had met Emma by giving her a ride. He had just dropped off a friend at Reagan National. He was parked ahead of the cab lane, checking traffic on his left, ready to pull out, when his passenger door opened and a woman entered his car. She was attractive, middle aged, and dressed in an elegant white pantsuit that was rumpled from travel. She was also out of breath, and it didn’t look as if she’d slept for a while. The only thing she was carrying was a purse.

      DeMarco said, ‘Hey, what—’

      ‘In about ten seconds,’ the woman said, ‘two men are going to come out of the terminal. They’re armed and they’re going to try to kill me. They’ll probably kill you too since you’re with me. Now drive. Please.’

      The woman was desperate, DeMarco could tell, but not panicking.

      ‘Hey, look—’ DeMarco said.

      ‘You now have less than five seconds. I work for the government and I’m not lying.’

      DeMarco almost said ‘I’ve heard that line before’ but he didn’t. He was starting to get scared. He looked intently at the woman. She could be someone running from the cops or a mule hauling drugs. But he didn’t think so. She didn’t have a particularly kind face but it seemed to be one you could trust.

      DeMarco glanced into his rearview mirror at that moment and saw two dark-complexioned men run out of the terminal. They looked frantically up and down the sidewalk in front of the terminal, and then one of them pointed at DeMarco’s car.

      ‘Shit,’ he said, and he stepped on the gas and pulled into the arriving airport traffic. ‘Why didn’t you just take a damn cab?’ he said to the woman.

      ‘Did you see the line at the cabstand?’ she answered. She looked behind her. ‘Damnit, they had a car waiting.’

      DeMarco checked his rearview mirror. The two men were getting into a black Mercedes sedan.

      ‘What’s going—’

      ‘Just get me to the Pentagon,’ the woman said. ‘And if a cop tries to pull you over, don’t stop.’

      ‘Wait a—’

      ‘You’ll get the cop killed. Now drive. Fast.’

      The woman checked the traffic behind them. The Mercedes was gaining on them. She pulled a cell phone out of her purse.

      ‘It’s me,’ she said into the phone. ‘I just got in from Cairo. I’ve got the sample but they were waiting for me at baggage claim. That wasn’t supposed to СКАЧАТЬ