The Right Madness by James Crumley

Author:James Crumley [Crumley, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781473540736
Publisher: Random House
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

TEN

THREE DAYS LATER, most of it spent lecturing me about fucking with the FBI, Ron had Lorna in a nice convalescent facility north of Seattle. I never found out what he said to her to get her to commit herself for sixty days, but whatever it was, it worked. When Agents Morrow and Cunningham showed up as the hotel people were packing Lorna’s room, I was standing in the middle of the downstairs room with the cocaine-loaded jewel case like a large piece of dogshit in my hands. I quickly stuffed it into the nearest bag, probably behaving in a guilty manner. Ron stepped in front of Morrow, his large hand extended, a huge grin on his face.

“Hey, chubby,” he said, “I’m the asshole in the braids.”

Cunningham and I left them to their conversation as we slunk into the hallway and down to the patio bar. It was one of those fall days that make people forget the rainy days. We sat down like old friends. He ordered coffee, but I told him to have a drink. “She’s going to be so mad, man, she couldn’t smell blood on your breath.”

“Well, fuck it,” he said and ordered a vodka tonic. “How long are you going to keep me on the hook?”

“Actually, kid, if you’ll find out one thing,” I said, “I’ll think about destroying everything.”

“What’s that?”

“Why she’s got such a hard-on for MacKinderick?”

“That’s easy,” he said. “She used to be on a high-level task force investigating money laundering. And MacKinderick’s name came up once on a computer search of offshore transactions, then disappeared. Along with about ten thousand others. She knocked out all the computers on three floors and blew out the backup files. Five years of work. She blamed a short, bad wiring, a hacker—but somebody had to take one for the team, so she left the task force and came into my life.”

“That’s the only name she remembered?”

“It’s her mother’s maiden name,” he said. “She didn’t have a first name—Dr. MacKinderick’s name never appeared on any drug files—but when she saw it out here, she went batshit.”

“So she’s just a loose cannon?”

“You could say that,” he said. “Now what about me?”

“Maybe you can tell me what this is?” I said as I showed him the bug I’d found.

“Probably another federal offense,” he said, holding it, “but I’m sure that doesn’t bother you.”

“You didn’t bug me, did you?” I asked.

He laughed. “With our budget, man? This is some bootleg ultrahigh-tech shit. For about thirty-five hundred dollars you can pick up conversations within a quarter of a mile until the batteries go. The DEA might have some they picked up in a raid. And maybe the Israelis. I’ve never seen one except in a catalogue. I can only promise you that you’re committing a felony just holding it.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You’re a nice kid. I’ve got your number. Relax.”

Then I dropped the device into his watery drink. I think he called me a dirty word as I walked away, but I wasn’t listening.

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