Red Tide (Billy Knight Thrillers 2)

“The money is nothing,” Anna said. “Important is why does this Bud not come tonight?”

“I’m telling you why,” Nicky said. “He’s pumping up the price.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “My reading of Bud might be wrong, but I don’t think he’d work that way.”

“Just wait, mate. You’ll see.”

“Maybe so. We’ll know tomorrow night. Until then—” I shrugged.

“So we are only waiting now, and nothing more as this?” Anna asked.

“That’s it,” I told her.

Chapter Nineteen

The next day was long. The day before we had been waiting, tense, expecting something to happen and thinking that one way or another we would have an answer that night. That hadn’t happened and there was no way to know if anything at all would happen tonight. We didn’t know whether to be nervous or disappointed so we were a little of both.

So there was waiting, and politeness all around to hide the frazzled nerves, and the routine of meals. And soon it was night again and I was repeating my good-byes to Anna.

She held me for a minute, and then looked up at me, and then put her head on my chest.

“What?” I asked her.

“Is most of nothing,” she said. “Only—”

“Only what?”

She looked up again. “Last night I am having this bad feeling and nothing is happening. So tonight I am having it even more so, and so perhaps even more nothing will happens. Only I am afraid of something to happens when I am not yet being so much a woman for you.”

I kissed her on the forehead. “You are being plenty a woman for me,” I said. “And nothing will happens. I’ll be back in a few hours.” And I left her there in the hotel room, before she could say anything more.

Nothing had changed in the Miami traffic, and nothing was different in The O, either. I took my stool at the bar and worked my way through a glass of beer. I had just started on my second when the door opened and two cops pushed their way in.

When I had come in the other night with Nicky and Anna the place had gotten quiet. The cops got the opposite reaction. Everybody talked just a little louder, putting a lot of work into being innocent.

The cops stopped inside the door and looked around for a few seconds. The O wouldn’t be on anybody’s regular beat. They wouldn’t come into a place like this unless they were making a collar. I wondered who it was.

I didn’t wonder long. The taller cop, a thin black guy with a mustache, nudged his partner, an older Hispanic man, and they both moved towards the bar.

Towards me.

“Could you please stand up and place both hands on the bar, sir?” the taller one said. According to his nametag, he was DENNIS. His partner, LOPEZ, stayed a few steps to the side to cover me in case I pulled a LAWS rocket from my beer glass.

“What’s the problem?” I asked him.

“Put both your hands on the bar,” Dennis repeated.

“Sure,” I said. I put both my hands on the bar. They both looked serious about this and there was plenty of time to clear up whatever the misunderstanding was.

Dennis patted me down. He took my pocketknife, a large stainless steel Buck knife Betty Fleming had given me for Christmas. I turned my head. Lopez was talking to the bartender, who was nodding at me.

“I don’t know shit,” I heard the bartender say. “Whyntcha ask him. He knows sumtin, tell ya that.”

“Are you going to tell me what this is about?” I asked Dennis.

“We’d just like to ask you a few questions,” he said, putting my knife carefully into a plastic bag. That didn’t look too good. Bagging the knife meant he thought it might be evidence of something. That meant the questions they wanted to ask me might be a little bit sharp.

“Am I charged with something?” I asked him.