“What the fuck was that all about?” Deborah demanded.
Chutsky cocked an eyebrow at me and pushed the hair off his forehead. “Don’t she talk elegant?” he said.
“Kyle, goddamn it,” she said.
“The smell of ammonia,” he said. “No surgical use, and no commercial cleaning crew would use it.”
“We did this already,” Deborah snapped.
He smiled. “But ammonia IS used for cooking metham-phetamine,” he said. “Which turns out to be what these guys are doing.”
“You just walked right into a meth kitchen?” Deb said.
“What the hell did you do in there?”
He smiled and pulled a Baggie out of his pocket. “Bought an ounce of meth,” he said.
C H A P T E R 1 3
Deborah didn’t speak for almost ten minutes, just drove the car and stared ahead with her jaw clamped shut. I could see the muscles flexing along the side of her face and all the way down into her shoulders. Knowing her as I did I was quite sure that an explosion was brewing, but since I knew nothing at all about how Debs in Love might behave, I couldn’t tell how soon. The target of her impending meltdown, Chutsky, sat beside her in the front seat, equally silent, but apparently quite happy to sit quietly and look at the scenery.
We were almost to the second address and well into the shadow of Mount Trashmore when Debs finally erupted.
“Goddamn it, that’s illegal! ” she said, smacking the steering wheel with the palm of her hand for emphasis.
Chutsky looked at her with mild affection. “Yes, I know,”
he said.
“I am a sworn fucking officer of the law!” Deborah told 1 1 6
J E F F L I N D S A Y
him. “I took an oath to stop this kind of shit—and you—!” She sputtered to a halt.
“I had to be sure,” he said calmly. “This seemed like the best way.”
“I ought to put the cuffs on YOU!” she said.
“That might be fun,” he said.
“You SON of a bitch!”
“At least.”
“I will not cross over to your motherfucking dark side!”
“No, you won’t,” he said. “I won’t let you, Deborah.”
The breath whooshed out of her and she turned to look at him. He looked back. I had never seen a silent conversation, and this one was a doozy. Her eyes clicked anxiously from the left side of his face to the right and then left again. He simply looked back, calm and unblinking. It was elegant and fasci-nating and almost as interesting as the fact that Debs had apparently forgotten she was driving.
“I hate to interrupt,” I said. “But I believe that’s a beer truck right ahead?”
Her head snapped back around and she braked, just in time to avoid turning us into a bumper sticker on a load of Miller Lite. “I’m calling that address in to vice. Tomorrow,”
she said.
“All right,” Chutsky said.