Collateral(5)

Agent Lowell pouts, stroking a hand over her neatly secured hair. I wonder what this scene looks like to the families and friends and work colleagues seated at the tables around us, quickly inhaling their lunch. Do Agent Lowell and I just look like two girlfriends meeting for lunch? Or can people feel the animosity radiating off us, marring the air like a rotten stink?

“I want both of them,” Lowell tells me, her eyes vacant. In fact, she looks a little bored. There are dark circles underneath her eyes, though, and I know her blasé attitude is all pretense. “If I don’t get both of them, Rebel and your sister, then we don’t have a deal.”

The arrangement we made on the phone yesterday was for Rebel, but I prepared myself for the eventuality that she would change her mind, move the goalposts, and demand more than we agreed on. I’m ready for it.

“I only have the Widow Maker. If that’s not good enough, then you can forget the whole thing.” I narrow my eyes at her. “Would you really believe me if I told you where she was, anyway? Would you really believe I’d given up my own sister?”

“Word is you’re not so happy with little Alexis these days,” Lowell says. She picks at a stale-looking salad sandwich sitting on a plate in front of her, absent-mindedly pulling it apart. “Perhaps you’ve had enough of protecting her.”

I just shake my head. Agent Lowell sighs, pushing the plate bearing the stale sandwich away. “All right. So Rebel for a clean slate. Tell me where he is.”

“I need the paperwork first.”

Lowell shoots me a disgusted look. The woman is actually quite attractive, but her general disapproval with life has left a few deep lines on her face, making her appear permanently unhappy. “It takes time to get paperwork like that, Dr. Romera. It’s also the weekend. I can’t just show up at Judge Goldstein’s front door and start making demands. It’s his daughter’s bat mitzvah today. I won’t be able to get the sign-off until Monday.”

I’m prepared for this excuse, too. “We can rearrange to meet when you’re prepared then. I can’t guarantee Rebel will still be where he is right now, though. You know these biker types.” I flash her a completely insincere smile. “They tend to roam around a lot.”

Lowell’s mouth twists into a sour grimace. “Since we’re here finally having a conversation, how about you and I have a little reality check, huh? There are a few things I’m sure you have no clue about that might change your whole attitude toward these proceedings.” She leans down to her side and pulls a manila folder out of her Louis Vuitton purse. In the movies, manila folders are never good news. I doubt this one is going to be any different.

“I don’t care what you want to show me, Denise,” I snap, placing my hand flat against the envelope so she can’t open it. “I’m not interested. All I want is that paperwork, and then our business here is done.”

Lowell yanks the envelope out from underneath my hand and opens it anyway. She lays a photograph down on the table in front of me. “This is Ray Peterson,” she says, tapping a fingernail against the wide-eyed stare of the dead man gazing out of the image at me. The photo is in color, so it’s not hard to miss the pool of blood he’s lying in. I brace myself against the tabletop and peer forward so I can get a good look at the picture. Lowell seems momentarily disappointed. Perhaps she expected me to throw up or something. Tactics like that might work on someone who hasn’t spend the last two years working in the trauma department of an emergency room, but since I’ve witnessed more than my fair share of dismembered body parts and internal organs, that should frankly never see the light of day, all Agent Lowell gets out of me is a raised eyebrow. “Your point?”

“My point is that your boyfriend’s employer had a falling out with Ray Peterson last August, and then poor Ray here ends up with the back of his head blown out. You’re playing this whole thing very cool, Dr. Romera. Is this cool with you?” She pulls out another photo, this time an image clearly showing Ray’s gaping head wound. I blink at it, then fix Lowell with a dark look.

“I know Charlie Holsan’s an asshole. Are you inferring that Zeth killed this man?”

“I am.”

“And your proof?”

“Zeth was Holsan’s enforcer up until a few months ago. Who else would it have been?”

I snort, shoving the images back across the table at her. “Is that the kind of logic that convicts felons, Agent Lowell? Because if it is, I’m seriously worried about the state of the United States justice system.”