The diner itself was another fifteen minutes’ drive. A roadside billboard on I-25 proclaimed its existence, together with a bold-print promise of twenty-four-hour service. The place was called Otto’s. It was a plain rectangular structure like an oversize trailer home, lonely amidst a big gravel parking lot large enough to take eighteen-wheelers. There was a trailer-less truck cab parked nose-in by the entry and a Jeep Cherokee way over in a corner. A couple of dust-filmed sedans by a side exit. Above them the stub of an air-con unit slotted through the wall, drifts of steam rendered whitely on that dark vista.
Grit popping beneath the tires as he turned in. He parked beside the truck cab, headlight glare in tight focus on the cladding, each blemish in searing relief. Sudden darkness as he cut the motor. He sat a moment in the quiet with the engine ticking as his night vision recovered, and then he got out and locked the car with the key. He left the Colt in the glove compartment. Forewarned of a pat-down, it was probably best where it was.
He rounded the truck and headed for the entry. That cool taste of night. Northward the mountains all camouflaged by gloom. In the east the dawn just breaking. A thin blue seam in gentle flexure across the far edge of the world. A marvel this hard land could be coaxed to such a template.
A bell dinged as he entered. He let the door fall closed behind him. In front of him the counter lay behind a long glass display of food. A slice of apple pie caught his eye: cold, gelatinous, bulging against plastic wrap. To the left a long row of booths below the front-facing windows. Two guys side by side near the end, facing the door.
Marshall walked over. They didn’t move, but their eyes followed him in. Both of them hunched slightly over folded arms, coffee cups standing half empty. He stood there in the aisle a moment, awaiting his pat-down, but the guy on the right signaled for him to take a seat. An issue of discretion, presumably. A gun-check in a diner is a fine way to draw attention.
“Don’t worry about it. Sorry it ain’t much of a respectable hour.”
There was a wry smile on his face that detracted from the sincerity a bit, but Marshall reasoned even the pretense of civility was better than none at all. In any case, he’d met at less respectable hours with even less respectable people.
He said, “Sure,” and sat down.
The vinyl creaked a little under his weight. He slid across and centered himself on the seat. He knew their backgrounds. On the left was Troy Rojas, Hispanic, six years’ worth of Army followed by twelve years’ worth of Walpole. In 1992, just back from the Gulf and high on something, he’d shot and paralyzed a Massachusetts State Police Trooper who’d pulled him over for speeding. Rojas’s crucial error: discussing the events with a Boston PD informant two months later. His colleague on the right was Cyrus Bolt, twenty years of drug offenses on his résumé. Without doubt a consummate shit bag, but perhaps not quite in Rojas’s orbit.
Bolt had some coffee. He wasn’t an attractive guy: coke-fiend-thin, all lines and sinew. Like something chewed and spat out. He would have been pushing forty. He said, “And what is it that you do, Mr. Marshall?”
Marshall shrugged in a manner intended to convey versatility. “Bit of this, bit of that.”
Bolt tipped his mug at him like a little toast and smiled knowingly. “Whatever’s going. I like that.”
A waitress came over, coffee flask in hand. Hispanic and heavyset, weary like she’d been doing the rounds since this time yesterday. Marshall hoped she was on the home stretch. He took the one remaining mug from the little stand in the center of the table and set it upright and requested coffee only, no food. She leaned and poured carefully, the four of them briefly captivated, and then she moved on.
Marshall looked around. Just one other customer. The truck driver, presumably, at a table over to the right. A coffee of his own, and what looked like eggs Benedict in a swamp of hollandaise. Overall not really an inspired choice of venue, given that a diner with one other customer is unlikely to afford much anonymity. Or maybe the waitress was in on it. He had some coffee.
Rojas ducked his head, smoothed a hand through his hair. There was a waxen gleam to it. “What we normally do, we take the sample off you, check it all out, and then maybe have another talk.”
“All right.”
Rojas turned his mug through a slow revolution on the tabletop, watched it carefully. He glanced up. “You got something for us to look at?”
“I do.”
Which strictly speaking was the truth, because there was indeed something to look at. The fact that the sample’s value as a stimulant was somewhat tenuous was information Marshall preferred to withhold.
Rojas said, “What’s your supply like? We’ve got a real issue with keeping enough stock around. So the bigger the better, basically.”
Marshall said, “We’ve got a hookup via Colombia.”
An outright lie, but it seemed imprudent to undermine a happy discourse.
“So stock’s no trouble.”
“Yeah. Stock’s no trouble.”
Rojas nodded slowly and mulled on that. He was watching Marshall with something akin to cool indifference. Marshall didn’t mind. He had some experience with the expression and was confident he could affect something of an equal if not greater standard. He did so for a few patient seconds. Then he had some coffee. Bolt had some coffee. Rojas had some coffee. The truck driver looked over idly and had some coffee.
Marshall said, “You guys out of Albuquerque?”
Rojas rocked his head, noncommittal. “Kinda.”
Marshall nodded. He said, “Well.”
He was quite partial to a good “well.” He liked the quiet, reflective pause that it often inspired.
He said, “Why don’t we go outside and have a look at my stuff.”
Neither of them answered. Rojas reached up and took a napkin from the stainless-steel holder on the windowsill and balled it and dabbed his mouth.
He said, “We don’t really check stuff out in this sort of environment. Public’s not a good idea.”
He gestured vaguely, like dispelling fumes. “And we’re just talking in very general terms here. We haven’t got down to discussing anything specific.”
Bolt said, “Not that it’s on record or anything. We just like to point out that at this stage we could be talking about anything here.”
Marshall nodded and swept an upturned palm, conceding the merits of cautiousness. Beside him the windows were just a long bank of mirrors. A slight tilt the only flaw in that inverse world. He said, “So what do you want to do?”
Rojas said, “We can head somewhere a bit quiet. Or just … You know. Private.”
Marshall said, “We could have gone straight there and avoided the preamble.”
“Well. We like to get a sense of what our potential colleagues are like.”
Marshall nodded slowly. “And your rivals?”
The tabletop was faded laminate, milky orbs where the neon was reflected. Rojas thrummed his nails a couple of times. “Coffee for the first meeting. Maybe something a little sharper for the next.”
Bolt smiled.
Rojas smiled, almost lascivious.
Marshall smiled. He grasped the implicit warning, but he didn’t think they were going to give him any trouble. It wasn’t arrogance, just a calm certainty gained from experience. He’d met very few people who shared his faculties.
He said, “We don’t have to dig around in the back of my car and make a scene. You can just take what I’ve got and do what you like with it. If you want to talk some more you’ve got my number. If you don’t want to talk, that works, too.”
Rojas thought about that. Marshall slid toward the aisle a fraction and laid an arm along the back of his seat. The waitress circled back around. Bolt waved off the offer of a refill.
Rojas said, “How much have you got?”
“A key. As requested.”
Rojas didn’t answer.
Marshall said, “Like I told you. You can do with it whatever you want. If you want to take things further, it’s entirely up to you.”
“This your standard practice?”
Marshall thought a bona-fide purveyor of illicit substances probably wouldn’t make a habit of dispensing one-kilo product samples too regularly. But he wanted to leave the right impression, so he looked calmly down the barrel and said, “Yes.”
“That’s quite an expense.”
He shrugged. “We don’t do it every week. Like I said, we’ve got a lot of stock. Our issue is more to do with distribution as opposed to supply.”
Rojas looked at him and nodded sagely, like this was a dilemma they were accustomed to resolving. He said, “Okay. Why don’t we go outside.”
Marshall patted the back of the chair slowly, like comforting a ghost. “All right. Let’s do that.”
He nodded at the trio of mugs. “It’s on me.”
He dug in his pocket. He had forty-seven dollars: two twenties, a five, and two singles. The five being the middle made it an easy find by touch. He laid it on the table and paired up the corners precisely and creased a sharp transverse fold, dead across the center, a perfect bisection.
Rojas and Bolt watched like it was street magic, some sleight of hand imminent. Marshall trapped the bill squarely under his mug and slid to the edge of the seat, stood up, and waited in the aisle.
Rojas nodded toward the door. “After you.”
* * *
The waitress smiled as they went out and told them to have a nice day. Marshall reciprocated. He figured at the very least they were good for one out of three.
They’d been seated when he entered which meant it had been difficult to establish if they were armed. Walking ahead of them the situation was no better.
Out the door and the bell dinged merrily. Highway noise borne easily on the cool air. He could see headlights sliding across the gloomed distance. All motion rendered gradual by that huge landscape.
His choice of parking space was slightly problematic, because he wanted them behind him as he opened the trunk. The present configuration meant a straight path from the door to the car would put them on his left. A serviceable prospect, but not really ideal, because he wanted their view obstructed.
He dug the Corolla’s keys from his pocket and spread them on his palm and pretended to search through them as he walked off to the right, toward the Cherokee parked in the corner. Six o’clock darkness, a plausible mistake for a preoccupied man.
Rojas and Bolt walking abreast behind him, trailing tight, maybe two feet. Halfway there and Bolt pulled him up.
“Wrong car.”
Marshall glanced up and stopped. “Oh. Yeah.”
He turned on his heel and threaded between them and headed back over to the Corolla. A slight arc so they would approach the trunk square. He heard them fall in behind, one or two feet, very close. Bolt on his right, Rojas left. This tight little procession. Breath rising palely like their own spirits departing.
He reached the Corolla. Morgue-cool to the touch. Rojas gave him no space. He stepped up tight against the taillight, close to his left shoulder. Trunk lid up and he’d have as good a view as any. Bolt was hanging a couple of steps back, off to his right. The low hum of the air-con and a softer, lonely note off the highway.
Marshall faux-searched his keys, the bunch on his palm again, that gentle chime of metal. Their positioning wasn’t stupid. Rojas was near enough to be trouble. Bolt could shoot him in the back if things got difficult.
Rojas dug his hands in his pockets and tensed against the chill. He jiggled one knee. “Let’s not make an event of it.”
Marshall abandoned the ruse. He selected the correct key and inserted it in the lock. The metal grated gently. The sound of it so clear on that huge stage it seemed for a moment the focus of everything.
A quarter-turn.
The mechanism thunked cleanly. The lid popped up an inch proud. Marshall shifted his stance fractionally so his back was to Rojas. Crunch of gravel as he turned on the balls of his feet. And then he swung the lid up, just sudden finger pressure under the flat of the key, like flipping a switch.
The set dressing was good: the duffel’s zip was open, clear baggies of white powder visible within. They drew Rojas’s attention.
In a single easy motion Marshall leaned down and picked up the Remington 870 shotgun from where it lay against the bottom lip of the trunk and took a swift shuffle-step toward Bolt and smashed him in the face with the butt of the gun.
Bolt didn’t even raise a hand.
The shotgun butt broke his nose. His head snapped back in a whiplash motion. He went down bleeding and Marshall, pulled by the momentum of the follow-through, stepped toward him to give himself space and brought the gun up and sighted on Rojas.
“Don’t move.”
Rojas was crouched in the gravel beside the car, one hand on the fender to steady himself, the other at the small of his back.
Marshall said, “What are you hiding back there?”
Rojas didn’t answer. Quiet now in the aftermath. Just the three of them privy to the skirmish and in that hushed vastness it was as good as never happened. Rojas hunkered in the dust. Bolt fetal, hands to his face, blood seeping between his fingers. Marshall looming over him.
Rojas rose to full height, the hand still hidden. He stepped slowly away from the car, giving himself some room. Marshall tracked him with the gun barrel, nothing in his face.
“You’re going to bring that arm round where I can see it and you better make sure there’s only fresh air at the end of it.”
“How old are you?”
“I’d say that’s the very least of your worries.”
“You’re not old enough to be playing with guns.”
Marshall prepped the trigger, took the slack out of it. “Playing or not. I’ve got pretty good at it.”
Rojas didn’t answer.
Marshall said, “Your friend here will attest to that.”
“This is not the sort of thing you want to do.”
Marshall said, “I wouldn’t take your advice on things I would want to do. So I think we’ll just carry on.”
“You’ll end up regretting this.”
Marshall sighted down the barrel. Rojas’s chest neatly centered. “Well. You just keep that hand hidden and we’ll see where the balance of regret ends up.”
Rojas nodded at the shotgun. “Haven’t pumped a round yet.”