The Night Crew

'You're talking bullshit, man, I don't know any murder mysteries.' His language veered from formal, almost scholarly, to the street, and then back again; he might have been two people. Tarpatkin shook out the newspaper, as though he were about to resume reading.

'One of your clients, Jason O'Brien, got taken off in a really bad way a couple of days ago. Beat to death, carved up with a knife.' When Harper said it, A

Another flicker: 'He knows them both,' A

Tarpatkin didn't deny it: this was news he could use. 'Carved up?'

'You know a guy who likes knives?' Harper asked.

Tarpatkin thought for a second, then said, 'I know a couple of them, but they don't know those two. When did this happen? I haven't seen anything about it in the paper.'

A

Tarpatkin looked her over for a moment, then said, 'Honey, I don't know what kind of mission you're on, but you really don't want to mess around with those people. They're amateursthey're crazy and they'll kill you for a nickel.'

'Somebody might be trying to kill me for free,' A

'Huh.' He pulled at his goatee, then said, 'Let me give you fifteen seconds on how the smart part of this business worksand for the tape recorder, if you're wearing one, you'll notice that this is all hypothetical.'

He pulled a napkin out of a chrome napkin holder and smoothed it on the tabletop. A

'This guy is making, say, ten grand a week after expenses, no taxes. He flies over to the Bahamas a few times a year and makes a deposit, takes a little vacation. In ten years, with some careful investments, he's got eight or ten million in the bank, and he moves to the Bahamas full time. Or Mexico. Costa Rica. Somewhere.

'If he's smooth, he don't have to worry too much about the cops, because he's such a small-timer, and when they come around, he cooperates. The cops always want the big guysChrist, if they busted everybody like this small-timer, they'd have to build twenty new jails. So, they don't. I mean, hey, he's a small businessman. A little better than insurance, maybe not so good as selling stocks and bonds.'

A

Tarpatkin shook a finger at her, like a schoolmaster making a point. 'I'm coming to that, honeythey're very different. They go into the dope business, and they think, "If I sell a pound of crank, I make ten thousand dollars. If I sell a ton of crank, I make twenty million dollars. So I'll sell a ton of crank. This year."

'And since they've been to the movies, they know the business is dangerous. So they buy a load of guns and knives and dynamite and chain saws and whatever else they can think of. Then to get their heads right, they get into the product themselves. The next thing you know, you've got these drug freaks with guns and dynamite and chain saws, and there's crank all over the street and everybody's going crazy looking for themcompetitors, cops, DBA. They always find them. Go to jail, don't get your twenty million. Or wind up in a bush somewhere, with your head cut off.'

He shook his head sadly, and asked in his street patois: 'Is this any fuckin' way to run a fuckin' business?' And then back to the scholar: 'I think not. But these are the people who are selling your wizards.'

'So can you put us onto somebody?'

Tarpatkin shook his head. 'No, I can't. I stay away from those people. However, if one of you has a cell phoneor a regular phone, for that matterI could ask around and call you.'

'So you wa

'No. But I don't know anythingnot what you want. Why would I? I don't hang with those people. I stay as far away as I can.'

'That's bull,' Harper said. 'You guys have always got your ears to the ground.'

Tarpatkin shrugged: 'Well, you could drag me out into the street and beat the shit outa me until I tell you what you want. except that I don't know it.'

A

'I will. You're a little sweetie.'

'About your hypothetical dealer sending his hypothetical money to the Bahamas,' A

'Could be eight years,' Tarpatkin said. He bobbed his head and smiled; one of his canine teeth was solid gold, and it winked at her from beneath his ratty mustache.

Outside, Harper said, 'I don't know what we could do: all we got is threats of siccing the cops on him.'

'We could drag him out in the alley and beat the shit out of him,' A

'In that place, we' d get about three steps,' Harper said. 'I have a feeling they sort of look out for each other. In fact. just a minute.' He walked back to the diner door, pulled it open, looked in, then walked back, shaking his head. 'He's gone. He'll be in the Bahamas by dawn.'

As they were getting into Harper's BMW, the phone in A

A little girl's voice, oddly ti

'Just a minute, just a minute,' A

She found the pen in her purse and Harper groped in a door bin and finally came up with a road map. 'Write on it,' he said. The ti

And sheit, Tarpatkin?was gone.

'Voice-altering phone deal,' Harper said, when A

'Why?'

'So in case we were recording it, he wouldn't be on the record.'

'Strange life.'

'Trying to make it to retirement,' Harper said. 'Two years.'

A

Harper glanced at her: 'The question about BJ's is this: you'll see some people you know, but so what? How do we pick out the guy?'

'If he talks to me, or comes on to me.'

'Somebody'sgo

A

Harper nodded. 'We spot the house, but we don't do anything. I want to check with some guys in the sheriff's department, run these names. Ro

Harper had a Thomas Brothers Guide stashed in the back seat. A

'If the address is right, it's just before the turnoff for Corral Canyon,' she said after a moment.

'Should be easy to pick out,' Harper said.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, not much traffic, just cruising. Then Harper said, 'How come you're not going out with anyone?'