Hide in Place Read online

  The acrid stench of urine drifted upward from the tunnel leading into the courtyard. She could hear voices but had to strain to decipher the words. They had stopped in the tunnel, the two men flanking Hopper, closing in on him, their bodies coiled, ready to strike.

  Hopper, to his credit, did not back down, did not cower. The tendons in his neck bulged as he talked, his face glistening with sweat and worry. Laney held her breath, every cell listening.

  They knew about his visit to the station, and he swore up and down, on all the saints and his mother’s life, that he’d said nothing, would say nothing, what did they take him for, he would gladly serve time rather than betray them. In the end, despite the fact that one of the men had shoved him, sending him pinwheeling awkwardly into a filthy puddle, they left him alone.

  They bounced out of the tunnel, sleek and quick, heedless of Laney’s bulky form against the wall. Hopper emerged a few minutes later, his slacks stained, his white linen shirt torn at the sleeve. One look at his eyes and Laney knew he was ready for her. He had the face of a person watching his house burn. In one unlucky month, he’d lost Orlov’s trust and was looking at years in prison.

  With her by his side, all he had to do was continue standing his ground with Orlov, protest his loyalty, all the while feeding her everything he had. He could put Orlov’s entire family away and remain untouched.

  Later, after she’d showered and changed into her street clothes, she joined Harry and Mike for a pint at their local.

  “He’s going to work with us properly now,” she said. “He’s about to crumple. Between those McThuggers and the two of you squeezing him, he’s ready to pop.”

  “You sure?” asked Harry.

  “Like a cannoli.”

  Mike gestured for a second pint. “Well,” he said, “in that case, it sounds like it’s time for him to meet Kendra. Officially.”

  She grinned. Yes, time for Kendra to leave the shadow world and enter the world of the noticed, the observed, the heeded.

  They didn’t need a scared informant, who might tell them anything, might lead them into a trap, might clam up altogether. And they didn’t need a dead one, which was sure to happen if Orlov got the idea Hopper was betraying them. They needed a sneaky one whose best interest coincided with theirs.

  CHAPTER

  32

  ON THE DAY Laney was to officially connect with Owen Hopper, she almost didn’t. She waited at the precinct for Harry, who was uncharacteristically late, and tried not to check her messages. Alfie had had an episode two days before, something to do with his locker and him not being able to open it in time, and then being marked tardy in math class, and then panicking. The nurse called, the principal called, the guidance counselor. Laney felt an involuntary anxious spasm every time her phone pinged. The way she was feeling that day, she was better off burying the phone in her desk drawer. Theo would have to handle anything that happened, because if she wasn’t on, wasn’t one hundred percent focused, she’d blow her cover. And if she blew it while Hopper was introducing her to Orlov’s men, she’d be screwed.

  She swiped a bit of gloss on her lips—mauve, because Kendra liked mauve. The sticky, strawberry-scented balm put her in mind of Theo’s latest work, and she ran her hands through her hair in irritation, her fingers snagging on the jeweled bobby pins she’d threaded through.

  Theo had started a new series of paintings—canvases six, seven, eight feet tall featuring enormous mouths. Pink, coral, red, umber, black, cracked, glossy, toothless and overly toothed, these orifices screamed and moaned at her whenever she entered his studio, and for the first time his work unnerved her. If she were to be honest, which she wouldn’t be, not even with herself, they revolted her.

  The days of perching on his painting stool, yakking away about her adventures while he painted, were long gone. She didn’t even know when that had stopped, but he’d gotten into the habit of locking the studio door when working. She knew he needed his painting time, so she left it alone. Consequently, she hadn’t been able to discuss her case and her doubts about it with anyone. Kendra’s personality was usually uncomplicated for Laney, but something about Owen Hopper, or the seriousness of the next phase, the high stakes, rattled her.

  She needed another, deeper angle. She couldn’t just be chaotic, dope-sick Kendra; it wouldn’t fly with the Russians. She’d kept her thoughts to herself for obvious reasons. Nobody wanted a waffling undercover on a case this big. She couldn’t, wouldn’t botch it up.

  When Harry arrived, forty-five minutes late and out of breath, Laney leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. Said, “What, no Danish? Not even a churro con chocolate?” She squinted, took in his flushed cheeks, dilated pupils, flaring nostrils. “Harry, are you exercising? Are you exercising and on a diet?” She almost laughed, the relief of finally starting the day rushing through her, a bright and fresh feeling, her qualms at rest for now.

  “You’re funny,” Harry said, shrugging off his jacket, the top of his gun visible over his belt. “Damn BQE. Two trucks broke down, one after the damn other. A fucking parking lot for three miles.” He’d already signed in, had the case folder in his hands, riffled through it, then dropped it on his desk.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Laney said. And here it was, the excitement, the thrill, coiling within her, warming. Of course she wouldn’t fail. Kendra always made a buy. And if this time the buy was pounds instead of ounces, tens of thousands instead of tenners and twenties, she could do that too.

  Harry looked at his feet, glanced around. They were alone in their corner, heaps of empty space surrounding them. He sat facing her.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Like the fucking queen who’s going to take Orlov down,” she said.

  He didn’t smile in answer; his eyes somber, his face, though glistening (from what? his run? had he really run to the office?), seemed haggard, the eye sockets sunken, a raw-looking welt on his neck slithering into his shirt collar.

  She sat forward. “What?”

  “Laney, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Heart thumping, hard, her hands and feet ice-cold. “What?”

  “I know you’ve been on this case from the beginning.”

  She frowned.

  “But Orlov’s guys are vicious. Hopper isn’t one of them, and we know that. I’m not talking about him.” As if she’d objected when she hadn’t. She held her breath. “I’m talking about the others. They’re violent as shit, and you can’t fight them.” He raised his hand, again as if she’d objected. “It’s simple biology. Every one of them can fuck you up, and no amount of karate or Krav Maga is going to save you.”

  “What are you saying, Harry? You don’t want me to go ahead?”

  He stared at her, stubborn. “I’m saying that maybe we get Thompson to go instead. You’ve got a kid to think about.”

  Kyle? Kyle was too new. He didn’t have the imagination or the experience to roll with it if something came up.

  “Are you serious?” she asked. Neither one of them moved. Why was Harry saying this? Had he sensed her doubts? “Kyle will fuck this case up the ass and back. He has no idea how to talk to anyone. He screams cop.”

  “He’s not so bad. He’s been doing it for six months. And he has a hundred pounds and eight inches on you.”

  “No offense, Harry, but take those eight inches and shove them up your crack.” She jumped to her feet and jerked her handbag over her shoulder. “I’m the only person for this case, and I don’t have the slightest idea why you’re sitting there and not driving me. Maybe you’re the one who needs to sit this one out? Should I ask Mike to ghost me instead? Or Kyle?” For some reason she made air quotes around Kyle’s name, and that didn’t even make any sense, but that’s how she got when she was mad.

  Harry held her eyes for a few more beats, then looked away, rose to his feet, patted his pockets, grabbed his jacket and headed out. She followed.

  Later, in the car, as they neared Hoppe
r’s pharmacy, Harry grinned. “I had you there, didn’t I?”

  She turned to face him, bemused.

  He patted her knee. “Nothing like being told you’re not good enough for something to make you want to fight for it,” he said.

  Realization (and relief, and gratitude, and annoyance) hit her all at once, and she had to look out the window so he wouldn’t see all that in her face. Yes, Harry was a good detective. And he was an even better partner. Later, after she’d started making the bigger buys and the captain praised her in person, she found out she hadn’t been the first choice to work with Hopper after all. Harry had fought for her, had to convince the bosses she was the only person for the job.

  And even later still, she realized his reasons for fighting for her had nothing to do with her abilities and everything to do with his perception of her loyalties. Which perception was, as always with him, utterly accurate.

  CHAPTER

  33

  AFTER HIS ONE visit to the station, Hopper refused to come back. I’ll tell you everything, he said, but you gotta come to me. I’m dead otherwise. And since nobody wanted a dead CI, especially not one it had taken nearly half a year to find, everything he gave them had to come through Laney from now on. They told him there’d be another CI coming but didn’t specify who. Keep doing what you’re doing, Harry told him, be yourself, and we’ll take care of the rest.

  That first day, she bought three hundred dollars’ worth of oxy and Ritalin from him. The second day, twice that. The third day, she asked if she could talk to him in the back room.

  “I have a business proposition,” she said.

  “I’m good,” he said. “I don’t need any more business.”

  “Maybe then I have a proposition for your supplier.”

  At this, he stopped what he was doing and looked at her, taking in her smooth hair (she’d changed the style, brushing it down over her forehead for a sleeker, more professional look), her fitted blouse, her slacks. She could almost hear the gears churning in his head—was she the CI sent by the cops? Or was she just another small-time dealer wanting in on an operation?

  “Come back tomorrow at one,” he said.

  He always closed the pharmacy from one to two, and that’s when she showed up the next day, carrying a slice of pizza and a can of orange soda in a grease-spotted brown paper bag.

  They met in the back office, his pastrami and Swiss on rye spread out on the scarred oak desk and her pizza cooling on her lap. The office, for decades the domain of the octogenarian Russian immigrant, was decorated with an American flag, a black-and-white photograph of the octogenarian as a young man, and a color one of him in front of the Statue of Liberty.

  Hopper bit at his sandwich, chewed quickly.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked.

  Laney sat up straighter, moved her pizza to the cluttered desk. Some grease dripped onto a receipts pile and she let it. A little of Kendra’s chaos was good; it suggested a believable irreverence. She had discussed her persona and angle with Harry and team for days before settling on a plausible story. Harry was adamant that she couldn’t play the buyer herself; the Russians would never trust a woman. Or maybe they would, he’d said, but not quickly.

  When he first suggested this, Laney bristled. Would she always have to prove herself, work harder, be tougher, and still have to endure colleagues and perps alike judging her based on her reproductive organs? She was small in stature, yes, but so was her father, who had weighed in at 145 pounds at his heaviest and barely broke the five-foot-six mark, neither of which stopped him from amassing over three thousand arrests in his career. Prior to becoming an undercover (when the arrests she facilitated had to be attributed to detectives working with her or else blow her cover), she’d had the third-most collars in her command.

  “He’s right,” Kyle the newbie chimed in. “You’re too pretty. They won’t believe you.”

  As Laney was about to shoot something back about Kyle’s own dubious believability, Harry interrupted. “You have to work with them, Laney. Give them what they expect to see.”

  Her pulse slowed, and she broke eye contact with Kyle and looked through the grimy precinct window—women in form-fitting skirts and heels, men in shirt sleeves. Even the children and the elderly dressed along strict gender lines. She glared at Harry. She could pretend he was being a dick, but he was only being honest. She’d have to figure out how to work within this culture. She’d learn how to be the right person for this assignment. The only person.

  “I’ll tell Hopper I’m buying for my man,” she said. Besides, it wasn’t her job to educate anyone in the finer points of gender equality. Her job was to buy drugs.

  Harry nodded. “Good. Who’s your man?”

  “Runs a discount store in Buffalo. Supplies all the college students with oxy, dope, blow, Molly, Vicodin, Ritalin, Adderall, Fentanyl, et cetera, et cetera. Our old connection fucked off somewhere and we need a new one.”

  The guys agreed. “That would work,” said Mike. “You could even use that as an excuse if you’re in a hairy situation. You can say you need to talk it out with your old man.”

  Harry smiled. “I like it. Why Buffalo?”

  She shrugged. “College town. Kids do drugs. Also, it’s near Niagara Falls. Have you ever been there?” She’d always wanted to go, but when she wasn’t working, Theo wanted time to paint. Then there was Alfie, who would eat only the three foods he allowed himself, prepared just the right way. Somehow they just never went.

  Harry shook his head.

  “Me neither,” she said. “So a person can dream, right?” That was the thing about fake identities. She could be anybody, from anywhere.

  Harry sat back, his shoulders relaxing. “Okay, so your guy is a mover and shaker in Buffalo, and you make buys for him. Sounds convoluted, but that’s good. Mundane stories are the easiest to double-check.”

  She said, “I’ll make sure he’ll be able to verify what I tell him anyway.” Easy enough to get fake business cards for the discount store, a burner phone with that number. Let Kyle the believability expert answer it if anyone ever calls.

  Now, sitting across from Owen Hopper, Laney felt Kendra taking over, loosening her limbs, her lips quirking in a flirty smile. Kendra, unlike Laney, knew her appeal and didn’t mind using it. Not at all.

  “Oxy to start. Adderall, Ritalin. I’ll need dope, coke. Molly if you have it.” She popped the tab on her soda and sipped.

  “Is that it?” he asked, but with a smile, amused.

  “College kids,” she said, smiled back. “Mommies and daddies are bleeding cash into their kids’ pockets and the kiddies are breaking down our door at all hours.”

  He balled up the paper bag from his sandwich. “Our door?” he asked.

  “Yeah, me and my husband. Up in Buffalo. It’s pretty there, you know? But yeah, we’re looking to do more business. Or rather, business is booming and our supplier can’t keep up. So I’m, you know, looking around.”

  He glanced at his phone. “I got to get back soon,” he said.

  She sat forward. “How are you getting around iStop for the scrips? We looked into that, but the state counts every fucking pill.”

  Hopper chewed the inside of his cheek. Laney wondered what he was thinking. If he suspected she was the CI, he’d answer her questions, since that was the agreement he made at the precinct. If he decided to believe her story, he might give her the brush-off.

  She said, “Hey, we’ve got cash. We’ll buy from your supplier, or from you, no problem. I’m just curious.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Whatever.” He cocked his head at her. “So what do they have on you? You got caught selling? Buying? Someone OD’d?”

  It was okay if he knew she was the one feeding his information to the police, as long as he didn’t realize she was police herself. She was Kendra with him. And Kendra was never honest.

  “Honey,” she said, “I just asked a question. If you don’t want to answer, no big deal, but I g
ot ten K that needs spending, so you tell me what you have for me.”

  He looked away, his face tired all of a sudden. He said, “We have a doctor. Name is Bruce Shulman. He’s a GP, married to Orlov’s niece. It’s a very simple gig—anybody around here on Medicaid who needs extra cash goes to Orlov and he sends them to the GP. He prescribes them painkillers, whether they need them or not, and he enters the information into iStop. Each patient gets thirty bucks for the trouble of going to the doctor and getting the scrip. I put the scrips into the system and log everything into the New York database. Insurance, mostly Medicaid, pays for the pills. If the person is an addict and they have the money but their insurance won’t cover the meds, they come to me. It’s theoretically legal, or at least we make it look legal.”

  “That’s brilliant,” she said. “If I didn’t know about the other stuff going through this place, I’d say you’re practically squeaky clean.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “Yeah. You can’t prove the patients don’t need the pain meds. Then I fill the scrips, the patients fuck off to wherever they spend their days with their thirty bucks, and I sell the pills. Thirty apiece, and twenty-five of it goes to Orlov.”

  “And Shulman? What’s his cut?”

  Hopper grinned. “Orlov takes good care of his family. Nice cars, nice clothes, jewelry, vacations.”

  “All right, sounds good. Maybe I’ll make an appointment with Dr. Shulman.” She picked a gob of cheese off her cold pizza and rolled it between her fingers. “All those kiddies coming to me for the oxy and the Vicodin eventually come to me for dope. So that’s on my grocery list as well.”

  He glanced at his phone again. “There’s a load coming in from the West Coast on Wednesday. I will put you in touch with a guy named Oskar Koshka.” He stood up. It was near two PM.