go to a stationhouse, tell them everything. You know cops, right? Tell them what you saw, everything you’ve figured out about what happened to Jake. If you can’t leave town, maybe that’s the next best thing.”
Rufus yanked his T-shirt down. “I’m sorry, I’m still a little hungover. Did you say go to the police and snitch on a cop? A sergeant? She’s a decorated officer and I’m a petty thief. Who do you think they’re going to believe?”
“I meant one of the cops you know. One that you trust.”
“Without Jake here,” Rufus said, voice dropping like a sinking stone, “all my hopes and dreams rest on Lampo.” He tugged his phone out and stared at the screen like he needed a moment to swallow his pride. “Lucky me,” Rufus finally concluded. He tapped in his passcode, pecked in a number, then set the call to speakerphone as it rang.
“Lampo.”
“Dickhead, it’s me. You alone?” Rufus said.
“Jesus Christ. What, Red?”
“Is Mommy dipping into confiscated coke or something?”
Lampo groaned. “This is why my sciatica acts up. This. You. I’m hobbling around like Gandalf the Elf over here because Red fucking Skelton won’t leave me the fuck alone. What are you talking about?”
Rufus was glaring at a spot on the wall over Sam’s shoulder. “Heckler.”
“What about her?”
“She’s elbow-deep in some serious shit,” Rufus answered. “Come on, man, are you kidding? You have no idea what I’m talking about? She tried to shoot me this morning.”
A long, groaning “Oh, Christ” followed, accompanied by the squeak of a chair. Lampo huffed into the phone, and then something sounded like a door closing. “Now, Red, that’s a very serious thing to say. Just what the fuck are you talking about, what the fuck are you getting me into, and how the fuck am I supposed to walk when you’re giving me the fucking sciatica this bad?”
Rufus’s grip on his phone tightened to the point that Sam could see his knuckles whitening. “Do I need to spell it out for you with alphabet blocks, Dickhead? Last night, I saw your sergeant cap a dude—the same guy who killed Jake, and the same guy you thought I imagined because there was no evidence. So again I ask, what the fuck is going on with the boys in blue?”
Lampo’s labored breathing rasped across the call. Then he said, “You got any proof?”
“P-proof?” Rufus stuttered. “Are you literally shitting me right now?”
“Yeah, proof. It’s this crazy new thing. The courts go nutso for it.”
“My own two eyes, Lampo,” Rufus retorted. “That’s my proof. Since when have I ever lied to you or Jake?”
“I’m not saying you’re lying, Red. But you’re talking about a decorated sergeant. My sergeant.” Lampo’s breath hitched, the sound of someone who’d moved funny, and he said, “Listen, I’ll look into it. You say this other guy, the one you said you saw before, he’s dead?”
“As a doornail.”
“You got a name?”
Rufus made eye contact with Sam, who’d taken the wallet the night before, and repeated his whispered answer at regular volume: “Marcus Borroff.”
“All right,” Lampo said. “Next time, we’re doing this face-to-face so I’m not sitting on a stack of toilet paper, bent over halfway to giving myself a zinger. I’ll call you when I’ve got something.”
“You fucking better.” Rufus hit End.
“I still think you should lie low for a few days. How much do you need to get out of the city? A hundred? Two hundred?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Rufus snapped at Sam before that now-familiar blush colored his neck and face. “I’m not running away from this,” he answered, a bit calmer. “So shut up about that.”
The next part was hard to say. “I know what I want to try next, but I need some help.”
Rufus arched a brow and cracked a smile. “Rub one off on your own.”
“Not to be crass, and not to brag, but so you know: it never comes to that. I’m talking about something else. In a few of his e-mails, Jake mentioned someone named Juliana. She’s a sex worker; she’s in the Ramble a lot. I told you part of one e-mail, where he mentioned her saying something about coming from the north. He refers to her in several others, but obliquely, always part of a story he knew he wasn’t supposed to tell me but kept leaking out. I want to talk to her. I want to know what she told Jake.” Sam fought to keep a grimace off his face. “I don’t know if she’ll talk to me.”
Rufus