The Enemy

put me high on the list of U.S. users in terms of lifetime volume consumed. I was a part-timer. I was one of those guys who bought, not sold.
    But as an MP, I had seen plenty sold. I had seen drug deals. I had seen them succeed, and I had seen them fail. I knew the drill. And one thing I knew for sure was that if a bad deal ends up with a dead guy on the floor, there’s nothing in the dead guy’s pocket. No cash, no product. No way. Why would there be? If the dead guy was the buyer, the seller runs away with his dope intact
and
the buyer’s cash. If the dead guy was the seller, then the buyer gets the whole stash for free. The deal money walks right back home with him. Either way someone takes a nice big profit in exchange for a couple of bullets and a little rummaging around.
    “It’s bullshit, Sanchez,” I said. “It’s faked.”
    “Of course it is. I know that.”
    “Did you make that point?”
    “Did I need to? They’re civilians, but they ain’t stupid.”
    “So why are they gloating?”
    “Because it gives them a free pass. If they can’t close the case, they can just write it off. Brubaker ends up looking bad, not them.”
    “They found any witnesses yet?”
    “Not a one.”
    “Shots were fired,” I said. “Someone must have heard something.”
    “Not according to the cops.”
    “Willard is going to freak,” I said.
    “That’s the least of our problems.”
    “Are you alibied?”
    “Me? Do I need to be?”
    “Willard’s going to be looking for leverage. He’s going to use anything he can invent to get you to toe the line.”
    Sanchez didn’t answer right away. Some kind of electronic circuitry in the phone line brought the background hiss up loud to cover the silence. Then he spoke over it.
    “I think I’m fireproof here,” he said. “It’s the Columbia PD making the accusations, not me.”
    “Just take care,” I said.
    “Bet on it,” he said.
    I clicked the phone off. Summer was thinking. Her face was tense and her lower lids were moving.
    “What?” I said.
    “You sure it was faked?” she said.
    “Had to be,” I said.
    “OK,” she said. “Good.” She was still standing next to the map. She put her hand back on it. Little finger on the Fort Bird pin, index finger on the Columbia pin. “We agree that it was faked. We’re sure of it. So there’s a pattern now. The drugs and the money in Brubaker’s pocket are the exact same thing as the branch up Carbone’s ass and the yogurt on his back. Elaborate misdirection. Concealment of the true motive. It’s a definite MO. It’s not just a guess anymore. The same guy did both. He killed Carbone here and then jumped in his car and drove down to Columbia and killed Brubaker there. It’s a clear sequence. Everything fits. Times, distances, the way the guy thinks.”
    I looked at her standing there. Her small brown hand was stretched like a starfish. She had clear polish on her nails. Her eyes were bright.
    “Why would he ditch the crowbar?” I said. “After Carbone but before Brubaker?”
    “Because he preferred a handgun,” she said. “Like anyone normal would. But he knew he couldn’t use one here. Too noisy. A mile from the main post, late in the evening, we’d have all come running. But in a bad part of a big city, nobody was going to think twice. Which is how it turned out, apparently.”
    “Could he have been sure of that?”
    “No,” she said. “Not entirely sure. He set up the rendezvous, so he knew where he was going. But he couldn’t be exactly certain about what he would find when he got there. So I guess he would have liked to keep a backup weapon. But the crowbar was all covered with Carbone’s blood and hair by then. There was no opportunity to clean it. He was in a hurry. The ground was frozen. No patch of soft grass to wipe it on. So he couldn’t see having it in the car with him. Maybe he was worried about a traffic stop on the way south. So he ditched it.”
    I nodded. Ultimately, the crowbar was disposable. A handgun was a more reliable weapon against a fit and wary opponent. Especially in the tight confines of a city alley, as opposed to the kind of dark and wide-open spaces where he had taken Carbone down. I yawned. Closed my eyes.
From the wide-open spaces where he had taken Carbone down.
I opened my eyes again.
    “He killed Carbone here,” I repeated. “And then he jumped in his car and drove to Columbia and killed Brubaker there.”
    “Yes,” Summer said.
    “But you