“And you’re throwing away that Baggie.”
He looked mildly surprised. “It cost me two grand,” he said.
“You’re throwing it away,” she repeated.
“All right,” he said. They looked at each other again, leaving me to watch for lethal beer trucks. Still, it was nice to see everything settled and harmony restored to the universe so D E A R LY D E V O T E D D E X T E R
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we could get on with finding our hideous inhuman monster of the week, secure in the knowledge that love will always prevail. And so it was a great satisfaction to cruise down South Dixie Highway through the last of the rainstorm, and as the sun broke out of the clouds we turned onto a road that led us into a twisty series of streets, all with a terrific view of the gigantic pile of garbage known as Mount Trashmore.
The house we were looking for was in the middle of what looked like the last row of houses before civilization ended and garbage reigned supreme. It was at the bend of a circular street and we went past it twice before we were sure that we had found it. It was a modest dwelling of the three-bedroom two-mortgage kind, painted a pale yellow with white trim, and the lawn was very neatly cropped. There was no car visible in the driveway or the carport, and a for sale sign on the front lawn had been covered with another that said sold! in bright red letters.
“Maybe he hasn’t moved in yet,” Deborah said.
“He has to be somewhere,” Chutsky said, and it was hard to argue with his logic. “Pull over. Have you got a clipboard?”
Deborah parked the car, frowning. “Under the seat. I need it for my paperwork.”
“I won’t smudge it,” he said, and fumbled under the seat for a second before pulling out a plain metal clipboard with a stack of official forms clamped onto it. “Perfect,” he said.
“Gimme a pen.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked, handing him a cheap white ballpoint with a blue top.
“Nobody ever stops a guy with a clipboard,” Chutsky said with a grin. And before either of us could say anything, he was out of the car and walking up the short driveway in a 1 1 8
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steady, nine-to-five-bureaucrat kind of pace. He stopped halfway and looked at the clipboard, turning over a couple of pages and reading something before looking at the house and shaking his head.
“He seems very good at this kind of thing,” I said to Deborah.
“He’d goddamned well better be,” she said. She bit another nail and I worried that soon she would run out.
Chutsky continued up the drive, consulting his clipboard, apparently unaware that he was causing a fingernail shortage in the car behind him. He looked natural and unrushed, and had obviously had a lot of experience at either chicanery or skulduggery, depending on which word was better suited for describing officially sanctioned mischief. And he had Debs biting her nails and almost ramming beer trucks. Perhaps he was not a good influence on her after all, although it was nice to have another target for her scowling and her vicious arm punches. I am always willing to let someone else wear the bruises for a while.
Chutsky paused outside the front door and wrote something down. And then, although I did not see how he did it, he unlocked the front door and went in. The door closed behind him.
“Shit,” said Deborah. “Breaking and entering on top of possession. He’ll have me hijacking an airliner next.”
“I’ve always wanted to see Havana,” I said helpfully.
“Two minutes,” she said tersely. “Then I call for backup and go in after him.”
To judge from the way her hand was twitching toward the radio, it was one minute and fifty-nine seconds when the front door opened again and Chutsky came back out. He paused in D E A R LY D E V O T E D D E X T E R
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the driveway, wrote something on the clipboard, and returned to the car.
“All right,” he said as he slid into the front seat. “Let’s go home.”
“The house is empty?” Deborah demanded.
“Clean as a whistle,” he said. “Not a towel or a soup can anywhere.”
“So now what?” she asked as she put the car in gear.