At the change of the light I took one last glimpse catching a partial view of the procession led by Jesus bearing his cross. That’s when it hit me. Toni Monday’s ears were so attuned to the ripple in the cesspool where sewer rats bred that he knew with accuracy when one miscarried. If Toni put Big-Six at a job there was a ninety-nine percent probability that he was at that location when Toni got a fix on him. Which meant Julia Wells was a better actor than I gave her credit for.
I made a U-turn and throttled my trusty old machine through the crackling cold streets of central Brooklyn. Approaching Grand Army Plaza I called Toni Monday but got his voice mail.
I MADE IT to East 103rd in twenty minutes. It was 8:45 when I parked outside Julia Wells’s house.
For about five minutes I had my finger jammed to the tiny black button on the front door before I got a response. Traveling voices looped behind me in boisterous conversation. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a group of young boys stumbling to school, jeans wobbling below their hips.
Movement inside the house incited me to press the buzzer harder. I heard a sound, like someone cursing; it had that distinct throaty flavor of a man who’d just woken up.
Julia opened the door wrapped in a dusty purple terrycloth robe tied at the waist with a long sash. On seeing me she glanced furtively up the stairs behind her.
“Do you know what time it is?” she said.
“Time for slugs to eat salt.” I knocked her flat as I bulldozed my way into the house, reaching the stairs in a bound. Two at a time, I darted up the steps. By the time she recovered her voice and screamed Big-Six’s name I had already gained the top. I drew the Glock from its sheath under my coat. In front of me was a dark tight passageway made even more constricted by the presence of large boxes packed on top of each other on my right.
Big-Six must not have heard Julia’s siren because he came out of the bathroom naked as a manatee, his face lit up with a smile. I could only think he must’ve been expecting a morning present from his girlfriend. When he saw me his eyes froze and his body went awkwardly limp. He may’ve lost all motor senses for that instant.
I’d seen it happen to many hardened criminals, men you’d think would be immune to such a reaction just by the nature of their way of life. One guy even lost control of his bowels in the shock of having a bunch of weary-eyed narcos, smelling of last night’s funk, bust in on him while he was fucking his girlfriend at five o’clock in the morning. I can’t imagine any woman finding anything romantic about a man nutting and shitting at the same time, especially if that’s the last memory you’ll have of that man for a while.
I slithered up to Big-Six, my gun pointed directly at his eyes. Julia was still screaming and I could hear her scrambling up the stairs.
My mouth inches from Big-Six’s ear, I said, “Where’s the bedroom?”
He blinked and nodded his head away from me.
I pushed him forward. “Move.”
He stumbled and fell against the boxes, bouncing off and twirling down the corridor on jellied legs. I followed at his heel into the room at the end of the hall. I pushed him inside and closed the door, leaning against it to keep Julia at bay.
“Who paid you to park the politician?”
He sat at the edge of the rumpled bed. The light in the room came from a low-intensity bulb in a walk-in closet whose door was open; thick purple blinds were drawn covering the two windows. I could feel his thoughts tumbling out through his almost colorless eyes.
He sniffled as if he had a cold. “You the man?”
“I got the gun, asshole. That makes me the man. Who paid you?”
He got up and stepped toward the closet.
“Don’t move.”
“Man, can I get some clothes to cover my shit?”
Julia had reached the bedroom; she began banging at the door screaming, her voice shrill. “Open this mutha-fucking door or I’ll call the police!”
It seemed that her voice was all Big-Six needed to morph into his bravura street persona. A rigid smile scuffed his pale face and his sculpted body slumped into a leaden defiant posture. “So, you ain’t the man. You must be the freak who came looking for me yesterday.”
“Sit your stupid ass down.”
“Man, I shit punks like you in my dreams.”
“I don’t care if you blow smoke rings out your ass on Good Friday. This ain’t no dream. And if you don’t sit your ass down I’ll turn that little thing you got there into a freaking memory.” I pointed the gun at his dick.
That thought sucked the defiance out of his eyes, which clouded with doubt.
“Sit down,” I ordered.
He scotched again at the end of the bed. Something smacked against the door outside, the impact echoing inside the room like a bell in a belfry.
“You open this door right now!” Julia screamed.
“If you got proof I baked this dude why didn’t you bring the weight?” Big-Six said.
“I wanna know who paid you.”
“Your shit’s punk, man, and you know it. Unless you plan to do something other than wave that toy in my face you better get outta my sight. I’ll forget that you’re trespassing. I may be the one undressed but you’re naked, cuz.”
I could tell Big-Six was about to try something by the edgy lean that fell from his shoulders. He rushed across the room, head down. I sidestepped and clubbed him behind the neck, sending him asprawl on the floor. But the attack forced me to shift my weight from against the door, giving Julia time to barrel her way inside.
Her unwieldy swipe at my head with what looked like a clothes iron missed as I ducked out of the way. I grasped a clump of her hair and twisted. She spun twice around screaming, swinging her weapon in a wide arc. The clump of hair came off in my hand. Extensions. I made another grab at her and latched on to the sash of her robe and tugged. She lurched toward me. The sash released and her robe fell open. Her huge breasts lay flat on her chest like deflated footballs, her stomach protruding as if she were pregnant.
Big-Six had gotten to his feet and before I could stop him, he rushed past me through the open door. I turned to go after him, but having recovered from the minor embarrassment of her abrupt striptease Julia took another swing at me. I ducked, caught her by the waist, and threw her to the floor.
I rushed down the stairs. By the time I got to the street he’d disappeared. The street was empty. I went back inside the house as Julia came down the stairs.
She smiled, keeping the robe wrapped close to her body with crossed arms. “Listen, that was all an act. I had to do it. Otherwise he’d be on my ass for not doing anything to help him.”
“It wasn’t very convincing,” I said.
“Really?”
“You should try method acting.”
“I thought that’s what I was doing.”
“Here’s some advice. Write that loser out of your life.”
“I got bills, you know. Acting don’t pay the bills.”
“You may pay with your life if you don’t get away from that guy.”
Before she could react I opened the door and went out into the softening mist.
I WAS crossing the Brooklyn Bridge when my phone rang. It was Agent Kraw.
“I’ve got your phone records.”
“That was quick,” I said.
“You complaining?”
“Not on your life. I’m passing that way.”
“You don’t know where I am.”
“I stand corrected. Where are you?”
“A diner off the BQE, near La Guardia. I can drop this off at your house this evening.”
“No, I’ll pick them up if you’re gonna be there for the next fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll be here.”
“What’s the name of the place?”
“Lucky Stars. Exit Five A. Can’t miss it.”
TWENTY-FIVE minutes later I pulled into the Lucky Stars parking lot, which was next to one of those hot-sheets motels that always seemed to point the wa
y to airports. I stepped through the aroma of fried bacon inside the chromed pit stop, crowded with tattooed truck drivers and beer-bellied Port Authority cops. Agent Kraw sat alone at the back of the mobile-home-styled eatery, which was roomier inside than I’d expected.
When she saw me she closed the green folder she was reading and pushed it to the side. Approaching her, I unbuttoned my leather jacket and smiled. She peered over her glasses as I sat down in the red vinyl booth. In front of her was a plate with remnants of what looked like hamburger.
“So, you are a meat eater,” I joked.
She winced. “Not wild meat though.”
I laughed. “What brings you out here?”
Her voice was flat and sour. “None of your business.”
“Sorry. You’ve got something for me?”
“After you give me what I want.”
“I can’t give you what I don’t have.”
She took off her glasses and dangled them in front of her face. “Then I have nothing for you.”
“I think I can get what you want, though.”
She licked her lips. “That’s not good enough.”
“It’s the best I can do.”
“You’re a goddamn liar, Blades.”
“I thought you Midwesterners were supposed to be polite people. Give me until morning.”
She reached for the green folder, pulled out two pages stapled together, and slid them across the table. I sensed a shadow over my shoulder and looked up. A lanky waitress with a bird face was standing behind me, a pained expression on her face as if she’d been working a double shift and needed to sit down.
“Nothing for me,” I said. “Just visiting.”
She glared down at me for a second then lofted her gaze over to Agent Kraw.
“Can I have some more coffee, please?” Kraw said.
After the waitress had hustled away on swollen ankles, I stood up, folded the pages in half, and stuffed them in the inside pocket of my jacket.
“I’m through playing games with you, Blades. If I don’t hear from you by tomorrow morning, I’m coming to arrest you,” Agent Kraw said.
“On what charge?”
“Obstruction for starters. I’ll think of something else by then. Let’s see how cute your smile is when I fit bracelets on you.”
I turned to leave.
“By the way,” she started. “Just to show you what a good sport I am, I got you bonus coverage.”
“On what?”
“The numbers. I got you a month of calls instead of the one night.”
I buttoned my jacket and smiled.
I GOT BACK onto the BQE southbound making sure I wasn’t followed. Crossing into Manhattan I drove north along the FDR, streaking by the dark apartment buildings of the Upper East Side, my mind slowly adjusting to the prospect of facing off against River. The ponderous East River showed no signs of life. No presence of barges or ships, just flat cold water. I checked once more to see if I had a tail before crossing Washington Heights and getting onto 9-A. I slipped Mingus into the cassette player and turned up the volume. It was going to be a long drive and I wished I’d brought something to eat.
A GRAY FOG drifted across the Hudson. Birds lifted off a jetty near Ossining, and like a dazzling squadron of fighters disappeared into the darkness. The black water shimmered, the gray mountains reflecting off its face. Wind shook the water and the flat silent waves broke out into ripples like tiny holes being pierced in black skin.
My cell phone jingled and I answered. It was Semin.
“Blades, I was about to hang up.”
I turned the music down. “Sorry, Semin, I didn’t hear the phone.”
“Where the hell are you? On a train?”
“In my car.”
“Listen, I did find out that Malcolm Nails-Diggs spent some time on the island about the same time Dr. Heat was doing her charity stint. He was waiting to go on trial for a murder charge which was later dropped because a key prosecution witness developed water on the brain. But he was never her patient.”
“Thanks, Semin.”
“Sure.”
And she was gone.
As much as I hated to do it, I had to rule out Dr. Heat as a suspect in Ronan’s murder. That left the Russians. Ronan had been killed because of his business association with Rupert Chernin. What other explanation was there?
Still there was something nagging at me. I couldn’t get past the idea that there was a connection between Marjorie Madden’s death and Ronan’s. I felt like I’d overlooked something. Like somewhere a clue was staring me in the face and I was staring blindly back at it. Right now, I was staring at something even more ominous. What was I going to do about River?
A BARGE crept painfully upriver greeting a tug boat at Croton-on-Hudson. At once the sun slashed through the mist, slicing the river in two. One half light. One half dark. Near the next town mountains rushed to life, dark and majestic; twin peaks like two red gods facing each other, changing the air around them. Another town appeared before me. Bleak buildings with FOR SALE signs all around.
TWO HOURS LATER, when I reached the cabin in Albany, black mist stretched tight across the sky covering the sleeping trees. It was six in the evening and everything seemed to be in suspense. Negus’s Bronco was parked below the cabin. I pulled up behind it and killed the Volvo’s engine, which whined and chugged as if it couldn’t believe the long journey had come to an end. I slipped the safety off my Glock before tucking it into my waistband under my thigh-length jacket. Then I got out and walked around the back of the cabin.
The lake there was silent, green, and deadened by black mist. Beyond the lake ghostlike trees huddled together in sleep. Far in the distance I saw the tip of a light streak across the lake; it was the only dazzle to the evening.
I walked back to the front door. River was already standing there. I could see her shadow but not her entire body. Even from where I was I sensed a rigidity to her body that told me her guard was up. I assumed it was the paranoia that came with being hunted, a condition I was certainly familiar with. She opened the door as I got to it and stepped back. Her right hand, hanging at her side, held something dark.
I glanced down. “That’s a big gun for a woman. Going hunting?”
“Just making sure you didn’t have company,” she said.
I laughed as the door closed behind me. She walked ahead of me through the dark house into the living room.
“What kind of gun is that?”
“FN forty-nine.”
“Nice. Tested one of those once. Didn’t like it. Heavy trigger pull.”
“It does take some strength, yeah.”
“What’s the payload?”
“Forties. Nine ems.”
“You ever killed anybody with it?”
“Not this particular one. I used one like this when I was a cop in Miami.”
We stood eye to eye in the center of the room warmed by a fire in the hearth a few feet away. That savageness I’d seen in her eyes when she told me about the ambush was there now. Pulled back and tied into a ponytail, her long locks had been glossed with some kind of gel and smelled fresh.
“Don’t the lights work?” I said.
“You afraid of the dark?”
“I try to stay away from dark places with beautiful women who’re not my wife.”
She pursed her lips and smiled. “You want some coffee?”
“You gonna put that forty-nine shit down?” I said.
“You gonna put the safety back on yours?”
I lifted up my coat, pulled the Glock from my waist, safetied and restored it. She stuffed her pistol into the waist of her black jeans.
“Do you take milk?” she said. “The coffee’s fresh.”
Feeling cornered I nodded. She left me in the living room and went into the kitchen. This woman was sharp; she’d observed every one of my actions in the car.
She returned with two New York Yankees mugs. I took one and sipped, tasting more milk than I l
iked in my coffee, but I wasn’t in the mood to complain.
She sat down in a worn yellow sofa. “What brings you up here?”
I leaned against the curved archway, contemplating for a moment how to respond. There was no bullshitting this woman, and there was no way to be subtle or diplomatic about my concerns.
“Did you try to kill Noah?”
Her expression didn’t change; it was clear that the question didn’t surprise her. And that told me everything I needed to know. This was a moment she’d foreseen. It was becoming clear that this River was deeper than any ocean. She knew that I knew.
“I don’t have a beef with him.”
“Do you have one with me?”
“Did you kill my father?”
I hesitated. “It was self-defense. I had no choice.”
Her voice was tight, guttural. “I can respect that.”
“What does that mean?”
Her face became a mask in the shadows. “It means I have no beef with you.”
I didn’t quite believe her. “What about my father?”
“He’s a rat and must suffer the fate of a rat.”
I shifted the mug from my right hand to my left, readying myself to reach for my Glock with my right. “You’ll have to kill me first.”
“I don’t want to have to kill you, Blades,” she said.
“Your father was a murderer.”
“My father was a revolutionary.”
“He ambushed a cop.”
“There was a war going on. It was justified.”
“Look, I’m not interested in that debate. It’s old. What went on between your father and my father has nothing to do with you and me. A lotta shit went down between those folks back then. A lotta milk turned sour. My father may’ve been a rat, but he’s still my father. And I’m not gonna let you or anybody else kill him if only on that principle. I’m sure you can appreciate that. The question is, Where does that leave you and me?”
Her gaze dissolved inwards, so that even though she was facing me it was as though she wasn’t there, as if she’d gone asleep, and then all at once, as if she awakened from a fitful sleep, her eyes were open, the red eyes of some ancient reptile, shiny as stones.
Love and Death in Brooklyn Page 25
