by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor
Tessa retreated into her bedroom. She felt like her brain was buzzing. What did the appearance of Jules mean? What did he want?
Thinking of Jorge’s suggestion, she pictured Detective Tony Flynn. Maybe it was time to see what, exactly, he knew about the creatures of the night who made Manhattan their playground.
Chapter 6
Early the next evening, Tessa had dialed the cell phone number on Flynn’s business card.
“Flynn.”
“Detective Flynn, I’ve missed you snooping around my club. It’s Tessa Van Doren.”
“Hello, Ms. Van Doren.” He had sounded pleased but a little wary.
“In the past, you’ve offered to talk with me should I have any information that might be useful. Is that offer still valid?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I was hoping that maybe we could talk when you get off duty.”
“I’m off in about an hour.”
“Great. Can you come by the Night Flight? Ask for Jorge, and he’ll show you to my loft.”
Just before nine o’clock, Detective Tony Flynn knocked on the door to Tessa’s loft, having gained entrance to her private elevator and hallway courtesy of Jorge. Tessa answered the door wearing a little black Zac Posen dress.
“Detective Flynn…” Tessa smiled as she made a sweeping gesture of welcome with her arm. “I’d like to welcome my favorite detective to my humble abode.” His clothing was as rumpled as usual, though his shirt looked freshly ironed and he smelled of a pleasant, musky cologne.
As he entered her loft, Flynn let out a long, low whistle. “Humble? Uh-huh. For Donald Trump—maybe. And even then I’d say it’s a question mark.”
“Well, I’m sure Mr. Trump’s got me beat.”
Flynn looked at a Marc Chagall painting on the wall. “I’m an idiot when it comes to art, but this I recognize from somewhere…a museum or something. And I’m guessing it’s not a reproduction.”
“No, it’s not. It speaks to me. When I had the opportunity to buy it, I felt I couldn’t pass it up.”
“Yeah, well, a nice Porsche speaks to me, but that doesn’t mean I have one parked downstairs. And this?” He gestured toward a small statue of Buddha on a high teak table, incense burning next to it and filling the air with the scent of sandalwood.
Tessa smiled. “It’s how I maintain my serenity in a city that’s a far cry from serene.”
“I was raised Catholic.”
“And now?”
“Well, it’s kind of like this…once a Catholic, always a Catholic. I don’t go to church every Sunday. I don’t even make it on Easter, to be honest. But I tell you, after 9/11, my ass was in a pew at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I lit candles for three guys I knew real well who died. And I had my late grandfather’s rosary beads in my hand.”
Tessa saw him shift his weight from one leg to the other, looking down, and she sensed he regretted sharing something so personal, so she changed the subject. “Can I offer you a drink?”
“I’ll take a scotch.”
Tessa moved over to a mahogany hutch, hand-carved, from the 1800s. Polished to a sheen, it housed crystal decanters of liquor and Waterford glasses. Tessa had filled a sterling ice bucket just before Flynn arrived.
She pushed up the sleeve of her cocktail dress and poured Glenfiddich into a glass. She handed it to Flynn, “Your scotch, Detective.”
“What are you going to have?”
“A brandy.” She poured herself half a snifterful and raised her drink in a toast. “Cheers, Detective.”
“Cheers, Ms. Van Doren.”
“To serenity.”
“To always getting the bad guy.”
They clinked glasses and sipped their drinks. They enjoyed a moment of quiet together, then Tessa asked, “When are you going to call me Tess?”
“When are you going to call me something other than Detective?”
“What should I call you? Tony? Anthony?”
“Yeah. You just told me to call you Tess.”
“I know…but you don’t seem like a Tony to me.”
“What do I seem like?”
“I don’t know. Does your partner call you Tony?”
“No. He calls me Asshole.”
Tessa laughed. “I doubt that. I can tell you two like each other very much.”
He looked right at her, his eyes conveying amusement. “If there’s something you shouldn’t say to two macho New York detectives, it’s that it’s obvious they ‘like’ each other.”
“Well, you do. Machismo aside, and all that. So what does he really call you?”
“Flynn.”
“That suits you. May I call you Flynn, then?”
“Sure. So if you don’t mind me asking, Ms. Van Doren…Tess…why did you call me?”
Tessa walked toward the living room area and motioned for him to sit on her couch. She sat next to him. She internally berated herself, thinking she should sit in the damask-covered club chair opposite the couch, away from him, but she felt compelled to be nearer him.
“You’re always inquiring about drug dealers in my club.”
“Yeah. We have a couple of open murder cases that seem to be related to the drug trade.”
“And today I read in the paper about a dealer named Baby Rock….”
“Killed in some sort of ritualistic way…You know something about it?”
“No. Not really.”
“If you’ve been wearing a badge as long as I have, you learn that a ‘not really’ is actually a ‘Yes, Flynn, I do know something.’”
“What if I told you that years ago I encountered a man who was so evil that even being near him meant you risked your soul…. What would you say?” She stared at him.
“I would say I believe you. I would say that I’ve met more men like that than I care to count in my years on the force.”
“I knew I wasn’t wrong about you.”
“True story, Tess—I was a rookie, maybe six months out of the Academy. Me and my partner—different partner, not Williams…old guy, long since retired—we answer this call for a domestic disturbance. We end up having to break into this apartment and—” Flynn took a breath.
Tessa could see him take a fraction of a second to collect himself before he continued.
“—and we find this guy. This young, fucking sick bastard who had killed his girlfriend in cold blood. Held her under the water as she took her bath in their fleabag apartment, and he drowned her. And then he beat her baby—his baby, I’m talking nine months old. Then he sat there and fired up some crack and smoked it. Feet up on the coffee table. When we broke down the door, he looked at me and my partner like we were pieces of shit for interrupting his Wheel of Fortune. Asked if we wouldn’t mind waiting until fuckin’ Vanna White was finished before we took him downtown.”
Tessa looked down into her brandy. Her voice trembled as she asked—as she felt compelled to—“What happened to the baby?”
“She died. Internal bleeding. Baby Shauna.”
“Oh my God…” Tessa passed a hand over her brow, then took a long, deep sip of brandy.
“We pooled money in the squad to bury her. With an angel headstone…I’m sorry. You know, is it any wonder I haven’t been on a date in a year? You spend enough time swimming in a cesspool, it starts to just ooze out of you. I’m not good company.”
“Well, if you’re not, then neither am I.”
“That I can’t imagine. You sweep into that club around midnight, and the place just halts for a second. Like everybody in there takes a breath at the same time at the sight of you.”
“That’s quite lovely of you to say. Really.”
“It’s the truth. So what do you, lady of the elegant night, know about evil?”
“Suffice it to say,” Tessa whispered, “that years ago I was swayed by a man to leave my family, my home, my whole world. And he turned out to be a liar. Beyond that, he was evil. And last night I saw someone who once worked for this man. He was in my club. If I hadn’t seen him with
my own two eyes, hadn’t exchanged words with him, I would have sworn I’d seen a ghost. But he was here. And though he claimed the man I am referring to is long gone, that he hasn’t seen him in years, something in me believes that’s a lie. And if he is alive, then I am convinced he has something to do with the drug trade in New York City. And I am equally convinced he is bringing his trash to my door to taunt me.”
“Do you have a name for this guy?”
“Marco.”
“Have a picture? A last name? Where he last lived?”
Tessa shook her head. “I have a last name—though he may have changed it, may have an alias. But when I knew him, he was Marco Constantine. But that’s all I have. I was hoping you might find even that name useful as you go about your investigations.”
“Sure. It may be helpful. And what makes you think he’s around? Other than this guy you saw last night.”
“Shanghai Red.”
Flynn looked intently at her. “And what do you know about Shanghai Red?”
“Only that it’s killing people. And that Shanghai was my home once—” She faltered. “When I was a girl, of course. And I think if Marco is alive, he would name a drug that to antagonize me.”
“Well, if that’s the case, then this is one cold customer. Because that drug is baffling even the best lab we use. It’s mostly synthetic, but with a dash of heroin. And it’s just unpredictable.”
“Like a dragon.”
“A dragon?”
“Yes. Like a Chinese dragon of myth. Unpredictable.”
“Yeah. Hey, listen, you got a picture of the guy last night? On any of your surveillance cameras?”
“I’ll have Jorge run through the tapes. We might. It’s dark and crowded on the floor, shadowy, but he stuck out.” She noticed Flynn was nearly out of scotch. She took his glass from him and went and poured him another. While she was up, she refilled her brandy.
When she handed him his scotch, he asked her, “How come, after all this time, me and Williams checking out your club for two years now, you decided to come to me with this information?”
“Because, for the first time, I’m scared.”
“Do you want me to get a restraining order on this guy?”
“Trust me, Flynn, and I mean this. There isn’t a badge, gun, judge, jail, courtroom or piece of paper that can keep this man from killing me if that’s what he wants to do.”
“You say that pretty calmly.”
“Because I am calm. It’s the truth. Maybe it’s the Buddhist way. All I can do is be ready for him.”
“You going to tell me more about this guy, Marco?”
“I can’t. Except this…he doesn’t sell drugs to make money. He does it, simply, to own the souls of those who get addicted. He gets off on the vapid stares of zombies, people beholden to him and the drugs…people he owns. It’s why I despise him. Well, one of many reasons I despise him. I wasn’t lying to you all along when I said I ran a clean club. No drugs. I rely on my DJ, Cool, to be the love drug that keeps the crowds coming back.”
“I’d say some of them come back to get in the gossip rags, like those two whores…the daughters of that real estate magnate.”
Tessa laughed. “The two strawberry-blondes? Pathetic, aren’t they? They throw up in the bathroom so they can drink more. You can hear them out in the hall even over the music.”
“Charming. You have more class in your little finger than they do in their whole emaciated bodies…and I bet a lot of men come back here to catch a glimpse of you.”
“No. I think you’re the only one who does that.”
“See, that’s when I think you’re just stringing me along, pretty lady.”
Tessa could see him swallow, then clench his jaw, wrestling with his feelings. She moved closer to where his arm was draped along the back of the couch. She fit into its crook.
“Some things I’ve said make no sense. Some things I feel toward you make no sense. But you just have to trust me.”
“Trust ain’t my strong suit. Not after all these years on the job.”
She leaned her head back to look at him in the soft light of the Tiffany lamp on the side table. She traced her finger up the side of his neck, to his jaw, and then up along his cheek. She felt the tingle of his stubble against her soft skin. She leaned in still closer. How long had it been since she had kissed someone with passion, not sucking blood and life away?
Flynn looked at her face. Then he leaned in and kissed her. First he was tentative, but then he maneuvered himself, taking one hand and then the other and placing them on either side of her face, pulling her to him. She kissed him hungrily, wanting so much to move toward the light and life, to move toward a human being. To be a human being. She didn’t know how much time passed, each of them kissing and moving their lips up and down each other’s necks, then her lips finding his ear, his temple, kissing each part of his face, his eyelids, his forehead. She wanted to memorize the taste of him, the smell of his cologne, the way he ran his tongue across her bottom lip, tantalizing her before kissing her full on the mouth.
Eventually it was she who pulled back. For all her talk of trust, she wasn’t ready to allow him to know her secrets. How could she tell him? How could she make love, in the dark, behind triple locks, in a bedroom that was a vault, devoid of sunlight?
“I know,” he murmured. “I should go.”
“It’s not that…I just…someday I will tell you more, Flynn, but tonight, this was enough. It was perfect.”
“Yes, it was. You know I didn’t come here expecting this, right?”
“I know. You may be a tough cop, but you’re also a very honest and decent man.”
“Thanks. Sometimes I forget that.” He disentangled himself from her and stood. She rose from the couch and escorted him to the door.
“If you find out more about Shanghai Red, will you please tell me?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you what I can.”
“In the meantime, I’ll get you a picture, if I can.”
“Be careful.”
“I live my life with caution.”
“Me too.”
“I know. I think that’s why we understand each other.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him again. “Good night, Detective Flynn.”
“Good night, Ms. Van Doren.”
She opened the door, and he stepped through and headed down the hall. She shut and locked the door, setting the alarm code and working through the locks.
With her keen sense of smell, she smelled his lingering musky fragrance. She hungered now for something else. Blood, yes, but also to make love. She wanted Flynn as she hadn’t wanted a man since Hsu. But she knew if Jules was in the city, all who were part of her inner circle were at risk. And something told her that Detective Flynn was the most at risk of all.
Chapter 7
Detective Tony Flynn rode the subway to Queens and walked three blocks from the station to the tiny fourth-floor walk-up of Gus O’Hara. He rapped on the door.
“Tony, my boy!” boomed a voice from the other side. The door opened, revealing a stocky old man, about seventy years old, with rosy red cheeks and a shock of pure silvery white hair. With his girth, big grin and pink cheeks, had he grown a beard, the resemblance to Coca-Cola’s vision of Santa Claus would have been uncanny.
“Brought you two bear claws,” Flynn said, thrusting a plain brown bakery bag containing two sickeningly sweet pastries at Gus.
“Perfect with our morning coffee. Come on in, kiddo. Come on in!”
Flynn entered the apartment, the smell of freshly brewed coffee making his mouth water. He hadn’t gotten any sleep. Thoughts of Tessa and an agonizing ache to make love to her had kept him up all night. He hadn’t even bothered to shave.
Flynn walked into the living-dining area and sat down at the small wooden table where they had their coffee and pastries, a weekend ritual. Gus had been Flynn’s mentor for his first couple of years out of the Academy. Everything Tony Flynn knew about being a good co
p, an honest cop, he had learned from Gus. Much of what he knew about life in general, he had learned from Gus. Flynn’s own father had died of complications following smoke inhalation and burns—he’d been a firefighter—he had suffered in an awful blaze that had claimed the lives of three other firemen. Flynn’s mother raised Flynn, just eight at the time, alone. It was Gus who changed him from an angry young man of twenty into a real cop. It was Gus who gently told him his ex-wife Diana was a mismatch from the start—that she would never be happy living on a cop’s salary. That she was not a giving person—not in the way Flynn was. And it was Gus who picked up the pieces after she left him.
Gus’s small one-bedroom apartment was a shrine to military history. World War I and II memorabilia filled the place. He was an amateur, but he had amassed a rather amazing collection of photos, medals, books, yellowed newspaper clippings, shrapnel, uniforms. It was the hobby that kept him from going mad in retirement without his beloved late wife, Irene, to keep him company.
“You look tired, Tony,” Gus said as he came in from the kitchen with a pot of coffee and the bear claws on two plates. The cream and sugar and mugs and spoons had already been set on the table waiting for Flynn’s arrival.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Why not? A case?”
“You could say that.”
“Anything a useless old man could help with?”
Gus was lost without his badge. Flynn knew their friendship, their father-son kinship and connection, was one major reason Gus was still as energetic as he was. Flynn honored that by coming to him with difficult cases—even if he didn’t really need Gus’s “take” on them—and asking his opinion.
“Uh…it’s actually a woman thing.”
“A woman?” Gus raised one eyebrow. “I haven’t heard the W word since Diana, and you know how I felt then. She was hard on you, son. Now, my Irene…feisty. But she understood me. She understood me in ways my own partners didn’t. So, who is this woman?”
“She owns a nightclub. And I think I was all wrong about her.”
“What do you mean?” Gus poured coffee and passed Flynn a bear claw, which Flynn promptly dunked into his mug of steaming black java.
