“What did you say to him to make him react that way?”
I had my eyes closed, rubbing my face with my hands. The pain was like lightening bolts crisscrossing through my brain. I tried to piece together my brief conversation with Chandler.
“All I did was show him a picture of Terry on my phone.”
“Do you think he recognized him?”
I pulled my hands away from my face and shot her a well, duh look.
“Did you get his name?”
I nodded. “He called himself Chandler.”
“OK, so what do you make of his reaction? Do you think Chandler might have had something to do with Terry’s accident in the bathtub?”
I thought about it for a second and said, “There is certainly some reason he decided to end the conversation in such dramatic fashion. My guess is he at least saw something that bothered him.”
We went back inside the club to ask about Chandler but no one was interested in talking and my head couldn’t handle any more of the extreme stimuli. We found my Mercedes and I let Whitney drive.
* * *
Barry Blackwell slammed his fist into the window of his car and the glass shattered. His hand was cut and bleeding but he didn’t care. The morons he had hired to do the job had muffed it up. Carolla had called to tell him that Ellen Ingram had escaped from the warehouse and was on the run. Blackwell understood that this created multiple problems for him, and he’d have to deal with all of them at once as best he could. He decided, for the moment, not to tell the senator.
The last thing he had said to Carolla was, “Kill the boyfriend.”
* * *
The Tylenol wasn’t helping at all. The pain hadn’t dulled in the slightest. The clanging in my head felt like a five-year-old boy was marching through a pastry kitchen with a drumstick in each hand, wailing on every pot and pan within reach. Whitney was good with directions, which I was thankful for because it meant I could put my head back and close my eyes. The swelling at the back of my head was already significant.
We parked and took the elevator up to my apartment. On the ride up I watched her watching me. She started to say something but hesitated and held her tongue. That was fine with me because I wasn’t in the mood for conversation. I was only interested in getting home, pouring a drink and passing out on the sofa to give the pain a chance to fade.
I fumbled my keys and managed to remember how to use them.
“My head feels like a watermelon,” I commented, standing at the door to my apartment.
“Seedless?” she asked, trying to resist a crooked smile.
“No, I can definitely hear them rattling around in there.”
I pushed open the door. The apartment was dark. I hit the light. My only thought was to find the alcohol as quickly as possible.
“Shut the door if you don’t mind,” I said, heading straight for the kitchen. Suddenly, there was a fist in my face and I felt my nose break. Blood splattered on my face. The blow came out of nowhere. I rocked back on my heels, stunned, white sparks again filling my vision. The blow was powerful and drove me backward until I hit the wall behind me. My vision blurred but I could see a massive form step up to me and felt a big hand clutch my throat. The fingers crunched down around my larynx, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash of movement and heard Whitney attempt to scream, but the scream was muffled by a hand clamped over her mouth.
Now both sides of my head hurt but there wasn’t time to think about any of the pain. I pushed the hand away from my throat and tried to throw a punch at the intruder in front of me. I had tears in my eyes from the broken nose. My punch didn’t land. The creep in front of me drove a fist into my gut and I doubled over, coughing, sucking air. Then I saw he was holding a knife in his fist and there was blood on it. That’s when I felt the burning and realized he had stabbed me. I glanced down and saw the blood showing through my shirt.
I crumbled to my knees and glanced up at the mountain of a man who had assaulted me. He was a huge Mexican. He wore a sport coat over a T-shirt and cowboy boots. He glared down at me as I sucked oxygen. I wanted to ask what the hell he wanted but couldn’t catch my breath. He was breathing heavily and smelled like he hadn’t bathed recently. He was sweating through the T-shirt.
I clutched a hand to my stomach, confident there was internal damage. I didn’t know what they were after but they clearly meant business. Something told me they might have had something to do with Veronica Wagner’s death and disappearance, so it might be wise to take them serious and not hang around any longer than necessary.
The huge Mexican was coming at me again, fist cocked and ready to strike. His face was twisted into a sick grin. He was enjoying this. Trickles of sweat ran down his forehead and dripped from his crooked nose. My head was ringing with pain and my gut felt like an alien life form was trying to break free from where it had been hiding inside my stomach, but I had to find some strength from somewhere and fight back. So when the Mexican drove the fist down toward my head, I ducked under the punch and sprang forward on my legs, driving my right shoulder into his knees with all the power I could muster. I’m strong enough, and caught him off guard enough for the impact to have the desired effect. We went to the floor together with a great crash of bodies. He’d been holding a gun in the other hand and it went skittering away out of his reach. I launched myself on top of him and pounded his face with repeated blows from my fists. His face was like punching cement.
The Mexican shoved me away with a single swipe of his tree-trunk-like arm. Luckily I fell toward the gun. I grabbed it and aimed it at the intruder holding Whitney.
“Let her go!” I shouted.
“I’ll kill her,” he replied.
“What do you want?”
“Put down the gun or the girl takes one in the head!”
“Why are you here? If it’s money you’re after, take whatever you want and get out.”
“This isn’t about money,” the smaller said, looking nervous but serious, pressing the barrel of a snubnose pistol to her right temple.
The Mexican was deciding what to do. I could see the gears in his tiny brain turning. He knew he could crush me with very little effort, but me having his gun had turned the table and he was trying to process the change of circumstances.
“If it’s not money, what do you want? Does this have to do with the dead actress? Did you come back to get rid of me and finish the job?”
“Something like that,” the smaller guy said.
That made sense, and I could only assume this was also connected in some way to Terry’s accidental death and Ellen’s disappearance, but I still had way more questions than answers.
The Mexican was inching closer to me.
“That’s close enough, amigo,” I said, turning the gun on him and aiming it at his chest. “Stay right there or this is going to end badly for you.”
The Mexican grunted at me. It was obvious from the look in his eyes that he wanted to squash me like a bug. I wasn’t in the mood for a squashing.
“I’m going to kill the girl,” the smaller guy threatened.
“Not a good idea. You do that, I’ll drop both of you like bags of rice.”
He seemed to get a kick out of that and showed a mouthful of crooked teeth when he smiled. “You don’t even know how to use that thing, pretty boy.”
I love a challenge, so I shot the Mexican in the shoulder. The bang of the gun surprised everyone. The shot spun the Mexican a half-turn and he looked at me in disgust like I’d farted. The smaller flinched and glanced over at his partner. Whitney surprised me by taking advantage of the moment. She hit him in the crotch with her fist and the guy moaned in agony as he folded to his knees. Suddenly, she was free. She ran to me.
I gave her my cell phone. “Call the police,” I said.
She dialed 911.
The Mexican was already at the door, dragging his partner by the back of his shirt. They hobbled into the outer hallway and I slam
med the door and locked it. I waited a beat, then looked through the fisheye lens in the door. No sign of them. I opened the door with caution and leaned out. They were gone. I was tempted to go out and have a look around or even take the elevator down but decided there was very little chance of a positive outcome if I caught up to them. So instead I shut the door and locked it again.
I turned to Whitney. “Are you okay?”
She nodded as she waited for an emergency operator to pick up. “You’re bleeding,” she said.
Indeed I was. I lifted my shirt to have a look at the damage and immediately regretted the decision.
“That looks really bad,” she said. I could see she was trembling.
“I think Ellen and Terry got us into some deep crap,” I said.
“You have no idea,” she said back.
“I think you know more than you are telling me.”
She shrugged. “I might have left out a few details but planned to get to them eventually.”
I tried to imagine how this day could get any crazier.
She made the call, then handed me the phone.
“Cops are on the way.”
“Who were those guys?” I asked.
“I have absolutely no idea.”
“You know why they were here, don’t you?”
“Not exactly.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“This isn’t simply about Terry or Ellen. It’s bigger.”
“How much bigger?”
“You might want to sit down for this,” she said.
CHAPTER 28
I sat on a table in the ER with my shirt off and watched a young, pretty doctor sew up the slash in my abdomen. Whitney sat in a chair across the room and watched. She looked squeamish. The doctor looked twelve years old.
“How long have you been out of med school?” I asked her.
She didn’t look when she answered. “A year,” she said.
“Can I trust you?” I said, being an ass.
She had a cute face but still looked like she was too young to go to the senior prom. I enjoy being an ass sometimes. Some women find it charming. Dr. Johansen did not. She had given me something for the pain but there was still plenty of pain to enjoy while I waited for her to plug the hole.
“I’m very good at what I do,” she said.
“Will it leave a scar?”
“Shouldn’t.”
“Is that a promise?”
She ignored me, which is probably always the wise choice. I let her continue her work without pestering her further. Ballard and Curry showed up at the hospital as the young doctor was finishing up. I could tell by the look in their eyes that they had plenty of questions for me.
Curry stared at the stitches the good doctor had laced across my abdomen.
“Chicks dig scars,” he said.
“I’ve been promised it wouldn’t scar,” I replied.
“Too bad.”
“What happened?” Ballard asked.
“I was attacked.”
“Where?”
“Inside my apartment.”
“Anybody you had seen before?”
“Nope. A big Mexican guy and his little buddy.”
“There were two of them?”
I nodded.
“What did they want?” Curry asked.
“They didn’t say.”
“Was it a robbery?”
“They said they didn’t want money.”
“You say they were inside your apartment.”
I nodded. “I came home and they were already inside.”
The two detectives exchanged skeptical looks. Curry was dressed in jeans and a jogging top over a Yankees T-shirt. He looked like he had probably come straight from bed. Ballard looked freshly showered and shaved, like it was 8 a.m. instead of 11 p.m. Both men had coffee and I could tell they really weren’t totally buying the story I was telling them. Fortunately for me I was telling the truth.
“You’ve had quite the exciting week, Nick,” Curry commented.
“Exciting isn’t the first word that comes to mind,” I said. “Stressful might be a more accurate choice.”
“OK,” Curry said, “let’s go with stressful.”
“How are you holding up under all this stress?” Ballard asked, leaning against the doorframe. He was dressed in slacks and a sport coat, sipping from the cup of coffee with his eyes locked on mine.
“Well,” I said, “I’m in the ER getting sewn up from a knife wound. How do you think I’m holding up? I’m afraid to go home and don’t expect to get much sleep. My best friend died unexpectedly and my girlfriend is missing. So right at the moment, I think I’d trade lives with just about anyone in Manhattan.”
Dr. Johansen stood up and told me I could put my shirt back on. She gave me some quick instructions regarding care and maintenance, then made a quick exit. I pulled on my shirt, careful not to twist around too much and aggravate the wound. Curry sipped his coffee as he watched my ordeal.
“How did you get rid of the intruders?” he asked.
“Mostly dumb luck, but I have just enough street smarts to take care of myself.”
“Street smarts?” Curry asked, eyebrows arching.
“I grew up lower middle class in a rough neighborhood.”
“Did you get in many fights as a kid?”
“Too many, probably, but hey, that’s life. I wasn’t ever afraid to jump into something if the need arose or to defend myself when necessary.”
Ballard changed hands with his coffee, then said, “It was reported that a shot was fired in your apartment.”
“Both intruders had guns. I took the Mexican down and got his weapon away from him. Then I shot him in the shoulder.”
“You shot him?” Curry said.
I nodded.
“Interesting. Have you handled a gun before?”
“Yes.”
“Do you own any firearms, Nick?”
“What does it matter?”
“It’s just a question. Does that question bother you?”
“I was attacked in my own home and I then used the intruder’s weapon in self-defense, so I don’t really see the point in discussing anything about my personal firearms training or what weapons I might or might not own. Those kinds of questions would be better asked in the presence of my lawyer, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Fair enough,” Ballard said.
“Have you felt the need to retain an attorney, Nick?” Curry asked.
“No.”
“Well, if you have nothing to hide, then you probably have no need for one, right?”
I didn’t reply. I tugged my shirt down to cover the bandage. Whitney hadn’t said a word since the cops arrived. Ballard stared at her.
“Who is your friend?” he asked.
“She’s a friend of a friend,” I answered.
“Does your friend of a friend have a name?”
Whitney made eye contact with them one at a time, then stared at me for a beat. She spoke barely above a whisper. “Whitney Greene,” she said.
“What is your relationship with Mr. Cortland, Ms. Greene?”
“He’s a friend of a friend,” she said in the same whisper.
“Well,” Curry said, “I’m certainly glad we got that straightened out. Were you with Mr. Cortland at the time of the attack?”
She nodded.
“Would you mind going with Detective Ballard and answering a few questions in another room?”
She shrugged, then stood slowly. I watched her leave with Ballard. I knew they were separating us to see if our stories matched. I wasn’t worried about her. We had experienced the same event and she had no reason to lie. I just hoped she wouldn’t spill the beans that she was Ellen Ingram’s adopted mother. All that would do is complicate the conversation and turn this into a time suck. There was too much to do to be stuck in the ER answering a barrage of questions from those two keystone cops.
I sat there on the metal table responding to
Curry’s repetitive questions, feeling my mind go numb. I feared I might fall asleep sitting up. Then he asked me something that woke me up in a hurry.
“Do you know a woman named Veronica Wagner?”
I froze. His eyes watched me closely. I didn’t want to give anything away, show any kind of outward reaction, but I’m sure I did.
“I know lots of people, detective,” I said.
“I’m asking specifically about a woman named Veronica Wagner. Does that name mean anything to you?”
“Do you have any leads on the intruders who broke into my apartment?”
“We are working on that, Nick.”
I hopped off the table and pulled on my jacket.
“I need to be getting home,” I said.
“Did you have dinner Tuesday night with Terry Burgess and an actress named Veronica Wagner?” he asked. But he knew, and he knew that I knew that he knew. Shit.
Three words screamed through my brain: Lawyer. Lawyer. Lawyer.
I continued to stare at him as words of warning flooded my brain.
Nick, whatever you do in this world at this moment, whatever you think or do or say, do not answer that question, man! Do not answer his question until you’ve spoken to an attorney! Do not incriminate yourself in any way! You don’t know what he knows! Don’t be an idiot! Keep your damn mouth shut! Go find Whitney, take her back to your apartment, lock the door, and call a lawyer before you open your big stupid mouth and say something you’ll end up regretting!
Curry waited, coffee in hand, his eyes seeing right through me into my soul. He waited, eyes unwavering. The sounds of hospital nightlife echoed from down the hall outside the open door. He stared at me without blinking, patiently, patiently, patiently, allowing me time and space to gather my thoughts and speak.
Do…not…open…your…damn…mouth…
But I did. I opened my damn mouth.
“Yes,” I said, my lips forming the words like a muscle twitch. “I had dinner with them.”
* * *
Santiago’s shoulder was a mess. The bullet from his own gun and torn through the muscle and ruined the surrounding bone, but he was not receiving the same quality care that Nick Cortland had received at the ER. Carolla had rushed him to a residential neighborhood outside Manhattan to the home of a retired doctor who worked on a cash-only basis.
Dead and Gone Page 15
