“I d’nno. Twenny, twenny-one, twenny-two…it depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether they’re in jail or not. Whether they’re using. Whether they’ve run off, or gone home to mama, or just ain’t arrived on the fucking Greyhound yet. Man, why are you asking me this shit?”
“So if your girls are using drugs…what? They don’t go to work?”
Painter laughed, rasping and jaded. “Ha! You stupid motherfucker. My ho’s work for me if the fucking veins are hanging out of their skinny little arms, know what I’m sayin’? If they can persuade someone to fuck ’em, then they workin’.”
Wilde considered this for a moment, then stepped forward and slapped Painter, hard, on the face. “I have a little problem with your language, Painter. The next time you use the words ‘bitch’, ‘ho’ or ‘fuck’ in its sexual sense, I’m going to stick your left hand to the chair with a screwdriver. Okay?”
“You gotta be…” The pimp bit down on his lip, corralling his anger. He had pride, but he also had survival instincts. “Yeah, sure, man. Okay, sure. You’re the man in charge here.”
The fog was clearing from Danny’s head, finally. He’d driven across the Brooklyn Bridge with the window down and the cold night air had sliced through and around him, shook him up, slapped his face. He had also literally slapped his own face, more than once. He risked pulling into a drive-thru for a coffee, balancing it between his knees and taking hot, reviving sips as he trawled the area of Brooklyn the white van was seen heading in. He didn’t feel too confident of passing a breathalyzer test any time soon, but reckoned he was alert enough to react to whatever Wilde and his pals might attempt next.
Danny drained the dregs of his coffee and tossed the cup onto the floor, guiltily half-hoping that he wouldn’t have to put that theory to the test. He reached an intersection, cruising slow, and spotted a white van which roughly fit the description. He pulled to a halt and lightly touched his gun, and then two overweight men in their late thirties came into view, hoisting a sofa, struggling under its weight.
He rolled down the window and leaned out. “Hey! You two. NYPD. Step out where I can see you.”
The workmen dropped the sofa and walked toward Danny’s car with sheepish expressions. One held up his hands and said, “Hey, shit. I’m sorry, officer. We’re gonna move it in two minutes. I know it’s restricted parking, we’re just dropping off some furniture. My sister’s place. Two minutes, swear to God…”
“No, it’s… You’re fine. Carry on with what you’re doing. Listen—you haven’t seen another white van? In the last few minutes? Much the same as yours.”
The same man shrugged. “Don’t know. Could have, I guess. It’s not really the type of thing you pay much attention to, you know?”
“No, I guess not. Alright. Thanks.”
The men resumed their work, cautiously, a little apprehensive for no other reason than the fact that authority had that effect on some people. Danny had experienced it sometimes, even in social situations: that barely perceptible tautening in the face once someone found out he was a cop, the feeling that the other person was automatically censoring their words now, without even realizing they were doing it. He didn’t feel bitter about it, he understood it, but it could play havoc with your sense of ease at a dinner party. Here comes a cop, hide the doobie. He’d done it himself as a kid.
Danny realized that his hand was still at his gun. He moved it and pulled the car away.
“Well, that’s the background detail. Now let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. Have you ever, say, killed one of your girls?”
Painter laughed, whorls of dense muscle tensing and releasing as his torso heaved. His body language screamed out that the laughter was fake. “What…? Man, that’s funny. And you called me the comedian.”
Wilde said flatly, “Answer the question, you scumbag.”
The pimp glared at him. He was beginning to lose patience with these candy-ass motherfuckers and their dressing-up games. “I plead the Fifth. Alright? Ain’t that my constitutional right?”
“I’m sorry. You seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that this is some sort of courtroom. Where your ‘rights’ automatically apply.”
“Well, if this ain’t a trial of some kind, what the fuck is it?”
Wilde picked at a piece of fluff on his lapel, off-white against the tuxedo’s black. He looked up and said, “The start of your education, Painter. You’re a lucky man—you get to go back to school when so many of your disenfranchised peers won’t. Now answer me. Honestly.”
Silence. Wilde glared down and Painter held the stare. No response. Wilde slapped his prisoner’s face again, a dull crack that rebounded around the room’s stripped walls.
“I said answer my fucking question!”
A few slaps on the face didn’t faze a man like Painter. His back was tattooed with three bullet holes and his shoulder bore a six-inch machete scar. He smiled, purely out of stubbornness, to irritate this son of a bitch. He continued to eyeball Wilde, who slapped him again, harder and harder. Wilde could feel sweat beads pop up on his skin, under the balaclava, as a trickle of blood formed at the corner of Painter’s mouth.
Wilde said, in breathy bursts, “You worthless fucking waste of oxygen. Tell me. I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you admit that you’ve raped and killed and used those women like pieces of meat. Tell me, goddammit!”
Then Painter snapped and sat up, shouting, “Yeah, I fucking killed a few! You happy now, you crazy bastard? I beat one to death with my golf club, and I let the other die of a fucking overdose! You like that, bastard? You like that!? And I’d do it again!” He paused, closed his eyes, breathing heavily through his broad nose. “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want to whoever the fuck I want. Got me? A bitch is a bitch, be she fat, skinny, young or old. I take ’em from the cradle and I take ’em when they’re nearly in the grave, and then I put ’em in the grave! So fuck them, and fuck you!!”
Wilde stepped back, squeezing the bridge of his nose. Whitman and Waters looked at each other. Wilde said, barely more than a whisper, “Get up.”
Painter said, “What?”
“Get out of the chair. Whitman—cut him loose. Do it!”
The big man hesitated, trying to remember if this was part of the plan, then shrugged and dexterously slit Painter’s binds.
Wilde said, “Give him his trousers.”
Whitman threw the pimp’s trousers at him. Painter pulled them on, suspicious, while Wilde untied his shoelaces.
“The law of the jungle, right?” Wilde said. “Survival of the fittest and all that? That’s how it works in your world, isn’t it?” He stood tall with his hands out and his feet bare. “Well, come on then, fucker. Show me how tough you are when a man is facing you. Come on!”
Painter hesitated, then lunged at Wilde who pushed him past, spinning lightly, his feet arching up from the toes. The other man charged again, low-centered, long arms, head down like a warring ape. His punches were blocked easily, almost tauntingly. This was brute violence against cool technique, and there was no contest. Wilde hit him a few times, powerful blows square on the face.
He said, “It’s a hard fucking lesson, my man, but you’re gonna learn it. What have you to say about your girls now?”
“I told you, whoreson: a bitch is nothin’ but a bitch.”
Wilde leaned back and struck out with a rigid leg, kicking Painter in the chest, driving him back.
“A slow learner, obviously. I repeat the question.”
He slapped the side of Painter’s head, patronizingly, like an adult cuffing a recalcitrant child.
Painter wheezed, decades of dietary and alcohol abuse rattling in his frame. “Fuck you, bastard. I’ve slept with a gun under my pillow for the last twenny years, you know what I’m sayin’? You think a fucking schoolboy in fancy dress scares me?”
He lurched at Wilde again.
Danny gazed at the empty streets outside, yellow lights passing by o
verhead, blown litter and stacks of empty packaging; a bleak panorama.
He sighed and said, under his breath, “This is such a waste of time. What am I doing here?” He grabbed the car radio. “Dispatch? Detective Sergeant Danny Everard. Listen, it’s quiet as the grave out here. There’s a warehouse complex up ahead I’m gonna check out, but I’m not too hopeful. I think you can pull the black-and-whites for now.”
He hung up the radio, lit a cigarette, and drove on.
Painter had taken a heavy beating. He was bloodied and bruised, his right eye cut and closing up, a thin, viscous strand of blood swaying from his mouth. He staggered from side to side, gravity and disorientation pulling his body in all sorts of directions. He cut an almost comical figure. But he still refused to say what Wilde wanted to hear, and Wilde’s temper was rising.
He punched Painter in the gut, solid but yielding enough, and said, “Now what have you got to say, you son of a bitch?”
Painter gasped, “Nah, man, you the son of a bitch. Your mama, I had her working for me only last night.”
Wilde kicked him in the ribcage. “What have you got to say?”
“Yeah, she was gooood. Those truckers, man, those greasy fat fucks, they couldn’t get enough of that old bitch.”
Wilde spun and kicked Painter, bang, right under the chin. His head snapped back and his eyes rolled to whiteness. Waters and Whitman gasped. Painter reeled backward and fell heavily to the ground.
Wilde stood over him, saying, “This is only going to get worse, you piece of shit. Answer my question.”
Painter peered up at him, struggling to see through injured eyes. He dredged a residual flare of defiance out of somewhere and flipped his tormentor the bird, saying, “There’s your… answer… whoreson…”
Wilde’s eyes flashed white and furious, his head tilted back; he produced a low moan, somewhere at the back of his throat, and stomped in, over the prone body, bringing down a frenzied barrage of kicks to Painter’s head and torso. He looked out of control; Waters turned to Whitman, fear behind his mask, and shook his head.
Wilde stamped, slammed his weight down like a hammer and panted, “What…have you…got to…say…now! Say it! Now! Answer me!”
The others acted finally, rushing forward. Whitman caught his friend under the arms and hoisted him back, as Wilde’s legs kicked frantically in mid-air. Waters stood before the pimp, tried to make himself look big by spreading his arms, and shouted, “Don’t! Stop it. You’ll kill him.”
Wilde heaved, sucking in oxygen, but didn’t struggle against his constraints. His body slackened and his eyes closed, sleepy lids scrolling over the tiredness. He muttered, “Mother…mother-fucking…son of a…”
Whitman relaxed his grip a little and spoke in a soft, consolatory voice. “Yeah, he’s learned his lesson, man. He’s done. Look at him, man, he’s…”
Gone. The three of them turned, realization dawning slow and simultaneous, to catch a fleeting glimpse of Painter’s kicking heels as he exited the room. Wilde pointed to the equipment.
“Gather up that stuff and get out. Go the back way. I’ll meet you by the van. Move!”
Waters said, “What about…?”
“He can’t travel too fast. I’ll get him. Now go.”
Wilde ran toward the door, stopping as he reached it and calling over his shoulder, “Hey! My shoes! Don’t forget my fucking shoes!”
Wilde moved. He chased Painter down dark corridors, legs pumping like pistons, every sinew strained in a bid to make up the deficit. He could see the man ahead, turning each corner before him, a shadow scurrying continually out of sight, but he could tell he was gaining—Painter was hurt badly. Wilde tried to breathe through his nose, tried to conserve energy, but it was hard, dual demands weighing down, physiological and psychological. The machine, the corpus, would tire eventually, would have to, letting him down as it wound down; the mind, meanwhile, struggled to control an escalating anxiety, to maintain an effective equilibrium.
Keep breathing, you asshole. Deep and steady.
Wilde moved faster. Then he moved too fast and slipped, his bare feet cold and smooth on the floor. He regained his balance, turned a corner and saw, down a long corridor, Painter standing at a window. The pimp saw him too, scared now, dread on his toughened face. He caught his breath and grabbed the window frame and yelled and jumped…
Danny, about to give up on a lost cause, irritated with himself and with the hangover beginning to settle in his system, rolled slowly around a corner, one second before a heavyset man in a vest erupted from within the building in a hail of glass. He rolled, bleeding and semi-conscious, away from the warehouse wall. Danny didn’t react for a moment, didn’t even stop the car; he slowed fractionally, without knowing about it, as his sluggish brain played catch-up with the sensory evidence.
Jesus Christ. That’s the guy.
He braked hard, at last, leaping from his car to approach the injured man, the car door swinging loose in the glum light. He crouched over Painter’s insensible body, gingerly rolling him onto his back. The man was a mess—severe bruising on most of his face; nasty-looking cuts on face and shoulders, presumably from the glass; one eye pounded shut and his mouth a morass of saliva and dark, glutinous blood. Danny looked up, into space, just thinking, working out his best options, and Wilde appeared at the window. Danny almost did a double take, like a clumsy actor in an obvious sitcom. Wilde froze for an instant, nowhere to hide. Their eyes met.
Jesus Christ. That’s him. That’s the guy.
Then Wilde was gone. Danny was still stunned—reveling in this fantastic stroke of luck, afraid to believe in it—but finally snapped out of it, rushing to the car and grabbing the radio.
“This is Detective Sergeant Danny Everard, 14th Precinct. I need back-up immediately. I repeat, immediately. I’m at a warehouse complex in Red Hook, somewhere near the water… Near Beard Street? Fuck…trace it with the car GPS. I’m in pursuit; suspect has run inside the building. Probably armed and definitely dangerous. Send back-up and an ambulance. There’s an injured man lying outside the building—he looks okay, but it’s hard to tell. Alright, I’m gone.”
Danny moved. He sprinted to the window and pulled himself through it, cutting three fingers on the shards of glass, flinching, pain searing but mercifully brief, ignoring the pain and running, hard.
About 30 yards ahead Wilde was sprinting and yelling into the microphone clipped to his collar: “Guys, get the fuck out. There’s a cop—he’s seen me—he’s right behind me. Get to the van and get out. I’ll meet you—usual place—move, move!”
He turned a corner into a corridor, the long dismal expanse of empty space stretching before him. It was difficult to see in this light; the fear of cracking his shin or slicing open his bare foot on discarded metal loomed large. Wilde kept running. A few seconds later, Danny skidded around the corner in pursuit, legs splayed underneath him like a novice ice-skater. He righted himself and moved: chasing Wilde up flights of stairs, down echoing iron walkways, through eerie, empty rooms.
His prey was tiring, Danny could tell, though he himself felt energized, infused with the adrenaline intoxication of pursuit—of danger. He was gaining ground. Wilde glanced back occasionally, his face a black smudge with barely discernible pinpoints of eyeball. Danny raised his gun sporadically, but couldn’t find a clean shot; besides, he was reluctant to shoot someone in the back. He took his supporting left hand off the gun and ran, swinging the weapon in his right hand like a limb extension.
Then Wilde was gone, again. Danny stopped, confused, his heart pumping, every nerve set on edge. He blinked, squinted into the blackness. Okay, Everard. Keep it cool. Keep it together. He turned another, indistinguishable corner, coming to the foot of a stairwell, and Wilde crashed down on him from a hiding-space above, yelling wildly, a wordless challenge. They both landed heavily on the floor and Danny’s gun clattered away, out of sight. He tried to punch but the other man had pinned his arms to the wet concrete. Danny hoisted u
pward with his hips, grunting with the effort, and Wilde rolled away.
Danny sprang to a standing position, readied, hyper-aware, and Wilde kicked him behind the right knee. His leg buckled but didn’t collapse, and Danny thought, How did he do that so fast? Then Wilde was on him again, two fast punches to the ribs, left-right. Danny wheezed, tried to blank his discomfort, swung with eyes closed, and landed a lucky blow. Wilde took a step back, a little disoriented, and Danny moved in, punching him hard on the temple. Now Wilde was more than a little disoriented; he raised a hand to his head and groaned, almost inaudibly. Danny leaned in, grasping for the balaclava. His hand scrabbled on wool, damp with sweat, his index and middle fingers straining for the eyeholes. Pull off his face; take away the fucker’s protection.
Wilde pulled his head back and smacked Danny on the nose with his palm, pushing him away. Pain, sharp and lucid, ran up the center of Danny’s face. He squeezed his eyes shut, wiped tears with the back of his hand. He shook his head and vision returned. Wilde was 15 feet away now, bending over, lifting something. Danny sprinted forward, slowed, spotted a lead pipe gathering dust next to a small heap of rubbish and rubble. He stooped, grabbed, and swung the pipe upward, meeting Wilde’s counter-strike with a thin steel pole. Metal on metal, clanging loudly and reverberating through their hands. Danny dropped his weapon, his hands trembling, promptings of nausea in his head. Wilde grabbed him by the jacket lapels, throwing him into the dark. Danny slid along the ground and then he saw it—his gun, three feet away, almost invisible. Lucky, Danny boy, lucky.
He crawled, reached for it, turned, and aimed. He shouted, breathing heavily, “Stop! Just…right there. Don’t move, man, please. I will shoot you.”
Wilde held his breath—then released again when Waters appeared from nowhere and placed a gun to Danny’s temple. He said softly, “Kick it over to him. Slowly. I don’t want to hurt you, but he’s leaving here with me.”
Even Flow Page 10
