by S. J. Rozan
“Good. But you’re going to call.”
“I am? What am I gonna say?”
“You’re Jim White. You’re sending a contractor in to take measurements, check out some details. You didn’t give him a key because you don’t like to hand out your keys, you never know. You want the super to let him in.” I handed him my wallet. “There’s a contractor’s card in there somewhere, see if you can find it.”
He thumbed through a stack of business cards. “Bill Reinka? Rose City Contracting? You wanna be him?”
“Sure.”
“The super, you think he’ll buy it?”
“If you’re good. Like before.”
Linus frowned out the window for a few seconds, an actor running his lines. Then he dialed. “Yo, Laslo. Jim White, I’m the new guy in nine-C? Yeah, what I mean, I’m not there right now, but here’s the deal …” He was good. Laslo must have balked, because Linus apologized for bending building rules, said he was sorry and he wouldn’t do it again but he’d appreciate it if Laslo would help him out here so the work could be done soon, he wanted it wrapped up before Christmas and once it’s this cold in October you know Christmas must be just around the corner.
“Okay, dude,” he told me, lowering the phone. “You’re in.”
A few more minutes, we were there. A gleaming glass loft building by the Hudson, just Kevin’s style: vulgar and ostentatious, lording it over smaller, quieter neighbors.
I drove past and pulled around the corner. I got out, my new steel tape hooked to my jeans, new clipboard in hand, and leaned back in the window. “Stay nearby, but be invisible.”
Linus shook his head. “Not one of my superpowers, but I’ll try.”
The doorman in the marble lobby summoned Laslo, a stocky mustached guy who shook my hand gruffly, examined my business card officiously, and led me to the elevator wearily.
“This guy White,” he said in a heavy Slavic accent, as we rose. “He don’t live here yet, ya?”
“I don’t know. I’m just doing some work in the apartment.”
“Hope he don’t give me no trouble. Don’t even move in, already lending his place out.”
“He is?”
“Ya.” He poked my arm. “Hey, maybe he ain’t planning to move in? Maybe he thinks it’s okay he rents it by the day?”
“I don’t know. Is he doing that?”
“Don’t know what he’s doing. But that guy, some friend of his.”
“What guy? What about him?”
“Came yesterday. With his girlfriend.” Laslo snorted. “I’m tell you, that’s the kind of girlfriend got a meter on her ass. Anyway, came back, just now. Doorman tell me he forgot something.”
Time stopped. “He’s here now?”
Laslo gave me an odd look. “Hey, you okay? You know this guy?”
“No. Is he here now?”
Laslo shook his head. “Nah, don’t worry, he don’t get in your way. He left before. Half an hour, maybe.”
Half an hour. Kevin had been here and we’d missed him. Goddamn it! “That guy—he has a key?”
“Sure. Ask me, if I was owner, I give you a key, not him. You honest hardworking Joe. That guy, shithead. But no one ask me.” He pulled a jingling ring from his belt, unlocked 9C, stood there. “You need anything else?”
I didn’t, but he clearly did. I pulled a ten from my pocket and handed it over. “Ya,” he said, another honest hardworking Joe, and plodded back down the hall.
I opened the door he’d unlocked for me, stopped just inside to survey the apartment. I searched the high ceilings, the corners, the shadows, looking for a camera, found none. In fact I found nothing. Totally, totally empty. Stainless steel and granite kitchen, empty. Living room, full-height glass meeting polished wood floors, empty. Bedroom, three strides inside showing me every expensive square inch, empty. Bathroom, showercurtainless and empty. Hall closet and alcove closet, standing open, empty. No furniture. No drapes. No rugs. No sign I wasn’t the first person ever to walk in here. Were we wrong? Jim White had really rented this smug aerie for some squeeze he was planning on keeping, Kevin Cavanaugh had nothing to do with it, and I was wasting time I could be using trying to accurately read the new clues, which would lead us to an entirely different place?
But yesterday a shithead and his metered girlfriend came up here. Today, the shithead came back. Right after I told Kevin about the GPSs in the shoes.
The kitchen cabinets were standing open, too, dishless and bare, and the broom closet. The only place I couldn’t see, because of the position of the center island, was the cabinet under the sink.
I stepped around the island.
Unlike every other door in the place, the cabinet door was shut. I crouched, pulled it open.
Jesus.
My first instinct: don’t move. My second: move fast. I yanked out my phone, called Linus.
“Dude, what’s up?”
“Call Laslo. Empty the building. Call 911. Tell them there’s a bomb up here.”
“Why am I saying that?”
“Because there’s a bomb up here.”
I thumbed off, looked from the device with the wires and tubes to the cabinet’s other cache: an unconscious Asian woman bound up in more duct tape than I’d ever seen.
Was the bomb attached to her somehow? I played my penlight in there. No, no connection. My taking her out of the cabinet wouldn’t be what set it off. What would? I didn’t know and didn’t have time to guess. Whatever it was, it could be any second. And I had another a problem anyway: once again, the cops were on the way.
And this time, I had called them.
Fire alarm bells in the halls began to shriek. Doors slammed, voices yelled. I could hear, in the distance and approaching, a sound I’d heard enough of today to last me a lifetime: sirens. I had to cut this woman loose from the pipe she was bound to and get us both out of here.
Unless she was already dead. But no: I put the back of my hand to her nose, could feel, very faintly, her breath. So faintly that I took precious seconds to peel the tape from her mouth. I was remembering myself in Lu’s car: she could be slowly strangling, dying right here.
As the tape came off she stirred, groaned. Then her eyes flew wide. “No,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you.” She tried to scream but she didn’t have the breath. She writhed, wriggled as best she could in the miles of tape cocooning her. I slipped out my pocketknife.
She froze, eyes welling up. “Please. Mister. Okay, I be quiet. Okay.”
She flinched as I reached over. I sliced through the tape at the pipe. She dropped forward and I caught her. She was tiny, I realized, and very young. If she was Lu’s, he probably got a lot for her. I lifted her out of the cabinet. The tape had her hog-tied, that wriggle the only movement she could make, but she didn’t make it. She stayed completely limp. Except for the trembling.
“It’s all right,” I said. “He’s gone. What’s your name?”
“Name Junie,” she whispered, very fast, giving me whatever I wanted.
As I spoke I was working my knife into a gap in the tape, freeing her wrists from her ankles so I could sling her over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry. I did my best not to nick her; she whimpered when I did but didn’t scream and didn’t try to stop me. Whether she understood I was helping her, or she was just terrified, I didn’t know.
She let me pick her up, envelop her in my jacket, shoulder her. I threw the door open, headed for the stairwell. The piercing alarm still screeched in the corridor but it was empty and so were the stairs. Little Junie and I were the last out.
Eight flights later I burst into the empty lobby. I raced outside and up the cleared sidewalk inside the bomb squad’s perimeter. A cop jerked a barricade aside to let me through. “Ambulance up the street!” I shouted to him, and I ran. He nodded, turned his attention back to the building. As the bomb squad robot rolled out of the truck I think someone might have yelled after me. I have a faint memory, a voice shouting my name just before the blast.
It was a deafening wild roar, thunderous, rolling. Following instantly, the concussive pound, much more frightening, a punch deep inside you from all sides at once. It staggered me, sent little Junie flying. She hit the sidewalk and started to wail. I dove to cover her, arms over my head as debris rained around us. Glass crashed and tinkled, car alarms honked and screeched, people yelled and screamed. A man and his dog crouched behind thin shrubbery, the dog barking like mad. A heavy-set woman froze on the sidewalk, eyes and mouth wide. Under it all the explosion’s echoes bounced off building walls, slowly died down. I twisted, looked upward. 9C’s grand windows were nothing but glittering glass daggers. Cracks spiderwebbed two or three floors above and below. As I watched, a large shard let go, tumbled to the street and burst into diamonds on asphalt littered with them. The cops were springing into action, yelling orders. A fire truck screeched around the corner from the highway. I jumped to my feet and scooped Junie up. She was still bawling. I ran up the block and bellowed, “Get in the car!” at Linus, who’d come around the corner and was gaping at the damage, at the street, at me.
He outran me, had the car started by the time I tumbled with my cargo into the backseat. “Call the dog!” I said. “Get him up front.” Woof was barking, climbing, and slobbering all over me and the poor kid in my arms. Linus ordered Woof to the front, a clumsy maneuver, and peeled out of there.
“Fuck, dude! Fuck! What was that?”
“Go to St. Vincent’s. Seventh and Greenwich. That was Kevin.”
“What was—I don’t—”
“I think his timing was off.”
Another siren howled in the distance, growing closer, aiming for where we’d come from.
“It was supposed to happen when you were in there? Blow you all to shit? End the game? Why?”
“No. I think it was supposed to happen when I first got here. Before I went up. So I could see it.” I pulled Woof’s blanket off the seat, wrapped Junie in that, took my jacket back. Junie’s wailing had subsided to shuddering sobs.
“I don’t—”
“Shelter, Linus. He was going to kill her with the building.”
St. Vincent’s Hospital was a short ride. I held the girl close, made soothing noises. A couple of times I spoke her name, tried to ask a question, but she didn’t respond at all.
I told Linus what he’d have to do at the hospital: settle Junie on the nearest chair like a concerned relative, then run like hell. He nodded silently. When he pulled up at the ER entrance we both got out. I handed Junie to him, the blanket hiding the tape. Sunglassed and baseball capped, he carried her in. I was behind the wheel, Woof in the backseat again by the time he scooted out seconds later. “Let’s go, dude!”
And we were gone.
17
“DUDE.” LINUS LEANED against the headrest as I drove crosstown, away from the wreckage. “Dude, this shit is wack. Way wack. I mean, shit. I mean, dude. I mean …”
“I know what you mean.”
Weakly, he asked, “What now?”
“I think we wait. Kevin will call soon. But first, can you send a text message?”
“Why couldn’t I?”
“To Mary. Tell her to call me. Tell her I have a peace offering.”
“You do? And how come I’m texting and not calling?”
“Because you’re on videotape with me at Nicole’s, and she’s a cop. It would put her in a bad position to pick up the phone at the precinct and find it’s you. This way she can go somewhere else to make the call if she wants to.”
“Smooth,” he said, thumbing buttons. “But that’s not videotape. It’s a webstream.”
Just as he finished, my phone rang. Kevin, of course. I didn’t use the speaker, just lifted the phone to my ear.
“Hey-hey, asshole! You were fast on that one, bro. My clues weren’t so good?”
“Oh, they were great. I’m just getting used to you, is all.”
“And lard-ass Ross? He was a big help, I’ll bet. Like he always is.”
“Yeah, he was terrific.”
“Did you like it? The big ka-boom?”
“Did you really think I would?”
“No, I hoped you wouldn’t. Did you see her?”
“Who?”
“Junie, stupido. Or pieces of her, anyway.”
Which meant I was right: it was supposed to happen as soon as I got there. So I could see it. It also meant another thing: he didn’t know it hadn’t. I poured on surprise: “You had a girl up there?”
“You bet your fucking ass I did! A hottie, too. A little young for me, but she was a friend of Angelique’s so I asked for her. Angelique was right, she was good. Too bad she won’t get any older. She’d probably have been great.”
“You’re a sick fuck.”
“You think?
“Let me talk to Lydia.”
Shifting into a slow singsong, he said, “You didn’t answer me.”
“Do I think you’re a sick fuck? I sure as hell do.”
“Very funny. Not that question. Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“See her!”
“Who? The girl? No.”
“You didn’t?” He sounded disappointed. “No arms and legs flying?”
“Jesus Christ, I don’t know what I saw! Boom, crash, and I got the hell out of there. Did you expect me to stick around?”
“You don’t have to get sarcastic.”
“Let me speak to Lydia. Then tell me where the next damn clues are. I want to get this over with.”
“You know, I’m really sorry you’re not enjoying yourself. I think it’s because you’re such a stiff. That stick up your ass, that righteousness thing. You should loosen up, have a little fun.”
I spoke through clenched teeth. “The next goddamn clues.”
He sighed. “I’m beginning to think you have a problem. ADHD or something. Maybe you should get tested. Wouldn’t be so bad. You could get some good drugs.”
“The—”
“Oh, shut the fuck up. Your next clues will be where your last clues were.”
“What are you talking about?” Then it dawned: “Hal?”
“I had something else in mind, but this is better. Gotta be flexible with your game plan, you know.”
“You’re bringing him in? That’s a big risk. You saw what happened before.”
“Excuse me, but which one of us brought him in? I just gave him a rest-of-the-season contract. And besides, that was fun, before. Watching that alky pretend to be a cop.”
“He was a cop. He threw it all away on you.”
“It’s my fault? I asked him to crack my skull against the floor? Anyway, I’m a forgiving kind of guy. He wants to play, he’s on your team, bro. He’ll be calling soon. Now, you want to talk to your girlfriend or not? Because I’m kind of busy here.”
“Put her on.”
“Well, I don’t know. You don’t sound that into it. Maybe if you say ‘please.’ ”
Rage seared me under the skin. A cab pulled out; I slammed the brake, threw Linus forward. He looked over in alarm. I took a breath, managed to croak, “Please.”
“Please what?”
“Please let me talk to Lydia.”
“God, that sounds silly, coming from you. You don’t say that often, huh? Mostly you just do whatever the fuck you want, right?”
“Game’s over, Kevin. See you.”
“Bullshit.”
“I don’t talk to Lydia, I don’t play. Five, four, three, two—”
“All right, all right, God, you just can not have a little fun, can you? Here, honey, you better sweet-talk him, he’s cranky.”
A wait, short but endless. Then: “Bill?”
Relief like a breaking wave. “You okay?”
“I’m beginning to feel … I don’t know, beaten down.”
My blood surged again. “Has that bastard touched you?”
“No, no. It’s more abstract, more at a distance. It stops and starts. But I feel it.”
“Hang on
. I’ll be there soon.”
She started to answer but didn’t get to finish. Kevin came on, said, “Aw, a little wear and tear on the princess? Could be she’s not holding up so well, asshole. You better get a move on.”
“How can I until—”
“You can’t. Hahaha! Good one! Just sit tight. Lard-ass’ll call. Oh, unless he’s tight. Then you’re screwed, aren’t you? What a damn shame.”
Then cold, empty silence.
I stomped the gas, ran a light, swerved around a cab. Why? I don’t know. Where was I going? Anywhere, anywhere that wasn’t here.
“Dude. Dude!” Linus shouted. “You keep driving like that, we’re gonna get pulled over.”
“What?” I looked around, found us all the way on the Lower East Side. I slowed to the pace of the traffic around us. “That bastard! I’ll kill him. I swear I’ll kill him!”
“Yeah, well, that’s not news. The clues, dude. What did he say about the clues?”
“Hal will have them.”
“Hal? That same guy?”
“We’re supposed to wait for his call. Fat chance. I—” Linus’s iPhone interrupted me, playing “Bad Boys.”
“It’s Aunt Mary, dude. Pull over.”
That was good advice. I slipped to the curb next to a hydrant and he handed me the phone.
“Mary? It’s Bill.”
“Where the hell are you? What’s going on? Why did that text come from Linus, not you?”
“Because you calling Lydia’s cousin would seem natural. Not like you calling a fugitive. Unless you fingered Linus, too, from the webstream.”
“No,” she said reluctantly. “Sunglasses, odd angle, could’ve been anyone.” God bless you, Aunt Mary. “But you have to come in. This is bigger than you now.”
“It’s been bigger than me from the beginning. It’s about Lydia. That’s why I can’t come in.”
“The Department knows Lydia’s missing. Not from me. Patino figured it out.”
“Shit! How?”
“He connected up you, the dead Chinese woman in Red Hook and Lu’s other hooker at the tailor shop. He started out walking on eggshells around me, because he had it worked out the way we thought: that you’d gone off the deep end, killed Lydia, then started on other Chinese women. I had to tell him the truth.”
