by S. J. Rozan
“No.”
“This is police business now.”
“I can’t. I’m close, Mary.”
“Oh, yeah, and you’re doing great! One hooker dead, one half-frozen, one nearly blown to bits. Two cops and a garbageman hurt. A hysterical widow, and a luxury condo with a big hole in the side. Just great! And you haven’t found Lydia, have you?”
I couldn’t argue with that, any of it. Except: “Another hooker you don’t know about. Supposed to be dead, but alive. Three alive, because I found them. Not because I’m so smart. But he’s leaving me clues, Mary. Not you. Me. Mary, he’s crazy. And he’s high. The only way to do this is to string him along. He’s making mistakes already.”
“Like what?”
“He doesn’t know those women aren’t dead. He’s getting wild and sloppy.”
“And what has that bought us?”
“He says I have almost all the clues, he’s just going to call once more. You guys have to back off.”
“No. No, you have to back off. You have to give us everything you have and let us do it.”
“You can’t do it.”
“And you can?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I hope. But I’m the one he wants. Without me, he’ll stop. He’ll walk away and we’ll be nowhere. Lydia will be nowhere. You can’t keep me out of jail, can you?”
“To get the clues? I can try. I can explain—”
“One hooker dead, two cops hurt, an explosion—explain what? No, if I come in that’s it. You know it is and it’s not what he wants. If he can’t play this game with me he’ll walk away.”
“We’ll find him.”
“How? Mary, you know if I thought you could I’d be there in a second. It has it be me. I have to do this.”
“We know who he is.”
That stopped me. “You know?”
“Kevin Cavanaugh. An ex-con. Nicole White told us you were asking about him. We checked; it fits. You should have told me, Bill.”
Linus made a T with his hands. I said, “I couldn’t risk it.”
“We’re closing in.”
“You won’t find him. He knew you’d be coming. He says he’s got his tracks covered.”
“Yes, we will find him. This is what we do.”
“Yeah.” A wordless moment. “It’s what I do, too.” I hung up.
“Whoa,” Lu said. “That was a cop? You got better pockets than I do.”
“Special case.”
“Well, good for you. Now, what’s your next move? You and Junior and Ming?”
“Not Ming.”
He sighed. “You’re a pain in the ass. Let me explain the situation you’re in. The only use I have for you, or Junior, or fucking biscuit-breath here, is finding me this bastard. Now: we’re in my backyard. We have cars. We”—he gestured around—“have guns. You don’t.”
“Come on, Lu, there are people everywhere. You’re going to shoot us right here?”
“No. You can take off if you want. But if you do, you’ll always have a problem. All of you. Always. You’ll have to look out for me every time you open a door, because I might be on the other side. I can carry a grudge for a long, long time.” He smiled. “But look on the bright side. You take Ming with you, whatever happens, happens. You’re off the hook. All three of you.” Still smiling, he leaned over and scratched Woof’s ears. The dog wagged his tail, licked Lu’s hand.
Linus paled, but stayed silent. I said, “Jesus, Lu, you’re as crazy as Kevin.”
“Could be.”
Looking at Ming, I spoke to Lu. “He’ll take orders? He won’t go charging in like he’s Genghis Khan?”
Ming scowled, but Lu said, “Sure. Pretty much. As long as you’re reasonable. That okay with you, Ming? You’re the lieutenant. He’s the general. And this”—he pointed at Linus and Woof—“this is the fucking marines.”
Ming’s face darkened some more, but he finally nodded. “Great,” Lu said. “Ming, take the Audi.”
“No,” I said.
“What are you thinking, going back for the kid’s car? It’s parked too near my place. Besides, your cop who has your private number, and the kid’s, they must know his car.”
“You don’t think they know all your cars? Thanks anyway. Linus, call Trella.”
“I texted her already,” Linus said. “They’ll be right here.”
21
OUR CORRIDOR HAD an entrance into the Elizabeth Street garage. When Joey’s town car rolled down the ramp, Trella hopped out and got in back. She sat in the middle, the ham in the Linus-Ming sandwich, while Woof scrambled in at their feet. I took shotgun. After a few soft words from Lu, the garage attendant waved us straight through. Joey pulled out the other side, onto the Bowery.
“So,” said Trella, “come on, you guys! What’s happening?” Turning to Ming: “Hi. I’m Trella. Who are you, and can you move over a little?”
“Ming,” growled Ming, and to his credit, shifted his bulk an inch or so.
“Thanks. Well? Guys?”
“Oh, dudess—!” Linus began, but I interrupted.
“First, Trella, did you guys find anything? Any likely building?”
“I’d have called,” she said, a mild rebuke. “There are a lot that could be. With basements, areaways, windows that might catch the sun for a short time. But none of them are near any of those places we were looking for—kids’ clothes stores, that kind of thing. A couple of times I got out and tried to see in the areaway windows, but I didn’t get anyplace.”
“Shit,” I breathed in frustration, though I hadn’t really expected any different. She’d have called. I turned to Joey, who drove expertly and expressionlessly. “I’m hot,” I said. “She told you that? You can get out of this, just say the word.”
He shrugged. “No problem.”
“Well, thanks. I appreciate it. I know you don’t have a horse in this race.”
“Hey, something different, you know? Besides,” he grinned suddenly, “I always back Trella’s horses. Where to?”
“I think we just drive around until he calls. Least chance of me being seen.” I added, “I guess we can work on the new clues until then.”
“You got new clues?” Trella demanded.
“Right here,” Linus said. “But he says they’re not complete. He called again, the crazy man, and he said he’d only call one more time. With the last and final clue.”
Plastic rustled. I turned in the seat to see Linus and Trella with the contents of the bag spread across their laps.
“Only three things?” Trella said. “Usually there are more.”
“This is different,” I said. “For one thing, they’re not complete. For another, this is overtime.”
“This guy,” Joey drawled. “It’s really a game? Like Trella says?”
“Only to him, but yeah. Four quarters, now overtime.”
“Did you get anywhere with these?” Trella asked.
“Not really,” said Linus. “Cops came and we had to escape. Second time today!”
“Can’t wait to hear,” she said. “But let me look at these first. But …”
“But what?” I asked.
The briefest hesitation. “Anyone else dead?”
“No.”
“Phew.” She turned back to the clues. “You guys must have come up with something. Some ideas?”
“Well, only, maybe they’re not clues.” Linus explained our reasoning. Trella’s lips scrunched in distaste.
“You think? It’s way out of the pattern. And didn’t he say they’re clues?”
“He’s losing it,” I said. “Coming apart. Even if they are clues, leaving them with a victim is still outside his pattern.”
She considered. “Maybe he’s losing it now. Long day, I guess. But wouldn’t he have left these hours and hours ago? Pretty much when all this started?” She picked through the items, turning the screw in her fingers, riffling through the book. “I think they are clues. I think they mean something.”
“What
, then?”
“I don’t know.”
We drove, exchanged theories, fell silent, tried other theories, fell silent again, and all jumped when my phone rang.
I put it on speaker, answered calmly, “Smith.”
“YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” Kevin’s scream was so loud that Woof sat up and yipped. Linus grabbed the dog’s jaw, but Kevin didn’t seem to catch the sound, just howled on. “You cocksucking son of a bitch! You cheated, you cheated, you cheated! You’ve been cheating all along, motherfucker!”
“What the hell are you talking about? How could I cheat?”
“Those girls aren’t dead! Not Angelique, not Junie, and I bet not Jasmine, either! You son of a bitch! You lying son of a bitch!”
“Jesus, Kevin!” Rage blazed in me, matching his. I tried to force it down, to speak reasonably to this lunatic. “You told me where they were, you sent me there, what did you think I’d do, just stand back and applaud?”
“They were supposed to be dead! You told me they were dead!”
“No. You asked if I’d seen Junie’s arms and legs flying and I said no.”
“Oh, clever, clever, clever, aren’t you clever! You saved her! You fucking saved her, you lying bastard! You ran away with her in your goddamn superhero isn’t he wonderful Prince Asshole arms!”
Everyone in the car was staring at me, at the phone. Even Joey, still smoothly driving, was wide-eyed.
“Kevin?” Certainty settled on me. “How do you know? How do you have any idea what happened?”
“Oh, you think you’re the only team that has a bench? You’re the only guy in the world that has some asshole working for him? Fuck you, pally!”
“You’re not doing this alone.”
He laughed wildly. “The light dawns! Hey, maybe you’re not a goddamn super genius after all! No, asshole, no, I’m not doing this alone. I’ve got an assistant. And I just talked to my fucking assistant. And my fucking assistant just totally fucked up! That explosion, that explosion—” Kevin’s fury choked off his words. It was a moment before he found his voice again. “That fucking explosion was supposed to happen when you got there! As soon as you were on the street, so you could see it!” I met Linus’s eyes: that’s what we’d thought. “But my stupid goddamn assistant didn’t see you go in, just come out. So when you came out, came running out, the fucking idiot thought, ‘Doh, this must be the time.’ Jesus! Can’t anyone do anything right?”
“Kevin—”
“Oh, shut up! Shut up! Now I’m pissed. Now things are different. You lied and cheated, you didn’t play the game right and now things have to change.”
I took a deep breath, another, forced myself to speak quietly, as though this were acceptable, as though negotiating for Lydia’s life with a madman who was accusing me of cheating by saving other lives were on any level okay. Quietly, I asked, “Change how?”
“I don’t know how! I have to think of how! Now it’ll be different, some kind of different. You have to wait until I think of how. And then I’ll call you back. And you’re lucky, I’ll tell you that, you’re really lucky I’m going to keep on playing. Because I could just declare a forfeit. If one team cheats the other gets a forfeit. Did you know that? Did you know?”
“Yes, I knew.”
“So is that what you want? You want to forfeit?”
“No.”
“No. I see. You want to keep playing?”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I want to keep playing.”
“No, you don’t!” He cackled. “No, you don’t, you want to stop and have me just disappear and then you get your girlfriend back and they lived happily ever after! That’s what you want! You hate this game, right?”
“You know I do.”
“Well, boo fucking hoo! That’s not gonna happen! Hahaha! We’re gonna keep playing until I’m ready to stop. Me, you get it? Me! So what you do now, all you can do is, you just wait, you just drive around and try to keep out of trouble and wait until you hear from me again.”
The click of a broken connection. For a moment, the world dead calm, silent, airless. Then sounds and sights and smells flowed back into the car: the street, the day, real life. I held the phone, stared at it, unable to put it away. Linus released Woof’s jaw and scratched the dog’s ears, mechanically telling him he was good. Even Ming looked astounded.
Finally I slipped the phone into my pocket, lit a cigarette. “Head uptown,” I told Joey.
“Where to?”
“The Village.”
“Dude?” Linus tried tentatively. “What are you thinking?”
“Hal,” I said savagely. “Hal’s what I’m thinking. The assistant.”
Linus swallowed, nodded. “Me, too. That’s what I thought.”
“Hal?” Trella said. “Your cop friend?”
“Ex,” I said. “Ex-cop, and ex-friend, and he blames me for it.”
“For what?”
“I’ll tell her,” Linus spoke up quickly. “You just, you know, smoke and stuff.”
It was good advice and I took it.
After the explosion Hal had called me from a bar on Hudson Street. If I knew Hal, he was still there. With luck—thin on the ground lately, but always a chance—he was still conscious. With Linus narrating what Trella and Joey had missed, we drove uptown, finally reaching the cross street to Jim White’s rented apartment. The street was open now, though narrowed by orange cones until the city could send a crew for the glass triangles and twisted window steel littering the asphalt. On Hudson, just around the corner, Joey pulled over in front of the White Horse, a famous Village tavern and the only bar right there. I slammed the door as I got out and was surprised to find Linus on the sidewalk with me.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“You know what I’m doing.”
“Get lost.”
“No.”
“Shit!” I left him to follow, yanked the bar’s door open. The bartender and half-a-dozen drinkers turned to stare. None was Hal. I strode through both rooms, came back and pushed into the men’s room. Empty.
“Hey, buddy, you looking for something?” the bartender barked. A square-shaped guy stepped off a barstool, probably the bouncer.
“No,” I said. I swept past Linus, who stood apologetically in the doorway. Back out on the sidewalk I stared up and down Hudson, trying to pick out another place to drink. Coffeehouses and dry cleaners. “Goddamn it!” I exploded.
“Dude?”
“What?”
Linus pointed to the side street, to a paint-flaking basement storefront near the corner. The only thing that gave it away was one dusty Bud sign low in the window. This had to be a relic, left over from the Village’s funky days. The bar owner was probably the bartender, too, and he likely also owned the building or he’d have had his rent raised out from under him long since.
Two steps into the stale-smelling interior showed me I was right at least about the vintage of the place, and the vintage of the bartender and the two regulars on their rickety barstools. It showed me, also, what I’d been looking for in the White Horse: Hal slumped at a booth in the back, too wasted to even look surprised when he saw me.
I slid in across the table and Linus sat down beside him, boxing him in. That was overkill, though; Hal wasn’t in any condition to bolt.
“Get you something, fellas?” the bartender called across the small room, his voice louder than needed, a warning.
“Coffee,” I said. “And one for him.”
“And a Coke,” Linus added.
Hal finally reacted to the invasion, barely able to form words. “Hey, buddy.”
“Hal,” I said quietly. “When this is over I’m going to kill you. First, though, and I mean right now, you’re going to tell me where Kevin is.”
He stared blankly. “What?” Sloppily, he slid the stare to Linus. After a moment: “Where’s the pooch?” He began to chortle.
I lunged across the table, caught him by his shirtfront. “St
op the shit!” I dropped him back, righted the empty glass I’d knocked over, as the bartender appeared, two coffees and a Coke on his tray.
“Not in my place, pal,” he growled, a short, pale man whose tattoos had fuzzed blue along his wiry arms.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’ll get him out of here as soon as he can walk.” I dropped a twenty on the tray and he nodded and walked away, both of us understanding I was getting no change.
“Where’s Kevin, Hal?” I said when we were alone.
“Kevin. Motherfucker. Poor kid, she didn’t want to go.” He reached for the empty glass. “Fuck,” he said, peering into it. “Hey.” He raised his voice for the bartender but I waved him off. I took the glass away, pushed the coffee toward Hal.
“Drink that.”
“Fuck you.”
“Drink it or I’ll pour it into you.”
He muttered something, lifted the cup, managed to down half before he dropped it and spilled the rest. “There. Happy? Now I want another drink.”
“I’m not happy and you’re not getting another drink. Where’s Kevin?”
A beat late: “Left. The fucker left.”
“He was here? Son of a bitch! When did he leave? When?”
Hal blinked blearily. “Pretty girl. Chinese or something. Didn’t want to go.” He rubbed a hand over his face, kept doing it, an endless loop. I reached across, yanked his arm down.
“He left here with a girl?”
He stared at me, then looked around. “Where? Who?”
“Kevin! Goddamn you, Hal, where did Kevin go?”
Linus had been mopping up Hal’s spilled coffee. Now he slipped out of the booth, walked to the bar. Hal looked at me through drifting eyes. “Smith?” As though he’d just noticed me. “What are you doing here?”
“Hal,” I said, low and slow, “you’ve been working with Kevin all along. I don’t how he sucked you in but if you don’t tell me where he is, where he has Lydia, I’ll kill you right now.”
“What?” With an obvious effort he focused on me. “Where Kevin is? Inside, where he belongs. No, wait, he got out, didn’t he …” He trailed off, didn’t pick up again.
