Good Girl, Bad Girl (An Alex Novalis Novel)

by Christopher Finch

  “I was showing this picture around,” I went on, “at a few hangouts that both of them have been known to frequent. At Cinema Village they told me I might find her here. Seems there was a little bit of an incident there earlier today.”

  “So that’s how you do things in the private sector,” said Morello. “You spend your time going door to door flashing pictures of people who are not missing. Seems fucking perverted to me.”

  “Is she here?” I asked.

  “She was here,” he said, reluctantly. “A couple of the boys brought her in because there’d been a bit of a fracas and she’d accused some guy of grabbing her tits, but he had done a disappearing act and she refused to press charges…”

  “So she’s no longer here?”

  “Do we have to do your work for you, Novalis?”

  A police radio had been crackling in the background, and now, as I was about to leave, I caught an incoming 10-88. The caller reported that a red Pontiac, the subject of a vehicular pursuit, had crashed into a cart selling pretzels near Bowling Green. The driver had made a getaway on foot, but the trunk of the Pontiac had burst open in the crash and was found to contain small-caliber ordinance and devices that appeared to be attached to timing mechanisms. The bomb squad had been alerted.

  That gave me a sick feeling in my stomach. Andrea could have been in that car, and it could have gone sky high.

  I left the station house and walked toward Hudson Street. I had just reached the corner when somebody tugged on my jacket from behind.

  Andrea.

  She looked exhausted and beaten. I think she thought I was going to yell at her, but when she saw that I wasn’t, she put her arms around my waist, rested her face against my shoulder and shed tears on my lapel.

  “We’ve got to do some serious talking,” I told her.

  We went to a Korean grocery that had a couple of tables in the back. Andrea ate a Hershey bar and drank a Tab. I smoked another cigarette. I took out the snapshot Lydia had given me and showed it to her.

  “You know where I got this from?” I said.

  Her face lit up.

  “Is she okay?”

  “Physically, she’s fine—but she’s in a lot of trouble, from both sides of the law.”

  I told her about my recent adventures with Lydia, but left out where she was currently hiding.

  “I’ve got to go to her,” said Andrea. “How do we find her?”

  “Right now,” I told her, “we don’t know where she is, and we’re not going to look for her. You’ve just stepped out of the station house, and the cops always sense when something’s out of whack. I spoke to the desk sergeant. I showed him that snapshot and told him I was looking for you. He wanted to know why so I had to shoot him a bit of a line. He told me you’d been released, but he was obviously more than a little curious.”

  “How did you know I was there?” Andrea asked.

  “I traced you to Cinema Village and the kid who takes tickets told me what had happened. The point is, the cops didn’t have any reason to hold you, but that doesn’t mean they forgot about you the moment you stepped outside the station house. While I was talking to the cops, an alert came in. Jerry Pedrosian’s car, presumably driven by the guy who tried to grab you, crashed with the police in pursuit. They found weapons and stuff in the trunk. That means that when they trace him and the car back to the report you just filed, you will be designated a person of interest. If you try to find Lydia, you are likely to lead the cops straight to her.”

  That registered.

  “So what can I do?” she asked.

  “We’re going to find somewhere for you to stay out of sight, and you’re going to stay there this time. But first there are things I need to know. How did Rick—that’s the red-haired creep’s name—know to find you at Cinema Village?”

  “I wondered about that, but I think maybe I’ve figured it out. Do you remember I told you I once went to the movies with Lydia and Jerry? That was at Cinema Village. Pierrot le Fou. I remember that because they were crazy about that film. They said it was about life the way it should be lived—fast and dangerous. They’d seen it together four times that week, and Jerry said that that Jean-Luc Godard was the only film director worth shit. They especially loved the ending, when Belmondo blows himself up. Anyway, Jerry was ignoring me as usual, and Lydia was doing her best to include me in the conversation. She told Jerry that Cinema Village was our special place, where we went to hide out. He didn’t seem interested, but I guess he filed the information away for future use.”

  That sounded plausible.

  “Yeah, probably he sent Rick there to look for Lydia, and he found you instead. But how would Rick know you?”

  “The afternoon Jerry Pedrosian intercepted me outside my apartment—before I came to your house—he had a bodyguard with him. Remember? I told you how this dude was patrolling the sidewalk out near the Women’s House of Detention, like he was on the lookout for trouble. That was the guy who grabbed me this afternoon. I had your pistol in my bag. I was trying to get it out, but he was dragging me along and I couldn’t. When we got to the street, he saw I was reaching for something and snatched the bag away from me. I kicked him and started screaming. That’s when the hardhats came to my rescue, but the guy got away with your pistol. Sorry.”

  “Just as well. If the cops had found it on you, you would have been in big trouble.”

  She nodded.

  “Okay,” I said, “now what is it that you are supposed to know that Lydia says places you in danger? You must have some idea what that could be.”

  Andrea shook her head and looked thoroughly miserable.

  “Think,” I said. “Are there any secrets between you and Lydia that might have some bearing on the situation? Even things that don’t necessarily seem to relate…”

  She was becoming more miserable by the moment.

  “Did she ever tell you anything about her relationship with Pedrosian? I mean, I don’t care what they liked to do in bed—anything that was out of the usual?”

  Andrea was crying now. It was time for me to bully her a little.

  “I have to know—otherwise Christ knows what you’re condemning Lydia to.”

  She wiped away a tear.

  “Pedrosian had an affair with Lydia’s mother,” she said. “I promised I’d never tell a soul.”

  “Wonderful!” I said. “And when was this? Recently?”

  Andrea shook her head.

  “I don’t know. A long time ago, I think. Lydia found out about it by accident—just before she came down here last weekend. She’s not the only Teddington girl Pedrosian slept with. There’s this girl Carla Reese who Lydia can’t stand. A junior. She was Pedrosian’s favorite a couple of years ago and he still finds time to fit her in once in a while. He boasted to her that he’d slept with Lydia and Lydia’s mother, and then catty Carla blurted it out in the front of a bunch of girls in the school laundromat. When Lydia came down last week, she had a big row with her mother about it. That was right before she came to my apartment.”

  “Does her father know about this affair?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. There’s a lot of secrets between those two.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Lydia finds out about Pedrosian and her mother, but even so she’s still planning to go ahead and meet him at the party, and she still gets jealous when he dances with some other girl?”

  “You’ve got a lot to learn,” said Andrea. “She told me she was planning to confront him, but when she saw him dancing with this other girl, that changed everything. All the resolve drained out of her. ‘Water under the bridge,’ she said. It’s like he has some hold over her. Anyhow, she was in pretty deep with Pedrosian in all kinds of ways. She couldn’t just walk away.”

  “But she did.”

  “Eventually, I guess.”

  “And anyway,” I said, “even assuming that Pedrosian knew that you knew about the affair with Lydia’s mom that hardly seems enough re
ason for you to be targeted.”

  I told her to sit tight while I made a call. The call was to my ex. I informed her that she was about to become a big sister for a few hours. Janice told me to go fuck myself. This was a matter of life and death, I said. That brought the same response, but I told her I’d be at her apartment in ten minutes.

  As I finished my call, the Post delivery van was dropping off a special edition. There was a photo of Jerry Pedrosian—“self-styled artist”—covering the entire front page along with a banner headline: WANTED! I took the paper back to show Andrea. The story inside said that the remains of at least one victim, believed to be female, had been found at the scene. Apparently, either Lucy or Crystal had attained the ultimate high. It was believed that two other women and as many as four men were at large, though one of the men was thought to be holding hostages in a bank on Lower Broadway, after crashing his car during the course of a police pursuit. The only person named in the story was Pedrosian, which got Andrea excited till I told her that I knew for a fact that the police had Lydia’s name. After all, I’d given it to them.

  Then I told Andrea that I was taking her to my ex’s house. She seemed shocked.

  “It’s only three blocks away from here,” I explained.

  “But your ex-wife?”

  “Not ideal, but she’s the best we can do. Don’t be put off by her manner. She has a problem relating to cute girls who remind her of what she looked like ten years ago. The important thing is she can be trusted. If she has the radio on, or the TV, which is very likely, and there’s news about the explosion, or any of this stuff, act dumb. You didn’t hear a thing about it till that very moment.”

  She nodded, and we set off for Janice’s place, which had once been mine, just around the corner from the Blue Mill Tavern. As we turned onto Lampwick Street, a car pulled up alongside us. It was an unmarked police car and in the front passenger seat was Detective Campbell.

  “Who’s the attractive young lady?” he asked, through the open window.

  “This is Andrea, my niece from Poughkeepsie,” I said.

  “She must take after the other side of the family,” he said. “Much too pretty to have any of your genes.”

  Andrea made nice.

  “Are you going back to your office?” asked Campbell.

  “Not today,” I said. “I’m showing Andrea the town.”

  “Tell him not to leave out the zoo,” said Campbell, “and take a look at police headquarters if you get a chance. A masterpiece in the manner of the French baroque.”

  He gave Andrea an avuncular leer then turned his attention back to me.

  “So you’re not going to your office?” he said, as if this hadn’t already been established. “That’s too bad. You could have done me a favor.”

  And with that he was off. We continued to Janice’s. She answered the door with a cigarette dangling from her lips—a signal to her temporary ward that she was a no-nonsense dame—simultaneously appraising Andrea like a 7th Avenue fur buyer checking over mink pelts that he suspected of being dyed coney.

  “I’m sure you two will get along,” I said.

  “Yeah, maybe we can play Chutes and Ladders,” said Janice. “How long will this be for?”

  “Not long, I hope.”

  “Keep it brief,” said Janice. “I might get a sudden urge to go to the library, or something.”

  “While you’re there,” I said, “find yourself a nice crime novel.”

  SEVENTEEN

  The riverfront was Desolation Row. Through traffic—headed south toward Brooklyn, or north toward the boonies—rattled along a rapidly decaying section of elevated highway getting ready to collapse under its own weight. West Street was a wasteland and most of the piers that jutted out into the Hudson had been abandoned. Some had disappeared entirely, except for a few rotting pilings, some had been cleared down to the deck, while others supported ramshackle structures in varying degrees of decay.

  The pier where Lydia had said I would find her fell into the last category. It had once been the Manhattan terminal of a ferry line connecting the city with Hoboken. Now, the derelict shed that once sheltered passengers from sun and rain had become an after-dark theater of dreams for gay men, and long-distance truck drivers with a taste for drag queens. By day, it was mostly deserted except for rodents and seagulls. I made my entry by squeezing through a jagged gap in a wall of rusting corrugated steel. The interior was divided up by scattered partitions—those that had not yet collapsed—and the irregular spaces were littered with bits of fallen masonry, broken furniture, the dilapidated remains of a ticket kiosk, mattresses dragged there from the streets to facilitate furtive sexual encounters, a dead dog, empty pint bottles, discarded food cartons, and yellowing newspapers fluttering in the breeze that wafted through broken windows. Columns of sunlight poured through holes in the roof, and here and there the water that lapped against the piles on which the pier rested could be glimpsed through gaps in the wooden deck. The ultimate B-movie set.

  I took the Ruger from my pocket and chambered a round. No sign of Lydia, but then I did not expect her to be out in full view doing yoga. I moved slowly and carefully onto the pier, pausing every few feet to check behind some obstruction or another. No sign of life. I could understand Lydia being cautious, but the stillness—punctuated by a constant drip, drip, drip that always seemed close by—was not easy on the nerves.

  Then suddenly she was there. She stepped out from behind a pillar and planted herself in my path.

  “For God’s sake put that gun away,” she said. “I thought we’d decided to trust each other.’

  “I’ll hang on to it for the moment,” I said.

  “Do what you want. The important thing is did you find Andrea?”

  “Matter of fact, she found me.”

  “And is she okay?”

  “She’s shaken, but she’s fine.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Lydia’s face froze into a mask of anger.

  “You’re lying! Where is she?” she said, a snarl in her voice.

  “I can’t tell you,” I said, “because that’s dangerous information.”

  I felt something hard against the back of my neck. The muzzle of a gun. I would have been willing to bet it was a Ruger.

  “There’s been a lot of dangerous information flying around,” said a voice that was all too familiar.

  Jerry Pedrosian. He told me to drop my gun and patted me down.

  “When I told Gabe Kravitz to hire a detective to locate Lydia,” he continued, “it didn’t occur to me at first to suggest you. Then I remembered that you’d been on my case once before. You hadn’t been able to figure out what I was involved with that time. Why would you do any better this time? You’d make the perfect fall guy.”

  That hurt, but I couldn’t let it show.

  “You mean the Pol Smit case?” I said. “Those collages you faked for him were halfway decent.”

  The muzzle of the gun poked into my neck. I sensed that I had managed to touch a nerve.

  “So if you knew about them, why didn’t you have me busted?”

  “Sometimes you have to let the small fry go.”

  Again, the back of my neck received a massage. Meanwhile, Lydia stepped forward to scoop up the weapon I’d dropped. Strangely, I felt completely calm. I guess genetic memory kicked in and reminded me that if you find yourself in a cave with a pair of saber-toothed tigers your only hope is to pretend that you’re not scared shitless. And anyway, if the end came, it would all be over pretty quickly.

  Something a little closer to logic told me not to satisfy the expectations of my captors. I was dying to know what Pedrosian meant by saying that he had told Gabriel Kravitz to hire me to look for his daughter, and I was sure he was dying to tell me, but I was damned if I was going to give him the satisfaction of asking. Instead, I tried a different tack.

  “I guess by now,” I said, “that you regret having got me involv
ed.”

  “How so?” he said.

  “If it hadn’t been for me,” I continued, “You wouldn’t have had to leave your first safe house. I imagine it must have been a pain in the ass, and a bit dicey, moving those explosives from one place to the other at short notice. And then look what happened.”

  “You’re overestimating your importance in the scheme of things,” said Pedrosian. “That’s what happens with tiny minds.”

  I just kept going.

  “Remind me to tell you sometime about the phone call that tipped me off to that location. A woman’s voice…”

  Did I imagine it, or did Lydia’s eyes narrow a millimeter?

  “The move had been planned long before you stumbled upon the building,” said Pedrosian, sounding a shade defensive.

  “Really? I would have thought that that was a bad time to have to make that kind of move—just as you were about to carry out your first bombing.”

  “You don’t know shit,” said Pedrosian.

  “I know that someone got blown to bits this morning.”

  “Crystal was careless,” said Pedrosian. “It was the stupid bitch’s own fault.”

  “How many times had you fucked that kid?” I asked.

  I continued to watch Lydia’s face as I said this. It didn’t betray much. Her nostrils flared slightly, and she was breathing a little heavily, but the pistol was steady in her hand.

  “Let me show you something,” said Pedrosian. “Walk over that way, toward that window. The one through which—God, I love the fucking irony!—you can see the Statue of Liberty.”

  I did as he told me, his gun now in the small of my back. Behind a fallen beam, I saw two bodies lying facedown—Homer, the hippie kid, and one of his so-called sisters. Each had been shot once in the back of the head. Now Pedrosian stepped out from behind me so that I could see him for the first time. He was wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, which seemed weirdly incongruous, and there was a crazy grin on his face. I’d seen kissing cousins of that grin before, usually when he was about to spill beer on someone to start a bar fight. This one was a lot scarier.