"Whaddya mean, almost?" Tony said.
They drove back to the motel and went to their individual rooms. Laika stayed awake for a long time before she was finally able to sleep.
Chapter 15
The next morning they left without checking out. Their bill would be sent to a government address. Joseph was already behind the wheel of the car as Laika and Tony came out. When they opened their doors, they didn't hear the sounds of a sharp click and a whirring that instantly followed.
The camera was in a room three doors away, the photographer's name was Taylor Griswold, and he took pride in the fact that he was descended from the Rufus Griswold who had blackened the name of Edgar Allan Poe after Poe's death. He tried to get another shot, but it was too late. Everyone was now in the car, and between the window he was shooting through and the car windows, he knew he'd be lucky if the image he got was as good as the 1936 Raynham Hall ghost shot.
Griswold had only gotten the tip the day before and had raced up to Plattsburgh from the offices of The Inner Eye. His source, as usual, was confidential to the rest of the world. He had been aware of the occurrence at Plattsburgh, and a stringer had done a story on it, offering the theory of a secret cabal of immortals. The editors of the tabloid had added their usual soupçon of sensationalism. Though Griswold thought he knew what it really was all about, it was not his assignment, and he could only wait until he was called upon.
Finally the tip had come in, and his editors were all too happy to wish him bon voyage in his investigation of a secret government agency investigating the deaths. He had been given the name of this motel; now, here they were, the first he had seen them, and already they had their suitcases as though they were leaving.
He jammed the camera into its bag, grabbed his coat and suitcase, and opened his door a crack. The car was pulling out of the lot. Time to follow.
Griswold ran out to his rental car, unlocked it, threw in his gear, and climbed in. But when he turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened. He tried it again, futilely pumping the gas pedal. Hissing through his teeth, he reached desperately under the dashboard, found the hood release, jerked on it, and got out and opened the hood.
Everything looked normal. He didn't realize what had happened until a service mechanic told him two hours later that his spark plug wires had all been taken out and replaced in the wrong order.
The man who had done that was Sir Andrew Mackay, and while Taylor Griswold fretted and fumed, waiting for his service call, Mackay was driving down Route 87, keeping the car with the three government investigators in sight at all times. Now that he'd found them, he didn't want to lose them. He knew where they were from, but he wanted to know more. And when he finally learned all he could, he would kill them.
It was the least he could do for his brothers.
While Taylor Griswold and Sir Andrew Mackay saw the three ops leave Plattsburgh, other eyes saw them come into New York City.
When they got out of their car after Joseph had pulled it into the unloading space in front of their West 72nd Street address, a young African-American man was walking by on the other side of the street. He glanced appreciatively at the long-legged woman who got out of the car with the two white men. All were carrying suitcases.
But just as he was about to look away, something familiar about the woman caught his eye, and he looked more closely, staring at her until she and her companions went into the building. Then he went into a phone booth at the end of the block and dialed a number.
"Yo, James? 's Pipe . . . sorry I woke ya. Listen, man, guess who I just saw? . . . Naw naw, listen, man! A sister. Friend of yours, James—ex-friend, you dig? . . . You on it, man. Right up here on West Seventy-second. Number thirty-nine. Went in the door with two white boys, look like an Eye-talian guy and some old dude . . . yeah, what if she is, what you gonna do about it? . . . Oh yeah, I bet. Then what?" Pipe listened for a while, then chuckled appreciatively. "All right. You still not all white after all . . . and right back at chu, niggah. And thassa compliment."
Pipe hung up and smiled long and slow. That damn James and his hot-shit job. Might make a lot of green working with the white man, but that didn't mean shit if he couldn't hang on to his woman. Pipe had seen him when he came up to the old neighborhood to visit his mama. Boy had had a red face and a big old scab on his cheek. "What 'samatter?" Pipe had said. "Your woman bitch-slap you?"
He had been kidding, but from the look on James's face, he knew he had hit on the truth. Wasn't that a laugh, old downtown James getting stomped on by his old lady? James had gone on and on how he was going to make her pay, and Pipe had said, sure, yeah, just like he was going to tell those mothers at his firm to stuff it up their white asses.
So when Pipe saw James's woman with two white boys, he just couldn't resist sharing the news with Uncle Tom/ Uncle Ben/Uncle James. As much as Pipe hated sisters who messed with white boys, he hated black men who forgot where they came from. Maybe he'd be lucky and they'd mess each other over bad.
Pipe rattled the vials in his pocket and headed east toward the park. He still had a lot of sales to make before he could head back uptown and get some for himself.
James put down the phone and lay back in bed. He'd had a long night before, doing a lot of drinking and trying to forget about Laika.
It had been weeks, and he still missed her, goddamnit. All those Saturdays he had woken up next to her, early and happy—maybe to make love and make breakfast, go out and see an art show, or a matinee at the Met, or just walk with her through Chelsea.
And now, here he was at 1:30 in the afternoon, hung over from the night before, his dick sore from having humped that dumb punk white bitch against the outside wall of the club he'd gone to, feeling like a dumbass because he'd been too drunk to use a condom, and she'd been too stoned to care. Probably an AIDS-carrying junkie bitch.
And it was all Laika's fault.
Maybe he'd loved her once, maybe he still loved her. But he also hated her for what she'd done to him. Sure, he had hit her, but she had deserved it. His old man had hit his mother for a lot less. Laika had been a goddam prize, beautiful, smart, a sweet lovemaker, and independent. And maybe that last one was the problem: she didn't know that a woman had to be subservient to her man. She wasn't supposed to give him shit, and if she had the guts to do that, then she'd better have the guts to take a whipping for it.
He had gone back to her apartment several times, but nobody'd answered the door, and when her phone rang, he heard only her tape say, "If you'd care to leave a message, please do so at the tone." He hadn't. Several nights he had gone to her building and looked up at her window that fronted the street, but there were never any lights on. He assumed she had probably gone out of town for the export business she worked for.
But now here she was, back in the city, heading into a building with two white men. Now, what the hell was that all about?
Well, he'd find out. You bet your ass he would.
Trying to hold his head steady, he got up, showered, and dressed.
Chapter 16
The apartment was adequate, Laika thought. It was laid out in a haphazard manner, as so many of these renovated buildings were. There was a living room and a large dining room that they would turn into a work area with the desktop computers that already sat on the floor, waiting for them. The new cables snaking out from the phone jacks at the baseboard told her that fiber-optic connections had already been made.
A narrow hall led to two fair-sized bedrooms, the larger of which Tony and Joseph would share. There was a toilet off Laika's room, and a bath with a shower and tub off the hall. The kitchen was small but well appointed, and the shelves and refrigerator were stocked with food.
Windows were always a matter of concern, but she noted that no windows were in the dining room, and those in the living room and kitchen looked out onto an airshaft. The bedroom windows faced blank brick walls.
By the time they'd finished unpacking and getting the place in order,
it was nearly five o'clock. "I'm hungry," said Tony. "Anybody for an early dinner?"
"We could see what's in the fridge," Laika said.
"Nah, I don't wanta cook. I'll make you guys spaghetti tomorrow, okay? But let's go out somewhere tonight."
"You like Cuban food?" Laika asked. "There's a good Cuban-Chinese place over on Broadway."
"Cuban-Chinese? Never had it, but I'll give it a try. Joseph?"
"I'd rather set up the network. You two go without me, and I'll just make a sandwich."
Tony and Laika walked over to the restaurant, where Tony learned that he did indeed like the food, though he joked quietly, "Don't know if two spooks should eat at a Cuban-Chinese joint."
By the time they were back on the street, it had grown dark. "Any bookstores around here?" Tony asked. "I need something to read."
"There's a Barnes and Noble four blocks that way," Laika said, pointing. "I think I'm going to head back. Hopefully the new assignments have been delivered by now."
"You be okay going back—" She knew he was about to say "alone," but he stopped, slightly embarrassed. "That was dumb, wasn't it? I think I went into automatic date mode . . . sure you'll be okay. Catch you later."
He turned and walked up Broadway, and she watched him go, thinking that the concern, even if misplaced, was nice. There was nobody anymore, beside her mother, who showed concern for her.
She sighed and started walking back east toward the apartment, planning to head south at the park along Central Park West. She stopped now and then to look into store windows, and went into a used CD store on Amsterdam, where she found a two-disc live recording of Das Liebesverbot on the Melodram label. It was one of the few Wagner operas she didn't have, so she happily paid the fifteen dollars and tucked the CDs into her purse. She would let them play her to sleep later.
At the apartment building, she unlocked the outside door and stepped into the lobby, letting the door swing slowly shut behind her. But as she crossed the marble floor in the dim light, she became aware that she could still hear the sound of the street, and glanced back to see a dark figure moving swiftly toward her. There was no time to reach into her purse for her pistol, so she swung around into a defensive stance and moved forward, anticipating the attack.
But the attacker stopped dead, his arms up as well, and just looked at her, a half-smile, half-snarl on his handsome, brooding face.
"James—" she said, and he nodded.
"Happy to see me?" He slowly lowered his arms, and she did the same. "Not gonna blindside me and pour hot soup in my face?"
"You were holding a knife on me."
"You were gettin' mouthy." He shrugged. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I held a knife on you, I'm sorry I hit you. You come on back, now, and it won't happen again."
"Just go."
"Hey, I mean it, I promise. I miss you, you know? You come on back, try to be a little less sassy, I'll try not to get pissed off so easy, we'll get along again, right?"
"James," she said quietly, but with an edge intended to cut flesh, "you get out of here now, while you still can."
His face puckered up like he was going to spit. "Whatsa matter, you got a white boyfriend now? Don't you forget who you are, girl! What is this shit, movin' in here with two white men?"
Laika felt a chill in the pit of her stomach. How much did James know? "You heard me, James. Forget you ever saw me. I'm not joking. You know I don't joke." She smiled savagely. "I can still see a scar."
He started to move toward her then, and she got ready to do what she had to, when the sound of a key turning in the lobby door grabbed her attention. James whipped around, dropping his hands like a little boy caught stealing from the teacher's desk, as Tony Luciano walked through the door. She saw that he sensed the tension.
"Problem here?" he said, his face and voice calm.
When James saw a short Italian guy holding a Barnes and Noble bag instead of a security guard or a cop, his attitude grew cocky again, and his voice echoed the streets. "Nah, we don't got a problem. What, you got a problem?"
Tony looked away from James at Laika, still calm, asking her with his eyes how she wanted him to play it. She didn't know what to do. This was personal, and personal business mixed with company business was bad. Getting no answer, Tony looked back at James. "You live here?"
"None of your damn business where I live, man. I'm talkin' to the lady here, so why don't you just piss off?"
"I happen to know the lady," Tony said.
James cocked his head. "No shit . . . goddamnit, you the Eye-talian guy?"
Tony's temper finally flared, and he took a few steps toward James. "Yeah—you the Af-frickin' guy?"
James involuntarily backed away from Tony, who advanced like a force of nature. Still, he blustered as he moved. "Back off, man, don't push me . . . I'll . . . I'll call a goddam cop, you, you—!"
Tony dropped his bag of books, yanked his pistol from behind his back, pushed James up against the wall, and stuck the muzzle right under his nose. Then he snarled through clenched teeth. "I am a goddam cop. Now, listen to me—you get your dumb ass out of here. Don't come back to this building, or this street, or anywhere within ten blocks of this street. Don't ever bother this woman again, don't ever bother me again, or you're gonna eat this gun while I pull the trigger several times, and there won't even be enough left of your tiny brain to make one stupid thought, not even 'Ow, that hurt.'"
Tony took the gun away, grabbed James's shoulder, and flung him toward the door. "Get outta here."
With a frightened but sullen look at Laika, James tore the door open and ran out into the street.
"That was a little extreme," Laika said.
"I was afraid he was gonna call me a goombah. Or a guinea," Tony said, shoving his pistol back under his jacket and picking up his books. "Then I would've had to get mad." His face quiet again, he looked at Laika with a combination of curiosity and concern. "You knew him." She nodded. "Was this a personal thing?"
"Old boyfriend." She pushed the elevator button, and the doors opened. Tony followed her into the car. "He got abusive on me, I didn't like it."
Tony shrugged. "Who would?"
"I beat him up. A little." She pushed the button for 7, and the car started to move.
"Didn't seem to do him much good. He's still stupid." He blew out a long breath through his nose. "How'd he find out about you? And me—the 'Eye-talian' guy?"
"I don't know."
"I had to scare him off, you know that."
"I know."
"You know what might happen, he shows up again."
"Christ, I know a lot of people in New York."
"Around here?"
"No. Way downtown—the Village, Chelsea."
"So I guess that's why we're up here."
''I guess."
"Maybe you'd better stay off the street."
She turned and glared at him. "I'm head of this team. I'll decide when I stay off the street. And I'll tell you not to mention this incident to Stein."
"He ought to know."
"Do I need to repeat that order?"
He gnawed on his lower lip for a few seconds, looking at her. "No."
Joseph hailed them as they came into the apartment. "We're all hooked up," he said joyously. "On line and ready to go. And guess who sent Ms. Harris an encrypted file?"
"Skye," Laika said.
"Your perspicacity is second only to mine," said Joseph.
Laika sat at the center machine and ordered the decoding process to begin. It took nearly five minutes before the sentences appeared on the screen. She noticed that Joseph and Tony were politely holding back, making an effort not to look at her monitor. Still, they were tense and expectant.
"Anything we should know about?" Joseph asked with a grin.
Laika wasn't ready to smile yet. It would take awhile to push James from her thoughts. "Just the usual," she answered. "A haunted house and a man who vanished from an exploding room."
Chapt
er 17
Though the next day was Sunday, they'd been told to meet with Clarence Melton at four in the afternoon at the row of townhouses he owned. The three operatives spent the early part of the day looking over the files that had been sent about the building, as well as others they downloaded concerning Melton himself.
Melton had made his considerable fortune in New York City real estate. He would buy up decaying blocks near reasonably upscale neighborhoods, gut the buildings while keeping what was architecturally viable, rebuild them, and regentrify the neighborhoods. He made large contributions on both sides of the political fence. Both Dole and Clinton had benefited from his largesse in the most recent presidential election, and so had most New York State congressmen and city officials. As a result, he had smooth sailing for all his projects.
The smoothness stopped, however, with the Park Project, located on East 77th Street and Fifth Avenue, overlooking the park. It was a slight change for Melton, since the row of eight townhouses he'd purchased were already in a good area. However, an absentee and uncaring landlord had let the property depreciate, until the forty apartments within were barely habitable.
When the landlord, now eighty years old with no heirs, ignored the city's demand to bring the buildings up to code, the city declared them unfit for habitation and ordered the premises vacated. It was time for Clarence Melton to move in.
He lost no time in looking over the property with an architect and a structural engineer, and made the decrepit owner an offer that would keep him in nursing care and Depends for the rest of his life. Melton and his crew of architects presented the city with their plans, which were quickly approved. But when Melton brought in his first work crew, weird things started to happen, and it was the responsibility of the Division of Special Investigations to find out what had happened and why.
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