Mercy Street

by Mariah Stewart

  “He won’t hear it from me, I can promise you that.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Listen, he isn’t going to bother you, is he?”

  “Frank has bothered me for as long as I’ve known him.” She blew out a long breath. “But if you mean will he come here to my house, will he harass me? Only verbally, is my guess.”

  “If it comes to more than that, you call me, you hear?”

  When she didn’t respond, he said, “Hey, Mallory, you hear me?”

  “I hear you.”

  “I’ve known cops like him before. Don’t play with him. If it looks as if he’s going to do more than jaw at you, I want to know about it.”

  “Okay, thanks, Charlie. I appreciate that. And thanks for backing him off at the diner. I was afraid I was going to have to hurt him.”

  “I believe you could,” Charlie said, more relaxed now.

  “So what was he saying about me after I drove away?”

  “He basically warned me off you, said you were bad news and you weren’t someone I’d want to know and I should stay clear.”

  “Did he add, If you know what’s good for you?”

  “Nah, but it was implied.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why? It’s not your fault he’s a total a-hole.”

  Mallory laughed, then sobered. “He could make things…difficult for you.”

  “He can try.”

  “Seriously, Charlie. He’s not a nice guy, and if he thinks you’re a threat or if you get on his wrong side…”

  “I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself. I don’t worry about the Frank Toricellis in this world.”

  “Great. You haven’t even worked a day yet and you’ve already got the department bully on your back.”

  “Like I said, I’m not worried about Toricelli. I have a thing about bullies.”

  “Well, thanks again,” she said.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “Talk to you soon.” She disconnected the call and headed up the short walk to her front door. Inside, she went straight to the kitchen, where she made a cup of tea and carried it to her office. It certainly had been one hell of a day so far.

  While everything was fresh in her mind, she made notes on her conversations with Linda and Misty, noting her impressions of both, the questions she had come away from the Bauer house with, the insights and theories she’d shared with Charlie. She’d forgotten to mention Courtney’s father, and made a mental note to do that.

  She paused, her fingers poised over the keyboard. She tried to remember the last time she’d been as attracted to anyone as she was to Charlie Wanamaker, then gave up, figuring if it was that far in her past—and it was—it wasn’t worth trying to dig up.

  Charlie Wanamaker drew her in like the old moth to the flame. She liked everything about him. Liked the way he looked, liked the way he thought, liked the way he laughed. Liked the way he approached an investigation. For the first time in a very long time, Mallory wished she had someone to talk to, a friend, a sister, someone she could confide in, someone she could sort out her feelings with.

  Well, she reminded herself, that was the thing about being a loner. When you had something you wanted to talk about, there wasn’t anyone to tell.

  THIRTEEN

  Sarah Jo Hagan was standing beneath a weather-beaten green-and-white awning that hung over the front of a storefront church when Mallory drove up and pulled to the curb at the corner of Fifth and Chelsea avenues in one of two seedy sections of Conroy. Next to the church—aptly named the Downtown Church of the Savior—was an all-night pizza parlor; beside that, a dimly lit tavern with iron bars on the windows.

  “Hey! Mustang Sally!” Mallory rolled down her window, calling the woman by her street name.

  The woman turned her head and stared at the car for a moment, then walked closer, hunching over to peer inside.

  “That you, Detective? My pal Mal?”

  Mallory laughed. “It’s me, Sally. How’ve you been?”

  “Good, good. Fine.” Sally leaned against the passenger door. “You?”

  “Just fine.”

  “Hey, we’ve missed you out here. Where you been?” The pretty young woman had hair the most unnatural shade of red Mallory’d ever seen, and long thin legs that were bare twelve months of the year. On her feet were four-inch heels, and the skirt that hung low on her hips didn’t measure much more. In a different life, she’d have been pretty. Only in her midtwenties, she had a shopworn aura and hard lines on her face, but she’d been the most reliable CI Mallory’d had. She’d never given bad information, and to the best of Mallory’s knowledge, she’d never lied to her. The two woman, so different, had always respected—even liked—each other.

  “I’m off the job,” Mallory told her. “Working on a book, actually.”

  “Don’t put me in it.” Sally held her hands up in mock protest.

  “Not to worry. It’s about a case I worked a few years back.” Mallory smiled and added, “Not one of yours.”

  “Good. I don’t need no one back home reading about what I been up to.”

  “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  “Just like always.” Sally rested her forearms on the window frame. “So what’s up? I know you’re not cruising downtown looking for action.”

  “Actually, I was cruising downtown looking for you,” Mallory told her.

  “Me? What I do?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. I just wanted to ask you a few questions.”

  “Like old times?”

  “Just like old times.”

  Sally opened the door and got into the passenger seat. “Then you drive, and we talk.”

  Mallory waited for a car to pass, then pulled onto the roadway behind it. Driving slowly, she headed for the highway.

  “So what do you need, Detective?” Sally asked.

  “You know I’m not a detective anymore, right?”

  “Don’t matter. You’ll always be Detective Russo to me.” Sally turned slightly in her seat to look at Mallory.

  Mallory smiled in the dark. “Sally, does the name Regina Girard mean anything to you?”

  “Gina Girard? Gigi?” Sally’s left eyebrow raised. “What you want with that crazy bitch?”

  “You know her, then?”

  “Everyone knows Gigi. She is bad news.”

  “Bad news in what way?”

  “Every way. You pick a way.” Sally almost seemed to shudder in the dark.

  “Any word on the street about her?”

  “Yeah. The word is she’s a crazy bitch.”

  “I mean, lately. Anything new lately.”

  “Just that she’s back and badder than ever.”

  “Back from?”

  “She was at County for the past eighteen months. She got caught dealing, sold some shit to the wrong suit. I heard they wanted to keep her longer, but the amount she sold was just barely the minimum, so they had to let her go when her time was up.” Sally grinned. “No time off for good behavior, though.”

  “Do you know where she lives or who she hangs with?”

  “What do you want with her?” Sally dropped the affected street talk. Mallory knew that she had two years of college behind her. How she’d ended up in the life was her own business. Mallory had never asked, though she’d been tempted on more than one occasion. “You don’t want to mess with her. She’s really bad news, Detective.”

  “So everyone says.”

  “Everyone is right. She’s…” Sally fell silent for a moment, then said, “I saw this movie once, about a person who liked to kill other people and it didn’t bother him? It was like he had no conscience, not about anything? Gigi is like that. Nothing she does makes her think twice. She never blinks. If she hurts someone, it doesn’t mean anything to her. She just keeps moving, you know what I mean?”

  “I do.” Mallory nodded. “You sound as if you know her well.”

  “Not really. I mostly just know her by rep.” Sally shrugged.
“You don’t have to be out here long to know that much.”

  “So do you know where she lives?”

  “I heard she had been crashing down on Hawthorne someplace,” Sally looked away. “Don’t know that she still does.”

  “You have an address?”

  “Not if you’re thinking of going there, I don’t.”

  “That’s really nice of you, Sally, but I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Sure, you would.”

  “Not these days. I’m not armed, and I’m by myself. And I’m not stupid.”

  “No one ever said that about you.”

  “I appreciate that. So where is she staying?”

  Sally sat quietly, her hands in her lap. “You promise me you won’t be going after her, and you promise me, if you do, she never knows who told you where to find her.”

  “I promise on both. If she’s as bad as you say…”

  “Worse.”

  “I would never put you in danger, Sally. I never have.”

  “That’s God’s truth.” Sally nodded. “You’ve always played straight with me.”

  “So how ’bout it?”

  “I don’t know….”

  “How ’bout a name for a name?”

  “What name do you have for me?”

  “The name of the detective who took my place.”

  “Detective Russo, no one can take your place.”

  Mallory smiled. “He’s a real good guy, Sal. He could help you if you needed something.”

  “As much help as you’ve been?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” Sally took a deep breath. “I heard Gigi spends most nights with a guy named Jay. Like I said, he lives on Hawthorne, row house in the middle of the block, but I don’t know the number.”

  “Does Jay have a last name?”

  “I don’t know it. Truth. I don’t think I ever heard it.”

  “Okay, that’s great. That’s fine.” Mallory nodded. Gotcha, Regina.

  “You’re serious about not going there?”

  “Yes, I’m serious.”

  “So why did you want to know about her?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Oh, right.” Sally made no effort to hide her skepticism. “So what name do you have for me?”

  “Charlie Wanamaker.”

  “He’s the new guy?”

  Mallory nodded. “He is. If you get picked up and pulled in, you ask for him when you get to the station. He’ll know who you are.”

  “Good to know,” Sally said. “I could use a friend inside. Got that nasty man on my ass all the time…”

  “What nasty man?” Mallory had circled around and was heading back to town.

  “You know what nasty man.” Sally shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

  “I don’t.”

  “That asshole detective. Frank.”

  “Toricelli?”

  “Yeah, that’s his name.” Sally looked out the side window. “Toricelli.”

  Of course it would be him. Mallory inwardly grimaced. No surprise there. “Does he bother you?”

  “Does a chicken peck?”

  “Bother you how?”

  “Just always threatening to take me in, then says we could always barter favors. That kind of shit.”

  “Has he ever taken you in?”

  Sally shook her head. “He doesn’t work vice, and he doesn’t work this end of town, and he knows I know it. Doesn’t stop him from coming around, though, talking shit.” Her voice dropped. “I’m pretty sure he’s pulling some shit with one of the other girls.”

  “Do you know which one?”

  “Ursula’s her street name. I don’t know her real name.”

  “Does she work this side of town?” Mallory pulled to the curb.

  “Sometimes.” Sally glanced over at Mallory. “You’re not going to tell him I said…”

  “I don’t talk to Frank if I can avoid it. And I wouldn’t put your name out there.”

  “He makes my skin crawl.” Sally ran her hands up her arms. “He totally creeps me out.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir on that score.”

  Sally reached for the door handle. “What was the name of that new cop again?”

  “Charlie Wanamaker. He’s a detective.”

  “I gotta write that down.” Sally opened her bag and took out a small red notebook that had a pen inside. She leafed through until she found a clean page, then wrote for a second before dropping both pen and notebook into the bag. “Thanks. I hope I don’t need it, but you never can…” She paused, her mouth open, looking beyond Mallory. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, speak of the devil,” she whispered.

  Mallory turned to her side window, then jumped back. “Jesus, Toricelli, what the fuck is your problem?” she snapped.

  He made a motion with his hand for her to roll down the window. She sighed heavily, then did as she was told. He was still the cop, and she was the civilian.

  “Well, well, well, what have we here?” Toricelli’s face hung through the open window like a full moon. “Let me guess. Mustang Sally is giving you the need-to-know, one working girl to another.” He laughed harshly. “Always wondered what you’d look like in spandex, Blondie.”

  “In your dreams, Toricelli.”

  “Oh, you’re in my dreams, all right.” Another harsh laugh. “So what would two working girls like you be doing, sitting here together on a Saturday night? This is supposed to be your money night, isn’t it, Sal?”

  Sally nodded.

  “So why’re you wasting it with this has-been?” He poked Mallory in the upper arm. “You wouldn’t be giving her info, like in the old days, because she’s not a cop anymore—you knew that, right?” In the dark, Mallory could see his eyes narrow with curiosity. “What use would an ex-cop have for a CI, anyway?”

  “Since you feel entitled to know,” Mallory replied, “I was driving down the street and I saw Sally. Since she was, once upon a time, a trusted CI, I pulled over to say hi. She said there wasn’t much action tonight, so she got into the car to chat for a few minutes.”

  “Ahhh, that’s nice. A little girl-time. And then big bad old Frankie had to come along and spoil the party.” He poked Mallory’s arm again. It was all she could do to not put a fist to his face. “I suggest you drop off your pal and get your ass on home unless you want to be picked up for solicitation.”

  She laughed in his face. “Trust me, bucko, if I’m going to solicit, I’m going to aim a lot higher.”

  He smirked. “Keep it up, Russo. I’m making a note of this conversation. You get a reputation for hanging around with the wrong element, next thing you know someone’s going to be thinking you’re pitching the same product. What do you suppose Drabyak would say if he heard you solicited me?”

  “Oh, please.” She laughed out loud. “You really think anyone would believe I solicited you.”

  “My word against yours, Blondie. And everyone on the force knows what your word is worth.” He stood up and slapped a hand on the side of her car door. “You ladies have a nice night now.”

  The two women watched him walk back to his car.

  “I really don’t like that man, Mallory,” Sally said softly.

  “You’re not alone there.”

  “You think he’s going to tell people you’re working down here?”

  “Nah, but nothing would surprise me when it comes to him.” Mallory saw the worried look on Sally’s face. “Don’t lose any sleep over him, okay? I won’t. He can jaw all he wants. He can’t hurt me.”

  Sally bit her bottom lip, her thoughts as clear as glass: But he could hurt me.

  “I think I’ll let my former boss in on our run-in with Detective Toricelli tonight.”

  “Uh-uh.” Sally shook her head. “I don’t want him on my ass.”

  “He won’t be,” Mallory reassured her. “Joe won’t say anything to him, I promise. I just want it on the record, that’s all.”

  “You mean, in case something happens to me?�
� Sally opened the door.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you. Frank knows I still have a hotline to the department, the one that counts. His bark is going to be worse than his bite. Trust me.”

  “I always have, Detective.” Sally got out of the car.

  “Sally, how much do you suppose you lost in business tonight, driving around with me?”

  Sally shrugged. “Fifty, maybe a little more. We weren’t gone all that long, and it’s early yet, so it’s not that busy. Him showing up might have scared a few cars away, though. Not you. Everyone knows you. And everyone knows him.”

  “I’ll make it up to you.”

  “You already have.” Sally slammed the door. “Charlie Wanamaker, right?”

  “Right.”

  “See you around, Detective.”

  “See you, Sal.”

  The woman took a few steps from the car. Mallory called to her, “You’ll let me know if he bothers you, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “And you know how to get in touch with me if you hear anything you think I need to know?”

  Sally turned back to the car and leaned into the window. “You still at the same number?”

  Mallory nodded.

  “And I can get you through this detective, right?” Sally patted her bag.

  “That would work, sure.”

  “One thing.” Sally lowered her voice. “About that other thing…the person you asked about? Why you asking? Why you want to know about her? You ain’t even a cop no more.”

  Back on the street, the street slipped back into her.

  “Let’s just say I’m tugging on a loose thread and we’ll leave it at that.”

  “Right. I guess I don’t really want to know.” She straightened up and walked in the direction of the far corner.

  Mallory drove to the end of the block and sat through a red light. By the time she’d made a U-turn and driven back the way she’d come, Sally was already sauntering over to a black sedan that had pulled up to the curb. As Mallory passed by, her eyes met Sally’s, but neither waved.