The Devil She Knows

by Bill Loehfelm

  Maureen patted her pockets, searching for her phone, mumbling an apology. By the time she found her phone, attached to the charger that she’d plugged into a wall socket, the ringing had stopped. She packed up the charger in her bag, along with her printout evidence from the library computer. She frowned at the phone. Not Waters calling, but a familiar number. No name with it. Who was it?

  “Miss?” The White Rabbit held a crumpled five-dollar bill in his hand. “Do you need some help?”

  Maureen looked at the money, then up at the pink face trying in vain to form a warm smile. You’re gonna need help, she thought, pulling that five outta your ass after I stuff it up there. Inside, she laughed at herself. I should be nice to him. Maybe he can get me that magic cookie that makes me bigger. Or maybe he’s Morpheus and he can put me back to sleep. Her phone rang again. Time to go. She jumped up from her seat, grabbed her bag, and darted for the door, leaving the White Rabbit holding whatever else he had to offer.

  Out on the steps, she looked at the ringing phone. Same number. It clicked this time. Tanya. Maureen squeezed the phone in her hand. She didn’t care what Waters said about fear and devils, that bitch had some nerve calling now. But maybe Tanya had slipped away from Sebastian, Maureen thought, and come to her senses. Maybe that’s why she was calling. She answered.

  “T? Where are you?”

  “Hello, Maureen.” Sebastian on Tanya’s phone. “You know, I see you in your mother. You are definitely her girl, where the apple falls and such.”

  The words hit like a gut punch. “You stay away from her, you motherfucker, I swear to Christ I’ll—”

  Laughter cut her off. “You’ll what?” He paused, as if expecting an answer. “What are you gonna do, spill hot coffee on me? I saw you eyeing that pot this morning. You act like it’s hard to tell what you’re thinking.” He chuckled. “How long has she worked at Macy’s?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You kiss your mother with that mouth? Were you a public school girl? Remind me to do something about that when I get to Albany. But seriously, what kind of daughter are you? Letting your mother drive around in a twenty-year-old K-car. It’s unsafe. Have you no sense of loyalty? It stalls at traffic lights. Could be dangerous.” His quiet laugh. “So what’s got more miles on it? The car or you?”

  “What have you done with Tanya?”

  “Speaking of miles. You know, Maureen, we all wish we lived in a safer world. Alas, even here on Staten Island sometimes we swim in deeper, more dangerous waters than we’d like. It’s one of the reasons I’m running for office. Public safety. It’s important.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I know, for instance, that it’s already dark by the time your mother gets out of work. Lots of things can happen to a middle-aged lady in an empty parking lot at night. I was a cop. You don’t want to know what I’ve seen, what people are capable of doing to each other with their bare hands. You’re a woman of the world; I don’t think I have to spell out the sordid possibilities. The risks involved.

  “If you wanted, as a favor, I could have a couple of my men meet her on her way to her car. I could have them follow her home. Maybe I’ll do that anyway, for the sake of my own conscience. That’s called leadership. You want me to show you and your mother some leadership?”

  “I think what you’re talking about,” Maureen said, “is called felony menacing.”

  “So call a cop,” Sebastian said. “Listen to me, Maureen. Stop thinking that we’re the only two people involved here. That’s a mistake. You need to remember that the things you do, they ripple out into the world and other people feel their effects. Other people have a stake. So think about which horse you’re putting your hard-earned money on. Ask yourself the important questions. Can Waters protect your mother? Can he protect you? How hard is he really trying?”

  “Let me ask you a question,” Maureen said. “Which cheek?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Before you quit the NYPD,” Maureen said, “a low-rent pimp put two bullets in your ass. Two bullets. Which cheek, left or right? Or one each?”

  A long moment’s dead air. Had she hit the right nerve?

  “I retired from the job,” Sebastian said, “covered in medals. Covered in honor. And I took those bullets so some fifteen-year-old whore didn’t have to. Ask that mealymouth ratfucker Waters telling bullshit stories where he was when the shit went down. How’s his career turned out? How many night shifts have you got left in those skinny legs of yours? As for me, those two bullets are punching my ticket to Albany.”

  She’d hit something sore: a deep bruise, a loose nerve. The transformation, the sudden devolution from glib politician back to Brooklyn vice cop startled her even through the phone. Sebastian talked about swimming in deep, dark waters. Maureen pictured a creature from the blackest depths of the ocean, one of those big-mouthed fish with teeth like scissor blades, an ugly thing that, when raised from the darkness and held up to the light, can’t hide its twisted innards.

  “He tried to fuck you yet?” Sebastian asked. “Because he will, I guarantee it.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about. And you’re a sick man. Damaged goods.”

  “All of a sudden I’m talkin’ to Little Miss Innocent,” Sebastian said. “Don’t even think you know him better than I do. I worked the streets with him in the hours after even skanky little coke whores like you went home. Take my advice and fuck your cop. You can’t string Waters along forever. He’s less of a man than me, but he’s a man. When he puts his grubby hands on you, you better put out. ’Cause when you don’t, he’ll be history, and then, unless you smarten up, I’m gonna be reaching out to you for real, from so many different directions you won’t know which way to point that dirty mouth of yours. I’m looking forward to it. It’s gonna hurt you.”

  Maureen blinked up at the sky, breathing hard. No way, no way in hell was this sicko gonna make her cry, angry tears or any other kind. “You stay away from my mother or we’ll see who gets hurt. We both know what I know and what I saw. I’m not proud. I’ll shut up. I can live with a draw. But my mother stubs a toe and I go to Waters and I file every gross, disgusting charge I can think of against you and then I’m on the phone to every reporter in New York City. You’ll spend every last day and every last dollar of your fucking campaign defending yourself against every sordid, nauseating allegation I can think of. And I got an active imagination.”

  “Waters putting these ideas in your head?” Sebastian asked. “Telling you that you can get away with a stunt like that? How’s it feel to be used? You think he gives two shits about you? All you are to him is bait. So he can hang my head on his wall like he’s been trying to do for years. You’re a worm, wriggling on the end of a hook. Stale green cheese in a short skirt. I matter to him, not you. Ask him about it, I dare you. Or put that active imagination to good use. Honestly, I’m really starting to not give a fuck anymore. I’m getting real tired of you.”

  He hung up. And that was when she saw him.

  Across the street, getting up from the bench in the bus shelter. A long black coat over his suit, his short silver hair hidden under a wool cap, wraparound shades masking his face. The bastard, he’d sat there for the whole conversation, watching her, playing her, reading her. He raised his hand. He held something in it. What was he showing her? Tanya’s phone? Stupidly, as if entranced, Maureen raised her arm and waved back. A cab pulled to the curb in front of him, blocking most of him from view. He looked right at her over the roof of the cab before he got in. It was Sebastian, wasn’t it?

  Maureen, her heart twitching in her throat, dialed Waters’s number, hoping he wasn’t too far away. Hoping he had a reasonable explanation for the old newspaper articles she’d found about a vice squad in Brooklyn. She needed two hands and three tries to get the right digits entered.

  At the curb outside the library, Waters leaned against the hood of his car, arms crossed. Maureen toed the sidewalk with her boot,
hiding her face from the people walking by. What did they take her for, she wondered, as she stood there wilting in front of this obvious cop? Was she a prostitute? A runaway? If she were a guy, she’d be a thug. These strangers wouldn’t stare right at her if she were a guy. They’d be too afraid. Sebastian’s words, his questions, beat their wings against the walls of her skull.

  “So you’re sure,” Waters said, “that your mom hasn’t talked to Gloria since this morning.”

  “I called her while I was waiting for you. That’s what she said, nothing since this morning at the house.”

  “So what he’s got,” Waters said, “is your job application from the Narrows. Think about it. Who’s listed as your emergency contact?”

  “My mom.”

  “Right. Her name, home phone number, work number. Listen, I don’t think he’s got a small army out surveilling and stalking your mother. He’s in some back office at campaign headquarters or in the backseat of his limo messing with your head between interviews. You told me yourself that Sebastian and Vic go back. He leaned on Vic for info and got the application. End of story.”

  “You’re sure? This is my mom we’re talking about.”

  “Think about it,” Waters said. “What’d he say to you? That the two of you look alike. He saw that this morning. He’s known that for twenty-odd years. She works at the Macy’s in the mall. Phone number’s on the app. Not exactly a deep dark secret. Anything more than that?”

  “No.”

  “So what does what he said really prove?”

  “Not a whole lot,” Maureen said. “But I’m telling you that really might’ve been him, right across the street.”

  Waters shook his head. “Not unless that cab took him back in time. When you called me, I was at the precinct watching him on television while he started a quality-of-life speech outside the old Black Garter Saloon, which means he was calling you from the other end of the island. No cab is getting him from here to the South Shore in the ninety seconds it took you to call me.” Waters leaned closer to Maureen. “If you want, we can run over to Macy’s right now. I’ll even wait in the car while you go check on her.” He waited for an answer. “I’m serious.”

  “No. My problems are not her problems,” Maureen said. “What are we gonna do about Tanya?”

  “I’m looking but I’m not optimistic, especially if he’s calling from her phone.”

  “This is the part,” Maureen said, “where you tell me he screwed himself by calling on her phone, right? Now you can bust him.”

  “Hand me your phone.” Maureen gave it over. Waters thumbed through her calls until he landed on the one from Sebastian. “What do you see there?”

  “Tanya’s number.”

  “No, you don’t,” Waters said. “You see a phone number with no name that you say is Tanya’s. Even if I could get a subpoena for her account information and prove that’s her number, your grandkids will be reading about Sebastian in their history books by then. And I promise you that phone is without a doubt no longer physically in existence, never mind on his person.”

  “We need to find Tanya,” Maureen said. “If she’s with him, it’s not by choice.”

  “Tanya might say different.” With effort, Waters shifted his weight off his car and onto his feet. “No matter what the truth is, we can’t count on her to tell it.”

  “What about my mom? Can we get her into witness protection or something?”

  “Not for this,” Waters said. “She’s not the witness, first of all. And I can’t do it without bringing his name into things, and I can’t do that with what little I’ve got against him.”

  “Because what little you got,” Maureen said, “is me. That’s the real problem, isn’t it? My word against his. This is bullshit. I’d have more credibility if I were a criminal. If I were some mafia hit man that killed a dozen people”—she raised her finger at Waters—“or if I were Frank Sebastian, you people would be falling all over yourselves to protect me and my family. But because I’m some normal person I can’t get the time of day.”

  “I know,” Waters said. “I’m sorry. It sucks. If it makes you feel any better, nobody listens to me much, either.”

  “Thanks. It doesn’t,” Maureen said. “Now what?”

  “Let’s get you home.”

  “Back to my mom’s? No way.”

  “Listen, I’m not trying to play family therapist here,” Waters said, “but you two are gonna have to work things out, at least for a couple of days. She’s worried sick and your apartment’s not safe. Where else you got?”

  “Every place I go,” Maureen said, “he turns up. He’ll leave her alone if I’m not there. If he shows up at her house my mom can’t protect me. I know it and you know it. All I’m doing there is putting her in danger.”

  Waters scratched at his gray stubble, worked his jaw, thinking. Maureen recalled Sunday evening, when she’d called him from outside Cargo and asked whether he’d known that Sebastian had been a cop. He hadn’t liked her questioning his authority then, either. But she was getting to him this time, winning him over. Either that or she was wearing him down. Same result.

  “Sebastian’s not out to get your mom,” Waters said.

  “He got Dennis.”

  “Dennis was different,” Waters said, “and you know it. I feel for the guy and I’m not saying he deserved what happened to him, but he was hardly innocent. He did business with Sebastian. Knew secrets about him, owed him money. Your mom is just…your mom. She lives in the daylight, out where Sebastian’s got to smile for the cameras. He knows that as well as we do. He’s just trying to get inside your head. Don’t let him.”

  “I’ve got this bird feeder back at my apartment,” Maureen said, studying her hands, curling her fingers into claws. “The birds come from everywhere when I put it out. And so does the neighbor’s cat. Like clockwork. I can’t get rid of him. But when there’s no birds in the yard? No cat. Can’t find him anywhere. I go running home and Sebastian sends one of his special geeks after me. Who knows what happens to my mother?” She shook her head. “No birds in my mother’s yard. Hear me? I don’t care. He doesn’t get near her again.” Maureen pulled open the passenger door of the car. “Get in.”

  “Seems you got it all figured out,” Waters said. “Can I put my retirement papers in?”

  “I want you to stand there,” Maureen said, “and tell me—no, promise me—that I’m wrong.”

  Waters just stared at her over the roof of the car.

  At Cargo, Waters held open the door for Maureen. As they walked into the bar, he held his arm outstretched in the air behind her back. John, behind the bar pouring a pitcher of beer, looked in their direction, then back down at his work, with no visible reaction. In the booth closest to the door, two guys in suits sat talking and finishing a late lunch. They went quiet and stared as Maureen and Waters crossed the barroom. Maureen gave them a quick glance, trying to return their stares, then dropped her eyes to the floor.

  “Detective,” she whispered, “those two guys sitting by the window. In the booth.”

  “Nothing to worry about.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “They checked you out, head to toe,” Waters said. “If they were waiting for you, they’d never have looked. One would get up about now and make a phone call outside.”

  Maureen risked another peek. The men had returned to their food and their quiet conversation. Neither of them moved or looked her way again. She pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting to steady her rapid breathing. This is bullshit, she thought. This no way to go through life.

  The rest of the place was empty, except for Molly, who stood at the bar’s far corner, unpacking papers from her schoolbag and organizing them on the bar. When she saw Maureen and Waters, she froze, papers in hand. Maureen couldn’t read her face. She didn’t know whether to wave hello or turn around and leave.

  Waters leaned down and spoke softly. “Gimme a minute alone with the boss.”

  “Sure thing
,” Maureen said. “Take your time.”

  Waters raised his arm to get John’s attention. He pointed at the pool table, then headed that way. John set the pitcher at the waitress station for pickup before ducking under the bar to meet Waters. Maureen found herself left alone in the middle of the barroom, stuck with no easy choices. She could defy Molly in the plain sight of an empty table, or she could give ground and loiter outside in the cold smoking cigarettes, or she could show some nerve and walk right over to her. She chewed her cheek for a moment. Well, what the hell.

  As Maureen headed Molly’s way, Molly never looked up from her papers.

  “I wouldn’t be here,” Maureen said, taking a seat, leaving a bar stool between them, “if it wasn’t for Waters.”

  “It’s a free country.”

  Molly lowered her head over her club soda, sucking hard on her straw, dimpling her cheeks. Her focus stayed locked on her boyfriend and Waters, the two men in deep conversation, the green expanse of the pool table wide open between them. Bone-colored sunlight poured in on the men through the bar’s wide, thick windows, setting aglow the dust motes hovering in a loose cloud over the felt. John, his back to the room, looked out the window at the passing traffic, tossing the eight ball up and down with his right hand. Waters, his hands spread on the rail of the pool table, leaned forward, explaining something. My valiant NYPD protector, Maureen thought, reduced to soliciting favors from the local bartender.

  She knew she should be grateful for Waters’s help and for John’s willingness to at least listen, and she was, but grateful or not, her confidence in Waters was ebbing.

  “I don’t even know that they’re talking about,” Maureen said, swiveling her bar stool back and forth. “If I knew, I’d tell you. I swear.”

  “Call me crazy,” Molly said, stabbing her straw at the ice in her drink, chasing the lime around the bottom of her glass, “but I bet they’re talking about you. Just a wild guess.”

  Maureen restrained a sigh. Grinding her back teeth, she forced herself to look away from Molly and not punch her off her bar stool. This is fucking pointless, she thought. Waters, his bloodhound cheeks sagging, his wrinkled sleeves rolled up, his thick arms folded across his chest, stood listening to John, who still wouldn’t look at him. Everyone’s miserable, Maureen thought, and I’m the reason. Beside her, Molly was a block of ice. Maureen could feel the chill coming off her from three feet away. The exit to the courtyard was right behind them. John never locked the courtyard gate until after dark. Be easy to slip outside and vanish into the streets. That’d probably be best for everyone. She should disappear. The ferry was only a short walk away. She could ride over to lower Manhattan and walk around the battery, maybe up into the Village. And then do what? Maybe a change of scenery would show her something, inspire some solution she could navigate on her own. At least she’d be on her own.