Angel Face (3 page)

‘OK, move.'

Angel walks into the garage, around the Lincoln's trunk, to the far wall. Her legs wobble slightly, but they get her there. She's about to lean back when Carter shakes his head.

‘That wall is rough brick. If you touch it, you'll leave fibers behind. Just stay upright. We'll be out of here in a few minutes.'

Carter begins on the outside of the car, but instead of wiping the door handle, he dabs at the chrome, only giving a little twist at the end. His painstaking approach catches Angel's attention. Then she realizes that he's wearing gloves, silk gloves by the look of them. She didn't notice them earlier because they're almost the same shade of tan as the skin on his forearms.

‘How did you do that?' she asks.

‘Do what?'

‘Find a pair of gloves that color.'

‘I didn't.' In fact, Carter dyed a pair of white gloves with tea, a trick learned when he was still a soldier proudly serving in the armed forces of the United States. He leans into the car's interior and dabs at the dashboard. ‘Any more questions?'

‘Yeah, why are you dabbing like that? You look like you're cleaning a spill off your suit.'

The answer is simple enough. If the cops fingerprint the car, they'll notice any wiped surfaces and draw the appropriate conclusion. ‘I'm not wearing a suit. And something else you might want to consider: if it wasn't for you, I'd already be gone. So I'm probably not in the best of moods.'

There's a door leading into the backyard on the other side of the Lincoln. For just an instant, Angel indulges herself. She imagines vaulting over the hood, tearing through the door, fleeing across the lawn. But then Carter backs out of the car. He nudges the door closed with his knee and turns to face her.

‘Tell me what you're doing here?'

Carter knows that he's best served by killing this woman. Avoid collateral damage? Minimize civilian casualties? Sure, by all means. There are innocents on many battlefields. But minimize doesn't mean eliminate. Neither does avoid. Besides, Carter doesn't know whether or not she's an innocent bystander. Maybe she's a warrior, like Ricky Ditto, in which case she has no rights at all. In which case her beauty won't save her. She'll never leave the garage.

‘I'm, like, on a date,' Angel finally says.

‘What's your name?'

‘Angel.'

‘Show me some ID.'

‘What?'

‘You're a whore, isn't that right? When you say “date”, you mean he's paying you to fuck him.'

Ordinarily, Angel lies about her profession. Not this time. ‘I'm a sex worker,' she says.

‘Congratulations, it's a lot better than being his girlfriend.' Carter has trafficked with whores in the past, as a uniformed soldier, a mercenary and as a soldier of fortune. He harbors them no ill will. Mostly – though probably not in this case – their working lives were about survival under harsh circumstances. ‘So, what's with the outfit? And I meant what I said. Show me some ID. In fact, just toss me your purse.'

Angel complies eagerly. She watches him extract her driver's license, her Social Security card and her Brooklyn College ID card. That he's memorizing her address and Social Security number is a given. That he wouldn't bother if he intended to kill her is also a given.

When the door opens, don't hesitate, walk on through. Seize the day. Angel opts for submission. She's thinking that she doesn't have to cringe. This weird-looking man, with his green jacket and his plaid sport shirt and his khaki chinos, doesn't care what she's feeling. He wants her to obey.

Carter tosses the purse to Angel. At least she didn't lie when he asked her name. Angela is close enough to Angel. And her last name, Tamanaka, confirms his guess about her ancestry.

‘Your mother's Caucasian, right?'

‘My mother's a drunk.'

The answer takes Carter by surprise, though his expression doesn't change. He's thinking it's time to get out of Dodge. Past time, actually. ‘Here's what happens next, Angel. You and me, we're going through that door at the back of the garage. Then we're gonna walk around the house, down the driveway and make a right turn. There's a van parked near the end of the block. We'll enter it through the side door, no delay, no hesitation. Understood?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Good. Now, I want you to open your umbrella so we can huddle beneath it when we get to the end of the driveway. I want us to be a loving couple just going about our business, no reason in the world to pay us any attention.' Carter shoves the gun into his pocket. ‘Don't make a mistake here, Angel. Plan B is real simple: I kill you. Now, tell me what's up with the outfit? You look like a nun.'

Angel's mind boils with unanswered questions. What if someone, a neighbor, sees them walking away from the scene of a murder? What if someone saw her drive up with Ricky? What if someone noticed a strange van parked on the block? How can he be sure that she won't run to the cops the minute he releases her? Angel has no time to consider the answers, though she can't stop the questions. She's too busy doing what she does so well, entertaining a man. Angel tells Carter all about her work as they make their way around the house and along the driveway to the sidewalk, as they boldly march up the block. Her tone is engaged and somewhat intimate, as if she was revealing some juicy bit of gossip to a close friend.

‘I mean, you look in the phone book under escort services, you find hundreds of ads. But not my agency, not Pigalle Studios. At Pigalle, you have to be personally recommended. We don't even have an address. It's all word of mouth and Pierre runs the whole thing out of his loft. Pierre says that what we do is an art form.'

Angel notes Carter's occasional smile and wonders if he's turned on. ‘Far from controlling my life, I haven't seen Pierre since last August when I ran into him at a party. He collects the fee – credit card only – and deposits my commission in my bank account. At the end of the year, I get a 1099 tax form in the mail and I pay what I owe. No harm, no foul.'

Carter unlocks the van with his remote. He opens the side door, motions Angel through and follows closely behind, forcing her against the far door. Then he locks the doors and flips a child protection switch that allows him to control the door locks throughout the van. Finally satisfied, he starts the engine and drives away.

‘If I was your client, what fantasy do you think I'd pick?' he asks.

Angel tilts her head to one side and peers at Carter. Talk about forgettable. Carter's neither ugly, nor handsome. He's a twenty-something in good shape, though not especially broad or tall, with medium-length, light brown hair, not quite a nerd, but definitely edging toward that side of the spectrum. That he should be a professional killer amazes her.

‘OK, like you're this hard-hearted, cold-blooded, merciless assassin. You've murdered so many people you can't even remember their faces. And what you're thinkin', though you don't say it out loud, is that you have to kill me, too. I mean, keepin' me alive? It doesn't make sense. But there's something about me, so young, so innocent, that your heart is touched . . .' Angel's about to say, ‘And your cock, too,' but censors herself at the last moment. Which is not to say that she wouldn't trade sex for her life.

Carter laughs for the first time in weeks, laughs at Angel's boldness. ‘In the end, of course, I let you go. I let you go and everybody lives happily ever after.'

‘Or words to that effect.'

‘Do I get laid along the way?'

‘Do you want to?'

‘No, I want you to pass a little test for me, a one-question test: How can I be sure you won't run to the cops if I let you go?'

Angel's already asked herself the same question. Now, hearing it from Carter's lips, she knows there's an answer. She knows because she's looking right at him and he's not worried.

Carter takes the scenic route back to Manhattan, Broadway instead of the West Side Highway. He doesn't want to pass over the Henry Hudson Bridge with its toll plaza and surveillance cameras that photograph every license plate. He wants more time with Angel, too.

‘Here's a hint,' Carter says. ‘You probably won't have to go to the cops. Most likely, they'll come to you.'

Damn, Angel thinks. She must be a complete idiot. Ricky Ditto can be tied to Pigalle Studios through his credit card records. And Pierre? Pierre's a nice guy, but if the cops press him, he'll give her up in a heartbeat.

‘So, what are you gonna tell them, Angel? If the cops should knock on your door? Will you claim that a mysterious hitman just happened to be waiting in the house when you showed up? How will you prove it? I didn't leave any trace evidence in that house. It's your word against nothing.'

‘OK, I get the point. So tell me what you'd do, if you were in my position.'

‘I'd call my pimp—'

‘My agent.'

‘I'd call my agent and tell him the trick didn't—'

‘The client.'

‘I'd tell him the client never showed up. I'm cold, I'm wet and I'm really pissed off.'

‘What about the cops?'

‘If you get any warning that the cops have been around, hire a lawyer and keep his business card in your pocket. If you don't get a warning – if the cops snatch you off the street – invoke your right to remain silent and ask for an attorney. They'll keep coming at you, right? They're not gonna stop the first time you ask. But if you keep your mouth shut long enough, one of two things will happen. If the cops have enough to make an arrest, they'll put you in the system. If they don't, they'll let you go. This is true whether you talk to them or not. No matter what you say, if the cops have enough evidence to make an arrest, you'll be arrested.'

They drift into silence as they pass through the valley at 125th Street, heading south, then climb a steep hill running alongside elevated subway tracks that disappear underground a third of the way up. They're in another world now, Harlem behind them, Columbia University and Barnard College to either side. Landscaped medians, carefully attended, run the length of each block. Even in the rain, even lit by the odd amber light cast by the street lamps, the contrast with the black and Latino neighborhood to the north catches Carter's attention, as it has before. Thousands of tulips rise straight from the earth, tulips of every color, proud as soldiers on a parade ground. And there's at least one cherry tree on every block. In another week, if the weather stays warm, they'll be in their full glory. For now, their tight blossoms cast a fuzzy pink haze over the rain-slicked branches.

They crest the hill and head down toward 110th Street, another borderline. No more gardens, no more tulips or daffodils or cherry trees, no more Columbia University. They're in an obscure neighborhood called Manhattan Valley. Twenty years before, Manhattan Valley was an open-air drug market that would have put a Moroccan bazaar to shame. Now it's partially gentrified, like all of Manhattan. This is where Angel lives.

Carter double-parks in front of a fire hydrant midway between 108th and 107th Streets. He looks at Angel in the rear-view mirror as he releases the door locks, but he's thinking of his sister. Only two weeks ago, he'd be heading for the Cabrini Nursing Home on the Lower East Side to pay Janie a visit, maybe read a little from the Bible. Angel looks back at him, catching his eyes in the mirror, and again he's struck by her beauty.

‘This outfit you work with . . .'

‘Pigalle Studios.'

‘Yeah, Pigalle Studios. Do you have some kind of stage name? So the clients know who to ask for?'

‘Sure.'

‘What is it?'

Angel's smile reveals porcelain-white teeth. ‘Angel Face.'

‘OK, Angel Face, one more piece of advice. Over the next few days, you're gonna be sorely tempted to tell somebody what happened. Don't do it. As far as you're concerned, everyone's a cop. You run your mouth, you'll go to jail. Let the cops prove you were in that house. Don't help them. Benedetti was a mob guy and there are plenty of suspects out there, so it's entirely possible the cops won't connect you to him. In which case, it's even more important that nobody else knows what happened. And get rid of the outfit, the dress and the shoes. Do it tonight.'

FOUR

C
arter spends the evening, until ten o'clock, at Milton's, a sports bar off Queens Boulevard in the community of Woodhaven. Milton's is all about the American male's addiction to athletics. Twenty flat screen televisions, small and large, suspended from the ceiling or attached to the walls, are tuned to networks telecasting every sport currently in season. Priority naturally falls to New York teams, the Yankees and the Mets, and to the ongoing play-offs in hockey and basketball. Lesser attractions play in the corners, a soccer match from England, thoroughbred horse racing from a California track. On a small set to Carter's left, a mixed martial arts champion beats his hapless opponent to a bloody pulp.

Carter's chosen Milton's partly because it's close to Janie's condominium apartment, where he's spending the night. But Carter's also drawn to the bar's vibrancy, and to its varied clientele. There are as many degenerate gamblers as there are sports fans, a few bookies taking last minute wagers, and a bevy of young women out for an evening with their perpetually adolescent boyfriends. They root their favorites on, fueled by alcohol, marijuana (the bathrooms reek of weed) and the cocaine peddled by Milton's resident dealer, a small-time jerk named Sal who pretends to be connected.

Carter hangs by himself at a free-standing table near a back wall, munching on a hamburger and sipping at a mug of Bass Ale. He has no friends here, or anywhere else for that matter, but the intensely social behavior of the fans enthralls him. Carter believes that athletic contests simulate the more serious business of mortal combat, the big differences being that fans get to watch and the losers don't go home in coffins. But the ability to slap a puck into a net doesn't impress Carter, nor do the virtually subhuman fist fights between the hockey players. He doesn't feel himself diminished by loss, or enhanced by victory, only fascinated by those who are.