Talk about pathetic. Lamar pictured that fucked-up white dude back in his crib, curled up on the couch like a baby, all strung out. Lamar had been very generous, mixed in a nice amount of smack with the usual cocaine.
He’d been supplying the guy with cocaine on a weekly basis for over a yearwhich he hadn’t bothered to tell those cops. But why would he? He wasn’t a fool, and they weren’t offering anything in exchange. But supplying a little coke was one thing, and having Suzie’s regular hang with him in his crib was just too fucking weird. And what did he really know about the guy other than the fact that he was into whores and drugs? Nothing. Hell, the guy could have killed Suzie easy as one of them I-talians. Maybe this pathetic act was just that, an act.
A little time to get his money together, that’s what the dude had come to Lamar asking, talking jive-talk like he was a goddamn brother.
Hey, man, like can I crash with you? Just a couple a nights is all, bro, till I get my shit together.
Lamar almost laughed in his faceuntil he realized how he could make it work for him. Yeah, he’d help him get his shit together, all right, just like he was doing right now. The coke-smack combo was going to keep him out of it while Lamar emptied his bank account. According to Mr. Blabbermouth, there was like three, four grand in his account, which he was planning to empty, then split to some desert island or some such shit because the cops were after him, all of which he’d spilled to Lamar in a rush when he was begging to hole up with him, promising Lamar a
percentage
of the money if he helped him out. Yeah, a percentage sounded good to Lamar, like maybe a hundred percent. After all, if the guy had killed his sweet Suzie, it was only fair.
One stupid man, thought Lamar, dipping the guy’s card into the ATM slot, punching in the code,
VIRGIN
, which hadn’t been hard to get out of hima taste of coke and that dude was talking like there was no switch between his brain and his mouth.
Lamar laughed again. But when the ATM machine said that all he could take out of the checking account at one time was five hundred dollars, Lamar’s laugh died and he had to hold back from kicking the shit out of the goddamn machine.
Lamar took a breath. He’d hold on to the card, that’s all, get another five hundred tomorrow, and the day after that, until the money ran out. For the moment the five hundred dollars in crisp twenties would have to do.
Lamar fingered the bills, worried for a moment about those I-talian wise guys and the police. No way he was going to go back to his place. Better to stay away a few days, maybe even a week. By then, Suzie’s regular would be arrested or gone, maybe even dead.
Lamar threw his head back and hooted a laugh, the thick purplish scar stretched taut across his neck. He slipped the crisp twenties into his pocket and made his way toward the golden arches on the corner, those Egg McMuffins beckoning.
K
ate was chewing two pieces of Nicorette at once, her jaw beginning to ache.
She’d considered a real conversation with the woman, had dialed the number twice, but hung up both times when Noreen Stokes answered. After all, what was there to say?
Now she waited. Hovered across the street from the Stokeses’ apartment building, drizzling rain chilling her bones. Noreen Stokes had been lying. A woman who had once hired a private detective to trail her hubby? Oh, she’d know where he was, all right. Noreen Stokes, the long-suffering wife. No matter how much shit she’d taken from her man, she was covering for him, Kate was sure of it.
What was it with some women?
If Richard had pulled half the crap that Andy Stokes had, Kate was certain she’d have dumped him in a minute.
Or would she?
And exactly what sort of crap
had
Richard pulled?
Kate glanced across at the Stokeses’ apartment building. She had no idea.
Had she too been blinded by love?
“Richard…” She whispered his name under her breath, an old memory gnawing away at herthe last time there had been missing money, and Richard lying. But it had all been a mistake, a terrible mistake, and Richard had promised, sworn, he’d never lie to her again, and she had believed him. Oh, God, how she wanted to believe him.
Richard, please. Tell me what’s going on.
Her cell phone was ringing and Kate recognized the flashing number, Floyd Brown.
Shit. Not now.
She could not talk to him until she knew what was going on. She needed to have all the facts. Before the cops had them.
The Nicorette had lost its flavor. Kate wrapped the wad inside a tissue and popped a fresh piece. She could feel the drug. It brought back the old days, on a stakeout, huddled in a police car for hours, smoking one cigarette after another, drinking bad coffee, her ass going numb. Right now, she missed all threethe cigarette, the car, and the coffee. Oh, yeah, and the authority. Brown would kill her if he knew she was here, stalking Noreen Stokes, hoping the woman would lead her to Andy.
She pictured FBI Agent Marty Grange sitting across from her in the conference room, giving her that suspicious look, and here she was proving him right.
Her phone rang. Brown. Again. She should tell him what she was doing, but she didn’t answer. She would talk to him later. When she knew.
When she knew…
what
?
Kate stared down at the sidewalk, and her wet shoes.
Go home. You know better. Leave it alone.
But she did not move. She couldn’t think straight. How could she, on three hours of nightmare-riddled nonsleep. It was too much to ask of herto be rational. She just knew that she could not allow Andy Stokes to disappear, to take what he might know about Richard’s murder with him. She had made a promise, a vow, to Richard, and to herself, and she would see it through no matter what the truth turned out to be. She had to knowand she had to know first. She was entitled to that, wasn’t she?
Kate glanced up at the high-rise building as if she could see inside the Stokeses’ apartment, the secrets it contained, and wondered what she might find out.
For a moment she prayed that Noreen Stokes would never come out of that damn building.
N
oreen Stokes pushed the stacks of carefully folded sweater sets aside, tugged out the jewelry box she kept hidden at the back of her dresser, and laid it on her bed. It had been years since it held any jewelry; the pearl necklace, plain gold earrings, even her diamond engagement ring long ago sold, or pawned, accompanied by Andy’s usual promises of bigger and better ones when times improved, which they never did.
But that was okay with Noreen. Jewels had never much interested her. She had not expected much out of life, a midwestern girl with a degree in library science.
Noreen yanked out the upper partition of the velvet-lined box, her mind replaying her first glimpse of the boyishly handsome Andrew Stokes, who had come up to the library desk and smiled that smile of his; and later, when they were on their first date, she could not believe that a man like Andrew Stokes would even pay attention to her, and then, only a few dates later, propose marriage. When she asked him why he wanted to marry her he’d said because she made him feel safe, and though it was not exactly the answer Noreen had hoped for, she took comfort in it. Her banker father and librarian mother couldn’t quite figure it out either until, less than a year into the marriage, Andy started hitting them up for loans, which they suppliedfor a while.
Inside the jewelry box, Noreen collected the cash she had been secreting away once she’d realized that her dashing husband was not quite the breadwinner she had hoped. In ten years she had managed to save more than twenty thousand dollars.
She’d almost left him. More than once. His unexplained disappearances. The drinking. Drugs. And after that detective had given her the bad newsand the photosof Andrew with those women. But all that was in the past. Andrew needed her again, had begged her forgiveness and confessed his sinsfor the third or fourth time since they were marriedbut had also confessed his undying love, and that’s what counted. He had seen where he had gone wrong, promised to reform, begged for another chance. They would run away together, he said; start a new life, he said. And though voices were telling Noreen to beware, she could not remember feeling this happy since the day she had first seen Andrew Stokeses’ dazzling smile, and nothing was going to ruin itand this time
she
was holding all the cards.
Noreen stacked the bills, bound them with rubber bands, and placed them neatly into a small carry-on, carefully concealing them under several changes of clean underwear, a blouse, a light sweater, a bathing suit, and sandalsenough to get her through a few days, then added a few necessities for Andy.
Her heart beat fast. She had never in her life done anything like this, anything so…exciting. She was running away with Andy, her handsome scoundrel husband. She had taken care of everything. Put the co-op apartment on the market, opened an off-shore account for the funds, booked a room in a “small, charming, off-the-beaten track” (according to the guidebook) hotel in Guadalajara, the tickets waiting for them at JFK. By tomorrow they would be walking on a secluded Mexican beach hand in hand.
Noreen slipped their passports into her pocket, wrapped a beige scarf over her hair and tied it beneath her chin. She wished she owned a beret or a fedora, something like Ingrid Bergman wore in
Casablanca,
or Faye Dunaway in
Bonnie and Clyde.
She wanted to look as dangerous and glamorous as she felt.
She pictured her sad scared husband hiding way up in the Bronx, and how she would come to his rescue and how indebted he would always be.
She tried to imagine what the hotel room she had booked in Guadalajara would look like. She hoped it would be nice, because this time, she thought, if Andy wanted her to, she would definitely bark.
O
n the northeast corner of Seventy-second Street and Park Avenue, a young man in a nondescript gray jacket and a cap that shaded half his face was huddled in the shadow of a double-parked FedEx van just beside a navy-blue Chevy Malibu. He had been in this spot for almost two hours; the light but constant drizzle had soaked his shoes, and his feet were starting to go numb. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, considered getting into the car, but did not. Another young man was sitting in the driver’s seat of the Malibu, waiting for him to give the order.
He sneaked a peek at the Stokeses’ apartment building, then at Kate, unwrapped two sticks of Doublemint and folded the gum into his mouth, the stupid jingle playing on automatic in the back of his head:
Double your pleasure, double your fun.
Damn, his feet were cold. He leaned past the FedEx truck and caught a glimpse of Kate looking up at the apartment building, waiting, just like him. He shook out his legs and imagined what he’d like to do to her, but as the fantasy was kicking in he saw Noreen Stokes come out of her apartment building, and the doorman opening the door of a waiting taxicab, and the cab taking off.
Seconds later, he watched Kate do exactly the same thing, then he slid into the Malibu as easily as a snake through grass.
N
ow that the drugs had totally worn off, Andy Stokes felt shaky, skin itchy, gut burning. He leaned over Lamar’s cracked, moldy toilet and gagged up a thin rope of bile, then gripped the sink and pulled himself up until he was staring into the mirror. Thinning blond hair sticking out in all directions. Pasty skin. Bloodshot eyes.
Just a bad fucking dream, man.
He ran a hand through the once golden hair. “Hey, Golden Boy, where’ve you been hiding?” He frowned and turned away. Maybe it
was
just a bad dream. Stokes gagged again, his insides empty of everything but failure and disgust.
Damn.
It wasn’t his fault. Anyone could see that, couldn’t they? He really wasn’t a bad guy. They were just…urges, needs. He didn’t have a choice.
A dream? No. A nightmare. Like right now, coming back to the conscious world and realizing that Lamar had not only deserted him, but stolen his wallet.
He plucked a rusting double-edged razor off Lamar’s moldy sink and held it over his wrists.
What the hell, just do it already, end it all, do the world a favor.
But he couldn’t. Hell, he couldn’t do anything.
Then he remembered that Noreen was coming to get him out of this mess. He’d get out of the country. Leave all the damage behind. Start over. Noreen was going to save him because he’d told her how much he loved her; how much he needed her.
Stokes wheezed a laugh. Good old Noreen. Reliable, trustworthy, loyal. Dependable as a fucking puppythough not as cute.
He gazed up at the small photo of Suzie White that Lamar had thumbtacked beside the bathroom mirror, grabbed it off the wall, tore it to pieces, dropped them into the toilet and flushed.
F
rom halfway down the treeless Bronx street, Kate watched Noreen get out of the cab and disappear into a building that was possibly the winner in the worst tenement contest, brickfacing pitted, upper-story windows boarded up, front door plastered with papers.
Kate scanned the surroundings: Two black kids, preteens up past their bedtime, ambled down the street, headphones hugging their ears, absurdly baggy pants riding so low they threatened to fall off; one all-night deli, neon sign blinking like it was close to burning out.
The drizzle had progressed to rain, and it was working Kate’s nerves, playing an out-of-sync jazz tune on the idling taxi’s metal roof. She took several deep breaths, and let the air out slowly. She could wait. Any minute Noreen would be back out, Andy by her side.
Brown was going to kill her. No doubt about that. She’d have to figure out what to say, what lie to create. Not that Brown would buy it. But that was later. Right now all she could think of was Andy Stokes, getting him to tell her what was going onand what had happened.
Kate stared at the tenement door. Another minute passed like an hour. One more minute, that was all she was going to give them.
She patted the .45 automatic strapped under her jacket. Yes, it was there, confirming that this was real, that it was not an awful nightmare in which her husband had been murdered and she was tracking his associate to some fleabag tenement in the Bronx to find out why.
If only…
The corner of her eye saw a streak, dark blue, a car racing by, then abruptly stopping, breaks screeching. Seconds later, a man, cap low on his forehead, strutting toward the building’s entrance, something familiar about his hulking body language, though Kate had no time to figure it out, just a feeling in her gut:
This is bad.
She had to call Brown.
“You’re
where
?” His voice crackled through the cell phone.
“Just off Zerega, on a Hundred Forty-seventh. I followed Noreen Stokes and”
“I told you to let me know. Jesus Christ”
“There wasn’t time. I was with her one minute, then the next thing I knew she was taking a cab and”
“And this was how long ago? Damn it. Never mind. I’ll have McNally call cars in the area, ASAP. And you stay put, hear me?”
Kate closed her phone without signing off. She’d heard him all right, but how could she
stay put
? Her adrenaline was making her twitch. She’d come this far to find out the truth about her husband and was not about to stop now. She slapped a fifty into the driver’s hand, asked him to wait, then bolted out of the cab, releasing the safety on her Glock.
Kate was just at the entrance when she heard the three shots and a woman screaming.
She wrenched the tenement door open, took a cautious step into a dim gray hallway, dropped to a crouch, and froze. She peered up the staircase into the dark, a persistent beat of footsteps growing louder, echoing over and under a woman’s spine-chilling screams, and then, in what seemed like seconds, the darkness became a shadow that became a form that became a man who was rushing toward her, gun in hand.
Kate’s first bullet caught him in the shoulder. He lurched to the side, then righted himself, arm outstretched, light glinting off the gun barrel, still aimed at her head.
Another shot. Then another. The Glock kicked back in Kate’s hand. One more shot. No way she was taking a chance. She had seen good cops die because they were playing fair, firing off warning shots, wounding a suspect rather than going for the kill.
The man tumbled forward down the last part of the staircase, landed at her feet, gun still gripped in his hand.