The driver took off as soon as Stevie closed the door. He didn't ask if he should wait. Stevie found himself in a vaguely familiar area of Brooklyn Heights. There was no one on the sidewalk, no cars passing by on the narrow street. There were tightly packed together three-story brownstones and granite buildings. Garbage was stacked next to mounds of snow. Both sides of the street looked fortified with makeshift walls of snow and garbage.
Stevie was on the opposite side of the street from his destination. He limped along, growing weaker with each step, knowing the bleeding had started again, that he had probably left blood on the seat of the car. Couldn't be helped.
He was about to cross the street when he noticed another car. It was parked ahead of him on his side of the street. The windows were steamy. The motor was idling quietly.
He thought he could make out two figures in the front seat but he wasn't sure because of the steamy windows. Were they watching the entrance to the brownstone where he was headed?
Cops? No, couldn't be. Maybe they weren't looking for him. Maybe they were just waiting for someone else or stopping to talk about something or… Stevie didn't buy it. What had happened to him today made him think. He preferred to have others think for him, others he could trust, like Marco, but that was the problem. He was beginning to distrust Marco.
Think it through, he said to himself as he stepped into the shadows of a dark doorway where he could keep his eyes on the two people in the car.
I did the job at the hotel. I killed a cop. I busted up another cop. If I get picked up, Marco might worry about my talking. He should know better, but he might worry. Could I blame him? Yes.
He couldn't wait. Stevie had to get somewhere where he could be patched up. He was bleeding again, and not a little bit.
Take a chance with Lynn Contranos? He didn't know her. Think of someplace else to go? He had no real options. Well, maybe one, but he would avoid it if he could. He crossed the street and headed for the brownstone. He didn't look back, but he heard the car door open and close behind him.
He found the name on a plastic plate on the stone wall, LYNN CONTRANOS, MASSAGE THERAPIST. He pressed the button, sensing the two people approaching him. No answer. He pressed the button again and a woman's voice came through the small speaker, "Yes?"
"Steven Guista," he said.
"Be right there," she said, her voice muffled, and clicked off.
Did he recognize that voice? Stevie wasn't sure. A few seconds later he heard a metal ping coming from the front door. He reached for the door handle sensing now that the two people were only a few feet behind him. Instead of opening the door, Big Stevie turned quickly, surprising them, two men, both of them much younger than Stevie, neither of them as large. One of the men had a gun in his right hand.
Stevie recognized both of them. One was a baker's assistant at Marco's. The other was the bakery security guard. It was the security guard who held the gun.
Stevie didn't hesitate. His fist pounded deeply into the stomach of the man with the gun who doubled forward. At the same time, with his free hand Stevie reached out for the neck of the second man who was groping for something in his pocket.
Stevie forgot about the pain in his leg and concentrated on simply staying alive.
11
"WHO?" asked Danny the next morning after Stella finished reading the E-mail message on the screen in front of her.
Danny hadn't slept well. He dreamt of a chain dangling in the cold wind and himself slowly sliding down it, trying to hold on, his hands slipping, knowing he would eventually run out of chain and fall into the darkness below him. It was a long dream. He remembered calling out for help below but no one could hear him at that distance in the darkness and the whistling wind. He had been happy to get out of bed at five and get to work.
"Jacob Laudano," Stella said.
Danny looked over her shoulder at the screen and read out loud, "Jacob the Jockey?"
"That's what he's called," she said.
"He's a jockey?"
"Was," she said.
"Which means…" Danny began.
"He's probably small," said Stella. "Let's…"
She used the mouse and hit more keys.
"The last time he was pulled in, that was last August, he stood four ten and weighed ninety pounds. Look at his rap sheet."
Danny looked. The list was long and included an arrest for stabbing a prostitute and five other arrests for bar fights, all involving knives.
"Laudano is a known associate of Steven Guista," said Stella.
"What do we do?" he asked.
"Attach a ninety-pound weight to that chain," she said. "Lower it twelve feet and see if it holds."
"We'll need more chain," said Danny.
"We'll need more chain," Stella agreed. "But that can wait. Guista's bakery truck was picked up last night. It's at an impound on Staten Island."
"So we're going there first?" asked Danny.
Stella shook her head "no" and said, "First we go to Brooklyn."
"Brooklyn," Danny repeated. "Why?"
"Guista took a car service from a location in Brooklyn last night," said Stella, reaching for a report next to her desk and handing it to Danny. "We check the company. Find out where he went. Should be easy. One of the two kids who took Guista's truck for a spin remembered Guista, the time and the car."
"It's going to be a busy day," said Danny. "What about Laudano, the Jockey?"
"Flack is on it," she said.
"He should be in bed," said Danny.
"He should be in the hospital," said Stella, "but he's not. He's on the street. Let's go."
"Since we're on the subject of hospitals," he said. "You're not looking any better."
"I'm fine."
"Your face is red," he said. "You have a fever."
She ignored his comment and put the computer in sleep mode, dropped a small stack of reports in a file folder, and stood up.
"The Jockey," Danny said almost to himself. "Who would have thought? It makes no sense."
"Why not?" asked Stella, leading the way out of the lab.
"A crooked union boss with mob connections hires a circus act to murder a witness? A strong man and a…" Don asked.
"Little person," Stella completed.
"Why?" asked Danny. "They were sure to be noticed."
Stella picked up her kit in one hand and her file folder in the other. Danny took her place at the computer.
"Maybe we're supposed to think it's a circus act," she said.
"Red herring?" asked Danny.
"It smells fishy," she said with a smile.
Danny groaned.
Stella left the lab, went to the elevator, and pushed the button for the lobby. Stella coughed, a raspy cough.
"Why?" said Louisa Cormier's agent, Michelle King, a twitchy woman in her late forties. Like Louisa she was well groomed, thin, and dressed for business in a black suit and white blouse. She did not have her client's good looks, but she made up for it with a handsome, confident severity. The room smelled of cigarettes and a flowered spray scent.
Aiden sat in one chair of King's office on Madison Avenue. King played with a pencil, tapping it impatiently against the top of her mahogany desk.
"Why?" Michelle King asked again.
Mac looked at her for ten seconds and said, "We can go to our offices and discuss this. I don't think you'd like it there. Dead bodies and evidence from things people don't like to touch or even see."
"I did advise Louisa to get a gun and keep it loaded in her apartment," Michelle King said, reaching for a cigarette in a packet in one of her desk drawers.
"You mind?" she asked, unsteadily holding up the cigarette.
"We won't arrest you for it, if that's what you're asking," Mac said. Smoking was illegal in New York City buildings. "Besides, many of the people we have to deal with smoke," Mac said. "We accept it. One of the hazards of the job."