Grady pulled the Caprice into a spot across the street from a large warehouse building that bore the address he’d found on the Internet. He’d expected something garish with bright lights and lines down the block, a “gentleman’s” club maybe, with cars lining the street and all the typical losers you find at such a place-the frat boys looking to party, coming off the train in packs, raucous, self-conscious; the rich guys taking a night off from their marriages, pulling up in Hummers; the pervs, quiet and badly dressed, waiting with hands in pockets.
But the block was relatively quiet; most of the businesses-a copy shop, a pet store, a men’s big and tall-were all gated for the night. Every few minutes a cab would pull up-once with a group of a gorgeous young girls dressed to the hilt, the next an old man in a black wool coat, the next two young guys in business suits carrying sleek black laptop cases. They all disappeared behind a plain black door, opened from the inside by someone who stayed out of sight of the street.
“She was a working girl, wasn’t she?” Jez said out of nowhere.
“What makes you say that?”
“I don’t think a woman would come to this place if she wasn’t in the industry-a dancer, a higher-end call girl. According to her credit report, she wasn’t employed, but that SoHo apartment? A nice one-bedroom in that neighborhood? A couple grand a month, at least.”
“Maybe our faux Marcus Raine was giving her money,” said Grady.
She nodded. “Maybe. But why else would she come here?”
“Maybe she came here to meet someone.”
“Yeah, like a john.”
“Maybe,” he admitted.
“Well, let’s go in and take a look around, ask a few questions.”
He felt the phone in his pocket vibrate. He pulled it out to see that he had an e-mail message from Isabel Connelly. He almost didn’t recognize her name, he was so accustomed to thinking of her as Isabel Raine. The subject line read: “Some things you should know.”
“Oh, brother,” he said.
“What is it?”
He held the screen up so Jez could lean her head in, and they read Isabel’s e-mail together.
WHAT GRADY FOUND interesting about people was that most of them didn’t hide well. Of course, people like Kristof Ragan were different; they slipped out of the skin they were in, wrapped themselves in a cocoon, and emerged as a different creature altogether. But most people found it difficult to stray from the places that were familiar to them, the people they knew. They might be smart enough not to go back to their primary residence, but they’d hole up with friends, or sleep on their aunt’s couch. They’d return to their favorite bar after a few days, thinking no one would look for them there.
He almost wasn’t surprised to see Charlie Shane, the Raines’ missing doorman, sticking a dollar bill in a blond strippers’ G-string while she lowered her bejeweled, gravity-defying breasts to eye level. He and Jez were about to leave, had shown Camilla Novak’s and Marcus Raine’s picture around to blank stares and pressed lips, quick shakes of heads, some frightened shifting eyes. Meanwhile, they’d been trailed, not inconspicuously, by two ridiculously pumped, thick-necked goons.
Jez looked nervous, as if she sensed some danger he did not. She tugged on his shoulder and he leaned down so that she could yell in his ear over the music.
“We should get out of here, call for backup and get this place shut down for a few hours. We might get more cooperation.”
On a T-shaped stage naked women of all shapes and sizes flaunted their goods to a hypnotic trance beat. Their mouths smiled but their eyes were empty, high or otherwise elsewhere. Some of them looked so young, too young to be here, still had that creamy fresh cast to their skin, that soft innocence about the mouth.
Grady always hated places like this. He liked a dancing naked female body as much as the next guy, but he battled an urge to run around with bathrobes, cover these girls up and take them home to their mamas. Of course, their mamas were probably in worse shape. You didn’t wind up on a pole without a lot of help from your family.
Watching a redhead deftly move out of reach of a groping hand, Grady thought of Clara. How long had it been since he’d made love to her? What did Sean say, nearly two years since she’d walked out the door? A year of legal separation following that. Not counting their breakup fuck-that sad, slow final hour they shared after leaving the attorney’s office. He’d convinced her to have coffee with him, and they wound up back at the new place she shared with Sean, a spacious two-bedroom in the Fifties, with a terrace and nice views, that he had no idea how they could afford. He took great pleasure in having her one last time in a bed she shared with her new boyfriend. He’d have pissed on the sheets when he was done if he could. She’d thrown him out afterward, turning from passionate, weepy, and nostalgic to angry as soon as the afterglow dimmed.
“I can’t believe how I let you manipulate me. Still! Even after we’re divorced.”
“There’s no divorce in the eyes of God. You’re still my wife.” He was only half kidding.
“Get out, Grady.”
“Come on, Clara. You know there’s still something. Don’t do this.”
She strode naked over to her bag, her perfect heart-shaped ass jiggling pleasantly with her stride. She fished out the papers, turned and held them up, utterly unself-conscious of her teardrop breasts and flat brown middle. “It’s done. Signed, sealed, delivered.”
“I’m yours.” He finished the verse, trying to be funny. But the words fell flat and sad on the ground between them.
“Go.”
HE WAS ABOUT to agree with Jez that they should shut the place down, when he saw Charlie Shane, the dirty old man, pressed up against the stage. He pointed and saw Jez’s face brighten as she reached to put a hand on the weapon at her hip. She wouldn’t need it; she could subdue the likes of Shane with one arm. But he knew she liked the feel of it; it gave her a notion of security.
They approached Shane from behind, pushing through a throng of salivating weirdoes. They each put an arm on him and he spun from the stage. His face registered surprise and alarm, then he bent at the waist and knocked through them, causing Jez to stumble back hard into the stage. He saw her knock her head. But they both gave chase, the crowd parting. Someone started to scream at the site of the gun Crowe drew from his hip. Not that you could legally shoot a fleeing suspect in New York State. Still, it tended to stop people in their tracks.
Not Shane. He threw a terrified glance behind him, and at the sight of the gun seemed to pick up speed toward the door. Crowe reached out a hand and was just inches away from having Shane by the collar, when he felt the ground come up to meet him fast, and then he was on knees and elbows on the floor. He lost his grip on his Glock and the thing skittered away from him between the feet and ankles of the crowd gathered round. Someone had tripped him. He looked behind and saw one of the goons smiling.
He retrieved his gun and was about to get to his feet when Jez scrambled over him. He looked up at the door to see Shane exit and Jez follow. He was on his feet and out the door quickly, in time to see Jez disappear into an alleyway.
She was flying and he was already breathing hard. Luckily, he didn’t have far to run. By the time he reached them, Shane was on his face in a puddle of black filth, sputtering and yelling. Jez was on his back, with his arm twisted up behind him.
“You. Stupid. Motherfucker,” she was yelling, adrenaline and anger making her red and loud. She tugged on his arm and he released a girlish scream.