‘‘Who are you?’’ she asked, keeping the gun in front of her defensively, stepping forward but stopping short of the broken glass. ‘‘I’ll shoot,’’ she warned.
‘‘You’ll miss . . .’’ he groaned. The man raised his head. It was John LaMoia.
CHAPTER 46
O
n the flickering screen two naked women without tan lines showed acute dexterity with their tongues.
Brian Coughlie watched them go at each other for the better part of a minute. It wasn’t lovemaking; it wasn’t even sex; it was a series of savage, desperate acts, meant to justify the ten-dollar ticket. He felt sick to his stomach. His mouth was dry and tasteless. Clearly these girls had not even reached age twenty. They were Korean and not eating well. Their lives were over. They’d be statistics in a year or two.
Rodriguez held the paper cup of soda and ice to his right eye. ‘‘He was a cop.’’
‘‘You don’t know that. He got there way too fast. He wasn’t a cop. A friend of hers maybe.’’ Coughlie had grown to hate even these brief encounters with Rodriguez. Having busted him for illegal entry, he had later found out the man was wanted by Mexican authorities for a variety of crimes including assault and murder. They had struck an uncomfortable alliance that had grown increasingly worse. The man was obviously into some hard drugs, and Coughlie had watched him degenerate. It was only a matter of time until something would have to be done. What, where and by whom, Coughlie wasn’t sure.
For a long time Coughlie had been the one with all the leverage— threatened deportation or incarceration for the crimes committed. But now, if anything, the roles were reversed: Rodriguez had been part of it nearly from the start; he knew too much.
‘‘Guy can take a punch, I tell you what,’’ he complained.
‘‘You’ll live.’’
‘‘We got to handle her.’’
‘‘No.’’
‘‘She trouble, dis lady.’’
‘‘I said no. Scare was all. Get the tapes. And as badly as you handled it, I’d say you accomplished at least that much.’’
‘‘He was a cop, I’m tell you.’’ Rodriguez pointed to the screen. ‘‘Watch dis. You see dat? Can you believe dey show dat? Damn!’’
‘‘Forget her. You got it? She’s handled.’’
‘‘You think?’’
‘‘She saw Klein. Count on it.’’
‘‘She got plenty of nerve, that one. Too bad I didn’t get to—’’
‘‘Enough!’’ He didn’t want any association with Rodriguez. Whenever he met with him, their conversations deteriorated into monosyllabic thug speak. Coughlie reminded himself he needed to keep his distance. ‘‘Forget her,’’ he repeated.
‘‘You give the word, everyone forget her.’’
‘‘Nothing on your own,’’ Coughlie reminded, beginning to warm under the collar both out of anger and because his eye kept straying to the screen. ‘‘No more like that forklift. That was stupid! We stay on track for the next delivery. No choice, or I’ll be the one having an unexplained accident. Got it? We’ve got a break after this next one. I can use that time to get us through this. Nothing more from you unless it comes from me.’’
Coughlie resorted to the one anesthetic he knew would work, at least temporarily: He slipped the man a two-hundred-dollar bonus for the attack at the apartment. He knew Rodriguez would use it to self-medicate. If Coughlie was lucky, it would get him through the weekend.
CHAPTER 47
don’t remember all that much. It happened so quickly.’’ Stevie McNeal wore a T-shirt over her pajamas. The T-shirt promoted a five-mile run to benefit cancer, with KSTV as a sponsor. Teams of police had been inside her apartment for nearly two hours. The Sunday morning sun was trying to steal the night from the sky. The apartment still smelled of weapons fire.
Detective Bobbie Gaynes, looking as tired as the rest, nodded sympathetically.
LaMoia, cupping a disposable blue ice pack to the side of his face, directed traffic in the living room where SID shot photographs and dusted for prints.
She thought that the police were worse than the press when it came to turning a place into a zoo.
Lou Boldt sat in a chair facing the news anchor. He looked older. ‘‘When you’re dressed,’’ Boldt informed her, ‘‘we’ll move you to a hotel. Detective Gaynes will stay in your room with you, if that’s okay. We’ll post a uniform in the hall, outside a room next door, a room that will be empty.’’
‘‘What about Edwardo?’’ she asked to blank expressions. ‘‘The night watchman.’’
‘‘Emergency room. Concussion,’’ Boldt answered. ‘‘We’ll question him in the morning.’’
‘‘I didn’t mean that,’’ Stevie said.
‘‘They knew what they were doing,’’ Gaynes explained. ‘‘Clubbed him, took his keys, killed the building’s phone system, removed the security video. Without you, we’ve got nothing.’’
‘‘I’ve provided you as much detail as I can.’’
‘‘I’m sure you have,’’ Boldt said patiently, though he was clearly disappointed.
‘‘So it was . . . professional?’’ she asked them both tentatively.
Gaynes looked to Boldt and then back to McNeal. ‘‘They . . . he? . . . knew what to do. Knew the building. Your location. The elevator pass. We’re assuming it wasn’t blind luck that got him up here, and it certainly was not a random act.’’
‘‘Was
not
,’’ Stevie clarified, needing to hear the words again.
‘‘They’d scouted the building,’’ Boldt stated. ‘‘That’s how it looks to us.’’
Stevie knew she should say something, but she couldn’t think what. She couldn’t think hardly at all. ‘‘So they meant to—’’
‘‘We don’t know what they had in mind,’’ Boldt corrected, intentionally interrupting and preventing the words from being spoken. Maybe he was superstitious about that.
‘‘Klein . . .’’
‘‘We don’t know that,’’ Gaynes echoed her lieutenant.
Boldt retreated to an earlier subject. ‘‘We’d just as soon get you out of here, Ms. McNeal. When you’re ready. When you’re up to it.’’
‘‘Are you going to show me photos?’’ she asked. ‘‘Maybe I can recognize the guy.’’
‘‘We can try that—later today, or Monday morning—if you like,’’ Boldt said, but it was clear he didn’t believe she’d make identification.
‘‘A hotel,’’ Stevie muttered.
‘‘When you’re up to it.’’
‘‘I hate this.’’
‘‘Yes,’’ Boldt agreed. ‘‘We’d like to work with you,’’ he added, reminding her of his earlier offer.
‘‘About the sergeant,’’ she said, nodding toward the bedroom’s open door. ‘‘How the hell did he respond so quickly?’’
‘‘We were lucky this time,’’ Boldt answered.
‘‘That doesn’t answer my question,’’ Stevie said. Boldt remained impassive. He wasn’t going to answer the question. ‘‘Was he following me?’’ she asked indignantly. ‘‘Do you have me under surveillance?’’
Boldt noticed the three gray boxes by her television set and was drawn to them. He said, ‘‘Are these the tapes?’’
‘‘Those are private property.’’
‘‘Who knew about these tapes? We did, yes. But who else? A producer, an editor?’’