Dan crept up the stairs to the ground floor, stopping to search through his overloaded key ring in the semidarkness at the top. He hit the right key on the third try, emerged into a large back office that ran the length of the store. The office doubled as a storage room for electronics. Open cartons and gadgets in various states of disrepair crammed every inch of space. A metal desk shoved into a corner groaned under a slag heap of invoices and paperwork. He maneuvered through the debris to the door opposite, which led to the storefront.
Cracking the door open an inch, he spied Pepe sitting on a stool, his back to Dan, behind a glass counter that held cell phones and beepers. The naked lady tattooed on the back of Pepe’s neck gyrated over thick rolls of fat as he watched a Spanish-language game show on a small TV and scarfed something from a foil container held under his chin. The food smelled good. Dan was starving, but not much he could do about it right now. Maybe they’d get this over with quick and he could grab something on his way out. He only had a couple of bucks in his pocket after paying for Rosario’s room service back at the hotel, but around here you could eat decent for that.
Just because nobody stood at the counter waiting didn’t mean the phone booths were empty. He hadn’t watched for long enough to be sure. So he opened the door cautiously and pitched his voice in a whisper.
“Yo, Pep.”
Pepe whirled, stumbling off the stool and reaching for his waistband as the food clattered to the floor.
“Jesus, man, you fuckin’ scared me! I almost pull my piece out and heat you up!”
“Sorry.”
“You be damn sorry if you dead, man. Fuck! Look at my fucking empanada!” He pulled some paper towels from a drawer and began mopping at the mess on the floor, shaking his head. “Jesus fucking Christ, that’s my whole dinner right there!”
“Hey, don’t bust my balls. I fuckin’ beep you to give you a heads-up, and you don’t call me back! What the fuck kind of cooperation is that?”
Pepe knew better than to ignore that edge of violence in Dan’s voice. Dan wasn’t crazy like some of them, but he’d do what was necessary to maintain command of a situation. Pepe didn’t need any trouble.
“Yo, chill out, man, we cool, we cool. I’m a little wired is all. We had a few stickups on the block. You here for the room?”
“Yeah, I need it for a coupla hours maybe.”
“Sure, no problem. Who’m I waitin’ on?”
“Puerto Rican guy, heavyset. Wears his hair in dreads tied up in a do-rag.”
“Got it.”
Dan closed the door, walked over, and sat down in the beat-up leather swivel chair behind the metal desk. He hunkered against the hard seat, hoarding his body heat, trying to warm up a little. His jeans and shirt were soaked through. He ran his hands through his wet hair to shake out the excess water. He’d chucked the sodden News in a Dumpster on the way in, so he had nothing to read while he waited. But he didn’t mind. Obsessive thoughts had pursued him like hounds from hell all day long. He gave in to them now, relieved to surrender.
This woman he’d met, he just sat there and thought about her. What she looked like, her voice, things she’d said. How she smelled. That perfume she wore smelled like spicy roses. When they were waiting for the elevator before, he caught himself about to lean over and sniff her hair. He laughed aloud in the empty room at the memory. Pathetic, what a fucking idiot he was. The second he met her, he went wow, just from how she looked. Those dark-haired Spanish girls were the most beautiful. They scared him, but they knocked him out. Then he read the diplomas hanging on her wall and listened to her talk, and he was a goner. Man, she was smart.
This never happened to him. Women chased him, but mostly, since Diane, he felt more comfortable alone. Hit the gym, walk the dog, work like a fucking maniac-that pretty much summed up his routine. Every once in a while, he got drunk and wound up in bed with some girl he met in a pub. He’d get so depressed afterward he couldn’t even look her in the face. And if she tracked him down, if she called, he’d freeze her out before it ever went anywhere. He couldn’t help it somehow. He was beginning to think he’d be alone forever, even though he imagined himself with a nice wife and a houseful of kids somewhere, Jersey maybe, or Rockland.
Then, out of left field, he meets her. He’d only known her for a day, and already he was thinking up excuses to spend extra time with her. Was she working late tonight? Could he swing by after this, maybe say he was checking if the wiretap boxes showed up okay? He knew it was crazy. She was married with a baby, for Chrissakes. Even if he hadn’t been to church since the divorce, he was still a Catholic in his heart. He oughta act like one, try harder to resist. But he just didn’t think he could. It wasn’t only her looks or her smarts-there was something else to it that he wasn’t strong enough to fight. Something in her eyes he recognized when they met, like the loneliness he saw in his own every time he looked in the mirror. That feeling like she needed him, was what had him hooked.
He sat there thinking about Melanie Vargas, not even trying to discipline himself, that’s how bad it was already, that’s how much it’d taken over. By the time he looked at his watch, he knew this asshole wasn’t showing up. He sighed and dug a damp scrap of paper from his pocket, moving some folders out of the way to uncover the phone on the desk. He dialed the pager number written on the paper, then punched in the callback number of the beeper store, followed by his personal code and 911. Much to his surprise, in a few minutes the phone rang. He reached for the receiver.
“Yo, Bigga,” he said, “where the fuck you at?”
15
THEY GONNA SEE HOW HE GET DOWN WHEN HE MAD, and it ain’t pretty. He ain’t like the way shit was unfolding. Sitting in a fucking closet in a fucking hotel in Jersey. He trying to be real calm about it, but he starting to get pissed. He feel it building, that humming inside his blood. He take that energy and put it to use. He always feel that way before he do something.
First off, his concentration got interrupted. He hate that more than anything. That weaselly little motherfucker call him before with the location on the maid, all worried she be telling, when he right in the middle of scoping somebody else. As if he already ain’t screwed things up enough by arguing last night and bringing police down. That motherfucker got to go. Yeah, sure, he worried the maid be telling, too, but one thing at a time. Everybody be telling on this job-that’s why he got to kill them all. No reason to interrupt what you doing. No reason to break your stride. You get nervous, you jump the gun, you make mistakes. He shoulda just stayed where he at, took care of the other one first. That other Chinese bitch, the architect. Ain’t never bodied no Chinese bitch before that he could remember. He did that girl China, but she Colombian, they just call her that because she got them scrunchy little eyes. No, he definitely ain’t bodied no Chinese bitch before, and now it look like he doing two in one night. When it rains it pours. Ha, he make himself laugh.
The rain. That another thing got him real pissed off. Rain make him sad. And it bad for planning, too. All them scary movies fucked up when they show the killing happen on some night with a big storm. Ain’t no serious killer like to work in the rain. Slows you down, just like it slow down anybody doing regular shit. How you gonna stand outside and scope when it pouring like that? He sitting for a while in between the Dumpsters out in the parking lot. Good spot, too. The place real deserted, he stick his head up and scope what going on with her window. But then it start to rain so hard he getting wet. Couldn’t even light a cigarette. The drops blowing on him. So he find a door in the back unlocked before he was really ready to go inside. Rain force your hand. Not to mention he gonna have to drive back from fucking Jersey in it. He hated to drive in it.