“I’m not sure she did anything. Alma says she did have a rock in her hand, but she took it home with her. She’s not lucid, but I believe that much.”
“Did the rock just appear in her hand?”
“How did you know that? She thinks it fell from the sky.”
“The deputy had a similar story, and he wasn’t the least bit crazy.
“I don’t think Alma will stand up to any more questions, if you’re – ”
“I’m not here for that. I think you should wait till the sheriff leaves before you pick up the brat.”
“Pardon?”
“Cut the crap, Charles. I just gave Mallory the pills from the pharmacy. She was down in the basement stealing files. Do you know what those pills are for?”
“For Augusta.”
“That’s what Mallory told you?” Riker gave him a pity smile. “She’s got a gunshot wound in her shoulder, Charles. That’s what the pills are for. I have to get her out of here before she takes another bullet, and I need your help. I’ll tell the sheriff you’re giving me a lift back to town. We can load her into your car and just keep driving.”
A bullet wound? Charles shook his head in disbelief. It couldn’t be. How could she -
“Charles, you know she killed Babe Laurie.”
“No I don’t, and neither do you.”
“Well, let’s see what I got to work with here,” said Riker. “I got one dead mother killed by a mob. And that wacko religious cult fits nice with the mob concept, doesn’t it? According to the feds, Babe Laurie led that cult. And this bastard gets his ass murdered within an hour of Mallory hitting town. You wanna play connect-the-dots?”
“That’s enough, Riker.”
“Or maybe a fast round of blindman’s buff? I’ll wear the blindfold first, okay? I’ll pretend I can’t see her killing a man just because he stoned her mother to death.”
“Mallory wouldn’t use a rock.”
“Why not? That’s the way her mother died. You gotta admit the kid has an interesting sense of justice.”
“Put a lid on it, Riker.”
“The sheriff still has good memories of a tiny little girl who couldn’t even lift a gun. If she stays much longer, it’ll be too late – he’ll have her jacket from NYPD, maybe psych files too. Do you want that man to find out what Mallory’s really made of?”
“So you want to lure Mallory into the car, and – ”
“Yeah, I owe it to Lou Markowitz. He’d do the same if he was alive. Hell, the old man would toss her in the trunk and drive straight through till morning. I just want to keep his kid alive and out of prison. Help me, Charles. You want me to beg? Okay, I’m begging. Lou would be down on one knee if he was here.”
Of course Riker couldn’t do it without a trusted friend to betray her to lead her into the car, where Riker would be waiting.
“No.” Charles looked down the hall as Tom Jessop was walking toward them. “I think the sheriff’s ready to leave now. Goodbye, Riker.”
Riker turned to the sheriff and called out, “Two minutes.” The sheriff waved and walked off.
“Why don’t you sleep on it, Charles. We’ll talk again tomorrow. If I have to do this alone, I might have to hurt her, and I’d rather not do that.”
“I don’t believe you could hurt her. And I know you couldn’t force her to go with you, not by yourself. Did you ever try to take Mallory anywhere?”
“Yeah, I did,” said Riker. “Once I took her to the Bronx Zoo. She was eleven. The animals in the monkey house didn’t wanna play with her. I think the kid made them nervous – they wouldn’t come anywhere near the bars. She didn’t take rejection very well in those days. So the kid points to the monkeys, and she looks up at me and says, ‘Shoot ’em.‘ ”
“You’re making that up.”
“But you’re not sure, are you?”
CHAPTER 21
“I like this one best,” said Malcolm Laurie, in admiration of the statue wielding a sword over his head.
Sergeant Riker was startled. He had not expected company from that direction, not in this predawn hour.
“Good morning,” said Malcolm, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to find a New York City detective crouching in the grass behind a tomb. “You left the bar too early. I was just about to break out the good stuff.” In his hand was a flat silver bottle.
Riker stood up and accepted the hip flask, breaking his time-honored rule of no hard liquor before breakfast. After one sip of whiskey, he pronounced it very good stuff indeed. Averting his eyes from the angel and her stone sword, Riker’s gaze wandered over the surrounding faces of more passive, unarmed sculpture. “Never saw so many angels in one place. It’s a damn convention.”
“There are sixteen of them. Seventeen, if you count Nancy Trebec.” Malcolm walked over to the marble woman standing off to one side of the cemetery, all but lost in the trees. He pulled out a gold cigarette lighter and flashed the flame in her face.
What a pretty face, full of sorrow.
“No wings,” said Riker, returning the flask.
“A fallen angel doesn’t need wings. She’s not going anywhere.” Malcolm leaned one arm on the statue’s slight shoulder as he tipped back the whiskey for a long draught. “No room for a suicide in Catholic heaven.”
“Why did she kill herself?”
“You didn’t take Betty’s tour?”
Riker turned back to look at the angel with Mallory’s face and a lethal weapon. “The statue broke up the party when it started crying.”
“Well, Betty tells it better, but I can give you the short version.” Malcolm stood back from the statue and regarded it with a half-smile. “Jason Trebec wanted a male heir to carry his name. But after Augusta was born, Nancy couldn’t have another baby. She was barren. And Catholic – no divorce. Jason was a cruel old bastard, and every last day of Nancy’s life, he found some new way to punish her for not giving him a son.”
“The old man was nuts. I’ve met Augusta. She’s twice the man I am.”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.” Malcolm had seemed cold sober only a moment ago, and now he split his face with the wide smile of a happy drunk. “Augusta has balls, all right.” He grabbed his crotch. “They used to be mine.”
He was laughing as he sank down to the stone pedestal at Nancy’s feet. “Augusta snipped them off me in court. Sued me for damaging a bird habitat. Then she moved on to the chemical plants, snipping off trophy testicles in courtrooms up and down the Corridor. Now she has enough balls to set up a damn pool table.”
Riker sat down on the cold stone slab at Nancy Trebec’s feet. “Naw, I don’t think that’s Augusta’s style. I see her banging ‘em across a net with a paddle.”
Malcolm nodded as he considered this. “Or baseball?” He nudged Riker’s arm. “Splat with a bat?”
Riker winced and leaned back against the statue. In the benign afterglow of a long night’s boozing, he studied the man beside him. When they had first met over a watered-down whiskey in Owltown, he had not known what to make of Malcolm. But very quickly, the personality had jelled into a man’s man with a taste for Riker’s unfiltered cigarettes and an unlimited capacity for drink. Riker’s approval had grown with each glass he downed on Malcolm’s tab.
And now the hip flask came back to him again. The scotch was smooth, and it warmed him. Life was good.
Ah, wait. Here’s a snag. He upended the silver bottle and one golden drop hit the ground. “Aw, you killed it,” said Riker, perhaps ungraciously.
“That’s no problem.” Malcolm took it out of his hand. “I’m in the resurrection business.” He turned his back and said a brief prayer to Bacchus. When he offered the hip flask to Riker again, it was full.
“Praise the Lord,” said Riker, wishing he could remember the words to Malcolm’s prayer so he could try this stunt at home. “I’ve seen the light.”