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He chewed on that. “So she was with Cody the whole time?”

“Me and Dottie found her sprawled in a chair, covered in blood. Didn’t have a stitch on.”

“Then she saw what happened.”

Cynthia waved one hand around in a little circle. “What she told the cops was, the two of them was playing, you know, the way Cody liked it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’d tied her to the chair. I been with him once or twice. It’s like he’s tryin’ it out ’cause the boss does it. Only nobody’s afraid of being tied up by Cody, ya know?”

Meyers knew. Drozdov had dipped into the fight game awhile, hadn’t he, and more people seemed to get hurt on those occasions. Somehow Drozdov and the mob accommodated each other, kept to their respective territories. He must have had connections they appreciated. There were stories about how Drozdov liked to inflict pain, in particular how he liked to play with a boys’ wood-burning set. He’d been arrested two years back after a couple of mutilated hookers had been fished out of the Delaware. They’d been tortured, burned and scarred with an iron of some kind, and somebody had fingered Drozdov, or maybe the cops had just heard the same stories as everybody else. Either nothing could be proven or he’d bought the right people to make the charges go away. Hookers and hired muscle—nobody cared about either one.

Meyers shook himself back to the present. “Okay, so Cody tied up this dame.”

“Said he blindfolded her and the second she tugged it off, she was hit in the face with blood like out of a fire hose—and that’s how it looked, all right. Feet was still tied to the chair. We seen her and we ran into the room before we knew what was . . . what all the lumps on the floor was.” Her chin trembled and she clamped her lips together and shot him an accusatory glance. After a minute she went on. “Dottie started screaming, and then this doll comes around, and she starts screaming, too.”

“You were in shock, all three of you.”

“Sure.” In the streetlight glow he watched her revisit the moment, watched her face pulled by awful currents of memory. “There was four bodies in there, John. The stink. And you couldn’t look anywhere at all. You just . . .”

He tried but could not fathom how it had happened. How could nobody have witnessed Kid Willette’s demise?

“I’m cold,” Cynthia said abruptly. “I think I’m sick, you know? Probably oughta go home, like Dottie. Stay in bed.”

“I’ll give you a lift,” he said. “On the house.”

“You let Snuffles in there, too?”

Meyers and the weepy-eyed dog considered each other. “So long as he’s done his business,” he said. They walked over to his cab.

Somewhere around Fifteenth and Walnut, Cynthia suddenly spoke out of the back. “I know where she is, you wanna talk with her.”

He glanced in the mirror, realizing what she was saying. “Where?”

“Cost you another ten.”

He laughed that she’d got her nerve back. “And here I am giving you and your mutt a free ride.”

“Fine, take it outta my fare. You got a pen?” she asked. “I’ll write it down for you.”

He took out the pocket notebook he used as a log and opened it to the back page, handed her a pencil.

While she wrote, she said, “Cops interviewed the three of us in the same room. She gave up an address. Might be phony, but it’s up in the Fairmount. Brown Street.”

In the mirror he watched her scribble in the notebook. “Why in the name of God did Kid go to work for him?” he asked.

She looked up at the gaze of his reflection, her eyes bright and wet. “If you don’t know, then nobody does, honey. Didn’t tell me nothin’.”

He focused on the street again. Yeah, he knew. A lot of dollars and no sense.

——

Fifteen minutes later, Meyers pulled the cab into a space on Aspen Street, then strode on up the hill to Brown at the top of the ridge. This woman lived within spitting distance of Eastern State, and he wondered if she had maybe some relationship to the prison. Or maybe it was just cheap rent.

Kennealy’s Bar stood on the corner of Twenty-Second and Brown, and as he rounded the corner, a couple of women came out of the ladies’ entrance at the back. They were babbling happily at each other in Polish. He’d worked with enough Polish fighters in his time to know the sound of it. He slowed his pace and strolled up beside them. “Evening, ladies,” he said. “How are you this fine night?”

The duo laughed a little nervously, and Meyers smiled. He chatted about nothing, and they kept walking. They soon passed the address Cynthia had given him. Without appearing to look, he noticed the glow of a cigarette in a doorway across the street.

Meyers walked another block with the women, then tipped his cap and turned away. He crossed the street. After a minute he started back the way he’d come, but at double the pace now, feet hitting the pavement with the sound of someone in a hurry. The doorway lay just ahead.

He barreled along and at the last instant as he was passing the door he pivoted on one foot and punched a short jab straight into a solar plexus. The man in the shadows didn’t even have time to raise his hands in defense. He folded around the fist, spitting the cigarette past Meyers, who swung his right into the man’s jaw so hard that the body bounced off the door and against the brick around it. Meyers was ready to hit him again if necessary, but he slid down onto the step and tipped onto his side. Meyers yanked him upright and pushed his legs back into the shadows. He patted the body down and reached into the coat. He drew out a wallet—and a badge.

This was not good.

He stuffed the possessions back inside the jacket. The cop groaned. Meyers turned and walked quickly across the street.

Beside the door was a panel with three buttons, no doubt one apartment for each floor of the row house. The first two had names beside them. The third-floor label was blank. He pressed the button. Even as he did, he realized how stupid it was. She had no reason to let him in, and if she was hiding from trouble, she wasn’t going to let anybody in at all. To his surprise, though, the door buzzed and clicked on its latch, and he pushed inside before she could change her mind. He took the stairs two at a time.

The door at the top hung ajar, and he hesitated then, feeling a little too much like a fly visiting a spider. He looked at the name Cynthia had written down. “Miss Luka . . . chova?” he called.

“Come,” she answered as if granting him an audience.

The apartment had a short, narrow foyer that opened on a living room, with a kitchen off to the right and another doorway, presumably the bedroom, at the back. One low-wattage wall sconce—a fake candle under a little paper shade—lit the room a diseased yellow.

The woman was sitting on a ragged love seat against the wall. Her legs were crossed at the knee. She had long black hair and wore a gray dress and a jacket that had an almost military cut to it. She was smoking a long, odd-shaped cigarette, and her large eyes glittered behind the stream of smoke. She leaned forward and tapped her ash against a glass ashtray on the small white coffee table in front of her. A scattering of tarnished coins or buttons lay strewn across the tabletop. They had an oily sheen. Meyers stayed in the doorway, his hands balled into fists in his pockets, but nothing else in the place seemed to be moving.

“Who are you?” she asked in a voice that sounded like it didn’t much care. “You are not from Drozdov.”

“You’re right on that score. My name’s John Meyers. I was a friend of Kid Willette’s.”