“He doesn’t do much. He’s an errand boy. Chauffeurs some of the guys around. Picks up food. We send him to the bakery. Gets the dry cleaning and like that.”
“What crew does he run with?”
“No real crew so far as I know. But I don’t know much about the kid. He comes in with losers, strings with a lot of third-raters.”
“You know if they’re moving up?”
He answered carefully. “If they are, Mr. Thompson will get a piece of it.”
I nodded. It sounded about right. Danny wasn’t pushing Butch and his crew into anything, but he wanted them to kick up in case they got away with a score.
“And my sister, Dale?” I asked.
“What about her?” Wes said.
I didn’t want to form the words. “Has she been working for Danny?”
“Ask her.”
“Hey, let’s pretend I’m asking you, right?”
It got tense for a moment. We glared at each other. We were both good at holding a malevolent stare. The pause lengthened. It could go on all night. I let my eyes soften. It was a calculated move for an honest purpose.
“It’s my sister, Wes,” I said. “I need to know if she’s in trouble.”
“She’s what, sixteen? Fifteen? Running around with a scumbag amateur punk who thinks he’s up to raiding big scores. Is she in trouble? Is that really even a question, Terry?”
“I suppose not.”
He smiled without any warmth. “Well, there it is then. But for the record, I don’t know if she’s involved with the crew.”
“You don’t know? You’re Danny’s right-hand man. You fucking run the crew.”
He rubbed at his stomach again and grimaced. “Not so much lately. I handle his business and the main crew, but Mr. Thompson’s… been dealing with out-of-towners.”
“You mean he’s having other syndicate guys whacked.”
“There’s some of that. But other things too. He’s a little paranoid. It’s not his fault. It’s just the life. He has a lot of new help. Some of these guys, I barely know their names. He keeps them close. He includes me on most of it, but not all. I don’t think he trusts me with some of the rougher stuff.”
“Don’t drink milk in front of him. You got any Mace?”
“What? Mace? No. Why would I have Mace? What the hell do you want Mace for?”
I got up and headed for the door. *li01C;Forget it.”
21
Coming out of Wes’s neighborhood, I took a corner too fast and Collie’s folder came sliding out from under the passenger seat. The papers scattered across the floor mat. I tried to ignore them but they kept drifting, whispering, and drawing my attention.
I pulled over into a strip mall and watched folks going in and out of the stores. Kids still playing on those nickel rides that had been set in cement twenty-five or thirty years ago. A mini-helicopter that went up six or eight inches, then down, a couple of lights flashing. And the children excited as hell and clambering all over it while their mothers did their business in the stationery, the bakery, the laundromat.
I drew the butterfly knife and whipped the blade out, twirled it shut, then snapped the point out again. Dale would get the feel of it in five minutes. If she was going to hang around Butch and his crew and felt better with a little protection, then I wasn’t going to deny her. I’d have to get her clear of them some other way. I didn’t know how. She was on the edge, trying to decide which way she wanted to go. My stomach twisted at the idea of her getting in deeper with the crew, even if she wasn’t running heists yet. Maybe the blade would wake her up to the fact that she wasn’t playing a game. I thought how easy it would be for women to defend themselves if only men taught them a little about how it was done.
I put the paperwork back in order and paged through it. I wondered how much of it Collie’s wife had access to. I remembered her in the prison, the way she used her hands to form compact, brusque gestures. The way her glossy black hair lashed the air. The way he had shrunk from her like a child being punished. She wasn’t afraid of him. She had control over him. Maybe because he loved her. Maybe because he was locked up and needed someone on the outside to help.
How much help was she giving him? And what kind?
All I knew was that her first name was Lin. I dug through the file, hoping there’d be additional details. I didn’t find any. I had to get to a library or hop on the Internet. I had to do a little research. Dale would have a laptop. I wondered if Collie’s wife knew how to use a pistol or a blade. She seemed like the type who would.
Then I realized, Jesus Christ-Lin. Her last name would probably be Rand. Why not? Anyone who felt the need to go through a formal marriage even within the walls of a prison might be traditional enough to take her husband’s last name.
I drew out my new cell phone and called information. They gave me her number and I punched it in.
There wasn’t any ringing, just music. I waited for voice mail or an answering machine but nothing came up. Finally a woman answered with a crisp, “Yes?”
“Lin… Rand?”
Hearing her own name made her even more irritated. “Yes. Who is this? What do you want?”
I said, “This is Terry Rand.”
“Oh.” She brightened instantly. “Oh, Terry, yes, pardon me. My God. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever hear from you. I’m so glad you called.”
“I’d like to meet with you if I can.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Are you free for dinner? We coe ax201D yould-”
I didn’t feel like spending an evening talking with a woman who had married a child-killer behind bars. “I’d like to meet now, if that’s okay.”
“Certainly. You could come by my apartment. I live in West Islip, off Sunrise Highway.” She gave me directions. I knew the apartment complex. I’d boosted a few TVs out of there years ago. Who knows? Maybe I’d juked her place before.
“I’ll see you in twenty minutes,” I said, and hung up.
It took me fifteen. She had a ground-floor corner unit in the rear. Outside her door was a small but impressive garden and a couple of wrought-iron chairs that looked charming but impractical. I knocked and got an eight-count wait.
She opened the door, smiled at me, and said, “Terry, it’s such a pleasure.” First she held out her hand, and as I went to take it she drew me into an embrace. I didn’t return the hug.
I’d noticed her killer heels in the prison, and now I saw how petite she was. She couldn’t be taller than four-eleven and she wouldn’t hit a hundred pounds if she had rocks in her pockets. I imagined Collie opening her letters, finding snapshots of her that would make him flinch after so much time in the can. She had a resolute poise but also seemed little more than an attractive wisp, her shining black hair gliding about her as if in slow motion, so that you felt if you looked away even for a moment you’d turn back and find that she’d evaporated.
Her place was clean and stylishly furnished. There were touches of formal Chinese setting. Mats, silks, bamboo, and a large framed painting of what appeared to be Hong Kong, taken from a junk in the harbor at sunset.
“What can I offer you?” she asked. She reached out and put three fingers lightly on my wrist. I could barely feel them. “A beer? A glass of wine?”
“You sounded terse on the phone,” I said.
She nodded. Her glossy hair took a second to follow the motion of her head. “I’ve recently started getting a lot of crank calls.”
“Because of Collie.”
“Yes. Please sit.” She directed me to a settee that was uncomfortably hard. She poured two glasses of wine and sat one in front of me. I didn’t touch it. “He’s in the news again all the time now. There’s been a resurgence in interest. I did a few interviews with reporters, but they trim the coverage and edit out anything I have to say about the new details in Collie’s plight. They make me appear to be an unbalanced… groupie.”