Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [38]
“He really did have to go to the bathroom,” the man with the accent said. “I thought he was only joking.”
“You kill everybody you do business with?” the woman asked, taking several deep breaths, fighting to regain any semblance of composure.
“Only the ones with badges,” the man said.
“You think my friend was a cop?” she said, trying to sound credible.
“No,” the man said, moving closer to her. “I know he was a cop. What I don’t know is, who are you?”
The woman crushed her cigarette out in an ashtray and stood, ignoring the blood droppings on her hands and clothes, staring straight at the man with the accent.
“I was here to make a deal,” she said, her voice regaining strength. “It looks to me like that’s not going to happen.”
“We made a deal,” the man said, pointing to the coffee table next to his leg. “We have the money. And you have your drugs. I will even have Ramon pack it for you.”
The beefier of the two men at the bar walked over to the table, lifted the undercover by the hair, and tossed his body to the ground. He picked up the black duffel and started to lay in the cocaine packets.
“Before Ramon finishes, there is something I would like you to do for me,” the man said. “A small favor.”
“Do I have a choice?” the woman asked.
“No,” the man said.
“Then just tell me what it is.” She sighed.
“Take off your clothes,” the man with the accent said.
• • •
PINS WAS AT the door, poised to knock.
Calise and Fitz were in the elevator, out of the van, and into the high rise as soon as they heard the undercover take the hit. The narcs in the stairwell held their position, lead man with one hand gripped around the doorknob. The three detectives in the suite next door snapped on their vests and clicked their guns into readiness.
The albino opened the door on the second knock.
“Who the fuck are you?” he said, staring down at the much shorter Pins.
“Telephone repair,” Pins said, catching a glimpse of the undercover’s body behind the albino’s left shoulder. “Your lines are down.”
“We didn’t call nobody,” the albino said, large hand on the edge of the door, ready to slam it shut. “Go play with somebody else’s phones.”
Pins had his gun in the albino’s chest before he had a chance to breathe. “You don’t understand,” Pins said, his gun hand visibly shaking. “I take my job very seriously. Now, let me in.”
The albino took two steps back, hands at his sides, palms out. “Two phones. Bedroom and out here.”
“There’s three, putz,” Pins said, walking into the suite, looking at the dead undercover and the woman in the red pumps, stripped down to her bra. “You forgot about the one in the bathroom.”
“You walk in here, you don’t walk out,” the albino said. “I make sure of that.”
“Hey, fixing phones is a risky business,” Pins said, backing the albino against a wall. “But the benefits can’t be beat.”
Ramon tossed the duffel bag back on top of the coffee table and turned to the man with the accent for a signal. The man put an arm around the woman in the red pumps and held her close to his side, rubbing against the lines of sweat running down her back. The albino slid an open blade down the side of his sleeve and cupped it in his palm.
They held position as the cops flowed into the suite.
Calise and Fitz were in the doorway, short of breath and guns drawn. The three narcs from the stairwell were in vests and shotguns, crouched down behind them. The four detectives from the adjacent suite had poured out and were braced two apiece on both sides of the hall.
“Looks like a lot of people want to use your phone,” Pins said, turning his head slightly toward the cops covering the room.
The albino saw the opening and took it.
He wrapped his fingers around the knife handle and swung it. The blade slashed open the sleeve of Jimmy’s bowling jacket, drawing blood and knocking