Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [64]
“They’ll catch us going in,” Dead-Eye said.
“Then we make our play out on the street,” Boomer said, looking up and seeing the doorman walk toward them. “Or at a safer drop. For the record, we’re here just to talk to the man.”
“You talk,” Dead-Eye said. “I’ll listen.”
“Don’t matter if you talk or not,” Boomer said, slapping Dead-Eye on the back and smiling. “We get pinched, you’re the one’s going to be put away.”
“How you figure?”
“White guy always walks,” Boomer said. “Black guy takes the fall.”
“You sound exactly like my father,” Dead-Eye said as he shut down the cameras that covered the perimeter and hallways on the sixteenth floor.
“And mine,” Boomer said.
They walked out from behind the counter, nodded at the doorman, took the set of keys from his hand, and headed for the open elevator door.
• • •
THEY STOOD IN the center of the two-bedroom apartment overlooking the Manhattan skyline, surrounded by a blend of leather and chrome furniture, six-figure paintings, sculptures resting on antique surfaces, and religious artifacts, all of which highlighted human and animal sacrifice.
“We don’t need to take a poll to figure out how fucked up Junior is,” Boomer said.
“A goat head on the wall is always a giveaway,” Dead-Eye pointed out. “And you can’t afford to miss the view over by the fireplace.”
Boomer turned and stared at a circular pattern of various animal and human body parts nailed to the wall above the center fireplace, dried blood lining the sides like thin streak prints. Below them was a round oakwood table covered by an assortment of candles of different sizes.
“A lot of what’s up there’s only a few days old,” Boomer said, taking a few steps closer, eyes studying the wall. “This guy likes his kill fresh.”
“All the cuts are from a ragged-edged knife,” Dead-Eye said. “We look hard enough, we’ll find it in here somewhere. Give us something to use to put him away with.”
“I’d just as soon go with plan B,” Boomer said, turning his head toward the door just as Junior’s key jangled in the latch.
“Which is what?”
“I’ll let you know soon as I think of it,” Boomer said, watching the door open and Junior’s body fill the entryway.
• • •
IF JUNIOR WAS surprised, he didn’t show it.
He took the key from the lock, slid it back into his pocket, and closed the door softly behind him. He gave them an arrogant smirk as he walked into the living room, a lit cigarette cupped in his right hand, and tossed his Bill Blass lamb’s wool coat onto the back of a dining room chair. He was wearing cuffed tan slacks, brown loafers with tassels, a button-down cream-colored Calvin Klein shirt, and a brown Hickey-Freeman jacket. Everything about Junior smelled of money and upbringing.
And everything about his apartment smelled of a depravity that would elude any rational explanation.
“You two look too stupid to be burglars,” Junior said, smiling and sitting down in a leather recliner. “So I figure you must be cops. Am I right?”
Boomer walked over to Junior and stared down at him for several seconds before he slapped him across the face with the back of his hand, the hard crack echoing through the room. A red finger welt covered Junior’s face from the side of his head to his jawline.
“I have a few questions I need to ask,” Boomer said in a calm voice, feeling the cop gears clicking back in. “And I want the answers I’m expecting.”
“And if I decide to tell you shit?” Junior said, his arrogance only slightly tempered. “What then, assholes?”
Boomer reared back and landed another slap across the same side of the face, only this one was harder. A thin line of blood formed on Junior’s lower lip.
“I ask the questions,” Boomer said. “You’re here only to give the answers.”
Junior wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked past Boomer and over to Dead-Eye. “And what’s the nigger here to do?” Junior asked with a smirk. “Take notes?”
This time Boomer punched him flush to the forehead, sending Junior’s head snapping against the back of the recliner, a large red blotch forming