Baltimore Noir - Laura Lippman [41]
“I’d like to be sailing off with you,” Jack whispered.
She stood on tiptoe, her lips warm against his cheek. “I’m really sorry, Jack.”
The knife cool in her hand. Its blade, long and thin, penetrated his shirt and the skin of his chest, slipping cleanly between his ribs, piercing the left ventricle of his heart. Still leaning against the railing, Jack only looked surprised as she withdrew the knife and dropped it back into her tote. Jack slumped against her—another amorous couple enjoying the summer evening. Her lips brushed his ear as she whispered, “But if I’d sailed off with anybody, it would have been with you.”
With a fluid, practiced move, she lifted and pushed, gently tumbling him over the railing, onto the concrete skirt that surrounded the seal pool, where he lay still, one hand trailing in the water, his eyes wide, locked on hers. It would take several minutes for his heart to bleed out, flooding his chest cavity. Plenty of time for Jack to call out—Help! Murder! or even her name. But he lay quietly along the skirting, defeated, dying.
Lady surfaced, the water sleeking off her mottled fur. She snorted, her whiskers twitching curiously next to Jack’s hand. Bobbing, she studied the dying man with dark, sorrowful eyes.
“Sorry, Lady,” Angie whispered, thinking about the warning sign. Then, “Call 911!” she screamed. “He’s having a heart attack!”
In the subsequent confusion, she slipped away, weaving quietly through the crowd, moving confidently against the grain.
Near the causeway between the power plant and Baltimore’s Public Works Museum, the wig came off with the hat, in one quick swoop. By the time she crossed President Street, Angie had fluffed up her flyaway copper curls, and the disguise was tucked safely into the plastic bag that had once held her videocam.
She strolled down Fawn Street, almost to Gough, before finding a dumpster where she ditched the bag. She doubled back to Exeter. Angie wasn’t worried. Two thousand people were crowded in Little Italy tonight, out to enjoy the film festival. Cinema al fresco would generate tons of garbage. Nobody was going to be pawing through the dumpsters in the morning.
On Stiles, at the far end of the bocce court tucked between High and Exeter, she found her brother and his team, all duded up and slicked back, their asses being whipped by paisanos on Social Security, wearing team shirts, Bermudas, and tube socks. She perched on a park bench painted red, white, and green to watch the massacre, wondering, not for the first time, how Johnny could bet serious money on a game that was a cross between lawn bowling and horseshoes. After a while, she wandered off and bought herself a meatball sub and ate it at the corner of High and Stiles, where Johnny found her later, just as it was growing dark. He carried a couple of lawn chairs.
“Sorry I’m late, sis.”
She presented her cheek for a kiss.
He unfolded a chair, placed it on the sidewalk, and held it steady while she sat down. “Glad you stopped by.”
“I’m starving,” she said. “What’s in the box?”
“Dessert,” he said.
“From Vaccaro’s, I trust,” she said, holding out her hand for the box.
“How’s Mom?”
“Just fine,” Angie replied, liberating a chocolate-dipped cannoli from a square of wax paper. “She thinks I should get a life.”
“And Providence?”
“Not so good as when Buddy Cianci was mayor, but thriving.” She took a bite of the cannoli, savoring the sweetness of it on her tongue, feeling giddy. “You should visit sometime, Johnny.”
“Maybe I will,” he said, “if I’m not on call over Thanksgiving.”
From the third floor bedroom of John Pente’s apartment directly over their heads, a blue stream of light projected the opening scenes of Moonstruck onto a blank white billboard across a parking lot crammed with people: a street festival meets the drive-in, but without all the cars.
“They