Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [37]
I went into the side room, found a good dark conservative suit, a dark blue shirt, and a black knit tie. I set Pansy up for the day and went off to the docks to find Michelle. For once it didn’t take long—she was in the back booth at the Hungry Heart, sipping some evil-looking potion and eating a rare steak with some cottage cheese. I walked right on through to the back, feeling the looks and giving off businessman vibes like I was Michelle’s date. No problems—I sat down and a waiter appeared, looking at Michelle to see if I was trouble for her. She extended her hand like a bloody countess, smiled, and the waiter withdrew. Nobody came there for the food.
“Michelle, can you do a phone job for me?”
“Starting today?”
“In a few hours.”
“Honey, it’s a known fact that I give the best phone in all New York. But I suspect this has nothing to do with someone’s love life, is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re going to tell me more?”
“When we get there,” I said.
“So mysterious, Burke. Is this a paying customer?”
“How much do you want?”
“Now don’t be like that, baby. I’m not like that. If you’re on a budget, just say so. If this is a money-maker for you, I should get something for the time my money-maker’s out of action, yes?”
“Yes. But I can’t pay you what you’re worth.”
“They never do, sweetie, they never do.”
“It’s a bit downtown from here, Michelle. We’re setting up a temporary office—you know what I mean?”
“Not in that damn warehouse.”
“In the warehouse.”
“And this involves . . . ?”
“I’m still looking for that freak I told you about.”
She thought about it for a moment or so, then reached over and tapped my arm. “We have to stop at my hotel, Burke.”
“For how long?”
“Just long enough for me to get my makeup case and some clothes.”
“Michelle, this is strictly a phone job, you know? Nobody’s going to see you.”
“Honey, I’ll see me. If I want to sound right, I have to feel right. And to feel right, I have to look right. That’s the way it is.”
I grunted my annoyance at this delay, all the time knowing she was right.
Michelle wasn’t intimidated. She just widened her eyes, looked at me, and said, “Baby, you came to me for this work—if you don’t like my peaches, don’t shake my tree.”
I just looked at her—I’d said more or less the same thing to Flood, but not as well.
“It’s important,” said Michelle, in a serious, no-nonsense voice. And there was nothing I could say to that. We all know what we need to do our work.
She was as good as her word. Less that fifteen minutes after I dropped her off she came tripping down the front steps of the hotel carrying one of those giant makeup cases like models use. I had been sitting in the car with a newspaper over my face—a newspaper into which I had punched a clean hole with the icepick I always keep in the car. It gave me a clear view of the street ahead and the mirror did the same behind. I never turned off the engine, but the Plymouth idled as quiet as an electric typewriter. I kept it in gear, with my foot on the brake, but the brake lights didn’t go on. As soon as Michelle opened the door, I lifted my foot from the brake and we moved off like smoke into fog.
13
MAX WASN’T AROUND at the warehouse. I pulled the car all the way in, and Michelle and I went into the back where I keep the desk and phone boxes.
While she was changing into her outfit, I tested the equipment the Mole had set up for me. It was perfect—the Mole’s work made Ma Bell look like the crooked old bitch she is.
Michelle came back inside, straightened out the desk to suit herself, and began to page through the loose-leaf book I gave her. The damn book costs about five hundred bucks