Manhattan Noir - Lawrence Block [19]
At 8th Street and Sixth Avenue, Tracey Olson leaves a cardboard box on the steps of Jefferson Market. Angelo and Luis watch her rush away from inside a red BMW boosted on Avenue A, the rain thudding hard on its roof.
You see that?
Wha?
That fucking girl.
What about her?
She left a box on the steps there.
What about it?
That all you can say, whataboutitwhataboutit?
Luis steps out into the rain, toward the box, the tiny cries he hears now.
Jesus. Jesus Christ.
On 23rd, the rain slams against the windows of pizza parlors and Mexican restaurants, Chinese joints open all night.
Sal and Frankie. Sweet and sour pork. Moo goo gai pan.
So, the guy, what’d he do?
What they always do.
He ask how old?
I told him eighteen.
Sal and Frankie giggling about the suits from the suburbs, straight guys who dole out cash for their sweet asses then take the PATH home to their pretty little wives.
Where was he from?
Who cares? He’s a dead man now.
That plum sauce, you eatin’ that?
At Broadway and 34th, the million eyes of the rain smash against the dusty windows of the rag trade, Lennie Mack at his desk, ledgers open, refiguring the numbers, wiping his moist brow with the rolled sleeves of his shirt, wondering how Old Man Siegelman got suspicious, threatening to call in outside auditors, what he has to do before that call is made … do for Rachel, and the two kids in college, do because it was just a little at the beginning. Jesus, two-hundred fifty thousand now. Too much to hide. He closes the ledger, sits back in his squeaky chair, thinks it through again … what he has to do.
From Times Square, the gusts drive northward, slanting lines of rain falling like bullets, exploding against the black pavement, the cars and buses still on Midtown streets, Jaime Rourke on the uptown 104, worrying about Tracy, what she might do with the baby, seated next to an old guy in a gray felt hat fingering packets of garden seed.
So I guess you got a garden.
My building has little plots. A smile. My daughter thinks I should plant a garden.
Eddie Gorsh sits back, relaxed, content in his decision, grateful to his daughter, how, because of her, there’ll be no more sure things.
Daughters are like that, you know. They make you have a little sense.
Near 59th and Fifth, a gust lifts the awning of the San Domenico. Dim light in the bar. Bartender in a black bolero jacket.
Amanda Graham. Martini, very dry, four olives. Black dress, sleeveless, Mikimoto pearls. Deidre across the small marble table. Manhattan. Straight up.
Paulie’s going to find out, Mandy.
Amanda sips her drink. How?
He has ways.
A dismissive wave. He’s not Nostradamus.
Close enough. And for what? Some nobody.
He’s not a nobody. He plays piano. A nice gig. On Bleecker Street.
My point exactly.
Amanda nibbles the first olive. What do you really think Paulie would do?
Deidre sips her drink.
Kill you.
Amanda’s olive drops into the crystal glass, ripples the vodka and vermouth. The smooth riffs of Bleecker Street grow dissonant and fearful.
You really think he would?
Over the nightbound city, the rain falls upon uncertainty and fear, the nervous tick of unsettled outcomes, things in the air, motions not yet completed. At 72nd and Broadway, it sweeps along windows coiled in neon, decorated with bottles of ale and pasted with green shamrocks.
Captain Beals. Single malt scotch. Glenfiddich. Detective Burke with Johnny Walker Black. A stack of photographs on the bar between them. Fat man. Bald. 3849382092.
This the last one?
Yeah. Feldman thinks it’s a long shot, but the guy lives in Tribeca, and it seems pretty clear the killer lives there too.
A quick nod.
His name is Harry Devane. Lives in Windsor Apartments. Just a couple buildings down from Lynn Abercrombie. Four blocks from Tiana Matthews. Been out four years.
What’s his