Manhattan Noir - Lawrence Block [26]
“You with me, Lime Rickey?” T.G. snapped. “You’re off in your own fucking world.”
“Just thinking.”
“Ah, thinking. Good. He’s thinking. ’Bout your altar bitch?”
Ricky mimicked jerking off. Putting himself down again. Wondered why he did that. He glanced at the tourist. The man was whispering to the bartender, who caught Ricky’s eye and lifted his head. Ricky pushed back from T.G.’s table and walked to the bar, his boots making loud clonks on the wooden floor.
“Whassup?”
“This guy’s from out of town.”
The tourist looked at Ricky once, then down at the floor.
“No shit.” Ricky rolled his eyes at the bartender.
“Iowa,” the man said.
Where the fuck was Iowa? Ricky’d come close to finishing high school and had done okay in some subjects, but geography had bored him crazy and he never paid any attention in class.
The bartender said, “He was telling me he’s in town for a conference at Javits.”
Him and the ferret molesters …
“And …” the bartender’s voice faded as he glanced at the tourist. “Well, why don’t you tell him?”
The man took another gulp of his wine. Ricky looked at his hand. Not only a Rolex, but a gold pinky ring with a big honking diamond in it.
“Yeah, why don’t you tell me?”
The tourist did—in a halting whisper.
Ricky listened to his words. When the old guy was through, Ricky smiled and said, “This is your lucky day, mister.”
Thinking: Mine too.
A half hour later, Ricky and the tourist from Iowa were standing in the grimy lobby of the Bradford Arms, next to a warehouse at Eleventh Avenue and 50th Street.
Ricky was making introductions. “This’s Darla.”
“Hello, Darla.”
A gold tooth shone like a star out of Darla’s big smile. “How you doing, honey? What’s yo’ name?”
“Uhm, Jack.”
Ricky sensed he’d nearly made up “John” instead, which would’ve been pretty funny, under the circumstances.
“Nice to meet you, Jack.” Darla, whose real name was Sha’quette Greeley, was six feet tall, beautiful, and built like a runway model. She’d also been a man until three years ago. The tourist from Iowa didn’t catch on to this, or maybe he did and it turned him on. Anyway, his gaze was lapping her body like a tongue.
Jack checked them in, paying for three hours in advance.
Three hours? thought Ricky. An old fart like this? God bless him.
“Y’all have fun now,” Ricky said, falling into a redneck accent. He’d decided that Iowa was probably somewhere in the south.
Detective Robert Schaeffer could’ve been the host on one of those FOX or A&E cop shows. He was tall, silver-haired, good-looking, maybe a bit long in the face. He’d been an NYPD detective for nearly twenty years.
Schaeffer and his partner were walking down a filthy hallway that stank of sweat and Lysol. The partner pointed to a door, whispering, “That’s it.” He pulled out what looked like an electronic stethoscope and placed the sensor over the scabby wood.
“Hear anything?” Schaeffer asked, also in a soft voice.
Joey Bernbaum, the partner, nodded slowly, holding up a finger. Meaning wait.
And then a nod. “Go.”
Schaeffer pulled a master key out of his pocket, and drawing his gun, unlocked the door then pushed inside.
“Police! Nobody move!”
Bernbaum followed, his own automatic in hand.
The faces of the two people inside registered identical expressions of shock at the abrupt entry, though it was only in the face of the pudgy middle-aged white man, sitting shirtless on the bed, that the shock turned instantly to horror and dismay. He had a Marine Corps tattoo on his fat upper arm and had probably been pretty tough in his day, but now his narrow, pale shoulders slumped and he looked like he was going to cry. “No, no, no