Desperate Souls Page 14

  “Where are you going?” Malachai said to her.

  “I’m going to take care of business, baby,” Katrina said. Then she opened her apartment’s second bedroom door. Two planks, each one foot wide, ran from one end of the bedroom floor to the other, serving as a barricade across the doorway’s bottom. Raising one leg high, she set her bare foot down on dirt, then entered the room, turned on the light, and closed the door. Two feet of soil covered the entire floor. Standing with her head close to the ceiling, she crossed the floor, feeling the cool, moist dirt squish up between her toes. It felt like being home on a summer day.

  The only furniture in the room was a table hewn from the stump of a great oak tree bleached stone gray. Thick, petrified roots curled around the floor like the tentacles of an octopus. She kneeled at the table and lit the dozen candles that rose from glass holders on the wooden surface. Then she took her dress in both hands and tore off the area stained with blood. Centering one of the candles before her, she concentrated on the fabric and deposited it onto the yellow flame.

  Closing her eyes, she began to chant, a low, moaning sound that defied any spoken language. She felt the center of her power, the core of her being. And with her eyes closed, she felt herself floating, her spirit self drifting. She felt the city below and around her. Felt herself drawn to the man whose blood burned before her. She inhaled his acrid fragrance, and when the world came into focus through her closed eyelids, she saw through the eyes of the little man who had attacked them, saw his partner, the white man who had driven his SUV into the parking garage, gun blazing, and had rescued his partner. They were still in that vehicle.

  Partner.

  Malachai had been correct. The would-be assassins were policemen.

  Now Katrina would teach them her law.

  Edgar parked the Plymouth on West Forty-fifth Street. Jake got out first, breathing in the stench of garbage rather than the aromas of restaurants, outdoor cafes, and gasoline that he associated with Hell’s Kitchen. He felt oddly excited to be standing here again, even though it meant acknowledging his character flaws once more and owning up to the tragedies they had caused.

  “Who lives here?” Edgar said, joining him outside the building.

  “An old snitch of mine.”

  “I thought your snitches were my snitches.”

  Jake opened the door for him. “I did have a career before you, you know. This guy was my snitch when I was in SNAP with Gary Brown.”

  Edgar surveyed the names listed on the tenants’ directory. “That was in Alphabet City.”

  “So I kept tabs on him.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Last year.” He couldn’t say the words without an edge creeping into his voice.

  “Then he could be gone by now.”

  “Uh-uh.” Jake pointed at the name Dilson, L. “He’s still here.”

  “But he may not be home.”

  “Let’s find out.” Jake pressed the button for an apartment on the second floor. When no one responded to his call, he pushed another button.

  This time, a woman’s voice came over the speaker: “Yes?”

  “Police, ma’am. We’re responding to a complaint about another tenant. Please let us in.”

  “How do I know you’re really police?”

  Paranoid much? But he knew that people had good reason to be cautious these days. “You can come down and see our detectives’ shields, if you like.”

  The woman did not reply.

  Jake glanced at Edgar, who appeared unimpressed. Then the door buzzed, and Jake jerked it open.

  As they entered the lobby and mounted the stairs, Edgar said, “You are not a cop.”

  “No, but you are.”

  “Yeah, well, we are not responding to any complaint.”

  “How’s that choir practice going?”

  On the second floor, a brunette woman stood in the open doorway to her apartment. Her features were drawn in, her eyes filled with fear, and she whispered to Jake, “Are you going to the third floor?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jake said. Don’t you want to see our shields?

  “Thank God. I’ve been complaining to the co-op board for months. They just say, ‘Call the police.’ What do they think, that I want to get killed? I’m glad they finally called you.”

  “What’s the problem?” Edgar said.

  “He blasts his rap music twenty-four hours a day. All kinds of thugs come and go at all hours, always to his apartment. Scarecrows, you know what I mean? Once I came home and caught him trying every doorknob on this floor. He didn’t say a word to me, just went back upstairs and closed his door. I don’t feel safe in my own apartment anymore. Please do something.”

  “We’ll look into it,” Jake said. “Don’t you worry about a thing. Go inside now.”

  “Thank you.” She closed the door, and they heard several locks turn.

  “What kind of people do you associate with?” Edgar said as they moved to the next stairway.

  “The lowest of the low. Notice who she spoke to first.”

  On the stairway leading to the third floor, the dull throb of rap music filled their ears, and they stopped talking.

  At their destination, Jake pressed a doorbell and then banged on a gray metal door. “Police!”

  The music stopped, and they heard frantic footsteps and shuffling inside. When the door opened, a skull with dead gray flesh and bulging eyes stared out at them.

  Jake recoiled. The last time he had seen Lester “AK” Dilson, the small-time drug dealer pretending to be big-time, he had been well toned. Now he looked emaciated.

  Black Magic, Jake thought.

  AK appeared just as surprised by Jake’s appearance. “I thought you said you was police.”

  “Show him your shield,” Jake said to Edgar, who complied.

  AK’s eyes darted to Edgar’s gold shield like a pair of scurrying cockroaches. Then they returned to Jake. “Whatchoo want?” His voice sounded like gravel.

  “Just to talk to you. Inside.”

  “You got a warrant?”

  Jake pushed the door open wider. “I don’t need one. I’m not a cop anymore, remember?”

  AK backed up, and Edgar followed Jake into the apartment and closed the door behind them.

  The apartment was smaller than Jake remembered. Garbage littered the floor, and dirty dishes overflowed in the small kitchen’s sink. The coffee table in the living room looked conspicuous because it was the one clean spot in the room, as if AK had just cleared it off. The place reeked of cigarette smoke.

  Jake wanted to retch. “What happened to your maid?”

  “Who you talking about?”

  “That girl who was staying with you the last time I was here. Pretty blonde on her way down.”

  AK blinked at Jake, who felt a strange sadness. The wannabe gangsta’s mind was so far gone he didn’t even remember the young girl whose life he had no doubt ruined less than a year ago.

  “Why don’t you just tell me what you want, so you can get the fuck outta my crib?”

  “Easy, Lester, easy. This won’t take long. You still in the game?”

  AK’s face scrunched up, a mixture of disbelief and disgust. “You crazy? What game? You can’t find no more coke or heroin in this town, just Magic. Anyone dealing the old-school shit gets dead.”

  “Why aren’t you selling Magic?” Because you’re sure as hell using it.

  “You wouldn’t understand.” He looked at Edgar. “Either of you.”

  “Try us.”

  “You ever see the things slinging Magic? They’re not alive.”

  You should qualify for employment soon enough. “What do you mean?”

  “You want me to spell it out for you? All right, I will. They’re motherfucking zombies.”

  The word on the street. How long before NYPD figures this out? “You’re a very astute observer, Lester.”

  “Stop calling me that.” His voice took on a hard quality that chilled
Jake’s blood.

  “Don’t threaten me. There’s two of us, and you look like you only weigh a hundred pounds. I doubt you’d survive a good beat down.”

  AK focused on Edgar, as if trying to read him.

  Jake snapped his fingers close to AK’s face. “Hey, I’m the one talking to you. We need to do some business.”

  AK snorted. “What kind of business? You looking to buy some blow? I already told you there isn’t any, so go shake down someone else.”

  Jake’s chilled blood started heating up. He had wondered how long it would take before AK revealed to Edgar the nature of his relationship with Jake. “I don’t want any blow. I don’t do that anymore. What I need is information, just like in the old days, back on the Aves.”

  “What kind of information?”

  “I’m looking for someone who deals Magic.”

  “Shit, you don’t need me for that. They’re all over the city. Just look for the dead guys pretending they’re still alive.”

  “I’m looking for a particular hopper, but he’s disappeared.”

  AK snatched a pack of Newports off the coffee table and lit a cigarette. “If your hopper’s gone, he’s gone. Ain’t no finding him.”

  “These things can’t go home to their families at night, so they have to be holed up somewhere.”

  AK sucked on his cigarette. “I thought I heard you say ‘business.’“

  Removing his wallet from his back pocket, Jake took out a twenty-dollar bill.

  “You want me to drop a dime on the biggest, deadliest operation in this city for twenty bucks? You better learn your multiplication table fast.”

  Jake took out a fifty-dollar bill. “Seventy will buy you enough Magic to keep you going for a couple of days.”

  AK’s eyes dilated at the sight of Jake’s money. “That’s what you think.”

  Jake knew he had him. “Take it or leave it.”

  AK started breathing faster. “What you planning to do at the front office?”

  “None of your business.”

  A sigh that sounded more like a wheeze escaped from AK’s lips. “Hunts Point. You want an abandoned factory on Garrison Avenue. But trust me: you won’t be coming back.”

  Jake hid his elation at this revelation. AK reached for the bills in his hand, and he held the money beyond his reach. “Who’s behind this operation?”

  AK’s lips parted, and his eyes turned wild. “You trying to get me killed?”

  “You’re doing a good enough job of that all by yourself.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bullshit. You know the name of whoever squeezed you out of business. You want this money? Give us a name. You want to get high? Then give us a name.”

  AK seemed to draw in on himself, shrinking, becoming even skinnier. “Malachai. You want Prince Malachai.”

  FIFTEEN

  Gary parked the department’s SUV in front of Frank’s Bay Ridge, Brooklyn apartment building. Riding the elevator to the fifth floor of the immense pre—World War II building, Gary steadied his partner.

  Inside the cluttered apartment, Frank made a beeline for his bedroom. Gary closed and locked the door. One minute later, Frank emerged sniffling with white powder under his nose. He appeared very much relieved, as if his gunshot wound didn’t matter.

  “Help yourself.” Frank nodded at the bedroom.

  “No, thanks.” One of us has to stay clearheaded. “Let’s go look at that wound in the kitchen. You’re bleeding all over everything.”

  Frank looked down at the blood drops on the blue carpet. “Oh, fuck. I’m going to kill those cocksuckers for sure.”

  In the green and yellow kitchen, Gary flicked on the overhead light and pulled out a chair for Frank, who sat facing the chair’s back. Gary dabbed at the exit wound below Gary’s shoulder blade with a wet paper towel, which soaked up the blood from the penny-sized hole.

  Frank groaned, snorted coke, then moaned.

  You sick fuck, Gary thought. “I don’t suppose you got any disinfectant in the house or gauze bandages?”

  “What are you, kidding?”

  “That’s what I thought.” Grabbing a bottle of Bacardi from the counter, Gary unscrewed the cap. This is going to hurt you a lot more than it is me. Without warning, he poured the alcohol over the wound.

  Screaming, Frank wrapped his arms around the chair. “Oh, Jesus! Jesus Christ! I’m gonna kill those cocksuckers. That bitch, too.”

  Gary pressed a Band-Aid over the wound, and it immediately turned red. “Who was she?” He put another Band-Aid over the first one.

  “Beats me. But she was a real looker. Malachai threw her into the truck and turned around to face the music. Who says chivalry’s dead?”

  And you still managed to miss him, Gary said. I’m beginning to think I need a new partner in crime and law. But what to do with the one he already had? “Turn around.”

  Frank rose and faced him.

  Looking his partner in the eye, Gary poured rum over the entry wound.

  Frank snorted coke and glared at his partner. “You’re enjoying this,” he said.

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” But he really did enjoy seeing Frank in pain.

  “Okay, so I fucked up. Maybe you should have been down there with me. It was three against one, you know.”

  He’s right. “I’m not blaming you. It was a difficult situation. Right now, we have to worry about stitching you up.”

  “You don’t look like a seamstress.”

  Gary took out his cell phone. “You’re an excellent judge of character.”

  “Who you gonna call?”

  “Our friend, the doctor.”

  “Metivier? He costs a fortune. Who’s gonna pay for that?”

  Gary frowned. “I insist that we split the cost.”

  Frank beamed. “You’re all heart, partner.”

  Gary’s cell phone rang in his hand, startling him. Checking the display, he did not recognize the number. His stomach tightened. He never recognized the number when Papa Joe called him because Joe and his lieutenants used burners: disposable cell phones. “Hello?”

  “I just saw a disturbing news report on TV,” Joe said without identifying himself.

  The uncomfortable feeling in Gary’s stomach worsened. “There’s never any good news these days.”

  “Ain’t that the truth? There was a shoot-out in the parking garage of a luxury apartment building on Roosevelt Island called The Octagon. Maybe you know the one I’m talking about.”

  “I think I do.”

  “Security cameras recorded two vehicles leaving the scene. One of them was registered to an ex-con named Laird Black, whose street name is Six Pack. There’s an APB out for him now.”

  “If the police are looking for this guy—”

  “—then his boss will likely take him out of the game. Exactly what I was thinking. The most disturbing part of all this is that no bodies were found in that garage.”

  Gary ran one hand across his brow. “I guess things didn’t go as the shooter had planned.”

  “One shooter? I thought there might have been two.”

  “You said there were two vehicles, right? One belonging to the target, the other to the shooter. I assume each car had its own driver.”

  “I’ll call you right back.” He hung up.

  Gary powered down his phone and slid it into its holder. Then he held out his hand, and Frank took out his cell phone and handed it to him. A moment later, that phone rang, and a different number appeared on the display. “Yeah?”

  “Sounds like a real botched job,” a new voice said.

  Chess, Papa Joe’s right hand. “I have to agree.”

  “That royal pain in the ass knows he’s in trouble now. If he was hard to find before, he’ll be impossible to find now.”

  “I understand.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that there’s a million-dollar bounty on his head.”

  Oh, shit! “That would turn the five boroughs
into one big shooting gallery.”

  “It is what it is.” The line went dead.

  Gary handed the phone back to Frank, who said, “What?”

  “Papa Joe just put out a million-dollar bounty on Malachai’s head.”

  Frank raised his eyebrows. “What? Jesus!”

  “Joe’s running scared. He knows that Malachai knows who sent us after him. That means Malachai’s gunning for Joe.”

  Frank shrugged. “He always was. It was just a matter of time.”

  Gary’s mind raced. “We need to find Malachai again and take him out.”

  “You won’t catch me arguing about collecting a million-dollar bounty.”

  “No, we need to take him out and forget about the bounty.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Joe and Malachai are the only drug lords left in this city. We work for Joe. If Malachai does him, we’re out of work.”

  “Unless we take out Joe for Malachai,” Frank said in an ice-cold voice.

  Gary stared at his partner. What are you thinking in that coked-up brain of yours, little man? You just spent the last hour telling me you’d kill Malachai for free. “We know Joe. We can deal with him. As I see it, no one can trust Malachai. Switching teams would be a big mistake.”

  “Yeah, whatever. I need some more blow.”

  Gary refrained from shaking his head as his partner headed to the bedroom.

  A minute later, he heard Frank screaming for his life.

  Frank strolled into his bedroom, where he kept his stash hidden in a bureau drawer. Sometimes Gary really pissed him off. They were partners, which meant Frank had a say in what they did whether Gary had seniority in the department or not.

  Opening his favorite drawer, he removed the bag of cocaine and the plate with his works. He spooned coke onto the plate, chopped it with a razor blade, and snorted two lines with a half straw. Damn, that was good shit! Massaging residual powder into his gums, he considered that if the street situation continued on its current path, pretty soon coke would become completely impossible to find in New York. He could only fly on what they’d stolen from the bakery for so long.

  Fuck it. I’ll fly to Miami if I have to. Hell, if it came down to it, he’d join Miami PD and drive around town in a cool car like Don Johnson on Miami Vice. To hell with New York. Manhattan was crawling with zombies and scarecrows anyway.