The man who yanked the back door open must’ve approached from the rear because she had not seen him. She felt the large shadow present in the car about the same time he levered the gun at Chez’s head. She spun around. A large yellow hand was clamped around Chez’s mouth. His eyes were a speckled gray, as if they’d been doused with ashes.
“Scream and her brain is dog food,” he said.
There was no snarl on his face, no bark in his voice. In fact, his demeanor was so calm you’d think he had come to invite them to a meditation workshop at the Healing Center around the corner.
She couldn’t have screamed even if he hadn’t ordered her not to. Her voice was caught up in her throat, entangled with briars of fear. Chez’s eyes were frozen stiff in shock.
He massaged Chez’s temple with the shiny gun. “Drive.”
Anais remained paralyzed in that position. She couldn’t turn around. She couldn’t take her eyes off Chez’s face.
“Drive,” he said again.
Still hadn’t raised his voice. Soft and almost polite as before. How could a man so ugly not have hidden fangs? How could a man so vile as to put a gun to a child’s head and threaten to kill her not have a snarl?
But as much as she wanted to obey him she couldn’t move.
“Drive, bitch!”
There was the evil snarl she expected. Just like in the movies it activated her motor neurons. And her voice came back.
“Who’re you?” Her voice was unrecognizable to her. She was wheezing.
A smile broke out at the chapped corners of his fat red lips. “Call your husband. I’m sure he remembers me.”
“What do you want?” Anais begged.
“I want you to drive the fucking car. Now!”
She turned around, away from the scream of his face, away from the shock in Chez’s eyes. Away from the reality of danger but smack up against the prospects conjured in her mind by fear. Were they going to die?
She jerked the ignition key but the SUV’s engine refused to kick, as if it somehow knew it would be transporting illegitimate cargo. But the BMW’s dalliance would only be temporary. It was too sophisticated a machine to suffer engine failure, especially one inspired by its owner’s fear. The engine spurted; she slid the car into drive.
He directed her to the BQE; they drove south then east for an hour. He remained quiet throughout, giving her time to collect her scattered emotions. Perhaps he wasn’t going to kill them after all. But what did he want?
Somewhere heading east on the Long Island Expressway he asked for her cell phone and asked for my number. She unhooked it from her belt and handed it to him.
After he rang off he leaned back and laughed. “If your husband loves you as much as he hates me you’re a lucky woman.”
She didn’t answer, glancing into the rearview mirror to see if Chez was okay. That stricken look had not left Chez’s eyes.
He opened the bag she’d placed on the backseat and after rummaging around got hold of the bar of chocolate. “Ah, chocolate.” He read the label. “European, eh? I must say you have good taste for a nigger.”
He stripped the wrapper away and bit off two nuggets of the dark bar. His tiny eyes lit up. “Have you ever tried Korkunov? You’d like that one.”
He offered chocolate to Chez, who just stared at him. He shrugged and bit off another chunk, bopping his head as he hummed a tune, his eyes boring into Chez.
“You have a family?” She spoke to distract him, to get his focus away from Chez.
“No. I’m too ugly to find a wife,” he said, laughing in a self-deprecating way. “But this is America. Money can buy anything you want. Even a wife.”
“You have an accent. Where’re you from?”
“Just drive the fucking car. Where I’m from is of no importance to you.” He turned to Chez. “What’s your name?”
“Where’re we going?” Anais said quickly.
“We’re just out for a drive like a happy American family.”
In the rearview mirror she could see him staring at Chez.
“You’re a very pretty girl,” he said to Chez.
“Do you like America?” Anais interrupted.
He chuckled. “I hate America. You people don’t know how to enjoy life. You think you own the world. You have too much of everything. You can’t appreciate life that way. It’s all too easy. You know how to spend money, but you don’t know how to enjoy life. You don’t even know the meaning of life.”
“People enjoy life better in your country, I suppose.”
“Of course. They have less money, but they know how to enjoy life. Russian girls are happier back home than they are in America. You know why? Because they can be women in Russia. They come over here and they want to be like men. Women weren’t made to be like men.”
“Is that where you’re from? Russia?”
He opened the window and stuck his head out and screamed at the wind rushing by. When he pulled his head back inside his eyes were ragged-looking, no nuance whatsoever about the stupid look on his face, his mouth slack as a wilted flower.
“I used to have a family,” he said with a sibilant slur.
“What happened to them?”
“What do you think?” He laughed. “You are so stupid. You Americans with your optimism. You want the whole world to think like you. And when they don’t you bomb them. And you think you’re so rational. You can’t figure me out, so stop trying.”
“Is it irrational for me to think that only a man with a lonely heart could do what you’re doing, or what you plan to do?”
“I did it for years. Somebody did it to my family.”
“Somebody killed your family?”
He stared at Chez. “She doesn’t look like you. My daughter looked like me.”
“How were they killed? Was it in a war?”
“It doesn’t matter. My wife is dead. My daughter is dead. And I will kill you and your daughter if your husband doesn’t hand over my stuff. It’s not personal.”
EVENING HAD slithered away into the Long Island Sound by the time he instructed her off the Expressway and through a small fishing town. There weren’t any noticeable landmarks, and having spent little time on Long Island, Anais had no idea where she was.
They drove along a narrow gravel road up to a small cottage. He made her park next to a wooden shed behind the house and ordered her to wait in the car while he got out, lifting Chez out with him, his thick arm around her waist. The minute he touched Chez she started crying. The distraction gave Anais time to open her bag and position the .25 within easy grasp. When he opened the driver’s door for her after putting Chez on the ground, she hooked the handbag over her arm and got out, staring into his eggshell-colored eyes. She was still scared but now she had a plan.
In single file he marched them up to the cottage. There he handed her a key to unlock the door. His fingers were short and thick and he was missing his pinkie finger on the left hand. The chug of a motorboat beat the silence into submission, the wind icy on her face. She could see a fire growing in the distance beyond the black flat body of water reflecting lights from houses around.
There was hardly any furniture inside. A few broken down chairs and little else. The air was musty; the odor of old unwashed socks that had been locked away for months filling the house. He herded them into a bedroom and flicked on the light on the wall.
He said, “You can relax in here. Don’t try to open the window. We’ll call your husband again in fifteen minutes to see if he’s ready to make a deal.”
He closed the door. She listened to his footsteps retreating until there was silence. Chez was still crying and Anais drew her close. Besides the unmade bed, the tiny bedroom only held a small mirror on a bureau.
“Shhh! It’s gonna be okay.” She smoothed Chez’s hair, leveling it around her face. “Sit on the bed.”
She waited until Chez was sitting on the bed, then she drew a deep breath. Her heart was pounding. Her mouth was dry and hot. Opening her bag
she took out the .25-caliber pistol and hid it behind her back. She went to the window and banged on it with her handbag until it shattered.
He came storming into the room.
She fired.
He fell to the floor.
Grasping Chez by the hand she stepped over him and flew from the house. In the BMW she wasted no time with seat belts, locking the door as soon as they were inside. She powered the SUV through the gravel, spitting up a white cloud of dust and noise, refusing to look behind her until she was already speeding along the tiny street leading to a ramp onto the highway.
Half a mile down the highway she saw a Nassau County police cruiser heading her way.
Flashing her emergency lights and honking her horn, she managed to draw their attention. She didn’t want to go back, but the police needed her to show them the location of the cottage since she hadn’t been alert enough to log street names in her memory.
When they got there Parkoff was gone.
THIRTY-EIGHT
w hat do you mean he was gone?” I exclaimed. “Didn’t you shoot him?”
“I think so. He fell down.”
“How close were you when you fired?”
“About ten feet.”
“Are you sure you hit him?”
“Jesus, Blades, I don’t know. I didn’t have time to check for exit wounds.”
“I’m sorry, honey.” I took her in my arms.
“I’m just happy to be alive.”
I closed my eyes and held her, trying to blot out the wolves howling in the dark behind my eyes, trying to stir visions of her smile, but all I saw were Parkoff’s lizard eyes. I kissed her neck and tasted the salt of her fear. I imagined it was his blood.
“I’m going upstairs to look in on Chez,” I said. “Then I’m going out again. I won’t be back until I know that fucker is dead.”
The police sergeant creased his weathered face and folded his lips inward. “We can’t let you do that, Mr. Overstreet.”
“Can’t let me do what, Sergeant?”
A tortured smile got trapped at the corner of his bloodless lips as he frowned. “You’ve just threatened to kill a man. That could get you arrested.”
I stood erect, a head taller than he was, and smiled. “I didn’t threaten to kill anybody. I said I wouldn’t be back until I know he’s dead.”
I FOUND Chez fast asleep. Tempted to wake her though I was, the sight of her so calm and relaxed after her ordeal tempered my desire to hold her in my arms. As I was about to leave the room, Anais entered. She came directly to me, enclosed me in her arms, and began to sob.
“It’s going to be all right, baby,” I reassured.
She clung to me as if she was drowning and I was a lifeboat. “I’ve never felt anything like that in my life,” she wailed.
“It’s over now.”
“I can still see his eyes. I can still smell him.”
I held her, doing my best to absorb the fury of her shock, unable to find any words to take away her pain.
She stepped away from me, wiping her eyes with long slender fingers. “Please don’t go out tonight.”
“The police will be guarding the house. You’ll be safe.”
“Blades, I need you tonight.”
“I’m here.” I bowed my head.
ANAIS TOOK two sleeping pills and was knocked off her feet by 12:30. I called Captain Doyle. Parkoff hadn’t shown up at any hospital. I suspected the bullet might’ve grazed his head, stunning him briefly, but nothing more. I looked out the bedroom window. A police cruiser sat outside. I got dressed, checked the clip in my gun, stuffed it in my waist, and went downstairs to get my jacket. I found my father playing chess with himself in the kitchen.
He looked up when I entered the room. “How’s Anais?”
“Laid out like a corpse. Where were you today? I called here and nobody answered the phone.”
He leaned back against the chair. “I don’t like that tone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I spent the day with your mother.”
“Really?”
“Really. We had a nice long talk.”
“About?”
“Things. Life. Death.”
“Death?”
“It’s all around us these days. Can’t you see? And you? Where’re you going?”
I buttoned my jacket but said nothing.
“You’re going out to hunt that man, aren’t you?” he said.
“What would you have me do, Pop? Run and hide?”
“One day I hope you forgive me for running away,” he said quietly.
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Stop trying to be so goddamn tough, Carmen.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know this person you’re trying to be. That’s not you. That’s you trying to not be me.”
“You gave up the right to talk like you know me.”
His eyes fell back to the chessboard. When he lifted them again they held ingots of pain. I could see the effort in his face to mask the anger. He stood up. “Yes, I ran away. But I never stopped loving you. You wanna be a tough guy? Stay home with your wife.”
I walked toward the door, lifting my keys out of my pocket and twirling them on my finger. Sour bile surged up to my throat and I felt a burning in my stomach. I knew what it was but tonight I would ignore it. Let my stomach burn. The only thing that could settle my stomach was removing Parkoff’s stench and the nightmare of his soulless eyes from my wife’s consciousness.
MY FIRST STOP was an all-night deli on Flatbush where I got two packs of Big Red. It’d been awhile since I’d felt like this: armed, a little crazed, a hunter with a cause. It’d been a long time since I chewed Big Red, the gum that kept me company on long stakeouts when I was a narco. Somewhere in the pith of my consciousness I knew I should’ve felt ashamed for getting so amped about this hunt. Any rational thinking person would. But I’d lost patience with rationalism; sometimes being an animal was less taxing on the brain.
I’d always thought that my brother’s drug addiction and the sight of him buying drugs in the park on Fourth Avenue was what spurred me into the NYPD. My thinking was that if I could get rid of all the drug dealers then my brother would be safe. Of course, experience quickly snuffed out those romantic notions. It became clear that keeping drugs off the street was a Sisyphean task and my job became more about the chase, outwitting and outthinking the dealers. It became more about inflicting pain and punishment on barbaric men and women who didn’t care who they hurt in their thirst for money than about bringing them before the courts, because we knew that there, justice didn’t always prevail. We were sometimes brutal, often looking the other way if a member of the team decided that thumping on a suspect was more efficient than arresting him. I thought I’d put that savage life behind me. But this adrenaline rush I was getting told me I was a long way from being cured. I’d been living a big lie. Out here, in the bleakness of this cavernous New York night, armed to kill under a sky that sprouted ghosts, I somehow felt freer than I’d ever felt.
My jaws pumping relentlessly, I funneled my wife’s SUV through the hollow darkness of Red Hook’s silent streets, refusing to let my dark mood be subdued by the constant swooshing of traffic sailing along at high speeds on the elevated Gawanus Expressway.
Popping another fresh stick of gum into my mouth, I parked under a broken streetlamp on Dikeman half a block away from the house River and I had searched earlier. I hadn’t told the FBI nor the police about this house.
A hooded bowlegged youth came toward me walking a white pit bull on a long leash. I let them pass, then turned my head to watch until they were out of sight before stepping out of the truck. Sliced in half by a batch of wandering black clouds the silvery moon sailed high above as I crept up to the house. I was calm, in control of my emotions now. Big Red had worked its magic on me.
The house was still bathed in darkness. I tested the door. It was still unlocked, the way we’d left it. I sus
pected that Parkoff wasn’t there but I rang the bell anyway. No response from inside.
I stepped back onto the linen of dirt on the lawn.
AN HOUR LATER I was running out of gum. My mind began to fill up with scenarios that I had no way of certifying. Parkoff could be dead. Or there might be another safe house somewhere that River didn’t know about. Maybe he’d decided to leave the city. I popped my last piece of gum and resolved to wait until daybreak. My Glock lay on the seat. The cold was beginning to get to me.
ABOUT THREE-THIRTY my phone rang.
“Blades, where’re you?” It was Kraw.
“In my bed.”
“Don’t lie to me. Are you stalking Parkoff?”
“That’s your job, isn’t it?” I said sarcastically.
“Yes, it is. And you can stuff that sarcasm up your ass. Where’s she?”
“Gotta go.”
I hung up the phone because headlights from a vehicle that had just turned the corner illuminated my car. Lowering my head out of sight I waited for the vehicle to pass. After it went by I inched up until I could see without showing my full head. The black Jeep slowed down then turned, chugging to a stop in the driveway of Parkoff’s house. I hefted the Glock off the seat. It was warm and comforting in my hand.
As soon as the driver killed the Jeep’s lights I got out of my car. Glock in hand, in a deep crouch beneath the visual plane of the occupants, I darted up to the rear of the vehicle.
With my back pressed to the Jeep’s skin I checked to see if anything or anyone else was coming down the block. Slowly, I rose up enough to peer into the truck. I made out one head: the driver. It appeared that he was alone, but I couldn’t tell if it was Parkoff. Adrenaline surged through my veins.
Heart racing.
Chest tightening.
A dog after a bitch in heat.
For a second I felt light-headed. Taking deep puffs of cold air to water down the thick adrenaline rush, I waited for the driver to get out.
I heard the door open. This I knew would activate the roof-light of the car, so I quickly bobbed my head up hoping it’d be enough to get a look at the driver. It was Parkoff. I glanced quickly around the edge of the taillights to see his dark clad leg land on the running board. Gripping the gun firmly with two hands I slid around the black skin of the Jeep just as Parkoff finished donning his cap. His legs were out of the Jeep but his body leaned inside.
Love and Death in Brooklyn Page 27