by Steven Henry
“I came here to see you! The bartender said he thought you’d be in sometime this evening. I was just talking.”
“How long have you been sitting here?” Erin demanded. “What about your kids?”
“The kids are fine. Your mom’s staying over.”
“Does she know where you are?” Erin was appalled.
“No, she’s asleep, of course. It’s after midnight. Look, Erin, nothing happened. No harm done.”
“I could’ve broken that jerk’s arm,” Erin said.
“I didn’t ask you to do anything! What’s the matter with you, Erin? I wanted to come see you, see your place, how you’re living now. I thought maybe I’d finally meet this guy you’ve moved in with.”
“Where is he, anyway?” Erin wondered aloud.
She looked at Danny. The bartender had drifted to this end of the bar when the altercation had started. Now he was standing there, trying not to look like he was hovering.
“Hey, Danny, where’s Carlyle?”
“At a meeting with Evan, I think,” Danny said. “Corky’s there, too.”
“He going to be back soon?”
Danny shrugged. “Got me. Everything okay here? No trouble?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
The bartender nodded and moved off to handle other customers. Erin and Michelle were left to their own devices. Rolf, still bristling, sat next to Erin and watched the room.
“Seriously, Shelley,” Erin said. “What were you thinking? You’re a good-looking woman. You come into a place like this, late at night, by yourself, you’re going to get hit on.”
“Maybe that’s what I wanted,” Michelle said sulkily. “Maybe I just wanted to get out of the house and feel like a woman for a change, instead of a housewife. You don’t know what it’s like, Erin.”
“No, I don’t,” Erin said grimly.
“Look, if you’re ashamed of this place, or of what you do, you just have to tell me,” Michelle said.
“It’s not that,” Erin said. “It’s just… I don’t know how to explain it. You’re right, I’m not your chaperone. I just don’t want you to get into trouble.”
Then Michelle smiled suddenly, the anger draining out of her. “From what I could see, half the men in this place were ready to fight for you,” she said. “I think I’m as safe here as anywhere in New York.”
Thinking of safety made Erin wonder where Ian was. Surely he would have intervened in a fight. But then she remembered the missing Mercedes. Ian was Carlyle’s driver. They’d be together, wherever they were.
“Okay,” she said. “But remember, people are always watching. There’s some rough guys hanging around this place.”
“Ooh, adventurous,” Michelle said.
“I mean it, Shelley. Just don’t go down any back alleys with anyone.”
Michelle nodded. “Okay, okay, message received. Now, are you going to show me your new apartment or what?”
“Can we do this some other time? I’ve been working all day and I’m tired.” Erin didn’t have it in her to play hostess, not after everything that had happened.
“Fine.” Michelle pouted a little. “But don’t think you can hide this guy from me forever. Now that your mom’s met him, you’ve got no excuse.”
“I’ll introduce you,” Erin said. “We’ll set something up. Now I need to go to bed, and you probably want some sleep, too.”
“Fine,” Michelle said again. “You’re a little overprotective, has anyone ever told you that?”
“I’m a cop. What do you expect?”
Michelle gave Erin a quick hug and kiss on the cheek. Then she patted Rolf on the head, left a couple of bills on the bar, and made for the door. Erin watched her go.
Her heart froze for a second. There, standing next to the door, was Mickey Connor. The enforcer, arms crossed, was watching Michelle. Then he looked away from the other woman and met Erin’s stare.
Erin made herself look right back into Mickey’s flat, pale blue eyes, as empty as a vacant lot. How long had he been there? What had he seen? What did he know? In this world, everyone was always watching, looking for weak spots or advantages.
Erin took a deep breath. This was the world she’d chosen to live in. Still holding Mickey’s eye, she walked back to her previous place at the bar, picked up her glass, and finished her drink. The whiskey burned its way down into her belly.
“Go on and look, you son of a bitch,” she muttered through clenched teeth. “We’ll see who blinks first.”
“I hear you had a bit of excitement downstairs,” Carlyle said.
Erin tried not to jump up from the couch in the living room she was still trying to think of as hers. But it was hard. She’d told herself he met with Evan O’Malley all the time, that there was nothing to worry about, but Evan had people killed, damn it. And here it was, long after midnight. She should have been asleep hours ago, but how was she supposed to do that when her boyfriend was talking to a murderous sociopath?
She stood up and met him at the top of the stairs, giving him a smile and a kiss. “Nothing much,” she said. “Just a little misunderstanding. I handled it.”
“So I understand,” he said, returning the smile. “Danny told me.”
“What about you and Corky? Everything go all right? Does Evan suspect anything?”
“Darling, you have to stop thinking like that,” he said, taking her hands. “If you start jumping at shadows, you’ll be seeing them everywhere. Unless we know something concrete, we’ve no choice but to assume Evan doesn’t know.”
She made a face. “If he finds out, the first concrete thing could be a pair of cement shoes.”
“We don’t really do that, darling.”
“I know. It’s a figure of speech.”
“Of course he’s watching, and of course he’s suspicious,” Carlyle said. “A mathematician, a German lad called Schrödinger, said a cat could be both alive and dead at the same time. The act of observing the cat decided its fate. That’s how it goes in the Life, too. If they see the wrong thing, you die. You mustn’t let it affect you. Just remember, while they’re watching you, you’re watching them right back. Let them be nervous. It’s all part of the game.”
“Some game,” she said. “If you lose, you die.”
“Aye, that’s the way of it,” he said. “But with you, at least, I’ve a chance to win. That’s something.”
Here’s a sneak peek from Book 13: The Devil You Know
Coming 9/27/21
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Erin O’Reilly stared at the painting on the museum wall. She didn’t know much about art, though she’d once held a painting worth millions of dollars. The painting in front of her wasn’t for sale, had never been appraised. But it hung here in the Guggenheim, in the heart of Manhattan, in a place of honor, so it had to be worth something.
The artist hadn’t used the traditional oil on canvas of so many masters. This painter had opted for watercolors on some sort of heavy paper. A commentary on the impermanence of everything, even art? She’d heard Tibetan monks liked to make art out of colored sand, which blew away in the next strong wind.
Erin peered closer, trying to decipher the image. She saw eyes, big blue ones with cartoonishly enlarged curled lashes, atop a toothy grin so white it suggested very good dental care. The background was yellow, which she thought of as a happy color.
“Auntie Erin?”
Erin became aware of a tugging on the leg of her slacks. She looked down to see her niece, one hand curled into the fabric of her slacks, the other poking meditatively into the corner of her mouth.
“What’s up, kiddo?” she asked.
“I’m bored.”
Erin dropped to one knee so they were eye to eye. “Why’s that?” she asked.
“We’re in a museum,” Anna said.
“So?”
“Museums are boring.” The nine-year-old stretched the word out as far as it would go.
“Look at th
is stuff,” Erin said. “These things were all made by kids, some of them your own age. Now they’re hanging here for grown-ups to look at, just like any artist. Isn’t that neat?”
“I guess, but I’ve seen them. Now I’m bored.”
Erin smiled. She supposed the Guggenheim’s annual Year with Children exhibit was something a girl Anna’s age might soon tire of. She ruffled the kid’s hair affectionately.
“Look, you still want to be a cop when you grow up?”
“I’m going to be a detective just like you,” Anna said in tones of absolute certainty.
“You know, detectives spend a lot of time on stakeouts. Do you know what that is?”
“Yeah. When you sit in your car waiting to catch the bad guys.”
“Exactly. And do you know what we do while we wait for them?”
Anna thought about it. She shook her head.
“We just sit, usually in the dark,” Erin said. “For hours. You have to learn to be patient.”
Anna considered this. “What do you do when you have to go potty?” she asked with a pre-teen’s practicality.
“We hold it. Or we use an empty paper cup.”
“Really? Eww!” Anna wrinkled her nose. “But you can’t get out of your car for anything?”
“If we did, the bad guys might see us,” Erin explained. “So we just have to wait. Like you and I have to wait for your mom and brother.”
“But you get food while you wait, right?” Anna asked.
“Yeah, we eat in the car.”
“I want ice cream,” Anna declared.
“I haven’t got it in my pockets, kiddo,” Erin said.
“Ice cream,” Anna said again, crossing her arms. “If we’re on stakeout, I want ice cream.”
“You’re going to end up a union rep for sure,” Erin said. “They’ll like a negotiator like you. Tell you what. We’ll go looking for your mom and Patrick. When we find them, I’ll ask about the ice cream. If your mom says it’s okay, then we can have it.”
“Yaaay!” Anna said. She grabbed Erin’s hand and tugged enthusiastically.
They found Michelle O’Reilly and Patrick in the next room, in front of a display of clay sculptures that looked like fluorescent-colored dinosaurs of some sort. Patrick was trying to reach past his mother to get his hands on one of them. Michelle was trying to steer him clear of the display. So far it seemed to be a draw.
“I’ve got a vote for ice cream,” Erin announced.
“Oh, thank God,” Michelle said. “Sean wanted another kid. I should’ve talked him into a pet squirrel instead. It’d be less work. Let’s go.” Patrick, seeing her momentary distraction, tried to slip past her. Michelle, without even looking, snared him with a deft forearm and scooped him up into her arms. He wriggled, trying to escape, and she tickled him. He was soon reduced to helpless squeals.
“Motherhood, huh?” Erin said as Anna pulled her toward the exit and Michelle followed, still carrying the youngest O’Reilly.
“It’s the greatest gift a woman can have,” Michelle said. “Or so everyone keeps telling me.” But she was smiling. Michelle was a tall, strikingly attractive woman a few years older than Erin. She’d married Erin’s brother, a trauma surgeon at Bellevue Hospital, and bucked the conventional wisdom of the twenty-first century by deciding to be a housewife and mother. Today she’d spent the morning with her kids and her sister-in-law the Major Crimes detective.
“Anna got bored,” Erin explained in an undertone.
“Are you kidding? This is the most excitement I’ve had all week,” Michelle said.
“Excitement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Erin said. “Just be glad you’re not tripping over dead bodies all day.”
“It does put my life in a little perspective,” Michelle said. “My husband spends his time saving lives, his sister catches killers, and I go to PTA meetings.”
“You’ve got a couple of great kids,” Erin said.
“I know,” Michelle said, still smiling. “I guess the grass is always greener.”
It was a good couple of blocks to the nearest supermarket, on Madison Avenue, but it was a pleasant, sunny day and Anna’s energy carried them along. Erin was enjoying her day off, though she missed her partner. Her K-9, Rolf, was back at Michelle and Sean Junior’s Midtown brownstone, hopefully having a nice nap.
“How’s your boyfriend?” Michelle asked.
“He’s doing well,” Erin said. “He can get around a lot better now. They say he’s going to make a full recovery.”
It was still a little strange to be openly talking to her family about her boyfriend. She and Morton Carlyle had kept their relationship secret right until a would-be assassin had shot him in the stomach right in the middle of Erin’s living room. After that, things had gotten complicated. Carlyle was a gangster, Erin was a cop, and the two of them were trying their best to thread their way through the obstacle course their love life had become. Carlyle was ostensibly working for the NYPD now as an informant, but it would be a while before they accumulated enough evidence to move on his associates in the O’Malley mob. In the meantime, Erin figured she’d take a quiet, sunny day with the family. It beat getting shot at.
“I still need to meet him,” Michelle said.
“Soon,” Erin promised.
“I hate that word,” Anna said.
“Why?” Erin asked.
“When grown-ups use it, it means the same thing as ‘never,’” Anna said.
“Smart kid,” Erin remarked to Michelle.
Armed with Magnum ice cream bars, they emerged from the supermarket a quarter of an hour later. They started in the direction of Central Park. The plan was to get hot dogs from a cart somewhere along the way and have a picnic lunch.
“Life is uncertain,” Michelle said. “Sometimes you should eat dessert first.”
“Mommy?” Anna said in muffled tones.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, dear,” Michelle said automatically.
“Mommy, that lady looks sick,” Anna said, pointing.
“Don’t stare and don’t point,” Michelle said. “It’s rude.”
Erin, as a police officer, had different standards of etiquette than civilians. Anything out of the ordinary was worth her attention, and she didn’t care if someone thought she was staring. She followed Anna’s gesture.
A blonde woman was weaving her way along the sidewalk. Her high-heeled, knee-high boots weren’t made for stability and she kept stumbling. Her face was a ghastly smear of day-old makeup, scarlet lipstick painting a gash across her pale features. Her hair was a tangled mess of curls. Her eyes were hollow and staring, with pupils that belonged on another planet.
“She’s not sick,” Erin said quietly.
“Is she on drugs?” Anna asked loudly.
Michelle winced. But even though the blonde was less than twenty feet away, the other woman gave no sign that she’d heard.
“It’s not even noon,” Michelle muttered out of the side of her mouth. “You’d think she’d have the decency not to get hammered this early.”
Erin had seen drunk or strung-out people at every hour of the day or night. Chemical dependency didn’t operate on a nine-to-five schedule. But this woman looked harmless enough. The blonde was dressed for a wild night. Her long legs were clad in fishnet stockings that ran up under a very short miniskirt. Her halter-top was only barely decent. Even though it was a warm day, the woman was underdressed.
The blonde teetered past the O’Reillys. Then, abruptly, she swerved off the curb and stumbled into the street.
Erin’s police instincts kicked in even before the first blare of a car horn. She sprinted toward the woman without taking time to think. Her half-eaten ice cream bar fell from her hand, forgotten, and splattered on the concrete. A white panel truck laid rubber on Fifth Avenue, fishtailing and trying to swerve out of the way.
Erin grabbed the woman’s arm and yanked as hard as she could. The blonde, off-balance, tumbled toward her. They fell
back together onto the curb. Erin felt a sharp pain in her side where the concrete dug into her. The truck continued on its way with a last irritable blast of its horn.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Erin snapped.
“Sorry,” the blonde mumbled. “Couldn’t… tell… where’m I?”
“New York,” Erin said grimly, getting to her feet. She saw her family coming toward her and waved them back. “You could’ve been killed.”
“Sorry,” the woman said again, and Erin saw she was scarcely more than a girl under the caked-on makeup.
“What’s your name?” Erin asked.
“Tammy.” The girl sat on the curb and hugged her elbows.
“What are you doing out here, Tammy?”
“Looking…”
“Looking for what?”
Tammy squinted at Erin, trying to focus. “Help,” she said, shaping her lips carefully and distinctly around the word.
“You need help?” Erin asked. “It’s okay. I’m a detective. What do you need help with?”
“Not for me,” Tammy said. “For him.”
“Who?”
“Man… in the car.”
“What man? What car?”
“Nice car. Fancy.”
“Did a man in a nice car do something to you?” Erin asked. This was looking like a potential sexual assault case.
“Don’t… remember.”
“Where is the man?”
“In the car.”
“Where’s the car?”
Tammy waved her hand vaguely back the direction she’d come from.
“Were you in the car?” Erin asked.
Tammy nodded.
“Do you know this man?” Erin pressed.
“Don’t know. Don’t think so. Head… hurts.” Tammy pressed a hand against her forehead.
“Why does he need help?”
“I think… think he’s… dead.”
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