I pulled the shades and kicked off my shoes and stretched out. I thought some more about my conversation with Helene, and about calling Mike, and somewhere in there I drifted off. Despite my weariness, or maybe because of it, my sleep was tiring and fevered. I tossed and turned and got tangled in the sheets and pillows. I came near to waking several times, and when I did I was sweating. My eyes were hot, and my throat felt parched and dusty. I willed myself back down. At some point I had the dream again, or a version of it. It was by the lake and Anne was there, but so was Helene Pierro and someone else, whose face I couldn’t see. I was calling out to . . . someone, when the doorbell woke me.
It was dark out, just six p.m., according to my clock. I rubbed my face and my head. I went into the bathroom and drank cold water from the tap. The bell rang again. I splashed water on my face and took some deep breaths. Then I went to the door, flicking on lights as I walked. I looked through the peephole. Jane Lu. I opened the door and Jane smiled at me, but her smile turned into a frown as she surveyed the latest damage.
“This is ridiculous,” she said. “How can you get any health insurance?” She wore a charcoal gray pants suit with a bolero jacket, and underneath it a square-necked blouse in pearl gray. Her boots were black suede with a square heel. She held two paper bags in her arms. The delicious smell of Chinese food hit me, and my stomach made a longing noise. Hunger chased away my grogginess.
“Come in,” I yawned. “We can talk about my health plan after we eat.” I turned into the apartment, and as I did there were fast footsteps in the hallway. I turned back and saw a dark figure there, and Jane lurched forward and staggered into my arms. Her packages scattered. Evan Mills locked the door and pointed my gun at my face.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Mills may have been an amateur when he started with Trautmann, but he’d been an apt pupil. He made us turn around, and then he grabbed a handful of Jane’s hair and screwed the gun barrel up under her chin. He made me lie on the floor, with my hands behind me. He made Jane put the cuffs on me. They were plastic again, thumb cuffs this time. Jane knelt by me, and I could hear her ragged breathing, and smell her perfume, and feel the heat coming off of her. She was trembling badly. When she finished, he made her lie on the floor too. Then he tightened my cuffs and cuffed her. Then he sat us both on the sofa. He worked quickly and said maybe ten words the whole time.
We sprawled uncomfortably back on the sofa and he stood before us and we all looked at each other. The air was thick with fear, adrenaline, and the sound of hard breathing. My heart was hammering, shaking my body, and my ears were full of pounding blood. I concentrated on breathing slowly and deeply, on driving my heart rate down, and I saw that Mills was doing the same. Jane’s eyes were large, and they darted back and forth between Mills and me. She was still shaking, though not as much now. Her body was rigid, and her mouth was a tight, angry line. But I saw that she, too, had wrestled her breathing under control—slow, deep, in through the nose, out through the mouth.
Mills wore the same clothes as he had yesterday—the black slacks, the navy sweater over a yellow shirt—but the overcoat was gone, replaced by a bulky black parka. The look was less aging preppy now than speed freak, amped out and coming down off a weeklong jag. He was wrinkled and sodden and grimy—like he’d slept in an ashtray, though he probably hadn’t slept at all. His face was skeletal and unshaven, and there was lots of gray in the stubble around his chin. His hair was dark and matted. There were burns on his dirty hands and a strong smell of smoke around him.
The skin under his eyes was gray with fatigue, but the eyes themselves were wired and scary. They roiled with a crazy mix of fear, anger, brutal exhaustion, some of the furious calculation I’d seen last night, and . . . something else. Something that was over the edge and around the bend, something that had slipped its moorings and drifted way out of the harbor. Something that came from putting two bullets in a man and finding that you liked it and that you were looking for a chance to do it again. When I spoke, I did it softly and slowly.
“They’ve got nothing on you. Zero. Trautmann was self-defense, and no one will say anything different. He was going to do you; that was clear to me, and it’s what I told the cops. They were surprised to find him in that basement instead of you. As for the blackmail—that’s up in smoke. There’s no proof, and none of the victims will say a word. Get yourself the right lawyer and you walk away clean on this,” I said.
Mills looked at me and smiled a little. He took a deep breath and walked into my kitchen. He put the gun down on the counter and peeled off his parka and tossed it on the counter too. He worked his neck and stretched his arms and shook them out, like a broad jumper limbering up. He ran his hands through his dirty hair, pushing it back behind his ears. He unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and pushed his sleeves up over his wiry forearms and washed his hands and face in my sink. He dried them with a paper towel that he balled up and tossed on the counter. He took another deep breath and looked around the place and nodded appreciatively. Then he picked up the gun and came around the counter and hit me two times in the face with it.
He was strong, but he was sloppy and not that fast, so I could roll a little with the blows. On the other hand, I was bound and lying nearly prone, so I couldn’t roll much. It hurt like hell. The barrel raked my cheek and my ear, and my head somehow ended up in Jane’s lap. I heard her cry out and felt her start to shake again. I knew I was bleeding on her. Mills grabbed my shoulder and hoisted me back up and started talking.
“Do you know how long I put up with that Neanderthal? How long I had to listen to his ravings and his insults and his bullying and his stupid fucking nicknames? Almost three years, John. Almost three years of that shit. And do you know how hard I worked? I mean, it’s not like it was all laid out for us. It took research. I had to study those files, figure out what scam Nassouli had going with each of those people, figure out where they all were today, how much they were worth, how much they had at stake. And all the while listening to that ape-man grunting in the background.”
He paced slowly in front of me, gesturing casually with the gun. His voice was calm, almost distracted, but his eyes were weird and frantic. He’d liked hitting me, and a part of him was thinking about that.
“I worked hard, and I put up with a lot of crap, and that’s not even counting my day job. But all that’s behind me, now. I’m a rich man, John. You don’t know what it feels like, becoming rich, do you? From what Bernie said, you’ve always been rich. But I’ll tell you, it’s very . . . liberating. You think I’m going to give that up? Your bullshit isn’t even convincing.” He paused and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I know DiPaolo, and I know Pell. I know how hungry they are. And even if they did let go of this, you think my masters at Parsons and Perkins would? Not likely. Best case, I’m stuck in civil court for the rest of my life, hocking my underwear to pay the lawyers. No thanks.” He thought for a moment, and gave us a conspiratorial look.
“Besides, the cops will eventually find a delivery guy in Cobble Hill with no coat and a hole in his head, and the bullet they dig out of him will match what they pull out of Bernie. And after that they’ll have something on me, don’t you think?” I heard Jane inhale sharply, and then there was quiet. Shit.
“Why aren’t you on your way out of town?” I asked after a while. Mills looked at me sharply, less distracted now.
“Well, you’re kind of the reason for that, John. You kind of fucked that up for me, big time. When you torched Bernie’s place, you torched my plane tickets and all my traveling cash too. And what do I find when I go back to my apartment? Why, cops, of course. And at my garage too, so I can’t even get my goddamned car out. And I can’t very well use my credit cards, now can I? Even I know that. So I figured you could help me out a little, John. I figured you could make up for all the trouble you caused and give me a hand getting to Miami. We can start with the couple of thousand that went up the chimney, and a change of clothes
and the keys to your car and . . .”—he looked at Jane and wiggled his eyebrows theatrically—“and then we’ll see what else comes to mind.” Shit. Shit. Shit. Mills went to the kitchen counter and took a seat, the same one Helene had used. He hitched his arm over the back and crossed his legs, gesturing with the gun in his hand.
“Yes, I could use a little R and R before I run down south. I did a lot of wandering last night, all over town—Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan. Quite a journey—very gritty, very noir, very Charles Bukowski. A real dark night of the soul. I never realized how busy the subway is, even late at night. But I was surprised, how little cash people carry these days—or maybe it was just my bad luck. That delivery guy was my best, and he had maybe three hundred bucks, plus the coat. Of course, he made me work for it. He . . .”
The telephone rang like a grenade, once, twice, three times before it went to voice mail. Mills looked at me, more figuring going on in his head. Who was it? Would they call again? How long before they got worried? How long before someone knocked on the door? He got up and flexed his shoulders.
“First things first,” he said.
He made us lie on the bathroom floor while he took a leak and showered and shaved. My bathroom isn’t small, but even so it was cramped with the three of us in there, and the forced intimacy with Mills—the proximity of his white, hairless body, and his smell, and the sounds he made—was bizarre and repellent. I was filled with a sudden rage when he picked through my medicine cabinet, and I had to stop myself straining at the cuffs. Jane had grown very still. Her body was relaxed and her breathing was like clockwork, but her face was immobile and her eyes remote. I spoke to her softly while Mills was in the shower and we lay on the floor, our faces against the tile.
“I’m glad I had the cleaning lady in this week,” I said. She looked at me, but before she could speak, Mills kicked me in the head with a wet foot.
“Shut the fuck up, John.”
He made us lie on the floor in my bedroom while he rifled my closets. He put on a pair of corduroys and a button-down shirt. He was taller than me, and skinny, but they fit well enough. The shower and the fresh clothes made him look cleaner but not better. Staring out from his shaven face, his eyes looked somehow more crazy. He marched us out to the sofa and pushed us down on it again. He stood before us, tapping his bare foot.
“Cash,” he said. He looked at me, expectantly.
“There’s a hundred or so in my wallet, on the counter, and maybe three hundred in my top dresser drawer. If you want more than that, we need to go to a cash machine,” I said.
“I’m sure you’d love to make that trip, huh?” He looked at Jane. “What about you?” She turned toward him, but seemed to look right through him.
“There are two hundred dollars in my bag,” she said. Her voice was dead flat. He looked at her a while and nodded. He picked up her purse and looked through it. He pocketed the cash and put her cell phone on the counter. He looked at her driver’s license photo and back at Jane.
“It doesn’t do you justice,” he said. Shit. Then he went into the bedroom and came back quickly with a wad of cash.
“Six hundred twenty-seven dollars total. Not great, but a start,” he said. He looked at me. “Car keys.”
“I don’t own a car,” I said slowly. Mills’s pale face grew paler, and his wide, thin mouth twitched. He backhanded me with the gun. I saw it coming and flicked my head back, but not far enough. He caught me on the eyebrow. It started to bleed.
“You just keep fucking me up here, John. How can you not own a car? It’s not like you can’t afford to keep one. What are you, too fucking cheap?” He shook his head and said something to himself. He turned to Jane. “How about you?” She looked through him and shook her head. Mills looked at her, and for a moment I thought he was going to hit her too, and my whole body tensed. But he relaxed.
“Fuck it,” he said. “A car would’ve been nice, but it could’ve been a hassle too. What I’m thinking now is maybe a bus. What do you think, John? I take the PATH to Jersey City, hop on a Jersey Transit train to Trenton, connect over to the Philly commuter line, and catch a bus from Philly to Miami. And once I’m in Miami, John, I am gone, gone, gone.” He liked the story he was telling, and he liked telling it to us. He knew the implications, and knew that we did too. He smiled, and his eyes were shiny.
“So, good company, a good night’s sleep, and an early start in the morning. That sounds like a plan to me. But first, some dinner.” He went into the kitchen and started rummaging through the refrigerator and the cabinets. He muttered to himself about the pitiful state of my larder.
I looked at Jane and smiled what I hoped was a comforting smile. She stared back at me, uncomforted. Mills was crazy, and he was getting crazier by the minute, and we both knew it. He wasn’t pretending that we could walk away from this if we just cooperated; I wouldn’t have believed him if he had. He’d killed twice and liked it, and he was going to do it again. The only questions were when, and what would come first, and would he give me any opening at all.
He took his head out of the refrigerator suddenly, as if a thought had occurred to him, and he looked over at the paper bags near the front door. White cardboard containers had spilled out of them. One had burst open, and a pile of cold sesame noodles was growing colder on the wood floor. He walked over, knelt down, picked up a few noodles in his fingers, and ate them.
“Now, this is more like it. A little dusty, but definitely more like it,” he said, chuckling.
He sat at the kitchen counter, eating from the containers with the complimentary chopsticks. He ate quickly, but he was messy. He worked his way through the food in silence, staring at us—mostly at Jane—as he ate. He wiped his mouth and threw the napkin on the counter and sighed.
“That was good. A little cold, but excellent choices. My compliments.” He nodded to Jane. She was still and distant. “Now, shall we see what the future holds?” He broke open a fortune cookie and looked at the strip of paper inside and began laughing wildly. “Oh, this is priceless—really priceless,” he cackled. He held the fortune up. “You will receive an unexpected visit,” he read. His shoulders shook and his face reddened and little tears formed in his eyes. He was becoming hysterical, and he fought to control it. After a while he won. He took a deep breath and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Must be the MSG; goes right to my head.” He focused on us again, and then on Jane. She was motionless and far, far away. “Hey, pearl of the Orient, do you ever talk? I know you’re miffed because I fucked up your cozy little evening with John-boy. Well, your honey fucked me out of a few million dollars, so you tell me, who’s worse off? But hey, maybe later we can make it up to one another, huh?” Jane gave him no reaction. He picked the gun off the counter and started tossing it lightly from one hand to the other. He was working himself up to it now. He looked at me.
“You like the inscrutable types, John? Is she a change of pace after the late Mrs. March? Hope to change your luck by changing models, maybe?” Mills paused, and said in a stage whisper, “I got a newsflash for you, pal, it’s not working.” He laughed wildly at his joke, and his laughter threatened to go over the edge again, but he pulled it back. Shit.
“It’s a pity Bernie can’t join us tonight. I know he would’ve loved this. And you made a real impression on him, John. I mean, he had a serious hard-on for you, and it just got worse when he read all that stuff about you. And of course, he always loved the ladies.” He looked at Jane, but she gave him nothing. He moved closer to her.
“And speaking of ladies, I saw the lovely and talented Helene Pierro come in and out of here this afternoon. First time I’ve seen her with clothes on; almost didn’t recognize her. Frankly, I like her better without. Very limber, and such a nice way with the language. I guess Bernie was right after all, about you working for Pierro.” He stood in front of Jane and put his hand on her shoulder, and my stomach lurched. Jane was perfectly still, her gaze beyond the horizon. He wa
s getting to it now.
“Poor Bernie. I’ll miss him in a way. He wasn’t dumb, just a little crass. But he was inventive. And let me tell you, he could’ve had quite a career in adult entertainment. Did you ever get to see his work, John? Maybe with Jane’s help I could re-create some of his more memorable moments. For your viewing pleasure, and as a sort of memorial to Bernie. I know . . .”
I didn’t see it coming, and neither did Mills. Jane was fast. Her square boot heels hammered his bare feet like pile drivers, and while the scream was still forming in his throat, she twisted back and kicked up at his crotch. The angle wasn’t great and the sofa slid, and she caught him high, just at the beltline. Mills staggered backward, his feet bloody. He brought the gun up, and I launched myself low off the sofa. I caught him in the knees and he fell back against the kitchen counter and bounced off and scrabbled out from under me. Jane did some scissor thing with her legs and flipped herself off the sofa, coming up lightly on two feet.
Mills was screaming and scrambling to his feet. He squeezed off a shot and something hot roared past my ear and whanged into an iron column behind me. I got my legs under me, and to my right I saw Jane square herself, take a half step, and launch a kick. Mills raised the gun, and I drove up and forward with everything I had and he fired. I buried my head in his sternum and felt the breath leave him and felt his feet come off the ground and I kept going—forward, forward, until I heard glass shattering, heard Mills cry out, and felt the cold night air on my face.
I leaned on my shoulder against the empty window frame. Below me, the street was still, a tableau of frozen traffic, upturned faces, and the body of Evan Mills, broken in a sea of broken glass. The only movement was the tattered window shade, brushing against my face; the only sound I heard was my own gasping. I eased myself carefully back inside.
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