He didn’t help matters at that point. He told her he had to go out again, which was true, but he didn’t specify where. The response from Rachel consisted of a single word – ‘Fine’ – plus a door slam that seemed to say a whole lot more. Thinking about it now, Doyle realizes that it probably came across that he was simply being petulant. That he was trying to show her who was boss by storming out to seek solace elsewhere. Maybe in a bar.
Or a strip joint.
She wouldn’t see the funny side. Honey, I wasn’t avoiding the issue, okay? I just needed to visit this strip club. Yes, it had to be tonight. And no, I’m not at all interested in the girls. Is it work? Well, not exactly . . .
He hasn’t told her that he’s been taken off the job, and he prays that word doesn’t leak back to her. If it does, then the pile of shit he’s in right now will seem positively fragrant in comparison with the one that could get dumped on him tomorrow.
And it’s all thanks to Proust.
He’s good. Doyle knew that already from the Alyssa Palmer case. But what Proust has proved now is that he’s far more dangerous than Doyle ever suspected.
Doyle can understand how others are taken in by Proust. He looks so normal, so innocent. He earns a meager living from doing a job he loves. He keeps himself to himself. He’s harmless. And look what’s happened to him, the poor guy. How could anybody who is a danger to others end up looking like he does? Surely he’s the one who needs protecting?
Ah, but protecting from whom? We don’t need to look far for the answer to that one, do we? It’s obviously the cop. You know, the one who got his partner killed. The one who cheats on his wife. The one who’s been thrown off the squad. The one who’s under investigation by Internal Affairs. The one who—
‘You look like you could use some company.’
Before Doyle can answer, the voluptuous redhead is pulling out a chair and sitting next to him. He remembers her from a few minutes ago, when all she was wearing was a smile. The diaphanous robe she has put on since then makes her the most overdressed woman in this place.
‘Actually, I prefer to be alone,’ he says.
‘Sure,’ she says. ‘There are no lonely guys in here. You got all the love you need. You come in here just for the cultural experience.’
He can’t help but smile. She’s one of those people who are instantly likeable.
‘Beats the art gallery,’ he says.
‘What, even Rubens? You don’t dig plus-sized women?’
He likes the fact that she’s heard of Rubens, and he likes the fact that she can jolt preconceptions. Even people who take their clothes off for a living can be thoughtful, amusing human beings.
‘Size ain’t the issue,’ he says. ‘Personality does it for me every time.’
‘Sure,’ she says again. She gestures toward the central stage, where a blond girl who came on in a full sailor outfit is now down to a hat and a thong. ‘Those double-D personalities really are something, aren’t they?’
Doyle maintains his smile. He’d like to continue talking to this girl, especially since her presence at his table helps to bolster the illusion that he’s just another customer. But she’s also a distraction, and right now he needs to keep his mind on other things.
Like Ramone, for example, sitting just a few tables away. Doyle has waited for days to latch onto this guy, and he doesn’t want to fuck it up now. Ramone is one step further along the trail of pond life that will lead him to Anton Ruger, and he’s only got a few hours left to get to the end. If he loses Ramone then he’s screwed: Bartok will keep his promise to mail a corpse to Police HQ, and Doyle can start saying his goodbyes.
Doyle reaches into his jacket for his wallet. He knows how these things work. He will be enticed into buying a couple rounds of drinks for him and the girl, at the astronomical prices they charge here. Then she’ll invite him into one of the curtained-off areas they have for a private show, and his wallet will take a fatal wound.
‘No offense,’ he says, ‘but do you mind hitting on somebody else? Here, buy some drinks for you and the bald guy at that table over there. He looks like he hasn’t seen a naked woman since he got married.’
‘Now you’re being insulting.’
‘I thought that was pretty mild. I could tell you what I really think, but I wouldn’t want to put you off the guy. Underneath that sweat-covered, drooling exterior he’s probably a real charmer.’
‘I meant insulting to me. I didn’t come over here for your money. I came because I thought you looked interesting. Just because I’m a stripper, it doesn’t mean I can’t occasionally take an interest in people.’
Doyle nods and puts his wallet away. ‘My mistake,’ he says. Another preconception shattered.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asks.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
She studies him for a few seconds. ‘Actually, no. You’re not like the others.’
‘I’m not?’
‘No. I’ve been watching you. You’re not here for the girls. You’re more interested in that dark-haired guy at the table behind me.’
Doyle glances over the stripper’s shoulder. The man he believes to be Ramone is still at his table, talking to a brunette in a black camisole. Doyle hopes he’s not planning to spend most of the night here, and that when he leaves, it will be without the brunette.
Doyle raises his palms in mock-surrender. ‘You got me. I’m confused about my sexuality. I come to places like this so I can tell myself it’s the girls turning me on, when really—’
‘Are you going to kill him?’
Doyle’s eyes lock onto hers. He can tell she is not joking.
‘No. I only kill people on Wednesdays.’
She doesn’t smile. She believes she’s on to something.
‘You know what I think?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think one of you is gonna end up dead tonight. I hope it’s not you.’
He stares at her. She has made her prediction in the omniscient tone of a fortune teller. There’s a certainty to her words that is chilling.
She reaches across to him, and he notices there is a card in her hand that he is sure wasn’t there a moment ago. With what she’s wearing, he wonders where she’s been keeping it.
‘Call me sometime,’ she says. ‘If you live.’
As soon as he takes the card from her, she gets up and swishes her hips over to the bar. Doyle slips the card into his pocket without even glancing at it. He knows he’s not going to call her, but there’s something about the girl that makes him think they’ll meet again at some point.
If you live.
He wishes she hadn’t said that. He wishes especially that she hadn’t said it in the way she did. What started off as a simple surveillance suddenly seems so much more dangerous.
Forget it, he tells himself. You’ve done jobs like this lots of times. Don’t let her spook you.
He takes a sip of his drink, then glances across the tables to where Ramone is seated. Ramone has his back to Doyle, and is leaning close to the brunette, whispering into her ear. But then he suddenly draws away from her and reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a cellphone and answers a call. It’s brief, but it’s something of apparent urgency, because he gives the girl a peck on the cheek, then gets up and heads for the door.
Here we go, thinks Doyle. He waits for Ramone to leave, then gets up himself. On the way out, he takes a last look at the redhead, now seated at the bar. She’s watching him, and the look on her face can only be described as one of concern.
He nods at her, as if to say, I’ll be careful. Then he leaves too.
Outside, it’s raining. Big surprise. Doyle shelters under the green awning of the strip club while he scans the street for any sign of Ramone.
Don’t tell me I’ve lost him already, he thinks. Some piss-poor detective that would make me.
But he sees Ramone then, walking quickly to the corner of the block, his shoulders hunched against the weather
. Doyle abandons his dry spot beneath the awning and takes up pursuit.
The joint he’s just been in is called the Arabesque Gentleman’s Club, even though most of its clientele can hardly be classed as gentlemen. It’s located on the eastern edge of Vinegar Hill in Brooklyn, close to the old NavyYard. The buildings here are mostly warehouses. No bars, no stores. No reason to come here at night unless you want the strip club. It means that Ramone can’t be swallowed up in a crowd, but it also means that he could easily spot a close tail if he turns around, and so Doyle has to keep his distance.
Ramone is heading north, toward the East River. Ahead are the huge humming transformers of the Con Ed substation. When a flash of lightning lights up the sky, Doyle is not so sure he wants to get much nearer to those devices. He doesn’t know much about electricity, but he doesn’t feel comfortable being surrounded by so much of it. He feels like he’s in one of those old horror movies, with some mad scientist about to yell ‘More power, Igor!’
When Ramone takes a left turn, Doyle picks up the pace. At the end of the block, he stops and peers around the corner. Ramone is still marching purposefully. Doyle waits for him to put a respectable distance between them, then follows again.
They are heading west now. Toward the neighborhood known as DUMBO, the comical acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Straight ahead are the lights of the Manhattan Bridge, then the Brooklyn Bridge, then the city skyscrapers jutting up on the other side of the river, although it’s difficult to see any of that through this driving rain.
Doyle walks quickly, feeling the slick Belgian cobbles beneath his feet. The warehouses to either side are shuttered and dark. Some have become construction sites, fronted by scaffolding, fenced-off machinery and building materials, while others lie empty and forlorn.
Ramone disappears. Another turn, toward the river again. We have to be near the destination now, thinks Doyle. He steps up the pace once more. There is another flash of lightning. The whole street lights up.
The electricity of which Doyle is so afraid probably saves his life.
Without that short-lived moment of illumination, he probably wouldn’t have noticed the shape leaping out at him from behind the parked van. He probably wouldn’t have had time to duck as the shape swung at him. He would probably have taken the full force of the blow to his head, getting his skull crushed rather than just being knocked senseless.
Doyle collapses onto the hard wet cobbles. He raises his hands to protect his head from another strike, but the next blow lands on his ribs instead.
Knowing that he’s dead if he stays on the ground, Doyle pulls his feet under him and launches himself in the direction of his attacker. He hits something. Hears a grunt. Doyle takes hold of the man’s clothing and drives him backwards. They crash into the side of the van, and the attacker issues another grunt.
I can win this, thinks Doyle. I’ve got this sonofabitch.
But that’s before he takes the massive impact to the back of his head and goes down again.
Two of them, he thinks. But now it doesn’t really matter how many, because he has lost the fight and will probably die here on this black, rain-soaked street. And even as he reaches for his gun – the Beretta he went to all that trouble to obtain for eventualities such as this – he suspects it’s a futile gesture. He’s right. The preventative blow feels like it breaks his arm, and then further blows rain down on him, and then there are hands all over him, stealing his gun and dragging him across the cobblestones, dragging him to a door set in one of those dark, forbidding warehouses, dragging him into the black innards of the building and down a set of hard stairs that punch and scrape his bones as he passes over them.
If you live, the stripper had said. Her words echo in his head as he lies on the floor and waits for death.
TWENTY-SIX
The darkness vanishes, and Doyle can see again. With him are two men – both white, both large. One of them trains a gun on Doyle. The other is standing next to a lamp he has just switched on. He is carrying a short baseball bat.
Doyle raises himself to a sitting position and surveys his surroundings. The lamp isn’t powerful, but it casts enough of a glow to show Doyle that he’s in a huge storage room. It’s clear that the place is no longer in use, but there are enough empty boxes around to tell him that it once housed printer paper.
With his free hand, the gunman takes a cellphone from his pocket, stabs a button on it, then puts the phone to his ear.
‘We got him,’ is all he says into the phone before putting it back into his pocket. Then to Doyle: ‘Better start saying your prayers, asshole.’
Doyle doesn’t want to pray. What he wants to do is kick himself for being so stupid. He should have been prepared for a trap. He should have kept open the possibility that, despite being dangled out of a fifth-floor window, Cubo might not have been as scared of Doyle as he seemed, and might have contacted Ramone to let him know there was a guy looking for him – a guy who might turn up at the strip club this very night.
But he didn’t do any of that. In his arrogance, he assumed that he was the one calling all the shots. It never crossed his mind that Ramone was leading him straight into the arms of his two buddies here. He never considered that the phone call that Ramone took in the club was from these goons, telling him they were lying in wait. He never imagined that one of the warehouses on his route might already have been broken into and assessed for its suitability as his final resting place.
And because of all this short-sightedness, he’s going to pay the ultimate price.
The man with the bat advances toward Doyle. He has a scruffy ginger beard and mean little eyes, and looks wide enough to take up two seats on an airplane. He slaps the bat rhythmically into the palm of his left hand.
He says, ‘How ’bout I play a tune on that ugly fucking head of yours?’
Doyle glares back at him and says, ‘You know anything from West Side Story? You look like you dig musicals.’
The man tightens his lips and raises his bat as he accelerates toward Doyle.
‘Zack!’ the other man yells.
Zack stops in his tracks, staring down at Doyle through those piss-hole eyes as he snorts angrily.
‘Wait for Ramone,’ the gunman says. ‘We got some questions for this motherfucker. After that you can have all the fun you want.’
Zack stares for a few seconds more, then he hawks up some phlegm and lets fly. Doyle twists his face away just in time, and the foul viscous fluid catches him on the side of his neck and trickles under his collar.
Zack backs away slowly, smacking the bat into his hand again, then half turns to his partner. ‘Where the fuck is Ramone, anyhow?’
As if in answer to his question, there comes a rattling noise as the handle of the door is tried, immediately followed by a heavy pounding. Doyle looks up to see the silhouette of a head through the small glass panel in the door.
Ramone has returned.
‘Let him in,’ says the man with the gun. Zack doesn’t question the command. He just sneers at Doyle before turning to trudge up the staircase.
Doyle takes the opportunity to consider his options. Which doesn’t take long, as he doesn’t have any. Even with Ramone outside and Zack where he is, there is still a third man with a cannon pointed squarely at Doyle’s face. Doyle would need legs like a frog’s to get from his position on the floor to the gunman before being shot, and even then he would still have to deal with Zack over there, who probably also has a gun and is just wielding the bat for its amusement value.
At the top of the stairs, Zack studies the face at the door panel. As if to help him, another flash of lightning gives him a clearer view of the visitor’s features. Even from where he is sitting, Doyle can tell it’s Ramone. He starts to wonder if the elements are conspiring against him. Revenge for abandoning his faith in higher forces all those years ago.
Zack fiddles with a lock. Pulls the door open to the accompaniment of thunder. Doyle feels the hairs ris
e on his neck. He knows this isn’t going to be pleasant. It’s going to be painful and it’s going to last a long time and it’s going to end in his death. And he sees no way out. These men will kill him and they will leave his body here to rot, and not even his wife will know what has happened to him. Doyle feels a pang of regret. He wishes he had not parted from his wife on such bad terms. For her sake.
Then Ramone enters the building.
Or, rather, he flies in.
Ramone’s whole body jerks forward and he smashes into Zack, propelling him backwards into the metal balustrade of the staircase. Zack loses his footing and crashes onto the stairs, Ramone on top of him. The two men tumble noisily down the short staircase, a curious two-headed creature with flailing limbs.
As shocked and confused as Doyle, the man with the gun whirls round, seeking out something to aim at.
He is too slow. From the open doorway come two flashes of light in rapid succession. Not lightning this time, but gunfire from a silenced pistol. Doyle’s assailant staggers backwards into a pillar, then slides down it to the floor, leaving a bloody trail above his head.
The man who threw Ramone’s lifeless body at Zack comes into the room and pushes the door closed behind him. He descends the staircase slowly and steadily, his gun outstretched before him as though it is some kind of proboscis, sniffing out prey to be terminated.
At the bottom of the stairs, lying dazed and bleeding profusely from his head, Zack struggles to extricate himself from beneath the dead weight of Ramone that is pinning him down. He succeeds just as the uninvited assassin reaches the last stair, and when Zack makes the mistake of reaching under his jacket, the gun spits twice into his face, and he goes quiet and still.
The stranger steps over to Zack’s colleague, who is still alive. He is making wheezing noises, and scarlet froth is bubbling from his mouth, but he is still alive.
Marked (Callum Doyle 3) Page 23