by Ben Sanders
With his hand still at her nape, he must have felt her lunge. He dropped his gun in time to grab her pistol as she brought it around, and when she squeezed the trigger there was nothing, Dexter’s finger jamming the action.
She ran.
The stool clattered behind her as she sprinted across the kitchen for the hallway door, the dog yapping behind. She made it across the entry hall, got a grip on the door handle, and the pan hit her. It caught her low across the calf and put her down on one knee, and then Dexter was there, pulling her to the floor, trapping her with his weight. Quiet in the room as she lay beneath him, breathing hard through her nose, giddy on the plastic stench of tape. The dog darting close to yap, and then backing off again.
Dexter smoothed her hair and whispered, ‘You’ll need to do better than that.’
Cohen
He caught a cab. The Charger’s GPS would’ve known the way, but parking in Manhattan was a challenge that he felt was best avoided. His driver was a Pakistani guy named Imran, who wanted to know how the cost of household goods in New York compared with those in Santa Fe. Cohen couldn’t offer much insight on the matter.
They exited FDR Drive at Sixty-first Street. Cohen paid and got out at Park Avenue and walked the final block north. It was an effort to keep his eyes level, New York the kind of place that made visitors gaze skyward.
Avery was waiting for him at the corner of Sixty-second. He said, ‘Story gets even better. There’s security footage of a white male who looks a lot like your Marshall, visiting the heroin man on the fourteenth floor.’
That made sense, Marshall no doubt pressing old contacts to find who was gunning for him. Cohen said, ‘Seems to go around making sure the shit hits the fan, doesn’t he?’
They started east on Sixty-second, cop cars lining both kerbs. Avery said, ‘Yeah, and it’s a nice little mess this time. He shows up, and then two guys in bike helmets come along as well, and then one of them ends up shot in the stairwell. No footage of it apparently, but we’re trying to figure out who was where.’
The traffic was all emergency vehicles, half the NYPD hanging out on the sidewalk. Cohen said, ‘Bike helmets with a visor, or like the little ones for cycling?’
Avery didn’t answer. They badged through the street entry to the apartment building, passing under a little green awning on stilts over the sidewalk.
Cohen said, ‘Who’s the heroin man?’
‘Name’s Henry Lee.’
‘And he’s a dealer or ex-dealer?’
‘Well. Think it’s easier to turn discreet than to turn honest, put it that way.’
They stepped into an elevator, and Avery pushed 14. He said, ‘We’ll visit Henry, and then you can see the dead Rhodes guy if you like. If he’s related to Perry, then it’s turning into quite the clusterfuck.’
Cohen didn’t answer. He had a line forming in his head about not knowing where Rhodes will lead you, but he thought it might be too much after the helmet joke.
They got out on 14, and Avery led the way along a corridor to where a cop was posted outside apartment 52.
Avery said, ‘Mind the blood as you come in.’
There was a pool of it in the entry hall, turning black now. The cop closed the door behind them. Inside the apartment were two plainclothes guys with NYPD badges on their belts, and two women who could have been either city or federal cops. One of the women was talking to a man in a white bathrobe, presumably Henry Lee. He was seated on a sofa by a door to what looked like the master bedroom. He broke off his conversation as he saw Avery and Cohen enter.
‘Oh look, we got another one.’ He pointed at Cohen. ‘Federal, or just PD this time?’
Cohen said, ‘Federal. All the way from New Mexico.’
Henry Lee gave a soft whistle. ‘New Mexico, fantastic, pleasure to have you, sir.’
Avery seemed to know the other four. He said, ‘Lucas Cohen, Marshals Service.’
Cohen got some nods, but no names. He imagined they wouldn’t be too pleased, some out-of-town fed showing up at their crime scene.
Henry Lee said, ‘I gotta run through it again, so we’re all on the same page?’
The woman he’d been talking to said, ‘Like we told you, the more forthcoming you are now, the less need there is for a warrant.’
Henry said, ‘Oh God,’ raking his fingers through his hair. He made a fist of one hand and cracked his knuckles, four across. He said, ‘Look, none of the guns in here are mine, they’re all Frankie’s. Let’s be clear on that.’ Eyes closed, palms held up either side, like he was trying to seem objective.
Avery said, ‘If you tell us about your visitors, we can forget about the guns.’
Henry waved a hand at the woman he’d been speaking to. ‘All right, well, as I said to the lady. Marshall wanted to know who’s trying to kill him, see if I knew anything about it. Obviously I couldn’t help him, so you know, we ate some breakfast, had a really nice catch-up, and then these motorbike-helmet guys show up trying to clip him.’
Avery said, ‘And you don’t know who they are or how they knew to come here?’
Henry pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’m the guy caught in the middle.’
A glass slider gave out onto the apartment balcony. Cohen went outside and looked at the view, a stream of yellow cabs over on Park Avenue, emergency vehicles just Christmas lights from up here. He stepped back inside to hear Henry Lee say, ‘He cut the cord off my vacuum cleaner to climb down. Lucky I’m getting a divorce, Meredith would’ve had a fucking coronary if she saw it. Like, I bet you can’t just splice on a new cord, probably make you get a whole new machine.’
Cohen said, ‘You know a guy called Perry Rhodes?’
Henry looked at him. It was too fast. It betrayed his recognition. He thumbed an eyebrow. ‘Yeah, well, I dunno. Possibly.’
Avery said, ‘I think he’s got a dead relative in your stairwell.’
Henry said, ‘Oh, shit. Yikes.’
Avery said, ‘You know Tolson Rhodes as well?’
‘Look, fuck off with all your stuff about, like, do I know this person, do I know that person.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
Cohen said, ‘If you maybe know them, then maybe you know who sent them. Otherwise we’ll need a warrant to make any progress.’
‘Look, don’t just show up from God-knows-where, start threatening me with warrants.’
Cohen said, ‘Sorry, I’m not normally so rude.’
Henry said, ‘Yeah, and what, you think I took notes or something?’ He glanced to his right and left with a frown, faux curious. ‘You snoop around, you find my transcripts?’
Avery said, ‘Don’t know, you tell us. Just a question of whether we’re going to find anything better than the guns.’
‘No, well, Carl and Frankie could’ve had all kinds of stuff here, I’m not responsible for their property.’
Avery said, ‘Whatever you say is theirs, they’ll say is yours, and it’ll be two against one.’
Henry looked like he had a reply, but he faltered and just shrugged. He started on something else and backed out of that as well. Finally he said, ‘If these guys are the Perry and Tol I’m thinking of—’
Avery said, ‘I think they probably are.’
‘—then they work for a guy called Dexter Vine.’
‘And who’s he?’
‘OK, look, hang on.’ He closed his eyes. Everyone waited. Henry said, ‘Small-time guy, but he’s got a shitload of debt.’
Avery said, ‘How much?’
Still with his eyes closed, Henry said, ‘I heard five mil.’ Wincing a little, wanting it over.
Avery said, ‘Who does he owe?’
Henry sighed and said, ‘I heard it was Chinese, but don’t ask me any names, I’m just saying what I heard. And don’t all thank me at once.’
Waiting for the elevator with Avery, Cohen said, ‘Never heard of ‘Tolson’ as a first name before. Reminded me of this hit man out of Memphis we
were chasing, Leen Stanton. L-E-E-N. That was a good one, too.’
Avery didn’t answer, busy with a text message.
An elevator arrived. They stepped in, and Cohen pushed 1. He said, ‘If there’s a bounty on Marshall, this Dexter Vine guy might want it to clear his debt. If Henry in there wasn’t talking shit.’
Avery looked up blankly for a second, blinking to process it. He looked back at his phone and said, ‘Or there might be no bounty, and Dexter wants him for his own reasons.’
Cohen thought about that, watched the floor numbers counting backward. He said, ‘Yeah, maybe. Worst-case scenario, he’s the top of the chain, but I’m thinking there’s someone else above him, bankrolling the mayhem.’
‘The someone being Tony or Chloe Asaro.’
Cohen nodded. ‘Unless he’s aggravated someone else, to the point they want him murdered. But my bet is the Asaros put out a contract, and Dexter said he’ll do it.’
‘We need to bring Marshall in as well.’
Cohen said, ‘I think you’ll find that a challenge in itself.’
They reached the first floor and stepped out into the lobby.
Avery said, ‘You want to see the dead guy?’
‘No thanks. I can guess what it looks like.’
Avery said, ‘So what are you going to do?’
Cohen hooked his thumbs in his belt and walked slow, thinking about it. He said, ‘I want to find out who these guys in the Lexus were, staking out Perry Rhodes’ place. See if there’s something there.’
‘And what about Marshall?’
Cohen said, ‘He’s one in eleven million right now, so I don’t fancy my chances of finding him. Far as he goes, I think we’ll just have to see what happens next.’
TWENTY-FIVE
Perry
It hadn’t felt like a getaway.
He’d just driven the Impala up the ramp in Henry’s building, turned right on Sixty-second, everything seeming pretty normal, other than the fact he had a teary kid in back. He’d wanted the older one, Bridgette or whoever, to take the girl with her, but she told him that babysitting was never in the job description. So she left. Just walked off like she couldn’t be bothered with these little mishaps, and Perry was stuck with a passenger.
He thought about leaving her, maybe drop her somewhere safe like the lobby, get a doorman to keep watch, but his imagination kept twisting things: what if they had a bloodbath upstairs, and Ludo grabbed her on the way out? Used her as leverage over Henry, if he wasn’t dead already.
He needed time to think things through.
He drove down to Fifty-ninth and took the Queensboro Bridge east over the river, lowered his window to get the full experience: the jet-engine howl of the traffic, the smell of New York salt and rust as you take in that massive view. It was all shades of grey at the moment, overcast with a light chop on the gunmetal water.
How long had it been now? Maybe forty minutes since Tol and Ludo had left them in the garage. He’d thought at first he should head straight home, but the wisdom of that plan was getting slimmer with time: he couldn’t risk it if Henry’s apartment was a slaughterhouse. He hadn’t shown his face, but cops had ways of knowing. Better to call ahead if they were waiting in his living room.
He hit traffic past the bridge, took forty minutes to go ten blocks, the pace gradually picking up at Thirty-third Street. They were on Queens Boulevard now, the city high-rises falling away to light commercial. He knew there were a couple of motels at around Sixty-fifth Street in Woodside. He stayed east another thirty minutes and exited just before the BQE. He headed back west, and sure enough the place on the corner of Sixty-fifth was perfect: a quiet little brick building with its own parking tucked in behind.
He turned off the street and found a slot for the car and shut off the engine. Even just sitting there in the quiet for a moment was a good feeling.
What to do.
He needed to ditch the car, ditch the girl, talk to Marie.
He glanced in the rearview mirror, and the kid was staring at him, bottom lip small and pouted, maybe close to wobbling.
Perry said, ‘We’ll call Daddy soon, and then you can go home.’
She said, ‘He’s not my daddy.’
He didn’t know what to say to that. He got out and went around to the motel office. The guy at the desk was about seventy, hunched and stringy, more interested in his TV talk show than in a visitor from the real world. Perry handed over cash for one night and got a key in exchange.
The room was on the ground floor, just behind the reception office. He opened the door to get some fresh air through, and then went and collected the girl from the car. She followed him along mutely, not spilling any tears yet. He locked the door once they were inside and picked up the phone off the bedside table, sat listening to the dial tone.
He said, ‘I’ll call Daddy in a minute.’
The girl didn’t answer, just stood beside him as he sat on the bed holding the handset. In theory they could trace his calls, but he doubted they would’ve set something up this fast. At worst, there’d be cops in the house or on the street, in which case Marie would tell him. But he was still hesitant to dial—there was no delicate way to ask her if the house was being staked out by the law.
He closed his eyes and saw Tol in a motorbike helmet, off to do God knew what.
Perry whispered, ‘Get me out of here,’ sending the wish down the line to Marie as he dialled her at home.
But she didn’t answer.
He gave it ten rings and then clicked off, put his head in his hands, thinking. When he came up for air, the girl was looking at him.
He said, ‘Do you know Daddy—Henry’s. Do you know his phone number?’
A small nod.
He handed her the phone. ‘Why don’t you dial it for me.’
She pressed the numbers with her index finger, a slow and careful sequence. She was an odd contrast in here: this bright little girl in a room that was like some seventies relic, threadbare with a sepia tint. She passed the handset back, and Henry Lee said, ‘Yeah?’ before Perry even had the phone to his ear.
Perry said, ‘It’s me.’ Sounding shaky. He never thought he’d be so pleased to hear a drug runner. Death threats cast people in a different light.
Henry said, ‘Oh, hey. Yeah, hold on, there’re cops here.’
Of course there were. Perry said, ‘Is someone dead?’
‘I don’t know.’ The background noise went staticky, like he’d stepped outside into wind. ‘Someone pushed the fire alarm, so there’s a lot of people on the street. I’m still up here. Carl took a knock in the face and he’s not looking too good. Lot of blood; paramedics took him away. Not quite sure what to do about the stains, whether to bleach them or what.’
Perry covered the mouthpiece and turned to the girl. ‘What’s your name?’
She said, ‘Libby.’
Back to the phone. ‘I’ve got Libby with me.’
‘Yeah, hey, the fuck is going on, how did you know to call me before?’
He thought that would be question number one, but Henry was probably feeling a little dazed. Perry closed his eyes, winced as he talked. ‘We had some questions about Marshall.’ Trying to make it seem innocent.
Henry said, ‘Yeah, well, they were pretty fucking aggressive questions.’
‘Did they get him?’
‘Who?’
‘Did they get Marshall?’
‘Uh. I don’t know, I don’t think so.’
‘Have the cops mentioned my name?’
‘What?’
‘I said, Have the cops mentioned my name?’
‘Uh, no. No, I don’t think so.’
Well, that was something. Perry said, ‘I’m at a motel. Queens Boulevard and Sixty-fifth, in Brooklyn.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
Perry said, ‘So you can come get your daughter,’ and hung up.
He tried Marie again, his dialling much shakier than the girl’s. The home line ra
ng and rang and rang.
‘Oh God. Just pick up the damn phone.’
It didn’t change things at the other end. He clicked off and tried her cell. It went to voice mail.
Perry said, ‘Jesus Christ, Marie.’
He set the phone down on the cradle. The sound of someone’s TV coming through the wall. One of those cornerstones of cheap motels. It was the perfect setting really, no better fallback for a job gone wrong. Everything worn, nothing meeting expectations.
He said, ‘Shit,’ and the girl started to cry. It was the silent kind, lips bent but sealed, fat tears crawling down her cheeks.
Perry said, ‘Aw, sweetheart. It’ll be all right.’
He got a little hit of déjà vu, a vague memory of having said that before. He picked her up under the arms and set her on his knee, jiggled his leg a little.
‘I just talked to Daddy—you’re going home soon.’
She bit her lip, not wanting to talk, but then risked it anyway. ‘I want my mommy.’
Perry put her on the bed beside him. ‘Yeah, I know. Everyone does sometimes.’
That didn’t seem to help. He said, ‘We’re sorting this out, though. Be fixed before you know it.’
If only he could hear that from someone else. He picked up the phone again, thought about calling Ludo, but then figured he might as well go straight to the top. He called Dexter Vine.
When the man picked up, Perry said, ‘It’s me.’
‘Perry. I thought you might call. I’ve been talking to Marie.’
He swallowed, and felt all his blood go with it. ‘Where is she?’
‘Perry, relax. Look, I’ve got some bad news. Ludo just called, he says things didn’t work out too well, and Tol’s taken a bullet.’
‘What?’ He felt the room tipping, the ceiling rolling forward, and then the mattress was against his back.
Dexter said, ‘Yeah, Ludo thinks he’s probably dead. Marshall shot him.’
‘Oh Chri—’ His voice broke and the word faded in his throat.