“Hey, Levy.”
Stanley heard Vinnie Cuneo's voice at the screen door, but he did not look up. He was not yet sure that he could speak. His hands gently massaging his throat, he sat on the flagstone surface of the patio near the softly breathing body of Tina Baker. He stared in wonder at the smooth skin of her face. It was a sweet face, he thought. A nice face. Delicate. Like the kind of doll you keep on a shelf because it would break too easy if you played with it. Fragile like. Little. Maybe ninety pounds, and if he wanted to, he could pick her up right now and carry her easy. A feather.
“Hey, Levy, we're going to have company.”
Fragile except she near killed him. She near choked out his lights wrapping that thing around his neck with one hand while she pulled the busted needle out of her own neck with the other. Cut this out, he thought. It didn't happen that way. It couldn't have happened that way. There were times, he knew, when he couldn't remember things right. Times when he had crazy thoughts that couldn't be the way things were, and this had to be one of those times. Look at her. He touched his fingers to her cheek, brushing back her honey-colored hair, then ran them lightly down her neck and the length of her arm. Fragile. Good muscle tone where there's meat but fragile. Delicate.
“Levy!” Cuneo kicked open the aluminum door and gestured toward Tina's body. “If you want to rip off a piece of chicken, do it later. There's some broad workin' the street ringing doorbells. One of them Avon ladies or somethin'.”
Stanley, his face white, lifted his eyes slowly to meet those of Vinnie Cuneo. “You said what, you pig?”
The insult confused Vinnie. His expression said he had no idea of the enormity of his remark concerning Stanley's intentions toward this child. “Hey, what pig?” asked Vinnie, offended. “I'm telling you there's a dame gonna come to the door soon.”
You should thank her, thought Stanley. Because of this woman you will live a while longer. “What of the Carey woman, Vinnie? Will she be able to call out?”
”Naw” Vinnie shrugged. ”I got her so she's quiet.”
“Then why don't we just not answer the door, Vinnie?”
”I think she seen me watchin' her. She keeps lookin' over here.”
“She shows a special interest in this house, Vinnie?”
Vinnie didn't answer. His attention had drifted to Tina's torso, which he touched with his eyes. “You wanna look, go look,” he said. “I'll keep an eye on jailbait here.”
Stanley winced like he'd been slapped. He bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut against the thought of this animal fondling Baker's sleeping daughter. But he would not shut out the voices that wailed inside his head. Women's voices. The voice of Tina Baker's mother screaming her anguish from the grave. The sobs of Vinnie's own mother telling Stanley that better her son was also in the ground that he should even think such a sin. And Stanley's mother. Even Emma his cousin had such shock upon her face. Tortora was right like always. It was right that Stanley should so something about this shlub.
“Show me this woman, Vinnie” was all he said.
Connor Harrigan had reached the Carey garage. It was a detached building, some thirty feet to the rear of the house and diagonally across the backyard from the covered patio. He'd made his way slowly and quietly through the adjoining yard, satisfied that the house was not under surveillance by anyone. The police, as he suspected, had long since lost interest, and Peck's people had either not thought to cover the daughter or they'd decided it was enough that they had Baker trapped at the Plaza. They would think of it now, he knew. He had to assume they'd be no more than thirty minutes behind. No point mentioning that to the girl. She'd be nervous enough as it was.
There were shuffling sounds coming from a covered patio, but Harrigan could not see their source. He checked his watch. Ten minutes. Tanner Burke should be two or three houses away by now, carrying his clipboard in her hand and taking a poll for the Junior League. When she reached the front door of the Carey house, she would use the brass knocker, not the bell. Harrigan would move for the rear kitchen door at the sound.
His plan of approach seemed unnecessarily elaborate now. Everything seemed so quiet. But better safe than sorry. He would explain that to Mrs. Carey as best he could. She wouldn't like it, of course. She certainly wouldn't like two strangers waltzing in to claim Baker's daughter no matter what kind of credentials he showed her. On the other hand, how could she not trust Tanner Burke. And anyway, Baker said he'd call first. Eight minutes. Harrigan smelled bacon in the air but could see no sign of movement in the kitchen. He stepped back farther into the shadows and rested against the fender of Jane Carey's Volvo. Seven minutes.
The kitchen door opened. A man. Jane Carey was supposed to live alone. A small man. A low-level buzz that had been rumbling in the back of Harrigan's head jumped several decibels. Stanley Levy? He could not be entirely sure. Harrigan had only seen photographs of the man, taken at night and from a distance. He was walking casually toward the patio. Harrigan listened. He could not watch without exposing himself fully to anyone who might be near the kitchen window. A name. Stanley. And a girl's voice. Polite. Cautious. Now nervous. Harrigan drew his revolver and braced it between his hands. A struggle. Daddy. More struggling. Harrigan broke into a sweat. Wait, Connor. He won't hurt her. Wait. Wait till he crosses back and you can't miss. Now the bang of an aluminum door and another voice. Stupid voice. Slowly, Connor. That's Levy's muscle. Angry voices. Ah, Connor, Stanley is not happy with the man he calls a pig. Wait, Connor. It's a woman they're talking about. A woman outside. Two minutes. Go, Stanley. Go to the front door and see what it is that vexes your man and take the pig with you. Connor smiled appreciation at the sound of the screen door closing once more. He counted ten more seconds and moved quickly toward the kitchen door, barely pausing at his first sight of Tina Baker, lying still on the patio flagstones.
Tanner was frightened. She'd been half a street away when the first uneasiness struck her. A sand-colored Ford had circled the block twice and now was back a third time. And it was stopping fifty yards beyond the house where Tina Baker lived. Two men. One small. One large. And they were walking toward the front door of the Carey house. How to warn Mr. Harrigan? No, don't warn him. Keep on, he said, whatever happens. Do only what a poll taker would do and nothing more or less. Run, scream, and shout only if the poll taker you're playing would do those things.
Easy for you to say, Tanner thought. Besides, you didn't go to that other house down the street and start hallucinating from the minute you looked at it. You didn't see smoke and fire and hear screaming in your head while all the while you're looking at a nice, harmless, Norman Rockwell sort of house. That was Jared's house, wasn't it? Or did you know? Three minutes. One more house, then the Carey house. Oops! Nobody home. Three newspapers on the front steps. Two and a half minutes. Well, I can't just stand here like a dummy. Here goes nothing.
Tanner retraced her steps down a stone walkway and paused at the edge of Spruce Street. Another car passed, a station wagon driven by a woman in a tennis dress. Tanner stepped behind it and crossed the street, passing the hand-painted ducks on Jane Carey's mailbox without pausing. She reached for the doorbell, remembered, then gave four sharp raps on the Florentine knocker. The door opened a bit too quickly. It was the man, the small one who'd walked from the Ford.
“Hi!” he said pleasantly. ”I seen you up the street. What do you got, a petition?”
“I'm Betty Harris from the Greenwich Junior League.”
She forced an eye-contact smile and extended her hand. The small man pretended not to see it and stepped from the doorway onto the brick steps, his attention focused on her clipboard. Tanner swallowed and continued.
“It's not a petition yet,” she answered. “We're doing a count of residents who might be willing to accept a small tax assessment for the purpose of repaving the station parking lot and maintaining some shrubs and window boxes.”
“Oh yeah? What kind of flowers?” Stanley touched the tip of her clipboar
d and forced Tanner to make a quarter-turn in his direction. She was groping for an appropriate answer when a hand seized her by the hair. Another hand. Both of Stanley's were now pressed against the small of her back, sweeping her over the threshold before she could more than gasp. The front door slammed behind her. The hand meshed in her hair came loose and the same arm slipped around her throat. She could only feel the second man. But now she could see his other hand and the long, thin knife it was holding close to her face.
“One chance,” the smaller man said. “Where's Baker?”
Her eyes, wide and frightened, went from the knife's point to Stanley's face and back again. She shook her head as if she did not understand.
”I got no time.” Stanley brought his face closer. “You're Tanner Burke. You were with Jared Baker since last night. One more bad answer, your face gets cut. Where's Baker at?”
“Will I do, Stanley?”
Tanner almost fainted at the sound of Connor Harrigan's voice. She felt herself spun in his direction as Vinnie Cuneo whirled her body between his and the revolver in Harrigan's hand. Stanley moved toward Cuneo's back but froze when Harrigan's sights lined up on his belt buckle.
“Tell the ape to let her go, Stanley. Nicely, if you please.” Harrigan's voice was almost cordial. But his eyes were cold and black. Their expression made even Tanner cold.
“You're Harrigan, right?” Stanley's own eyes were wary but not afraid. ”I hear good things about you.”
“Tell him, Stanley.” Harrigan showed his teeth.
Stanley shrugged helplessly. “He won't do it just so I won't get shot. Friends we're not. Shoot me, and for sure he's not going to let her go. Even Vinnie ain't that stupid.”
Harrigan raised his sights to Stanley's face. Stanley waved the gun away.
“Better we work out some arrangement here,” he suggested. “So far no one got hurt. The kid is asleep is all.”
Stanley's coolness was reaching Harrigan, enraging him. “Except the woman, Stanley.” Harrigan bit off the words. “You like to hurt women, don't you?”
Where Harrigan expected fear to show on Stanley's face, he saw only confusion.
“What woman?” Stanley asked.
“Two women, Stanley.” Harrigan knew he should not talk, but he could not help himself. ”A woman last night named Katherine Mulgrew. Katherine Mulgrew, Stanley. Remember it. It's in her name that you'll die this morning.”
The hooker, Stanley remembered. He nodded that he understood. “What two women?” He was still not afraid. That and the question surprised Harrigan.
“Out there, you little shit.” Harrigan jerked a thumb toward the kitchen. “The woman with the busted face.”
Tanner felt Vinnie Cuneo's arm tense and tighten around her neck. Twisting her head to relieve the pressure, she saw Stanley Levy's eyes look past her into those of the man holding her. There was disgust in his expression, and she could see it was genuine. Disgust and more than a little madness.
“What did you do, Vinnie?” he asked very quietly. “Did you beat up a woman?”
Cuneo took a step backward toward the door, his eyes still on Harrigan. “Get the door open, Levy.” To Harrigan he said, “You even point that gun this way, I cut her. I don't kill her. I just cut her. It's up to you how much is left when I reach the street out there.”
“What did you do to the woman, Vinnie?” Stanley repeated, now ignoring Harrigan totally.
“Shut up, Levy.” Cuneo's voice was desperate.
Harrigan knew he should shoot. He should place one round in the narrow chest of Stanley Levy and then walk up close and place another through Cuneo's head. It would give rest to the soul of Kate Mulgrew and not least to the soul of Connor Harrigan, who sent her to her death. But he could not bring himself to fire yet. For there he was, murder in his heart, yet paid no heed by Stanley Levy or now by Levy's gorilla, who seemed to fear the little man's words more than he feared Harrigan's gun.
“What did I tell you, Vinnie?” Stanley's voice was controlled, like that of an admonishing parent. ”I said lock her in the cellar, a closet maybe, maybe tie her up and put her in a nice chair so she wouldn't get all stiff. So what did you do, Vinnie? You punched her, right?”
“No!”
“You used your fist. Your mother never talked to you about punching women? Maybe she was afraid to. Maybe she was afraid you'd hit her also. Did you slap your mother around, Vinnie? Did she go to her grave knowing she had a son who would punch the saint that bore the pain to give him life?”
“Don't start that shit,” Vinnie Cuneo screamed. There was panic in his voice. He shifted his knife to the hand that held Tanner Burke, and with the other he groped for the doorknob. “Don't start that shit about mothers. She was grabbin' for the phone. I belted her because she was grabbin’ for the phone.”
Harrigan raised his gun to eye level. “Miss Burke,” he said calmly, “would you tilt your head a wee bit to the right, please?”
Tanner hesitated, her eyes wide, then snapped her head to one side, exposing Vinnie Cuneo. Cuneo knew what was happening. He tried to follow. But something stopped his head. His eye nearest Stanley winced and quivered shut while the other blinked wide. Even as he squeezed the trigger, Harrigan could see what was holding the face in his line of fire. The ice pick in Stanley's hand was buried deep into Cuneo's right cheek. Now, with a roar that deafened Tanner, Harrigan shot off the left cheek.
Cuneo, and Tanner with him, slammed backward against a blood-sprayed wall. The arm fell away, slashing at the air, and Tanner dropped. On her knees, stunned by the muzzle blast of Harrigan's shot, she turned and screamed at what she saw. Harrigan stepped past her. With his free hand, he seized her roughly by the collar of her jacket and threw her aside to safety while his long barrel swung onto Stanley's chest. Stanley had backed away, his hands raised, the bloodied ice pick dangling harmlessly from his fingertips. At Harrigan's feet, the hoodlum thrashed blindly. Harrigan brought his barrel down hard against his skull and Vinnie Cuneo was still. Slowly, Stanley Levy let his body slide down the corner of the entrance hall until he was sitting on the floor. The ice pick fell between his feet.
“Can you drive, lass?” Harrigan spoke to Tanner. She was behind him, pulling herself erect with the help of a doorframe. Her shoulders quivered and her face was turned away. Harrigan slammed a palm against the surface of a hall table, shocking her. “Can you drive, damn it?”
Harrigan fixed his sights on Stanley's forehead. “Where is your car, Stanley?” he asked. Stanley tilted his head, indicating a place nearby.
“It's right down the street,” Tanner managed.
Harrigan stepped once again to Vinnie Cuneo and patted at his pockets. From one he drew a key ring, which he held up questioningly to Stanley Levy, who nodded.
“Bring their car, girl.” He singled out the ignition key and held it toward Tanner Burke. “Bring their car into the back. You'll find young Tina on the patio. She's been drugged. I want you to get her into the back seat of the car and then come back for me. Can you do all that, Miss Burke?”
“Their car?” she asked distantly.
“Their car is closer,” he snapped impatiently. “Need I do all this myself, Miss Burke?”
Tanner's eyes flashed angrily and she straightened. Besides the anger, they had a certain loathing in them. Harrigan saw it. But more, he saw that his words had had the effect he'd hoped for. Tanner passed behind Harrigan and stepped over Vinnie Cuneo's legs toward the bloodstained door. Harrigan could see her strength returning as she walked across the lawn. Good girl.
“On your feet, Stanley.”
“We should see about the lady. No one said nothing about hurting the lady.”
“No,” Harrigan snarled. “Just a fourteen-year-old girl, you son of a bitch. Get on your feet.”
Stanley's expression remained bland. “No one was going to hurt the girl neither. You want to shoot me, shoot me for something else. No one was going to hurt the little girl.”
Conn
or Harrigan had all the something else he needed. Kate Mulgrew's body was barely cold. He could kill Stanley Levy for a lot of reasons, but that one alone would do. Stanley seemed to know what was on his mind.
“Mulgrew,” Stanley remembered the name. “Before, you said you'd kill me for that. You're going to kill me for a hooker? She's better dead than with that kind of shame.”
“Never mind that now, Stanley.” Harrigan's voice was icy.
“You talk to me about hurting ladies, but you got hookers on your payroll? That's what a pimp is, Harrigan. They never told me you was a pimp.”
Harrigan leaned forward as if he were gong to drive his shoe into Levy's face, but he stopped himself. Levy saw this and understood. So it wasn't no hooker, he thought. So that was one of Harrigan's people, and she was supposed to sucker him into a doorway and then sphritz him with this here tear gas thing. Stanley stretched the fingers of one of his folded hands and brushed the tips across the cylinder tucked under the strap inside his sleeve. She looked like a hooker, she talked deals like a hooker, she was workin' Sixth Avenue like a hooker instead of being home fixing dinner. What was he supposed to think? Now she turns out to be a make-believe hooker who got sent out by Harrigan here and then got dead. It ain't me you should be mad at, Harrigan. But keep getting mad. We see who kills who.
“Why were you taking the girl, Stanley?” Harrigan kept his voice even with some effort.
Stanley leaned back and drew his knees closer to his chest. Harrigan moved nearer.
“If Tortora wants the girl it's because he wants Baker. Isn't that right, Stanley?”
Again, Stanley didn't answer. Harrigan leaned in and smashed his revolver against Levy's knee. Levy gasped and hugged it.
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