"That doesn't matter. You want to borrow some money? What for?"
"For dope, goddammit. Can't you see that? Don't be playing stupid, Lucy Ripken. You can see that I am here for getting drug, can't you?" she shouted. "Why else would I come down to this place? I come to buy drug and they haf stolen my money."
"Calm down, Katya, calm down. OK, OK, you want to borrow money for cocaine?"
"No, not cocaine. Heroin. Lucien kept giving me this stuff—and—look, I don't—I will talk with you but first I need to—"
"Why are you here if Lucien gives it—"
"Last night they shot him. The Russians have got him. He is dead. We were—he was supplying drugs to me, and—they—I will tell you what you want to know if you just help me get some of this heroin, please, right now."
"Tell me one thing, Katya: can you sniff it through your nose, or—"
"No, I haf sinus trouble, I must—" She made an injecting motion into her arm. "I need needle too."
"Jesus Christ. Wait here." Lucy hustled her into a coffee shop and sat her down on a stool. "Have a coffee and try to calm down. I'll be back in ten minutes." Lucy dashed back out into the street and headed around the corner, in an instant erasing all moral compunctions, and all fear, and all thoughts of the implications of what she was doing. She strode down the block scanning various nervously loitering dudes, and made eye contact with a likely-looking character. He crossed the street.
"What can I do you for?" he said.
"Dime bag of junk. And clean works if you can get them."
"Works'll cost you another dime. Sterilized."
"Done."
"Money please."
"Get serious, bozo. You get me the dope and then you get the money. That's the way we do it where I come from."
He grinned. "Can't blame me for trying. Five minutes." He ran off. Lucy looked around. A blue and white cop car drove past slowly, the driver took her in. She didn't like this at all. People of her kind loitered around here for one reason, and this was it. On the other hand, it was capitalism in its purest form at work. Demand, supply. As long as she could get the deal done clean, the hell with the rest of it.
The cop went away, the guy came back, she gave him a twenty and he gave her a hit of dope folded up in a small white square of paper, and a clean works in shrink-wrapped plastic. "Thanks," she said. He was gone.
She hustled back to the coffee shop. Katya jumped up when she saw her. Lucy nodded. "Can you do this on your own, Katya?" she said quietly, sitting down and patting the stool next to hers. Katya sat.
"I think so," she said, already looking better with the knowledge that she was soon to get high. Junkies were pathetically easy to please. Tomorrow, Lucy told herself, she would help Katya find a way to de-tox. She handed Katya the stuff under the counter. By now the waitress, whose pear-shaped bulk, large, stiff hair, and heavily-applied make-up made her look rather like Divine, the late transvestite star of several John Waters movies, had cast a suspicious eye on them. "I haf matches, and wear belt, and can use cigarette filter, and there is water in the bathroom," Katya said, and stood up.
"Be careful," Lucy said.
"Fife minutes." She headed to the back of the coffee shop, and slipped into the women's room.
"Coffee please," said Lucy, smiling at Divine, who failed to smile back as she poured a coffee and walked away. Lucy wondered if she'd notice that Katya had taken a spoon with her to the toilet.
Now for a moment of reflection, of calm, while in the coffee shop bathroom on East Fourth Street the Russian she hardly knew fixed a hit of street heroin Lucy had purchased. She sipped her black coffee, then poured a little milk into it. How do I get myself into these things? Down the counter, two old men drank coffee over a game of chess. Lucy heard the radio in the kitchen, observed the slices of apple and cherry pie in the plastic pie display case on the countertop, smelled hot grease on a griddle. A siren wailed in the distance, a kid walked past with an old school boombox blasting hip hop. Sip the coffee. Divine ambled by, picked up a plate off the kitchen service counter, and walked down the length of the room to plant it in front of a black man slouched low on his stool. Check the time. At what point, here, do you meddle?
Now. She got up and under Divine's watchful eye headed back there. "Pay up please," said Divine.
"In a minute, I'm—"
"Now." Not worth arguing. Lucy met her at the register on the counter, took the bill which read 2 coffee 86 cents, handed over a dollar, and said keep it. Divine rang it up, watching as Lucy approached the W door and knocked. There was no response, no sound coming out of there.
She knocked harder. "Hey, Katya. Hey, open up," she whisper-hissed. She tried the door. It wasn't even locked. She pushed it open. An ugly sight: Katya was slumped on the toilet, sleeve pushed up, needle dangling from her arm, belt and dope paraphernalia strewn around her purse on the floor. "Wake up, you idiot," Lucy hissed, squeezing in and closing the door behind her. "Katya, god dammit, wake up." She carefully pulled the needle out, pressing her thumb over the tiny puncture hole to stop any blood flow, and dropped the syringe in Katya's purse. Then she shook her; no response. She slapped her, lightly, then harder. Still nothing. She looked a little closer. Shit, shades of blue in the skin. She wasn't breathing, for God's sake! "Fuck," she said, as it dawned on her: the woman had not just nodded out, she had overdosed. What to do, what to do? Harry had told her once. She turned on the cold water, and splashed a couple handfuls in Katya's face while running a sinkful. She grabbed her by the back of the neck and pushed her head over and forced her face down into the cold water for a second, then pulled it out. Katya gasped, spluttering, blinking in a slow, cross-eyed fashion, sucking in air. She muttered something in Russian. "Katya," Lucy said, "Wake up, dammit. Come on." Someone knocked on the door.
"What's going on in there? Open up."
"Just a moment, please," Lucy said, stretching for a nice tone. "My friend's a little sick is all." She grabbed the goods—burnt spoon, matches, plastic wrapper, black leather belt, and drug packaging, a little square of glossy white paper stamped with a brand name—Old Dog, with a grinning red hound dog head above the words—and shoved everything in the purse. Katya had faded again. Lucy splashed more water on her face, slapped her harder this time, then jerked her to her feet. She came to, abruptly. Lucy pulled her sleeve down.
"What iss goink on?" She grinned. "Hello, my friend," she said to Lucy. "I am feeling much better now." Then her head tilted sideways, and she slumped.
Lucy draped Katya's arm around her neck, wrapped her own arm around Katya's waist, and threw open the door. "Excuse me, I have to get my friend outside, she's not feeling well," she said, hustling past Divine, who stood with the cook, a dingy-looking guy in his fifties to whom she'd probably been married for several centuries. "She needs some fresh air is all."
"Get out of here you goddamned junkies," the man snarled. "Come in my place using drugs I'll call the cops on you. Get out," he shouted, coming after them, waving a greasy spatula about in a threatening manner.
"I am, I am," Lucy said, half-dragging Katya down the length of the counter. "Gimme a break." She pushed open the glass door and stumbled down the steps onto the sidewalk and dragged the drugged Russian north towards Tompkins Square. Five more minutes and Katya could have died in that dirty little bathroom, a long way from mamuschka in St. Petersburg.
Lucy walked her around in the park for ten or fifteen minutes, keeping her moving, keeping her conscious, keeping her alive, then hailed a cab on Avenue A. Soon as Katya sat down in the cab she passed out again. Lucy spent the entire trip uptown pinching and slapping and coaxing her to stay conscious. She dragged her out of the taxi in front of the building, took Katya's purse and searched it for the keys, found them, opened up and pulled her inside. She had to push her up the stairs, but fortunately Katya and Nova lived just one level above his office. Once inside—more opulence from the late 19th century—she quickly found the purple and gilt-painted bathroom, stripped
Katya, and pushed her into the shower. God, she had an incredible body, Lucy thought as she cranked the gold-plated faucet handle, turning on the cold shower which squirted out of the mouth of a laughing brass dolphin. Katya didn't even react to the ice cold water. Statuesque in a junkie stupor, she stood under the shower, blond hair wet and streaming, water flowing over her body of white marble, of ivory. How could such beauty be so self-destructive? Lucy closed the stained glass shower door, threw a couple of towels on the black marble floor to soak up the mess, then took a quick look in the bedroom. Tacky, tacky: a huge round bed with a pink satin quilt over it, and a matching, gilt-edged round mirror in the ceiling above, with a ring of astrological constellations in gold etched into its surface. A computer on a desk in an alcove. She turned it on, then went back into the bathroom, and opened the shower door to check on Katya. She had slumped to a sitting position on the shower floor, but her eyes were halfway open. Lucy turned off the water. "How are you feeling, Katya?" she said.
"I am being OK," Katya said. "I just need to lie down. I am very sleepy." She reached up for help. Lucy grabbed her under the arms and slowly pulled her up to her feet. "Very stoned," Katya said. "I do not expect that it would be so strong, the drugs from the street."
"They say you never know with retail dope," said Lucy, handing her a towel. "Here, dry off and I'll help you lie down."
"Thank you," Katya said, slowly rubbing herself with the towel. Lucy could see needle marks, blue bruises on the insides of her arms. "Thank you for helping me to come home." She looked concerned. "What has happened to your eye?"
"Had an accident," Lucy said. "I never should have let you do that dope," she added. "I must be crazy."
"No, I am crazy," Katya said, throwing down the towel and walking naked into her bedroom. Lucy followed. "I have been crazy ever since I came here and Lucien began to give me these drugs."
"Where does he get them?"
Katya climbed into the bed, stared up at herself. "God, I look like drowned animal," she said, and fell back. "I feel like, how do you say it, zombie?"
"Yeah, zombie. The living dead."
"Yes, living dead, that is it." She sighed. Her voice was diminished, weary from dope and sorrow, and the revelations produced by mixing the two. "It is my fault I think, this matter. Poor Lucien. I know of this man you are looking for."
"Zane Smithson? You know him?"
"Yes, I met him through Lucien. We lied to you before. They were doing business together, and then I introduced them to some people from Russia that I met in hotel over there. They were very bad, these Russians. They had drugs from Iran and Pakistan. The plan was they bring the drugs and Zane finds market for them.” Tears came to her bleary eyes. “Oh, god, it is so difficult to understand why I have done this. It seemed very nice, to make all this money, and the drugs were fun at first, and the wild parties and the sexual freedom."
"Sexual freedom?"
"Nova called it open relationship. He sleep with other woman, I sleep with other man." She looked ashamed. "When I first come, he explain that many Americans live this way, so I—"
"Was Patricia Moody one of the other women?"
"She was," Katya said sadly. "She slept with Lucien, and I with Zane. But I never like this man Zane. He was a very bad man. But at first what was fun then no more as I became more dependent on the drugs. Zane would get them from the Russians which I make to know him, and he would take very much money from selling them, and share the money with us, and the drugs. But then after Patricia died Zane disappeared and the Russians refuse to deal with Lucien and me because they were scared of the police, but I was needing more the drugs, and I couldn't have them, so several times I try to see the Russians, to beg them to let us have drugs, but after once or twice giving just enough for one time, they say no, and then I think they send man to kill Lucien." Tears came to her stoned, sorrowful eyes. "Now I am alone, and lost in New York," she said. "I don't know what to do." She closed her eyes. "I need to rest," she said. "Then I think what next."
Alone, and lost in New York. The woman's lament. Welcome to the club, honey. "Where did you meet Zane Smithson, Katya?' Lucy asked softly. "Did you ever hear him called by any other name?"
"No," she said. "I don't know who he was or where he has come from," she said. “I have met him from Lucien. But I know he gave your friend Patty too much drugs and she died. I know because he came here late that night to get cocaine from Lucien and he said he was going to see her. He has killed her. He has killed Lucien too maybe, I do not know if he is still working with them—with the Russians." Her voice faded, and she fell asleep. Lucy checked her breath and pulse. She was breathing slowly, but regularly. She would be all right.
Who was Zane Smithson, where did he come from, where had he gone? Lucy went to the computer, and did a search. Easy enough. Smithson was across the park, on the Upper West Side. Lucy cleaned up the mess in the bathroom, left a note with her name and number on the nightstand, took a last look at Katya, passed out smiling sweetly in her big round nasty pink bed, and left.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
GETTING DOWN, GETTING OUT
She hit the street, anxious to get home and hide for a while; instead, she called the number she’d just memorized off Nova’s computer. A man's voice on an answering machine tonelessly stated the number, no name, and asked for messages. Lucy hung up. She couldn't tell if it was him or not.
She hailed a cab and headed across the park. Who knows, maybe the guy would be sitting over there waiting to take her out to dinner. She noticed the cabbie checking her out in the mirror, and quickly put on her sunglasses. Still looked a wreck. The address was on Central Park West in the Seventies, just north of the Dakota. She paid the driver, jumped out, and approached the building. A doorman let her in, and she wandered over to the lobby desk. "Hi," she said to the man sitting behind it. "I'm looking for a friend of mine, and I know he lives in this building but I don't which apartment."
"What's his name?"
"Zane Smithson."
"Nobody here by that name."
"Handsome guy, mid-forties, very well-dressed." She put a ten on the counter.
He took it. "Hasn't been here in a couple weeks. Has some friends staying in his apartment. Some Russian fella name of—uh—hey, Billy—" he called across to the doorman. "What's the name of that Russian guy stayin' in 7G?"
"Leonid somethin' or other," the doorman said.
"Leonid's his name," the man said. "He's from Russia. Hey, I think they’re up there now. You want me to call him?"
"No thanks," Lucy said. She walked out, contemplating staking the place out but opting out, out of fear. Instead she walked over to 66th and Broadway, went downstairs to wait for the IRT.
Home half an hour later, after greeting the dog she checked her messages. First: "Hey Lucy Ripken, Schallert here. Nothing solid to report, but it doesn't look good. In fact, when I say nothing solid I am also referring to the ground beneath my feet, which is beginning to feel like quicksand. All this is to give you time to think about what you want to do about the book. You might want to alert your agent that if there were any other interested parties back when she was submitting it, she—oh, hell, I'm making it sound like its a dead duck, and it isn't, not yet anyway—Fuck this. Call me, Lucy, I'm sorry."
Lucy whispered, "Damn." Two steps forward, three steps back.
Second: "Hey Luce, it's Rosa calling from Mom and Dadville in the 'burbs. Where life is the same as it ever was. Every time I come up here I think I’ve walked into that old David Byrne song—did you ever find yourself in a great big house, with a great big car, and wonder, what am I doing here? Or whatever it says. Anyways, the insurance is going to get me a new car so that takes care of everything except my pissed-in boots. I hope you're staying out of trouble, you trouble-seeking girl. Call me."
Third: "Hey, it's Harry. I'm back. Call me ASAP. I've got a line on your boy Smithson." She turned off the machine and called him.
"Hey, Harry, it's me. I ju
st got your—"
"Lucy. You can pick 'em, I tell you. OK, here's the story, straight from my usual impeccable sources. His real life name is Rene Lavoisier. His half-brother is a major player in the French embassy, he's got an Oxford education and a diplomatic passport, and he is notoriously dirty, but somewhat unbustable because of his family contacts. Basically has uncles and what have you tight with half the French diplomatic corps. Basically is reputed to be abusing his connections to arrange many a dirty deal, if not carry the occasional pound of heroin in his very own diplomatic pouch. The DEA would love to hang him out to dry, but he's a wily motherfucker. Has a reputation as a very nasty character, known for dangerous sexual proclivities, suspected in at least one other death in New York, and a few in Paris too. This guy is a major evil-doer, in other words, but untouchable unless he, say, gets nailed with his pants down, his gun cocked, and a bag of smack dangling from his dick. I bet you the police didn't have a thing to say about him even though you gave them that photograph, right?"
"They lost the picture. They said."
"Yeah, right. And I'm Ricky Ricardo. You know, if I were you I would drop this instantly. Tell the Moodys what I've told you, and let them take it from there. This guy is trouble, big-time."
"So you think he killed Patricia?"
"I don't doubt it for a second, Luce. I don't know if he did it on purpose, but I'm sure he did it, yes."
"What about him and the Russians?"
"A marriage made in heaven. They have the sources for dope, he has the contacts to move it. He's probably in Russia right now, if he's not in Paris living it up at La Tour D'Argent or laying low at some hideaway in St. Barths. People are getting tired of coke. Smithson—Lavoisier—and his cronies are moving their shit into the market at the perfect time. High-grade Iranian and Paki heroin. Just what the street needs here. Jesus."
"Hey, listen, Harry, not to change the topic but I gotta walk the dog. Wanna meet me halfway and have a beer? We need to talk some more."
Lost in New York: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 5) Page 16