announced. That’s what the party’s all about. There will be people from the Smithsonian and Vanity Fair. Hecht likes to see his photo in the society rags.”
Sharpe talked about the sword with a religious fervor. His eyes blazed. He was a Believer. Did he want the sword for himself, or was he merely excited at the magnitude of the find? She wanted to trust him. But she had seen too much.
“Is that all you’re going to say? You’ve got a snitch?” He nodded grimly.
“Derek, may I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“Do you collect swords?”
He gave her a funny look, like he’d just stepped on an egg. “I have a few swords. Got ’em in Japan. You knew I was a Nipponophile. Why?”
“The legend surrounding Skyroot.”
Sharpe’s brown furrowed into a map of Mississippi delta. “Yeah?”
“Some say Udo’s restless spirit haunts the earth, searching for his lost sword.”
Sharpe stared at her for a minute. “So?”
“So you’ve been having blackouts. Periods where you can’t account for time. Aside from the threat this poses to your work, don’t you think this might indicate a deeper, personal crisis?”
They stared intently at each other in long silence. “Brain tumor?”
She didn’t reply.
“Possession?” Sharpe whispered.
Sara shrugged. “I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff. I’ve learned not to discount the so-called supernatural.”
“You think the reason I blackout is because I’m being possessed by a ghost samurai?”
“For a while, I thought the killer was trying to hide the real target: Chalmers. But now I’m not so sure. Chalmers received several threatening e-mails from someone calling himself Kagemusha, because Chalmers beat him out in an online auction.”
“Shadow warrior.”
“What did you think when you cut that punk in two? Were you thinking?”
Sharpe rubbed his forehead with his knuckles. “When I came to in the control booth, you were already out at the end of the crane, those two scumbags reaching for you. I remember running out on the crane ...”
Sara recalled the fight they’d had on the gondola. Would have been difficult for an ordinary man to sleep through that. But nothing about Sharpe was ordinary.
“Derek, if you killed those men under some outside influence, we need to find out. You need to find out. If you’re a man, you'll turn yourself in and ask for a complete psychological evaluation."
“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation."
“I just hope you’ll remember.”
“I’ll remember.”
“Why did you conceal the fact you’re a former SEAL?” “That’s classified.”
“Come on, Derek.”
“Seriously. I know how this must look, but I’m trying to lead a normal life. I was involved in some highly classified missions in the East, and one of the conditions of my release was that I not talk about my years in the military.”
“I can check that easily enough. You need to take a leave of absence.”
Beat. “You’re right. I will, as soon as Hecht shows the sword.”
“You need to take a leave of absence now.”
“I can’t do that."
“Why not?”
He gritted his teeth. “Because I have to see the sword.” “Is this Derek talking, or Udo?”
A look of immense confusion came over his face. A yellow gleam of fear crept into his eyes like a distant sun. “I don’t know.”
“It’s okay to admit it.”
“I don’t know what's happening to me. I’ve always been in control.”
“I know how scary that can feel. You need to see a shrink.”
“I know.”
“Promise you’ll get help.”
“I promise. Listen. I swear to you, I didn’t murder Bachman or Chalmers! Just let me stay on the job through the Grand Opening.”
“Derek, I’ll have to think about it. But I promise you I won’t do anything before telling you first.”
“Fair enough.”
It was almost one by the time Sara arrived home. She parked the bike, strolled across the busy avenue, and let herself into her apartment. Shmendrick scolded her until she picked him up and took him to bed with her, purring loudly She needed a seance, with or without Sharpe’s cooperation. Sara knew of numerous psychics in and
around the city—mostly humbugs, a few not. In the morning, she’d see about contacting someone.
She slept until eleven, rolled out of bed and showered. Big day. The mayor’s reception was that evening. She pushed it out of her mind. Derek Sharpe was a ticking time bomb. She phoned Siry at his home in Queens.
“Joe, it’s Sara. Can I come over? I need to talk to you.”
“What the hell, hey. It’s a zoo here anyway. My brother and his family are here. Come on around back.”
Siiy’s house in Rego Park was a white clapboard two-story job with Amityville windows. Fifty feet of crabgrass with picket fence girdled round. A place for little Joe to play, a port for Siry’s Chevrolet. It was just past one when Sara arrived. She left her bike in the driveway between a Chevy Suburban and a Subaru with Connecticut plates. In the backyard, four adults were seated around a picnic table while four kids raced pell-mell, pausing to douse each other with Super-Soakers. Joe’s kids were grown up. These had to be his nieces and nephews.
Siry’s wife Dalia noticed Sara first, rose to greet her with a smile. “Hello, Sara. Would you like a beer?”
“Okay.”
Siry introduced her to his brother Dave, and Dave’s wife Ruth. Sara accepted a beer, and she and Siry walked around the side of the house, through the hinged gate, to the front yard, where they sat on the stoop, watching kids swoop up and down 243rd Street on their skateboards, in-lines, and Razors. One quaint candidate for the Society For Creative Anachronism even rode a bicycle.
“I heard about your set-to last night at Hecht Gardens. What the heck was that all about?”
She told him, omitting her knowledge of the sword’s ancient history. Siry had little use for the supernatural, despite, or perhaps because of, Sara’s previous cases.
“You think Sharpe is the samurai killer? Thanks for letting me know. What happens if I reach out to him? Is he gonna cooperate? Or is he gonna go nuts and chop down my guys?”
“I don’t know.”
“All right. I’m putting Sharpe on administrative leave.” “You do that, he’ll know I talked. Internal Affairs will get involved.”
“Well Sara, I don’t see where you’ve left me much choice. You come to me with loads of circumstantial evidence, then last night Sharpe asks you to meet him, he doesn’t show, four gangbangers do, and you’re nearly killed. When he does show, he acts like some kind of nut instead of a cop. Any rookie can put the lie to your story about how a guy wire cut that kid in two. Something doesn’t add up here. Something you’re not telling me.” Sara experienced a sinking sensation, her heart being sucked toward the center of the earth like a pneumatically propelled drive-up bank capsule. She liked Sharpe. He would know instantly that the reason he was being placed on administrative leave was because Sara had talked.
A mad M80 went off in her skull, aimed at Sharpe for putting her in this situation. He was a cop! He knew what the job entailed. It was he who’d placed her in this untenable situation through his bizarre behavior.
“Say something. You’re scaring me.” Siry’s voice seemed to come from far away.
Sara blinked. “What?”
“You got that look on your face.”
“Joe. If Sharpe has mental problems, this could push him over the edge.”
“Yeah, so I have to detail two plainclothes to follow him, and I ain’t got ’em. I’m going to have to put in a special request to One Police Plaza, they’re gonna want to know why ..
“Joe. Tell them you’re closing in on Chalmers’ killer. That’ll give you the cov
er you need.”
An expression of enlightenment slowly settled onto Siry’s heavy features. “That’s right! Now my only problem is keeping this away from the press. That’s all the department needs. ‘Samurai killer exposed as cop.’ ”
“I’d say that’s the least of your worries.” .
“That’s because you’re not chief. You going to this thing at Gracie Mansion tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d tell you how to behave, except I think you know more about it than me. Have a good time and don’t piss on or piss off the mayor.”
“One more thing.”
Siiy slapped a hand over his face and dragged. “What?” “Maybe we should alert Hecht he could be in danger.” “I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks, Joe.”
Two teen-age boys watched with a mixture of awe and admiration as she strapped on her beanie helmet and took off. She ran the tach up to nine, dropped the clutch, and did a wheelie.
Something to remember for the rest of their lives.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
s
W_/ara needed a psychic. With all its powers, she wondered why the Witchblade wouldn’t pitch in. There were limits to its powers. It didn’t do readings, or contact spirits from the netherworld. Sara phoned Brooklyn Vice, spoke to a bunco expert named Palmer, and it was Palmer who told her about the witch lady Estrella who lived down by the tracks.
After leaving Joe’s house, Sara headed for the switching yard that cut Brooklyn off from the waterfront at Map Street, using her badge to get by security at the freight-loading gate. A squat black security guard in a khaki Blane’s uniform with “Hawkins” on the ID tag accosted her as she chained her bike to the hurricane fence surrounding a switching station.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
She flashed the badge. “I’m looking for Estrella.”
“You want the witch? She’s down a quarter-mile, in an old switching shack surrounded by hex signs, next to the Con Ed box. She’s hard to miss. What do you want with her? We always figured she was the bunk, but we let her stay ’cause she discourages taggers. Scares ’em spitless.”
Sara set off through the freight yard, walking sometimes on the dull nickel-colored rails, sometimes on cinders, sometimes on ties, in and around boxcars on sidings, occasionally losing sight of the skyline. The switching yard was a maze. Most of the sidelined boxcars were covered with graffiti, Estrella notwithstanding. Sara recognized a dozen different gang monikers, including Los Romeros and Los Tecolotes.
Eventually, she emerged from the thicket onto a dusty plain, at one end of which sat the corrugated steel shack, roof draped with fishnets into which the owner had inserted various fetishistic objects, including Barbie and GI Joe dolls, green Rolling Rock bottles, faded Lotto tickets, and cracked CDs. There was no graffiti on the switching station.
A big old tomcat was sunning itself on a concrete block as Sara approached. It watched her with baleful yellow eyes and twitching tail, and when she drew abreast, let out a yowl that cut through the hum of the transfer station like a shotgun blast through fog. The cat leaped up and headed directly away from the hut as fast as it scabbed legs could scrabble.
The front door was open. Enya drifted from within. The door faced north east, so Sara cast no shadow when she finally stood in the entrance, took off her sunglasses, and let her eyes adjust to the gloom. The witch Estrella lay sprawled on mismatched cushions, one hand clutching a bottle of muscatel. The interior of the cabin smelled of cheap wine, body odor, sandalwood, and spice. Estrella was a dumpy woman, hard to tell her age, with a brown face and black hair streaked with gray. She might have been beautiful once, but age and hard living had left her ravaged as a gravel road.
“Excuse me,” Sara said. “Estrella?”
The old woman stirred, moaned. “Wha—? Who want Estrella?”
“Detective Pezzini, Eleventh Precinct.”
The old woman’s eyes popped open. She sat up, lips parted like an old purse left in the rain. An expression of terror descended like the night.
“No,” the witch croaked, working her legs as if to scrabble backward. “Witch!” she shrieked. “You de witch!”
“No,” Sara said forcefully. “You’re the witch. I’m the cop. What’s the problem? Have you been reading the tabloids? Do you know me?”
Estrella had backed herself up against an old wooden packing crate she used as a table, breathing hard, her mouth a slit. Sara came into the room. Her eyes adjusted to the gloom, a couple of candles the only light. Like a filthy little Bedouins’ den.
She crouched in front of the witch, and held up the little plastic troll figure she’d taken from Bobby Chacon. “Do you recognize this?"
The witch’s eyes grew wider, until yellowish whites showed all the way around. She reached frantically under some covers. Sara dropped the troll and went for her revolver, had it up and the hammer back when Estrella held up an ornate old cross draped with cheap plastic beads, colored pipecleaners, and other ornaments. For an instant they faced each other, the two witches, each holding their shamanistic totem. Sara lowered hers first.
“You shouldn’t make sudden moves like that in front of a cop. I might have shot you.”
“What for you use de gun anyway? I know ’bout you. I know you very powerful witch. I make no excuses. The girl come to me wit’ a job. You would have done de same.”
Connections started sliding into place. Bobby Chacon’s troll doll. The peculiar way in which the gangbangers had pursued her. The ugly little drawing she’d received in the mail. “Someone hired you to put a hex on me.”
Estrella nodded, still grasping the crucifix. “You would have done de same.” ,
“Uh, no. But that’s not why I’m here. What you just told me suggests you had prior knowledge of an assault and did nothing. You also admit to helping the perpetrators. You’re guilty of prior knowledge, being an accessoiy to assault on a police officer. I could arrest you.”
The yellow eyes contracted. “Go ’head an’ ’rest me, den.”
“No. That’s not why I’m here. I need someone to help me conduct a seance.”
Estrella looked confused. Unconsciously, she reached for the muscatel. “Huh?”
“I need someone to help me contact a ghost, a spirit. Someone who’s been dead a long time. Your name came up. That’s why I’m here. I came to ask for your help in conducting a seance. While you’re at it, you can tell me who set me up.”
A look of low cunning stole over the woman’s ferretlike features. She was as transparent as glass. Sara wondered how she’d managed to fool so many people. “I do not contact de spirit world. I know someone who does.
And dat de same person who set me after you. Lupe Guttierez.”
It was 4:30 by the time Sara returned to Waubeska Place. She left her helmet with the bike, cut straight through the building to the front lobby and out the front door. Hector sat on the concrete abutment framing the stairs, wearing a pair of pleated Dockers, white T, and a set of headphones through which Sara could hear Malo faintly blasting. He puffed out his cheeks and blew up on his mustache when he saw her, took the headphones off.
“ ’Ey, guapa. How you doin’? Man, that was some hurt you laid on me the other day.”
They did a complex soul clasp. “No hard feelings?”
“ ’Ell, no. Din’t hurt my stock with the ladies to learn you laid me out, specially ’cause I so humble about it.” He flashed a disarming grin, displaying a gold tooth with a small ruby.
“Nice tooth. Where can I find Lupe Guttierez?”
“You live here and you askin’ me? She in the ground floor apartment on the right with the picture of Selena on the door. I tell that girl she ought to switch to Thalia, but she don’t listen.”
“What are you doing out here?”
“Guardin’ the place. Watchin’ out. Helpin’ little old ladies with they groceries. That’s what Jorge told me to do, and that's what I’m doin�
��.”
“Hector, you surprise me. You turn out to be veiy intelligent and well-spoken. You keep on like this, and there’s no limit to how far you can go.”
Hector balanced his forearms on his thighs and regarded the street with equanimity. “Jes' doin’ a job.”
Sara went inside. The inner security door was locked, at least. She let herself into the apartment proper and followed the hall around to the right on faded rose carpeting. Life boomed faintly through the walls: a snatch of Snoop Dogg, a few bars of Tony Bennett, an argument in Spanish. The halls were fragrant with cumin, curry, a wild mix of spices. The Guttierez apartment was number 124. There was a poster of the late Latin singer Selena taped to the wall, along with some humorous postcards and phrases in Spanish.
Sara knocked. A moment later, the door opened on the chain, framing a wan-faced girl whose straight black hair hung in her face. She was sucking on an electro-pop, little motor in the handle turning the sugar in her mouth so she didn’t have to lick. She stared, holding the device to her mouth like a self-directed drill.
Sara showed the badge. “I’m looking for Lupe. She in?” The girl nodded, stood there whirring.
“May I see her? Inside the apartment?”
The girl closed the door, unlatched the chain, and opened it again. Sara entered a cozy apartment rich with religious symbols. The tiny living room was devoted to several pictures of Christ, with and without Mary, and there was a small shrine in the comer, plaster Christ preaching from a heavenly blue shell on top of a cheap end table, numerous candles at his feet. The television was showing The Powerpuff Girls.
“Where’s Lupe?”
The girl flopped down on some cushions in front of the television. It was a miracle she didn't drive her candy through the roof of her mouth. She gestured down the hall. “She’s in her bedroom.”
There were more posters on the door to the bedroom. The door was shut, quietly pulsating with music. Sara tried the knob. It was unlocked. Carefully, she swung the door inward. Lupe sat cross-legged on her bed, bopping to tunes playing in her head through a Sony Walkman. The walls were crowded with posters and pictures.
Sara let herself in and shut the door. Lupe’s shoulders hunched. She turned. Eyes and mouth expanded into sinkholes. She snatched the headphones off and scrambled for the head of the bed, hand reaching beneath the pillows. Sara instinctively leaped after, both hands burrowing under the cushions after Lupe’s. Sara’s hands closed around Lupe’s as it closed around a chunk of steel. Sara twisted the .9mm Ruger loose, tossed it over her shoulder. Her hand came back and struck Lupe hard across the cheek.
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