Initially, he hadn’t believed anything Gloria said about them. When he first met the sisters, he was surprised they had the ability to see beyond their massive breasts, let alone into somebody’s future. But over time, as he got to know them, there were too many coincidences to ignore, too many times when they got it right, too many reasons why he needed to rethink how the universe worked and that some people were gifted in ways he may not comprehend, but could no longer ignore.
Roberta Buzzinni, his favorite of the three sisters, had taken the reins of the café on Prince while Carlotta and Gigi worked to make a success out of their new satellite café on Christopher Street.
When he was three blocks away from Roberta, he found a storefront window and turned to face it. Inside were customers, salespeople. It appeared to be some sort of furniture store. He tucked the manila envelope between his legs, rigged the magnet with tape, reached his hand inside his shirt and pressed the magnet over the bandage to cover the chip. If anyone inside saw him, he didn’t catch it.
When he entered the café, he found Roberta at the far end of the room, near the double set of doors that led to the kitchen. While he wished he could say he was surprised to find her twirling, the truth is that he wasn’t. To her core, she was an eccentric hippie and she’d never change.
In an outstretched hand was a yellow silk scarf that fanned out as she turned, spun and whirled, her double-wide barrel hips gracefully moving in time with the deep rhythms of Middle Eastern music. He leaned against one of the tables and smiled as Roberta dipped and fluttered, the scarf trailing behind her as she looked his way and blew him a kiss.
“Two minutes,” she said breathlessly. “Can’t stop. Favorite part. Sorry.”
Her hand disappeared inside her skirt pocket and she removed a thin stick of incense, which she held in the air as if it was a wand. She passed one of the many empty tables, lowered the stick into the heart of a burning candle and then twirled along with the swirling smoke, which curled in circles around her wide midsection as if some invisible god was blowing smoke rings over her body. When the song came to its crashing finale, she placed her hand on the back of a chair, feigned a weak curtsy and then walked over to a booth and collapsed in the red-padded seat. When Marty sat opposite her, he noted the sweat beading along her forehead and running in a thin trickle down her neck.
“Exercising?” he said.
“Oh, shut up.”
“Was that Zumba or something more exotic?”
“I don’t have the energy for something exotic. And what the hell is Zumba?”
“A fad.”
“Well, that wasn’t a fad. That was art. Did you see the smoke snaking around me? You try that. Parts of it were beautiful. For a moment there, I was a smoking top.”
She reached for the cloth napkin in front of her and tossed it over her face. “Oh, Goddess,” she said. “Please help me lose the chunk. Please make bread go away forever. And pasta. And Gigi’s meatballs. And Carlotta’s cannolis. That would be nice. It also would help.”
“You’re beautiful the way you are.”
“I can’t stand a liar.”
“I also love you the way you are.”
She wiped her face with the napkin and he caught a whiff of incense when she moved. It smelled of cinnamon and something else—something sweet—which knowing her, was made of a substance he likely had never heard of.
“Can I get you a glass of water?” he asked.
“The only water I need is in a pool.”
“Can’t help you there.” He picked up one of the menus and started fanning her with it. “How’s that?”
“It’ll only make me hotter.”
“That’s an old wives’ tale.”
Her eyes snapped at him. “Wives’ tale? I never thought you were against women. Why don’t they call it an old husband’s tale? Why are women always the ones to blame? And why are we always old? It’s wrong.” She reached out to lower his arm so he could fan her bosom and when she did, she was all business. Her eyes widened, she straightened in her seat and her grip tightened on his arm. “Why are you here?”
“You tell me.”
“You’re working another case.”
“The manila envelope give that away?”
“Always the nonbeliever.”
“Not after Wolfhagen.”
“So, who’s the woman with the blonde hair?”
He screwed up his face. “Jennifer?”
“I’m not talking about your wife. I’m talking about the other woman.”
“What other woman?”
“The one you’re looking for.”
“That woman has dark hair.”
“Not anymore she doesn’t. What’s her name?”
“Camille Miller.”
“Camille Miller. She has a daughter? Name sounds like ‘gem.’”
“Her name is Emma. What are you seeing, Roberta?”
She shook her head and her expression darkened. She was punchy a moment ago, but now she looked troubled. “I’m seeing what you usually bring through my door. Anger. Resentment. Bitterness. Betrayal. Nothing good.”
“For who?”
“For you. For others. Why did you come here, Marty?”
“For this.”
“Well, this is a mess. I’d tell you to get out of it, but you can’t, can you?”
“I can’t. So, what do I do?”
Her eyes lifted to his and in them, he saw an older sister’s worry. That’s how close they were. Each considered the other family. They sparred like brother and sister, but when it came down to it, each had the other’s back.
“You need to see it through,” she said.
He pulled out the photograph of Camille and Emma from the manila envelope. He pointed at Camille. “I have seventy-two hours to find her or they murder one of the girls. Rinse and repeat until we’re all dead. Can you get a feel on where she is? I have no starting point. No clues. Just orders to find her or they’ll take action.”
Roberta took the photograph and looked at it. “She’s the one I saw with the blonde hair.” She turned the photo over in her hands and closed her eyes. After a moment, she put it on the table between them. “Why am I seeing a car?”
“The man who gave it to me is named Carr.”
“Stay away from him.”
“Easier said than done.”
“You need to listen to me. The car I saw was burning, which for me either represents evil or something to come. Or both. Probably both.”
“It’s too late.” He patted his shoulder. “With only brief exceptions, I have no getting away from Carr or the men he’s hired.”
“What does that mean?”
“They implanted a chip beneath my skin.”
“They did what?”
“They put me in a limousine, threatened me and punched a chip under my skin.”
“What does it do?”
“It lets them know where I am.”
She couldn’t keep the alarm from her voice. “They know you’re here now?”
“They know I’m in the vicinity. But don’t worry. Three blocks back, I covered the chip with a magnet that’s blocking the transmission. To them, I just disappeared. Think of it as a cell phone cutting out. They’ll see me again when I leave here and take off the magnet. It’s one of the reasons I can’t stay long. If I’m gone too long, they’ll think I yanked it out.”
“Then we need to hurry.” She ran her hands over her doughy face and wiped away the last of the sweat. She took a breath and looked down at the photograph. “I get nothing from either of them. Do you have something personal of Camille’s? Something she might have touched?”
He removed from the envelope the letters shared between Camille and her father. He gave them to Roberta, who gave a start when the café’s door opened. A young man entered. He was tall and thin, had a guitar slung around his shoulder and dreadlocks that roped down his back.
“We’re closed, sweetie,” she said. “Sorry about the s
ign—I should have turned it to ‘closed.’ We re-open at five. If I see you then, dinner is on me.”
“No problem,” he said.
“You need to eat,” Roberta called after him. “You’re too thin. Come back, OK?”
He smiled at her and nodded as he stepped out.
Marty got up and went to the door. He turned over the sign, flipped the locks and lowered a metal bar to secure the door. “Will he be back?”
“Not today. He’ll be by next week and I’ll give him a meal then. I hate to see kids his age that skinny. There’s no need of it.” She handled the letters for a moment and then dropped them. “Camille Miller is here. Not in Manhattan because what I see is the tip of Manhattan, from the outside, which means she’s either in Brooklyn or Jersey.”
“You can’t tell which?”
“I’m not a GPS system, Marty. What I see is the tip of Manhattan. That’s all I see. Not from the left or from the right. Just the tip. She must be able to see it, too, or I wouldn’t be able to see it.” She hesitated. “You need to be careful tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tonight isn’t going to go well for you.”
“How so?”
“When I see black, it usually means death. In this case, I think it means murder, because I’m also seeing red. Flashes of red.”
“Whose murder?”
She closed her eyes again. Shook her head.
“Does it involve my family?”
“I can’t see your family.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure. You know I know Gloria and the girls. But right now, I can’t see any of them. I can’t even force a mental image of them. It’s as if they’ve disappeared.”
“As in dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m having dinner with them tonight. Carr knows that. Gloria, her husband, the kids and Jennifer will be there. So will Carr’s men.” He felt sick to his stomach. “Is one of them going to die?”
“Somebody will die tonight.” She opened her eyes, reached out and put her hand over his. “I don’t know who it is. It might not be any of you. It might have to do with Camille.”
“What do I do?”
“When it happens, be prepared, because when it does happen, you’re going to be in this so deep, I don’t know how you’re going to get out of it. But take my advice. Before it happens, get rid of the chip. Cut open your shoulder, take out the chip and destroy it. Try to keep your family safe. Because when it does happen, everything will dissolve very quickly. That I can see.”
* * *
Outside, on the street, Marty started down Prince, waited until he was on the next block and then removed the magnet. See, he thought. Here I am, Carr. Come and get me.
He removed the satellite phone from his pocket and called one of his best friends, Detective Mike Hines. He was a hulking brute, six feet eight, over three hundred pounds, all muscle. He also was one of Marty’s best connections.
He answered on the second ring. “Hines.”
“I need your help,” Marty said. “I’m in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“You might be tossing dirt on me in a week.”
“Where are you?”
“On Prince.”
“You saw her again, didn’t you?”
“Yep.”
“And she’s filled your head with all sorts of shit, right?”
“It goes deeper than anything she said.”
“You near the café now?”
Marty looked around him. He disappeared on Prince about twenty minutes ago. Now, as far as they were concerned, he was back again. If they were actively tracking him, they might be looking for him. The sidewalks were busy. Stores and restaurants were open. Any number of people could be watching him from any number of locations and if they were any good, which he sensed they were, he wouldn’t know. “I’m near it.”
“Stay there. I’ll pick you up in a minute.”
“You can’t come near me.”
“What does that mean?”
“A chip was planted under my skin.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They’re tracking me through a chip. They put it in my shoulder. If you pick me up, they’ll be tracking each of us. I can fool it sometimes with a magnet, but I just did that a few minutes ago and I can’t do it again this quickly. For now, it’s best if you’re on the periphery.”
“Who are they?”
“The people who plan to kill one of the girls if I don’t find someone for them soon.”
“You need to get off this phone and call me from a landline.”
“My phone is secure.”
“No cell phone is secure.”
“I’m on satellite.”
A silence passed.
“Tell me what you know and how I can help.”
Marty told him. When they finished, he hung up and almost could see Hines pulling everything he had on Camille Miller and a man he knew only as Carr. If that was his real name, which Marty doubted, Hines might be able to link the two and learn his full name. But it was a long shot. They both knew it. There was no way Carr was using his real name, but they needed to try.
He was putting the phone back in his pocket when he noted a black limousine coming down Prince.
It was Carr and his men—he knew it. He turned and waited for them. The car stopped in the middle of the street and the rear door shot open.
Carr was in the back, but he wasn’t alone. This time he had a surprise. Jennifer was with him. The corner of her mouth was bleeding. She looked horrifyingly at Marty just as a younger man emerged from the seat opposite her, stepped onto the street and motioned for him to get inside.
CHAPTER TEN
“It’s good to see you out and about,” Carr said while Marty sat next to Jennifer and put his arm around her. “And don’t worry about her. She was just a little resistant when we picked her up at Channel One while she was leaving for lunch. Alex here needed to slap her a couple times to keep her in line.”
He motioned to the young man sitting opposite them, who shrugged as if hitting Marty’s wife meant nothing. It was enough to make Marty lunge across the car at him.
He grabbed the man by the throat, leaned into it with his forearm and started to pummel his face with his free fist while the man squirmed and choked, struggled and kicked. Marty had the element of surprise and he used it to his benefit, beating the man in the face while Carr reared back, stunned by the outburst.
“For Christ’s sake, get off him,” he said.
“Keep your fucking hands off my wife,” Marty said. He pulled back his fist and went straight for the man’s mouth, breaking teeth, maybe a jaw. They were approximately the same size and they started to flail together on the seats across from Carr and Jennifer, who twisted away from the brawl.
The man’s hand slipped free from Marty’s grip and went for the gun at his waist. But Marty head-butted him, took his hand and jerked it violently back, breaking it. The man howled in pain and tried to push Marty off him with his knees, but he couldn’t.
So the driver helped.
Just as Marty was reaching for the man’s gun, the car jerked to a stop with such force that it sent him rolling into the space between the facing seats. Carr’s shoe came out of nowhere and struck him hard against the temple. When he looked up, dazed, the driver was pointing a gun at his forehead.
He looked at Carr. “Shoot him?”
“No.”
“Shoot her?”
Carr removed his own gun from his jacket and pointed it at Marty. He looked at Jennifer and hesitated before he spoke. “Maybe.”
Car horns sounded behind them. Marty got up and fixed his eyes on the driver and Alex, the latter of whom was bleeding profusely from his nose and mouth. His jaw hung slackly and slanted to the right. Four of his front teeth were either smashed or missing. With the hand that wasn’t broken, he started to reach for his gun, w
hich was enough to cause Jennifer to scream.
“Leave it alone,” Carr said.
Alex looked at him in disbelief. He blinked.
“We’ll get you to a hospital. Leave your gun alone and just sit there.” He picked up the gun himself and looked at the driver. “Get us out of here. Can’t you hear those horns? Move before somebody questions us.”
The man turned around and started to drive.
Marty sat next to Jennifer and forced himself to control his rage. He tried to catch his breath, but it was difficult. He looked at Jennifer and could only imagine what she was thinking. Yesterday, he hired protection for her. She was supposed to be safe. What went wrong?
He glared at Carr. “What do you want from us? You said you were giving me seventy-two hours? What’s changed?”
“Nothing’s changed,” Carr said, keeping the guns on Marty while trying to compose himself. “At least when it comes to Camille. You still have whatever’s left of your seventy-two hours to bring her in.”
“Then why are you here with my wife?”
“To show you what a fool you are. And how vulnerable you are. I could kill her, you know.”
“You’d die trying.”
“You think so? Are you sure? I think you’d lose. If she was honest, I think she’d agree.” He seemed to make a decision and then lowered the guns in his lap while keeping them pointed at Marty. “You made a mistake. You broke your promise to me. You let others in.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know you hired people to protect her.”
Marty said nothing.
“You don’t think we’re watching you? All of you?”
Silence.
“They’re gone now,” Carr said. “Dealt with. Now I need to decide on how to deal with you.” His eyes hardened. “Maybe the best way is through her?”
“You touch my wife and you’re dead.”
“Is that so, Spellman?”
“It is. What’s worse is that you’re losing time. The longer I sit here, the less time I have to find Camille Miller.”
A Rush to Violence (A Spellman Thriller) Page 7