Maybe she'd be able to steal some time for the will after lunch.
3
Alicia used the walk to the restaurant to work out the details of her serious long-term relationship. She wanted them fixed firmly in her mind so she could casually drop them into the conversation with Matthews when the opportunity arose.
Let's see… the man in my life… first we need a name.
She dropped some spare change in the bucket of a sidewalk Santa and looked around at the storefronts for inspiration. English names seemed to be the exception rather than the rule in this neighborhood. She saw a sign for Jose Herrera Clothing.
All right. Let's see what we can do with that. Don't want Detective Matthews to leave the restaurant and spot the name of my beau, so let's Anglicanize that: Joseph Hermann. Great. Now, what does he do? Something that'll keep him out of town a lot. An importer. Good. But an importer of what?
As she turned onto Twenty-third Street she passed a computer-beeper-pager shop and saw the cornucopia of gadgets filling the window.
That's it: electronics. My guy Joseph Hermann imports cell phones and VCRs and computer games and all that sort of stuff from the Far East. His constant traveling is a strain on our relationship, but we're deeply committed to each other and we'll be marrying as soon as he nails down his lines of distribution and can get off the road.
And then she spotted El Quijote's canopy. She'd passed it countless times but had never thought of eating there, and that beat-up metal canopy, painted some awful shades of red and yellow, was why. The restaurant was tucked under the notorious Chelsea Hotel whose redbrick front and wrought-iron balconies made it look as if it would be more at home in New Orleans. But the restaurant itself wasn't all that inviting. It looked… old.
She stepped inside and saw a long bar stretching toward the rear on her left. The restaurant area lay to the right. The inside pretty much matched the outside—old. And traditional-looking. High ceilings, white linen tablecloths, and faux Cervantes murals along the wall. She wondered if it had been redecorated since the forties. Even with daylight streaming in through the front window, the interior somehow managed to remain dim. She found that oddly comforting.
She saw a man step away from the bar and approach her.
Detective Matthews. Wearing a trench coat, no less.
"Hi," he said, grinning. "I've got us a table."
She realized he was very good-looking when he smiled. She extended her hand.
"Detec—"
He raised his finger and waggled it. "Uh-uh-uh. Will, Remember?"
"All right. Will." She took a breath. She knew he was waiting for it, so she said, "Only if you call me Alicia."
His smile broadened. "I'd love to. Let me take your coat, Alicia."
As she shrugged out of her all-purpose raincoat, she hoped she wasn't sending him the wrong message. But he seemed like a decent guy. What could it hurt?
He checked both their coats, then signaled to the maître d'' who led them through the half-full dining area to a rear corner.
Unable to think of anything else, she said, "This is nice."
"You've never been here?"
She shook her head. "I usually eat lunch at my desk, and at home it's whatever I can whip up quick and easy. I don't eat out much." Because I don't like to sit alone at a restaurant table.
He frowned. "I just realized I should have checked first if you like garlic. If you don't, we'd better find another place."
"I love garlic. But Mexican food isn't very—"
"This isn't Mexican. It's Spanish."
Alicia winced. "Of course. El Quijote. I should have known. It's just that after all those years in Southern California, any restaurant with an 'El' is automatically Mexican."
"'All those years?' I thought you were a New Yorker."
"I was. And am again. Born and raised. But at eighteen I left for USC and stayed away for a dozen years."
She didn't tell him that she'd looked into the University of Hawaii because it was the farthest she could get from New York and that house on Thirty-eighth Street and still be in the United States. But USC had offered her a better financial package, so she'd settled for California.
The waiter arrived.
"You've got to try the shrimp in green sauce," Matthews said. "Best thing on the menu—if you like garlic."
She ordered that, plus a Diet Pepsi. He ordered a beer.
While they waited, he quizzed her about her West Coast years, and she found herself relaxing as she talked about herself. As long as he didn't ask her about her life before that. Premed, medical school, the residencies… grueling years, but good ones. She'd left New York one person and arrived in California as another. The new Alicia had no past, owed nothing to no one. As she'd stepped off the plane, she'd been reborn as a being of her own creation.
She used the arrival of their meal—a metal crock filled with plump pink shrimp nestled in a lime-green sauce—to change the subject.
"But enough about me," she said. "What about Floyd Stevens?"
"Taste first," Matthews said as he spooned a generous portion onto her plate. "You don't want to ruin a good meal with talk about scum."
Alicia bit back a sharp retort. She hadn't come for the food, she'd come for information, dammit. Instead she forked a shrimp in half and tasted it. God, it was good. Incredibly good. Quickly she ate the other half. She hadn't realized how hungry she was.
"So," he said. She looked up and found him watching her intensely. "What do you think?"
"Heavenly," she said. "So good, in fact, that nothing you can tell me can ruin it."
He sighed. "Okay. Here's what I learned: Seems this isn't the first time Pretty Boy Floyd has been caught with his hands on a child. They weren't easy to find, but I dug up three past complaints about him."
Alicia's spirits jumped. "Then, he's got a record—a history of pedophilia. How the hell did we ever allow him in?"
"Hang on here. No record. The complaints were all dropped."
"Dropped? All of them?"
He nodded, chewing slowly. "Seems he's pretty well-off financially. Made a lot of money on Wall Street in the eighties and retired as a young millionaire with lots of time on his hands and a yen for kids."
Good as the meal was, Alicia found her appetite waning. "He buys his way out."
"Or threatens his way out, like he's trying to do with you. He's got a shark for a lawyer. Nasty SOB who loves to go for the throat."
"In other words, those weren't just empty threats."
"Afraid not."
"You're really making my day."
"Sorry. Just thought you should know what you're up against."
"I guess I already knew. Fineman called yesterday."
"What he say?"
"Pretty much what you overheard. Told me I could expect to spend the next three to five years in and out of courtrooms, burning up every penny I earn in legal fees, then spending much of the rest of my working life paying off the punitive and pain-and-suffering damages he expected the court to award his client. Of course, I could avoid all that if I saw the light, realized how mistaken I was, and withdrew my complaint."
"What a sweet guy. Goes to prove lawyers get the clients they deserve."
Alicia leaned back and fought a wave of depression as a string of rationalizations raced through her brain: Kanessa hadn't been done any physical harm, and she didn't have enough self-awareness to have suffered any long-term psychological damage. And at least Floyd Stevens was out of the Center for good, so the kids there were safe from him. Maybe he'd been hurt and frightened enough by the beating to keep his hands to himself from now on.
The fact that she was allowing these thoughts to exist depressed Alicia even more.
"You okay?" Matthews asked.
"No."
"Know what you're going to do?"
Alicia stared at him. "What do you think I'm going to do?"
He met her gaze. "I haven't known you very long, but I can't see you doing
anything else but hanging in there."
The sudden surge of warmth for this virtual stranger took Alicia by surprise. There'd never been a chance that she'd cave in—on something else, maybe, but never on anything like this—and he'd recognized that. For some unfathomable reason, she found herself smiling.
"How could you know that?"
"I don't know. I just sense it. It's part of what I find so attractive about you."
Uh-oh. There it was, out in the open, flopping around on the table. She chose to ignore it.
"You don't think I'm crazy?" she said.
"No. I think you're principled."
She wished it were principles. She wished it were that simple.
And then he reached across the table and covered her hand with his.
"And I want you to know that I admire you for it. And you should also know that you're not alone in this. There's still a few things I can do."
"Like what?"
"I learned a few things in Vice. One of them was that these pedophiles don't change their spots. You can't cure them. A stretch in the joint, years of couch time with an army of shrinks, nothing changes them. The minute they think nobody's watching them—or sometimes even if they suspect they're being watched—they're out on the prowl, hunting."
"Compulsive behavior." Alicia knew all about it.
"Right. And that can work to our advantage."
Our? When had it become his problem too?
Easy, she told herself. He wants to get this guy as much as you do. Don't get your back up. He wants to help. Let him.
She wondered why she found that so hard to do. Maybe because she'd been on her own for so long, taking no help from anyone, making all her own decisions, solving all her problems by herself. Was that why an offer of help seemed almost like… an intrusion?
"How?"
He smiled. "Leave that to me."
Alicia straightened and found herself smiling. "You know, Will, I think I'm getting my appetite back."
Oh, no. Had she just called him "Will?" Where had that come from?
But it was true. She was hungry again. And she had to admit, it felt good to know she had someone on her side.
They finished off the shrimp and green sauce, argued over who paid, with Will winning because he had longer arms and had snagged the check. They parted at the front door with Will promising to keep in touch.
Alicia was halfway back to the Center before she realized she'd never got around to telling him about her serious long-term relationship with that up-and-coming importer, Joseph Hermann.
4
Before sifting through the pile of "While You Were Out…" message slips piled on her desk when she got back to the Center, Alicia checked her personal voice mail. She had one message.
"This is Benny. Call me." He left a number.
Her pulse quickened. The arsonist. She closed her office door and called the number immediately.
"Yeah?" said the same voice.
She heard traffic noises in the background. He was no doubt at a pay phone.
"Is this Benny? I'm returning your call."
"Yeah. This is about the Murray Hill place, right?"
"Right."
"Yeah. I can do that."
"Good. But I need more than that." Jack's comment about a fire leveling the whole block gnawed at her. "I don't want it to spread."
"No prob. You're dealing wit' a pro, here. The inside'll cook. It'll be done to a turn, crisped to ash before it shows outside. The water boys'll be there by then, and if they ain't, I'll call 'em myself. And that'll be it. A surgical strike. With no one the wiser."
"You're sure? Absolutely sure? And no one will get hurt?"
"Guaranteed. Piece a cake, honey. You'll be countin' your money in no time."
Benny obviously thought she was doing this for the insurance. Let him.
"Great," she said.
"But I wanna be countin' mine tonight. Like we agreed, half up front, half the morning after. In cash, know what I'm saying?"
"I know."
Benny's fee would just about clean her out. Was it worth it? Did she really want to do this?
Yes.
"Where do we meet?"
5
Alicia stood on a chair and stared out at the night through one of her skylights. She faced northeast. Toward Murray Hill.
Benny had said he'd do the job tonight.
"I'm workin' another job farther uptown," he'd said.
"But why wait? Your place is empty and ready to go. Piece a cake."
Another job waiting… arson sounded like a booming business.
And then the police scanner she'd bought on her way home this afternoon squawked behind her. Something about shots fired near Madison Square Garden. Not what she wanted to hear.
Smoke reported from a house, on East Thirty-eighth.
That was what she was waiting for.
She knew she'd never see the flames or smoke from here, but something drew her to the window anyway. She'd stay here, squinting into the darkness until the alarm came through on the scanner. Then she'd run downstairs, snag a cab to Murray Hill, and stand there on Thirty-eighth Street, watching the flames burn that house to the sidewalk.
A tremor ran through her body and she wobbled atop the chair. She steadied herself against the skylight frame and closed her eyes. Her frazzled nerves were stretched to the breaking point. She wasn't cut out for this.
God, what have I done? I actually hired someone to burn down the house. Am I out of my mind?
Sometimes she thought so.
And after finally finding time to read the will today, she wondered if madness ran in the family. Leo Weinstein had mentioned in passing that it was "rather unusual," but she hadn't realized just how unusual.
Having read it, she knew the answer to Jack's question as to why the people she hired wound up dead but she remained unharmed.
And now she was convinced more strongly than ever that the only solution was to destroy the house.
Then she'd be free of Thomas's ankle-biting lawyers. And if insurance money came of it, she'd donate it to the Center.
And her world would be free of that house and all it represented.
6
"All right," Kenny said as he came down the steps. "He's stowed in the trunk. What next?"
Sam Baker stood in a cone of light in the basement of the Clayton house and wiped the bloody blade of the filleting knife on a rag. He wanted to take a chunk out of Kenny and make him eat it for screwing up tonight. But Kenny was family, his older sister's kid, a broad-shouldered twenty-five-year-old with his mother's red hair, and you didn't scar up family, not even when they deserved it.
He'd punish Kenny and his partner another way.
"A number of things are next, Kenny. The first one is docking you and Mott five percent of your bonus."
Kenny's eyes widened. "Five percent? What the fuck for?"
"For letting that torch slip by you."
"Shit, man, we caught him, didn't we?"
"Yeah, after he was already inside and setting up his goodies. If you hadn't smelled the gasoline, this whole place'd be up in smoke, and we'd all be out of a sweet gig." Baker pointed the knife at Kenny's chest. "He shouldn't have got in in the first place."
"Guy must be a magician. We never saw him, and I swear we weren't goofing off."
"Swear all you want, but don't expect any sympathy from the rest of the crew. If this place had gone up, they'd have lost a hundred percent of their bonuses. You too. So maybe this'll keep you on your toes during your next shift."
"That sucks, Sam."
"Don't feel so bad. I'll see that it goes to Grandma."
Kenny made a disgusted face. "Yeah, right. Think she'll remember to send me a thank-you note?"
Suddenly furious, Sam grabbed the front of Kenny's shirt and jerked him close. Family or not, he was ready to do a tap dance on his nephew's head.
"You watch your tone when you mention your grandmother, kid. Got that?"<
br />
Kenny looked away and nodded. "Sorry. I didn't mean it."
Sam released him. "I hope not. Now, lug the rest of this accelerant upstairs and wait for the others."
As Kenny stomped up the stairs, Baker looked around the cellar and shook his head. Too close. Too damn close. He'd damn near shit his pants when Kenny had called to say they'd caught a firebug in the house. He'd run over and found this weasel-faced wimp tied to a chair in the basement. The guy had been carrying a couple of gallons of accelerant in quart bottles stashed in pockets inside his overcoat.
Hadn't taken long to break him down. Amazing how persuasive a filleting knife could be. Remove a couple of wide strips of skin and the words tended to pour out. The torch said some broad had hired him. Someone who fit the Clayton babe's description to a tee.
Shit!
Didn't that bitch know when to quit? What did it take to scare her off?
Baker had been so pissed, he'd gone a little crazy. Grabbed the nearest pistol and started bashing away. Softened the torch's skull real good. He was out cold. Maybe he'd never wake up.
Baker had considered calling Kemel, but changed his mind. Little ol' Ahab the Ay-rab was turning out to be something of a wimp. Look how bent out of shape he got over that itty-bitty car bomb. Probably work himself into a pretzel if Baker told him how he planned to take care of the torch.
Kemel just didn't get it. You don't play footsy with problems—you eliminate them. That way they don't come back to haunt you.
Like this firebug.
This guy had been taught his lesson—maybe permanently. But that wasn't enough. Baker wanted to send the Clayton babe another message. Her PI splattered on the street hadn't done it. Her lawyer blown to pieces right in front of her hadn't done it. Maybe the third time would be a charm.
But he wasn't doing this one alone. He was gathering all eight of his crew for this. With the body count rising, it was time to take out a little insurance. Get everybody involved. Raise the stakes all around.
Baker knew these were tough, stand-up boys. Not of the caliber of the SOG teams he'd accompanied into Laos and Cambodia in the early seventies but they knew their stuff, all veterans of mercenary ops in Central America, Africa, and the Gulf. Over the years he'd used them when he'd hired out to the various players in Medellin and Cali to do their dirty work along the drug routes in Central America.
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