The Quickie

Ordonez answered me by cuffing my arms behind my back.

"Get up!" he snarled.

I stood, feeling strange and powerless. I felt like I was weightless as the drug dealer forced me down the stairs, holding the back of my collar.

"Check this out," Ordonez said as we stepped outside onto the loose dirt of the front yard.

He flashed his light on a form lying beside our car.

The image came to me spottily, as if through TV white snow. It was Paul, faceup, his body almost completely under our car. Blood pooled on the ground beneath his head. He wasn't moving at all.

"Oh, God!" I said, dropping on my knees. "Oh, no! No! Paul!"

My mouth dried instantly as Ordonez yanked me up and dragged me around one of the mounds of earth, and I saw the van. Its side door was slid open wide, an open doorway leading to blackness.

The only sound now was from our feet crunching gravel.

I lost one of my shoes. After I hobbled for a moment, Ordonez stopped, stooped, and yanked off my other one. He heaved it away into the darkness.

"You won't need it," he said. "Trust me on that."

Down the hill behind the van, I watched a window light go on in one of the distant houses. I pictured a family sitting down at a dining room table, kids laying out plates and silverware, Dad loosening his tie. The countless stars above the houses twinkled.

Not for you, I thought, as I was thrown into the van's open doorway.

The cold metal floor slapped against my cheek, and then there was just blackness and the slide-bang of the door shutting. The metallic noise echoed in my ears.

It was the sound of the world slamming its door in my face for good.

Chapter 85

I COULDN'T STOP PICTURING Paul's body lying in the dirt beside his car.

It took me a full ten minutes to stop shivering and to finally recover my ability to speak.

"Where are you taking me?" I said, turning toward the front of the van.

Mark Ordonez was fiddling with a silver gadget on the van's dashboard as he drove. Music suddenly filled the van. Old music with a lot of horns. It sounded absurd under the circumstances.

"You like XM?" he called back to me. "This oldie's 'Fly Me to the Moon.' Frank's Place shit is the mack daddy."

He rolled his neck. With his military-style flattop, he looked like an understated, more disciplined version of his brother, Victor. The only flashy object he wore was his watch, a steel Rolex. Why did he scare me even more than his brother? He had a travel mug in the drink holder by his elbow. He lifted it out and took a sip.

"Where are we going?" I asked again.

"Oh, nowhere," he said. "Got a Piper in an airport across the Co

What was left of my heart sank. I wanted to cry, but to cry was to care too much about myself. The last thing I should do at this point, after all the pain and destruction I had brought to every person I was close to, was worry about myself.

A searing numbness possessed me as I thought about Paul. Dear God, I prayed. Let Paul be okay. I really must have been in shock – like God was taking requests from me at this point.

I lay there, silent, as we rattled along.

"Ah, screw it," Ordonez said, lowering the radio. "I'll tell you where we're going if you let me in on something."

I watched as his cold gray eyes found mine in the rearview mirror.

"So, tell me, why did you and your partner kill my brother, then frame him for murder? He didn't kill that cop. You know it, and so do I. I mean, what the hell? Why?"

I felt a stab of hope as we rolled along. Ordonez thought I had something he wanted. Information about his brother. I had to use that to stall him, get him off balance, create a chance to save myself.

"We got a tip from an informant," I finally said.

"An informant?" he said. "How convenient for you. Snitch have a name?"

"I'm sure they do, only I don't know it," I said. "The tip came through Scott's task force team. Somebody in your organization, I can tell you that for a fact. Give me a chance, and I'll help you find him."

"Wow," Ordonez said. "You're almost as good a liar as Scotty was. He always liked sharp-minded pieces of ass like you, even back in high school."

I craned my neck and stared, wide-eyed, at the rearview mirror.

What did he just say?

"You knew Scott?" I blurted out.

"Scott was my homeboy," the drug dealer said, rolling his eyes. "Back in the day when me and Vic was moving nickel bags, we used to plan fake busts with Scotso. Split our boss's money. I used to tip him off about our competition, money couriers. He used to tip me off about heat coming in my direction."

Ordonez laughed at my shocked expression.

"The night Scott ended up dead, I was supposed to meet him. Only he postponed. Told me he had a booty call from this hot little Homicide detective. Up in Yonkers. You know who that hottie was?"

I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth. I couldn't believe what an idiot I was.

"Yeah, Scott was one slick cat," Ordonez said. "Only, I guess he ran out of lives that night with you. You ever ask yourself what angle he was playing on you? Besides getting in your pants, of course. Because he never did nothing without some twisted reason, believe me. My boy Scotty, he was Freddy Krueger with a badge, more twisted than a pretzel."

We drove in silence after that little bit of wonderfulness.

"You still want me to tell you where we're headed?" Ordonez said after a minute.

I nodded. "Yeah, I do."

"We're going to fly due east of Providence for an hour or so. You know where that will put us?"

I shook my head. "I don't."

Ordonez winked at me in the mirror.

"The Atlantic Ocean," he said. "About a hundred and fifty miles from land. Then – pay attention now, this is good – I'm going to slice open the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet."

My breath started to come in sobbing bursts.

"Don't worry, lady. Nothing life-threatening," Ordonez said. "But then I'm going to slow air speed, lower altitude, and plonk you out the door of the Piper into the deep blue sea. You getting the picture now? You feeling me?"

I suddenly couldn't get enough oxygen. If my hands hadn't been cuffed, I would have covered my ears.

"From that point, you have exactly two choices," he continued as I experienced my first-ever asthma attack. "Drown yourself, or try to survive. You seem like the spunky type. I'm guessing you'll think you're going to get lucky – a passing boat or plane will spot you, pick you up. Only that's not going to happen."

Ordonez took a sip of his drink and adjusted his rearview mirror. He cold-eyed me. Then he winked at me again, horribly.

"While you tread water, your blood will seep. Then the sharks will come, Lauren," he said. "Not one, not two. I'm talking hundreds of sharks. Every hammerhead, blue, sandtiger, maybe even a great white or two, will be all over you like a bum on a bologna sandwich. And then, Lauren – I'm not kidding here, I want you to be fully informed – you're going to experience the worst death imaginable. Alone, in the middle of the ocean, you're going to be eaten alive. In case you've been wondering, I loved my brother, well, like a brother."

Ordonez suddenly turned up the radio, I guess to show his total disdain for me.

What I heard couldn't be, I thought. But it was.

Frank Sinatra.

Oblivious to the irony, Ordonez checked his Rolex and took another sip from his mug.

" 'Just the way you look…,' " he sang along with ol' Blue Eyes, with a jaunty snap of his fingers, " 'tonight.' "