Known to Evil

I rode with her in the cab and together we walked into Breland's seventh-floor office on Madison, just below Forty-second. After the two shook hands we sat at the round teakwood table in a room off from the reception area of Breland's office.

Shirley, his female jack-of-all-trades, was not in yet and so we had the place to ourselves for a while.

"So," Breland said after an hour of serious interrogation, "are you willing to identify Mr. Bottoms as the source of the money, car, and weapons?"

"Yes," Wilma whispered.

"You'll have to speak up, Ms. Spyres."

"Yes."

"And are you willing to name the people you suspect that he's doing business with?" Breland asked, sounding more like a hard-nosed prosecutor than a defense attorney.

"Lazar," she said. "His name is Richard Lazar. Cary's been movin' guns for him for years."

"COME AGAIN?" JAKE PLUMB said to me over one of Breland's eight lines.

It was only eight-thirty, but he was at work and I was in a hurry to get to my next disaster.

"I can give you the name of the guy who owned the car and the guns," I said, "testimony that my client didn't have knowledge of the contents of the trunk, and the name of the man that the weapons were being moved for."

"How the hell did you get all that?"

"I need ten thousand and immunity for the information my client can provide," was my reply, "and you drop all charges against Sharkey. Also, I want you to get one of your Rolodex judges to enroll him in a three-month detox program, courtesy of the Fed."

"Why not just wait until he's begging for the H?" I could imagine Plumb's evil smile.

"He doesn't know the truth, and the one who does is fidgety… ready to fly."

"You got some record, McGill," Plumb told me. "I had a New York cop tell me to hold you on one'a my special writs. He promised me he'd come up with charges that would stick."

"Yeah. I could make a castle out of a single grain of sand."

"This stuff is straight?"

"I'll put Sharkey's lawyer on the line."

49

At 9:47 I parked my classic green-and-white 1957 Pontiac down the street from John Prince's door. I had with me a new MP3 player that was specially made by Bug Bateman and loaded with thousands of songs that I had listened to while living out my childhood, such as it was, on the streets of New York.

I had modern music, too. The first song that cued up through the shuffle function was "Helpless," written by Neil Young and sung by k.d. lang. It was a good cover-a lot better than my fancy-ass car.

But I wasn't trying to hide that morning. Nobody was looking for me yet. Patrick was locked away, I was sure of that. Rinaldo might have been limited by his distrust of his minions, but he was still the most powerful man in New York City.

Sitting there, I wondered if Patrick's and my blood was still on the street. Nobody paid much attention to small patches of street blood. That was just a now-and-then occurrence in a city with so many people living and dying in such a small space-you had to bleed somewhere.

My plan was to break into Prince's apartment once I was sure that he and Angie were out. I could bug the phone, search her things, and plant mikes in various rooms. I would call later, but first I needed to rest. I'd phone Prince at a decent hour-10:30. Before the appointed time I could sit, peacefully listening to music and enjoying my life-while it lasted.

Katrina called me at a little after ten.

"Where are you?" she asked after the one-word pleasantries were done.

"In my car on Twenty-seventh, staking out a young couple."

"What have they done?"

"Nothing that I know of."

"Have you heard from Dimitri or Twill?"

"I thought D called you?"

"I mean since then."

"No, but I spoke to D's girlfriend. She passed through town and we had a little sit-down."

I wanted to go from there to where I had met with Tatyana and from there to who I had seen bringing Katrina the flowers that she set in a bowl before me as if to mark the spot where the cuckold supped. But for some reason the words stuck in my throat.

"What was she like?" Katrina asked.

"Serious."

"Pretty?"

"No," I said, thinking that it was true. Tatyana was beautiful.

"Is Dimitri all right?"

"Twill has done an excellent job looking out for his brother. He'll be home when he told you he would."

Again I tried to mention Bertrand, but a feeling of exhaustion took the place of my words.

"I'm glad Dimitri has found love in his life," Katrina said. "Everybody needs love."

At that moment John Prince, accompanied by Angelique Tara Lear, emerged from his apartment building door.

"They just showed up, Katrina. I'll call you later."

I disco

I recognized her waif's body and even her careless gait, though I had only seen hints of it in stills. Her loose tan dress was half covered by a dark-brown suede jacket and her shoes were flat and tan. Her pocketbook was bright red and her hair combed but still, somehow, unruly. I would have recognized her out of the corner of my eye.

John Prince wasn't quite six foot. Apart from that, his slender physique was well proportioned. His wool slacks were gray and his shirt cream. The faux army jacket probably set him back five hundred dollars, but he still wore sneakers.

They turned in the opposite direction from where I stood. This pointed them toward Seventh Avenue. She had an olive backpack hanging from her shoulders and he was carrying a medium-sized pink suitcase.

I followed at a safe distance. If they both got into a cab I knew that I'd have at least thirty minutes to toss the apartment. The problem was that both bags were probably hers and so there wouldn't be much to search.

A block north on Seventh they went into a fancy chain coffee shop. For a moment I considered waiting outside. The less chance they had of seeing my face, the better. But I was remembering something that Mr. Nichols of Plenty Realty had told me-that Angie had argued over the rent rate he offered even though it was well below the market price. And so I blundered in after the couple, stopping at the doorway to scope out the seating arrangement at the coffee house.

The small tables were mostly occupied, and the line for espressos and cappuccinos was long. There were two small tables in a far corner that were empty; one, which had yet to be bussed, still had a paper coffee cup on it.

I settled at the messy table, moving my chair so that it seemed that I was taking up both spaces. I lifted the paper cup, pretended to drink, and waited.

"Is this table taken?" a young man asked. There was another man behind him. They were both mustachioed, wearing suits and ties.

While asking, he moved forward as if he were going to sit.

"Yes it is," I told him.

"I don't see anybody."

John and Angie were talking. She took the suitcase from him.

I pulled the vacant table next to me and stared into the young white-collar worker's eyes-my meaning as plain as a guard dog's sneer.

As the young men moved away, Angie waded into the pond of busy tables, holding the suitcase with both hands.

I took a sip of the leftover coffee. It was cold, both sweet and bitter-a perfect brew for New York.

"Is this table taken?" she asked me.

Sometimes things work out.

"No," I said. "My two friends just left."

We smiled at each other and I pushed the table toward her. She shrugged off the backpack and pushed the suitcase up against the glass wall.

"That looks heavy," I said.

"My whole life," she told me, thumping the backpack with her small white fist.

I smiled at her words and pulled out my souped-up MP3 player. I set the device down on the table and inserted the earbuds. Then I pulled out a book, The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, and turned to a dog-eared page.