A Cast of Killers (47 page)

The cumulative effect of her words, their
growing hunger and the increasingly crowded conditions in the
waiting room finally convinced them all that it was time to move
on.

"There's nothing you can do tonight," Fran
repeated to a distraught Father Stebbins. "Let me make you a strong
cup of tea before you go to bed. It will do you good."

The big priest rose numbly. "It's all my
fault," he repeated. "I tried to do the right thing. He trusted me
and look what I did to him." He shook his head and allowed himself
to be guided by Fran toward the exit door. "Texas," he mumbled on
his way out. "I should have called Texas. And damn the seal."

"Well, that's it for the Father," Adelle
remarked crisply. "He's blathering on about Texas and seals." Her
followers murmured in appreciation of her observation, but Auntie
Lil was annoyed. She did not approve of witty remarks that were
made at the expense of common sense. Of course he was blathering
about seals, she thought to herself. The confessional seal. Not the
kind that balanced balls on their noses.

Auntie Lil was suddenly very tired and hungry
and ready to be away from this all. "I could use a cup of coffee
myself," she announced abruptly.

"I could use a gallon," Annie added. She took
Auntie Lil's arm as if to help her to the door but, in truth, it
was Annie that needed the support. "I'm exhausted," the big woman
admitted.

Auntie Lil patted her arm in reassurance.
"You were magnificent tonight," she told her. "You saved the boy's
life." Annie nodded weakly, and Auntie Lil was alarmed at her
sudden lack of vigor. Perhaps she, too, had not eaten all day.
"Let's stop by the deli for a bite," Auntie Lil decided for them
both. "If I know you, you're planning to go by the police station
and see Bob. You can't do that without proper nourishment."

"Coffee?" Adelle said
scornfully, a bit miffed at being left out. "I believe a good stiff
drink is in order." She looked hopefully around at her followers
and settled her gaze on Herbert Wong. Her entire face rearranged
itself: eyes widened, her eyebrows rose and her lips pursed in an
inviting smile. She looked as if she were preparing for a screen
test. "Herbert," she cooed prettily, "regrettably, it appears as if
our adventure is at an end. What say we toast to
auld lang syne
before
resuming our humdrum lives?" She placed a tentative hand on his arm
and cocked her eyebrows higher. "We really should raise a toast to
Eva’s dear memory."

Herbert's face brightened. He was not averse
to either drinks or escorting three lovely ladies. Nonetheless, he
glanced at Auntie Lil first.

"Go on, I don't mind a bit," Auntie Lil told
him with exaggerated dignity. Mustering an air of superiority, she
declared, "I don't feel the need to depend on alcohol at the
moment, anyway."

Herbert bowed politely to Lillian, then
escorted Adelle and her followers out the door.

"Wait until he finds out he has to pay,"
Auntie Lil muttered under her breath.

"We could join them," Annie offered, but her
heart wasn't in it.

"No. You need something hot," Auntie Lil
decided. "And so do I." They negotiated their way around a tramp
who had made his home across the entrance ramp, then turned south
on Ninth Avenue. Behind them, heading north, Herbert and the
elderly actresses chatted together eagerly. Adelle laughed loudly
at something Herbert said; Auntie Lil gritted her teeth and ignored
them.

"Look—there's Fran and Father Stebbins."
Annie pointed out two figures half a block ahead of them, making
their way down the darkened sidewalk, heads bent low together as
they talked.

"I'd give anything to know what's going on
with those two," Auntie Lil remarked wistfully. "It seems I haven't
cracked a single secret yet."

"Let's slow down and follow them," Annie
suggested. "Maybe we'll learn something along the way." They
matched their pace to the couple ahead of them.

Thus, a strange parade formed. At the front
ambled a distraught Father Stebbins and a preoccupied Fran. They
walked, unseeing, past busy stores and crowded restaurants, their
minds focused on distant problems. Behind them, Annie and Auntie
Lil walked slowly. They were all too distraught or so busy
scrutinizing their own prey that they failed to notice those who,
in turn, were watching them.

"She's going up to his room," Annie
predicted. They stood across the street, watching in the shadows,
as Father Stebbins fumbled with the key to the massive padlock that
secured the front gate. Fran waited quietly, as if she knew the
routine. The pair disappeared inside the church and a series of
lights flickering on charted their progress to the upstairs back
room. Annie was right. But what did it prove?

"I don't think waiting here any longer will
do us much good," Auntie Lil decided reluctantly. "Besides, I'm
getting a chill. I'm sorry I didn't bring that nice shawl I bought
in Devonshire last year."

"Coffee, then," Annie said. "Good and hot."
They headed for the cheerily lit windows of the Delicious Deli.
They could see Billy inside, busily wiping down the counter and
arranging the desserts in preparation for the after-theater crowd.
Auntie Lil and Annie were his only customers. He looked up briefly,
spotted the blood on Annie's sweat shirt and did a double take.
Adding Auntie Lil into the equation called for yet a third look at
them.

"That your blood or her blood?" he asked
evenly, nodding at the mess.

"I've got to get home and change," Annie
admitted. "Someone beat up a street kid, Timmy. The one that ran
with Little Pete. Know him?"

Not a muscle twitched, not an eyelid
flickered. The proprietor's face was perfectly still. Finally he
shrugged and gave a heavy sigh. "Yeah, I know him. He was just a
boy. A kind of well-educated boy, if you know what I mean, but it
doesn't seem quite fair that an adult would beat him up like
that."

"She didn't say an adult beat him up," Auntie
Lil said sharply. There was a silence and they looked at one
another.

"I just assumed," Billy said evenly. He
pointed to Annie's sweat shirt. "Looks like he took it pretty bad.
I figured the other guy had to be bigger."

Either Billy had known the beating was coming
or he had grown so weary of the neighborhood's sad lessons that he
was adopting a fatalistic calm in response.

"Can I get a black coffee and a hero?" Annie
asked. She laid her head briefly on the upper counter. "And no
cracks about Bob, please. He didn't do what they said in the papers
and I'm tired of people thinking he did."

Billy looked away quickly and filled her cup
without comment. He turned to Auntie Lil as a sudden thought struck
him. "I have a message for you," he told her. "People seem to think
I'm some kind of a post office."

"A message?" she repeated. Perhaps Little
Pete wanted to see her again.

"Yeah. From some guy claiming to be your
nephew."

"That was my nephew, Theodore," Auntie Lil
told him crisply, her coffee order forgotten. "What did he
say?"

"He said to tell you that
he'd had an invitation to go to
the
building."

Auntie Lil stared out the window and thought
hard. Who had invited Theodore to Emily's building and why? How
annoying that he had found something out without her. "What time
was that?" she asked Billy, acutely aware that Annie was listening
carefully.

"About an hour ago. You want anything or do
you just want to leave another message back?" He raised his
eyebrows sarcastically and slapped meat and cheese on a hard roll
for Annie.

"I'll be back in a minute," Auntie Lil
decided. "Wait here for me, Annie. We may need your help."

Before the younger woman could protest,
Auntie Lil was heading out the door. She planned to pass by Emily's
building and see if she could get in the building somehow.
Listening in at doors might have been beneath her, but she was not
above being petty. She might hear something useful, and if she
heard anything that indicated Theodore was in trouble, she'd be
able to go for help.

As Auntie Lil left the deli, the door of a
car parked nearby opened. A lanky figure cut across to the avenue
opposite Auntie Lil and stepped into a doorway. The remaining
occupants stayed put, peering into the deli to watch as Annie O'Day
chatted with Billy.

The nearby Broadway theaters had emptied
their audiences almost simultaneously and noisy groups of people
were making a beeline to Eighth Avenue from the east, hoping to
snag a cab uptown. The women were snugly wrapped in furs and the
men were taking this early opportunity to show off their new fall
coats. The chattering crowd shoved past Auntie Lil, oblivious to
her age. They wanted only to be the first to reach the street with
an outstretched hand and the first chance at a taxi. The avenue
grew quite crowded and, though preoccupied with her plans, Auntie
Lil was highly annoyed. She elbowed her way across the street, then
stepped to one side for a breather. A vacant storefront at the
corner of Forty-Sixth and Eighth afforded her more room, although
the small pool of darkness cast by the decrepit awning and deep
doorway probably housed a wino or two.

Or something much worse. A big woman dressed
in a strapless gown and wearing a long blonde wig stepped out from
the darkness and gripped Auntie Lil's left elbow. An even stronger
hand grabbed her from the right and twisted her arm sharply. "Don't
say a word," a gruff voice ordered. "Just start walking and look
straight ahead. Go straight down Forty-Sixth Street."

Stunned, Auntie Lil obeyed their order. Her
feet moved of their own accord, though her stomach sank in complete
terror. A small pricking sensation in her side told her that the
woman on the right held a small knife and would use it to goad her
if she had to. Auntie Lil slid her eyes to the right and caught a
glimpse of black hair piled high above silver spangles. The hand
gripping her elbow wore gloves.

They moved swiftly down the sidewalk, passing
the man with the huge bulbous nose who liked to hang out near the
corner. He was sitting in his usual spot in a lawn chair, blending
into the building behind him. They passed by and Auntie Lil did not
dare turn her head, but he saw her and stared after them, his
sleepy eyes regarding the unusual trio with careful disinterest. He
turned back and stared across Eighth Avenue at the bright lights of
the Delicious Deli.

"Who are you?" Auntie Lil asked her captors
helplessly. The pair of women steered her quickly around the many
crowds of chattering friends trying to decide which restaurant they
should patronize. She was being borne through the crowd as easily
as a child between her parents. No one noticed and no one
cared.

They passed by a man and woman arguing
fiercely; they were attracting more attention than she was. She
should try making a noise, like screaming bloody murder. Surely
that would attract someone's notice?

But when she opened her mouth to scream, the
tiny pinprick at her side turned into a sharp stab. Something warm
welled through her thin pants suit. She realized what and felt
weak.

"Don't say a word, don't open your mouth,"
the cruel woman on the right ordered. "We just want to ask you some
questions and then we're going to let you go. But if you make a
scene, I'll stab you right now. You'll be dead before you hit the
ground."

Auntie Lil knew from the calm tone of her
voice that the woman meant just what she said. She contorted her
face instead, trying to attract someone's attention. Wedged between
the two gaudily dressed prostitutes, she would have made a
ridiculous sight anywhere else but New York. But packed among the
crowd of theatergoers, they only blended in with the chaos and
elicited not a single glance.

Where were they taking her and why? There was
something familiar about the woman. Especially her long gloves ...
Of course, it was that woman that T.S. seemed so fascinated with.
What was her name? All Auntie Lil could think of was a bird. Why a
bird?

"Who are you?" Auntie Lil asked again. The
sharp stab answered back.

"Shut up," Leteisha Swann ordered calmly.

They were already halfway down Forty-Sixth
Street, heading west rapidly. They passed a bar just as the door
opened wide. Sounds of Dixieland jazz drifted out across their
path, then faded behind them with a sweet finality. Auntie Lil
strained her ears, hoping for more. The music had somehow been
reassuring.

But up ahead, barely visible a few blocks
away, the Hudson River gleamed, its waves dully reflecting the
light of the full moon above. Auntie Lil stiffened and dug her feet
in automatically. But the strength of her two captors prevailed and
they only lifted her from the sidewalk, carrying her inexorably
forward. They were the strongest women she had ever known, hardened
by street combat and the drive to survive. Maybe even stronger than
Annie O'Day. Why had she left Annie behind?

They passed Emily's apartment building on the
other side of the street. Auntie Lil looked upward. A light gleamed
on the sixth floor. Was Theodore there? Would this be the last time
she was near him?

Then it hit her. This was what had happened
to Eva.

It was as if the woman in silver spangles
could read her thoughts. "If you're quiet, we'll let you go. We
just want to find out what you know. We're taking you somewhere
private to talk. We don't plan to hurt you."

The docks. She knew with certainty, now, that
they were hustling her over to the deserted docks near the Westside
Highway. Should she struggle? She shifted an arm and prepared to
fight back.

"If you don't come along," Leteisha Swann
repeated patiently, "I'll stick you right here and leave. You'll
bleed to death in the middle of the sidewalk and no one will ever
know we did it. It's your choice. Die now or take a chance we'll
let you go."