“Sorry, you’d’ve been great.” She walked with him through the souvenir shop to the elevators. “You know the first thing I’m going to do when I get the money? I’m throwing a big, kick-ass party. No, first I’m buying a place, then I’m throwing a big, kick-ass party.”
“Guess you won’t be heading out to the cattle calls anymore.”
“You kidding?” She squeezed in the elevator car with him. “Let me wallow in it for a week, maybe two. Then I’m going to every audition my agent can push me into. You know how it is, Mikey. Gotta dance.”
“I can get you a shot at the chorus of
Kiss Me, Kate.
”
“No shit? That’d be great! When?”
“Let me put the word in with the director tonight.”
“Told you my luck was changing.” She rode on it all the way down to ground level.
“I’ve got to split,” she said on the street. “Go meet Slick.”
“Why don’t you come to the show tonight? I’ll get you a couple house seats and introduce you to the director.”
“Cool. I love you, Mikey.” She gave him a long, noisy kiss. “Look, I’ll meet you back at your place in a few hours. I’m going to buy a big bottle of champagne.”
“Buy two. We’ll get toasted after the show.”
“That’s a deal. I love you, Mikey.”
“I love you, Cleopatra.”
He headed west, she headed east. As she crossed the street, she glanced back, laughing like a loon when he threw her a kiss. With a spring in her step she started uptown. Right on schedule, she thought. She’d meet Gideon on the east corner of Fifty-first and Fifth, maybe grab some pizza. She’d tell him she needed another day or two to get the statue.
He wouldn’t like it, but she’d smooth it out. And when she handed him four hundred thousand dollars the next day, he’d have no room to bitch.
She’d talk him into staying in New York for a while. Maybe Mikey was right about the thing between them. Not the romance part, that wasn’t in the cards. But she had a good feeling when she was with him. She liked the steady side of him as much as she liked the reckless one. What was wrong with wanting a little more time with both?
The glint from a jewelry display caught her eye, had her moving toward the window. She’d buy Mikey something to thank him for the help. Something extravagant.
She brooded over the gold neck chains—too ordinary—and the flash of stones—too gaudy. Slowing her pace, she browsed from window to window, then let out a little
ah ha!
at the wink of a thin gold anklet with ruby cabochons.
Tailor-made for Mikey, she decided and tilted her head in hopes of seeing the price tag tucked discreetly under the chain.
She froze that way, her nose all but pressed to the window, her body in a slight dip as she caught a reflection in the glass.
She knew that face. Though he was turned away from her in profile, as if studying the traffic, she recognized him. They’d all but run over him on the street in Prague.
Shit, shit, shit! She straightened, then moved casually on, as if to study the offerings in the next display. He didn’t follow, but angled his body a little more toward her.
Anita fucking Gaye, she thought. So businesslike, the professional dealer. And she’d sent out one of her goons. Well, that was fine, that was great, because this was New York. This was
her
turf.
She sauntered as if she had all the time in the world. He was following now, she noted, and careful to keep pace. She kept sauntering right into the International Jewelry Exchange, meandering into the babble of voices, down the crowded aisles between booths. He kept half the store between them, shaking his head, scowling when the merchants began their pitch.
And she sprinted. Her long legs ate up the distance to the side door. She was through it and loping across the street and muscling aside a man who was about to climb into a cab.
While he stumbled back, shouted at her, she slammed the cab door. “Step on it! Get me five blocks down in under a minute, I got twenty dollars.” She pulled a bill out of her pocket, waved it even as she glanced over and saw her tail running across the street. For added incentive, she shoved the twenty into the security slot. “Move!”
He moved.
“Cut over to Park,” she ordered, swiveling around on her knees to watch out the rear window. “Go up to Fifty-first and cut back to Fifth. Yeah, baby.” She waved as he charged down the cross street. “Already huffing and puffing.”
Still she watched until they hit Madison. When they turned onto Park, she dropped back down on the seat. “Fifty-first and Fifth,” she repeated coolly. “Drop me on the east corner.”
“That’s a hell of a ride, lady, for a couple blocks.”
“You get what you pay for.”
She popped out on the corner, grabbed Gideon’s hand.
“You’re late,” he began, but she was already running. “What’s going on?”
“Taking a subway ride, Slick. You haven’t been to New York until you do.”
Summer tourists were thronged around Rockefeller Center. All the better for cover, she decided—if they needed it. Then she whipped him down the stairs of the subway stop at 50 Rock.
“My treat,” she added and dug out the fare for both of them. When they were through the turnstiles on the platform, she caught her breath. “We’ll get off at Washington Square. Bop around the Village. Give you a real tour, grab some lunch.”
“Why?”
“Because a girl’s gotta eat.”
“Why did we run like maniacs into the tube to ride a train to a village?”
“The
Village, you alien. And we’re taking a ride to make sure I’ve thrown off the shadow. I was doing a little window-shopping on Fifth, and who should I see but one of our friends from Prague.”
He grabbed her as the rumble of the approaching train shook the air. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. He’s got a face like a pie plate. Flat, round and shiny. I ditched him, but maybe he circled around, so better safe than sorry.”
She pushed through into the car, dropped down on a seat. She patted the place beside her.
“What have you done, Cleo?”
“What do you mean, what’ve I done? I just told you. Imagine that asshole thinking he could tag me in my city.”
“And he just happened to be walking down the same street at the same time as you? I don’t think so.”
“Actually, Fifth is an avenue as opposed to a—”
His hand tightened on her arm, a hard warning. “What have you done? Where’s Mikey?”
“Hey, ease up, pal. We ran some errands, hung out a little. It’s a free country. I did some window-shopping on the way to meet you, and he headed home to catch a nap. Mikey’s not a morning person and you had him up at dawn.”
“How did she know where to find you?”
“Look—”
“You said you ditched him. Just one? What about the other guy?”
He was really bumming out her triumphant mood. “How the hell do I know? Are they joined at the hip?”
“How long after you and Mikey split up did you see him?”
“Jesus, a few minutes. A couple of blocks. What’s the big . . .” But she trailed off as it struck her. “You think the other one moved on Mikey? That’s crazy. He’s not part of this.”
But she’d made him part of it, she realized, and the arm Gideon gripped began to tremble.
“Okay, so maybe they’ll follow him, maybe they will. We’ll just get off at the next stop and I’ll call him on his cell phone, clue him in. He’ll lose a tail as easy as I did. He’ll get a kick out of it.”
But her hands were like ice by the time she pushed her way out at the Thirty-fourth Street stop, got to a phone. And her fingers shook as she punched in the numbers. “You’ve got me spooked,” she grumbled. “Wait till I tell Mikey. He’ll laugh his bony ass off. Answer, damn it. Answer the phone.”
But in two rings his cheerful and recorded voice came on.
“I’m busy, honey, hopefully making sweet love. Leave a message and Mikey will get back to you.” He made his signature kissing sound that ran right into the beep.
“He’s turned it off.” She took a calming breath, then another. “He’s home, taking a nap, and he turned off his pocket phone, that’s all.”
“Ring him on the land line, Cleo.”
“I’m just going to wake him up.” She dialed. “He hates it when you wake him up from a nap.”
The phone rang four times. She was braced for another recording when he answered. The instant she heard his voice, she knew he was in trouble.
“Mikey—”
“Don’t come back here, Cleo!” There was a shout, a crash, and she heard him call her name again. “Run.”
“Mikey.” A second crash and the short scream had her hand going wet on the receiver. Even when the phone went dead in her ear, she kept shouting his name.
“Stop. Stop it.” Gideon pried the phone out of her fingers.
“They’re hurting him. We have to get there. We have to help him.”
“Call the police, Cleo.” He clamped his hands on her shoulders before she could run. “Call them now. Give them his name, his address. We’re too far away to help.”
“The police.”
“Don’t give your name,” he added as she fumbled to hit 911. “Just his. Make sure they hurry.”
“I need the police. I need help.” She ignored the calm voice of the emergency operator. “Mikey—Michael Hicks, four-forty-five West Fifty-third, apartment three-oh-two. Just—just off Ninth Avenue. You have to hurry. You have to help. They’re hurting him. They’re hurting him.”
Gideon depressed the receiver as she began to cry. “Hold it together. Just hold it together. We’re going. Which train do we take? What’s the fastest way to get there?”
Nothing could be fast enough, not with that scream of pain and terror echoing in her head. She all but flew the blocks from the subway stop, but it wasn’t fast enough.
Relief spurted through her when she spotted the two radio cars outside Mikey’s building. “They got here,” she managed. “New York’s finest.”
Uniforms were already setting up barricades, and a small crowd was gathering.
“Don’t say anything,” Gideon warned with his lips against her temple. “Let me ask.”
“There should be an ambulance. He needs to get to the hospital. I know they hurt him.”
“Just stay quiet, and I’ll find out.” Gideon kept his arm tight around her as they stepped up to the barricade.
“What’s going on?” He glanced toward a bike messenger who was straddling his ride and snapping a wad of gum.
“Dude got killed in there.”
“No.” Cleo shook her head slowly from side to side. “No.”
“Hey, I should know. I was heading in to make my delivery when the cops came back out. Said I had to hang out and be interviewed and shit ’cause they had a homicide on the third floor. Suit cops are coming, you know, like on
NYPD Blue
? One of the uniform dudes told me this black guy got his face and head all bashed to shit.”
“No. No. No,” she said again, her voice rising as Gideon pulled her away.
“Keep moving, Cleo. We’re just going to keep moving for a little while.”
“He’s not dead. That’s a lie, a stupid, fucking lie. We’re going to his show tonight. He’s getting us house seats. We’re going to get shit-faced on champagne. He is
not
dead. We were just . . . it was only an hour ago. I’m going back. I’ve got to go back.”
He needed to get her some place quiet, some place private. Gideon wrapped both arms around her to hold her still. Where the hell did you find quiet in a city like this? “Cleo, you listen to me, just listen to me. We can’t stay here. It isn’t safe.”
When she let out a low moan, when her knees buckled, he took her weight. He half dragged, half carried her down the street. “We need to get inside somewhere. You need to sit down.”
He scanned the street, the shops, and spotted a bar. There was nothing, he decided, like an urban dive for a little privacy.
He pulled her inside, keeping his arm banded around her. There were only three patrons, all hunched at the bar. None of them even bothered to glance over as he poured Cleo into a dim corner booth.
“Two whiskeys,” he ordered. “Doubles.” He dragged out bills, slapped them on the bar.
He carried the glasses back to where she was curled in a ball in the corner of the booth. He slid in beside her, took her chin firmly in his hand and poured half the shot down her throat.
She choked, sputtered, then simply laid her head down on the table and sobbed like a baby.
“It’s my fault. It’s my fault.”
“I need you to tell me what happened.” He lifted her head again, held the glass to her lips. “Take another drink and tell me what you did.”
“I killed him. Oh God, oh God, Mikey’s dead.”
“I know it.” He picked up his own untouched glass of whiskey and urged it on her. Better drunk, he thought, and half passed out than hysterical. “What did you and Mikey do, Cleo?”
“I asked him. He’d have done anything for me. I loved him. Gideon, I loved him.”
Now, he thought, in grief, she finally used his name. “I know you did. I know he loved you.”
“I thought I was so smart.” Her tears plopped on his hand as he made her take another swallow. “I had it all figured out. I’d sell that bitch the Fate, skin her for a million dollars, give you a nice cut to keep you happy and dance in the goddamn street.”
“Christ. You contacted her?”
“I called her, set up a meet. My turf. Top of the fucking Empire State,” she continued with her voice slurring now with liquor. “Like King goddamn Kong. Mikey went with me, just in case she got testy. But she didn’t. Butter wouldn’t melt. Didn’t have a good word to say about you or your brother, but that’s beside the point. Gonna give me a million dollars tomorrow, cash money. I give her the little lady. Sensible deal, no harm, no foul. Mikey and I got a good laugh out of it. I told him the whole story, you know.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“Gonna split it with you, Slick, sixty-forty.” She swiped at tears and smeared mascara over her cheek, over the back of her hand. “You got a four-hundred-thousand-dollar bird in the hand, why beat around the fucking bush, right?”