A Cast of Killers (31 page)

"Angel?" the woman repeated in an incredulous
voice. She thumped Bob solidly on his biceps with a coiled fist and
the burly man cringed in mock pain.

"I'm Lillian Hubbert," Auntie Lil replied,
timidly offering a white-gloved hand and fervently hoping it would
be returned with all ten fingers intact.

But her hand was not crushed at all. Instead,
Annie O'Day tenderly held it between her own massive hands and
gently squeezed. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Hubbert," she
said in a soft and calming voice. She continued to hold Auntie
Lil's hand while she quietly looked her over, as if absorbing
secret signals through the somewhat frail appendage. Auntie Lil
changed her mind at once. This was no wrestling champion at all.
This was a nurse, or maybe a doctor.

"Annie is a nurse practitioner," Bob Fleming
explained. "She has a mobile medical van and drives around helping
out homeless and street people in need of care."

"Oh, my," Auntie Lil replied. She did not
know what else to say. A job like that had to be dangerous, tiring
and frustrating. There would be an endless supply of ungrateful and
uncooperative patients who were in real need of medical care but
lacked the mental self-awareness to recognize their own
ailments.

"Oh, my, is right," Annie O'Day agreed
cheerfully. "That's why I have to look like this." She curled one
arm up and one arm down in a mock body builder pose. "You can call
me Mrs. T," she added.

Auntie Lil laughed, but her eyes were busy
inspecting Bob Fleming's unconscious reaction to Annie. His
attention was brightly focused on her and his mouth hovered in a
perpetual smile. Yes, it was clear. Bob Fleming had at least one
interest outside of runaways. Auntie Lil was glad to see that he
had chosen his interest well.

"I must be going," she said tactfully. She
was not one to stand in the way of love. Besides, she was wasting
her time. "I don't think Little Pete is coming."

"Little Pete?" Annie looked at Bob. "Is she a
relative?" she asked skeptically. Auntie Lil was definitely the
wrong color.

"I'll explain later," Bob promised, showing
Auntie Lil to the door. "What if Little Pete turns up later?" he
asked in a voice much more helpful than it had ever been before.
Annie O'Day certainly had a positive effect on him.

"I'll probably be at the Delicious Deli,"
Auntie Lil told him. The man's broad shoulders sagged. She had not
meant to remind him of his own troubles. "I could use a coffee or
two after my large lunch." The largest thing, of course, being the
Bloody Mary.

"I'll send him there if he shows," Bob
promised, waving a quick goodbye.

Auntie Lil did not mind being politely
hustled out of Homefront. If Bob Fleming and Annie O'Day were as
busy as their jobs implied, she did not begrudge them a few minutes
alone together in the middle of a quiet afternoon.

She walked toward the Delicious Deli and
slowed in front of the Jamaican restaurant. Nellie was inside
serving steaming plates of chicken and gravy to a pair of
customers. Auntie Lil peered in the spacious window, wondering if
she should go inside. She was positive that Nellie knew more than
she was saying. What had she seen staring out of her window to make
her clam up so thoroughly? Why had she grown so frightened at the
sight of Emily?

Nellie noticed her observer right away, and
the look she returned was enough to convince Auntie Lil that,
perhaps, her time would be better spent somewhere else. Nellie's
eyes had narrowed to small, hard orbs, their former openness
replaced by tight beams of suspicion.

Auntie Lil quickly hurried on and passed by
Emily's building without incident, but had no doubt that Herbert
was lurking somewhere nearby. The Delicious Deli was deserted
except for Billy and his young daughter, Megan. The two of them
were busy piping whipped cream on top of a large pan of rice
pudding when Auntie Lil entered.

Billy looked up and his old smile returned.
He nodded toward her table and lifted his eyebrows, signaling her
to sit. He was well versed in the across-the-room sign language of
New York delis.

"Be right there," he promised out loud.
"Megan here is our resident whipped cream artist and I promised she
could do the pudding today."

Auntie Lil saw that much of the whipped cream
was going into the artist's mouth and onto the artist's Catholic
school uniform, but uncharacteristically said nothing. She was too
busy trying to decide how to approach Billy about the bad feelings
he displayed toward Bob Fleming. But she need not have bothered.
Billy brought it up himself as soon as he had shooed his daughter
into the bathroom to wash the goo off her hands and change her
clothes.

"What were you doing with that guy from
Homefront" he asked Auntie Lil, setting a cup of cappuccino in
front of her without being asked. "I've been hearing things about
him. Things I don't like to hear."

She looked at him, mystified. "He runs a
program for young runaways."

"Huh." Billy stared into her coffee, avoiding
her face. "Word is he's just as bad as the men he's helping those
runaways to escape."

That couldn't be true. She'd had a good
feeling about Bob Fleming and she was usually so right about
people. "Where did you hear that?" she asked sharply.

"It's going around the streets." Billy
shrugged and wiped his hands on his apron, keeping an eye on the
bathroom door. He did not want his young daughter overhearing.

"How reliable is street talk?" Auntie Lil
asked.

"It's usually pretty good." He stared at her
unhappily. "I hate guys like that," he added for good measure. "I
think they should be publicly killed."

She shook her head no, unwilling to believe
him.

"How's the investigation going?" Billy asked
casually.

Auntie Lil looked up at him, surprised. Had
she ever said she was investigating… perhaps she had.

"I know you're poking into that old lady's
death," Billy pointed out. "There are no secrets in Hell's Kitchen.
Street talk is pretty accurate, like I say."

Auntie Lil felt there were a good many
secrets in Hell's Kitchen. Too many, in fact. And some of them were
probably pretty essential to discovering the truth that she sought.
She would use an old trick, one that was quite effective when she
didn't feel like answering questions: she'd ask the questions
instead.

"I know you don't like those young boys in
your store," she told Billy. "But I'm trying to talk to one of
them. If he shows up here to meet me, will you let him in?"

Billy stared at her again before finally
answering, "If you're with him every second and keep him away from
the potato-chip rack and the bottles of soda in back."

"That bad?" Auntie Lil asked.

"That bad," he confirmed, then added: "And
keep him away from my daughter, too."

"Of course I'll join you," Lilah said with
enthusiasm. "Who are you going to be? I do hope you gave that awful
money-grubbing creature a false name. Otherwise, you'll have to put
up with endless annoying phone calls. They're really such a
nuisance, these investing types. Never leave you alone until they
hear you've gone bankrupt, I suspect. You really have no idea."

He gulped in the silence that followed, then
finally admitted in a strangled voice, "Actually, I gave him my
real name… and your real name, too."

He expected her to shriek in dismay but she
laughed instead. "You should be sneakier if you're going to go
undercover," she pointed out. "You mean to tell me that after this
is over, we're going to have to dodge this producer begging us for
money?"

"But you do that already with dozens and
dozens of people. I'm sure you've had more experience than me," he
pointed out weakly.

"So I have. Well, I suppose the old Cheswick
name is essential for hooking our fish," she admitted without a
hint of rancor.

"I'm afraid it is," T.S. confessed. "And I
hope you'll forgive me one day."

"Well," said Lilah, "that depends."

"Depends on what?"

"Depends on what one day brings."

T.S. was too tongue-tied to manage a reply.
She rang off quickly, after promising to pick him up in the limo
just before eight.

T.S. sat by the phone enjoying the wave of
relief that washed through him. He had actually made a mistake and
nothing horrible had happened to him. She had not slammed down the
phone. The ceiling had not fallen. The sky had not parted nor had
lightning split him in two. True, he had been mildly embarrassed.
But that had gone away in an instant. Perhaps he was too hard on
himself, he thought vaguely. Perhaps there was such a thing as
being too correct. And though he hated to admit it, maybe Auntie
Lil was right. He could afford to loosen up a little.

Billy Finnegan need not have worried about
his daughter coming in contact with Little Pete. By the time Little
Pete showed up at the Delicious Deli, Auntie Lil had run through
two cups of coffee, another cappuccino and a large slice of
cheesecake. And Megan had long since been collected by her mother,
fed a large meal, scrubbed in a clean bathtub, and dressed in fresh
pajamas.

The little boy who stood outside the windows
of the deli, peering in through the oncoming twilight, would have
found such caring treatment by a mother completely foreign.

He was small, even for his young age, and his
skinny frame could not have been even five feet tall. His face was
twisted in a hardened imitation of a cynical adult, but a small
tremor of fear made his chin wobble a little as he stood beside the
door, staring in at Auntie Lil. She knew that, despite his
toughness, he was afraid to come inside and risk the rancor of the
owner who had no doubt thrown him out many times before. She stared
back at him, trying to decide what would be the best thing to do to
win his trust. Wait until he gathered his courage and came inside?
Or wave him in enthusiastically, as if he really were just a normal
little boy coming to meet his grandmother.

But Little Pete was not a normal little boy.
That much was clear even in shadow. He stood, pelvis thrust
forward, hands curled in fists and arms bent slightly in a menacing
pose that belied his familiarity with the streets.

Maybe Auntie Lil had been wrong when she told
T.S. not to worry, that she had seen it all. Because she wasn't
sure she had seen this exactly before—this defiant posturing and
aggressive adult manner in such a small body. He did not seem to
use his small size to his advantage at all. And he could have. It
would have provoked pity even in the street. No, this child did not
want pity in any form, that much was immediately apparent.

"Think he's coming in?" Billy asked idly. He
was leaning against the counter picking his teeth and staring out
into the twilight. The deli was quiet and would remain so for much
of the night.

"I think he might be afraid of you," Auntie
Lil told him, wondering if Little Pete had reasons of his own that
she did not know about.

"I can take care of that," Billy decided. He
tossed his toothpick into the trash can and flipped up part of the
countertop, advancing on the door with a wide smile on his
face.

Little Pete coiled, waiting for the verbal
lashing that was sure to come. When, instead, Billy motioned him
inside, the young boy refused to act surprised. Suspicion had long
since replaced surprise in his repertoire of emotions. Instead, he
strutted arrogantly past the deli owner as if he owned the place.
But he watched Billy out of the corners of his eyes.

"Hello, young man," Auntie Lil called out
cheerfully. "I'm the old lady Bob Fleming told you about. My
goodness, I've been waiting for hours. I'm starving. Will you join
me for dinner?"

Keeping one eye on Billy, Little Pete inched
sideways toward Auntie Lil's table. Reluctantly giving up his
scrutiny of Billy—who had resumed his stance behind the
counter—Little Pete silently gripped the back of a wrought-iron
chair at Auntie Lil's table while he looked her over closely.

"You buying me dinner? What for?" he asked in
a high voice that tried hard to be gruff, but failed.

Heavens, she realized, his voice had not even
changed yet. What kind of family would just let him wander away?
And what kind of family was so horrible that the streets of New
York seemed a preferable environment? But she could not afford to
think about such things now. What she needed was information. And
treating him like a child was not the way to go about it.

"I want to ask you some questions," she
explained evenly. "That takes up your time. I thought dinner would
be a fair payment." She pointed toward the chair he gripped and,
slowly, Little Pete pulled it out and perched on the edge of the
seat, still half-turned to the door as if he might bolt at any
moment.

"Questions about who?" he asked sullenly. His
pronunciation was extremely precise, especially for a child who
lived on the streets. It told Auntie Lil that he had gone to school
at one time, and probably studied hard. And that someone at home
had once cared enough about him to provide a good example.

"A friend of yours. Her name was Emily."
Auntie Lil answered. "She was an old lady who lived on Forty-Sixth
Street. She died just a few days ago." Auntie Lil spoke gently but
firmly, having decided that the prim schoolteacher mode might serve
her best in this situation, so long as she made it clear that she
was no sucker and that Little Pete was wasting his time if he
thought he could con her.

"Don't know no old lady," he said sullenly.
His eyes inched back toward the steam table of hot food at the far
end of the deli counter. Billy stood near it, watching his two
customers carefully.