Adrenaline (13 page)

“You want money, I’ll give you money.” He couldn’t believe he was saying those words, but he was shaking he wanted her so badly. He wanted his hands around that slim waist, he wanted her heat against him.

“I can’t take you back to my place. Jammer might be there.”

Geoff figured his own place might not be safe either. “I’ll pay for the night. You must know a place.”

“Sure. What’s in it for me?”

“What do you want?”

She looked at him levelly. “I want it to be my last night as a hooker. I’m not asking to get married, just help getting free.”

He squeezed her hand. “We’ll be able to work something out.”

His touch seemed to surprise her, please her. “You think so?” Her voice was small.

“I know so.”

Up in the room, he couldn’t control himself a second longer. He slid his hands up under the chemise and felt her firm breasts, hard nipples. Her answering sigh was probably false, but he was past caring.

She started to slide out of the miniskirt, but he pushed her hands aside, pushed her onto the bed and raised her skirt. Saw the patch of dark on her white skin, felt between there, felt her moistness. Smelled the scent of baby oil. The voice in his head that was saying,
she’s a hooker, greased and ready for anyone,
didn’t slow him down. He slid into her seconds later, thrusting hard, his hands all over her body. He groaned as he came instantly, coming so hard that he was practically crying.

Minutes later, he fell asleep lying on top of her as she ran her fingers along his back, saying, “Hey, hey, hey,” softly, looking up at the ceiling over his shoulder.

Chapter 12

When Lazar and Bannerman showed up at Jammer’s apartment and told him Ball was dead, Jammer said, “Christ, I knew I was gonna hear something like this someday.” He had a big scar on his forehead, a pink, clean cut. A washed-out blonde he introduced as Darlene sat beside him on the couch. She stared straight ahead as if she were alone in the room. Both of them were fully dressed even though it was after one in the morning.

“Ball wasn’t what you’d call a nice guy,” Jammer said. “But his mama’s gonna be screaming. You told her yet?”

“No,” said Lazar. “We came to you first.”

“Me? I was just his cousin.”

“Where’s your sword?”

“My what?”

“Your trademark,” Bannerman said, grinning. “Lazar told me about it. I always wanted to meet a pimp with a trademark.”

“I’m not a pimp.” Jammer was indignant.

“She’s your girlfriend, huh?” Bannerman gestured at Darlene.

She stared back at him, but said nothing.

“That’s right. Prove she isn’t.”

“I go looking for a sheet on her, I bet I’ll find one saying she’s been arrested for soliciting. We know there is one on you, man. Pimping.”

“History,” Jammer said. “What do you want right now? Because if that’s all you’ve got to say, I’d just as soon get some sleep.”

“Told you,” Lazar said. “Your sword.”

“I used to have a cane, but it was solid wood. I don’t know anything about a sword. I don’t even have the cane anymore.”

“You offering us a chance to look for it?”

“You offering me a warrant?”

“If I have to,” Lazar said, evenly. “But taking the time to go get one is going to piss me off. I have to warn you of that.”

Jammer shrugged. “Hell, I was just asking. Knock yourself out if you want.”

Lazar looked around the dingy, three-bedroom apartment while Bannerman continued the interview, saying, “So let me guess—you cut your head shaving?”

Jammer said he fell down. The blonde then provided Jammer with an alibi for the night.

The place had wall-to-wall shag carpeting and smelled of perfume, sweat, and roach spray. One bedroom had an aquarium on the dresser, with two turtles inside. Beside it was a picture of Darlene that looked as if it had been a high school photo. The other room held posters on the wall of mountain scenes, pictures of the ocean. A couple of the posters had inspirational phrases. Pathetic shit for a hooker’s bedroom. Lazar didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. There was a picture of a surprisingly pretty young woman standing in a stream, naked, but covering her breasts.

The largest bedroom, apparently the one Jammer used, had a big waterbed, mirrors on the ceiling. The whole place had been cleaned recently. There wasn’t so much as a match in any of the ashtrays, not a speck of coke or pot in the dresser, the tank behind the toilet, or the kitchen. The nap of the disgusting rug still showed vacuum cleaner marks.

It looked as if the blonde and Jammer had just cleaned the place, getting ready for them.

Lazar went back to the living room. “Let’s get some fresh air, Bannerman.”

“About goddamn time,” Jammer said.

Lazar winked at the blonde. “Be gentle with Jammer.”

“What?” Her forehead wrinkled.

“He’s suffered a grave loss. He may be a bit tense from now on.”

Bannerman grinned at Jammer on the way to the door, but took the lead from his partner and talked to Darlene. “Lost his sword and his muscle in one day. And stepped into a big load of shit all by himself.”

Down at the car, Lazar said, “You check out that cut on his forehead?”

“Nice and clean, huh? No jagged edges.”

“Does seem like a lot of knife wounds for one family, doesn’t it?”

Bannerman yawned. “Maybe not. What you told me, it’s a goddamn miserable family. Could be as simple as it looks, that Ball got himself mugged in Roxbury.”

“Awfully long blade, awfully long coincidence.” Lazar leaned across Bannerman to open the passenger door. “Your turn to buy the coffee. We’re going to stake this bastard out.”

* * *

They spent the rest of the shift in the car. The lights up in Jammer’s apartment went dark within the first hour. From there, time just crawled.

Bannerman tried to start up a conversation about Charlotte. “You’re coming up on a year soon, right? When are you going to file the papers, make it official?”

“Dunno.” Lazar kept his voice mild. “When are you going to stop asking that question?”

Bannerman let it go. After a while, he fell asleep. As three o’clock rolled past, Lazar settled into the watchful calm that was the best he could hope for in a stakeout: He wasn’t particularly sleepy, and his patience was strong. He was aware of the breath coming in and out of his lungs. And other than the movement of his eyes to the pimp’s apartment, and to the side and rearview mirrors, he moved not at all. When he was doing a stakeout, when he was on the job, his separation from his wife was ancient history, almost a whole year old.

At seven, Bannerman woke up and stretched. “Anything?”

“No.”

“Then I’m hitting the sack. This shift is
over.
You want to keep watching this piece of garbage, you are on your own.”

Lazar felt exhausted himself. Much as he hated being lied to, he didn’t take it personally. Good thing, seeing as people lied to him all day long. “Yeah, I’m beat, too,” he said. “I’m going to call in, get someone to stick with him today, and then we’ll stake him out tonight. If nothing comes of it, we’ll call it a simple mugging gone wrong. It was just Ball.”

Bannerman grunted. “What you call a win-win situation.”

Chapter 13

Geoff awoke to the sound of the shower running. He sat up against the headboard slowly, stiff from his battles the day before. He rubbed his left bicep and shoulder slowly, blinking in the harsh morning light. His nose wrinkled faintly as he breathed in the mingled smells of disinfectant, damp plaster, and cheap perfume.

He ticked through the last twenty-four hours. Harrison falling. Dern and his wife screwing him over. Jansten firing him. Then those two men … Geoff sat up straighter, taking in his new status in life.

He had killed a man. Pushed a sword into him, felt it shudder in his hand.

“Jesus,” he said, his brain fully engaged now. He focused immediately on the past night, trying to remember everything he had done, and what he had said to the girl. For almost two minutes, Geoff remained still, his concentration complete.

Finally, he settled back, releasing a deep breath. The situation was far from perfect, but he figured if he made the right moves, he could walk away unscathed. He hadn’t said anything incriminating to the girl, he was sure of it. He had wiped the sword cane clean … and even if the police thought to search the river and were lucky enough to dredge it up, Geoff couldn’t see how that would lead back to him. Even if he had missed a print, he had never been in the military or arrested, so his prints weren’t on any record.

No, the only person who could directly link Geoff to the dead thug in Roxbury was the pimp. Jammer most likely knew Geoff’s name, or at least where he lived. Geoff didn’t imagine it was a coincidence the pimp had found him alone on the street the night before. And while Jammer most likely wouldn’t run to the cops with his troubles, Geoff surely couldn’t trust him to keep such a dangerous secret. Guys like him were always looking to trade something.

The question was … the girl. Was she for real or had she set him up? Did Jammer know where Geoff lived because she had followed him home?

Geoff flashed through his options, limited pretty much between beating her and killing her. He now knew for certain that he had the capacity for either.

But she stepped out of the bathroom before he had committed himself to a course of action. And that was a good thing. Partially because she cleaned up so well, standing there with a towel wrapped around herself. The wig was gone, and her own hair was short and thick. She was free of the garish makeup, and her coltish beauty made his mouth go dry. He felt as if he could look at her all day long.

She gestured to her clothes. “You caught me before I put on my armor.”

“You won’t be wearing those after today.”

It’s just the sex,
he told himself. “Drop that towel and get over here,” he said.

She stepped closer, teasing. Leaving it to him to pull the towel away, to pull her to him. Her body was still damp and hot from the shower. “This what you had in mind?”

He didn’t answer. The truth was, he wasn’t used to feeling the way he did, and he was damned if he was going to feel that way because of a street hooker.

Happy.

At first it was a point of pride.

He took his time with her, even while knowing that it was probably a waste of time. Trying to turn on a hooker was an idiot’s game, he told himself. She was probably dead to men. And he could tell she was acting at first.

But by the time they reached the point where he could no longer tell, he no longer cared.

Her heart pounded against his.

That much he knew.

Afterward, they lay in bed talking. She seemed eager for him to listen, and he found that he was still interested in spite of being momentarily sated. He lay there, his eyes half closed, listening to her talk about her former boyfriend, Neal, and the mistakes she had made that had landed her on the street. She told him about the mountain stream.

“That’s where I always look at where it went wrong. You know, the moment I could have gone either way. I could have told Neal the truth then. We were alone, and we weren’t so far gone that maybe if I said it the right way, he would have given me a chance.”

“Doubt it. Sounds like a pious little prig.”

“Yeah,” she said, sadly. “I guess he was. He probably would have streaked down that mountain. Maybe I could have handled that. Better that I told him myself, than for him to have heard it from the boys at a bar.”

“At least you would’ve had that,” Geoff acknowledged. He didn’t care much about honesty himself, but he was willing to believe she did. “So that’s what you would do now if you had the chance? Tell him the truth?”

“Doesn’t make any difference. He was the wrong type of guy for me. I know that now. What matters to me is that I get back to where I went wrong and do it differently. Get to that very same mountain stream, get myself clean. Start over. That’s not too much to ask, is it?”

He didn’t say anything.

She paused, then rolled up against him, companionably. “Tell me what you want. You said you want a gun, maybe some new papers. Passport?”

“Uh-huh.”

Her lips twitched.

“What?”

“ ‘Passport.’ I even love the word. I’ve never even been out of New England. Hell, not even past Providence. But I’d love to go places. Have you ever been to Europe?”

“Lots of times.” He looked her in the eyes. “And I need money. Don’t forget about money.”

“Sure. Are you crazy for it?”

“No. But I’m used to having it, and I’m used to getting what I want.”