Dancer in the Flames (24 page)

‘Chris’s.’

‘And who’s been paying the rent since he died?’

‘I have.’

‘How?’

Boots stepped out of the closet and turned to face Madeline, the mistake she made beginning to register. Already hooked at the corners, her mouth fell still further. Boots put his hand on her shoulder.

‘Chris is gone, Madeline,’ Boots said as he guided her into the living room. ‘I’m your only hope now. It’s me you have to please.’

The tone of voice, the look in his eyes, the gentle touch. If only his cellphone hadn’t begun to ring, the effect would have been as empathetic as Susan Sarandon praying for that twisted killer in
Dead Man Walking
. But the toneless trill, almost insect-like, ruined the performance. Disgusted, Boots took out his cellphone.

‘Yeah.’

‘Hey, Boots, was I such a disappointment?’

‘Jill?’

‘I mean, I’ve been rejected before, but moving out, that’s a bit extreme. You could’ve just sent me a note.’

Boots’s laugh was a little too sharp and Madeline backed away. Though Boots didn’t try to hold her, he gestured toward the couch and she sat without protesting.

‘Don’t take it personally, Jill, It’s just that I’m allergic to lethal projectiles.’

‘So, how do I find you?’

‘You’re doin’ it right now. But there’s a question I’ve been wantin’ to ask you.’

‘Why don’t you come over tonight – say about eleven – ask it then?’

Boots didn’t reply for a moment. Not that he was in any doubt. In fact, the thrills would begin with him getting from his car to her door without being shot.

‘Didn’t you say you lived with your mother?’

‘My mother’s a drunk, Boots. She’ll be passed out long before you get here.’

Madeline was up and moving as Boots shoved the phone into his pocket. She crossed the room to the cabinet beneath the window and opened the door to expose a small safe.

‘What you want’s in here.’

‘Is it locked?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know the combination?’

‘It’s written on a piece of paper.’

Boots ground his teeth in frustration. ‘Get the paper and open the safe.’ After a second, he added, ‘Please.’

A few minutes later, Boots was looking at the contents of the safe: a stack of DVDs on a shelf, a pile of money on the bottom, a small ledger beneath the money.

Boots pointed to the cash. ‘This how you’ve been payin’ the rent?’

‘Yes.’ Madeline was standing to one side, her arms folded across her breasts.

‘What about the DVDs? Are there any more in the apartment?’

‘Not that I know about.’

‘There are no more safes, no more false closets?’

‘No.’

Boots took up the ledger, found it handwritten in some sort of code. There were dates, figures and a series of names: Goose, Pedro, Carlos, Ricardo. Without Parker to unravel the code, the ledger didn’t amount to much, not as evidence. But it would provide a rough estimate of LeGuin’s payoffs. That would be important later on.

‘All right, Madeline, what I’m gonna do is leave this money so you can keep paying the rent.’ Boots stopped when Madeline burst into tears. Talk about disabilities. What Madeline needed was support. What she’d likely find, when the money ran out, was a series of men who’d exploit, then discard her.

Boots went in search of a tool box, certain the handy Chris Parker wouldn’t be without a basic collection of household tools. He found what he was seeking under the sink and hauled it, along with the DVDs, into the second bedroom. Though far from computer literate, Boots knew that anything on the DVDs was also on the computer’s hard drive. He was tempted to destroy the hard drive on the spot, but contented himself with the discs, cutting them into slivers with a pair of tin shears.

‘Madeline, can you operate the whole system?’

‘How do ya mean?’

‘I want to know if you can make a DVD?’

‘Yeah, ya just click and the computer does it for ya.’

‘What about sound? Why was there no sound on the DVD I had?’

‘The bed squeaked.’

‘What?’

‘The bed squeaked real loud and you couldn’t hear anything else. So Chris recorded with the volume off.’

‘Can you turn it on?’

Madeline’s eyes clouded with suspicion. As far as she knew, Chris Parker’s system had a single purpose. ‘What do I gotta do?’

‘Only one thing, and then I’ll be on my way, at least for the present. I want you to help me shift some furniture.’

B
oots dashed the two blocks between the nearest parking space and Jill Kelly’s modest row house through a cold, pelting rain. Though he was aware of the potential for threats against his life, he failed to keep an eye out for would-be assassins. There was no point. Carried by a sharp wind, the rain was blowing into his eyes and it was all he could do not to stumble over cracks in the sidewalk. Fortunately, the door opened as he tore up the steps and then he was inside with Jill Kelly, her ice-blue t-shirt and lace-trimmed panties commanding the whole of his attention.

‘Boots, you’re all wet,’ she said, smiling that amused vampire smile, the one that said
Welcome to my castle
. ‘I think you’d better get out of your clothes right away. Otherwise, you’ll catch your death.’

Boots did as he was told, letting his wet garments drop, one at a time, to the carpet. Finally, he stood naked in front of her.

Jill’s smile dissolved as she laid her hand on his chest. When she could feel his heart beating against her palm, she leaned forward to lightly pinch his nipple with her teeth. His heart kicked up a notch and she backed away.

‘I hope you were right about your mother,’ Boots said.

Now Jill was grinning. The son-of-a-bitch had blindsided her again. ‘Do you think we should put your clothes in the dryer now? Or later?’

Boots answered her question with one of his own. ‘Would you catch an attitude,’ he asked, ‘if I ripped that t-shirt off your body?’

‘Yeah, I would.’

‘I was hoping you’d say that.’

Boots knew it was more than a bad case of the hots. And there was nothing he could do about it. Free will be damned; he was helpless. Boots felt as if he’d been tapped on the shoulder, been delegated. But to do exactly what? To protect Crazy Jill Kelly from herself? Talk about your suicidal impulses. Boots glanced at the clock. Three in the morning and the room smelling of tobacco and sex, Jill asleep alongside him, snoring lightly. From somewhere in the basement, Boots could hear the dryer turning.

Boots turned when Jill rolled on to her back. Relaxed in sleep, she was even more beautiful, and he thought, just for a moment, that he recognized the woman she might have been. Her face was Irish-pale, her auburn hair nearly black in the darkened room. Her relaxed shoulders and opened hands left her frail and vulnerable. Across the top of her breasts, a spray of pale freckles attracted his mouth like magnets. Boots resisted their pull, not because he feared waking Jill, but because Jill had emptied his pockets and he couldn’t get hard again if he used a splint.

Boots laid back on the pillow and closed his eyes. A few minutes later, he fell into a sleep from which he emerged after four dreamless hours. Jill was shaking him, and none too gently.

‘C’mon, Boots,’ she said, her tone matter-of-fact, ‘you gotta get out before my mother comes down.’

Boots sat up and rubbed his eyes. ‘Ya know, Jill,’ he said, ‘it would have been kinder if you’d dressed yourself before makin’ that request.’

‘What’s the matter, Boots, you didn’t get enough last night?’

‘I did get enough last night, but it’s morning now.’

‘And time to go home. Your clothes are on the chair.’ Jill slipped into a bathrobe. With no realistic expectation of success, she was hoping to bum-rush Boots out the door without having that serious conversation.

Boots slid his feet over the edge of the bed, then grabbed his clothes and stumbled into the bathroom. He relieved himself, washed his face with brown soap that smelled like incense, finally took a moment to stare at himself in the mirror. Neither his damaged eye nor his scars, he reminded himself, had anything to do with Jill Kelly. If there was a war, it was between Mack Corcoran and Boots Littlewood. Jill was an ally.

Nevertheless, when Boots emerged from the bathroom, he led with a question that was certain to provoke an evasive response.

‘Tell me what happened on the day your father was killed.’

‘Did you read the case file?’

‘I did.’

‘Then you know.’

Boots had expected Jill to become angry, but her eyes were mild. She’d anticipated the question.

‘Fine, so let me see if I’ve got the facts straight. When you heard the shots, you became so terrified that you couldn’t bring yourself to turn around. Thus, you not only failed to observe the shooter, but you can’t be sure there was only one man involved. That about it?’

‘Like I said, Boots, my statement speaks for itself.’

‘What about your mother? What happened to your mother’s statement?’

‘She didn’t give a statement because . . .’

‘Because she passed out before you and your father came home. I get it, Jill. I get that you don’t trust me.’

Jill Kelly walked Boots to the front door. It’d been a long time since she’d felt this way about a man. She pulled him into a kiss that rolled on until they were both out of breath.

‘Say, Boots,’ she said as she opened the door, ‘you wouldn’t want to tell me where you’re stayin’ these days. As long as we’re talkin’ trust.’

The smile Boots flashed was as bright as it was brief. ‘I wouldn’t, Jill. But I will say this. The bedroom is perfect. The ruffled spread, the pleated curtains, the stuffed dog, the
Sesame Street
puppets, the pink sheets. Just perfect.’

Boots went back to Frankie Drago’s long enough to shave, shower and change his clothes. Then he headed off to Astoria, to Libby Greenspan’s, for an early lunch. Outside, a pale sky was veiled by thin clouds and it was much cooler, more like April than June. Boots took the scenic route, over the Pulaski Bridge and across western Queens. There was plenty of traffic, but he didn’t mind the leisurely pace. He was thinking about Jill Kelly, imagining them a hundred and fifty years ago in a small Arizona town, the only law in the county. Wouldn’t they be surprised, the bad guys in their black hats, when they squared off against Crazy Jill at ten paces? Just in case, Boots put himself in a second-floor window with a shotgun.

When Boots walked into Libby’s apartment, Joaquin was sitting at the dining-room table. Before joining him, Boots accepted a kiss from Libby and a hug from his father.

‘You do that thing for me, Jackie?’ he asked.

‘I might’ve.’

Boots noted a familiar spark in Joaquin’s eye. The kid had pulled off something slick and couldn’t wait to talk about it. ‘So, let’s hear the story.’

‘First, Elijah LeGuin’s mother is deceased, his father unknown and he’s never been married. He has two siblings, younger sisters, both in the military. One is stationed in Iraq. She’s a major. The other one’s a captain. She’s in Texas. They didn’t seem likely candidates for what you wanted, but I searched for property listings in both their names, and in their brother’s name.
Nada
. Then I thought about what you said, about how LeGuin might use a girlfriend to front for him. All well and good, but how do I find her if she’s not legally tied to LeGuin?’

Libby came out of the kitchen with a carafe of coffee and a couple of mugs. When she laid them on the table, then turned away, Boots said, ‘I take it you’ve already heard this story.’

‘Twice,’ Andy said from inside the kitchen.

Joaquin blushed and Boots made an effort to look away. ‘Go ahead, Jackie. I didn’t mean to interrupt.’

Joaquin filled his mug, then his father’s. ‘I ran a limited search through New York City birth records going back three years. The limitation I chose was paternity. I wanted to know whether LeGuin had fathered any children. If the search had come up negative, I would have extended it to five years and included New Jersey, maybe Pennsylvania. But I got lucky right away. Elijah LeGuin is the father of two children by a woman named Isabella Amarando. She owns a three-bedroom condo on Groton Street in Forest Hills.’

Boots made the connection instantly. Isabella Amarando was the registered owner of the Ford Windstar used in the drive-by. Unable to contain himself, Boots marched off to the bathroom, where he called Craig O’Malley. Could they meet this afternoon, at the sergeant’s convenience?

‘Four thirty, same place as last time.’

Lunch started out well, considering the tension. Boots knew that all assembled, especially Andy, wanted to learn something of his activities. An estimate, at the very least, of when the family could return home. Boots told them nothing, as he struggled with his impatience. Events were speeding up and he needed to get out in front.

But the silence was too much for Andy Littlewood and he decided, at the last minute, not to respect his son’s privacy. He had too much at stake here. ‘Father Leo,’ he declared, ‘says to tell you that you’re in his prayers.’ When Boots didn’t respond, he added, ‘Father Leo thought you might want to come by for confession.’

‘Tell him my soul is still pure from the last time.’

A self-professed atheist, Joaquin laughed. ‘I think my father’s in love,’ he announced as he bit into a pickle. ‘And having seen Jill Kelly, I can understand why.

But he couldn’t, of course. Joaquin didn’t know the first thing about Crazy Jill. Boots calmly bit into his sandwich. He was comforted by the thought that he could never have her. Even if things worked out, she would eventually move on.

‘She’s beautiful, that girl, and blazin’ hot,’ Andy said. He glanced at Libby, noted her frown, finally echoed his son’s thoughts. ‘But she’s all wrong for you, Irwin. She’s not a woman you can possess, no more than you can hold fire. All you can do is dance in her flame and hope you’re not consumed.’

Boots was initially pleased when his cellphone began to trill. First, because the time when he’d have to respond to his father was rapidly approaching. Second, because he hoped it was Jill Kelly. He carried the phone into the kitchen before answering.