Drumsticks (18 page)

Then we heard a whistling sound emanate from beneath the desk. I was so startled that I let J's hand flop back down on the floor.

He was breathing!

Breathing heavily through the blood in his nostrils.

“Get help!” I screamed. The guard took off.

I leaned over Justin, called his name.

“Is it you, Smash?” His words were all mush.

“Yes, it's me. What—”

He cried out in pain then, and clutched his side.

“What is it—your ribs?”

He nodded.

“Don't move anymore, okay? Just lie still. Lyle did this to you, didn't he?”

Agitated, he mumbled something I couldn't make out. I understood one thing, though: he wasn't denying what I'd just said.

“All right, all right, honey.” I tried to soothe him. “They're coming. The ambulance is on the way.”

“No,” he protested. “I don't want to go to the hospital.”

“Well, that's tough shit, J. You're going.”

Now he was crying.

I wiped the blood and tears from his face. “Just hang in there.”

We had to wait in the hospital corridor while they did the paperwork. The doctor was with another patient, they said, and would be out as quickly as he could.

I held J's hand tightly as he lay on the chrome rollaway bed. I knew the feeble Tylenol they'd given him wouldn't even begin to take away the pain.

“Lyle,” he said, “him and that guy …”

“Miller,” I supplied. “The man in the photograph at Ida's. He's the one who hurt you?”

He nodded. “I think so. I was tangling with Lyle when somebody hit me from behind. Then I had the two of them to deal with.”

“Jesus Christ, J. Since when did you get to be so macho? You had no business going up there like that, honey. All on your own.”

“I been going to the gym for a year now, Smash. And I surprised him with a wrench, anyway.” His hand curled around an imaginary weapon and he attempted to lift it.

“You take it easy, J. Lie still now.”

“When somebody beat on Kenny like that,” he said, “I said to myself, this is too big a coincidence.”

“And you were dead right.”

“I just knew that asshole Lyle was the one behind this gay bashing shit. The way it happened—the gay thing just didn't figure. Those animals like to travel in packs and they don't even try to hide their pimply faces. No—I remembered how Lyle told you all yesterday that he didn't know Miller. But he knew Kenny didn't believe him.”

“So he tried to shut him up,” I added. “Kenny did see Lyle talking to Miller at Mary's. There was no mistake.”

“Yes. I wanted to kick Lyle's ass because of what he did to Kenny. Plus I got scared maybe he might even go after you.”

“Why?”

“Because. Because everything seemed so knotted up together. See, Aubrey's been telling me about how you and this cop were working on a case about a missing girl, and how you thought it was tied up with Ida getting killed. And while I was waling on Lyle—trying to make him tell me the truth about Miller—the rest of the story started to come out.”

“What story?”

“The girl, the girl. The one missing. Lyle knows her too.”

“Felice Sanders?” I said in wonderment. “Are you kidding? What does she have to do with Lyle?”

“She contacted him a while back, after some kid she knew died. She brought in these tapes the kid had made of himself. Hours and hours of rehearsals and stuff. Said she knew he would have been a big talent if he had lived. She wanted Lyle to make a demo or whatever. Produce an album. Make the kid a rap star—after his death. You get it?”

He looked as if he was attempting to rise up on one elbow.

“Yeah I get it,” I said, pressing his shoulders back down. “Go ahead.”

“Lyle said the kid's music was shit. But he didn't tell her that. He pretended like it was solid gold and promised to do what she wanted. He drew up some kind of bullshit contract they both signed. But he told her she'd have to help finance the deal. He suckered her, see. Took three or four hundred from her—whatever she could raise—and threw the tapes in a drawer somewhere and forgot about them. Whenever she called, he'd put her off or make up something to string her along.

“Then, a few weeks later, this old black guy walks into the office. Lyle never heard of him before, had no idea who he was. But somehow the guy knew about the tapes. Next thing you know, he's offering to buy them off Lyle. He wouldn't say why. He just wanted them.”

So much for thinking that Felice could not possibly have been hooked up with Miller. It had to be Miller who was seen with her in that Greenwich Street building.

“Lyle knew damn well it would be illegal to do what the guy was asking,” Justin went on. “He'd be selling something that wasn't his to sell.”

“Sure,” I said. “Suppose this old man could do something with the tapes. Suppose he managed to make some real money with them. What would happen when Felice heard the stuff on the radio and came back to claim her cut?”

“That's right. She coulda sued him or put him in jail—whatever. But Lyle did it anyway. He sold the tapes to this Miller for five hundred bucks. No questions asked. Looked as if he was gonna get away with it, too. He never heard from the girl again.”

He began to breathe raggedly then. I shushed him and told him to slow down.

“All right, I'm okay. Just let me finish,” he insisted. The words kept tumbling out of him. “You and Kenny came up here the other day asking Lyle about Miller. That was bad enough. When I told him the cops were all over this missing girl stuff, he freaked out. Not only was he going to be in trouble over the tape scam—now it was gonna look like he was in on kidnaping that girl, or killing her—or whatever it is happened to her.

“That's when Miller walked in. I don't know what he hit me with, but I swear I thought I'd had it. I couldn't get much of a look at him. Only for a moment when he and Lyle were grabbing things out of the desk. Then I passed out. He must be on the run now.”

“He better keep running,” I said. “Him and Lyle. If I ever get a clean shot at either of those mother—”

“No, don't. Don't try to go after them,” he pleaded, and winced with the effort. “You'll get hurt. And don't tell Aubrey and them at Caesar's either. Lot of people'll end up dead. Please don't, Nan. Promise.”

But before I could answer, the white coats were wheeling him away from me.

CHAPTER 16

We See

Much as I would have liked to see some of the gorillas from Caesar's flay Lyle and Miller alive, I was honoring Justin's request for now. Besides, I was loath to tell Aubrey that Justin's battered condition was all my fault. I'd have to work my way up to that. But at least I was able to set her mind at ease about J's whereabouts. As to how he came to be lying in a hospital bed, I handed her one of my Pulitzer Prize-winning lies.

This one had Justin drinking with friends in a West Side bar that was invaded by two particularly brutal holdup men. By the time she pulled apart all the inconsistencies, she'd be in a cab with a two-pound box of chocolates and an armload of dahlias for his bedside table.

And by the time she cross-checked my story with the story that Justin would no doubt come up with, and tried to get me on the phone, I'd be out of the house.

But for now, I was eating my breakfast—replete with hot biscuits and real sliced country ham and buttered grits—a takeout order from the faux soul food place I'd raided on my way home from the hospital. It would be the last time for quite a while that I'd sit calmly, thoughtfully, in my own kitchen, at least halfway peaceful with myself. But of course I didn't know it at that rare moment in time.

I gave myself time that morning, after breakfast, to pick up around the apartment and find a place for every utensil and stray dishcloth and coffee cup in the kitchen, to take a long bath and listen to Ravel and bundle up the old catalogs, and do every kind of normal household chore I'd neglected.

I had the time, for instance, to regret the way things had gone with Dan Hinton. After our rocky start together, it really looked as though we'd get something going. But he'd told me too many lies and he was too deep into the muck of the Felice Sanders thing to even imagine now that we had any future together.

Look, I like men. I like them to the point of being in fairly constant trouble with them, in fact. But it's always galling to realize that a guy has lied to you. Plainly, none of the men in this case was any prize in the honesty department.

Working my way backwards and forwards through the big fat braid of events, it occurred to me that just about
every guy
I'd encountered lately had lied to me. Was I being fair in that generalization?

I started a list.

Lyle Corwin—no matter what I promised J, if I ever got the chance, I was going to fix that son of a bitch.

Dan Hinton—need I say more?

My father—jury's still out on that one.

Miller—the dark prince—even at age sixty-something he must be quite a man—a dangerous, world-class liar, no question in my mind.

Rob MacLachlin—lied to parents and guardians—maybe more of his lies to be uncovered—I didn't predict a happy adulthood for the boy.

Dr. Benson—lied—lied about wife and pretty obviously lied about his lack of ill will toward Felice Sanders—clearly he had not wanted Black Hat to marry “the girl.” That's what he kept calling her, as if her name were an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

Mike, the doorman—apparently didn't lie—but motive for truth telling highly suspect—namely, he wanted to get into my pants.

Black Hat/Kevin—big question mark—the poor baby had died so young, he probably hadn't had the opportunity to become a practiced liar—on the face of it, anyway, he was the only male with clean hands and no ulterior motives.

Leman Sweet—certainly could lie/would lie without blinking if it suited his purposes—but to be honest, all the lies in our relationship had come from my end—he might detest me, but so far he had been straight with me.

Loveless—arrogant bastard—thought so much of himself he probably felt no need to lie—but maybe he was being less than forthright with Leman Sweet about the progress of the case.

Justin—well, perhaps I ought to withhold judgment on him. A major drama queen, true, capable of gross exaggeration. But hadn't he just passed the truth and loyalty test, getting stomped in the process?

Kenny—see Justin, above.

Lefty, the ponytailed lock picker—Lord have mercy, there was somebody running the streets of New York City who actually thought my name was Thelma. Now, what could he have lied about? His attraction to me? His influence with the people at Caesar's? Who cared? Justin had helped him out of a situation that might have landed him in prison virtually for life. Sounded like lying was one of the nicer things he did.

I was leaving somebody out of the litany. Who?

Everything took me back to the beginning of the story—to the dolls, to Ida.

Who had set me on the path to the real Ida Williams? Who was it that set my break-in of Alice Rose's lovely apartment into motion?

Another man. Another liar.

He had checked out my bod in the all-black get-up I was wearing. Flirted with me, flattered me outrageously. I had his phone number in the back pocket of those black jeans, didn't I?

Funny. You do
not
look like a Howard
.

CHAPTER 17

Ask Me Now

Walk up to him on the street. Put the barrel of the gun in his ear and give him five seconds to talk.

Not too subtle, but it might work if the hostage rescue team's sharpshooter didn't blow my brains out first.

Or—

Hide myself in the bushes with the squirrels, watch him until he knocked off work, and then follow him, wherever that might take me. Of course, if he was driving that day, I'd be up shit's creek.

Or—

Get cleaned up and into my killer short skirt and fuck-me shoes, and hope there was enough juice left in my sex machine batteries to get the job done.

Decisions, decisions. Which way to go? I settled on a move that combined all three options.

It was late afternoon by the time I arrived in Union Square Park. I found a bench near the children's play area, facing Broadway. Through the thin stream of traffic I could see him at his table.

Howard was doing pretty good business. Several people stopped to buy his bargain-priced art books over the course of the two hours I sat quietly with my giant-size container of coffee and the newspaper I was using as camouflage.

Around five-thirty, the sunlight all gone now, he started boxing up the unsold books. I walked over there.

I dropped my voice way down—Kathleen Turner with a cold: “Did you think I lost your number?”

He looked up from his packing. “You,” he said simply. If I was reading that salacious grin right, he was real glad to see me.

I let him get a good look. “Am I too early for dinner?”

“You're right on time. But I'm not dressed.”

“Yeah you are. I'd notice if you weren't.”

“I mean not dressed to take you out.”

“You're fine. I thought we could go casual. Grab a burger and a drink around the corner at the Old Town. We'll make an early night of it. Dessert at my place—if that's all right with you.”

Howard nodded, happy. “That is
so
all right with me … if it was any more all right …” He declined to finish that sentence. “I don't have any flowers and candy. How about a book for you? You like Magritte?”

“I love Magritte.”

He hefted the oversized volume and presented it to me.

“You like Jacob Lawrence?”

“Um hum.”

I stopped him before he gave me that one as well.