Heat (10 page)

"Mary . . . you . . . me." The voice was faint and filled with static.

"Aunt Jen?" Mary spoke into the phone. "Is that you?"

". . .trouble . . . Katia Moore . . ."

A chill ran down Mary's back. "Aunt Jen, there's something wrong with your phone. I can't hear you."

". . . government . . . secret . . ." Then the phone gave one last squawk and went dead in Mary's hand.

"Aunt Jen?" Mary called hopelessly into the silence. "Are you there?" She waited a few seconds, then set the phone down.

Her aunt must have been calling from a car phone. That was the only explanation. She must have gone into a tunnel and lost the connection.

It was clear that her aunt was trying to tell her something about the death of Gaia's mother. Mary was surprised that her aunt would be working on the problem so late on New Year's Eve. The information on Katia Moore must have turned out to be particularly interesting.

Mary stood by the phone for a moment, hoping her aunt might call back, but the phone stayed quiet.

Mary went back to getting ready, but
the chill of fear
that had arrived with the phone call wouldn't go away. It had to be more than an interesting story to keep her aunt working so late. If she was

calling from a car phone, maybe she was on her way somewhere. Maybe she was even coming to talk to Mary in person.

Then Mary remembered a flaw in that theory. Aunt Jen didn't even
own
a car. She might have a portable phone, it sometimes seemed like everyone in Manhattan carried one, but there was no way the reception should have been so bad. Not from anywhere in the city.

Mary ran back across the room and picked up the phone. This time there was no strange hollow sound.
This time there was no sound at all.
The phone line was dead.

Mary's heartbeat was suddenly racing. She was paralyzed for a moment, the dead phone in her hand. One part of her brain was still trying desperately to fit this into the world of everyday events. Phone lines go out. It's New Year's Eve. A million people probably called each other at the same time and blew the circuits. But the rest of her mind didn't buy it.

She put the phone back on the hook and grabbed her coat from the closet. Gaia was expecting to meet Mary in the park. That was still an hour away, but Mary decided she would rather freeze out in the cold or walk over to Gaia's brownstone. Anything but stay here. She slipped into her coat, picked up her purse, and headed out.

Mary had gotten as far as the kitchen when she

noticed something strange. There was a little case lying on the kitchen table.
A small, leather case
that looked something like the case for the flute Mary had once played in junior high band. Curious, she walked over to the case and looked inside.

The case was packed with some kind of dense gray foam. There were cutouts in the foam just large enough to hold an assortment of objects. Only a few of the slots were full. Two held small objects the size of a fingernail. They looked something like miniature lollipops, slightly squashed lollipops, only inside the translucent balls Mary could see an array of tiny electrical parts, and where the stick should have been on a piece of candy, there was a bundle of wires.

Mary had never seen anything quite like this, but she immediately had an idea of what it was for. There had been a funny sound on the phone all week. Someone had been bugging her phone, listening in on every conversation.

There was an empty opening at the center of the case that was shaped something like a large cigar. Next to it was a shape that was considerably more frightening.
There was no doubt about what it was meant to hold.
Mary could make out every detail of the outline--the grip, the trigger guard, the long, slender barrel. The third opening was fitted to hold a gun, and that gun was missing.

But even that wasn't the worst thing in the case.

The worst thing was two small glass vials. One vial was still in its slot. The other of the tiny bottles was sitting out on the counter. Inside it was a thimble full of
snow-white powder.


Cocaine.

The sight of it brought an unexpected wave of desire boiling up from somewhere deep in Mary's guts. It had been
so
long.

One quick sniff. One quick sniff and I'll be able to think this through so much better.

Mary took a slow step back. If there was any time in the world when it was a seriously bad idea to
get cranked out of her head
, this was the time. She shifted her eyes as far to the right and left as she could without turning her head.

Someone was in the house. That someone was carrying a gun. Mary had absolutely no doubt that someone had come to kill her.

THE CROWD ON THE F TRAIN WASN'T
the most upscale Gaia had ever seen. There was a high concentration of black dusters and guys with
stubbly little beards.
Even on New Year's
Eve, she suspected more of them were interested in getting drunk or getting high than in celebrating.

Some Dogs

Perfect customers for Skizz.

Gaia rode in the front of the front car. If she could have, she would have ridden on the outside. She would have pulled or pushed or done anything to make the cars go faster. There was a tension in her legs. An ache in all her muscles. It wasn't fear, but it wasn't quite the same
cold energy
she felt right before a fight. By the time the train reached the station, the tension was so great that she squeezed out the door and flew up the stairs before anyone else on the train had taken two steps across the platform.

Skizz was loose. Gaia had expected the scumbag to spend a week or more in the hospital. After that, he should have gone to jail for pushing drugs. Mary should have been safe for years.

Now Gaia would have to take care of him. Again.

Gaia knew she could handle Skizz.
She had already kicked his flabby ass twice.
Three times would be no problem. That didn't mean there wouldn't be complications. There was no telling what kind of mood Skizz was in. Beating up a guy like Skizz was kind of like kicking a feral dog. He might get scared and run away. He might turn around and bite.

Gaia had one mission, one goal. She had to make sure that a simple message got through the dealer's lice-ridden head:
Get near Mary Moss and die.


Gaia reached the street and cut across an intersection toward St. Mark's Place. It was nearly dark, and fat snowflakes were drifting down from a deep gray sky. The sun was still shining on the taller buildings, but already the air felt ten degrees colder.

There weren't as many people on the street here as there were back in the Village. The stores and restaurants along the sidewalks were at least a grade below those near Washington Square. Not the swankiest neighborhood in the city.

St. Mark's Place was a park, but it turned out to be considerably smaller than Gaia had expected, little more than a block of green space and a few knots of trees. Gaia stood in one corner of the cold space for a few minutes and watched as two men passed a bottle back and forth. Two girls with spiked hair walked past, and a cloud of pungent pot smoke momentarily swamped Gaia.

She didn't see Skizz.

According to Ed's source in the police department, Skizz had been spotted at this location twice in the last two days. Both times he had avoided arrest, but the park was a known site for drug traffickers. None of which guaranteed that Skizz would show up tonight.

Gaia bit her lip and did a slow scan of the people in the park. It was getting close to seven. Unless she wanted to miss her meeting with Sam, Gaia needed to get back on the train. It looked like
lowlife hunting
was going to have to wait for another night.

She was halfway back to the station when she saw a familiar shape on the street corner ahead. A big guy with a round gut and a big, jutting beard. Gaia smiled a hard smile.
Thar she blows.
There was no mistaking Skizz's bulky silhouette.

Gaia thought about her approach. She could go in cool and casual. She could come in screaming and kicking.
She could be sneaky.
Sneaky won.

She came up behind Skizz, grabbed him by the back of the coat, and pulled.

The man flew back a step, stumbled, and fell onto the dirty snow. Gaia quickly stepped around in front of him and put a foot on his chest. "Hi, there," she said. "Funny mee . . . " She stopped in midword.

She had the wrong guy. This wasn't Skizz. This couldn't be Skizz.

Only it was.

The drug dealer was a wreck. His face was lopsided and swollen. His lips were split, and inside his open mouth Gaia could see
several broken or missing teeth.
There was a cast on one of his legs and a sling around his left arm. A bandage wrapped his dirty hair. His left eye was covered by gauze and tape. His right eye looked up at Gaia with complete and utter terror.

"You," he croaked. "It's you." His voice shook.

Gaia couldn't feel fear, but she could feel shock.
I did this.
She didn't exactly feel sorry for Skizz. He had only gotten what he deserved. But it was a little stomach

twisting to see what she had done to a man using nothing but her hands and feet.

Gaia took a deep breath and tried to get the proper tone of mean back in her voice. "I came to make sure you stayed away from my friend."

Even as she said it, the statement sounded ridiculous. Skizz couldn't be the one who was after Mary. Skizz couldn't be after anyone.

The dealer pushed his hands against the ground and scooted himself back through the snow. "Don't," he blubbered through his torn lips. "Don't hurt me." Tears streamed from his one good eye and rolled into his matted beard.

Gaia stared down at him for a few seconds longer. Then she put her hands in her pockets and started walking for the subway station.

Some dogs ran. Some dogs bit.
Some dogs got broken.


At least Gaia could be sure of one thing. Mary was safe.

MARY MOVED SLOWLY ACROSS THE
carpeted floor. At every step she paused and looked left and right. She could barely get herself to move. Her knees trembled, and
her legs were unsteady. At any moment she expected a bullet to come out of some corner of the apartment. The fear was so bad, she wanted to lie down and just wait until whoever had left the case on the table came to kill her.

My Hero

She froze at the door to her room and stood trembling there for several seconds, unable to move.

A noise down the hall broke her free from her paralysis. It was a faint sound, but it was enough to propel Mary through the door and into her room. She closed the door behind her and carefully turned the lock.

She didn't have any illusion that the door would actually keep the intruder out.
Her parents had managed to open it with nothing more sophisticated than the bent end of a clothes hanger. And the door was thin enough that even Mary could have probably knocked it down with a kick. She only hoped it would buy her time.

Still trying to move as silently as possible, Mary crept across the room and gave the phone another try. No dial tone. Nothing.

That meant there were two choices. Mary could try to go out the front door. She had already passed on that option once. She figured that it was what the intruder expected, and now he would be even more prepared. Hopefully, whoever was in the apartment wouldn't be prepared for option two.

Before she made her escape, Mary had
one more


little task.
She went to the dresser and grabbed the handles for the lowest drawer. Mary pulled the drawer open slowly, an inch at a time. She held her breath. Any noise. Any noise at all might draw the stranger with the gun.

It took only a few seconds to open the drawer and grab the bottle of pepper spray she had hidden inside, but they were long seconds. The fear of dying seemed to stretch out time, making every moment into an hour.

Mary stuffed the pepper spray into her pocket and hurried across the room to the bed. Under the foot of the bed was a small case made of bright orange plastic. It was one of those stupid things that her parents had bought from some salesman. Some stupid thing that Mary had always thought was a waste of money.
She had certainly never expected to use it.
But she was glad she had it now.

Mary slipped the case from under the bed and popped open the latches on the sides. She shivered as the case opened with a loud click.

Inside, there was only a bundle of wire and thin metal rods. It looked like a mess, but Mary dragged it free from the case and carried it over to the window. Then,
with her heart beating high in her throat
, she put her thumbs against the window locks and pressed. There was a terrible moment when she thought the old locks wouldn't open, but a second

later the locks popped, the glass shivered, and the window swung slowly inward.

A blizzard of cold air swirled into Mary's bedroom. Snow settled on her head. Wind made the clothes in her closet into dancing ghosts.

Carefully Mary leaned over the edge and looked down. Five floors below, cars hummed past on the street.