The Granite Moth (3 page)

“How old were you? 21? 22 maybe? One of my waiters came to my office last week and offered to turn tricks in the private bathroom. You know what I said to him? I said if I caught him so much as staring at a stranger, I'd kick his pretty white tush out the door. If someone wants to grab a tiger by the tail, you don't get out the first aid kit. You tell them to leave the tiger alone!”

She yelled the last words, and a door slammed behind us, the paramedics retreating inside. Not everyone wants to be a witness.

“I'll need access to all your employees,” I said. “It won't be easy,” I added, knowing she would understand I meant questioning them would be emotionally charged to say the least. Memory has a funny way of rearranging itself in the face of tragedy. I was up to date on the latest interview techniques, but to be perfectly honest, I hadn't tried them out on anyone. My last run-in with drug dealers notwithstanding, my cases
mostly called for following suspected cheats to racquet ball and Ashtanga yoga classes. Still, I knew that these men had just lost two friends and, while likely to cooperate, might not recall the information I needed, handsy customers and suspicious lurkers alike.

“Whatever you need, Miss Stone. You can have.” She pulled my mask out of her pocket and pushed it into my hand. It had lost a few sequins, but I put it on anyway until I was calm enough to go back inside.

The police had arrived by the time I returned to the waiting area, and Ellis was busy questioning a blonde teenager who was biting his nails with intense focus. Ellis wouldn't be assigned the case—it would go to an explosives expert—but he had been on the scene. The NYPD wouldn't waste a warm body. Even from across the room, I could tell Ellis wasn't getting much useful information from his subject. One word answers, if any. I asked Big Mamma about the youngster.

“Bobbie's boyfriend.”

“He's a kid.”

“Mmm-hmm, so was Bobbie. Nineteen. That one's trouble, mark my words. Manhattan born and raised, slinking into all the clubs with batted eyelashes and a fake driver's license.”

Not one to call the kettle black, I approached the boy with a cup of coffee. His eyes were bloodshot from a combination of tears and booze. The tears I could verify; the booze was an educated guess. He was wearing artfully ripped jeans with a plaid button-up and leather boots. From far away, he might have looked like a thrift store addict, but up close, he reeked of designer threads even more than clove cigarettes. Either
a kleptomaniac or someone's beloved son. I glanced at Ellis before I began speaking.

“Ms. Burstyn asked me—”

Ellis put up his hand to stop me. He got up from his seat and gestured for me to take his place. His graciousness came from frustration, but I take what I can get.

“Good luck. Kathleen, this is Martin. Martin, Kathleen.”

Ellis approached the nurse at the front desk, rubbing the space between his eyebrows. I held the Styrofoam cup out to Martin, but he didn't take it and turned his attention to what was left of his pinky nail, ripping at his cuticles. His index finger was bleeding around the edges, and it was unclear how the others had survived their assaults.

“I'm so sorry,” I started. “You and Bobbie were together awhile?”

Martin shrugged, and I sat back in my chair, estimating how long I had before his parents arrived, lawyering up their son if required.
Long enough to give the kid a minute to collect himself
, I decided.

How many Pink Parrot employees had been present? Mamma Burstyn could give me the exact number, but I was thinking around eight. Six performers on and off the float, plus the man driving and Big Mamma herself. Which performer had left after hearing that his coworkers had died, I wondered, watching the others give their statements to various police officers.

“Where'd you meet?” I tried again, receiving another shrug in response.

“Ah, I see. A romantic. Doesn't want to blab his story. I can appreciate that.” Martin sighed, and I considered any response a small victory. “Not the ending I would have wished for you.”

That elicited another sigh, and the boy sat up straighter, tucking his hands underneath his pants. The thing about being nondescript is that people don't tend to be suspicious of you; you don't remind them of anyone else, not a cranky aunt or a
loathed hall monitor. They might as well be talking to a ghost, and a ghost can keep a secret, let me tell you.

“I wasn't in love with him,” Martin said so fast that I couldn't be sure that he had said “wasn't” as opposed to “was.” I didn't interrupt to verify. “I mean, I'm seventeen. We weren't getting married or anything.”

He dropped into another silence, sliding a hand out from under himself and eyeing the nails again. I resisted the urge to grab the offending digits and let him self-mutilate instead.

“But he was fun, you know? And fucking cute.”

The boy's voice broke on “cute,” and I found myself having difficulty breathing again. For a moment, I forgot to ask anything at all.

“I'm here with Dolly,” I said.

“I know. I saw you two together. After.”

I was afraid to push my luck, but needed to. “Did you see anything else, Martin?”

“Some asshole shoved the juggler. I wish I could kill him,” he said, and I had a sinking feeling Martin—with or without knowing it himself—was playing two truths and a lie with me. One, he wasn't in love with Bobbie. Two, the juggler wasn't to blame. Three, revenge wasn't unthinkable. Problem was, I had no clue which statement to trust. I wrote down my number and told him that he could call me if he needed anything. “Or remember anything,” I hinted. I would be lucky if he didn't throw it away.

With two exceptions—the one who had left and Dolly, still receiving treatment—the entertainers present at the parade were finishing up their statements. I asked them to repeat a few answers after the officers had left.

“Too loud to hear anything—”

“Flames everywhere, you know?”

“What death threat?”

It seemed Big Mamma had been keeping some secrets herself.

CHAPTER THREE

M
y assistant Meeza—fast on her way to becoming a private investigator in her own right—was sprawled on my couch when I got back to the office late that evening. She looked like nothing so much as a coed, from her skinny jeans and tank top to her long sleek hair pulled into a high ponytail. She was chewing gum and starting intently at her laptop screen.

“Physics homework?” I teased, dropping my mask into a drawer filled with whiteout, candy wrappers, pushpins, and other useless junk.

“I wish,” she said, closing her browser window and moving the computer aside. “Jimmy's got swim class at 9
A.M.
Who takes swim class as a college freshman?”

Jimmy Holliday was our client's son. Mrs. Holliday wanted to make sure that she wasn't throwing away money on college tuition for her offspring to gallivant around town, a legitimate concern for an eighteen-year-old from Iowa let loose in New York City for the first time. I wasn't sure that she would be much more pleased with swim classes; those are some expensive butterfly strokes.

“You know, you don't
have to attend every class,” I said.

Snagging a college I.D. for Meeza had been one of my more challenging feats. Thankfully at least a few undergrads are still unaware of pickpockets, and hey, I'd returned the wallet. I would survive my remorse at the young woman's grateful face when I ran after her shouting, “I think you dropped this!” I could even imagine her telling the family at Thanksgiving: “No, you're wrong. Everyone's
really
nice in New York City.”

“Yeah, but he's more likely to skip the early ones, you know? I wish I could sit idly in a lecture. Medieval history would be nice. Or Greek drama maybe.”

If Meeza wasn't surprised to see me strolling in at 10
P.M.
, I confess that I was surprised to find her working so late and not only because she was expected in a pool lane the next morning. Meeza still lived with her parents in Queens, and they fretted if she didn't at least check in. These days she had to check in with her boyfriend V.P. as well, and it was clear he didn't like her new profession. She had once been an underutilized floor secretary for our building, a safe job that had all but bored her into the decision to join me on a case. It wasn't long before she'd turned in her resignation and rustled up her own customers.

In an effort to keep an eye on her, V.P. was pestering Meeza to become the office manager for his car rental business, a shady enterprise that trafficked in stolen vehicles and catered to criminals. And people like me. I didn't like to use my real name for anything I could avoid. My office was leased to one Katya Lincoln, and my apartment to Kate Manning. V.P. didn't ask for names, let alone proof of insurance. No credit card, no problem. It had worked out well for me until my sweet assistant had her head turned by his so-called ambitions. As if he knew I was thinking ill of him, Meeza's phone beeped.

“
Mujhe jaana hoga
,
I was supposed to meet Vincent five minutes ago!”

She began throwing her belongings into an oversized bag while I leaned against the door and watched her fret. It didn't strike me as normal to stress over being late to meet your boyfriend. Couldn't she text him that she was running behind? “He can wait for a few more minutes.”

“It's rude to keep someone waiting,” Meeza said in the sing-song voice she adopted when I was being unreasonable. Still, I knew that if she was really unhappy, she would make a clucking noise, so I was in the clear. When I rubbed my eyes, she stopped her frantic packing, and I knew that I was being observed, curious about what tactful phrase Meeza would use to describe my bedraggled appearance. At least a quick stop by the bathroom had gotten most of the smoke residue off. It wasn't that unusual for my job to take me behind garbage bins and onto tar-filled rooftops. She'd definitely seen worse than scrapes and smelled worse than the electrical tang clinging to my sweater. Meeza settled on “a bit tired.”

“You were at the parade?” she asked quietly before her eyes widened. “The man you know from the bird club?”

“He'll be okay,” I said quickly.

Meeza paused to consider my assessment. I could see rival impulses flash across her face as she decided whether seeking more information would be appropriate or prying. “Did you get what you needed?” she finally asked.

I blanked at first, picturing Dolly's perfect skin slashed in pink, then remembered my clandestine meeting for information about Salvatore Magrelli. It wasn't often that I forgot about the man I considered Lord of the Underworld. I'd only given Meeza hazy details, and thankfully she hadn't pressed me.

“Yeah, I've got a whole file of possibilities. My own homework.”

Meeza gave me an appraising look and a quick hug. When she rushed out the door, I took her place on the couch. I had my qualms about her new relationship to say the least. But V.P. and I had an unspoken agreement. He wouldn't mention my past life, dragging Meeza into worry she didn't deserve. I wouldn't share his rap sheet, a laundry list of misdemeanors begging to be bumped up to felonies.

When I sat up on my knees, I could look out the window into the alley below or the empty offices next door. Neither view was particularly exciting, not even a rat in sight. That made it easy to turn my attention to the stack of papers Ellis had given me. I glanced at the first page, feeling torn. I could hear Big Mamma's statement that she wanted someone's undivided attention.
Should I postpone my investigation while I look into the explosion?
It seemed indulgent to pursue what could be called a vendetta in the right light when a friend was in need.

I had trained myself not to think about the most harrowing days of my undercover work, using psychological tricks I'd invented myself. My actual department-assigned shrink had wanted me to relive each and every fear with the notion that visualizing the trauma would help me come to terms with it. I didn't think much of his methods and preferred to visualize shooting the heart out of a target anytime my mind wandered down an unpleasant path. Totally healthy, I know.

That night, however, I was too tired to war with my memories and found myself thinking back to the day I refused to shoot a teenager who had found out about a cocaine shipment. When Salvatore Magrelli had pushed a gun into my hand, I had shoved it back. I didn't run away fast enough to miss the sound of bullets being fired into the boy's head. You'd think something like that would be enough to build a case against the monster, but no. The boy's younger brother had taken the fall with promises of riches when he was released from juvie. I don't
know about riches, but I'd checked on him. He was dealing pot and getting into the kind of trouble you'd expect from a kid who'd watched his sibling get murdered—assault, vandalism, harassment. He didn't look like a kid anymore in his latest mug shot, but I could still picture the first one, his watery brown eyes haunting me when I let my guard down. Like now.