Blackbird 02 - Dead Girls Don't Wear Diamonds (23 page)

I took a step away from Jack and spun around to face him. "What are you doing here?"

He looked surprisingly messy. His hair was windblown, his coat wet with rain. He was out of breath, too. "I could ask you the same thing."

"Are you following Oliver? Of course you are. This whole street must be crawling with the Secret Service." I glanced up and down the block to see if I
was right. "I guess they're more concerned about Oliver than a woman being attacked right under their noses."

"I didn't attack you," said Jack, cradling his right hand. "Where were you going, by the way?"

"To see Sidney Gutnick, of course."

"Why?"

"Why?" I sputtered, hoping I sounded genuine. "Last time I checked, this was a free country. What is Oliver doing here?"

"Buying jewelry, I presume. Maybe something for his wife." Jack peered at the palm of his hand. "You really bit me."

"You're lucky I didn't do worse," I retorted. "What makes you think you can go around grabbing people like that?"

"To keep you out of harm's way," Jack snapped.

"Harm's way? Why did you let Yale go up just now, if you're protecting Oliver?"

"I didn't know Bailey was going to be here." Jack shook his hand out. "Look, were you really going up to see Gutnick?"

"Why else would I be here?"

"Then go," Jack said, sounding urgent. "Go now, Nora. Yell if you get into trouble."

"You want me to—? Now what? You're going to pin something else on me?"

"You'd be helping," he said. "Go on. I trust you."

"It's not mutual. Good Lord," I said, suddenly understanding. "Oliver doesn't know you're here. You're in the dark as much as I am."

Jack said, "I don't know what you're up to, Nora, but I'm counting on you not to murder the next secretary of transportation. So run up there and—"

He didn't have time to give me further instructions. Beside us, Sidney's door burst open and Oliver Cooper
charged out into the night air, looking frazzled and angry. Jack and I plastered ourselves out of sight again, but it wouldn't have mattered. Oliver was too upset to notice us. He spun around and grabbed something from his pocket. An instant later, he threw it onto the sidewalk and almost ran up the street towards his car.

Sidney Gutnick waddled outside. With a garbled cry, he flung himself onto the sidewalk and began to pick up what Oliver had thrown. Money. I could see the soggy bills as Sidney hugged them to his chest. He scrambled to his feet and rushed inside again.

I turned around to stare at Jack.

He was silent and frowning, clearly as puzzled as I was. "Look, Nora, I think it's best if you forget what you saw here tonight."

"You're covering Oliver's tracks."

Suddenly sure of his decision, Jack said with more conviction, "It will be in everyone's best interests if you drive away right now."

"What are you covering up? If it's Laura Cooper's murder, I can't believe you think you can get away with that."

A sharp noise spun us both around. Then glass breaking, another pop, an echo, and a whine that bounced around the buildings on either side of the short block.

"What in the world was—?"

"Oh, shit." Jack pushed me hard against the iron gate. "Stay here."

He took off at a sprint, heading for my car.

From several points around us, the street suddenly came to life with people. Like mice just released from a maze, they scurried out of dark corners. I caught my balance on the gate and looked past Jack's running figure at the car. Squarely in the center of the windshield was a hole.

A small, single hole in the windshield.

"Reed," I said.

I went after Jack at a dead run. "Oh, Reed, please, no."

I grabbed the passenger-side door handle and hauled it open.

Reed was sitting upright, very still. Tiny shards of glass were in his lap.

Then he moved, stiffly reaching with his right hand for his shoulder.

 
Jack was already in the car, pushing Reed to the middle of the front seat. He was saying, "It's okay, son. You're okay."

Reed said in a very young voice, "I'm hurt."

And he began to breathe in shallow, painful gasps.

"Get in," Jack said to me.

He slid behind the wheel and started the car. I climbed in beside Reed and somehow managed to end up on my knees with my arms around him. There was blood on his shirt already. Jack passed me a handkerchief. I took it and pressed it against the blood, holding it in place with the flat of my hand. Jack pulled out of the parking space. He rolled down the window and spoke to someone in the street as the car gained momentum. I wasn't listening. The man he spoke to got into the backseat while the car was moving. He told Jack to make a left at the corner. Reed's head lolled against my neck when the car made the turn.

"Hurry," I said to Jack.

Reed whispered, "I can't breathe."

It took forever, and I don't remember what I said, but I know I talked to him and held the wet handkerchief against his thin chest to hold in the life. When the car whirled under the lights of a hospital canopy, he passed out and I began to cry.

Chapter 13

I didn't faint until after the doctors took Reed away and Jack said he had people to talk to. Then I went down like a sack of potatoes at the feet of a startled intern.      ·

When I fought my way out of the dark again, I was flat on my back on a hospital exam table and could hear Michael's voice on the other side of a white curtain. He was telling someone to get out of his way or he'd tear their head off.

I sat up too fast, and as he came around the curtain he caught me before I fell off the table.

"I'm so sorry," I babbled. "So sorry. This is all my fault. Is he—is he—?"

"He's alive," Michael said.

I wrapped my arms around him. "Reed was going to teach me to drive. He said as s-soon as I stopped fainting, he'd teach me. And now—"

"He'll teach you," Michael said. "He'll be okay."

Poor Reed, paying a terrible price for my stupid behavior. He was a shy, steady, determined boy who deserved every good thing that came his way. I had his blood on more than my clothes.

Holding me, Michael said, "Do you know who did the shooting?"

His voice was low and full of purpose.

I sat back and hiccoughed. "No."

He touched my chin with his fingertips, a gentle caress that didn't match his tone. "Did you see anybody?"

I shook my head. Then I looked at his face and my pulse skipped. In his narrowed gaze was a cold light that frightened me. It snapped my brain back into functioning mode. "Michael, you can't do anything about this yourself."

"Who else is there?"

"No," I said. "This night is horrible enough already."

"Just give me some possibilities."

Jack arrived, looking cheerful as he brushed the white curtain aside. "Okay, it's all taken care of."

Michael turned on him, six-feet-four inches of towering rage. Suddenly he had a grip on Jack's shirt and jammed him against the wall so hard that something crashed to the floor. Jack's face turned red and a nurse cried out behind me.

I got up hastily and jammed myself between them. "Stop it, Michael!"

There we were, the three of us fused together while every other atom in the emergency room went motionless.

"Mick Abruzzo, I presume?" Jack said cordially.

Michael said something he shouldn't have, and Jack replied, "You're only making more trouble I'll have to clean up."

"You don't know how much trouble," Michael replied.

"Let's not have a fight," I said. "Please. Please, Michael."

Mocking, Jack said, "Please, Michael."

For an instant I thought Jack was going to be torn
into very small pieces and squished into the floor. But then Michael was overcome by a Zenlike stillness.

He released Jack so carefully that I knew he'd learned this lesson a very hard way.

Two large men from Michael's posse came around the curtain and stood like a pair of sumo wrestlers ready for battle. They trained their eyes on Jack and dared him to budge.

Curtly, Michael said to me, "I have to take care of something. You have to leave the hospital. Aldo will make sure you're safe tonight."

I glanced at one of the henchmen standing close by, then back at Michael. "Where are you going?"

"I have to see Reed's mother."

Of course he did. "Let me come, too."

He shook his head. "I made some promises to her. I need to talk to her alone."

When Michael left the hospital, I turned to Jack. "You've hushed this up, haven't you? A young man has been shot, and you've made sure everyone will keep quiet."

"It will be better for everyone this way," Jack soothed, touching my arm. "My more immediate concern is getting you out of harm's way, Nora."

I pulled away from his hand. "I'm perfectly safe."

"You were the target tonight." Jack looked me dead in the eye. "You know that, don't you?"

"Yes."

"So let me take you somewhere where we can watch you."

"You wanted me to go up to Sidney's shop tonight," I said. "You wanted me to make something happen. Well, this happened instead, Jack. My confidence in your judgement isn't very high right now."

Chapter 14

My husband and I quarreled the evening of his death. I distinctly remember the moment I gave up, and he—relieved, and maybe even happy—went out the door to score his last cocaine. Hours later, when he was in the hospital, dying, I saw the whole argument flash in my mind and I wished that I had never stopped fighting him.

I wondered if Reed's mother felt the same way tonight. Blown apart by her inability to protect the one she loved.

When Aldo stopped the car, I had no idea where I was.

He said, "Boss told me to bring you here."

The river ran close by. I could see the silver water slipping swiftly past in the moonlight, going in the wrong direction. I realized we were on the New Jersey side of the Delaware. Wind hissed in the leafless trees overhead. A ramshackle house stood back from the water among the trees. I could make out the tall apex of darkened windows that overlooked the river the way a chalet might view a mountaintop.

"Where are we?"

Aldo jerked his head. "C'mon inside. You can call somebody, if you like."

His black hair was gelled into elaborate duck wings and a thick necklace nestled in his hairy chest.

A heavyset man, he hobbled with the gait of a peg-legged pirate.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

He limped ahead of me. "Yeah, sure. Just my knee didn't heal so good."

"Oh. Some kind of surgery?"

"No," he said. "Gambling problem."

He found a key that had been hidden under the wooden deck. With a series of grunts, he laboriously climbed the steps. I heard a lock click, and he shouldered the door open, leading the way inside and flipping on a light.

It was Michael's house. I knew it as soon as I edged inside. The first floor was all one room like a summer cottage. A huge fireplace commanded the rear wall with a kitchen to the right. I could see copper-bottomed pots hanging from a rack over a stainless-steel stove. Fishing gear and a daunting collection of boots were left by the door. Mismatched bachelor furniture was arranged in front of a large television. A heap of automotive magazines spilled onto the floor from a thrift shop coffee table that looked like it was also used as a footstool.

Not speaking, Aldo systematically searched the house and returned to the television, which he switched on with a remote. While the sound blared at us, he took a cigarette lighter from his pocket and went over to the fireplace. The room was cold, and he lit the firewood that had already been laid, complete with tinder. A flame danced up immediately.

Aldo flopped down on the sofa with a thankful groan and looked up, surprised to see me still standing just inside the door. "You want to phone somebody? Maybe get some clothes brought over? A toothbrush?"

"I can't stay here."

He shrugged and looked at the television. With the remote, he began to click slowly through the channels.

I said, "Really, I can't stay here."

His attention was already glued to the screen. "Phone's in the kitchen."

A Turkish prison guard might have more flexibility.

I went into the kitchen and found a portable telephone hidden under a pot holder shaped like a fish. First I dialed the hospital, using the card I'd been given by the patient liaison. I was told Reed's surgery was going well and was expected to be over in an hour. The update didn't make me feel any better.

Next I dialed Emma. When she answered, sounding lush and languid, I explained everything that had happened and my current predicament.

She woke up fast. "Wait, reload. You okay?"