Gideon (17 page)

It was his old rabbi, Big Sal Fodera, who had said it best, speaking for every foot soldier who was out there doing battle day after day, night after night: “Gentlemen, what we have here is a nigger problem.”

The meatball who was backing Payton up was already there waiting for him outside the building. Payton muttered a noncommittal greeting and buzzed the apartment from the vestibule downstairs. When he got a response, he growled “Police department” into the intercom and was buzzed up immediately.

The meatball stayed put on the sidewalk.

Payton started climbing, weighted down by his flab and his bitterness. Another fourth-floor walk-up. Another shit detail. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to him. There had been a time, and not so fucking long ago, when he got the high-profile cases. His name in the
Daily News
. Back then, he was wired to the top floor at Thirty Penn Plaza. On the swift track to Homicide and a lieutenancy, followed up by a nice, cushy security gig at a nice, cushy gated community down in Boca—just like Big Sal. Get himself a boat, maybe a nice little fitness instructor with a tight butt. There was a time, all right. There was a time …

Until it blew up. All because of one lousy, stinking piece of nineteen-year-old human filth named Yussef Gilliam, a stone-cold lying-ass baby killer who had to go and die on him while Payton was taking him in. A choke hold, they called it. Reasonable force, Payton called it. The kid was buggin’ on him. He was high on crack and speaking no known language. He had just robbed a Korean produce stand at gunpoint and pistol-whipped the owner and his wife, who was seven months pregnant. She’d gone into labor right there on the dirty floor of the store, hemorrhaging blood like she was a goddamn fountain, losing the kid. What was he supposed to do when he saw something like that? Ignore it? Kiss the guy who did it? And how was Payton supposed to know that the piece of shit had a medical history of severe asthma episodes? More to the point, why was he supposed to care? This was a war. Us against Them. The mayor had declared it so so when he ran and won on a law-and-order platform. Make the streets safe, he said. We want to feel safe, the police said. Well, what did they think that meant? And just exactly who did they think They were? The goddamn niggers, that’s who. Anyone who didn’t know was a fool. Or a goddamn hypocrite.

Or worse, a
New York Times
bleeding-heart liberal. That fucking paper. Police brutality, they called it. Institutionalized racism, they called it. A full-scale investigation, they demanded. And then along came the good reverends Al and Jesse, and before you could say the words
Rodney fucking King
Payton was going down for it—he and everybody else who had been in the precinct house that night, even if all they’d been doing was taking a leak down the hall.

And now here he was, a fat man in a cheap suit who had to jump when the Man said jump.

When he finally got to the fourth-floor landing, puffing, Payton found a tall, good-looking blond guy waiting there for him. He was young and sleekly built, a real big-man-on-campus type. The kind who end up becoming quarterbacks or politicians or new anchors. Payton detested him on sight.

“You Granville?” he asked, sizing him up, wondering if he would give him trouble or not.

“That’s right,” Carl Granville replied. “Thank you for coming.”

He seemed spooked but in control of his emotions. Good. Payton knew it was harder to get anything done when people let their emotions take over.

“My name’s Payton. How did they—” He looked over Carl’s shoulder at the jimmied door. “Never mind. I guess I can figure out how they got in—your basic pry bar job. Want to show me around, pal?”

Payton could feel the guy’s relief. It was the part of the job Payton always liked, always got off on. A guy like this, a hot-shit guy, smart, confident as hell. They were always glad to let a guy like Payton take over. They were always happy to let a pro come in and assume responsibility.

Carl led him inside the studio apartment. Payton stood there a moment, surveying the wreckage. The furniture had been slashed and overturned. Dishes were broken all over the kitchen floor. A computer was smashed to bits. Payton let out a low whistle, shaking his head. “Damn, these boys meant business, didn’t they?”

“You think there was more than one of them?”

“Most likely,” Payton replied, scratching his oily scalp. “We had us a pair working this neighborhood a few weeks ago. Passing themselves off as furniture movers. Had themselves a beat-up old van and everything. They been quiet lately, but I guess they ran through their dough and got back in business.” He moseyed across the room, poking at the wreckage. “Weird that they didn’t take your TV or your stereo. What’s they get, cash? Jewelry?”

“It’s like I said on the phone, they were after anything that had to do with this book I’ve been working on. Sergeant O’Rourke didn’t tell you?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“Where’s Sergeant O’Roarke, anyway?”

“Got another call. This may surprise you, but we get more than one robbery a day. He asked me to come instead since I was already in the …” Payton trailed off, cursing himself. Shit, how could he make such a sloppy mistake? He never used to. He’d always been so careful. Alert. Then again, he reflected, maybe he’d get away with it. Maybe this guy was dumb.

Payton turned and shot a hopeful glance at him.

One look at the expression on Carl Granville’s face told Payton he wasn’t dumb.

Too bad.

* * *

He.

Payton had said
he
asked him to come.

Referring to O’Roarke.

He. Not she.

What took place next happened so fast, Carl never had time to think. The time for thinking was over.

Payton started to turn back to Carl. Only now his gun was drawn.

Carl stepped to the middle of the room, where his ruptured heavy bag still hung. For one brief instant it was between them, a moving sixty-pound shield. Carl had one chance and he took it.

He shoved the heavy bag at Payton with every ounce of his strength behind it, knocking his gun hand wide. Carl heard the shot, heard the bullet slam into the wall somewhere off to his right. Now he charged headfirst into the burly man with the oily air. The gun went clattering across the floor. Payton dove for it. They both dove for it, wrestling around on the floor among the torn clothing and bedding, grunting, gasping, straining. Payton was strong. But so was Carl. And he was fighting for his life.

Payton made a move, but he stepped on one of Carl’s scattered stocks, which slithered along the wooden floor. Payton lost his balance, leaving himself open, and Carl knew exactly what to do. He punched the man as hard as he could in the Adam’s apple—a street fighter’s move he’d learned from a Cornell teammate who’d grown up in the meanest end of Newark. It was a thundering right hand, and it instantly sent the man’s windpipe into spasms, leaving him gasping for breath, his chest heaving, his face turning purple. As he doubled over, Carl kicked up with his right leg, and the hard toe of his shoe connected perfectly with the bottom of Payton’s chin. Payton’s head snapped back and he toppled forward. He lay on the floor, moaning, twitching. And Carl had no doubt what his next move was.

He ran like hell from the apartment, slamming the door shut behind him.

And he kept running, but not down the stairs. Payton would figure he’d run that way. And be right on his tail as soon as he recovered his breath. There’d probably be someone else waiting down there, too. So Carl ran
upstairs
. He still had Toni’s key in his pocket. He could hide in her place, buy himself some time. Try to figure out what the fuck was going on.

Fumbling with the key, his hands shaking, he unlocked the door and dove inside. He shut it quickly behind him.

The apartment was silent and still and dark, the curtains drawn. She wasn’t home. Good.

He threw the dead bolt behind him and stood there a moment, panting with relief, trying to catch his breath. Then he flicked the light on. And turned around.

Tony
was
home.

Unbelievable. She was in bed. Sleeping. He took a step toward her. How could she possible sleep through all—

That’s when Carl’s hands flew up to his mouth, strangling the noise that was trying to escape. He couldn’t let himself scream. He’d give himself away. He had to be quiet.
Had
to be. And when he had forced the scream back in his throat, he threw his head back, gasping for air, trying to hold himself together. He began to gag, and then Carl staggered into the corner, toward the Pullman kitchen, where he bent over and got violently sick.

When he was through vomiting, there was no more noise in the apartment. He stayed, facing the corner, as long as he could. Then he forced himself to turn around.

Forced himself to look.

Toni was on the bed, stark naked. With her head blown off.

Her face and her brains and her lovely blond hair were splattered all over the wall. All over the floor and the sheets.

It was the most horrible thing Carl Granville had ever seen in his whole life. He was unable to look. He was unable
not
to look.

So he stared at her there on the bed, devastated. He stared at this
thing
that had been Toni with an
i
, who had laughed at his jokes and held him tight and dug her nails into his back and cried out in his ear. Why her? Why had they killed
her
? She didn’t know shit. She didn’t even know what he’d been working on. How could they have gone after this woman just because he was having a thing with her? Who
were
they? What the fuck was happening.

He heard heavy footsteps on the stairs below. Payton. Going down. One flight. Then another. Then there was silence. Good. He was gone.

And then he wasn’t.

Because now Carl heard more footsteps. Payton coming back up. Shit, he was climbing all the way up to the fifth floor. Carl hadn’t fooled him. Not one bit. The fucker knew he was still in the building. Did he also know that Carl was alone in here with a dead woman? Had
he
killed her?

More questions. Still no answers. Only chaos. And death.

Carl saw the doorknob turn. He held his breath; he couldn’t help himself. He knew it was locked, but somehow he thought Payton would still be able to magically open it. No. Nothing else was making any sense, but a locked door was still a locked door.

But for how long?

Carl went to the window and looked down to the street. An unmarked car was double-parked out front. Another uniformed cop stood there, gazing up a the building, his gun drawn.

He couldn’t go down. He’d be a sitting duck. The only way was up. Just one flight up to the roof. That was all he needed. One little flight without getting shot.

He heard something crash against the apartment door. Payton, trying to kick it down. The frame around the door was beginning to splinter. Kicking it once … twice … three times …

He had no choice now.

Carl scrambled out the window and onto the fire escape. The cop down on the street spotted him instantly, and he raised his gun and fired as Carl started up the ladder toward the roof. The first shot pinged off of the iron railing next to Carl’s head.

Don’t look down. Don’t stop. Just keep moving. Keep running
.

The second shot thunked into the brick facing of the building. But by then Carl was on the last step, hurling himself onto the roof. He heard the crash of the door bursting open, heard one more bullet flying by his head. But he had made it.

He started running. He ran from one rooftop to the next, vaulting over skylights and sidestepping furnace chimneys. Toward the end of the block he found another fire escape. Scrambled all the way down it onto the pavement below. Dashed around the corner and kept right on running.

In moments he reached Broadway. It was the beginning of rush hour. Thousands of people marched down the street, heading for the subway, coming out of the subway, shopping, coming home from work. Thousands of people leading normal lives.

It was through these throngs that Carl ran. Ran down New York’s most famous street. Ran away from the mayhem and violence and insanity he’d left behind and toward the anonymity he so suddenly and desperately craved.

Ran straight into the nightmare that had become his life.

July 10—July 13

Marcel Rousseau did not like this country called French Guiana. He did not like this city. He especially did not like the crappy Auberge des Belles Îles, where they gave him hammock space in a room with twenty-five Amarinds and bush Negroes and several thousand mosquitoes, all for thirty French francs a day. Soon he could move in with his cousin Simon, but first Simon’s loud and smelly mother-in-law had to go back home to her husband. She had caught him fucking some whore, and so she had come to stay with her daughter and Simon until her husband came to beg her forgiveness. But Marcel did not know how anyone could beg forgiveness of someone who smelled so bad.

Merde alors
.

From the moment he’d stepped off the ferryboat at Cayenne—a very well named city, hot and peppery and course—he realized that by coming here, he had forsaken paradise for a total shithole.

The problem was, he couldn’t make a living at home in Haiti anymore, not unless he wanted to bow and scrape before all the German tourists, working sixteen hours a day at the hotel for twenty-five gourdes an hour. Plus tips.

The way they said that—
plus tips
—as if it were such an honor. As if a tip from a soft, white
Allemand
was something fit for a king.

I spit on their “plus tips”!

It was Simon who’d talked him into coming:
You can work here, Marcel. There is much money to be made. There is much construction, Marcel. In Kourou. And they pay cash!

So he had come one month ago, working his way over by boat, from Haiti to Suriname, then a ferry from St. Laurent du Maroni to Cayenne. The first thing Simon did was put him on another boat and take him the eighteen shark-infested miles to Île du Diable—Devil’s Island. It had once been the most terrible prison in the world, Simon explained excitedly. Marcel was not nearly as excited as Simon was about seeing a prison. This earth was created to be a prison, he believed, and he did not need to see those made by man.