Urban Renewal (16 page)

“No.”

“Because …?”

“Because they don’t know how it is in there.”

“ ‘They’ is right. ‘They’ ain’t
me
, see my point?”

Both teens immediately stopped talking as they heard another car approach. When the Crown Vic came into view, A.B. said, “That’s a—”

“Not here it isn’t,” Condor corrected him, in an even lower whisper.

“Then what the—?”

“What did I just tell you?”

MCNAMARA SLID
out of the Crown Vic as smoothly as water flowing, the movement barely visible even to the watching teens.

The Shark Car’s passenger door hissed as Cross stepped out. As he walked around to the front, McNamara said, “Buddha.”

“Mac” was the driver’s only response.

Both Cross and McNamara walked a short distance in the direction of the semi. As if by mutual consent, they stopped so they were close enough to one another for a side-mouthed whispered conversation.

“Your new dancer, she works for the feds.”

“What?”

“You hard of hearing now? They popped her for moving weight almost four years ago. Been running her ever since. She’s given them just enough to keep herself on the street and out of Wit Sec, but somebody high up is pulling the strings on this. They got bigger game in mind.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

“
Just
me, or—?”

“They figure, cut off the head, the snake dies.”

“So now we’re a CCE?”

“Yep. Continuing Criminal Enterprise—that’s RICO to the max. But that’s not her assignment. Ever since someone—more like some
thing
—turned the MCC into a slaughterhouse, they’ve been looking at you.”

“They always—”

“Looking
hard
, okay?”

“I have to connect the dots on this?”

“No. Whoever’s running her told your new dancer that if she got some
serious
info on you, she could walk. And keep walking. But if she didn’t, she was going Inside. Looking at twenty-plus.”

Played the player
, Cross thought to himself.
And got him killed in the same move
.

“But she hasn’t gotten enough yet?”

“Hasn’t got a damn thing. Remember, we’re not talking about crimes, not really. They could take you down anytime if that’s all they wanted. And there’s not exactly a lot of places to plant a wire on her when she’s working.”

“But if I was to see her outside …?”

“Yeah.”

“And she was to thank me for something … even something I didn’t have anything to do with …?”

“Bingo.”

“That’s a hard game, bingo. Lots of numbers to cover. Lots of cards, and lots of people playing. Besides, there’s people I did work for—not in this country—that they wouldn’t want to come out.”

“You know a lawyer named Temestra?”

“Enough to know
he
knows some people.”

“Yeah. About three years back, I got some maggot to confess to ‘inappropriate sexual conduct with a minor.’ ”

“Nothing new for you.”

“This is: the appellate court overturned the case. Said I had been ‘overzealous.’ You know what that sounds like.”

“Sure.”

“It wasn’t anything
like
that. What I did was allow the scumbag to smoke in a no-smoking building.”

“What?”

“There’s no smoking allowed in the lockup. Especially not in the interviewing rooms. I could see the guy was climbing walls, and he hadn’t lawyered up, so I just asked him if he’d like a smoke.”

“And Temestra took on that guy’s case? And
that’s
what the appellate courts threw it out on?”

“Like I said.”

“Could he have afforded a lawyer of Temestra’s weight?”

“Not in a hundred years.”

“So he had something they wanted. And he’d want more than just some cash in return.”

“That’d be my guess.”

“Nice talking to you,” Cross said, stepping back.

The teens—by then, at least twenty of them were scattered behind the fence—watched as the cop climbed back in his car. As soon as he left, Condor called out, in a barely audible voice, “Buddha?”

“What?” the man behind the wheel of the Shark Car answered.

“Can I show my crew the card trick?”

“I only play for cash, kid.”

“Just this once?” Condor half-pleaded.

“Do it,” Cross said as he climbed in the passenger seat. “Give Condor some face—he’s earned it.”

“Ace of hearts,” Buddha called out.

Less than two minutes passed before the setup was complete. Condor had placed a playing card in an open slot in the chain link, the heart symbol facing the Shark Car. And Buddha had smoothly assembled the perfect-tolerance .177-caliber single-shot pistol, its tiny night-beaded front barrel buried inside the heavy baffling that acted as the bedding material.

“Nobody being stupid?” he called out.

“Not a chance,” Condor assured him, stepping up to the chain link so the playing card was about four feet to his left. “Everyone get off the side. Nobody behind the card. The shot’s gonna
carry
, understand?”

No sound was heard, but the playing card flew off its perch, fluttering like a broken-winged bird.

“Dead center!” came a muffled call out of the darkness.

“When I tell you I know something, it
means
I know something.” Condor, reasserting his authority, his voice still low but on full-carry.

The Shark Car glided off, as smoothly and deadly as its namesake.

ARABELLA ANSWERED
the sequence of taps on the door to her apartment by blindly throwing it open. She knew that Cross wouldn’t need a key to bypass the downstairs security camera, and that her towel-wrapped body wouldn’t distract him.

But the woman who strode into the apartment was something else. In every sense of that term. Her height was exaggerated by blue stiletto heels, but her body needed no exaggeration, especially since it was wrapped in a single piece of same-shade blue spandex. But even the pair of throwing knives strapped to one muscular thigh didn’t draw Arabella’s eye from the Amazon’s thick mane of orange and black stripes.

Tiger!
ran through Arabella’s mind.
So this is her, for real
. She dismissed the rumors that all the stories about her were just that … stories.

Tiger snapped her hip, slamming the door closed behind her.

“Your roommate won’t be back for a while,” she said, smiling.

“How … how do you know that?”

“Those FBI debriefings, they take a lot of time.”

“She said she was—”

“Stop it, you silly little brat. She said her name was ‘Taylor,’ too. And her man had been beating on her so bad she just
had
to get away.”

“She was lying?”

“You just get into town, or what?”

“But even Cross—”

“Was what? Fooled? Then what am I doing here?”

“I … I don’t know.”

“You know a lot of things, but you’re good at keeping your eyes closed, aren’t you?”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying. I never thought … I mean, when
I
came to the Double-X, I was running myself. That was almost three years ago. I heard
word that if there was any safe place in Chicago for a stripper, that was it.”

“Uh-huh. And you heard it in the Orchid Blue, right?”

“Well … I guess so.”

Tiger stepped to Arabella, snatched the towel off her still-damp body, and said, “You weren’t running from any man.”

“So?” Arabella snapped back. “How is it your business who I—?”

“Sit!” Tiger snapped at her, pointing to a leather couch.

Without knowing exactly why, Arabella did as she’d been told.

“Now, listen, because I’m only going to say this once. You can’t be all sugar and spice unless you get paid. And it doesn’t have to be in money.”

“What—?”

“Shut your mouth,” Tiger interrupted. “Unless you want it slapped. Or even if you do.”

Arabella crossed her legs and threw the woman standing over her a little pout, running her tongue over the lower lip.

“You can tell when a girl’s a true bi. And you already found out that this Taylor’s not, haven’t you? I know she’ll do whatever you think she should be doing, but her heart’s not in it. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Arabella shook her head, as clear a “no” as she could manage without speaking.

“You thought—what?—she’d come around?”

Arabella answered the question the same way she had the last one.

“But she’s kind of trapped, yeah? I mean, all her stuff’s in some storage unit—it wouldn’t fit in a little place like this. A one-bedroom, right?”

Arabella nodded again, but this time in the affirmative.

“One bedroom, one bed. And she even made the first move.”

Another nod.

“You stupid little twit. Now the
federales
know everything about you. Where you live, where you work, the taxes you never paid, the nose candy you keep for special occasions, whose numbers are in your phone …”

Tears welled in Arabella’s big eyes.

“Poor baby,” Tiger sneered. “All you wanted was to be a friend to some helpless girl whose man was beating on her, and this is the thanks you get.”

“What should I—?”

“You must have wanted that,” Tiger said, as the sound of her slap was still echoing. “When I want you to speak, I’ll tell you.”

Arabella clasped her hands, looked down at her own freshly shaved triangle, and didn’t make another sound.

“She played you like a piano. In your case, that would be a
baby
grand. No matter what you do now, she’s going to keep that pipeline open. You kick her out, the next knock on your door will be men with badges. You can wiggle and jiggle all you want, they’re still going to take you in. Anything happens to her, you’re going to be on the hook for it. There’s only one way out.”

“What?” Arabella said, risking another slap. Or inviting one.

“You’re going to die.”

“No! I wouldn’t ever—”

“You’re a disgrace to lipstick lesbians everywhere, you know that? You’re not
really
going to die, you little fool. But
she
is. In your cute little Mercedes. It’s going to be blown up. All they’ll find inside is what’s left of two burned-out bodies. They can play CSI until their eyes fall out, but the skeletons are going to match. Yours and hers. Size, age, all that.”

“When is this—?”

“She’ll be back here by around five. You’re both working the eight-to-four tonight. Just get in your car and drive over to the joint. Park where you always park. After that, you’re gone.”

“Gone to where? I don’t have any—”

“The ‘where’ is Alaska. And you’ll go back to being a redhead. With a surgical scar from when they took your appendix out.”

“They’re going to cut me?”

“It’s called plastic surgery,” Tiger told her. “The very best. When they’re done, you’ll look like you’re sixteen, even up close. You get a good ninety days to heal up, make sure everything’s just right. Then you get fifty grand. Not a penny more. Plus, transportation to Alaska. You spend three years working there, you’ll be rich. You want to come back then, that’s fine—nobody’s going to be looking for you.”

“I don’t know what to say. Don’t I have any—?”

“Other choices? Sure, you can decide if I leave now, or take you back to that bedroom first and show you a few tricks.”