“I’m painfully aware of that,” Palmer said. “I even used your little ditty on the boss-‘see one, think two.’ I’m afraid he remains unconvinced.”
Quinn swerved sharply, countersteering around a puttering delivery boy whose bicycle was piled head high with takeout boxes from a Chinese restaurant.
“Understood. We’ll be at the newsstand where Badeeb bought cigarettes in less than a minute. I can already smell the fish shops… I’ll call you when we have something.”
“Tally ho, beb,” Thibodaux’s voice came across Quinn’s earpiece, as they turned the bikes out of the honking, chaotic traffic of Bowery and into the cramped and twisting alley of Doyers Street. Gaudily painted green, yellow, and red brick buildings with rusted, zigzagging fire escapes rose up on either side of the narrow pavement, giving the place a kaleidoscope-tunnel-like atmosphere.
“See the guy with the cigarette under the neon sign?” Jacques pointed with his chin as he rode. “He look like our Pakistani doc to you?”
“Roger that,” Quinn said. His eye caught the movement of another dark figure striding purposefully through the door of a yellow six-story brick halfway down the block. He only caught a glimpse, but the upswept pompadour of black hair and the sure movements told Quinn this was the Evil Elvis in the photograph.
Badeeb stood in the grimy shadows under the tattered sign of the hand-pulled noodle shop. Even in the dim light, his oval face shone with perspiration. Twin black pebbles stared back from an enveloping haze of smoke from the cigarette that hung from his lips. He seemed oblivious to a couple of motorcycles, intent instead on the man who’d just disappeared into the yellow building.
“You got Badeeb?” Quinn gave an almost imperceptible nod of his helmet.
“Matter of fact I do, beb.” Thibodaux rolled on the gas and tore down the narrow street. Just before he reached Badeeb, he extended his left arm like a jousting knight-directly at the startled doctor.
The cigarette fell from Badeeb’s lips a split second before the armored knuckles of the Cajun’s huge right glove obliterated his nose.
Quinn grabbed a handful of front brake, squeezed until he felt the back end lighten, then pushed forward with his legs to bring the bike onto its front wheel in a sort of reverse wheelie known as a stoppie. Rolling on the front wheel, Quinn used his body weight to throw the back wheel around, executing a snap hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. It was a move he’d practiced with his brother hundreds of times on a slew of different bikes. Bo called it their patented “going-the-other-way maneuver.”
Quinn hit the gas as soon as the little red Ducati’s rear wheel settled back on the pavement. Smoke flew up in a whirring rooster tail while the tire found its grip. As his head whipped around he watched the door to the yellow brick building swing shut behind the dark Elvis.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Mujaheed Beg paused inside the building, sniffing the stale air. He hadn’t lived this long by rushing headlong into things-not even simple jobs like strangling old women. For this, he would use his old friend, the wire garrote. At least that would bring some enjoyment. He’d not been able to employ it on the congressman’s mistress-too much blood. Such a thing wouldn’t matter in the dark, cage-like atmosphere Li Huang called home. Residents were unlikely to notice a dead dog rotting in the hallway of such a place, much less a little blood on the stained wooden floor.
People hacked and coughed behind low walls up and down the narrow corridors as if the place were a tuberculosis ward. The strangled gurgles of a dying woman would draw no attention at all. Under the sullen light of a dusty hallway bulb, any blood that made it under the doorway would be hard to identify until long after Beg was gone. In any case, most, if not all, of the rabbits in this warren of rooms were illegal aliens and were highly unlikely to call the authorities-even to report a murder.
A long stairway gaped upward to the Mervi’s right. The chattering riot of a Chinese game show, sirens from police dramas, and dramatic dialogue of historical romances tumbled down from the black hole above, mixing with the sour smell of human confinement. It was early enough in the evening that most of the inmates-that’s how Beg thought of them-were still out working the sidewalks or stuck in a basement sweatshop sewing the sleeves on clothing for American consumers so they could proudly say they bought products made in the U.S.A.
Halfway down the smoky hall, an old man with wisps of gray hair like moldy cotton candy squatted, backlit by a grimy window leading out to the fire escape. A hotplate of boiling noodles and fish bubbled on the floor beside him. Like the rest of the place, he reeked of day-old alcohol and sweat.
Li Huang’s wooden door was just beyond the old man, under an exposed row of radiator pipes that ran like monkey bars across the stained ceiling.
Beg put a hand inside the pocket of his jacket, feeling for the wooden handles and reassuring coil of sharp wire. He walked past the old man, considering whether he would have to kill him or not on the way out. The old man was bony and frail as a stalk of drought-parched wheat, and such a thing wouldn’t be hard.
Li Huang normally stayed at one of the Badeebs’ much more comfortable homes on Long Island or in Pennsylvania. Out of an abundance of caution-and to get her in a place that he could more easily have her killed with no link to him-the doctor had asked her to hide in this horribly filthy hotel used by Chinese Snake-heads to hide their illegal human cargo until they paid off their debts.
State prison inmates had larger accommodations. Each room was barely six by eight feet, topped with chicken-wire mesh in a halfhearted attempt to discourage thieves. Devoted to terroristic jihad-she called it sheng zhan — Li Huang had readily traded her middle-class home for this wretched place that smelled like a restaurant trash Dumpster-all for the sake of keeping her dear husband’s plans safe.
And now that same husband had sent a very deadly man to kill her.
Beg knocked on the flimsy, hollow-core door, feeling more of a rush than he’d anticipated. Perhaps it was the fact that he had shared tea with this woman dozens of times while he’d discussed plans with her husband.
The door creaked opened a crack to expose one rheumy eye and the glint of charcoal hair.
Knowing that she would surely have a weapon, Beg didn’t wait to be invited in. The door gave easily to his weight and Li Huang fell backward in the tiny room, slamming her head against the edge of the wood two-by-four frame that made up her simple bed.
Li Huang flailed out as she fell, knocking over a rickety bedside table and sending a ceramic reading lamp crashing to the bare wooden floor.
Trembling fingers reached up to touch the knot where her head had struck the bedframe. They came back red with blood. Narrow eyes flitted back and forth around the room looking for a nonexistent escape route as Beg slowly took the wire garrote from his pocket. He grasped the wooden handles in each hand. Li Huang was a proud woman. She would not be a screamer as some were. He could take his time.
Staring up at him, her nostrils flared. Her tongue flicked against her lips, snakelike.
“Why?” she demanded, though the stricken pain in her eyes said she already had her answer.
Beg shrugged. There was no need to explain.
“My husband sent you?” Cold realization flushed across her face.
Beg bounded forward without speaking. He grabbed a handful of hair and jerked her away from the bed. Instead of fighting back, she threw a hand to her throat. Beg couldn’t help but shake his head. Such a weak defense would do precious little good against the unforgiving wire noose. This would be over much more quickly than even he had anticipated. The doctor was right, he thought, as he zipped the razor-sharp wire tight. She did smell like old fruit.