‘I wasn’t aware of that. Why was he killed?’
‘Well, that’s just it. I don’t have the faintest idea, and the police don’t, either. But I got a call two days ago, a man’s voice saying that I know what I did and I have to pay for it. But I don’t know what I did and neither do the other girls he’s contacted.’ Angel tightens her grip on Graham’s arm as she leans into him. ‘I think the guy’s making it up as he goes along. I think he’s beyond crazy.’
Far from scared, Vincent is noticeably relieved. There’s no blackmail scheme happening here. There’s only the pressure of Angel’s breast against his ribs and a state of arousal that will become painfully obvious if pursued even a little further.
‘What do you want from me, Angel?’ He raises an apologetic palm before making an obvious point. ‘I’m not a tough guy.’
‘All I need is a place to go, a room or an apartment, if things get really bad. And I have money, Vincent. I’m not asking for a handout. If you can set me up with a place, I’ll be more than happy to pay you whatever it’s worth. But I need the keys today. I have to be ready to move.’
Graham waits for a troop of Buddhist monks to pass before he speaks again. The monks wear saffron robes and their shaved heads glisten. They smile and bow as they go by, their hands steepled together on their chests.
‘So, where were we?’ he asks.
‘We were talking about an apartment.’ Angel turns to face her benefactor. She stares into his eyes and finds them rapidly filling with a lust she doesn’t begrudge. Angel’s traded sex for money in the past and there’s no good reason for him to think she won’t trade sex for some other benefit. ‘Like I said, money’s not a problem. But I need the key right now.’
‘Does that mean you’ll be moving in?’
‘No, not today, and if I don’t use the apartment within the next two weeks, I won’t use it at all. But I have to be ready.’
‘Then what about my ... my special place? The studio on Thirty-Seventh Street? Otherwise, I’ll have to call Varrier Management and have someone check the inventory. I don’t keep track of individual apartments. I own too many.’
The one-room apartment in question is dominated by a gigantic bed and a collection of sexual aids large enough to stock a small porno shop. Angel knows she’s not the first woman he’s taken there, and that she won’t be the last.
‘How much do you want?’ she asks.
‘How long will you need it?’
‘No more than a few days.’
Vincent pauses for a moment, then says, ‘Let me see if I understand. You’re telling me that if you do need the place, you’ll need it within two weeks and you won’t be staying more than a few days. Do I have that right?’
‘Exactly right.’
‘Then I can’t charge you, not when you’re in trouble.’
‘Please, Vincent, I’d rather pay.’
‘No, I won’t hear of it.’ Vincent reaches into his back pocket. He removes his wallet and takes a key card from an inner slot. ‘This card works the lock on the outer door and the apartment door. Take possession whenever you’re ready, but call me as soon as you get settled. Otherwise, I might walk in at a bad moment.’
Angel rises on her toes to offer Graham a kiss that rocks him back on his heels. As she turns away, she thinks of Carter, of his life being little more than an endless preparation for the battlefield. Angel will never acquire Carter’s skills. That’s a given. But it doesn’t mean she’s without weapons of her own. Angel’s hoping with all her heart that everything works out, that she and Carter emerge triumphant to split Bobby Ditto’s money. But Angel’s not her father’s daughter. She will not put her faith in her hopes. And as for Vincent Graham, there’s always the little gun nestled in the toe of a boot, the one that fits her hand so nicely.
EIGHTEEN
Louis Chin’s in good spirits as he makes his way along Roosevelt Avenue in the Queens neighborhood of Flushing. For once, he doesn’t feel out of place, a sixth generation Chinese-American living in a Chinese-Korean neighborhood dominated by new immigrants. Louis doesn’t understand a word of Mandarin or Korean, the languages commonly addressed to him when he enters a shop or a restaurant, and he’s truly sick of the contemptuous looks bestowed upon him when he confesses his ignorance. As if the color of his skin and the shape of his eyes somehow binds him to a heritage in which he has zero interest.
Chin’s spent the last two hours in a bar with a war buddy, Nelson Flanagan. Flanagan’s in the private security business, running a start-up company in a hostile economic climate.
‘Every day’s another firefight, Louis. That’s the beauty of it.’
Nelson doesn’t march with the real players. He’s not Kroll Associates. L&L Security’s clients manage third-tier office buildings in obscure, outer-borough neighborhoods. Their needs are commonly limited to a single security guard stationed behind a table in the lobby, a guard whose main function is to prevent the homeless from taking up residence in the hallways.
Once upon a time, Louis and Nelson were responsible for a combat unit operating near Kandahar, Louis an officer, Nelson his sergeant. They’d shared the same foxhole, ducked the same bullets, mourned the same dead.
‘This business, it’s like another war. It’s combat all over again. Only now you fight with money instead of bullets.’
Chin responded with an appropriate ‘Semper Fi’, but his thoughts had already shifted to another factor. The dollars Nelson put in his pocket, week by week and month by month, were a hundred percent legit. He wasn’t looking over his shoulder, waiting for the cops to snatch him off the street. At worst, he’ll end up in bankruptcy court. Instead of a prison cell.
Chin’s thinking that the law of averages will catch up with him if he trades in secrets long enough. He’s thinking the Feds will come down on him like a ton of bricks. He’s thinking he needs to find another way.
The good news is that Nelson’s landed a top-tier client in the form of Grantham Management. Grantham wants L&L Security to staff a ten-story commercial property about to open near City Hall in lower Manhattan. The contract, according to Nelson, is all but signed.
‘Come in now, Louis. I’m talking about partners. See, you’ve got a presence that clients are definitely gonna love. It’s that officer thing, right? People not only respect you, they assume you’re smart because you’re Asian. Me, I’m a jarhead and I always will be. I take orders. I get the job done. With you out front and me watching your back, we can’t fail.’
Chin hesitates as he turns from Kissena Boulevard on to Barclay Avenue. For just a moment, he stares at a six-story apartment building halfway up the block, his building, home sweet home. A red-brick cube devoid of architectural detail, the building’s as plain as a low-income housing project, as plain as a prison. Chin figures that’s only reasonable because the structure was originally built for working-class New Yorkers a paycheck away from poverty.
Nelson asked Louis for an answer by the end of the week, but Chin’s already made up his mind. The encounter with the cop has him spooked. The bulge under the arm, the handcuffs dangling from a belt loop. Louis’s parents would die if he got himself arrested. His father’s an engineer, for Christ’s sake. His mother’s an accountant.
So, that’s it. Chin heads for home, imagining himself a businessman fretting over the accounts receivable, wondering how in the world he’ll make the next payroll. Maybe ten years from now, if he works enough seventy hour weeks, he’ll be reasonably compensated. Maybe.