“You’re fooking codding me, muscle work is me middle name, leaning on fookers, tis me birthright. I did some protection work for the Ra, the IRA to you.”
“The IRA?” Bobby said, impressed. “That’s great. So you already have some useful experience. So what do you say?”
Popeye thought about it, said, “What about the Guards? I can’t be waiting around New York, you know.”
“You ever hear of Willie Sutton?”
“Is he gonna be in our crew too?”
“No, he was a bank robber from the old days, the best who ever lived. Anyway, when the cops were coming after him he used to dress in disguises. One time he was living right next door to a police station and they never found him.”
“Fookin A. My kind of fellah.”
“So what we’ll do,” Bobby said, “is put you in some disguises. Or – I got a better idea – I know a guy out in Long Island City – you know, a plastic surgeon. He specializes in cons on the run.”
“Any chance he can make me look like Colin Farrell?”
“Those guys can work fucking miracles.”
Popeye smiled, stuck his hand out, said. “In that case, tis a deal, mate.”
Twenty-One
I put on the suit and hey, I was Dillon Blair; same shit-eating smile. You wear a suit like that, you get a hint of why the rich are so smug. Later, in Bedford Hill, a hooker said “Suit like that, you want to play busted?” “Play what?”
“I sit on yer face and you guess my weight?” Like I said, the suit was a winner.
Angela woke up when Dillon came home and turned on the light. He was wearing his leather jacket and was holding a big white shopping bag. He looked angry. Angrier than usual. Without saying a word to Angela, he went into the bathroom, still wearing his jacket and carrying the shopping bag.
Squinting, still half-asleep, Angela remembered what was supposed to happen tonight and obviously hadn’t happened. Bobby was supposed to take care of Dillon for her, but something had definitely gone wrong. Was Bobby dead? He must be if Dillon was still alive. Angela prayed that she was still sleeping, that this was a nightmare and that she’d wake up any second.
Dillon came out of the bathroom, still wearing his leather jacket.
“So?” Angela asked. “How did it go tonight?”
Dillon stared at Angela for a couple of seconds then said, “How did what go?” His tone had a combination of sarcasm and amusement, but he wasn’t smiling.
“You know what – with Bobby Rosa, the guy in the wheelchair.” She swallowed. “I mean did you kill him like you were supposed to?”
“Why the fook do you care?”
“I’m just asking. Jaysus, I have a right to ask, don’t I?”
Again, Dillon stared at Angela for a few seconds. His mutilated lips seemed to be wet, like a pair of ugly snakes. Angela had no idea what was going on. The only thing she could think of was that he had found out about her and Bobby’s plan. But this didn’t make any sense. Bobby would never’ve told Dillon about that unless Dillon had tortured him. Imagining Dillon torturing a poor guy in a wheelchair and enjoying it – she knew he’d enjoy it, all right – pissed Angela off big time.
“What’s wrong with you?” Angela said. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I can look at you any way I want to,” Dillon said.
“Well, I don’t like it when you wet your lips like that, so just stop it.”
“You think there’s something wrong with me mouth?”
“I don’t think anything,” Angela said. “I just don’t like it when you do that. It gives me the creeps.”
Dillon stuck his tongue out and slowly ran it along his upper lip, then his lower. Then he said, “I’m going to miss that shite you talk.”
“What do you mean, miss it? Where are you going?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, still smiling.
“Look,” Angela said. “I wish you’d just tell me what’s going on here. It’s late and I have to get up to go to work tomorrow.”
He laughed out loud, said, “Missing work is not really something you’ll have to be bothered about.”
“Did you kill Bobby Rosa?” Angela asked. “Did you torture him first?”
“Why you care so much about Bobby Rosa?”
“I don’t. I just want to know what’s going on.”
“Maybe I did have some fun with the bastard. What’s it to you?”
Dillon’s left hand came out of the jacket pocket holding the gun he had used to kill those women and the cop. He aimed it at Angela. There was glint in his eye, part sexual, part adrenalin. He was having the time of his life.
“What’s that for?” Angela asked.
“It’s for you acting like you’re a tinker and you just stole me wallet.”
“Stop pointing that thing at me.”
“I never told anyone about the tinker, you know.”
“I’m gonna scream my feckin’ ass off,” Angela said.
Dillon grinned, said, “Go on. Pretend you’re trying to steal me money.”
“I’m serious,” Angela said.
“Try, go on, put yer hand in me jacket.”
Dillon’s right hand came out of the other pocket holding a switchblade. The blade sprang open and he lunged forward, slicing Angela across her right thigh. A deep gash opened and blood spread in a thick stream down Angela’s leg. Dillon laughed. Again, Angela was struck by the thought that this had to be a nightmare. She didn’t feel any pain yet, and everything was happening too fast, like it wasn’t real. But then the pain kicked in, like a stick of dynamite exploding in her leg, and Angela knew that in dreams you weren’t supposed to feel pain like this. She grabbed a pillow from the bed and put it over her leg to stop the bleeding. It didn’t help. Her leg was wet and hot. She sat down.
Dillon sat next to her on the bed and held the switchblade against her neck. He said, “Snatch me wallet yah tinker.”
Angela’s mouth was trembling. She couldn’t speak. Dillon was grim-faced now, ordered, “Go for it, go for me cash.”
“No,” Angela said.
Dillon looked like he might slash Angela again. She started to scream as he pushed her down onto the bed. All she had on was a pair of panties; he got one hand in under the waistband, slid the switchblade roughly under the fabric, and sawed through it with two strokes. He yanked the tatters off her body. Holding her down with one hand, he took down his jeans and underwear with the other. Angela cast around desperately for a weapon. Dillon had the switchblade in the hand that was holding her down – she didn’t know what had happened to the gun.
There was a glass on the night table where she’d left it after swallowing a couple of Midols before going to sleep. She grabbed the glass and smashed it against the side of Dillon’s head. He let go of her, brought his hand to his head and brought it away bloody. Angela looked at her hand and saw she was still holding about half the shattered glass, a jagged, splintered wedge dripping water and blood. She slashed the edge across Dillon’s throat.
Dillon tried to scream, but couldn’t make a sound.
Angela freed the blade from Dillon’s fist and managed to slide out from under him. He turned to reach for something, maybe the gun, and Angela lunged forward, sinking the blade in his back till it couldn’t go any further. She tried to pull it out, but the blade was stuck. Angela stood back in horror as Dillon stood up. He stumbled a few steps, looking into her eyes, then he collapsed in the middle of the floor, where the circular throw rug beneath him promptly soaked through.
She couldn’t believe it had been so easy to kill the fucker.
Angela turned on the stereo to some pop station. It was eighties night and Debbie Gibson was singing “Only In My Dreams.”
The pain in Angela’s thigh, which she’d forgotten in the moment, was back now in full force and blood covered her entire leg. Angela stepped over Dillon and went into the bathroom and rinsed her leg in the shower. She knew she should probably get to a hospital, but she also knew there was no way she could do that now. She didn’t have any gauze, so she put some paper towel over the wound and wrapped it up with painting tape.