Christ, the pills! He felt like a total asshole.
“Yeah,” Paulie said. “As a matter of fact, that’s why he called me out yesterday. To get her some pills. She’s got epilepsy.”
“What?” She rose to her feet, and faced him, her face as pale now as the kid’s. And her eyes wide… and very strange. “She’s got epilepsy and you didn’t tell me?”
“Hey, I only found out about it yesterday afternoon. Snake didn’t find out himself until yesterday. But it’s okay. I got pills for her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She was talking through her teeth now. “Why didn’t you give her any?”
“Hey, well, you know how it was last night. I came home and we ate and drank, then we got it on and I forgot.” Poppy closed her eyes. She looked ready to explode.
“Get them. Give them to me now!”
“Hey, listen—”
“NOW!” Paulie hurried into the front room for his jacket. He knew he was in a bad position here. Not a leg to stand on. Not even a freaking toe. He’d fucked up royally. Bad enough Poppy was doing a number on him, but if Mac found out…
He got the bottle and handed it to her, then watched her face go from white to red as she read the label. “It says one tablet twice a day, Paulie! She was supposed to have one last night, goddammit!”
Suddenly she was on him, flailing away at him with her fists, pounding on his chest like it was a conga drum. “You bastard! You stupid goddamn son of a bitch! You lousy—!”
He grabbed her wrists and shook her. “Cool it. Poppy! You’re acting like a nut! What the hell’s wrong with you?”
She pulled free of him and turned back to the kid. “Because she could start in like that again. And again and again and again and never stop! And then she’ll die! All because you’re so goddamn stupid!”
“Hey, look. I didn’t think—”
“We’ve got to get one of these into her,” she said.
“All right, then. Let’s do it.”
She glanced at him and nodded. She looked sane again. At least for the moment.
Turned out the pills were chewable, but so what? The kid was out cold. She wasn’t going to be chewing anything.
Poppy took the bottle into the kitchen and tried to crush a pill with the flat of a butter knife, but her hands were too shaky.
“Gimme,” Paulie said after she messed up a third time.
He crushed the sucker on the first try and looked up at her, hoping for a little smile, or maybe a nod of approval. But her stare was still icy, with no sign of a thaw.
“Do another,” she said.
“Bottle says she’s only supposed to get one.”
“I’m making up for the one she didn’t get last night.”
Shit. Bad enough being in the doghouse, but worse when you know you belong there. He crushed the second.
Poppy half filled a shot glass with water and dissolved the powder. But getting the mixture into the kid was another story. She wouldn’t wake up.
Finally they got the kid situated with Poppy cradling her head in her lap. Paulie pried her jaw open while Poppy dribbled the mixture into her. The kid coughed and gagged but Poppy held her head until she’d swallowed.
Paulie breathed a sigh of relief. “All right! She’s gonna be okay now. No harm done.”
Poppy glared at him. “You don’t know that.”
“Sure. She’s got the medicine—”
“Go away,” Poppy said. “Just leave me with her.”
Paulie wanted to tell her off, tell her she couldn’t talk to him that way, but it was like he wasn’t even there, like he’d vanished in a puff of smoke. Poppy had pulled the kid onto her lap and started rocking her back and forth, cooing in her ear like she was a little baby. She seemed to be in her own world with that kid.
He wandered into the front room. This was way too weird. He couldn’t have Poppy going off the deep end in the middle of a job. They had to pull together on this—at least till it was over.
I don’t get it, he thought, staring back into the guest room as Poppy began to hum to the kid. She always said she hated kids, and now she’s acting like she’s the kid’s mother or something.
3
John arrived at the northwest corner of Franklin Square at quarter to nine. No one was using the phone, but who knew how long that would last. Any minute now, one of the local pushers might commandeer it for the day.
To forestall that, John picked up the handset—it smelled like vomit—and pretended to punch in a call. Then he stood there with the greasy receiver to his ear, pretending to be in animated conversation while keeping the switch hook depressed with his free hand.
Around him, workers were spewing from the Metro’s MacPherson Square stop, and the homeless were beginning to shuffle from their hidey holes to begin the day’s panhandling chores. The sun climbed through the hazy air, warming the park and enhancing the rancid smell from the handset.
John’s stomach turned. The aftertaste of his quick cup of coffee sat on his tongue like swamp scum.
God, how long could he stand here and pretend to be in earnest conversation with nobody? Seemed like he’d been here all morning.
And then the phone rang, startling his hand off the switch hook.
“Hello!” he said. “This is Vanduyne.”
“Hey, that was quick.”
John recognized the voice: the one from the Metro station yesterday.
“I’ve been waiting. I promised to cooperate. I got your e-mail. You said to be here at nine, so here I am.”
“Tears all dried up?” The mocking tone made John want to lunge through the receiver, but he set his jaw. Why give Snake the satisfaction.
“Yes. What do you want to tell me?”
“Let’s not be in too big a hurry here. I’m going to send you to another phone.”
“Is this a game?”
A cold laugh. “Don’t worry. I’ve seen those movies too. No, just taking precautions. I’m sending you to another park—Lafayette Square. Know where that is?”
That one John did know. “Across from the White House.”
“That’s it. Northeast corner across from the VA Building. A mere four blocks from where you stand. Be there in five minutes.” The line went dead.
John checked his watch: 9:02. Four blocks in five minutes. He could do that walking backward, but he broke into a jog anyway. No sense in taking chances.
He reached Lafayette Square and found the phone in two minutes, but his heart sank when he spotted someone using it. A heavy woman in beige polyester slacks with a just say no!/winston must Go! button on her white polyester turtleneck was yakking away, one of the horde of protesters still thronging the square and marching up and down before the White House.
He waited an agonizing minute and a half, watching the time tick toward 9:07. And still she talked.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, “but I’m expecting a very important call on that phone in a couple of seconds.”
She glanced at him but said nothing.
“Please, ma’am. It’s very important.” She covered the receiver and glared at him.
“Yeah?” she said in a New York accent. “What’s this? Your office? Find another phone. They’re all over the place.”
“You don’t understand. I can’t go to another phone. I’m receiving the call on this phone.”
“Stop bothering me or I’ll call a cop.” That was the last thing he needed—but he had to get her off the phone. As she waved him off and started to turn away, he had an idea.
“Look,” he said, digging into his pocket. “I’ll pay you for that phone.”
Now he had her interest. “You kidding me?” He pulled out some of the cash he’d grabbed on his way out the door, found two fives, and waved them in her face. He watched her eyes narrow. She wasn’t thinking of holding him up for more, was she? He didn’t have time, dammit.