But it would mean that Gina went to prison, at the very least. Or maybe she’d get killed. It didn’t sit right. She was only seventeen, after all.
When he was her age, he’d been on a permanent drunk, so adept with his wild card talent that he could turn the water to wine when it touched his lips and the backwash wouldn’t even pink what was still in the glass. He’d been kicked out of school for being drunk in class, kicked out of the house to live in the apartment over Uncle Elmore’s garage.
He’d branched out a little after that-a few light narcotics and such, Valium especially being in fashion. If someone had come to him then with cocaine or heroin, Father Henry knew he would never have made it to twenty alive. He’d been at the age when you were supposed to be stupid and self-destructive. And with as low as he’d been, it was hard to say that Gina deserved a tougher break just because she was young and foolish here and now instead of thirty-odd years ago in Alabama.
Hard enough, in fact, that he couldn’t do it. Let he who is without sin, and he’d racked up a lot of mileage sinning when he’d been young and addicted.
His right leg was falling asleep, tingles shooting down his thigh to the foot. He shifted his weight, but it only hurt worse so he stood.
Something had to be done though. Whatever else, nothing right or good would come from the drugs. And so maybe that was why God had sent Gina to him.
He pressed his lips together, leaned down, and closed the suitcase.
“Well, Lord,” he said aloud as he walked to the bathroom. “I hope this was more or less what you were aiming for.”
It took longer than he’d expected to flush all the powder down the toilet, but he managed it.
The west end of the park butted up against the New York Public Library, the north end against 42nd street. Just about where the two met, there was a small building-a walk-in public restroom. They left the corpse of the British guy there, sitting in one of the stalls with a surprised expression and his jeans around his ankles.
The day was cold with low scudding clouds that seemed barely higher than the skyscrapers, but the foot traffic down 42nd was still thick. Demise sat in a chair on the brown, winterkilled grass conspicuously wearing an Aerosmith t-shirt and reading the Wall Street Journal. He had gooseflesh up and down his arms, and the chill would have been uncomfortable if the sick pain of his death hadn’t dwarfed it. The t-shirt, on the other hand, couldn’t be forgiven. He looked like a fucking idiot.
The girl showed up at noon. She cleaned up pretty nice-long black hair pulled back from her sharp features, a blue skirt that swirled a little around her ankles. She looked better without makeup. She was walking across the park toward him with a studied casualness that was about as subtle as blood on a wedding dress. An amateur.
He folded his newspaper and stood just as Phan and his cheap sunglasses sidled up behind her. The shifting emotions on her face were a joy to watch-confusion, recognition, fear, despair, calm all within a half second. Bitch should have been an actress.
“You know who we are,” Demise said as Phan-gun pressed discreetly in the small of her back-steered her toward him.
The girl nodded.
“You know why we’re here.”
She nodded again.
“Good. Let’s go someplace a little more private and talk.”
The whore didn’t fight, didn’t make a break for it. She just walked with them down to 41st where they had a limo with a Shadow Fist driver waiting in a loading zone and climbed in with them. Demise pulled a jacket over the idiot t-shirt as soon as he got in. He sat in the jump seat, facing her. Phan was beside her, gun no longer concealed and not particularly pointing at her. The driver pulled out into traffic.
“Okay,” the girl said. “So you going to kill me or what?”
Phan slammed the butt of the pistol into her face. The scream was short and high.
“We might, we might not. It depends,” Demise said. “You have the sample.”
She pulled a cellophane packet out of her pocket. Phan took it, turned it over in his hand, and nodded. Demise smiled. The girl’s cheek was puffing out where Phan had hit her, and she was sniffing back blood.
“Where’s the rest?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“I tell you that and you don’t need me,” she said. “Here’s the deal. You can have all the shit, but I keep ten percent of that cash as a finder’s fee.”
Demise leaned forward. She knew about him, and she tried not to meet his eyes. He waited. The limo hit a pothole and they all lurched a little. Phan sighed uncomfortably. Demise kept waiting, staring at her dark brown eyes and willing them up toward his. He got her when she glanced over to see whether he was still looking. He took her almost to the point of no return-farther than he’d taken Randy-before he looked away.
The driver looked back and Phan waved the pistol in a keep your eyes on the road gesture. It was almost fifteen blocks before she stopped crying.
“You understand the stakes?” Demise asked.
She nodded. The bravado was gone. She had stopped worrying about the bloody nose Phan had given her. Her mouth and chin were crimson, her eyes wide and empty. When she wiped her mouth on the black sleeve of her jacket, the blood smeared.
“We get all of it back by tomorrow at noon,” Demise said slowly. “The money and the smack both. You do it like a nice girl, and you can live.”
“Tomorrow,” she agreed.
“You can meet us in the same place. Just like today. You bring everything.”
“Everything,” she echoed. Tears ran down her face, but her expression stayed blank. He wasn’t sure she was taking in what they were saying, but then she went on. “I’ll have all of it for you, just don’t kill me, okay? That’s the deal. You don’t kill me.”
Phan smiled and holstered the gun. Demise leaned back and spoke to the driver over his shoulder.
“Jokertown. We’ll drop her there.”
The rest of the ride was in silence. The girl looked out the window, eyes vacant with fear. Phan leaned back. The ponytail really did look pretty sharp on him. Demise tried to picture the guy with a mustache, just thinking how the two would go together. Maybe he’d try it.
At the bleeding edge of Jokertown, the limo pulled over and Demise popped the door open for her.
“Tomorrow. Noon,” he said. “And wash your face. You look like someone beat the shit out of you.”
She scrambled out of the car and strode off down the street her head down. Phan leaned forward, watching her. The first flakes of snow pearled the windshield.
“Go ahead of her about three blocks and turn right,” Demise said to the driver. “You can drop us there.”