“Were you listening? At the door?”
“Could be,” Mitch said.
Tricia pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. She could feel the beginnings of a bad headache.
“You heard everything?”
“You think your sister really had her baby in a taxi, or she was just pulling your leg?”
“So why didn’t you say anything to your boss? To Uncle Nick?”
He shrugged again. “I would’ve, if I’d had to. I was waiting to see what you’d do.”
“What I’d do.”
“Would you offer to go get the photos. I knew he wouldn’t let you go alone.”
“And you wanted to be with me...why?”
“Think about it,” Mitch said.
“The photos,” Tricia said. “Incriminating photos of his own men. Are some of them photos of you?”
“Could be,” Mitch said.
Something dawned on Tricia. “You’re the one. The one she recognized.”
“Saw it in her eyes as soon as I picked her up in the ring,” Mitch said. “I was saying to myself, how the hell does this twist know me? I never saw her before in my life. Well.”
“And you want, what, when we get the pictures you’ll take yours out before we give them to Nicolazzo? Won’t that be a little obvious?”
“We’ll take a few out. Not just mine.”
“That’s fine for you,” Tricia said. “But what about me and my friends? He’ll say I’m holding out on him, that I welshed on our deal.”
“Just tell him that’s all you found,” Mitch said.
“He’ll kill us!”
“You?” Mitch said. “With how well you dance? He won’t kill you.”
“My sister—”
“Why would he want to lose a good fighter?” Mitch said. “She brings in a decent gate.”
“But Charley and Erin—”
He shrugged once more. “You can’t have everything.”
“I’m not going to let him hurt them,” Tricia said.
“The man lost three million dollars. He’s got to hurt someone.”
“What if I tell him you made me give you the photos of you,” Tricia said.
“I’d say you were lying,” Mitch said, “and that he should beat the truth out of you.”
They were nearing the end of the bridge, slowing as they approached the turn-off for Second Avenue.
“But there’s no reason it needs to come to that,” Mitch said, flipping on his turn signal. “You’ve got nothing to gain by—hey!”
Tricia had been inching her fingers toward the door handle and now had turned and in one swift movement tugged up the door lock, unlatched the door, and dived out onto the macadam. She fell on her shoulder and rolled twice, narrowly missing being run over by the station wagon behind them. The other driver leaned on his horn angrily and a few more cars joined in. She saw the door of Mitch’s car still swinging open. The car came squealing to a halt.
She got up, ran to the concrete barrier at the side of the bridge. A few yards away she would’ve been looking down a hundred feet at the cold and unforgiving surface of the East River, but here it was just a twenty foot drop to the 60th Street underpass. She climbed onto the barrier, turned, and let herself down carefully, dangling by her fingertips before allowing herself to drop. For a second she was falling through the air. Then she hit the sidewalk and sprawled backwards onto her rump. Looking up she saw Mitch’s face appear above the barrier. The honking had become a full-on chorus, drivers angry at this wiseacre who’d left his car standing in the exit lane, blocking their way.
“Get back here,” Mitch shouted, aiming a long arm down at her, finger extended like Uncle Sam. He started to climb over the barrier and she scrambled to her feet, ready to run—then she saw a hand appear at Mitch’s shoulder, a wooden nightstick protruding from it.
“Mister,” came the cop’s voice, shouting to be heard over the cacophony, “what do you think you’re doing?”
“My—my wife, officer, she just—she jumped over—”
Tricia ducked under one of the bridge’s huge concrete stanchions.
“I don’t see anyone,” the cop said a moment later.
“But she just...”
“You been drinking, mister? Let’s see that car of yours.”
Tricia couldn’t hear Mitch’s response as the two of them walked away. But she thought about that car of his. If she had any luck, the cop would ask to look in the trunk. Get rid of the stiff Nicolazzo had said. Robbie hadn’t been in the back seat; he had to be somewhere.
Come on, she said to herself, you’re New York’s finest, look in the goddamn trunk.
She dusted off her palms and started walking, fast as she could, first west to Second Avenue and then south toward her sister’s place downtown. She had no money for a taxi, not even for a subway. And she had four miles to walk. At least with the sun down, the heat wasn’t so powerful. She opened the top button of her dress. Let a little air in.
Much of the city was shutting down for the night, shopkeepers dragging cartons and signs in from the sidewalk, pulling down metal gates over their plate glass windows. The bars on either side of the avenue, conversely, were coming to life, strains of jukebox music pouring out each time one of their doors swung open, neon lights blinking on overhead.
There was life on the street—pedestrians and loafers, men in their undershirts and trousers taking an evening smoke on the stoop of their apartment buildings, cars motoring by at a casual pace. This was a neighborhood of four- and five-story brick buildings inhabited by working men and women, restaurant staff and seamstresses, dock-workers and laundry workers, Irish mostly; and those as were still out of doors gave her the eye as she passed, one or two of the men whistling low, one throwing her a loud kiss. She was used to it, and most nights it wouldn’t have bothered her, but tonight it added to her feeling of straining toward a goal and not making progress, like she was walking through sand or mud or in a dream. Cornelia Street was far away, in the city’s lower reaches, and here she was walking through a darkening forest of hungry-eyed men with bare arms and puckered lips. The El had run here once, she knew, its metal tracks casting the whole of the avenue into darkness; and though it had been demolished nearly twenty years back, as night fell it was almost as if you were still walking under its shadow, listening with half an ear for the clattering roar of ghost cars overhead.
As she passed 49th Street, a man fell into step beside her; she glanced and for a moment was relieved to see the blue of his uniform—but only for a moment.
“You all right, miss?” the flatfoot said.
“Yes, sir,” Tricia said. She tried to keep her voice even, her head down.
“This isn’t a neighborhood for a girl to go walking alone.”
“I’m just a couple of blocks from home,” Tricia said, resisting the urge to walk faster, to try to get away. How many more steps would she get before he took a good look at her face and recognized her from the bulletin O’Malley must have circulated? When would he put out a hand and stop her, leaving her the choice of running for it or heading off to jail?
She felt a trail of perspiration forming along her spine and prayed it didn’t show.
“I’m fine—thank you,” Tricia said. “You don’t need to walk with me.”
He stopped, and against every impulse urging her on, she stopped as well, tried to appear casual, at ease, not twitch under his stare.
Had she gone too far? Should she apologize? She was on the verge of doing so when the policeman tipped his cap to her and said, “All right, miss. Have it your way.” He fell behind as she walked on. She glanced back and saw him peering into a parked car, going on with his rounds.
Thank you, she whispered to herself, for blind policemen, thank you. Only please let the one on the bridge have been more observant.