“Is anyone hurt?” Joe pleaded, ignoring Hoskins. “Not hurt, just dead.”
Serpe nearly vomited. His legs so weak he needed the car to hold him up.
“Should we uncuff him?” the uniform asked, wanting to get back to his coffee.
“Fuck him!” Hoskins said, walking away. “Maybe the cuffs’ll teach the asshole a lesson.”
“Let him loose,” Kramer said.
“Here.” The uniform handed Serpe back his shield, wallet, and cell phone.
“Come on, Kramer, is Marla Stein all right?”
“We’ve got one dead, a male Caucasian named Bergman.”
“Ken Bergman, the group home manager,” Joe said, giddy with relief.
“That’s him. We’ve got blood around by the back door and a missing woman. She’s a resident, twenty years of age, Caucasian with Down’s Syn-”
“Donna. Fuck, no!” The giddiness was gone. “But you haven’t found her?”
“No, but there’s a blood trail, stops by the sump. You know this woman?” Kramer asked.
“She was Cain Cohen’s girlfriend. She might be a key witness in clearing all this shit up. That’s why they came after her.”
Kramer looked at Joe sideways. “What shit? Who’s they? You stay put, Serpe. I’ll be back in one minute. Officer, keep an eye on him.”
Joe could feel the familiar buzz of his cell phone against his thigh.
“Joe?” It was Marla.
“Thank Christ, you’re all-”
“Serpe?” an unfamiliar voice replaced Marla’s.
“Put her back-”
“You shut your fucking mouth and listen before I cut her throat. You want then I should put her back on the phone? You have caused me so much trouble, I would enjoy to cut her throat.” He was a Russian, whoever he was.
“I’m listening.”
“Walk out of there, get back in your car, and start driving east on the expressway. I will call you en route. And Mr. Serpe…”
“Yeah, what?”
“Listen for the car horn.” In the background, Joe heard three quick blasts from a car horn. “You heard?”
“I heard,” said Joe.
“You are being closely watched, so if we even see you breathe on one of those cops, I will fuck your girlfriend in the ass and slice her tits off while I’m doing it. Understand?”
Joe could hear Marla crying. He felt like ripping the Russian’s eyes out.
“Okay,” he said, snapping the phone closed and sliding it into his pocket. Serpe began to ease away from the blue and white. “Where you going?” the uniform asked.
“Cut myself when they cuffed me. I’m going over to the ambulance to get it looked at. Kramer can find me over there.”
“Go ahead.”
No one bothered Joe until he approached his car. Then the cop who had originally tried to stop him apologized.
“You just shoulda shown me your shield, man. Sorry.”
“Forget it. I fucked up,” Joe said.
As he drove away, he hoped Donna wasn’t injured too badly, and that the Russians didn’t have her too. Serpe was pretty sure she’d be safe if she headed to where he thought she might go. He was much less sure about Marla’s safety. He knew the Russians had her.
The entrance to the L.I.E. was only a few blocks away and though he kept checking his mirrors, Joe could not tell how he was being followed. He thought about sliding his hand over to the center console, opening his cell phone, dialing 911, and talking loudly enough so the operator would be able to hear him. But even if he had been disposed to gamble away Marla’s life, he wouldn’t get the opportunity.
Something cold, metallic, inanimate pressed against Serpe’s neck. Though he knew instantaneously it was the muzzle of a gun, he could not stop his body from reacting. He lost control of the car, skidding off Hawkins Avenue and into the empty parking lot of Players Auto Body. He had to stand on his brake pedal to avoid smashing into the shop’s garage doors.
“Y’all always did drive like shit, Joey,” said the voice from the backseat.
Serpe didn’t need to see Dixie’s brutish face in his rearview mirror to know it was him. Dixie was the only person on the planet who called him Joey. When Joe did look in the mirror, there was Dixie smiling that cruel crooked-tooth smile of his.
“Now get back on Hawkins and onto the L.I.E.,” Dixie said, disappearing from the mirror and sitting back directly behind Joe. “You run pretty good for an old fuck. Man, them two cops was huffing and puffing the whole way after y’all. Made it easy for me to cozy on up back here.”
Joe didn’t say a word, the adrenaline still distorting his senses. He struggled to settle himself and pulled back onto Hawkins. A block later he turned right, then onto the L.I.E. Service Road, then quickly onto the entrance ramp. The second he pulled into the far right lane off the entrance ramp, a large SUV appeared in Serpe’s rearview mirror. As it did, Joe’s cell buzzed against the plastic of the center console.
“That’ll be Pavel,” Dixie said. “Go on, pick it up.”
“Dixie is keeping you good company, yes?”
“Wonderful.”
“You see me in your mirror?” Pavel asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to pull around you. I will call you again in one moment.”
Joe waited for the SUV to pull around. As the vehicle swung out and moved along side Serpe’s rental, Joe wasn’t surprised to see it was a black Lincoln Navigator. He was surprised, however, when the big Lincoln did not pull past him. The Navigator’s rear passenger window slid down. Joe could see Marla and the knife at her throat. She was covered in blood, her lips puffed, and her eyes swollen shut. A hand held her by the hair and shoved her head and shoulders out of the Lincoln. She screamed, panicked she would be thrown out of the moving car. Then, just as quickly, she was yanked back into the Lincoln and the window rolled up. The Navigator accelerated, falling in line in front of him.
Joe was crazed. They had beaten her, maybe to get her to tell them where Donna was, maybe they just for fun. Serpe tried not to think about what else they might have done to her.
“Don’t try anything stupid, Joey. Pavel just likes to have his little bit of fun.”
Serpe’s cell phone buzzed.
“You fucking touch her again and I’ll-”
“Shut your mouth,” Pavel said. “That was to remind you to follow instructions. Now hand the cell phone to Dixie and follow closely our vehicle. I wouldn’t want to have to filet your girlfriend’s cunt and feed it to her.”
Joe tossed the phone into the backseat. “He wants to speak to you.”
Serpe thought about the Glock under his seat. He’d always been a very good shot. If he could get to it, Dixie was a dead man; one shot, two at most. He figured it would take him four shots minimum to blow out the Navigator’s rear tires. At sixty plus miles per hour the thing was sure to roll over. Marla might have a chance. But the Russians were likely to see the muzzle flash when he put a pill into Dixie and were certain to see him stick the gun out his window when he went for their tires. Marla’s throat would be slit before he could get a shot off. He did nothing but follow-follow and pray.
“Uh huh,” he heard Dixie say before he snapped the phone shut, rolled down his window, and tossed the phone out.
After a few miles in silence, Joe decided if he was going to die, he was going to do it with some answers. Dixie was always a big mouth. For once Joe hoped it would serve some purpose.
“Where we going?” he asked casually enough.
“The Borofskys are building some kinda gym out east someplace,” he said, pronouncing Borofsky like BOWrofsky. “That’s all I know.”
“You killed Cain, didn’t you, Dixie?”
“Why don’t y’all shut your mouth, Joey, and watch the road?”
“C’mon, Dixie, I’m driving to my own execution here. Who am I gonna tell?”
“Yeah, I guess I did him, though he was alive when I shoved his scrawny ass into the International’s tank. I figured it’d be months till anyone even looked in there. I mean, god damn, we ain’t used that truck in six months. How was I s’posed ta know the tugboat had a leak and Frank would put you on the International? That was bad luck there.