After learning from Eddie Vento how Bridget Malone had been involved in a heroin bust, Kelly ran her name through department connections but still didn’t know if she had cut a deal or not. While it was possible her legal troubles had died along with her boyfriend, it was equally possible Bridget Malone was working off her end of the heroin bust gathering information against her wiseguy boyfriend. The potential risk was too great for Kelly to accept Eddie Vento’s cocky assurances.
She had been on her way home and was within a mile of Fast Eddie’s bar and her apartment when she stepped into an alley to do another line. Kelly saw her stagger. Then she had to use the wall to keep from falling. It was then he saw she was bleeding and brought her the handkerchief.
“You okay?” he asked her now.
Bridget still had her head back and was holding the handkerchief against her nose. “Yeah,” she said. “Thanks.”
“I was on my way to see a friend when I thought I recognized you. Eddie’s girl, right?”
Bridget removed the top of the handkerchief from her eyes but continued pinching her nose. “Yeah,” she said.
“That was a little awkward the other day,” Kelly said. “I wish Eddie had kept his temper.”
Bridget wiped around her mouth. “Your name again?”
“Eddie calls me Mr. Horse.”
“You one of his bookies?”
“Something like that.”
“Because those usually show up at the bar on settle-up nights. I don’t remember seeing you there.”
“We usually meet at a diner.”
Bridget tested her nose for bleeding, saw it had stopped and straightened her head. She used the handkerchief to wipe some of the residual blood from her face.
She turned her head and Kelly saw the bruise on the left side of her face from where Eddie Vento had slapped her the other day. He pointed at it. “That hurt?”
“Only if I touch it. Mr. Horse, you said?”
“What Eddie calls me, yeah.”
“But that’s not your real name.”
“That an issue?”
“Only if you’re a cop.”
Kelly forced a smile. “What makes you say that?”
Bridget didn’t answer. She used the car’s side view mirror and wiped her face with the handkerchief again. When she was satisfied, she turned to Kelly and held up the bloodied hanky.
“Keep it,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“You gonna be okay?”
“I’m fine. Like I said, I don’t know how it happened.”
Kelly chuckled.
“What?” Bridget said.
“Nothing.”
The two eyeballed each other, Kelly with a frozen smile on his face and Bridget expressionless until he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered her one.
“No thanks,” she said.
Kelly continued staring at her as he lit his cigarette.
“Is there something else?” she asked.
“You should be more careful,” Kelly said.
“With Eddie or my nose?”
“Either or,” he said.
Bridget waited for more.
Kelly winked, turned and walked away.
John had given up his search for the sports car after ten minutes of driving through the neighborhood. Still unsure of how to spend the rest of the night, he headed for Queens on the Belt Parkway. He got off at Cross Bay Boulevard and headed north on Woodhaven to Queens Boulevard. It was close to one o’clock in the morning when he decided against spending the night at his mother’s house where he knew the electric would be working and he’d have air conditioning to help him sleep. He headed to the diner where Melinda worked instead.
He spotted her as soon as he pulled into the diner parking lot. She was still wearing her uniform and had stopped to light a cigarette before descending the back stairs. He wondered if she was on her break or ending for the night, then noticed she was wearing sneakers as she started across the lot.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to another diner now?” he said.
He had pulled up alongside her.
“Excuse me?” she said.
“I’m John,” he said. “We met inside a few nights ago. Remember the guys got loud with the cashier?”
She was squinting. She said, “Yeah, I remember you.”
“Good. You’re still in uniform. You going or coming… Melinda, right?”
She was confused a moment before she realized what he was talking about. “Oh, this,” she said. “Yes, Melinda. I’m going. I prefer doing my own laundry, why I’m wearing it home.”
“Can I give you a lift?”
She pointed to her car, a white 1970 Valiant, about four cars from the end of the lot. “That’s mine,” she said.
“Feel like a drink someplace?”
“I’d rather a coffee.”
“Another diner?”
“I can always glom some tips.”
They took separate cars with John doing the following. It was a ten-minute ride to another diner up near the courts on Queens Boulevard. They parked alongside each other, but John was embarrassed because of his car.
Melinda held up a cigarette for him to light before they went inside.
“Excuse the dents,” he said as he struck a match. “It’s ugly but it gets me around.”
“I never judge a man by his car,” Melinda said. “Unless it’s a fancy one. Then I just assume the man is a bad one.”
“They can’t all be bad,” he said. “Although I never went for women driving Cadillacs.”
He lit a cigarette of his own and the two exchanged smiles. He was feeling himself blush again when she asked what it was he was doing out so late.
“The truth?” he said.
“Unless you feel you have to lie.”
“The electric went out in the building where I live. Second night in a row. I was thinking about heading to my mother’s place to sleep there, then decided to stop and see if you were still at work.”
“I feel honored, but just so you know, you won’t be sleeping with me tonight.”
John held up both his hands. “The thought hadn’t crossed my mind,” he said.
“I can take that as an insult, you know.”
“It has crossed my mind, but not tonight. Tonight I just wanted to meet you outside your job to make friends.”
Melinda was smiling. “Make friends?”
“I’m saying it wrong,” John said. “You know what I mean.”
She was close to finished with her cigarette and motioned toward his car with it. “So, you do a lot of driving or something?”
“Yeah, you count car service. I drive for a place where I live in Canarsie. No medallion or nothing. Although today and the rest of this week I have construction work.”
“You sound like a busy man.”
“Except I’m thirty-five and what’s that all about, you’re probably thinking, my driving for a car service.”
“Actually I wasn’t thinking about it at all, but since you put it that way…”
“I used to be a carpenter. A union carpenter until I had a problem on the job. I lost my union card and have been doing pickup work ever since, driving and picking up handiwork jobs when I can. The guy I’m working construction for now I’ve worked for before, a private contractor needs help sometimes. This week I’m putting up sheetrock and hanging door bucks.”
“Door bucks, huh? Sounds exciting.”
“Now you’re making fun of me.”
She dropped her cigarette and stepped on it. “No, not at all,” she said. “You sound like a hard-working guy.”
“When there’s work available, yeah. I’m a kind of jack-of-all-trades, I guess.”
“And your name’s John and that’s as good as Jack,” Melinda said.