But his mouth was still smeared with red.
"Look," he said, and extended his free hand toward her.
Hesitantly, Alicia glanced down.
Eyes… two eyes… one brown, one blue… soft, glistening, sticky looking… rested in his palm.
She recoiled at first, ready to scream, then noticed the lack of blood. A closer look and she realized…
"They're fake."
"Of course they are," Jack said. "You can buy them in any of the funkier novelty shops in the Village."
Alicia glanced over Jack's shoulder at Joey who was sitting up now, but still hunched over, cupping a hand over his eye.
"But what did you do to him?"
Jack showed her a little plastic squeeze bottle filled with red liquid. "Just a little squirt with this. It's Hollywood blood mixed with ten percent capsicum—you know, that pepper extract they use in those defense sprays? I fill the eyeballs with non-spicy fake blood so when I bite down on them I get red in my mouth. Excuse me." He turned away and spat more red into the gutter. "Looks real and tastes awful."
"Looks real is right. I could have sworn—"
Jack's eyes were bright as he looked at her. "Really? You bought it too? A doctor and all? That's great! I can't tell you how long I've been waiting for a chance to try this out."
"For a minute I thought you were going to start a fight with them."
"One against three?" He shook his head. "That's movie stuff. You might get away with it if you take them by surprise and you've got a weapon of some sort. But most times, you try something like that in real life, you get your face rearranged. I'm not into pain. And this is so much neater."
He stepped over to the car and retrieved the faux-bloody faux eye from the window.
"It worked," he said, more to himself than to her. "It was perfect."
He's like a little boy, she thought. A little boy who made something—a wood block car, or a slingshot, maybe—and is delighted to find that it really works.
She watched him grab the ring in Joey's eyebrow and haul him to his feet.
"Come on, Joey," he said, turning him toward Alicia. "I don't think the lady really believes me. Show her your eye."
"I believe you," she said.
But Jack didn't seem to be listening. "Come on, Joey. Open up and show her both baby blues."
Joey's red-smeared left eyelids parted to reveal a teary, very irritated but intact eye.
"Good boy," Jack said, then turned Joey and pushed him off in the direction his friends had taken. "Go find your buddies."
Jack watched Joey for a moment as he stumbled away, then he turned to Alicia.
"I'll be in touch."
He waved, then turned and walked off.
Alicia stared after him. She hoped he decided to help her out. This was someone she wanted in her corner.
3.
"There you are!"
Sam Baker spoke aloud in the otherwise empty car as he caught sight of the Clayton babe. For a few bad moments there he'd thought he'd lost her.
He settled back in the driver seat and loosened his grip on the wheel. His shoulders ached. He hadn't realized how tense he'd been since that cop had told him to move his car.
Relax, he told himself. We're back on track now.
He'd followed her to the Upper West Side from the AIDS center, and had watched her go into that dive called Julio's. He'd found a spot with a good view of the door and had settled in to watch.
Well, he'd been sitting there only a few minutes, just starting to memorize the license plates around him, when this cop came along. Seemed Baker's vantage point came with a fire hydrant attached to it. And though Baker had tried to explain that he was just waiting for someone and would keep the motor running, the cop didn't care.
"Drive it away or it gets towed away."
Not much of a choice.
So he'd pulled out and rolled down the street, looking for an empty legal spot. Fat chance. He would have loved to step into that bar and have a quick beer while he checked out who she was meeting, but he couldn't risk getting towed. So he'd kept moving, kept circling the block, waiting for her to come out.
But then when he finally did spot her coming though the door, he was already past the bar. And when he stopped and blocked the street, some bastard cab started honking like he was coming from a wedding. Baker had been driving this rented white Plymouth for two days now. After he'd seen the Clayton babe staring his way on Friday, he figured she might have made the gray Buick. He didn't want to draw any attention to this one, so he'd raced into another circle of the block, which turned into an agonizing crawl.
But now everything was cool. He didn't know what she'd been doing since he'd scooted out of sight, but who cared? She was just about where he'd left her.
The cell phone rang. Baker could guess who that was—the Arab had been on his case something fierce since the girl's lawyer exploded.
"Yeah?"
"You are with the woman?"
"Like stink on shit."
"Pardon?"
"She's uptown. Flagging down a cab as we speak."
"Where has she been? Meeting another lawyer?"
"She was in a bar."
"In a bar? Does she appear inebriated?"
"You mean drunk?" Really weird the way this guy talked. Arab to the bone but he spoke English like a Brit. "No. Tell you the truth, I don't think it has anything to do with what we're interested in. Probably meeting a boyfriend or something."
"She does not have a boyfriend."
Baker watched the Clayton babe's loose skirt tighten across her butt as she bent to get into the cab. Nice ass.
Hard to believe she was completely unattached. She wasn't bad-looking. At least what he'd been able to see of her. A little makeup, a tight skirt, she could be a real looker. Instead…
Maybe she was a lez. Nothing wrong with that. He could get off on a lez. He figured their only problem was they hadn't met the right man yet.
"If you say so," Baker said.
"And you have no idea who she was meeting."
"Didn't get a chance to find out. But I don't think she met a lawyer in that dump." Baker almost added, But you never know, but decided against it.
He hoped to hell she hadn't.
"You are not paid to think. I do not like what happens when you try to think."
Here we go, he thought. But the Arab didn't push it.
"Where is she headed?" Muhallal said.
"On her way back downtown. I'm right behind her."
"Good. Follow her and do nothing else."
Baker cut the connection and slammed his hand against the steering wheel. He thought about the wad of cash waiting in escrow for him, and he kept it in mind as he drove. A big fucking payoff, and he deserved every fucking penny of it for all the shit he was taking.
4.
Yoshio Takita finished off the second burrito as he followed Sam Baker's car. He'd picked them up earlier from someplace called Burritoville. He'd never heard of the chain, but was glad he'd tried it. He smacked his lips. These had been called "Phoenix Rising" burritos. He loved them. In fact, he'd yet to meet an American fast food he didn't like. And it was all so cheap over here. Back home in Tokyo it cost a small fortune to eat at one of the American chains that dotted the city.
He worried about getting fat, but his metabolism seemed to chew up the calories as fast as he shoved them in. That was good. It wouldn't do to develop a potbelly in his line of work, not at age thirty.
He wiped his hands and his mouth with the napkin, then settled both hands on the wheel. Had to be watchful here. Not for Baker—the man was a soldier for-hire, not an operative; his tailing skills were crude at best, and he hadn't the slightest idea he himself was being followed. No, the problem was getting left behind at a light. If Yoshio were tailing only one of them, the task would be fairly easy. But tailing Baker as he tailed the woman, that tended to stretch the chain too far for comfort.