‘Sorry, I’m off duty, sir,’ the turbaned driver said, turning his head to see a wodge of ten-dollar bills being pushed through the small hole in the bullet-proof Perspex separating him from his passengers.
‘Start driving.’
‘I don’t think you are understanding. I am off duty now, going home.’
‘Drive!’
A car behind hooted, angrily.
‘Please, I am going home—’
‘Drive!’
There was another even longer blast of a horn behind them.
The cab lurched forward.
Tooth pressed his face up to the partition. ‘You picked up a lady at Park Royale West on Wednesday night. Remember?’
‘Wednesday?’
‘You handed in a bag of cocaine later that night. You’ve already told the police everything you know, right?’
‘I don’t remember, sir.’
Another wodge of dollar bills — hundred-dollar bills this time — came through the hole. ‘I’ll give you enough cash you won’t need to work for a week. She was my wife. I need to find her. Tell me something you didn’t tell the police.’
As they pulled up at a stop light the driver said, ‘I told them everything.’
Before he knew it, the front door opened and a moment later his passenger was sitting beside him, with a stiletto blade in his hand. Then the knife was digging into the base of his throat. ‘No, you didn’t tell them everything, did you?’
‘Please, yes, yes, I did,’ he said, terrified.
There was a bright Duane Reade sign visible through the window. Tooth clocked it out of the corner of his eye. ‘What else did she say to you?’
‘Nothing! She said nothing!’
‘Can you feel how sharp this is?’
The driver gave a terrified nod.
Tooth pressed the blade in between the man’s legs. ‘You want me to cut your dick off?’
The driver shook his head. ‘No, no, please.’
‘What did you talk about? You and the bitch?’
‘Nothing. Please, sir, nothing! I am swearing!’
‘Want me to cut your testicles off and ram them down your throat? Or would you prefer a thousand-dollar tip?’
A van hooted loudly and swerved in front of them.
‘Please, what do you want?’
‘She gave you a big tip, yes? You told the police, when you handed in the cocaine, that she gave you a hundred-dollar tip. Right?’
‘Yessir, yes, she did.’
‘Where is that hundred-dollar bill now?’
‘I–I—’
‘Don’t fuck with me. Where is it? This isn’t your cab, right?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You’re a journeyman. You drive this for someone else. What’s your name?’
‘Vishram, sir.’
‘Vishram what?’
‘Singh.’
‘OK, Vishram, where is it? The banknote? The one-hundred-dollar bill? At home? You didn’t hand it to the cab owner, did you?’
‘No,’ he stammered. ‘No. I didn’t.’
‘You didn’t bank it either, did you? You wouldn’t want to have to pay tax on that. Did you spend it?’
‘No — not yet.’
‘So you still have it?’
‘In my home, sir.’
‘Where is that?’
‘In Queens, sir.’
‘Tell you what, Vishram. I’ll do a deal with you. I’ll give you a one-thousand-dollar tip if you drive to your home right now, give me that bill, then drop me off back in downtown Manhattan. Or would you prefer I tell the cab owner you ripped him off on this tip?’
‘No, please. Please. This money I need. My wife is very sick. No insurance. I need the money for her medical bills.’
‘Do we have a deal?’
‘Yessir. Deal. Yes, please.’
Tooth suddenly wrinkled his nose in disgust at a vile stench filling the interior of the cab, and opened his window as the man drove on.
18
Sunday 22 February
My darling Jodie,
I cannot believe we are going to meet on Tuesday! Just two more sleeps, isn’t that what they say these days? I’m as excited as a teenager! You’ve said in our previous correspondence that you love fish and seafood, so I’ve booked a restaurant I’ve heard good things about, GB1 at the Grand Hotel. Meet for a drink in the bar first? How does 7.30 p.m. sound?
Jodie, sitting in her den on the first floor of her house, blinds drawn against the darkness of the cold winter night — and just in case anyone might be lurking out there, watching her — typed her reply, then sent it. As she did so she heard scratching out in the corridor, behind her. ‘Tyson!’ she called out, sternly. ‘Tyson, stop that!’
The room was functional, comfortably furnished in the modern style she liked, all in white and beige, with abstract prints of no value on the walls. There were just two photographs. No memorabilia. A flat would have been more convenient, but at this stage in her career path — as she liked to think of it — a flat would not have been practical — not for what she kept here.
After her bad experience with Walt Klein, she was being more careful with Rowley Carmichael. He’d checked out fine. A high-profile London art dealer specializing in Impressionists, he seemed genuinely to have amassed a fortune and sold out to a major auction house at the top of the market. Nowhere on any of the sites on which he was mentioned was there any hint of scandal.
My gorgeous handsome Lover-In-Waiting (love it!!!). 7.30 p.m. Tuesday, in the bar of the Grand, cannot come a moment too soon. Don’t quite know how I will be able to wait until then...
She heard more scratching. This time, exasperated, she stood up.
The cat, Tyson, whom Jodie had picked up from the cattery straight after returning home, scratched the wall at the end of the first-floor landing, repeatedly. He could smell something intriguing and possibly tantalizing on the other side. To his owner’s annoyance, Tyson came up here and did this every day. He had scratched away the paint, and was now starting to wear away the plaster behind. That’s how desperate he was to find what was on the other side.
Hearing her footsteps approaching, he turned and greeted her with a plaintive meow.
‘Tyson!’ she said with real fury — and some panic — in her voice. ‘TYSON! I told you to stop scratching!’
She’d tried everything, from spraying the wall and the carpet in front of it with stuff she had bought from a pet shop, to putting up a child-gate on the stairs, to locking him out altogether. But he always got in, always found his way back up here, always scratched away at that very same place. Because there was something on the other side, something with a strong smell. Something that was clearly driving him insane with curiosity.
‘You know what they say, don’t you, about curiosity, Tyson? Eh? Is that how you nearly died before? Curiosity? Well, just stop bloody scratching, OK?’
She had found the grey and white moggie as she had arrived home one night, three years earlier, when the headlights of her car had picked out something lying by the kerb at the entrance to her driveway. It had been this cat, one she had never seen before, lying there barely conscious, making tiny little crying sounds. He’d had blood leaking from one ear, a broken leg and such a swollen area around his eye she thought he had lost it. He’d clearly been hit by a vehicle and just left there.
She’d scooped him up, brought him into the house, wrapped him in a blanket, then found a local twenty-four-hour emergency vet service and phoned them. When she’d told them the symptoms they’d said to come in right away but that it didn’t sound good.