“What is it?”
“I saw someone out there!” Her hand fluttered before her mouth like a hummingbird over a flower. “Just a glimpse. He was moving away toward the road but I know I saw him!”
“Nowdo you believe me?”
He’d told her before about this feeling of being watched but Martha had always chalked it up to his drinking.
“Yes! Yes, I do! And I’m calling the police!”
“Good. You do that,” Harry said, feeling a deep rage start to burn—damn, it was good to feel something again. He headed for the stairs. “And tell them to hurry. Because if I get to him first they’ll have to scrape what’s left of him into a goddamn bucket!”
“Harry, no!” Martha cried.
Harry ignored her. His blood was up, he could feel it racing through his head, his muscles. He’d been spooked, he’d been doubted, he’d even doubted himself, but now it was clear he’d been right all along and it was time for a little payback, time to kick some major donkey.
He hit the front drive running and sprinted for the street. In seconds his heart was thudding, his lungs burning.
Out of shape. And four sheets to the wind. But he was going to catch this fucker, and before he wiped up the road with him, he was going to find out why he—
Ahead…to the right…a car engine turning over, gears engaging, tires squealing on pavement.
Shit!
By the time Harry reached the street all he could see was a distant pair of taillights shrinking into the darkness.
He bent, hands on thighs, grunting and gasping for air. Maybe it was for the best. If he had caught up with the guy he might have been too winded to do much more than grab him and fall on him and hope he crushed the fucking hell out of him.
But the worst part was he still had no answers. Why was somebody watching him? Why should anyone care enough about him to come out here and sit in the cold dark woods to watch him play chess with his computer?
Get a life, man!
One thing was certain—no, make that two…two things were certain.
First, he was going to get a gun. Tomorrow.
Second, he was going to stop drinking. At least stop drinking so much. Also tomorrow.
Right now he was thoroughly rattled and needed a double of something. Anything. Just so long as it was a double.
9
MANHATTAN
OCTOBER 29
“There it is,” Romy said, pointing.
Patrick squinted down the garbage-strewn alley to where a naked bulb glowed dimly above a dented metal door. Back in the Roaring Twenties, a speakeasy might have hid behind a door like that. Here in the twenty-first century he knew nothing so innocuous awaited him.
“I don’t like this.”
A week had passed since Romy Cadman had barreled into his life. She’d called him this afternoon, suggesting they meet in the city for a late dinner, and then she wanted to show him a few sights.
They had an excellent meal in the Flatiron district, with perhaps a little too much wine, and Patrick found himself feeling more than a little amorous. Butamour did not appear to be on the menu.
A real shame, because Romy Cadman was without a doubt the most exciting, most fascinating woman he had ever met. Being in her company reduced all the other women he’d known in his life to wraiths. But he couldn’t get past the firewall she’d set up along her perimeter.
He came close, though. At one point during dinner the conversation had strayed from sims and legal matters to the theater; somehow the subject of ballet came up, and Patrick had seen a change in Romy as she enthused over an upcoming production ofSwan Lake . She smiled and her eyes sparkled as she went on about her favorite dancers and performances. Patrick wished he’d known more about the subject, but ballet had always left him cold. He did a good job of looking interested, though. Hell, he’d try toe dancing himself if it would keep this woman’s guard down.
But too soon the subject ran out of steam and her defenses were back in place. She wasn’t playing hard to get, shewas hard to get. At least where he was concerned.
After dessert, as he’d helped her into her long black leather coat, he said, “I’m surprised you’d wear something like this.”
“Cleathre?”
“This is cleathre?” Cloned leather. He’d heard of it but had never actually seen it. He fingered the smooth, supple surface. “Feels like the real thing.”
“Itis the real thing. It’s just that no animals had to die to make it.”
Cleathre and furc, cloned from skin cells of cows, minks, sables, even pandas, were the hottest new thing in the fashion industry. Ethically pure, esthetically perfect, and not cheap.
From the restaurant she’d cabbed him down to this crummy ill-lit neighborhood in the West Teens, so far west he could smell the river.
He felt like a fish out of water: overdressed and under-leathered. Romy’s coat matched the dominant color of the passing locals, but Patrick’s white shirt, paisley tie, and herringbone overcoat made him stand out like a Klansman at an NAACP meeting.
“Nothing to worry about,” she said.
“Easy for you to say. You’re staying out here.”
He glanced around uneasily. He was no country boy, knew Manhattan pretty well, in fact; but this was a part of the city he tended to avoid. Clubs down here were in the news too often, usually connected to stories about shootings and drug overdoses.
Romy’s smile had a bitter twist. “I’d go in with you, but it’s not exactly my kind of place.”
“You keep saying that, but it doesn’t help me. Before I walk in there I’d much rather know whose kind of place itis than whose kind it isn’t.”
“You need to find out for yourself.”
“Okay then, why don’t I find out in the daytime?”
“Because the action at a place like this doesn’t get rolling until about now.”
“This is all because I said I thought sims had a pretty cushy existence, right?”
“Stop stalling,” she said, giving him a gentle punch on the shoulder. “Are you going to knock on that door or not?”
Patrick tried a grin. “I’d love to, except that it means leaving you out here alone on these mean streets.”
“Oh, I can take care of myself,” she said, and this time her smile had a touch of warmth in it. She pulled a finger-length vial from her pocket. “One spray of this will stop a horse.”
Was this a rite of passage, a trial by fire? Was this what he had to do to win her? Or at the very least, earn the right to try? He glanced at her intent dark eyes under those perfect brows. If so…
“Okay,” he said. “Here I go.”
He walked the dozen or so paces to the door, took a deep breath of urinetinged air, and rapped on its battered, flaking surface.
A narrow window slid open and two dark eyes peered out at him.
“Yeah?” said a harsh voice.
Feeling as if he’d stepped into a particularly corny episode of the oldUntouchables , he said, “I’d, um, like to come in.”
“Ever been here before?”
“No, um, a bartender at the Tunnel sent me.”
“What’s his name?”
“Tim. He told me to tell you that Tim sent me.”
Actually, Patrick had never met Tim, but Romy had told him to say that.
The door opened. Fighting the urge to turn and trot back down the alley, he stepped inside. The door slammed shut behind him and Patrick found himself sharing a long narrow hallway with a two-legged slab of beef who probably held graduate degrees in bar bouncing: shaved head, earrings, crooked nose, and a steroidal body stuffed into a sleeveless black T-shirt emblazoned withMOTHER ’S. An old Guns n’ Roses tune vibrated from the end of the hall.
The slab held out his hand. “Twenty-five bucks.”