We?
This did not go over well with Riker. His feet planted solidly in a showdown stance, he faced off against the chief of D’s.
Lieutenant Coffey failed to catch his detective’s eye. He could only will the man to be careful.
Mallory moved between her partner and Goddard, saying, ‘Works for me, Chief. Except for sidestepping anybody on our shortlist – and the part about railroading Toby Wilder.’
The lieutenant stood frozen, waiting for the chief to knock her down the ranks or fire her. It was like watching Mallory take a bullet in slow motion. Jack Coffey had always known this moment would come. Was she crazy? Absolutely. And she was also in the right. He kissed his pension goodbye and stepped forward.
But his fine adrenaline rush was all for naught.
Joe Goddard was blind to Mallory. She did not exist for him. He had locked eyes with the man behind her, saying to Riker, ‘It’s your call – your case.’ And then, so calmly, hands in his pockets, the chief of detectives strolled toward the door.
Jack Coffey had a curious feeling of letdown. Next came suspicion.
And Mallory shared it. She spoke to her partner as she stared at the chief’s retreating back. ‘What’ve you got on that bastard?’
It did not occur to Willy Fallon that she might be a fugitive from the law, that any trace of herself had been left behind for the police to find. Dumb cops. And so, with no sense of urgency, she watched Toby Wilder weaving, stumbling around with his overdose eyes, pupils gone to tiny pinpricks on a field of spooky blue irises. He crash-landed in an armchair.
She leisurely prowled through all his drawers and cabinets, but found no more street drugs, only empty bottles. Toby was definitely an addict, but his drugs were painkillers and sleeping pills, nothing purely recreational, nothing fun. She sat down on the couch once more and glanced at the broken television screen. She tapped the power button. The volume still worked. ‘So this is what you do all day? You listen to TV and get stoned?’
He was high, flying, but not deaf, and neither was he up to another chase around the furniture. He could only stretch out one accusing hand as he lurched forward in the chair. ‘What were you doing in the Ramble that day?’
Willy smiled, pleased to see him more docile now, though he was far from dead. Apparently she had misjudged his overdose. Oh, of course. She slapped her forehead. Stupid. Stupid. She had failed to factor in the tolerance level of an addict.
She took one more slow stroll around the apartment, checking the inventory of lethal things. There were knives in the kitchen. No – too messy. Ah, but out in the hall were steep stairs. A broken neck? Yes, that would do nicely. And many thanks were due to Rolland Mann. She had the hang of murder by accident now. Willy opened the door to the hallway, only a short walk to the staircase. All that remained was the problem of getting Toby Wilder from in here to out there.
‘So that dead wino was your father? Well, I guess we’re almost even now.’
Grace had been so wrong. Rolland Mann could not have been the Hunger Artist. The bus had been a clumsy attempt to kill her, an opportunistic fumble. The Ramble murders of Humphrey and Aggy – that was clearly a different kind of kill. ‘I know it was you.’
Toby Wilder shook his head, uncomprehending – stoned.
She reached out to take the gold cigarette lighter from his hand, an easy theft. His reaction time was crippled. Willy held it out as bait, a shiny lure. As she backed up to the open door of his apartment, Toby slowly rose to a stand.
‘Good boy.’ She slipped into the hallway, calling out to him, ‘Humphrey Bledsoe hit your father with a rock to drop him. Then he used that rock to break the guy’s kneecaps so he couldn’t get up again.’ Toby was moving toward her, but he was so slow. This was going to take all damn day. ‘Humphrey liked the sound of breaking bones . . . so he broke your daddy’s arms. I’m the one who kicked in the bum’s teeth.’
He was out the door and standing in the hall close to the stairs. She moved down a few steps below him. It was going to be so easy, dodging round him, and then a gentle shove – but Toby fell all by himself. She flattened up against the wall as he rolled past her. Down on the next landing, he lay on his back and moaned.
Not dead yet? No problem. She had stairs to spare.
Willy danced past the stunned boy and on down to the next floor,
stopping, calling out to him, ‘You remind me of your father after Humphrey broke his bones. All he could do is lie there . . . and scream.’
Toby crawled along the landing to the next flight of stairs, and he managed a bent-over stand. Still as a statue now – still trying to absorb it all? This time, it would be necessary to give him a push in the right direction – toward a broken neck. She climbed the steps and circled round him. The shove was not gentle, and she delighted in the sound of his skull knocking into wooden stairs.
Oh, dear.
Not only was he still alive, but he seemed to feel no pain this time. Well, junkies – they had rubber bones. She could probably bounce him down stairs all day long with no real damage.
Willy descended to the floor below and stepped over his body. His hand reached out to grab her leg. Too slow, too late. She skipped past him to the street door. And now she was inspired – death lessons from an amateur – but a bus would not do for Toby Wilder. The boy with the rubber bones might bounce.
How next to entice him and get his ass in gear? ‘God, how that wino screamed when I kicked out his teeth. Broken knees and broken arms – all he could do is lie there and take it. His blood was all over my shoes.’
Was Toby crying? Yes, and he was moving, finally standing. Good job. She backed up through the door and into the street. ‘Let me tell you what Aggy Sutton did to him – Aggy the Biter.’
THIRTY-NINE
It’s a war of whispers now, no more bruises or bite marks. When I talk about the death threats at the dinner table, it makes me sound like the crazy one. Mom chugalugs her wine tonight. I’ve never seen her do that before. And Dad says, ‘Kid stuff. Words can’t hurt you.’
‘They killed the wino in the Ramble,’ I say, ‘and they will kill me.’
Disgusted, my father folds his napkin and drops it on the table. Then he leaves the room – leaves me.
—Ernest Nadler
The whole squad was manning phones and fielding tips from cops in every precinct where a Willy Fallon look-alike had been spotted.
‘Did she try to neuter you?’ Riker asked of one officer on the phone. ‘No? Then it’s probably not our girl.’ He listened more closely when another cop read him a report that included the screams of a teenager who had been caught with his hand in a woman’s purse. According to witnesses, the boy had clutched his crotch as he fled the subway.
The subway was the only snag in this story. Riker saw Willy as a taxi-and-limo type. But the ball-buster MO could not be ignored.
Detective Janos consulted the latest numbers pulled from the cell-phone company and then bent down to watch Mallory run a trace for pings off cell-phone towers to triangulate a location. ‘Nothing? You think she might’ve gone underground – like the subway?’