Sammie pondered that for a while, a frown growing across her face. "Sounds like I got stuck with another Froot Loop." She smacked her forehead with the heel of her hand in mock penitence. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."
Gunther laughed, but his eyes were serious. "You really believe that?"
"What's not to believe?" she asked him. "You're describing a guy who needs help but who kicks whoever's helping him in the teeth so he can maintain his selfimage. That sound like a pick of the litter to you?"
"It wouldn't be if it weren't a work in progress. He is improving."
She wanted to argue the point, but she couldn't. It was true. Willy had learned to control his alcoholism through sheer willpower. His more flagrantly self-destructive behavior was largely a thing of the past. When they were alone together, he'd exhibited tenderness and warmth she'd never thought him capable of in the old days. And, as naive as it sounded even to her, there was the art-the pencil sketches he did, often while on stakeout, quickly and efficiently with that powerful, dexterous right hand, turning out images of subtle beauty.
Still, it pissed her off. "Why can't I fall for a normal guy?"
Joe Gunther gazed at her affectionately. "Because you're not a normal woman."
"Perfect. I really wanted to hear that. What was Mary like?" she asked after a pause.
He thought a moment before answering, "There's a danger right now of just seeing her as a junkie loser. But when I met her, she was naive and shy and damaged and a real sweetheart. And she worshiped Willy, probably for all the wrong reasons. The way that marriage ended burned both of them terribly-her because of the betrayal she'd suffered, and him because it was the latest and biggest example of his failure as a human being. I don't know what Mary was up to in New York, but it was more than just being a victim. 'Cause she was smart, too, and, after Willy, good and angry. Whatever she was planning by going down there, you can bet that getting even was part of it."
Sammie shook her head. "I just hope he's not the target, even from the grave." At around the same moment, back in New York's Lower East Side, Willy Kunkle stood quietly in the shadows of an empty warehouse, hidden behind a concrete buttress, watching a small piece of urban theater play out at the end of the block. There, along a darker stretch of East Broadway, a young man paced the sidewalk, a quirky combination of self-confidence and nervousness. Dressed in the quasi-uniform of baggy pants, sneakers, watch cap, and loose logo jacket, he bounced back and forth like an eager dog prowling a dock, awaiting the return of its owner's boat. But the boats, in this case passing cars, went back and forth in a blur, seemingly ignoring him.
Until one slowed, veered slightly to get out of traffic, and then stopped. The young man's body language instantly changed. Now diffident, almost surly, he reluctantly approached the car as if it had a bad odor, and condescended to bend ever so slightly at the waist to address the driver through the passenger-side window. There was a short conversation, after which the young man-a drug dealer's so-called steerer-straightened dismissively and gestured to the driver to pull over to the entrance of an alleyway directly across from Willy's observation post. His role fulfilled, the steerer returned to keeping a lookout for both customers and cops.
Willy continued watching as a small boy suddenly appeared on a bike, despite the late hour and poor visibility, and rode up and down the street without apparent purpose-the mobile perimeter sentry, activated by the driver emerging from his car. This man, white, conservatively dressed, clearly on edge, looked up and down the sidewalk before crossing to the alleyway and pausing at its opening. Willy extracted a small, inexpensive telescope he kept in his coat pocket for such occasions, and focused on the dimly lit scene.
Barely visible, the outline of a man appeared from the gloom beyond the buyer. The two conferred briefly, the dealer taking something from the buyer, after which he reached above his head to one of the upper support brackets of the roll-down metal curtain protecting a shop window next to him, and retrieved a small package-all in a gesture as smooth and fast as a hummingbird sipping from a flower.
The buyer took the drugs, quickly broke away, returned to his car, and joined his brethren in the flow of traffic. The whole thing took about two minutes.
As a final sign of returning normalcy, the underage bicyclist rolled to a stop opposite his perch barely within sight of the steerer, and waited for the next heads up.
Willy smiled and pocketed the telescope, having found what he was after. He separated himself from his hiding spot, walked down the side street, crossed East Broadway, and approached the steerer at an angle that put the young man between him and the opening to the alleyway.
Like any midrange occupant of the urban food chain, the steerer noticed Willy early and warily, stopped his restless weaving, and turned to face the threat, while balancing on the balls of his sneakered feet, ready for flight. One hand drifted toward the right-hand pocket of his jacket.
Willy shook his head from a distance. "Don't do that."
The steerer hesitated. Close up, he couldn't have been older than sixteen, all the hardness he could muster twitching around his mouth and nostrils, but only fleeting in his eyes. He could clearly see that the strange-looking, asymmetrical man coming toward him was no one to bluff.
"You the man?" he asked.
Willy smiled slightly. "You want to find out?"
"I didn't do nuthin'."
"Then we're just having a conversation." Willy extracted a photograph from his pocket and showed it to the steerer. "Tell me about this."
It was the evidence picture of the package of drugs found next to Mary's body, labeled with the caricature of the red devil.
"I don't know about that shit."
"Maybe your main man does in the alleyway."
The steerer's eyes widened slightly. "What're you talkin' about?"
"You pull 'em in, you and the kid on the bike keep an eye out, and the third guy does the deal. Why're we talkin' about this? Eyeball the picture and tell me about the red devil. Then I'm gone and you're back in business."
The steerer pressed his lips together in thought. "That's it?"
Willy pretended to be losing patience. "I'm being polite here, showing you respect. I coulda gone straight to your man in the alley, shined a light in his face, grabbed his goods from above the security gate, and showed him you can't do your job, but I didn't do that, did I? You wanna screw that up?"
The youngster showed his age by clenching his fists and stamping one foot. "Shit, man. You fuckin' with me?"
Willy held out the picture again. "Tell me about the red devil. That's it."
The steerer finally made up his mind with a quick glance over his shoulder. "We don't do that shit."
"We talkin' in circles here?" Willy asked menacingly.
"No, man. I mean it ain't ours. That comes from uptown. Diablo."
"That's what they call it? Where uptown?"
"A hundred and fifty-fifth. The Old Polo Grounds." That caught Willy by surprise. The Polo Grounds were only twenty blocks south of where he'd met Bob earlier that day. The old neighborhood.
"Who sells it?"
The young man took a step backward, shaking his head vigorously. "No way, man. You asked what I know. That's it. I ain't tellin' you more."
Willy didn't care. If the kid had given him a name, it might well have been wrong or a street alias of little value. The key was to know where Diablo called home. From there, Willy could track it back to its maker.
And he knew just the man to consult.
He slipped the photograph back into his pocket. "You've been a scholar and a gentleman. I will go to the oracle."