He waited until the door had closed behind them. "So," he asked, removing his glasses, "what do you want to tell me?"
"Nothing," Willy admitted. "I wanted to ask you a question."
La Culebra sat back in his chair, his face slightly flushed. He sensed he'd been taken advantage of, but knew the value of staying cool. "All this trouble just for that? You are a strange man. Are you really a policeman?"
Willy flipped open his jacket again, revealing the badge. "Vermont Bureau of Investigation."
La Culebra broke into a broad grin. "Vermont? What the hell is that? You the ski police or something?"
Willy smiled back. "Close. I'm looking for a friend of mine-Nathan Lee."
The bearded man touched his forehead with his fingertips, as if trying to locate something he'd misplaced there. "A cop from Vermont lies his way in here to ask me about a man I never heard of. If I kill you right now, will anybody care?"
"Nobody that matters to you."
"You're not going to tell me you have backup?"
"Nope."
"Why do you care about Nathan Lee?"
"He was doing me a favor. I think it got him in trouble."
"What favor?"
"I asked him to find out who was making Diablo. I wanted to ask that person a question."
Clearly fascinated, La Culebra now sat forward and rested his elbows on the desk. "Meaning the question is not where is Nathan Lee. Has anyone ever told you you're a very strange man?"
"All the time. And this is a different question."
He nodded. "Very good. What is it?"
"A friend of mine died from an overdose of Diablo on the Lower East Side. I wanted to know how she got hold of it."
La Culebra laughed incredulously. "How she got hold of it? You're kidding, right?" He pretended to shuffle through the papers before him. "Let's see… what was the serial number on the bag? I'm sure I have it cross-referenced here somewhere. She did mail in her warranty card, didn't she?"
He laughed some more, only quieting down once he saw no reaction from Willy. "Okay, this is where you tell me I am a monster, a peddler of death, worse than the shit on your shoes-the person who killed your friend."
Willy shook his head. "You are worse than the shit on my shoes, but you didn't kill her. You were just the delivery boy. If anyone's responsible, it's me."
La Culebra looked at him with renewed interest. "You made this woman unhappy?"
"I married her."
The drug dealer remained silent for a moment before saying, "I don't know how your wife got hold of Diablo. I am sorry she did. I have no retailers outside this neighborhood. Either she bought it up here or someone else did and then gave it to her. I could ask my people if she was the buyer, though. Do you have a picture?"
Willy reached into an inner pocket and removed the photograph he'd taken from her apartment. He hesitated before handing it over, however.
La Culebra set him at ease. "I have a Xerox machine in the other room. You can have that back."
Willy dropped it on the desk between them. "She's the one right in the middle."
The other man picked it up and considered it for a while. When he spoke next, he seemed to be addressing the picture directly. "My name is Carlos Barzun."
Willy watched his face carefully, wondering at this spontaneous admission. "And you tell me that so I'll know who to credit for this act of grace?"
Barzun smiled. "I am a Catholic. I have memories of such things."
Willy smiled slightly. "My name is Willy Kunkle."
"You are not the only person interested in Nathan Lee," Barzun admitted. "I am to report anyone asking about this batch of Diablo."
"Report to who?"
"A customer who paid me a lot of money."
"Did he say to watch for a one-armed cop?"
Barzun paused. The muted sounds all around them slowly filled the silence. "Yes," he finally said.
"And you told him about Lee?"
"Yes, after I heard Lee had been asking about me."
"But you won't tell me this man's name."
"I have to think about that," Barzun confessed. "I am not sure how generous I should be with you. I worry I have already made a big mistake."
He rose from his chair and picked up the photograph. "You are a bad influence, Willy Kunkle."
"I've heard that before."
"Wait here."
Barzun left the room. Willy stayed absolutely still, knowing the fragility of the slender string keeping him alive-a ruthless man's quirky yielding to a tiny spark of sentimentality, as inexplicable as a hungry shark forgoing an easy meal.
Barzun returned and gave the photo back. "If I hear about your wife, how do I tell you?"
Willy gave him the name and address of Riley's store.
Barzun then picked up a small portable radio and spoke into it in Spanish. Moments later, Manny entered the room, still carrying his squat, ugly gun.
Barzun gestured to Willy and told Manny, "Make sure he gets safely to the street."
With Manny walking warily behind him, Willy retraced his steps out of the apartment, down the stairs, and into the lobby. As they both neared the door, the radio attached to Manny's belt uttered a single short sentence, which Manny briefly acknowledged.
As he held the door open for him, Manny said to Willy, "The boss told me to give you the name Ron Cashman."
"Thanks," Willy replied, and stepped back outside.
Chapter 16
Joe Gunther and Sammie Martens paused on the sidewalk before a newly renovated brownstone on a quiet, leafy residential street on the edge of Brooklyn Heights. The block was essentially empty of people aside from one woman walking a pair of greyhounds in the distance. They could just see the water down one of the side streets behind them, and a bit of Manhattan Island's southernmost tip, now oddly antique-looking with the absence of the World Trade Center twin towers. The air was still and quiet, the perpetual background hum of the city's vitality almost lost to the slight rustling of the branches overhead.
"Fancy neighborhood," Sammie commented.
"Very," Joe agreed, climbing the stoop to better read the discreet brass plaque mounted to the wall beside the heavy, glass-fronted entrance. It read, "Liptak Associates, Ltd."
He glanced back at Sammie. "Shall we?"
"You think he'll be there?"
"I'd be, if I had an office here. Besides, even if he's not, I wouldn't mind finding out something about him. That's why I didn't call ahead."
They stepped into an expensively appointed, neutrally colored reception room, staffed by an attractive young woman sitting behind a round maple table.
"May I help you?" she asked.
"Hi." Gunther smiled broadly, glancing around for signs of Liptak Associates' function in life, and finding only nondescript artwork on the walls. "Is Mr. Liptak in?"
She punched a couple of keys on the laptop computer situated slightly to one side of her, placed as if to indicate that she didn't actually type into the thing on any regular basis. "Do you have an appointment?"
"No, we don't. We're here on personal business."
"Is Mr. Liptak expecting you?" she asked, her expression blatantly skeptical.
"No, but I think he'd be sorry to miss us. Tell him we're friends of Willy Kunkle's."
A furrow had appeared between her carefully plucked eyebrows. This was not an approach she approved of. "And you are?"
"Do you have an envelope?" Gunther asked her.
"What?"
"An envelope. I'd like for you to take something in to Mr. Liptak. It'll make things clearer to him."
Irritation replaced by confusion, she opened a drawer at her lap and extracted a single envelope, handing it over without comment.
Gunther took it, placed one of his business cards inside, sealed it, and returned it. "Joe Gunther and Sammie Martens are our names."
Rising slowly, watching them as if they might try to steal the paintings during her absence, she moved over to a closed door on the wall behind her. "I'll be right back."