"I don't want to get anyone in trouble," said.
He waited.
"But...”
The essential word.
Still, he waited.
"This was Easter Sunday," she said. "I was g crosstown to meet my friend Gloria outside movie theater on Eleventh and The Stem. This m been around two-thirty, a very windy day, I “
skirts flapping about her legs, long blonde hair in the wind. She. is supposed to meet Gloria the theater at three, an Eddie Murphy picture Gloria and Alexis are both freshmen at a school on Seventh and Culver.
The Graham ol. One of the few good schools in the precinct, is only half a block away from a public school an assistant principal recently was stabbed to break up a fistfight. She still has almost half hour before she's supposed to meet her, though, still has plenty of time. And although she's been to mass early this morning, she is St. Catherine's again now, coming up the Street side where someone has painted a red star on the green gate leading to the and the rectory, planning to continue north to Stem, where the theater is, but instead making a on Culver, and impulsively going into the through the big entrance doors, which are closed but unlocked...
"I thought I'd say a few extra prayers, this was, like, you know, Easter Sunday...”
.. coming through the narthex, and walking up the center aisle under the nave, the church empty, her heels clicking on the polished wooden floors - this is Easter Sunday and she is wearing patent leather Shoes with medium-high heels - clicking as she approaches the crossing, the transept on her left, the :, sacristy on her right, the brass chain immediately ahead of her, and behind it the the huge cross with Jesus hanging on it and from a dozen wounds in his side and his "... all at once there were voices, Michael's voice and someone else's...”
... coming from the paneled corridor from the sacristy into the priest's small stone his rectory, the voices startling her because first time she has ever heard Father Michael in anger. She stops dead in the center of the cro: here where the middle of Jesus's chest we were this a true cross rather than the tradi stone-and-timber architectural re stands shocked and silent as the priest's voice down the corridor as if from the neck of a its open cup, rushing into the church, echoin vaulted ceiling, This is blackmail, he is blackmail!
She does not know quite what do do. She sudden guilt of a child ... she is wearing she is only thirteen eavesdropping on an fearful she will be discovered in the next instant punished for her transgression, either by the by the woman he is... "A woman?" Carella said at once. "Not a He was with a woman?”
"Yes.”
"And you heard him use the word blackmail?”
..s. And she said, "I'm doing this for your own . ' ' then what?”
lexis stands there at the middle of the e-and-timber cross that is St.
Catherine's rch, looking up at the huge plaster figure of hanging on a genuine oaken cross behind the the priest's voice coming again from her right, is afraid to turn her head to locate the voice, she she will discover Father Michael lunging at in a rage, shouting at her as he now shouts at the Get out of my sight, how dare you, how dare to, and the woman is suddenly laughing, the iughter echoing, echoing, and there is the sound of slap, flesh hitting flesh. Alexis turns and runs, ierrified, they are both shouting behind her now, she us for the entrance doors, heels strafing the ooden floor, slipping, almost losing her balance, asping for the back of the nearest bench, righting herself, running again, running, running, she is not used to heels, throwing open the central portal doors and coming face to face with a black man, blood streaming down his... "Nathan Hooper," Carella said.
"I screamed, I shoved myself past him, there were other men chasing him, I ran away from there as fast as I could.”
She had called them men. And to her terrified eyes those husky young teenagers indeed must have appeared to be men. But hadn't she... ?
"Doesn't that name mean anything to asked. "Nathan Hooper?”
"Yes, of course, now it does, I saw his the newspaper, I even saw him in television. But at the time, he was just this... black man with blood running down his face, I wanted to do was get out of there. I think mind I made some crazy kind of connection Father Michael yelling and the woman all the yelling outside the church.
I've never scared in my life. All that blood. All that an "Did you see who the woman was?" asked.
"I don't want to get anyone in trouble," said, and looked away.
He waited.
"But..." she said.
And still he waited.
"If she had anything to do with Father murder, then...”
Her eyes met his.
"Who was she?" he said. "Was she anyone know?”
“I only saw her from the back," Alexis said.
"What'd she look like?”
"She was a tall woman with straight blonde Alexis said. "Like mine.”
And like Kristin Lund's, Carella thought.
what'd you do?" Shad Russell asked. "Rob a "Not quite," Marilyn said.
"Then what? Saturday you're here haggling over price of a gun . which, by the way, was a very bargain .- and Tuesday you're back with, how did you say?”
"Five hundred thousand.”
"You got that much change in your pocketbook "Sure," Marilyn said.
I'll bet," Russell said knowingly. "So how'd you into all this money?”
"Liquidation," she said.
"Of who? Who'd you dust, honey?”
"I understand that the normal return on a drug investment is eight to one," she said, straight for the jugular. "I need two million dollars.
I'm assuming if I invest half a million...”
"Is that what we're talking here?" Russell said, surprised. "Dope?”
“I told you on the phone I was looking to make an investment.”
"I thought you meant an investment of time. I thought you were all at once interested in one of my major situations.”
"I am. The Colombian merchant.”
"But not in the same way I hoped you'd be interested.”
"No, not in that way," Marilyn said, and wondered if she'd have to through go damn ex-hooker routine yet another time be could settle down to the business at hand. in a little bar off St. Sebastian Avenue, three from Russell's hotel. There were enough girls in it, even at this early hour, to satisfy of every major Colombian merchant in they were all either black or Hispanic, and Colombian gentlemen preferred blondes.
Smiling like a crocodile, Russell leaned table and said, "Maybe you could mix pleasure in with the business, what do you "I think no, and let's cut the crap, please.:i many keys of cocaine can I get for the hundred?”
“That kind of bread, that's peanuts Russell said, immediately getting down to tacks. "There's no chance of a discount, you'd to pay the going rate, which is very high these because of all the pressure. Forty, fifty grand a depending on the quality. So what does that Divide five hundred by fifty, what do you get?”
“Ten,” she said, and wondered where he'd to school.
"Okay, that's if we're paying fifty, we get keys. If we're paying forty, what do we get?”
"Twelve and a half.”
"So average it out, let's say you pay let's say you get eleven keys for the five that'd be doing good these days.”
how much would those eleven keys be on the street?" ,'Y'ou're talking high, eight to one, that's high.”
"Then what?”
"You step on a kilo even once, you come away th ten thousand bags of crack. Nowadays, a bag is for twenty-five bucks. That's a quarter of a you come away with, for the one key. That you forty-five for. That's around five and a half to you'd be getting. So figure you can turn the five into like two million seven, something in Exactly the amount you need," Russell said, smiled his crocodile smile.