Dangerous Women (63 page)

Peter opened the door of his condo at the knock, an amused smile curving his mouth at the sight of Danny on the doorstep. “What a nice surprise. Come on in.”

Danny gave the man a short nod, entered. “Need to talk to you.”

“I’m always here for a friend,” Peter said, closing the door. “By the way, I never did get to thank you for taking care of that business with the bookstore owner.” He moved to the kitchen, pulled down two mugs from the cabinet. “I don’t know what you said to him, but he took the eviction with nary a whimper.” He poured coffee for himself, then slid a look toward Danny. “So nice when people do as they’re told. Makes everyone’s life so much more pleasant. Coffee?”

Danny jerked his head in a nod. Peter knew why he was there, Danny realized. He’d been expecting him. He took the mug from the man, forced himself to sip at the bitter liquid.

“I’ve done a lot of stuff for you,” he began, then stopped. None of that made a difference in this situation. He had a speech ready, a chest-pounding “get away from my woman” rant, but one look at Peter’s eyes told him that it was the wrong tack, that it would be pointless. He swallowed to try to clear the bitter taste from his mouth, took a deep breath. “Look, there’s this girl I really like. Delia. She, uh, says that you’ve asked her out, and I wanted to talk to you, man-to-man, ask you to leave her be.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he hated himself. This wasn’t man-to-man. This was the dog groveling to his master.

Peter frowned over his mug. “Delia? Is that the stripper chick you’ve been mooning over?”

“We’ve been seeing each other,” Danny said, jaw tight.

The other man cocked an eyebrow at him. “Is that so? She sure has been friendly with me at the club.” The he chuckled, shook his head. “But that’s her job, isn’t it? I have to say, she’s quite good. I could almost believe she really is glad to see me each night.”

“Yeah,” Danny managed. “She’s good. We’re good … together. I’m asking you to, uh, please back off.” He didn’t know that Peter had been going to the club so often. How many times had he been in a private room with Delia while Danny waited like an eager puppy in the bar across the street?

“For you, of course,” Peter said with a magnanimous nod. “I wish you both the best.” Took a sip of coffee, walked over to the window to gaze out at the muddy swath that was more bayou than river now. “Of course, for your sake, I hope she doesn’t get a better offer.” He glanced back at Danny. “Or rather, if she does get a better offer, that she doesn’t take it.”

“Right,” Danny said. “Appreciate you understanding.”

Peter set the mug down on the table by the window. “By the way, the final vote on the poker room is day after tomorrow. I need you to lean on Councilman Nagle. Catch him doing something.” His smile widened. “Maybe your Delia can help you out with that.” Then he shrugged. “Or not. Best to keep business and pleasure separate, right?”

“Right,” Danny repeated. It was a challenge, a power play. Peter wanted to know how much he could trust him. Wanted to know how far Danny would go to keep the influence that had protected him for so long.

Yet Danny knew that it didn’t matter. It was already too late. Danny had tried to bare his teeth. From now on, Peter would be watching his back, waiting for the moment when he could throw Danny to the wolves and keep his own hands clean.

Danny simply had to find a way to do the same to Peter first.

He jerked his head in a nod. “Got it. I’ll take care of it.”

Peter’s smile widened. “You’re a good friend. Give my best to Delia.”

The next week was quiet and calm. Danny readied himself for the next time Peter called on him, ready to record the exchange or whatever else he could do, but his phone remained silent. Delia spent every night at his apartment, only returning to her own place to change clothes and water her plants. She told him that Peter had stopped coming to the club and wanted to know what Danny had done. He merely smiled and said, “Better that you don’t know.” He couldn’t tell her that he’d done nothing except grovel, that the only reason Peter left her alone was because it suited Peter to do so.

And, as Danny had feared, it didn’t last.

“He came to my apartment!” she told him after he opened his door to see her standing on his front step. Her lower lip trembled and her eyes were red from weeping. He quickly pulled her inside, took her to the couch, and held her while she poured it all out to him.

Peter had given her an ultimatum—go with him or he’d not only have her evicted but he’d make sure she never found work in this city again.

“I don’t know what to do,” she told him, looking more defeated and beaten down than he’d ever imagined she could be. “I can’t … I
won’t
leave New Orleans. It’s too special to me.” Delia’s eyes lifted to his. “People like him are destroying this city. I hate it. I hate them all!” Her voice broke on the last word.

Sweat pricked Danny’s palms. He could kill Peter. There were a hundred different ways he could do it and stage it like an accident or suicide. Or maybe Danny could go to the feds, tell them everything he knew about Peter’s dealings.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said, kissing her. He stood up, but she caught at his hand.

“I don’t want you getting into trouble,” she said, eyes wide and frightened.

“It’ll be fine. I promise.” He gently pulled free of her grasp. “You can count on me.”

Danny walked along Chartres Street to Dumaine, headed to Jackson Square and watched pigeons swarm around a bum with a bag of stale bread. A handful of street artists gamely displayed their wares, casting desperate smiles to the sparse trickle of tourists wandering by, and ignoring him, since he was obviously a local and not worth wasting the energy of false friendliness on.

He would kill Peter Bennett, he told himself. That was the only way out. Going to the feds wasn’t an option. Anything Danny told them would sink him just as thoroughly as it would Peter, and he didn’t have any evidence other than his own testimony.

Late afternoon turned to dusk as he sat on a bench in the park and considered his options, planned out his steps. When full dark came, he headed down Decatur, stopped in a sleazy T-shirt shop full of tourist crap, and bought a cap. After that, he cut over to the Riverwalk, entered Peter’s building, and took the elevator to his floor, keeping the cap pulled low over his face to avoid being caught by any cameras.

Peter answered the door, eyebrow lifting in mild surprise at Danny’s presence. His gaze flicked to the cap and then back to Danny’s face. “You okay? You look upset.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “A bit. Can I come in?”

“Absolutely.” Peter stepped aside, closed the door behind him. Danny swept his gaze around the condo. No one else here. No one else on this floor, for that matter. No one had seen him come in. He had it all planned. Collapsible baton in his pocket to take Peter down, then make it look like an accidental fall in the shower. Doubtful it would be found out as murder even if there was a proper investigation.

Peter leaned up against the counter, watched Danny impassively. Maybe he knew why the cop was here. Probably did, in fact. He had to have known it would come to this.

“I almost forgot,” Peter said abruptly, pushing off the counter and moving to his desk. “Forgot to give you that, ah, loan money you asked for.”

Sweat prickled Danny’s back and his hand eased toward his gun. This was perfect. Peter was going to pull a gun from that drawer and then Danny could shoot him in self-defense.

But it was a thick envelope that Peter retrieved from the drawer. Danny dropped his hand before Peter could see, heart thudding unevenly. The man was paying him for busting Councilman Nagle with a prostitute earlier in the week. Nagle had agreed to vote Peter’s way rather than face a humiliating arrest, and the poker room had been approved, no doubt the first of many.

Peter held out the envelope to him. “I think you’ll be happy with this. I know I am. Good work with that, by the way.”

He didn’t move for several seconds, then finally stepped forward and took the envelope. Opened it to see that it held at least ten grand.

Danny closed the envelope and tucked it into the pocket in his jacket. “Appreciate this,” he said, voice sounding odd and rough in his ears. He didn’t have to kill Peter. He had other options. He could take Delia away from here. He’d convince her to leave. They could start over somewhere else. Away from this fucked-up city. Away from Peter.

“Come by next week,” Peter said. “We’ll talk.” He paused. “You should bring Delia by sometime. Unless you two broke up already?” He lifted a bottle of water, drank without ever taking his eyes from Danny.

“No,” Danny replied, feeling the weight of the question, responding to the statements.

The man grinned. “That’s real cute. How long you think that’ll last?”

He wasn’t talking about Delia, Danny knew. Peter was toying with him, wanting to know how long this little flare of defiance would go on before Danny settled down and behaved again.

Like the dog at the café, who’d slunk off instead of attacking. That dog was probably dead now, Danny thought, or at the very least still hungry, slinking through the city, willing to brave a few kicks to get a scrap or two.

No more slinking. No more scraps.

“Forever,” he replied. With a practiced move, he pulled the baton from his pocket and snapped it open. Baring his teeth as he stepped toward Peter. Reveling in the shock and fear on the man’s face as the dog finally turned on his master.

He called her in the elevator, asked her to meet him at the Canal Street Ferry. He figured he’d beat her there, but when he arrived at the dock, he saw her leaning on the rail down at the end, looking out over the wallowing river and the blinking lights of cars crossing the bridge.

A tension he hadn’t even been aware of leached away. A part of him hadn’t been sure she’d come, afraid that she’d cut her losses and leave him behind. Yet now he realized that she’d known where he’d gone, had been waiting nearby for him.

She turned at the sound of his hurrying footsteps, watched him as he approached.

“Danny …?” she said, reaching up to touch his face. “What’s going on?”

He caught her hand in his, kissed it. “I love you, baby. I’ll keep you safe forever, I swear it.”

Her breath caught. “Oh God. What did you do?”

“It’s cool,” he said. “I swear. I … I’m good.”

She bit her lip, then closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around him. “Yes, you are.”

He lowered his head and breathed in the scent of her, feeling all the shit and the muck of his life slipping away. “Let’s go,” he said. “Let’s leave this place forever and start over somewhere else.” He didn’t want to stay, but he also knew he couldn’t leave her behind. She’d end up as beaten and broken as those other girls … yet, even as he thought it, he knew that it was an excuse, knew that he wasn’t strong enough to leave without her. But maybe if they
both
left, started over … maybe
he
could get unbroken.

She pulled back, shock and disappointment flashing across her features. “You want me to leave? I can’t!”

“It’s just a city, baby,” he said, holding her face in his hands. “Nothing but a bunch of buildings and streets and crap and assholes.”

“No. It’s so much
more
than that.” She tried to shake her head. “There’s a
soul
to this place, rich and wonderful. We survived Katrina and we’ll survive this. We …
I
… have to stay. Why can’t you see it?” She reached up, pulled his hands from her face, but continued to hold them. “Oh, Danny,” she breathed. “Peter’s gone now. You don’t have to be who you were anymore.”

She knew, he realized, as the last of his tension dissipated. She
knew
he’d killed Peter, understood the lengths he’d go to for her … and didn’t hate him for it. “No. I can be better,” he insisted. “I
can
be … if I’m with you.” He squeezed her hands. “But not here. It can’t work here. New Orleans died when the river left. There’s always gonna be guys like Peter here, looking to cash in on the wreckage. They’ll tear this city up and salvage every scrap they can from it, and they won’t give a shit who gets crushed in the process.”

He couldn’t see her expression in the gloom, but he heard a sigh of what sounded like resignation come from her. Maybe she was starting to see things his way? “I have money,” he told her. “We can go to Lafayette. Start over. We’ll be together.” His phone rang and he cursed, pulled it out to see it was Detective Farber. Ice knotted his stomach. Had Peter been found already?

“Think about it,” he mouthed to Delia before he stepped back and answered the phone.

“Get this,” Farber said without preamble. “Ernst’s gun matched the slugs found in Jack-D’s body.” Jack-D, a pimp even sleazier than Jimmy Ernst, who specialized in girls who didn’t just
look
very young but really
were
. He’d been found down on Basin Street the day before Ernst took a swim in the mud. “Betcha one of Jack-D’s boys capped Ernst as a get back,” the detective continued. “At any rate, we got enough to close both cases.”

“Yeah,” Danny said. “That’s good. Do it.” He hung up, looked out at the river and frowned. Didn’t make sense that a pussy like Jimmy would go after Jack-D. Didn’t make sense that anyone would give enough of a shit to take out Jimmy in revenge. A whisper of unease lifted the hairs on the back of his neck. Delia had known Peter was dead. Had she
wanted
Danny to kill him?

He began to turn back to Delia, felt two prongs of cold metal against his throat an instant before hot lightning flashed through his body. He dropped to the concrete of the dock as pain danced through his nerve endings and he fought for control of his muscles.

She stooped and slipped the Taser back into her purse, pulled him upright, and leaned him against the railing. She was strong—those dancer muscles served her well as she toppled him over the side to the waiting muck below.

He landed flat on his back. The impact knocked his breath from him, but the mud quickly gave way beneath his weight. She leaned over the railing, met his eyes as he sank.