Death at the Wheel (19 page)

Mikey did want to hurt the lady, twisting my arm until I screamed. "That's just a taste of what it's going to be like if you don't play ball with us." His breath hissed hot in my ear.

That was twice today big bullies had twisted my arm and threatened me. Three if you counted Bob the impotent broker. Tears welled up in my eyes. I blinked them away. No way was I going to let him see that he'd made me cry. I had enough sense to be scared out of my wits. I could scream but the neighbors wouldn't hear. These condos were too well built. So instead of telling him that I wouldn't play ball if his was the last team on earth—why did these guys always have to talk in sports clichés anyway?—I kept a lid on my temper and tried to make him understand that I didn't have the papers and I didn't know what he was talking about. "Honestly, Mike, if I had them, I'd give them to you. Please. Stop. You're hurting me!"

He dropped my arm but before I could breathe a sigh of relief and rub the pain away, he backhanded me across the face, swatting me as casually as I might swat a fly. "Get real, lady!" he said. "We know you've got 'em."

"But I don't." I felt like a kid accused of a crime one of my siblings had committed—frustrated and helpless to defend myself in the face of parental certainty. Feeling helpless brings out the worst in me. I pulled myself up, steadying myself on my hall table, grabbed the first thing I touched—a heavy ceramic cat—and hurled it at his head. He ducked and it smashed on the tile floor behind him, which made me even madder. I liked that cat.

He came at me, smiling, and hit me again in a manner so casual I thought he must do it all the time. "Go ahead, honey," he said, "I just love it when people fight back." His pale gray eyes, the only nice feature in his ferret face, were dancing. He had a nose too thin to breathe, cup-handle ears, a receding chin. Maybe people's rejection had turned him mean and all he needed was understanding. Like O.J. and the Menendez brothers. His hair needed washing. He smelled. He was enjoying himself.

I went for his nose, determined to break it. Caught him off guard. Managed to draw some blood. He muttered a stream of curses, nothing I hadn't heard before, grabbed my wrist, and we struggled. I was no match for him—my own fault, I keep putting off weight training—and Mike took every indecent liberty he could. "Too bad we don't have more time," he said. "I like 'em wild and crazy." It was time for a gang of feminist guerrillas to burst through the door and take indecent liberties with
his
body. They didn't. Nobody burst through the door. His buddy just stood and watched.

Just because I was outclassed didn't mean I had to make it easy. I broke away, staggered down the hall to the front door, grabbed an umbrella, and pointed it at him menacingly. He laughed and pulled out a gun. "Drop it, sweetheart," he said.

I dropped it. I might be pig-headed sometimes, but I wasn't so stubborn or blind with rage I couldn't see that an umbrella was no match for a gun.

Having a gun pointed at me focused things nicely. I might as well give them the papers I did have. They were useless, but maybe they wouldn't realize that. Maybe they'd take them and go away and I could throw myself on the floor and cry. Throw up and wet my pants without witnesses, then spend the rest of the night showering away the filthy sensation of Mike's roaming hands.

I was only trying to keep the briefcase away from them because some of Julie's letters were in it. And because I hate to cooperate with bad guys. But there was no sense in getting myself injured or killed or even covered with sweaty fingerprints to protect someone I hardly knew from some embarrassment. From a wrongful murder conviction and prison, maybe, but not from embarrassment. I have a finely developed ability to prioritize. Besides, if my guess was right, these were Ramsay's people, and Ramsay didn't give a damn about Julie Bass's personal correspondence.

"All right," I said. "I'll give you the briefcase."

The older guy heaved himself away from the counter. "You're a very sensible young lady," he said.

I grabbed my car keys and headed for the door. "Hold on," the ugly one called. "Where do you think you're going?"

"The papers are in a briefcase. In my trunk."

Mike held out his hand. "Give me the keys. I'll get it. Which car?"

I gripped the keys tightly, the rough serrations cutting into my fingers. Even though it was perfectly sensible to hand them over instead of getting shot, I couldn't seem to relinquish control. He gestured angrily with the gun. "Come on, girlie, we haven't got all night."

The doorbell rang.

"Don't answer it," he ordered.

"Watch out, Officer," I yelled, "he's got a gun!" I jerked the door open and hurled myself through it.

There was a shot. I dove for cover, the cop outside dove for cover, and the two faux cops almost trampled me as they ran out. I lay in the cold, prickly shrubbery and shook. Another quiet Thursday evening chez Kozak. My neighbors must be praying that I'll move. The flashing strobe lights on the patrol car burst on my overwrought senses like Fourth of July fireworks.

My old friend Officer Harris picked himself out of a yew bush and ran to the car. "Are you all right?" he called over his shoulder.

"Don't worry about me," I said. "Go get those bastards!"

"Stay where you are. I'll be back," he called, his spinning tires churning up a shower of gravel that fell around me like hail stones.

Not knowing how long he'd be, I decided I wouldn't wait for him lying facedown on the ground. I got up. Slowly, carefully, treating my body as if it was made of glass instead of bruised and swollen tissues. The front of my sweats was a tangle of leaves, twigs, and bits of bark mulch. One of these days I was going to have to reform. If the body is a temple, mine had been desecrated far too often.

I pulled myself onto a kitchen stool, folded my arms, and put my head down on the counter. My heart was still galloping, my body racked with the tremors of an adrenaline rush. I closed my eyes. Mike's ugly, amused face floated on the insides of my lids, the cynical smile, laughing eyes, stained teeth. He reached for me with dirty fingers. "Get out of my head, you creep!" I yelled.

It was too uncomfortable on the stool. I was cold. I limped into the living room, spread a wool throw over myself, curled up in a ball. I couldn't stop shivering. The incident wouldn't leave me alone. I was second guessing myself, trying to think how I could have handled it better. I hate losing. I hate it. I hate being pushed around and intimidated. Maybe it was time to get a gun and learn to use it. Maybe it was time, as Andre kept urging, to stop getting myself involved in things like this. Time to settle down and lead a regular, careful life. Time to stop helping. By the time Officer Harris came back, I'd worked myself into a deep funk.

Officer Harris and I first met when someone tried to break into my condo one night, and left me a calling card in the form of a large hunting knife, just days after a good friend's mother had been murdered with a similar knife. Our second run-in, when someone tried to burn both me and my condo, had been more acrimonious. Harris, cutting me no slack for being burned, concussed, and frightened, had bullied me and treated me like an idiot. I'd responded with a determined lack of cooperation. Over time, though, we'd reached a working accommodation. Sometimes.

He came in bursting with his own adrenaline high, posted himself at my head, and started firing off questions. "Who were those men and why were they here?"

I pulled my head out from under a pillow and stared at him, overwhelmed by his energy. "They wanted some papers that I don't have."

"What papers?"

"Papers allegedly missing from the Grantham Cooperative Bank." I was proud of myself for saying allegedly.

"Who were they?"

"They said they were cops. From Connecticut. One of them had a badge."

"Easy as pie to get," he muttered.

"I was careful," I said defensively. "Your wife would have let them in, too."

He shrugged, started to say something, wisely thought better of it. "Why did they think you had the papers?"

I could confess to removing things from Julie's house, or I could fudge. I opted for less than the truth. No wonder stalwart upholders of the law find me irritating. "You'll have to ask them."

"When we catch 'em," he said. Only then did he seem to notice my fetal position and bruised face. "Are you okay?"

"I've felt better."

"Come on, get up," he said, "I'll take you to the ER."

"I'd rather have a root canal without anesthesia. You could make me a cup of tea, though."

He turned on his heel and headed for the kitchen. "Coffee smells good," he said.

I closed my eyes, listening to the comforting sounds of him bustling around the kitchen. The rush of water against the metal of the tea kettle. The hiss and click of a burner. A cupboard opening and shutting. The sound of a mug on the countertop. His foot kicking the stool. A muttered curse. "Hey! What's this?" And then he was back by my side, looking anxious.

"There's a trail of blood from the kitchen to here. What's going on?"

"Maybe you're bleeding."

"I'm not bleeding," he said. "Are you?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"Harris," I said, irritation warring with exhaustion, "it's been a bad day. An awfully bad day, so don't push me. Please. I mean I don't know. Do you think I'm bleeding?"

He rolled his eyes heavenward. "Well, somebody is. Where does it hurt?"

"Everywhere," I said unhelpfully. "Really. I got hit by an armed man this morning and then there was this guy...."

His breath hissed out through his teeth. The look on his face was a man mentally rolling up his sleeves for an unpleasant task. Mike the Thug might have thought a chance to cop a cheap feel was fun, but Harris didn't look like he relished the idea of touching me one bit.

"Relax. You don't have to touch me," I said. "I'll just go in the bathroom and check things out." I stood up and took about two shaky steps before my body betrayed me. My mind might still be working but the rest of me, sensibly recognizing that I was in shock, knew that it was time to rest and be still. I grabbed his arm to keep from falling and collapsed back on the couch. I huddled there, shivering and sweating.

"I'm calling you an ambulance," he said.

I grabbed the arm of the couch and pulled myself up. "Don't you dare!"

Before he could act, his radio crackled. He listened and asked if he could use the phone. He came back shaking his head. "Looks like we're not going to be asking those two anything. They just drove themselves into a tree going about ninety. They're history."

"That's too bad," I said. "I wanted to kill them myself."

"We were talking about blood," he said.

"I try not to," I said. It was getting harder and harder to hang tough. I wanted to cry. I wanted him to put his arms around me and tell me I was okay. I wanted my pain to go away, especially the pain in my leg.

"My leg," I said. "Hurts."

"Which leg?"

"Left." He ran a hand down my leg.

"Ouch!"

He pulled it back ruefully, staring at the blood.

"Relax," I said. "I don't have any dreadful diseases."

He grabbed the waistband of my sweats and jerked them down. I gasped. "Relax," he said, "I'm a cop. I've seen it all...."

I was wearing sturdy black cotton underpants. Bigger than my bikini bottom. Utilitarian. Unerotic. Only a few bits of lace. "That's what Andre always says, too."

"Why don't you marry the guy and go live someplace else?" Harris muttered.

"That would make your life too easy. Ouch! Careful...." I closed my eyes, unwilling to look at the ugly, oozing red gash on my thigh. In the kitchen, the kettle raised its voice in song.

"Be right back," he said. I lay on the couch, feeling exposed and vulnerable, the shriek of the kettle grating on my taut nerves, the pain in my thigh expanding on exposure to the air.

I limped to the bathroom and, leaning heavily on the sink, began sifting through the medicine cabinet for first aid materials. I'm not always a good scout, despite good intentions. I'm often unprepared, but this time the search was rewarding. I found antibiotic cream and adhesive tape and gauze bandages. Lined them up on the sink. Sat down on the toilet and tried, with shaking hands, to fix myself up.

"You ought to have a doctor," Harris said.

"Don't start that again," I said. "You know how I feel about hospitals. We've been through this before. It's superficial and I'm current on all my shots."

"Then stop fiddling. I'll do it," Harris said, pushing my hands away.

"I don't understand how I cut myself right through my clothes," I said.

"Not a cut," he grunted as he swabbed at the wound with antiseptic. "Bullet."

The sting was sharp, hot, piercing. I gasped. Tears welled up in my eyes. "I've been shot?" I said in disbelief. "They shot me?" Once the tears began, they were unstoppable.

"I hope it was them and not me," he said grimly, tearing open the gauze. "I'm going to have to put this in my report."

I nodded. I knew that. "Distract me," I said. "Tell me about something besides crime."

He laid the gauze gently over the wound and tore off some tape. A decent, capable guy. A good cop. "I have a new baby," he said.

"Boy or girl?"

"Girl. She's twelve days old. Miranda. She's beautiful."

"Your first?" He nodded. "So you guys aren't getting much sleep these days?"

He shrugged. "It's worth it. Puts things in perspective, though. And makes me careful."

"Oh yeah, real careful. If I were you, I wouldn't go home and tell my wife I'd been shot at tonight."

"I won't. I'll tell her I had to rescue this dippy broad who let two strangers into her place because they told her they were cops. There," he said, getting to his feet. "Now come drink your tea while you tell me everything that happened."

It wasn't exactly tea and sympathy but by the time I'd told my story and had my tea, I felt a little less shaky. My leg was stiff and sore and I was badly bruised. Before he left, Harris fixed an ice pack for my face. I walked him to the door so I could lock it behind him and stumbled off to bed. As I was struggling out of my clothes, I knocked the letter I'd found by Julie's front steps to the floor. The one I'd fished out of my bra and dropped on the dresser.