Icarus. (44 page)

"Do you trust me?" Jack asked.

"Yes," she said. "I do."

"Then tell me what Kid told you. Tell me the things that frightened you."

"God, I wish I still smoked. Or still did coke. What are you going to do with your purchase, by the way?"

Jack felt in his pocket, surprised, and pulled out the small packet of cocaine he'd purchased. He took several strides to a wire trash basket on the corner and tossed it in. Then he came back to stand inches away from Grace. She was staring at the trash can longingly.

"It's hard for me to describe. Yes, what he told me did frighten me. But partly because he was frightened. For himself and, I think, for you, too."

"Why would he be frightened for me?"

"I don't know. He was vague, he couldn't really explain. This might sound crazy but I had the feeling he wanted me to know certain things in case… in case you found me. I don't know how else to explain it. I got the feeling that there was something going on that had been going on a long time. For years. And I think he felt responsible for certain things, people getting hurt." She hesitated. "Maybe even getting killed."

"What people?" Jack asked very quietly.

"I don't know. I just know he seemed to feel some special connection to you. And it had something to do with the fact that bad things had happened to people around him. People he loved."

"I know what he means," Jack said.

"He didn't mention you by name, I didn't even know your name, remember, but now I'm sure it was you he was talking about. And he seemed to think he was putting you in some kind of danger."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Because I wasn't sure. I'm still not sure. But from talking to you, I just get a sense… it's a feeling I have, that's all. I can't be more specific."

There was an awkward silence, not broken until Grace's awkward laugh. "So now that I've put us both in the mood, do you want to come up to my apartment?"

"Yes," he said.

She got up, walked toward the door of her building. She turned, realized he hadn't moved from the sidewalk. "Are you coming up to my apartment?"

"No," he said. And then: "I'm not ready. I'd still feel like I'm cheating on my wife."

She slowly walked back down to where he was standing. She put her hands on his shoulders, lifted herself up, and kissed him gently on the lips. When the kiss ended, Jack slowly put his hand up and caressed her cheek. Then he turned and started his walk home.

When he was not quite half a block away, she said, "Be careful," and, as the first rays of dawn began to lighten the sky, watched until he crossed the nearly deserted street and turned the corner.

– "-"-"WHY DIDN'T HE Stop?

Why was he still looking?

He'd been warned but he was still asking questions and getting closer and…

What difference did it make, why he was doing it? Reasons weren't important. Kid had his reasons and they were lies. Reasons were always lies. What mattered most was the heart.

The last words that Kid had heard were I love you.

What would be the last words Jack Keller would hear?

It was time to find out.

– "-"-"JACK WAS ASLEEP fifteen minutes after he walked into his apartment. And he'd been asleep all of ten minutes when the phone rang.

"Jack," the voice on the other end said urgently, "it's Grace. I figured it out. I can't believe I was so stupid. It was right in front of us the whole time."

"What was?" Jack managed to say, his words thick with exhaustion.

"Can you meet me again tonight?" she asked.

"What are you talking about?" Jack said. "What did you figure out?"

"Samsonite," Grace gushed. "I know how to find her."

They met at 1 a.m., as per Grace Childress's instructions. She would not tell him why she thought she'd found Samsonite, she would not elaborate on anything. She just told him to pick her up in a taxi and when he did, she directed the driver to head downtown on the FDR Drive.

Jack had spent much of the day sleeping. He had a steam shower in his bathroom and in the interval, when he was awake, he took three long steams. The heat and sweat were cathartic; by the time he was due to dress, his body had made a reasonable recovery. He ached, but he was used to aches. And he was stiff, but he had long ago overcome stiffness. This was something he had learned both from Kid and from the life he had led: it was possible to get used to pain. And once you got used to it, it was rendered fairly harmless. The taxi dropped them off in the East Village, on a small, shabby side street near Rivington and Essex. Grace took Jack by the hand and led him up to the fifth floor of an unmarked tenement building. Once again, nothing was visible from the outside. Inside, after climbing the five flights of stairs, they were met by a bouncer, a black man with a shaved head, dressed all in black except for bright-red suspenders. He opened Grace's purse, checked it out, and patted Jack down. When he found no weapon, he let them pass.

"What was that about?" Jack whispered as they headed down the hallway.

"There's a lot of money inside," she told him. "They don't want guns in there."

"You do know the most interesting places," he said.

When they walked through the door of the club, Jack was amazed to find that they'd entered an enormous room that, from its size, he guessed had been three, maybe even four apartments at one time. But they were apartments no more. Now it was a very serious casino. Jack felt as if he'd been beamed up into a Las Vegas starship.

The action was palpable. Two crap tables dominated the front of the room and a roar went up from the crowd around one of them as the shooter hit his number. Jack counted five blackjack tables. Four of them were filled and one of them was marked "reserved." At that one sat a bulked-up black man, an NFL Hall of Famer and onetime linebacker for the New York Giants. He was betting five-hundred-dollar chips and the only other people at his table were two women, one white, one black, who were availing themselves of his stack to place their own bets. As Jack looked around the room, he saw several other athletes he recognized – one basketball player, a star on the Philadelphia 76ers who was a regular at the restaurant whenever he was in town – and two rap stars, one of whom Jack had read had been arrested the week before on an assault charge.

The decor was not particularly elegant. There were couches and upholstered chairs scattered around, most of which looked comfortable but well worn. The various tables were wicker and glass, cheap and functional. There were two long bars that had been built on either side of the room. There were also four or five larger rooms leading off the main one. As he wandered, Jack caught a glimpse of a roulette table and one small room in which six men were puffing on cigars and playing poker.

Jack and Grace finally found two chairs in the main room. She motioned for him to sit, which he did, while she went to the bar, returning a few moments later with two bottles of beer. She clinked the neck of her bottle against his and said, "So here we are again."

She smiled at him but Jack was not in a smiling mood.

"It's time to tell me what's going on," he said. "What's the revelation about Samsonite?"

"It'll hit you," she said. "I don't know for sure if I'm right, but I think I am. It might be a little early but if I am right, she'll be here. And you'll know when she is."

"I'm not much for games right now," he told her.

"It's not a game," she said. "Just wait and see. If I'm right, you'll understand soon."

They sat for over an hour, not speaking much. Jack was too restless to make small talk, too intent on absorbing the scenes around him. At 2:45, Grace, who had barely moved, leaned forward and said, "I think she's here."

Jack swiveled, glanced around the room, saw nothing that jumped out at him. He turned back to Grace, who simply said, "Just look. Pay attention and you'll see it."

He stayed in his seat, stared at the people sitting around him, at the crowds around the gaming tables. Nothing came to him. He stood, then began walking. In and out of the various rooms, back to the main room, slowly strolling and studying. At one of the crap tables was an extraordinarily sexy woman, her arm around a short Arabic-looking man. The woman had to be six feet tall without the three-inch heels she was wearing. Her legs were long and muscular and she emitted the smoldering sexuality that Jack had come to expect from anyone on Kid's team. He watched her gamble, thought, Yes, she's the one, but how could Grace be so sure she'd be here? How could she know that a particular customer would…

Not a customer.

Samsonite worked in a club.

A singer/bartender/dealer.

It wasn't the woman at the crap table. It was someone who worked there.

He went to the built-in bar to the left of the room. Two bartenders, both male. At the bar on the right, also two bartenders. One man, one woman. The woman had thick red hair cascading down almost to her waist. She wore tight black pants and a blue work shirt, unbuttoned halfway down to reveal a tan neck and chest and a provocative glimpse of firm, white breasts. She was sexy enough, no question about it. Was she the one? Was she as crazy as Kid had described Samsonite? Was she dangerous?

Was she a potential killer?

Jack turned away, trying to figure out how best to approach her. Ask her about Kid? Try to buy drugs? Strike up an innocuous conversation?

He tried to drown out the sounds coming from the rest of the casino but was unsuccessful. He heard another roar come from one of the crap tables and a shooter yell out, "Ee-yo, baby, ee-yo," and then another roar as the eleven hit. He heard the spin of the roulette wheel, that distinct clackety-clack of the steel ball wending its way around and in and out of the numbers. He heard a groan from one of the blackjack tables and then a woman's voice, from the same table:

"That's thirteen… fifteen…"

A man's voice: "Hit me."

The woman's voice: "Twenty-two. Sorry." Then, the same voice, raspy from too many cigarettes and raw from too much whisky: "And twenty for the dealer."

Jack turned now, watched as the woman he'd just heard shuffled the new deck of cards. Her shuffling was mechanical and expert but not clean or sharp. When she dealt, her movements were a little off, slightly dulled. He heard her say, "Two aces… wanna split 'em?"

Now Jack was moving toward the table. He'd forgotten about the bartender, was standing a foot behind the seated blackjack players, staring at the woman as she handed out cards, tapped and collected the hands of the losers, and paid the winners.

A singer/bartender/dealer.

He heard Kid's voice: Samsonite wants to be Courtney Love but for now she's a singer-slash-bartender-slash-dealer.

A dealer.

A blackjack dealer.

He turned back toward Grace, who was nodding and smiling. Then he turned back to the woman behind the table. She wore a flimsy black skirt slit up both sides; the slits revealed thighs that were both ripe and sinewy. Her shoulders were bare and in her sleeveless black-and-blue top she looked angular and hard and spectacularly, dangerously sexy. Her nipples jutted out from under the fabric of her tight shirt. Her arms didn't just ripple with muscles, the left one was covered with tattoos running from shoulder to wrist, the right one had a tattoo chain drawn around her taut bicep. Her hair was very short, almost mannish, and as dark as could be. Her face was white and thin, her cheekbones spectacularly high; her skin tightly drawn and flawless.

She looked up now, saw him staring at her. She smiled and he was reminded of nothing as much as a vampire. It was a blood-sucking smile that both aroused and chilled. But he didn't move or back away or stop watching her until, twenty minutes later, she was replaced at the table and stepped away to take a short break. Jack was next to her in a flash, holding on to her thin, steely arm and asking, "Do you know Kid Demeter?"

She looked at him blankly, he could see her trying to focus, and suddenly he thought, I'm wrong. She doesn't have a clue who he is, but then she smiled again, baring those sharp teeth, and Samsonite said, "Hey, baby, kneel and cross yourself when you say that name. Kid was a fucking saint."

– "-"-"IT WASN'T EASY convincing Grace to let him go off with Samsonite. But after a few heated moments, his logic won out. If she talked at all, he was certain she would talk more freely one-on-one, particularly to a man. And if she was indeed dangerous, they shouldn't go together. Using the only analogy he could think of, he said that one of them had to stay down underneath their own basket and play defense. It made much more sense for Grace to be that defensive player. He told her that if he didn't call her within two hours after he left, she should call Sergeant Patience McCoy at the Eighth Precinct. Reluctantly, Grace agreed. At 4:30 a.m., the fourth member of Kid's team said she could leave work and she and Jack headed for her apartment, where she said she could drink and smoke and he could talk about whatever the fuck he wanted.

Samsonite – her real name, she said, was Rita; no last name, just Rita, but Jack couldn't stop thinking of her as Samsonite, it fit her too perfectly – lived on a run-down street in the East Village, one that had not yet been made aware of the booming economy and the renovations going on in the neighborhood. The entire block was little more than a row of burned-out tenements and rubble. One of the tenements was Samsonite's apartment building.

"You live here?" Jack asked, surprised. He thought it looked as if it had long ago been abandoned.

"I've lived in worse, believe me."

She fumbled for the key to the front door, couldn't find it in her purse. After several minutes, she mumbled a curse and reached into the right pocket of her skirt to fish out the key. When she opened the door, she motioned for Jack to go ahead of her.