SHANK (A Wilde Crime Series) (24 page)

I took my foot from the door. “
Your debt’s paid in full. I’ll see to it.”

She stepped closer
, tears gathering in her eyes. “I’m no whore.”

She seemed to need my agreement so I nodded.
“It’s time to move on. Get your kid out of this place.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. I’ll make it right.”

Instead of grateful, she looked downright suspicious. “Why? You don’t even know me
.”

Frankie’s face flashed before my eyes. I shook it away, instead focusing on Roxanne. “Does it matter why? This is your chance. I suggest you take it.” Her eyes locked on mine. She nodded once,
kissed her baby’s cheek, and gently closed the door.

Mickey, Andy, and I walked
down the corridor and out of the building in silence. I paused in the entranceway to stare back at Roxanne Morrissey’s door. Mickey put a hand on my arm. “She’s not your responsibility.”

W
e both knew it wasn’t that simple.

Tomorrow I’d make things right. Billy would get his blood money, and I’d make damn sure nobody like me ever knocked on her door again.
To lighten the mood, Andy said, “At least we know why Mike wants you dead.” He rubbed his chin. “It’s weird though…”

“What is?” I turned to him.

“If Mike loves his sister so much, why let her think he’s dead?” Andy frowned, his eyes darting around the rundown building. “She obviously needs help. Would a brother stand by and watch his sister suffer like that?”

Mickey nodded. “U
nless she’s lying and knows he’s alive?”

I shook my head.
“I’m not sure what’s going on, but Roxanne Morrissey is alone in this world. Her brother is either the biggest asshole on the planet or he’s dead.”

Using Andy’s information we hit the other two addresses on the list in search of a dead man. The first one was a hole in the wall apartment on the east side. A woman answered, claiming not to know anyone fitting Mike’s description. She thought the previous tenant was named Mike, but she wasn’t sure.

             
One address to go.

Our second stop was
an abandoned building on Avenue D. I glanced up the street, getting my bearings. Colin used to live a few blocks away. An odd mixture of junkies, artists, and homeless people called this neighborhood home but like so many other places in the city, Starbucks and yuppies grew like an infestation.

“So what do you think?” Mickey
motioned to the building.

I pulled my .38 in respo
nse. “You cover the back. Andy, you take the street.” Both nodded, taking their positions along the nearly deserted streets. Great hide out, I thought, kicking a piece of plywood from the door. I stepped inside, scanning the first room for signs of life. Nothing. I gripped my gun tighter, wading through piles of garbage. The next room smelled of urine and turpentine, but was also empty. A mattress sagged in the corner and a rat the size of a Buick ran along the baseboard.

The further I went the darker
the rooms. I sniffed the air. Something wasn’t right. Someone or something moved in the blackness. I swung the .38 toward the sound, taking three quick steps forward. Zigzagging to keep from being an easy target. Something snapped on my right. I looked down, realizing my mistake a second before a bright flash of light exploded.

Fuck.
White light. Burning. The sting of thermite and white phosphorus.

Fl
ash grenade.

Blinded, I threw
myself to the floor as a swirl of heat and white light swelled around me, sucking in all the oxygen in the room. Just as suddenly, the swell exploded into a fireball, frying everything in its path, including me. I gagged at the stench of burning clothes and flesh. Oddly the pain didn’t come. The thought crossed my scrambled mind a second before a burning so intense it stole my breath, and nearly my will to live. Blissful unconsciousness tugged at my senses. I gave in without regret.

******

“Ian?” Mickey screamed, or I thought it was him. My ears were ringing so loudly that I couldn’t hear a word. I tried to move, to assess the damage to my body, but pain paralyzed me and beautiful oblivion crept in again. Mickey’s palm slapping my cheek roused me.

“Why’d you hit me?”
I asked through clenched teeth. The stench of charred flesh hung all around us, smelling sweet like roasted pork.

“Stay with me.
An ambulance is on the way.” Mickey’s already pale face turned whiter.

If he was that
scared, I was in bad shape. “What happened?” I blinked. A grainy film covered my eyes, muting everything to a dull gray.

Mickey shook his head. “You don’t remember?”

I thought about it, and slowly it came back. Flash bomb. The kind the military used. I was lucky to be alive. “Booby trap…the floor was wired…”

“
Yeah.” Mickey motioned around the destroyed room. “The whole place went white and the windows blew out. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“How bad is i
t?” I asked, gesturing to my burning limbs. Every part of me felt like it was on fire. Probably a reaction to the chemical compound. Until it was washed from my body, it would burn like a bitch.

“You won’t win an
y beauty contests.” Mickey grinned. “Just keep breathing, nice and easy.”

S
irens screamed in the distance, growing louder as seconds past. I tried to sit up, but the world grew dim again. “When I find this guy I’m going to rip his heart out.”

“I’ll help.”

The ambulance arrived. They shot me up with morphine and carted me off to the hospital. Mickey rode shotgun. Andy sat in the back, giving me a play-by-play of the explosion, and my rescue.

“
This guy knew we were coming. I want to know how.” I ripped the oxygen mask from my face. “Who knew where we were going today?”

Andy
scratched his head. “Let’s see. I assume you told Frankie.”

I nodded.

“Neil, Drew…I think Billy knew…”

“Who else?”

“Well, Roxanne Morrissey knew we were looking for Mike, and that woman at the apartment. Sal might have known….” Andy counted off the number of suspects. Fuck, practically everyone in the neighborhood.

An overweight paramedic shoved the oxygen mask back in place. “
Mr. Wilde, if you don’t stay still I’ll strap you down.”

I stilled
, but reluctantly. “Andy, we need to find out who tipped him off.”

“I’
m on it. Do you want me to call Frankie?”

“God, no. The less she knows about
this the better.”

“But you’re hurt. She needs to know that.”

“Why? So she can worry? I don’t need that.” It would be like the late night phone calls of my childhood, my mom crying quietly while Mark explained Billy’s hospitalization for a gunshot wound. “What I do need, is for you to find this guy. I don’t care what it takes—phone records, financial statements—just get this asshole.”

At the hospital
the medics rushed me into the emergency room. From there things got hazy. The doctors peeled away what I thought were layers of chemically burned clothing, but actually turned out to be my skin. My face, slathered with a cooling gel, stopped burning. And eventually, after another shot of morphine, the rest of my body stopped hurting. I faded in and out of the drug-induced haze, damn lucky to be alive.

I woke in a hospital bed, my left arm and the side of my face wrapped in bandages. The pain wasn’t too bad. Distant. More annoying than anything else thanks to plenty of morphine dripping into my veins. The scent of strawberries mixed with disinfectant floated in the darkness of the hospital room. I knew that smell. My eyes searched the shadows, locating Frankie’s concerned face. She sat in a chair next to the bed, her hand holding my uninjured one.

“W
hat are you doing here?” My voice, rusty from the chemicals, came out like a growl.

“Andy called me.”
She punched me in the good arm. “Asshole. I told you to be careful.”

“O
w. What was that for?” I rubbed the muscle through the thin hospital gown.

“You could have been killed.”

“Wasn’t my fault. Someone tipped him off.”

She
took a shuddering breath. “I can’t do this…”

“Do what?”
But I knew the answer.

“This.” She gestured to the bandages and
to me. “I can’t wait around for Andy to call and tell me your dead. I love you, Ian. I’ve always loved you, but I can’t live in constant fear.” She laid her head on my chest, gentle fingertips tracing my charred skin.

“
I know.” I stroked her silken locks of hair. “Hey, we gave it a shot. I don’t regret it, not for a second.”

She
pulled away, smiling slightly. “Me neither.”

“Friends?”

“Friends.” She kissed my forehead. “I’m going to grab a cup of coffee. Get some sleep.” She stood and walked toward the door. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

As I watched her walk away, I swore softly to myself. I’
d lied to her. I had regrets. The kind that came when the woman loved walked out the door. And I let her.

*****

“You should have seen it.” Mickey waved his hands in the air. “The windows blew and glass went flying.” Mickey had been standing at the back entrance when the explosion ripped through the building, and now he recounted every second, much to my dismay. “I heard Andy scream for Ian and rushed inside.” Frankie looked sick as Mickey told her the story, but he didn’t seem to notice. “At first I thought Ian was dead. How could anyone have survived that? It’s amazing.”

Not really.
I’d trained with chemical grenades in the Navy. After tripping the wire, I had three seconds to hit the ground. Heat rises and the flash bomb was no exception. What fucked me up was the fallout. The secondary chemicals. Less deadly, but just as painful.

My hospital door opened and Colin entered, followed
by Billy. Billy looked pissed, Colin concerned. “Are you all right?” Colin looked me over.

“I’m fine. Superficial burns.
I’ll be released in a couple of hours.”

“You’re lucky,
boy” Billy came toward the bed. “You should be dead.”

“Thanks for your concern. You can go now.”
Coldness echoed in my voice. A picture of Roxanne Morrissey’s battered body flashed in my head.

“What’s your problem?”

I glanced at Frankie, Mickey, and Colin. They got the hint and quickly left. “Do you really want to get into this?” I asked once the door closed.

His
face grew red. “Spill it.”

“I met Roxanne Morrissey yesterday.”

“Who?”

“The young girl with a ten grand debt and knife wounds. Your handiwork I hear.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” The thick blue vein running down his forehead pulsed as shock and rage filled his expression.

My eyes narrowed.
“Are you playing stupid?”

Billy leaned over the hospital bed, and in a near whisper said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you ever speak to me like that again…”

I stared into his eyes, the same bloodshot eyes I saw in the mirror every morning. Damn, either Roxanne Morrissey lied or someone used Billy’s name to do his own dirty deeds. I held up my hand. “Do you really not know who Roxanne Morrissey is?”

“The name sounds familiar…”
He shrugged.

“She’s maybe twenty-two, dark hair
. Lives with her kid in the tenement on 6th.”

“
Yeah Roxy. Her daddy was Mitch Morrissey. He used to run numbers in the East Village…”

“She owe you?”

“
Ten grand.” Billy’s face grew cold. “Nick DeMarco’s fault. He got her hooked on dope, and last year she came to me for a loan to get out from under him. I agreed for her old man’s sake.”

I pictured the knife wounds on Roxanne’s body and winced. “Tell me you didn’t send someone to collect.”

Billy gave me a frown. “Of course I did, son. That’s what I do, but nobody hurt her. She promised to make payments. Fifty dollars a month. Fucking joke, but I felt sorry for her and took it.”

“Her debts cancelled. I’ll pay it off.”

Billy raised an eyebrow. “What happened to you and Frankie? I thought you finally came to your senses.”

“It’s not like that. Someone hurt Roxanne, and she thinks it’s you.”

“That’s crazy. I don’t hurt women.”

Not ph
ysically at least. “Someone did. I saw the scars. Any idea who’d have the balls to use your name?”

“Whoever it
was won’t be breathing for long.” Rage radiated from him. In the Kitchen, all a man had was his reputation, and to Billy, reputation was everything.