The Coldest Mile (9 page)

She got out more tape and bound his fingers together much better than he'd been able to do. It made him feel odd, being mothered by her, with the goofy getup on, the polka- dotted do- rag.

“Can you get me something else?”

“What?”

“Antibiotics.”

“For what?”

“A wound that doesn't close.”

“Let me see.”

Chase took off his suit jacket, shirt, tie, and T-shirt. Cessy carefully peeled away the bandages and pulled a face when she got a look at the seeping gunshot wound. She probed it, and he grimaced and hissed through his teeth. She looked at the other recent damage, the pink scars and the purplish marks where the drains had been put in and
taken out again. Another bullet had taken him in the right side beneath the ribs and deflated his lung. The spiderweb of mottled tissue was courtesy of Earl Raymond's sister, Ellie, who hadn't gone down easy. Raymond's whole crew had been hard.

Washing her hands in the sink, Cessy said, “I didn't know it was that bad. Take another two pills. I've got some speed, it'll counteract the effects. Ask ing for antibiotics is like asking for medicine. There's all different kinds for different troubles. I've seen plenty of gunshot wounds before, but nobody's going to be able to help you if you keep tearing it open. Man who sewed you up the first time did a shitty job.”

“He was a safe doctor up near the Harlem River, a cokehead burnout. I saw catgut in the bathroom down the hall from me. Can you use it?”

“I can use it.”

He opened his wallet and laid a couple hundred dollars on the table. She snatched it up and tucked it away in her apron.

“See what you can do about those antibiotics too.”

“I'll make some calls.”

He had a large cup of coffee and drank it slowly. It reminded him of getting into the auto shop early before the kids arrived for their first class. He'd sit there staring at a couple of cars with their engines in pieces, a chalkboard full of notes behind him, and a Styrofoam cup of coffee in front of him steaming in the frigid room. The same as garages, high- school auto shops were always cold, the metal shutters
never sealing properly, the cinder- block walls holding in the chill. He'd sip his coffee and wait for the first bell. The kids walking in chattering about trivial matters that weren't trivial at all. He'd never been to school and still had a romanticized notion of what it must be like, the rich complexities of such rituals. Learning about life side by side with hundreds of your peers instead of being on the grift at ten, climbing into people's bedroom windows and boosting their watches and silverware.

Cessy returned with the catgut and another bottle of pills. The amphetamines were black, which surprised him. He'd always thought they were red. He took two more painkillers and popped two uppers. He was worried about what it might do to his system.

Swabbing his shoulder and sewing him up, Cessy muttered to herself. “Only met a few like you in my time. Quiet but carrying thick scars. Mostly I know gangbangers, drug dealers, and pimps. They're up front with their action. Same as the hoods around here. But you, you live a different kind of life, don't you.”

Not asking a question.

“Where's your family at?” she asked.

“I don't know. After this I need to go find them.”

“You wear a wedding band on those broken fingers. Where's your wife?”

“Dead.”

Cessy let out a slow, lengthy breath. “Sugar, don't you think that—”

Chase said, “What do you know about Bishop?”

She took a second to answer. “He likes to walk around with blood on his clothes.”

Before hitting the
estate garages, Chase scoped Jackie's office and some of the other rooms again. He tried to find out where Sherry Langan was really running the show from, but it had to be the third floor, where Lenny was dying and his wife and some other old ladies were always coming and going.

There had to be loose cash around. People like this, they might just as soon hide it in a closet as in a safe. Thugs passed him in the corridors. Chase realized he probably should've gone about this another way. Get a string together. Two or three other second-floor men. Walk in right under everyone's noses, climb through the house checking every drawer and shelf and cupboard, just stick a gun to Jackie's temple and make him cough up the combo. Walk out while the rest of the mooks were out putting on the ninth hole.

But Chase was still on the edge, trapped between two lives. He didn't want to call anybody in. He didn't want to have to draw down on the boss. He didn't know what he was going to do next. The three- prong hook was holding him in place as much as it was tugging him out of his shoes.

Chase was sweating and his hands trembled. The drugs in his system hadn't found a balance yet. He felt light- headed and antsy, but at least all the pain was gone for the first time in weeks. He fought for
focus. He checked his watch. He had to get ready to drive Sherry to her theater group, and who the hell knew what that was really all about.

On his way to the limo, Moe Irvine stopped him. “You're late. Miss Sherry is waiting.”

“Sorry about that.”

“You're not wearing the hat and gloves. I've been giving you some leeway because you're new here, but your attitude hasn't improved any.”

“I saw what happened to your last chauffeur. Let's say I'm not feeling all that comfortable here yet.”

That slow- burning anger leaking around Moe's eyes wasn't so slow today. Moe had problems on his hands. He knew the business was skittering out of his grasp. The number two man was going to have to hand over too much to Lenny's kids and Lenny still wouldn't drop off the cliff.

“I was informed about some trouble last night in the servants’ quarters,” Moe said.

Actually calling them that, the servants’ quarters.

Chase said, “I didn't hear anything.”

“And you weren't involved?”

“I do what I can to steer clear of trouble.”

“It doesn't appear that way to me.”

“But you're just getting to know me, Moe.”

Moe stared at the stickpin he'd given Chase, like he wanted it back, didn't want it to go to waste in the landfill. “Miss Sherry is waiting.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

Chase got the limo backed out and turned around in the driveway, then smoothly sailed up to Sherry,
who was waiting out front in the Jacqueline O's. A few strongarms paced around, acting tougher than usual, sort of squabbling with each other. They were trying to get a little more territorial now—show their stuff and hopefully get picked to go to Chicago.

Chase opened the back door for Sherry, and when she took his hand she held on to it for an extra second, full of intent.

The painkillers were starting to override the bennies. He felt a flat, heavy mellowness work through him. The heat at the back of his head began to cool. He thought he should take another upper to get back some of his step, but for the first time in weeks he was relaxed. Maybe it wasn't so bad. Maybe he should go with it for a couple hours.

Traffic was heavier than normal but he used the limo's intimidation factor to carve access into loaded lanes. He slid the stretch toward the Holland Tunnel again, waiting for her to say something. She didn't. She appeared as calm as ever, but he kept picking up some extra vibe. He didn't know what it was. It drew his eyes to the rearview time and again, but he couldn't see anything different.

Except maybe the vein in her throat. It throbbed. She was in a state, but didn't show it in her expression.

So much for the mellow. He popped another bennie dry. The serene veil that had draped over him immediately shredded and fell away. His heart bucked in his chest.

Jonah said, She's going to kill you.

* * *

Sherry made herself
a drink and sipped it, crossed her legs and balanced the glass on her knee. Her skirt hiked back a little farther than it should, showing off the elegant and elaborate network of muscles leading to her thigh.

“Why are you here?” she said.

Maybe the truth—some of the truth—would be best. “I got a call that the Langan family needed a driver. A wheelman. Turns out that's not who you needed at all.”

“Why didn't you just quit when you found that out?”

“It was too late by then.”

She clicked her nails against the glass. It wasn't much of a tell, but he could see she needed to do something while she worked through her thoughts. The Jacqueline O's stymied him. He wasn't going to get much more from her measured gaze, but even that was better than plastic.

“Take off your shades,” he said.

She turned her head to stare out the tinted window for a moment, considering. Then she took them off.

“Maybe we can use you in some other capacity,” she said.

“You've got too big a crew as it is.”

“What makes you say that?” she asked.

“Wiseguys playing golf on the job, for starters. Everyone knows the Chicago setup will be smaller.
Most of the strongarms will be skipping out on you soon. They're afraid of looking weak to the other outfits. So they'll be badmouthing you when they jump. It'll cause you trouble when you get to Chi, so many of your own people disparaging you.”

“We're working on avoiding all of that.”

“I'm sure. But you should tell Bishop to quit advertising his messes. Brains on your tie doesn't earn you points, it just shows you're careless about forensic evidence.”

That got to her. Sherry Langan's eyes flared for an instant. Chase got a primeval kind of joy out of it.

They entered the darkness of the Holland Tunnel and Chase came back to himself, aware that he was driving a little slow for the pace of the place. Funny it should be like that. The amphetamines raging, his blood slamming through his body, the taxis crowding him, cops and Army everywhere as they crossed over toward Manhattan, and he didn't even have the hammer down. The last time they'd done this she'd pressed the cold gunmetal against his neck. He headed north to the theater district.

Sherry made eye contact in the mirror and said, “I want you.”

“You want me to what,” Chase said.

“I
want you,
” she repeated, and Chase got it as she slipped off her panties over her high heels and tossed them onto the bar.

He thought, Oh shit.

It wasn't a display of lust so much as a demonstration of power. She owned a lot, and she thought she
owned him. “Come on,” she said, “park it and get in back with me. Let me pour you a drink.”

He looked around at the foot traffic. Little old la dies dragging ass and pulling carts with their stockings rolled down to their ankles. Quick- stepping tourists trying to look worldly. Long Island housewives in for a day of shopping.

These Langans, they really did like to do things fast and out in the open. “What about your theater group?”

“They're a bunch of fatcat tristate politicians’ wives. My father always said you had to put in your time pursuing irrelevant activities with those you needed. It gives them a sense of honest bonding.”

“Like golf.”

“Exactly.”

“Maybe they hate it just as much as you do.”

“Of course they do. Those wives despise each other, and me, as much as I do them. It's all very foolish, despite its self- serving mainstay.”

“I suppose you don't find it culturally stimu lating.”

“Why are you still talking?”

Lila had loved the theater. They'd tried to hit the city every couple months to take in a show—not just the musicals, but the classic plays. Chase had a fondness for Ibsen and Brecht, but you could never catch one of his pieces anywhere on Broadway. You had to go way off off and sit in a small theater of ninety seats and watch how it used to be done a hundred years ago. Up close and without an orchestra. No
dancing cats, no movie stars slumming until their agents set up the next major deal. Lila would hold his hand in the dark and he'd press her palm to the side of his face.

“I said to park it,” Sherry told him.

“You can afford the penthouse at the Ritz and you want to make it in the back of a Chrysler on 38th Street?”

“Yes,” Sherry said. “I like the limo. I like it dirty and I like it on the streets. It's where the action and gamble is. I want you to shove my face against the window, so I can watch them go by out there while you fuck me from behind.”

So that was her juice. This lady, Chase thought, she had a lot of demands. “You must get interrupted by a lot of meter maids.”

“Why are we still talking? Get back here with me.”

He wondered if Bishop had told her about the missing women. He wondered if Sherry was only turned on because she was planning to send Bishop after him and was sniffing the death scent.

“Sorry,” he said. “I'm married.”

“Who gives a damn about that?”

“She would.”

“She's not here.”

He wanted to tell her, Sure, she is, she's always here, but Lila was talking, saying to him, Sweetness, you need to get a move on here, no more of this lol-lygagging, there's a little girl waiting for you to pluck her out of an evil man's hands.

“You're not going to fuck me?” Sherry Langan
asked. Color bloomed in her cheeks. She didn't look shocked or surprised or even angry, just a touch puzzled and maybe a little bruised in that spoiled rich girl not getting everything she wanted way. He knew that what he was seeing in her face wasn't the truth. He knew she would harbor a deep resentment now that only blood could clear away.

“I'm not going to fuck you. You want to talk about Ibsen I can prep you a little. You'll wow the fatcat politicians’ wives.”

He'd made another mistake. He couldn't blame the pills. She'd even warned him. Don't screw with someone's conceit.

Now he knew one of her secrets—that's the thing, they have a way of exposing themselves. She didn't get off on good old hot sex. She wanted it dirty and with the rest of the world going by, staring into a crowd who didn't know she was there.

Now she wouldn't be satisfied until he was dead with her teeth in his throat.

I
t was going to come down fast now. His self- imposed
time limit of two weeks was nearly gone, and the score was no closer to being in his hand. He'd made enemies of the head of the family and her right-hand hitter. He might just have to rob Sherry's jewelry box in the middle of the night and be done with it.