The Trials of Nikki Hill (40 page)

He stood impatiently, bent over her, and grabbed the file, dropping it on her lap. “Don’t worry about fingerprints. This is just for your eyes. It’s not gonna wind up in any court, I can guarantee.”

The typed label on the folder read “Soul Sister.” Inside, she found copies of the documents Goodman had described. The marriage certificate. Newspaper accounts of the trial and conviction of Dyana Cooper’s husband. His mug shot.

She studied the pages carefully, then looked up at Rupert. “Okay. Now what?”

“Don’t you have any questions?”

“No.” It was a lie, of course. Her mind was buzzing. Could he possibly be Goodman’s source? If not, how did he get the file?

Her apparent disinterest seemed to unnerve him. He took the folder, straightening the sheets almost prissily. “This came from Madeleine Gray’s house after the murder.”

“I figured that.”

“I didn’t take this. The person who did was working for Dyana Cooper, doing the cleanup for her after she did the murder.”

“You saying Dyana Cooper killed Maddie Gray?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“I’d like to talk to this cleanup person,” Nikki said. “In the other room?”

He shook his head. “No. We were not involved in the murder in any way.”

“You’re just trying to save somebody’s ass by throwing the blame on Dyana Cooper,” she said.

“You don’t give a shit for the truth, do you?” He was bristling. “You put Mason Durant in the joint, even though you weren’t totally convinced he was guilty. We’re

killed Maddie Gray.”

“How do you know about Mason Durant?”

“There are ways of finding out everything. Maddie taught me that.”

“You knew her?”

“We helped her with stuff. That’s why we don’t want her killer to go free.”

There was a knock at the door. Silver wig. “Time to book,” she said.

He consulted the fancy sports watch on his wrist. “You hang in here for five minutes, Nikki,” he said. “And maybe we won’t scalp your friend.”

He folded the file and jammed it into the waistband of his shorts. Then he grabbed her puse. At the door, he turned to her and held it up. “I’ll leave this with Victoria. Be cool. Don’t be a fool.”

Don’t worry about that, you little pissant,
she thought.

She waited about two minutes and left the room.

Victoria was in her office, alone. “Nikki, please understand—”

“Where’s Loreen?” she asked, grabbing her purse from the desk, checking to see if the gun was still there. It was.

“I told you not to bring her.”

“Where is she?” Nikki demanded.

“They took her. Rupert said he’d let her off at her shop. He’s not a bad—”

“Rupert’s as bad as they get,” Nikki said, moving toward the door. “Just because he looks like Tiger Woods doesn’t mean he won’t slit your throat for a quarter. They could have killed us, and you, too, without cracking a frown. Your business partners.”

She shook her head in disgust and left the room.

Victoria ran after her. “Nobody’s gonna be hurt,” she shouted.

“We don’t know that yet, do we?” Nikki threw open the front door. “We go back to being kids together, Victoria, and you set us up for this kind of bullshit? I promise you: They put one little bruise on her, you’re gonna wind up doing time. And you’re out of the clothing business as of right now.”

“Don’t try messin’ with my business, Nikki,” Victoria shouted.

“Or what? You’ll put your thugs on me. Been there, done that.”

Sonny was getting out of the Olds, a look of confusion on his broad face. “What’s goin’ on? Where’s Miss Loreen?”

“Let’s go find out,” Nikki said.

For the first half of the drive, she had to keep interrupting his questions to urge him to go faster. For the second half, she had to keep interrupting his apologies.

They arrived at the beauty parlor just in time to see a black Chevy driving away, leaving a bewildered Loreen standing on the sidewalk in its wake.

Nikki was out of the Olds almost before Sonny could stop it at the curb. Her arms went around her friend. “I’m okay,” Loreen said, trying to catch her breath. “They didn’t do anything. I was so scared, Nikki.”

Sonny joined them, looking sheepish. “I blew it,” he said. “I shoulda come in.”

“It might have made things worse,” Nikki said. “We’re all okay.”

“I really screwed up,” Sonny said. “I didn’t even check the perimeter to see if there was a rear way in and out. I would have seen their car parked back there.”

Loreen was fanning herself with her hand. “I’ll forgive you, Wesley,” she said, “if you just do two things. First, drive us somewhere quick where I can get a cigarette and a shot of cognac for my nerves.”

“And the second thing?” Sonny asked. “We can talk about that later,” she said.

S
EVENTY-SIX

J
amal was still living large. Enjoying room service. Piling up tube time. But his shyster, the king of the comb-over, wasn’t giving him the attention he thought a new millionaire deserved. The last time they’d talked, the lawyer had asked him a mess of questions about Madeleine Gray’s ring. Like the ring being in his pocket might be a deal breaker or something.

The dumb-ass ring.

All he’d had to do was pass that ring on by. The cracker cops would still have busted him on general principal. Then his false arrest case would’ve been golden.

But he had to grab the ring.

The brass ring. Wasn’t there something about grabbing the brass ring?

Shit, it didn’t matter.

He walked barefoot across the thick carpet into the bathroom. The first thing he was going to do when the eagle flew was to get a place with a shit stall like this. Floor to ceiling mirrors. He struck a few poses. Front and rear view. Looked fly. Superfly. He chuckled. He had a picture of the original Superfly on the wall of his place. Just as a goof. Big floppy felt hat. Droopy-ass lip brush. A ton of metal on his fingers. What were they thinking back then?

He peeled the bandages from his knife wounds.

Shit, they were just little slits now. Pinpoints where the stitches used to be. Didn’t look much worse than the sex marks that sweet-and-hot Dorothea left on his back. Some pucker, but not bad. Still had that war wound thing. Impress the hell out of the ladies.

He thought he might just take a trip up to the rooftop pool. Catch the sunset. See what was lying around having evening cocktails. Comb-over told him to stick to his room, but, shit, it was a nice evening.
Won’t be any shank-waving assholes up by the pool. Nobody with machetes, neither. Just some fine ladies, maybe, waiting to hear a little jaw music.

He studied the collection of swim trunks he’d charged to his room from the shop in the lobby and selected a little thong number. In honor of the European women he’d noticed seemed to be in the majority poolside.

He slipped into the thong, slapped some cologne (seventy-five dollars the ounce, from the hotel shop) on his face, and selected one of his five new pairs of Ray-Bans, the sleek, skinny pair that looked like the shades Will Smith wore in that alien movie. He grabbed the fluffy white terry-cloth robe with the hotel’s crest. He slipped his plastic room card into a pocket of the robe and marched out to sample the delights of the evening.

He’d just settled on a cushioned lounging chair, pillow behind his head, wine spritzer on the deck near his right hand, when there was a tap on his shoulder. He put on his best dude-of-the-world expression and sat up, twisting a little to show off his abs.

Carlos Morales stood beside his chair. “Been lookin’ all over town for you, Jamal,” he said. “How’s about we have a little talk? Or would you rather get your bony ass tossed off this fucking roof?”

S
EVENTY-SEVEN

G
oodman spent the weekend at Gwen’s apartment.

She didn’t want to be by herself.

They ate, watched TV. Didn’t talk much. Didn’t make love.

It wasn’t until Sunday morning that the detective decided to call home for messages.

He was surprised to hear the electronic voice say that he had nine. He rarely got more than two or three, especially on weekends. As they unspooled, he discovered that they’d come from only three people.

The winner with most calls, six, had been Nikki Hill. She’d started phoning Saturday morning and gone on until the early evening. Judging by the messages, she was in need of some sort of information or advice. As her messages tapered off, his partner’s began. At a little after six P.M., Carlos had wanted Goodman to phone immediately. Something needed to be done and he wasn’t sure he could handle it by himself.

The next Morales message, an hour later, was a bit more profane and abusive, suggesting that Goodman disengage from a sexual activity that was unlawful in most of the United States and answer the damned phone. The final message, made at eleven-forty-three P.M., the night before, was from his depressed neighbor across the hall, Dennis Margolis, whispering that he could hear someone trying to break into Goodman’s apartment. He thought it might be the fake policemen. “If you’re in there asleep, Ed, better wake up,” Dennis had cautioned.

With a curse, he dialed Dennis’s number. Naturally, there was no answer. Second on the list was Nikki. Another frustrating miss. Finally, he phoned Morales’s home and got his partner’s wife, who began shouting at him in Spanish.

“Whoa, there, Estella,” he said. “Tell me what the problem—”

“The pro’lem is my husban’ not here this morning. I got no husban’, no car, no way to get to Mass with the kids. The pro’lem is I doan see Carlos for two damn days. Where is the bastar’? He say he with you.”

“I’m gonna have to get back to you on this, Estella,” Goodman said. He dropped the receiver onto the cradle as if it had suddenly turned into a rattlesnake.

Gwen looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“Somebody broke into my place. I got to get over there, check the damage, see if anything needs doing. I want you to stay here until you hear from me.”

“Why don’t I come along and—”

“No good. I want you to be around to pull the plug on Doyle and Adler if anything happens to me.”

“That’s a great plan, Eddie,” she said. “I can just hang out here, watching the tube and wondering if you’re alive or dead.”

“I’ll call you from the apartment in thirty minutes,” he said. “If I don’t, send out the troops. Good enough?”

“Don’t do anything brave or stupid,” she said.

“Don’t worry, honey, I have great plans for my remaining years,” he told her.

The noonday sun was hot enough to melt rubber. Goodman parked behind his apartment building and entered through the back door. He took the rear stairwell two steps at a time but proceeded cautiously along the corridor leading to his door.

He touched a key to the lock and the door pushed open. He gave it a harder push and it swung inward, the still-extended slip lock moving through splintered wood.

His gun was in his hand as he stepped over the threshold.

Carlos Morales was lying on his couch, eating a handful of breakfast cereal. “ ’Bout time you showed up,” he said. “Doan you ever come home anymore?”

“You been here all night?”

“Where else am I gonna go?”

“You broke the damned door,” Goodman said, holstering his pistol.

“You doan keep no key on the molding or under the welcome mat. You doan answer the phone. What am I supposed to do? Hey, how long they been havin’ these little pieces of breakfast food that taste like graham crackers?”

“Your wife’s going nuts, Carlos.”

“Tell me something new.”

“Go home.”

“Can’t.”

“Why not?”

He gestured with his chin toward the rear of the apartment. “Bedroom.”

Hugely annoyed, Goodman stomped to the darkened bedroom. A black teenager in orange and black gangsta wear was lying on the floor, handcuffed to an iron bedpost. He glared up at Goodman and bared his teeth. He had cuts on his face and his right eye was swollen.

Morales stood at the door. “This here’s Fupdup,” he said.

“Your fuckin’ ass is dead, man,” the boy shouted in a high, hysterical voice.

“Why’s he in my bedroom?”

Morales gestured with his head and led him back into the living room.

“I tole you this was all gang shit. Fupdup’s a Crazy Eight.”

“Why is he in my bedroom?” Goodman asked again.

“Because he’s one of the ones dumped Maddie Gray in that alley.”

Goodman saw a Corona bottle on the carpet. “Was that the last beer?”

“Couple more in the fridge,” Morales said.

He followed Goodman into the kitchenette, continuing to talk while his partner opened a Corona. “Remember when Jamal was tellin’ us about almos’ catchin’ his lunch from the gang in that alley?” Goodman nodded, taking his first sip of beer. “At the time, we forgot to ask him if he could ID any of the Eights in the car. So I been tryin’ to get aholt of Mistah Deschamps to pose that question. Figured that lawyer had him hid away in a hotel, so I been checking ’em all, startin’ with the most expensive.”

“That’s where you been disappearing to the last couple weeks?”

Morales nodded. “You can’t do it by phone, amigo. You got to go and talk with the help. I foun’ him yesterday. You know, I had Jamal all wrong. The man’s a dude. He was happy to cooperate.”

Goodman gave him a skeptical look.

“Well, maybe I had to twist his arm a little, but he tells me the banger who nearly nailed him is named Fupdup.”

“He saw him?”

“No. He heard one of his asshole buddies call out to him. Anyways, Fupdup don’ have much up here,” he said, tapping his head, “but his big brother, Rupert, is runnin’ the Eights these days and he don’t want the bangers calling his li’l bro a fuckup, so he named him himself. Fupdup.”

“Jamal told you all this?”

“I doan need Jamal for that kind of information. I know these
cucarachas.
I know every fuckin’ one of ’em, where they live, where they eat and drink, and where they hang out. Took me less’n an hour to get my hands on Fupdup. He’s a big gamblin’ man. Loses ’bout a gran’ a week back of the Ready-Burger on Western Avenue. ’Course, Lorenzo, th’ dude runs the game, pays Rupert two gran’ for the privilege of having Fupdup piss off the other players. Anyway, none of them seemed to mind me leavin’ with the little bastard, not that they had any choice.”