Triage: A Thriller (Shell Series) (25 page)

Cherie’s building happened to be a piano-factory-turned-loft cut into two-bedroom units with new appliances. The biggest selling points, though, were the rooftop access from each unit, and a gym. Security didn’t pose the problem I’d prepared myself for; Cherie answered when I called through the intercom in the lobby. Answered and buzzed me right up.

“What are you doing here?” she asked from the doorway a moment later.

“Checking on you,” I said.

“How?” she asked instead of “Why?”

“How am I checking on you?”

“How did you find out where I live?”

“Butterfly told me,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, sneering. “Should’ve known.”

“You two have a problem with each other,” I said. “Professional competitiveness?”

“That and a lovers' spat.” She must’ve registered the surprise on my face because she smiled and said, “It was purely experimental at first. And then it wasn’t. And then we weren’t.”

“Interesting.”

“You think?” She wrinkled her nose and turned her back, moved into the apartment. I took that as an invite and walked in behind her.

“She’s taken over your apartment,” I said.

“Remind me to Lysol if I go back,” she called.

I closed the door behind me, fastened the locks. She’d made it to the kitchen. “All I have is cold water and iced tea,” she announced.

“I’ll take the iced tea.”

“Butterfly’s amazing in a way,” she said. “She reads poetry—Dylan Thomas mostly. ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light’. And she’s had experiences.”

Cherie said “experiences” as though it were an expletive. By then I’d reached the kitchen. She handed me the iced tea. Anchor Hocking drinking glasses. I’d kept a similar set in one of my apartments when I was still in the business and needed several covers. Mr. Precaution.

“She actually climbed Eyjafjallajökull. Took her nine hours to do. Don’t ask me to spell it,” she went on. “But I
can
pronounce it, because she went on and on about it like it was the biggest dick she came upon in her career. We do remember that detail, by the way. Don’t ask me if your name is embedded in my mind, either. Guys can be so insecure when it comes to that sort of thing.”

“I won’t ask,” I said.

“Yours is one of the biggest,” she said.

“I didn’t ask.”

She shrugged. “I’m a whore, Shell. Sex talk is where I’m most comfortable.”

“You’re a lot more than a whore, Cherie.”

She pursed her lips and her eyes softened. “It’s in Iceland, by the way, the volcano.”

“I know of it.”

She looked at me. “You would.”

I reached for my pocket and she flinched. I paused. “What’s going on with you, Cherie? You don’t seem yourself.”

“Would you believe me if I chalked it up to hormonal changes?”

“No.”

“Your presence here is a little unnerving, Shell.”

“You let me in.”

“Could I have stopped you?”

I didn’t respond, just reached for my pocket again. Pulled out Siobhan’s hand drawn flyer. “I know you keep your ear to the streets,” I said. “My number’s in the bottom right corner. Please don’t share it with anyone. But if you see or hear anything…let me know.”

She hesitated, but eventually took the flyer and examined the lifelike image created on it with nothing more than a charcoal pencil. “You ever wonder how many supposed missing people actually just ran away from their lives?”

“No. You want to tell me what’s bothering you, though?”

“Jiang was uncomfortable about accepting your business,” she said. “And the truth is, I was, too. I didn’t really want to deal with you the other day. But I had to allow you full access.”

She dropped the flyer on the counter and moved from the kitchen, out into the living room. A few actual album covers were strewn in a too-convenient pile in one corner. The pile struck me as some level of aspired kitsch. Miles Davis’s
Bitches Brew
was the most prominently displayed vinyl. A small bookcase held several slim volumes of poetry. Dylan Thomas’s work not among them.

She plopped down on her couch and fumbled with her hands.

“You have a nice place here,” I told her.

She nodded, sighed, went about playing with her hands again. “And you’re being pleasant,” she said. “I know you heard what I said.”

My turn to nod. “You
had
to allow me to see you.”

She sighed once more. “A week or more ago I received a visit from two gentlemen. I use the term loosely.”

I hadn’t sat. I still didn’t.

“The bigger guy didn’t speak,” she said. “I wish the smaller hadn’t. He was charismatic but also…I can’t put a word to it. He scared me. And I don’t scare easy.”

“Mean,” I said. “You’re mean.”

“I wish I would’ve told you the other day,” she said. “He made it clear I should call if and when you contacted me. As soon as Jiang let me know you were headed up I made the call. I’m really sorry, Shell. I should have told you. I was afraid. I
am
glad to see you now, though, truth be told. I was afraid they would harm you in some way.”

“That ship already sailed.”

“They’ve been in touch?”

“You can’t tell? I must be a fast healer,” I said. “They tied me up, beat me, and tossed me in the Passaic to drown.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re…”

“Alive still,” I said. “Despite their best efforts.”

It hit her at once. “So you know about them? Shell, look,” she stammered, “I’ve been staying away because the whole thing has bothered me. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to you. I feel crummy about the whole thing.”

“Which is why you warned me the other day?” I said.

She bit her lip and tears began to well in her eyes. “Shit, Shell, baby.”

I allowed her to slip her hand between the couch cushions.

“I’m so sorry, Shell,” she said, her hand buried to the wrist in the cushions.

“You’re safe,” I said, smiling. “That’s all that matters.”

“I can’t stand this shit,” she said as the tears swelled.

I took a tentative step forward. My only intention being to offer her support.

“Stop,” she screamed, pulling her hand from between the cushions. The knife I’d known was there gleamed in her hand.

“You don’t need to fear me, Cherie.”

“I can’t take anymore of this shit,” she said between sobs. “I’ll cut you if I have to, Shell. Please, leave. Just go.”

“You take care of yourself, Cherie.”

“Is that a threat?” she screamed.

I sighed, shook my head, and left her there.

AFTER THE BUSINESS WITH Cherie, Elm Street didn’t hold the same dread in my heart. I needed sleep and I planned on getting a great deal of it. I’d make flight plans to travel. I didn’t have any specific ideas at the moment but I would be in route to somewhere in the next few days. You could count on that. As much as I hated to admit it, Nevada was lost unless she wanted to be found, or someone happened upon her.
Happened upon her.
That wouldn’t be any shade of good.

But if I’d learned anything in my profligate life it was that things change from moment to moment when you’re living your life properly and even more so when you’re not.

I spotted him almost immediately, posed suspiciously in the stairwell drop of a house several down from Nevada’s. He was smoking a cigarette—at least that’s what it appeared to be from a distance—and studying the street with a level of attention no insider would devote. Something about him was familiar and I spent the time it took to find a parking space to try and refresh my memory. When it finally clicked I felt a sense of accomplishment that had been absent for the past few days.

He started moving the exact moment I exited the Accord. His pace wasn’t quite a trot but neither was it a leisurely stroll. He looked back and smiled as he turned the corner.

It led to one of the less traveled streets in the neighborhood. Not much residential, mainly the back of a warehouse building and several alleys. I turned the corner in a jog, mindful I might be stepping into a trap, and because of that understanding, physically alert to respond to whatever presented itself. He’d slowed considerably and when I caught up and put my hand on his shoulder he turned without pause. He’d allowed me in too close, but I rolled with it. I would use the lack of maneuver space to neutralize any weapon he might have.

Except he had none.

And he wasn’t who I thought he was.

I was about to apologize for my error when I looked into his eyes; they were the dead eyes of a stone-cold killer. I’d seen them in the mirror enough to recognize them at once.

“Bow your head,” he said, a cloud of nicotine-tinged breath trailing the words. “Let us pray.”

I turned and left him there with his laughter.

NONE OF THE REAL life people I’d been involved with over the past few days insinuated themselves into my dreams. Not Conrad Colleti and Shepard Calabrese with me down at the river, not Darren Sweet with his brain matter splattered on the motel pillow, neither of the whores, Cherie or Butterfly, nor Mrs. Lippman or Nicholas or Nicky, not the boy with the dead eyes. Not Nevada. Instead, for some reason, I dreamed of SWAT, invading the home where I was hunkered. When I risked a look out of the window in my dream I could spot them perched in nearby trees. I could hear them scuffling across the roof, searching for a viable means of ingress. Eventually I heard them bullying the doors and blowing out all of the windows. I was left in a house that was nothing more than exposed support beams and sawdust-covered foundation. Despite the structure being completely open to the elements my dream was ambiguous in regard to time. Was it day or night? That question was never answered. Nor was the issue of whether or not I was captured, or, what my charge was even.

I just woke up. It wasn’t with a start. I sort of eased from dream state to consciousness. I stood and stretched, with my back aching because of the uncomfortable couch. It was past nine o’clock in the evening, so I’d slept for more than six hours—plenty of rest for me even when I went to sleep bone tired.

I searched each room again, and found even less it seemed than during my initial scouring. Rather than allow frustration to settle in I dialed a phone number I discovered on a piece of paper held by a magnet on the front of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

She answered between the third and fourth rings, her voice thick with sleep. I had no doubt that anyone queried would find her restless voice was still far superior to my own.

“I was hoping you’d pick up,” I said.

“What time is it?” she asked, and rumpled something on her end.

“Thirteen minutes after nine.”

“You’re…” The thought faded as she yawned. Immediately, a wakeful energy took shape, her voice strengthened. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

“You and your favors,” she said, feigning disdain. “What is it this time? You need me to loan you some flour?”

I smiled even though she couldn’t see the gesture. “A few eggs actually,” I said. “But sure, bring some flour, too.”

“IT’S A SWEDISH STAPLE,” I explained to Siobhan some time later.

“Mmm.” She finished chewing a bite, wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. An expensive paper napkin but paper just the same. “Flying Jacob you said?”