Mother's Milk (22 page)

‘Heading back on the Saw Mill.'

‘Perfect, meet me at the Night Shade at seven, but I'm going to need you to do this other thing first. No screw-ups. Then maybe later you can come back to my place … if you want.'

‘Fuck, yes, just tell me what I need to do. I really want to make this up to you.'

‘Sounds good … Here's the deal …'

At four-thirty, he called Nadine as she logged off for the day. ‘Just checking, you let security know I'm going to be here really late?'

‘All done, they said it shouldn't be a problem, just let them know when you leave.'

‘You're awesome, Nadine … and hot. See you tomorrow.'

She giggled. ‘You bet, and try not to stay too late. There'll still be plenty of screwed-up kids in the morning.'

‘Sweet.'

She laughed and hung up.

He looked at the clock above his office door. He grabbed a clementine from out of the bowl on his desk, peeled it, tossed the fruit, and started to stitch. He completed three tidy seams, using self-dissolving suture that in human flesh would leave almost no scar. He fantasized about Barrett, the age difference didn't matter. He pictured the two of them moving into his loft; he'd be a perfect stepdad to Max, and maybe even set up some kind of room for Grandma Grace. They'd sell Barrett's apartment and that would be enough to support them while he got through medical school. They'd have a child … maybe two, and then he'd go into practice. Everyone would look at him and know he was the perfect husband and father, they'd talk about his sacrifice in caring for his grandmother.

Somewhat high from his daydream, he checked the clock again, four forty-five, fifteen minutes after day's end; the building would be largely deserted. He cracked open his door, and looked down the hall. No lights coming from any of the other counselors' rooms. Nadine's computer was off and she was gone. Taking no chances, he changed into jeans, black T-shirt, and scuffed-up running shoes. He pulled on dark glasses, leather jacket, and a Mets baseball cap and headed toward the back stairwell; it was a favorite hangout of the smokers who had repeatedly dismantled the smoke alarms, security camera, and the siren on the outside door, paying no heed to the memos that warned of dire consequences for such behavior. He stepped into the alley, which reeked of cat pee and cigarettes, and closed the door behind him, making sure it didn't latch.

He had fifteen minutes to make it to his first stop,
half an hour to get this done
. He moved fast, and kept his eyes on the sidewalk in front of him. As he headed north and then west he dialed on his cell. ‘Hi,' he said, as a man picked up. ‘This is Chase Strand on the fourth floor, I just wanted to make sure Nadine told you I'd be here real late … great, thanks. Yeah, it always hits the fan at the end of the day. So if you hear someone up here swearing; it's just me … Yeah, sure, I'll check out when I leave.'

So many things could go wrong over the next few hours, he had to stay focused. He was banking on a shitload of a human nature, but mostly on himself. He knew the one chubby security guard he'd just spoken with rarely made rounds, and certainly wouldn't be stomping up and down the back stairwell.

Up ahead was Janice's brick-and-glass condo building on East 18th. Slouching down and with his hair tucked under the cap, he bounded up the short flight of steps and inserted the key he'd had made into the security door. Holding it open with his foot, he looked around, dropped the key into a small white envelope with the letter K on it, and taped it next to the bank of mailboxes, where a number of notices and flyers for local restaurants had been posted.

Bypassing the elevator, he sprinted up six flights, moving with catlike grace, barely breathing hard as he exited the stairwell. He rang the buzzer, and heard excited barks and the clicking nails of her dogs. He heard her pull back the cover to the fish-eye, and he pushed back his cap and tilted down his glasses.

She opened the door and the three white dogs tried to squeeze past her. ‘How did you get up here? I didn't buzz you in,' she said.

He smiled, letting the dogs sniff him as he entered her apartment and took off his cap. ‘Someone let me in,' he lied. ‘I seem to have that effect on people.'

B
arrett didn't know what she hoped to accomplish as she and Hobbs headed to the tenement where she'd found the two dead kids on Monday. Riding next to him through the rapidly changing neighborhoods of the East Village and the Lower East Side, she compared the comfort she felt with him to the fuzzy rush she got from that Chase guy. She knew there was something wrong with that man, something below the surface … but what a fine-looking surface it was.

‘Son of a bitch!' Hobbs swore as a motorcycle zipped past on his right, just as he was about to take the turn south on Avenue A. ‘Guy's going to get himself killed.'

‘One man's death is another's kidney donation,' she said, coming back to the task at hand – find Jerod.

‘That's dark,' Hobbs said.

‘Hey, in medical school we called them donor cycles, especially for those brilliant souls who don't wear helmets.' She snuck a glance at Hobbs, intent on the craziness of New York City driving. ‘You think there's any chance we'll find him?'

‘No clue, but one thing about junkies is first and foremost they need their fix. He'll go to where he thinks he can find it.'

‘Even if that could kill him,' she said.

‘Yup, even that.'

‘That's the crazy thing about heroin,' she said, ‘it's like demonic possession. Jerod is a sweet guy; I genuinely like him. He cares for others, worries about hurting people, but the minute he starts to get dope sick, it's as if there's someone else inside of there – someone desperate and ugly. All he wants is dope, and he'll do what it takes to get it.'

‘Yeah, but at least with him, he's not mugging people.'

‘No, mostly shoplifting. But if it weren't for the drugs, I don't think that would be an issue. It used to be pot, which was bad enough because it made his paranoia ten times worse, now he steals just so he can get enough for his next fix.' She felt her breath quicken as they turned onto the block where she'd found Bobby Dix and Ashley Kane. The six-story building's security door was held open by a rock.

‘The kids are back,' Hobbs commented as he parked the gray Crown Vic – a vehicle that screamed cop – in front.

In the empty lot next door half a dozen teens were playing hoops in a well-cared-for pocket park. Hobbs got out and Barrett followed. ‘I got some information on this building,' Hobbs said.

‘And?' she asked, feeling that they were being watched, not just by the teens playing ball, but by the whole block. She caught a curtain being pulled back from a window on a second floor, and there was something else that caused her nerves to rev, a hunch that people here were waiting for something to happen.

‘For starters, the apartment where you found those kids was rented fourteen years ago to a Melanie Jacobs; who's been living in California for the past four. Ms. Jacobs did not want to talk to me, but when I mentioned the local police would pay her a visit and that defrauding the city's housing authority was an extraditable offense …'

‘It is?' Barrett asked as she looked up, noting a few cracked windows and how the entire building seemed like a throwback to another decade in this block that had been sandblasted, rehabbed, and transformed into expensive condos and coops.

‘Not for this kind of small potatoes, but anyway she told me how she'd put an ad up in the student center. She said some blond guy named Marky gave her five grand in cash for the lease. And miracle of miracles, she's been paying the rent every month with a cashier's check, even got a new lease last year.'

‘You lost me,' Barrett said, following Hobbs as he walked toward the kids playing hoops. ‘How could she …'

‘It's not her; it's a scam. Anyone can get a cashier's check and put whatever name on it they want. As long as the landlord – or in this case the holding company – gets the rent they don't give a shit. And getting a lease, unless they're looking to clear out the building, isn't that hard. Get a fake ID, sign your name and there you have it.' Hobbs's steel-toed wingtip kicked at a small Ziploc baggy on the ground, and then he pointed out a little uncapped root-beer-colored bottle. ‘I can't believe you actually went into this place without an escort.'

‘Yeah, so you've mentioned one or twenty times … Let's show those kids Jerod's picture.'

‘Worth a shot,' he said.

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his detective shield as she pulled out an eight-by-ten of Jerod, from a stack that also included pictures of Bobby Dix, Ashley Kane, and an old fifth-grade photo of Carly Sloan.

The six teens, five boys and a girl, mostly Hispanic and none older than fifteen, had stopped their game and watched Barrett and Hobbs approach. As Hobbs held out his shield and introduced himself, a lanky boy crossed his tattooed arms across his chest. ‘We didn't do nothing.'

‘I know,' Barrett said, ‘we're looking for a friend who's gone missing.'

The lone girl, her long black hair tied back in a red bandana, laughed. ‘Yeah, you got friends in our building? Don't think so.'

Barrett lifted the first photo from off the stack. ‘His name's Jerod Blank. You ever seen him?'

The tall kid looked at the photo and then back at them. ‘What happened to your face, man? It looks like the shit my mom feeds the dogs.'

Hobbs didn't pause. ‘Someone blew up my car; it's burn scars.'

‘No shit,' the girl said, detaching herself from her friends to get a closer look. ‘Can I touch it, mister?' she asked, smiling over even white teeth.

‘Cora, you are twisted,' said a chubby kid who couldn't have been more than thirteen.

‘Shut up, Gordo,' the girl said, showing no fear as she walked up to Barrett and Hobbs. ‘Can I?' she asked.

Hobbs, who had a good six inches on the girl, leaned forward. ‘Sure.'

She put her right hand gently on the side of his face, touching down with the pads of her fingers, her eyes meeting his briefly. ‘You don't have a beard anymore on the side that got burned – there's no whiskers.'

‘No, they had to take skin from other parts of my body to fill in the parts that were too messed up.' He smiled. ‘I miss my moustache.'

‘Did it hurt?' the girl asked.

‘A lot.'

She looked at Barrett. ‘You his girlfriend or something?'

Barrett responded, ‘Something,' and held the picture toward the girl.

‘Crazy boy,' she said, looking back at her friends, who were edging closer. ‘Don't be so chicken-shit, that's what they want. No one says anything and they just act like they own you,' she said. ‘That's crazy boy. Cute, but you know something ain't right. Sometimes you see him talking … and there's no one there.' She looked at the other pictures in Barrett's hand. ‘Who else you got?'

There was something defiant in this girl, and Barrett noted how she'd occasionally glance back at the building. Barrett flipped through the pictures, making sure Cora and the other kids could get a good look.

‘Those two I seen,' offered a light-skinned boy with freckles, blue eyes, and red curly hair. He looked to Cora, as though wanting her approval for having spoken.

‘They took out two dead ones a couple days ago,' Cora said. ‘Which ones were they?'

Barrett held out the pictures of Bobby and Ashley.

Cora nodded. ‘Yeah, we seen them. My mom says the whole top floor is junkies and crack-heads.'

The fat kid snorted, ‘Your momma should know.'

‘Shut up, Gordo!' Cora said, and barely looking at him, cuffed him on the ear.

‘They sell it on the street?' Hobbs asked.

‘No. Not here,' she said, and looked up at the top floor.

Barrett turned to follow her gaze. ‘There's something happening up there, Hobbs.'

He turned as well, and pulled out his cell.

As he called for backup, Barrett bolted toward the stairs and the open door.

‘Don't even think about it,' Hobbs said, still on his cell.

Ignoring him, and feeling an urgent need to do something before Jerod went the way of his friends, she ran in.

‘Barrett, don't,' Hobbs yelled, as he raced after her.

‘There's shit happening on the roof,' Cora shouted after them. ‘They can get off that roof onto the one next door.'

Barrett's senses switched into the fluid state that Sifu Henry, her kung-fu teacher, had instilled in her. He called it ‘wide focus' and it overrode fear and doubt. She flew up the stairs hearing Hobbs two flights below as he followed. The building reeked of fried food and dogs and urine; she strained to hear what was going on above, a door slammed … voices of people in a hurry.

She ran flat out, grabbing at the scarred oak railings and using them to propel herself, swinging up each landing, making a mental note of the passing floors.

When she got to five, just below where she'd found Bobby and Ashley, she heard a male voice. ‘Come on!' He sounded frightened. ‘Move it! Hurry!'

A girl pleaded, ‘I need it.'

‘Leave it!'

A door slammed overhead and Barrett pounded the stairs to get there. She heard Hobbs from below. ‘Barrett!'

‘Hurry!' She ran the final two flights and came to the roof-access door. It was closed, and she heard scraping against the other side, like something being dragged across a tar roof.

She twisted the knob; it was unlocked. She pushed with her shoulder; it gave a half-inch.

‘Move it!' the male voice said, from the roof side of the door. ‘Now!'

She pushed again, and felt frustration well – they'd barricaded the door. ‘Jerod!' she shouted. ‘It's me, Dr. Conyors.' Not sure if he was even out there. ‘Wait for me! Don't run.'