Night Secrets (37 page)

The bottles inside the cooler rattled loudly as they knocked against each other, but Farouk did not seem to hear them. He pressed the man's face hard against the glass, flattening his nose against it.

“I am Farouk,” he said. “I am one who seeks to discover something from you.” He pinned the man against the cooler, then drew his head back and slammed it once again into its glass door. “Now, do you know who I am?”

The man groaned.

“Please, you must say my name,” Farouk ordered.

“Farrooggg,” the man moaned.

Farouk spun him around and slapped him once, almost lightly, with an open hand, in the face. The man's head jerked back against the cooler, then slumped forward into Farouk's open hand.

Farouk lifted the head again and stared into the man's glistening eyes.

“I am looking for one who bought a case of raki with a credit card,” he said. “This credit card did not belong to this person, and I wish to discover who he is.”

The man stared at Farouk fearfully. “Please,” he groaned, “I don't remember every customer.”

“A case of raki is not usual,” Farouk said. “This you would remember.”

The man stared at him pleadingly, but didn't speak.

Farouk gave him a lethal glare. “Do not hesitate,” he told him darkly. “I will not be turned aside.”

“I don't know his name,” the man stammered. “He drives a red car, very fancy, with a white top made out of that velvet-type stuff.”

“What kind of car?”

“I don't know,” the man told him. “But when he ordered the raki, he was driving it.”

“Have you ever seen it parked around here?”

The man nodded brokenly. “Yeah, once or twice.”

“Where was this?”

“In front of one of those buildings near the highway,” the man said. “You know, on the block.”

“North or south?”

The man hesitated. “Who is this guy?” he asked fearfully. “I mean, is he connected?”

Farouk placed his hand around the man's throat and held him tightly against the cooler. “Which building?” he asked.

The man's brief resistance collapsed. “It's just down the block,” he whined. “I seen the car in front of it just a few minutes ago. In front of that little dump on the corner. I seen the car parked there.”

“Does he live in that building?”

“I guess he does,” the man said. “When he bought the raki, that's where he wanted it delivered.”

“Did you deliver it?”

“Yeah, the regular guy was out.”

“What is the apartment number?”

“I don't remember no number,” the man said. “It was just a place at the end of the hall.”

“What floor?”

“Third,” the man said.

“What did the guy look like?”

The man looked surprised. “You don't know that?”

Farouk's finger tightened around his throat again. “What does he look like?” he repeated.

“He's tall, and he got a black mustache,” the man said. “A big thick one that's sort of curled up at the end. And he wears the red thing around his neck, like a handkerchief or something.”

Farouk glanced at Frank quizzically.

“That's the man I saw,” Frank said.

Farouk released his grip on the man's throat, his eyes glaring at him in a deadly calm. “I am invisible, yes?” he asked.

The man gasped for breath. His hands rose to massage his throat. “I never seen you,” he stammered. He swallowed hard. “And I don't want to never see you again.”

Farouk nodded, almost politely, then turned and walked out onto the street. Frank followed just behind him, and both of them glanced to the right immediately, their eyes narrowing in on the red car.

“Wait here,” Farouk said. “I will return in a moment.”

Frank eased himself back against the window of the liquor store and watched as Farouk walked down to the car, passing it casually, with hardly a glance, and then heading on down to the end of the block to where a telephone booth stood at the edge of the curb.

Within only a few minutes he'd returned, ambling slowly up the sidewalk, gawking at the large buildings which stretched up Fifty-seventh Street like a foreigner in the city, overwhelmed by its size and bustle.

“I checked the license number of the car,” he said as he joined Frank beside the window. “It is registered in New Jersey under the name of Joseph Fellows.”

“Is it stolen?” Frank asked.

Farouk shook his head. “I do not think so. Another call allowed me to discover that Mr. Fellows fits the man you saw, and that he is a man of many complaints.”

“Complaints?”

“He has many outstanding warrants on him,” Farouk explained. “They arc from New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts.”

“Nothing from New York?”

“No,” Farouk said. “But many from the other places.”

“What are the warrants for?”

“Petty matters,” Farouk said, as if disappointed. “He is a man of small larcenies. He has done nothing which the local authorities would be interested in pursuing with sufficient speed to save the Puri Dai.”

“So it's up to us?”

Farouk nodded.

“How do you want to do it?” Frank asked, meaning the time and the method they would use.

Farouk took the question differently. “With determination,” he replied. “And without relent.”

F
or a little while they lingered in front of the liquor store. Farouk smoked a cigarette while his eyes idly swept up and down the street. He seemed deep in thought, as if considering all the moves it was now possible for the two of them to make.

“Do you think Fellows is in there?” Frank asked after a moment.

“I do not know.”

“And the little girl?”

Farouk shrugged. “We will soon discover it,” he said confidently. “If he is within the building, he will have to come out. If he is without, we will strike at him before he returns.”

Suddenly, something occurred to Frank. “The raki,” he said anxiously. “That whole case of raki. It's for the ceremony you talked about. To bathe the little girl.”

Farouk nodded.

Frank felt a wave of anger pass over him. “Maybe we shouldn't wait,” he said. “Maybe we should go get him now.” He stepped away from Farouk. “The little girl may …”

Farouk grabbed his arm, interrupting him. “It will not be done here,” he said. “It is a celebration. Many will come. It is a festival from ancient days. The little girl has not yet been harmed.”

Frank turned westward, to the dilapidated red-brick tenement that rested at the far edge of Fifty-seventh Street, its western corner just beneath the cement canopy of the West Side Highway. “Well, how long do you want to wait?”

“We do not know what we may find inside,” Farouk said. “We should try to take him on the street.”

“So you just want to stake the place out,” Frank said.

“For as long as possible, yes,” Farouk said. “But not from here. We must find another place.”

“Okay,” Frank said. He glanced about, his eyes finally lighting on a small alleyway on the east side of the street. He pointed it out to Farouk. “How about over mere?”

Farouk nodded immediately. “Yes, that is good. From there we could observe everything.”

They walked to the alley and took up their positions at once, edging themselves into the slender brick corridor, their bodies concealed from the tenement by a single jutting wall.

Farouk took out his cigarette holder, inserted a cigarette and lit it.

Frank kept his eyes on the building, his face pressed up against the corner of the wall while he watched it intently.

“You will never have the Puri Dai,” Farouk said after a moment, as if he knew exactly what Frank was thinking.

Frank continued to watch the building. “Do you think she's in there?” he asked softly.

“If she is,” Farouk answered bluntly, “then she is already dead.”

“She has a gun.”

“As all women should have,” Farouk said, as if it were an indisputable truth of life that a gun alone would finally be the dark irreducible means of women's deliverance.

“I hope she knows how to use it,” Frank said.

Farouk drew in a long, weary breath. “So do I.”

Suddenly a light went on at the front of the third-floor landing, held a moment, then went off again. Frank leaned forward, raking his face against the rough cement wall as he peered closely at the now darkened space behind the unshaded windows. He could feel a dull ache in the wound on the side of his head, but it seemed almost a source of pleasure, a physical connection between himself and the Puri Dai, the only one he would ever know. He lifted his fingers to the bruised flesh, explored it gently for a moment, then let his hand drift down again to the empty holster at his side.

“My gun has never been registered,” he said.

“Do you wish it to be registered?”

“What do you mean?”

“I can accomplish this,” Farouk said. “Long ago I found the key to the Firearms Registry.”

Frank looked at him, astonished. “You can register guns?”

Farouk nodded. “To anyone I choose,” he said. “Do you wish yours to be registered?”

Frank shook his head. “No. Because if she uses it, it can't be traced back to me.”

Farouk smiled knowingly. “You mean through you, to her, yes?” he asked.

Frank didn't answer. He kept his eyes fixed on the unlighted upper windows. “If we find them,” he said, “the Puri Dai and her daughter, what do we do?”

“The Puri Dai cannot be released,” Farouk said. “She has betrayed the
errate
. She will never be safe from those who will seek vengeance.”

“What about her daughter?”

“She is young,” Farouk said. “She will grow into another face, another body. One day, she will be released.” His face grew very solemn. “But the Puri Dai, she is doomed.”

Frank pulled his eyes from the window and looked at Farouk. “I wonder if there was ever a way out for her?” he asked.

“There was only one,” Farouk said authoritatively. Then he reached down and opened his coat. The black handle of his pistol peeped out from beneath his arm like the muzzle of a small but fiercely determined animal. “And she has found it,” he added. “Blessed be she among women.”

It was almost midnight before Frank finally pulled his eyes away from the building again. He could feel the wound she'd given him aching insistently, drawing one wide line of pain from the torn flesh to his weary, throbbing eyes.

“Soon,” Farouk said, as if to give him strength.

“Maybe they've already gone.”

Farouk shook his head. “I do not think so.”

“Why not?”

Farouk lifted his arms helplessly. “Because I am one who lives on faith.”

Frank turned back toward the building, once again pressing the side of his face against its rough surface. The front windows of the third-floor landing were still dark, but he could see a faint yellow glow, as if candles were flickering weakly far back in the room.

“He must be in there,” Frank said. “Let's go in and get him.”

Farouk pulled himself to his feet, walked over to the edge of the wall and peered up at the windows. “He is not yet there,” he said.

Frank looked at him. “How do you know?”

Farouk's eyes were no longer raised, but now stared straight ahead, level with the street. “Because he is there,” he said evenly.

Frank immediately turned toward the street. He could see the man ambling slowly down the opposite sidewalk, the large straw hat cocked to the right, its brim shaking slightly in the breeze that swept toward him from the river.

“That is the man, yes?” Farouk asked.

Frank could feel his whole body tightening, as if someone were screwing his loosely fitted bones back into their sockets. “That's him,*' he said.

Farouk stepped around him, as if to hold him back. “All right, we will act now,” he said. “But with care.”