Authors: Richard Montanari

The Violet Hour (13 page)

BOOK: The Violet Hour

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But, as soon as he started up the steps, the man stirred a little, his hand instinctively moving toward his now empty holster, as if to say . . .
one more please, sir, I’m not quite out of the fight . . . you see, I haven’t taken quite enough pain for my employer . . . the guy who pays me just enough money to buy my suits at Sears and my whores on Carnegie . . . more, please, sir.

Mac obliged him. He lifted his right foot parallel to the floor, about waist-high. He held on to the handrail for leverage and brought his boot down with a violent scissor kick, his heel catching the man on the right side of his jaw, splintering the man’s teeth onto the dusty hardwood floor in a spout of bone and soft red tissue. The man fell unconscious.

Mac ascended the steps to Ronnie Choi’s apartment.

Five minutes later he descended, stepped back into the alley. Ronnie Choi had been sleeping, defenseless until Mac entered the room. He begged for his life.

Mac had said no.

Mac looked both ways, lowered his sunglasses into place, and turned up the collar on his khaki jacket. Small. Very small. He walked toward Euclid Avenue, toward the lunchtime crowd.

And disappeared.

Maddie cleared her throat, stepped to the edge of the stage for her audition, and launched into:

‘
The sun’ll come up tomorrow . . .
’

Amelia had Maddie in the exact center of the camcorder’s viewfinder, a little flourish of professional videography she had learned from Roger’s brother Neal, the family’s official historian and gadget high priest. The problem was that she didn’t have the greatest seat in the auditorium, and the sound quality would probably be a little bit lacking.

On the other hand, she had the feeling that the only sound she was going to get was Paige’s sniffling. Paige loved kids, Paige wanted kids, Paige Turner had the loudest biological clock in Collier Falls. She looked over at Amelia, her bottom lip aquiver, as Maddie turned the corner on the first verse.

‘
Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
’

By the time Maddie had finished the song – a rather atonal rendering, if one were to be even Christian about it – it became clear that she didn’t have a chance at playing the feisty, carrot-topped orphan when Collier Falls Community Theater mounted Annie for the third time in the past decade.

Afterwards the three had lunch at the Applebee’s on Fordham Road, a repast during which Maddie made a project of rearranging peas, and little else.

But by the afternoon Maddie had brightened a little and she and Amelia made an angel food cake with raspberry frosting.

Amelia’s imagination needled her all afternoon. What was that very strange e-mail message about? she wondered. Was it a business letter for Roger? A personal letter for Roger? Was it a love letter from Shelley Roth?

She tried calling the technical support lines at MicroCenter at Eastgate but found out that if you hadn’t bought your computer there, you weren’t going to get any specific information out of them. However, the pert young lady at Customer Service said that they have daily computer courses and even a 900 number she could call for—

And that’s when Amelia bailed.

She dialed the second number on her list. It was the direct line to the audiovisual section of the main branch of the Cleveland Public library. The AV department handled the library’s considerable computer software collection.

‘Audiovisual, Rhonda speaking.’

‘Hi. I was wondering if you could help me with a little computer problem I’m having,’ Amelia said.

‘Well, I’ll do my best,’ Rhonda replied.

‘I received some e-mail from someone, but I think it’s in some kind of code and I—’

‘Excuse me,’ Rhonda said, interrupting. ‘I don’t mean to cut you off, but you’re kind of beyond me already.’

‘There’s no one down there who knows about this kind of thing?’

‘To be honest with you, we’ve only had one computer expert in this department over the last couple of years, and he’s no longer with us. We just sort of shuffle and file software, I’m afraid.’

‘He doesn’t work at the library anymore?’ Amelia asked.

‘I think he may be at another branch. Hang on a second.’

The electronic hiss was soon replaced by Muzak as Amelia waited. It was a Neil Diamond medley. Finally, mercifully, Rhonda returned.

‘Yeah, he’s at our Walden branch if you want to call over there. Name’s Eddie Pankow. Real whiz kid when it comes to computers.’

Amelia wrote ‘Walden’ and ‘Pankow’ on her notepad.

He could see her on the phone, through the front window, but he couldn’t hear a word she was saying. She wasn’t using the cordless telephone this time. He wondered how much she knew. He wondered if the e-mail meant anything to her, although he doubted it. After all, she had not even finished junior college.

Yet when they were intimate, he thought, when the electricity leapt between their skin and muscles and hair and bone, he wondered just how much of a challenge she was going to be. Quite formidable, he supposed. Maternal instincts and all.

Yet for some strange reason, although he wasn’t quite sure why – nor would he be for a precious few more hours – he almost wanted her to fight.

At four o’clock Maddie called from her friend Ellie Applebaum’s house. Ellie had invited Maddie for dinner, and after a short bit of whining, Maddie got her way. Amelia spoke to Ellie’s mother Dorothy, and was assured that Maddie would be home by around seven.

At six o’clock Amelia sat at her computer, a Healthy Time microwave meal (Mandarin Chicken with Snow Pea Pods) in front of her, and decided she would call information in Walden, Ohio. She looked in the phone book, got the area code, and was just about to dial when the cordless phone rang in her hand. ‘Hello . . .’

‘Hey, wife,’ Roger said.

‘Hey . . .’

‘Miss you.’

Amelia remained silent. Did she miss him? Yes. Would she let him know that? Not on your life. But she decided she was getting tired of the verbal sparring. She decided to be pleasant.

‘How’re my girls?’ Roger continued.

‘The big one’s tired,’ Amelia said. ‘The little one’s at a friend’s house. Where are you? You sound like you’re right around the corner.’

‘Just the wonders of modern science, I guess. I’m in Elkhart, Indiana.’

‘Ouch.’

‘It’s not so bad. I’m at the Sheraton. Inside, they’re all the same,’ Roger said. ‘So catch me up. Seems like I’ve been gone a week.’

Amelia related the salient details of the last few days in suburbia, including the grand opening of Paige Turner Books, as well as Maddie’s audition. For some reason, she left out the part about her and Paige nightclubbing. And the part about Dark Curls. They weren’t lies, really. Just minor, harmless omissions.

Amelia looked less than longingly at her orange glazed chicken. It had already congealed into an amorphous peach-colored mound. Disposal fodder. She’d have a bowl of Trix.

‘Great,’ Roger said, a little too enthusiastically. ‘What else is going on?’

Amelia told him about the cryptic e-mail message.

‘What do you think it is?’ Roger asked.

‘Some kind of coded e-mail, I guess,’ Amelia said. ‘Can’t read it. Looks very bizarre.’

‘Are you sure you’re supposed to be reading it?’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing,’ Roger said. ‘I’ll take a look at it when I get back.’

‘No . . . I’m serious, Roger. What did you mean by that?’

‘Nothin. Ease up on the Midol there, babe.’

‘Don’t patronize me,’ Amelia replied, a little more harshly than she intended.

Roger was quiet for a moment. ‘Look, all I meant was—’

‘Have you used my computer in the last few days?’

‘I think I used it once or twice last week when my laptop went into the shop. You weren’t home, so I just did a little online work,’ Roger replied. ‘But I assure you I didn’t send any e-mail to James Bond or anything.’ Roger laughed, but it was a humorless sound.

‘Yeah, well, maybe you should ask me first from now on,’ Amelia said, although she had no idea why. She hadn’t wanted to pick a fight, but the fight just seemed to happen.

‘Okay, boss,’ Roger said in his conciliatory manner that drove her further up the wall.

Amelia growled in frustration and Roger took it as his cue. He said he’d call tomorrow, mumbled a desultory ‘love you,’ and hung up.

Amelia listened to the silence of the house, now grown more still and empty since she’d gotten into a stupid argument with Roger. She considered calling him back to apologize, but she found that she really was a little pissed off. She wasn’t exactly sure why. Maybe it was because she really didn’t think Roger believed she could actually write a novel.

Or maybe it was just the infuriating vision of Shelley Roth and Roger slapping thighs in a Budgetel off I-271.

Sorry,
babe
.

See you at the book signing.

William Thaddeus Collins sat in a nondescript brown sedan, a double cheese Whopper in one hand, a
Cleveland Chronicle
in the other. He wore a department-issue dark blue watch cap and his customary wraparound shades, but he was clean-shaven and looked to have bulked up to a ridiculous proportion since Nicky had last seen him. Willie T had to be in his late forties, but his body was that of a much younger man.

It was late morning, so the post-breakfast, pre-lunchtime trade at the East Eighty-fifth Street Burger King was just a handful of cars. The parking lot was peppered with rusted Pontiacs and brand-new BMWs. Nicky backed into the space next to Willie T. Their driver windows were inches apart.

‘Hey, Mr T,’ Nicky said, cutting his engine.

‘What I tell you ’bout that Mr T shit?’ Willie said, with what Nicky hoped was good nature. There were times when Willie T looked meaner than the criminals. ‘And when are you gonna get a fuckin’ haircut?’

‘Said the man with no hair.’

Luckily, Willie T laughed. ‘I got hair. I just choose not to wear it. Women love a bald black man.’ He took a bite of his burger, chewed it, swallowed, and asked. ‘So you struck out with the Rat Boy, eh?’

‘Yeah,’ Nicky said. ‘But how could this heroin not be Chinese? I mean, who else would put marks like that on the bags?’

‘The Crips, the mob, the Latinos . . .’ Willie T said. ‘The Chinese don’t have no patent on that shit.’

‘Any idea where I could look next?’

‘No,’ Willie T began, ‘but I do have some advice for you.’

‘And what would that be?’

Willie T looked up from his newspaper, undividing his attention. ‘My advice to you is to back off this thing.’

‘Come again?’

‘I mean find another story, man.’

It didn’t sound like an order or anything. It sounded like a suggestion. Nicky plowed ahead. ‘I got some time into this, you know. I did go down to that scuzzy fucking place at six o’clock in the morning, putting my life in danger.’

‘I’m telling you that you don’t know what this is about, man,’ Willie said. ‘You think this is about white-boy priests and heroin, but you don’t know shit. This ain’t about that.’

‘Willie, wherever this leads, I’m going with it. You know what I’m saying? This is my ticket out, man. If the shit gets deeper, I’ll wear bigger boots. C’mon. He was my cousin.’

‘No he wasn’t. You fuckin’ lied to me about that.’

Nicky tried to stare him down, but all he got back was the fish-eye reflection of his own face in Willie’s wraparound sunglasses. It was useless. ‘Okay . . . he was like a cousin . . . close friend of the family, all right?’

Willie T studied him for what seemed like a full minute. ‘It’s bad, Nicky.’

‘Bad. Bad how? Talk to me.’ Nicky held up his hands. He noticed that they were beginning to shake a little. ‘Look . . . no pencil. Eh?’ He unbuttoned his shirt. ‘No wire.’

Willie T grabbed a napkin out of the bag and wiped his lips slowly, deliberately. He leaned forward, out the window, the sharp smell of just-eaten onions filling Nicky’s world. ‘I’m gonna tell you something that you’re not going to know. You hear me?’

‘I hear you.’

‘I ain’t fuckin’ with you, Nicky. I see a word of this in print before the investigation is over, I’ll find you and wax your ass myself. Birdman’ll hold you down. You rode with us. You know what I’m talkin’ about.’

Nicky knew exactly what he was talking about. Every crack dealer in the Third District was scared shitless of Willie T. Nicky made a Boy Scout salute with his fingers. Then crossed his heart.

Willie said: ‘The priest was fucked up. Big time.’

‘What do you mean, fucked up? Fucked up how?’

BOOK: The Violet Hour

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