'Hey, watch that.' An irritated Cartuso, now on the bottom step, complained at the stampede for the door.
'Did you see everything?' Bernheim asked April.
She shook her head. 'I'll have to save it for later.'
'No matter. It's not going anywhere.'
They pushed past him, jostling each other for first out the door. Suddenly, after the delay, they were racing. April rushed out into the street and jumped into the passenger side of the unlocked Camaro, almost slamming the door on her foot. Mike dove into the driver's side and reached for the gum ball under the seat. He plopped it on the roof, turned the ignition key, and hit the hammer. His siren wailed all the way across the Brooklyn Bridge and kept wailing as they headed out on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
CHAPTER 47
R
ing Road did not run in a circle. It traveled parallel to Roosevelt Field, cutting a wide swath of comfortable, tree-and shrub-lined boulevard across a ten-block length of suburban city. Two lanes of traffic could travel each way, yet there was still room along the sidewalk for parking. Since every house had an ample driveway, few cars were parked on the street at any time of the day; even at peak traffic hours, a sense of quiet and order prevailed. By anybody's standards, it was an area not without its charm, even elegance.
After their long vigil on Allen Street and a frantic phone call in the early afternoon, Frankie and Joey arrived at the Hua house at 4:03. By a quarter past four they had settled in the living room and were heatedly reporting what they knew about the murder of Nanci's cousin.
'We saw those guys go in real early. Unbelievable, they were opening up as usual. These guys are something. They both have green Mercedes.' Milton's friend Frankie had been marveling over the cars for hours now.
'We got there at seven-thirty. The two fat dudes showed up, like almost instantly,' Joey confirmed.
'But then when the girls showed up for work, they didn't let any of them come in. They stood at the door and sent them all away. One guy went out for food. Then a couple hours later, a pizza was delivered and another joker turned up in a taxi. This one was wearing a suit, but he looked just like them. He left in a hurry just before the cops got there. Then a whole bunch of cops were in and out of there, are probably still there. But your little Chink lady never showed—'
'Hey, watch that,' Milton said sharply.
'What?' Frankie entreated Nanci with a what-did-I-do expression.
'We're Chinks,' she reminded him. 'My cousin was a Chink.'
'Oh, give me a break. Can't you tell the difference?' He looked disgusted.
'No.' Nanci stared at the window, too upset to make an issue of it.
'Of course she didn't show up, stupid. Lin was already dead. That's why Annie never called back.' Milton shook his head and glanced at his wife. 'You okay, baby?'
Nanci's teeth were clamped hard on her bottom hp to keep it from quivering. She couldn't believe this was happening, the sweet baby upstairs, crazy Frankie in her living room, and the man who said he was a police captain, coming for the baby. It was impossible to imagine Lin dead and her murderer on his way out to their little house to take away her baby.
She didn't have a chance to answer. Frankie was back on track with his story. He'd never even met Lin, but suddenly, describing the police activity around the building where she had died, and the neighbors' feelings about the arrogance of the Popescu family, he was as incensed as any blood relation.
Nancy wondered where April was. She'd said help was on the way. But where was it? Where was help? And where was the man who'd claimed he was a police captain? Nanci hoped he'd changed his mind. It occurred to her that the call might have been a cruel prank. Maybe no such person was on his way out there, and she and Milton had encouraged crazy Frankie and Joey to drive out for nothing. She hoped that was the case.
'Help is on the way,' she murmured at Milton. He was sitting in a chair by the window. Like her, he had one eye on the street and one eye on his friend.
'Sons of bitches,' Frankie was saying about the Popescus.
Nanci could see that Milton didn't like Frankie's being all pumped up like this any more than she did. Suddenly Frankie got up from the sofa by the fireplace and started walking around, waving his arms, all excited by the police investigation of a murder of someone he felt was closely related to him. If she hadn't known him for more than a decade, she would have been even more frightened. Frankie was not easygoing like Milton. He was almost nine inches taller than his friend, an angry-looking young man with a hooked nose and a big mouth who'd been a brawler from the day he could walk. Even in Little Italy, where a certain lack of impulse control among young men was not uncommon, Frankie was out there near the far end of the bell curve of aggression.
But of the two, his best pal, Joey, was generally regarded as the dangerous one. The only thing that could incense Joey more than the real cops he'd seen hanging out around Allen Street with their walkie-talkies and other cop gear was a cop impersonator. That really pissed him off. Joey never got tired of telling people of an incident a year ago when he'd been dragged off a subway by a man and a woman claiming they were police officers. The woman had been wearing a silver police shield around her neck; the man had on ragged jeans and sneakers. The two of them looked like a hooker and a doper to Joey, but they managed to pull him and three other people off the train at a deserted stop and rob them on the platform. Then they took off. As soon as they started running, Joey and the other men went after them. It must have been quite a sight: the two muggers emerging on the street with their victims in hot pursuit. Some passersby picked up on it and called 911. The woman got away, but when the victims caught up with the man, he turned on them with a lead pipe. In the ensuing battle, he managed to split one man's head open with the pipe before Joey took a good, deep slice out of him with his switchblade. Joey recovered his wallet and watch and was out of there before the police showed up. Nanci could see from the faraway look in his eye that he was thinking of the triumph of that much-discussed day, and of his wish to repeat it.
'We'll show this guy,' he said, abruptly zooming in to focus on the present. It was clear that for Joey it had been bad enough to watch real cops at work that morning; the threat of being pushed around by a phony one was more than he could bear.
Nanci cast an anxious look at her husband. 'Milton,' she murmured.
'Okay, okay. Just calm down, will you?' Milton shook his head at the two, then turned his attention to the window. 'It looks fine out there. Maybe you guys better take off.'
Frankie sprang across the room, punching one fist into his open hand. 'No way. Who's going to protect you if this asshole shows up with a gun?'
Nanci flashed to the last sight she'd had of her cousin, walking away down the street without looking back. Her eyes flooded.
'Hey, hey. It's okay.' Milton jumped out of the chair, crossed the room, and took Nanci in his arms. He hugged her tightly.
'April said the killer threw Lin out the window,' Nanci sobbed. 'Oh, God, she must have been so scared.' She held on to her husband. 'Who could do something like that?'
'We'll get him,' Frankie promised.
'No! Milton's right. You should go home. You've been great, but, please, we're okay now.' Nanci got up and checked the street. There was nothing going on out there but the usual daytime traffic. She swiped at her eyes. 'Get them to go, Milton.'
'You're no fun,' Frankie joked.
That really angered her. 'This is not a game. Please, Milton, tell them we're okay now,' she cried.
'Nobody has a gun, right?' Milton looked from one to the other. Now he was worried.
'Right,' Frankie said seriously. 'This isn't a game.'
'You promised me no guns.'
Frankie glanced at Joey. 'I don't have a gun, do you have a gun?'
'No way, man.' Joey got to his feet and backed out to the door to the kitchen. 'I'm clean.'
'There are real cops on the way out here, understand?' Milton got up, too. Now they were all on their feet. Nanci started trembling.
'You got a gun, you get outta here.' Milton chose to advance on his friend.
