'I'm just saying, is all. You seem like something's bothering you.'
'You think you know me?'
She laughed and poured another glass. 'I'm just saying, a woman can tell some things.'
All right, his shrug said, I'll give it to you. He pulled on his pants and went into the bathroom.
'Plus I never complain about your girlfriends.'
'How could you?' he called behind him.
'I could. But I don't.'
He smiled. This was just play. 'I got a guy messing with me, Violet. I don't know who he is.'
He sensed her settling in for the conversation, pleased he'd opened up to her. 'How messing?'
'Just came by the lot, asking questions.' He flipped open the cabinet in her bathroom, reached his hand in the back and opened Violet's bottle of chloral hydrate, the same powerful sleeping pills that killed Anna Nicole Smith. Dissolved in both water and alcohol. He'd used five on Richie, explained to Sharon how to mix them in.
'Questions about what?' came Violet's voice.
'Just things.' He poured out ten pills, wrapped them in a piece of toilet paper, and slipped them into his pocket.
'You doing some stuff these days now, Vic?'
He came back to the bed. 'I'm always doing something.'
She lit a cigarette. 'What's he look like?'
'Regular guy. Built.'
'Cop?'
'Doesn't have the swagger.'
'Not confident?'
'No, no, very confident. But lone-wolf confident. Like that.'
Violet was quiet. 'I heard about those Mexican girls who got killed out by the beach.'
He started pulling on his shirt. 'Oh, yeah? I did, too.'
She smoked her cigarette, wouldn't look at him. How did she know? he thought. How could she know? 'Vic, they got killed with a load of sewage.' She looked at him meaningfully. 'Whoever heard of that?'
'Pretty tough to track sewage. Stuff degrades quickly.'
'But the truck.'
'Trucks can disappear. Guys in Queens buy them for scrap, crush them an hour later.'
'But you said there's a guy-'
'Not a cop, like I said. Somebody's fucking with me.'
'I can ask people,' she said.
He found his shoes. 'Don't ask. Just listen.' He checked his watch. 'Gotta go.'
She looked at him. This was the moment when he used to give her a little kiss on the cheek, a momentary gentleness that recalled their shared childhood, her brain-damaged brother, the dead baby, the life together that never happened.
'Yeah,' said Violet. She turned her back.
Downstairs he knocked on the glass. The Nigerian guy looked up from his freaky African newspaper.
'Hey, I forgot to ask you, you seen Richie?'
'He was here couple days ago, boss.'
'Cash his check?'
The Nigerian shook his head. 'Just paying us a social visit, Mr. Vic.'
Fucking Richie, did he come and bang Violet twice a week, too? Did he tell Violet about the girls? It was quite possible.
Victor fingered the ten pills in his pocket, again checked his watch. The day had a plan. A goal. And to achieve that goal, he needed to go mix some chemicals.
21
She waited in the shadows, across the street from the truck bay on Fifty-first Street. She was dressed in the CorpServe uniform she'd last worn on the evening of the attack, yet now it was washed and pressed, all evidence of those events gone. She reached into her pocket and affixed her CorpServe ID badge. Straggling workers on their way home hurried by her, men and women thinking about dinner, the children, what was on TV tonight. A few minutes after seven p.m., the forty-four-foot CorpServe mobile shredder pulled up, #6 as usual, and the truck bay door was lifted by the security men. The truck was driven by old man Zhao, who always drove it. He had a perfect safety record, she remembered, not bad considering his age. His eyesight was excellent, too; she'd ordered him to be tested six months earlier. She had a soft spot for him; maybe he reminded her of her grandfather.
The two floor cleaners would have arrived by the service entrance already and would be upstairs at work in the Good Pharma offices. The truck was now parked for the evening in the truck bay, and Zhao had started up the actual shredder unit, which ran off an electric battery, not the diesel engine. The reason, of course, was that some trucks needed to operate within completely enclosed facilities and could not be a danger for asphyxiation by diesel exhaust of the operator as well as those nearby.
She darted across the street and found Zhao. He was surprised to see her, and she put a finger to her lips and drew him out of sight of the security camera.
'They said you were killed!' he exclaimed in Mandarin.
'Of course not,' Jen Li answered him.
'They say all the operations must stay normal. Orders from the big boss in China.'
Her brother, of course. 'That's good.'
'But everybody is nervous.'
'Tell me, how did the other Mexican girls react to the news?'
Zhao shook his head. 'Oh, they were very sad. I think some of the girls quit.'
'What about on this job?' she asked.
'Well, they shifted some of the others. Just cleaning, I think.'
'No one at the company upstairs said anything about the girls to us?' said Jin Li, scarcely able to believe it. 'Did the police ask anything?'
'A detective came around last night.' The old man pulled out a card and handed it to Jin Li. She fingered it, felt the hard edge of it. Detective Peter Blake, the lettering said, Brooklyn Homicide Division. The man who had called her. She slipped it into the pocket of the coveralls.
'What'd he say?'
Zhao straightened up, ready to make his report. It was evident he'd sought to memorize the conversation. 'He asks if we saw anybody follow the little Japanese car with the two girls in it. I say no. He asks if you were in car with the girls. I say I do not know. He says why you do not know. I say I did not see where you go, I drive the truck. He says where does Jin Li go most nights? I say I think to her apartment. He says where is that. I say I do not know. He says does Jin Li have American boyfriend named Raymond Grant and I say I do not know but I think maybe yes. He says that he thinks I know. I say yes, I have heard about this American boyfriend but I have never seen him. He says did the Mexican girls smoke pot? I say that I think they did, because of smell in the car. He says how do you know smell of pot? I say this is smoked in China except in my village we called it the pig that floats. He laughed. I liked this detective, I know you are sorry to hear this. A very professional man. He says, where else did these girls work? I say well mostly in this building but sometimes other places, too. He says why and I say because sometimes we do not have enough people in each place. He says did these Mexican girls get in any trouble on the job? I say no, I don't think so. Very good workers. He says what about their boyfriends, do they sell pot to people in company? I say no, Jin Li will fire everybody who buys pot in company. He says can I read English good. I say no, just traffic signs and beer bottles. He likes that. He says he reads beer bottles, too. He says why do I think somebody kill some Mexican girls. I say I do not know. He says maybe Jin Li kill Mexican girls then run away. I say I do not think so. He says why not. I say you are nice to those girls. Everybody think you are best boss they ever had. He say he think Mexican girls sell some drugs to everybody, maybe drugs from their boyfriends. He say Mexicans
