still clear of noise and exhaust and the thousands of instant questions and answers that flash through the mind of a messenger as he dodged traffic, dodged pedestrians, made split-second decisions as to the shortest, fastest route to his delivery. At this early hour, the day still had a shot at being good. Usually.
He parked The Beast at the side of the restaurant, and ran the risk of leaving it unlocked, in favor of a quick getaway if he needed it. He couldn’t go inside. Instead, he crossed Fifth and stood there on the corner with his collar up high around his face, his shoulders hunched, hands in pockets, stocking cap pulled down to his eyebrows, looking like a lot of guys on these downtown streets. No one would give him a thought at all, much less a second thought.
The first couple of messengers who showed rode for another agency—one that put its messengers in logo jerseys and windbreakers. Jace knew guys who had turned down the better pay simply because they didn’t want to concede their individuality by dressing like drones. Jace would have worn a monkey suit for better pay, but agencies with uniforms didn’t pay riders off the books.
He’d been standing maybe ten minutes when he saw Mojo coming down Fifth. Even though the sun wasn’t really up yet, he wore his trademark Ray Charles shades. His ankles and shins were taped with bright green stretch tape over purple bike pants, and he wore several layers of ragged T-shirts and sweatshirts. He looked like a dancer who had hit hard times.
Jace started across the street as Mojo glided up onto the sidewalk at the alley entrance.
“Hey, buddy,” he said. “Can you give me—”
“I got nothing for you, mon,” Mojo said, braking. He swung his right leg over the back of the still-moving bike and dismounted gracefully. “I got nothing for you but good wishes.”
Jace poked his head up out of his coat as he approached, hoping Mojo would recognize him. He glanced around to make sure there was no one else on the street. “Mojo, it’s me. Jace.”
Mojo stopped dead and stared at him. He pushed his shades up into his dreads and looked some more. He didn’t smile.
“Lone Ranger,” he said at last. “You look like the Devil been chasing your tail, and he caught you.”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
“Policemen came looking for you yesterday. Two different sets of them. First one asked me did I know you. I told him no one knows the Lone Ranger.”
“What did Eta tell him?”
“She didn’t know you neither,” he said, his face gaunt and sad like the old paintings of Christ on the cross—if Christ had had a headful of dreadlocks. “For someone nobody knows, you are a very popular man, J.C.”
“It’s complicated.”
“No, I don’t think so. You killed a man or you didn’t.”
Jace looked him straight-on. “I didn’t. Why would I do that?”
Mojo didn’t blink. “Money is generally the great motivator.”
“If I had money, I wouldn’t be standing here. I’d be on a plane to South America.”
He glanced nervously down the street, waiting for someone to come out of the restaurant and see him. “I need to talk to Eta, but I can’t go back to Speed and I don’t have her cell phone number.”
“They got no telephones where Eta is, mon,” Mojo said.
A strange tension crawled down Jace’s back as he stared at Mojo’s Jesus face. His eyes were puffy and rimmed in red, as if he had been crying. “What do you mean?”
“I came past Base on my way here. The alley is nothing but lines of yellow tape like a giant cat’s cradle. A policeman was walking inside the lines.”
Jace felt the kind of cold that had nothing to do with the weather. It was the kind of cold that came from deep within.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No.”
“I said to him, ‘I work here, mon.’ He said to me, ‘Not today you don’t, Rasta man.’” His eyes went glassy with tears. His voice thickened. “‘A lady had her throat cut here last night.’”
Jace backed away a step, turned one way and then the other, looking for escape from this moment, escape from the horrible images spreading in his brain like bloodstains on cloth. “It wasn’t her.”
“Her van was sitting there. She didn’t go home without it.”
“Maybe it wouldn’t start. Maybe she called a cab.”
Mojo just watched him. Jace turned around in a circle. In his mind he was shouting for help, but like in a dream, no one could hear him. There was a huge pressure expanding inside his head, pressing against his eardrums, pressing against the backs of his eyes. He clamped his hands around his skull, as if to keep it from bursting open, to keep the images, the thoughts, from spilling out. He felt like he couldn’t breathe.
Eta. She couldn’t be dead. There was too much of her. Too much opinion, too much bluster, too much mouth, too much. Guilt rolled over him for thinking she might have betrayed him to the police. Jesus God, she was dead. Her throat had been cut.
He could see the black sedan sliding down the alley that morning. He could see Predator behind the wheel. The square head, the beady eyes, the mole on the back of his neck. He could feel the raw terror of being recognized. But the car had glided past him like the shadow of death; Predator hadn’t spared him a glance.
“Bad neighborhood,” Mojo said. “Bad things happen. Or maybe you know something we don’t.”
Jace barely heard him. Eta wasn’t dead because they worked in a bad neighborhood. Eta was dead because of him. He didn’t know why the weight of that didn’t crush him where he stood.
He’d spent most of his life keeping people at a distance to protect himself, but those same people were now in danger—or dead—because of him. The irony tasted like bile in his mouth.
“Do you know something the rest of us don’t, Lone Ranger?”
Jace shook his head. “No. I wish I did, but I don’t.”
“Then how come you running? You didn’t kill a man. You didn’t kill Eta—”
“Jesus Christ, no!”
“Then what are you running from?”
“Look, Mojo, I’m stuck in the middle of something I don’t understand. The cops would be happy to throw my ass in jail and call it a day, but I’m not going there. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“But you’re looking for help?” Mojo raised his brows. “Is that why you’re here talking to me? You wanted help from Eta, and now she’s dead. That don’t seem like a good deal.”
“You don’t know she’s dead because of me,” Jace said.
“Is that what you believe, J.C.?”
No, it wasn’t. But he didn’t say it. There was no point in saying it. Mojo had made up his mind already. Funny how he could still feel disappointed when he knew better than to expect anything from anybody.
“I don’t want anything from you,” Jace said. “And I sure as hell didn’t want what’s happened.”
He started toward The Beast.
Mojo got in front of him. “Where you going?”
Jace didn’t answer, but tried to step around him. Mojo blocked him, shoved him back a step with a hand to Jace’s shoulder.
Jace pushed him back. “I wouldn’t want to make you an accessory after the fact, Mojo. Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
“I’m not worried about you. I care about Eta. I care about what happened to Eta. Police come looking for you, now Eta’s dead. I’m thinking you should talk with the police.”
“I’ll pass.” Jace pulled his helmet on, put his left foot on the pedal, and pushed off, swinging his right leg over as the bike moved slowly forward.
“You don’t care someone cut her throat?” Mojo said, his voice growing stronger, angrier. He mounted his own bike and came alongside Jace. They went over the curb and crossed Flower. “Someone has to pay for that.”
“It’s not going to be me,” Jace said, picking up speed. “I don’t know who killed her, and I can’t go to the cops.”
He kept his eyes on the road as he said it, not wanting Mojo to see the lie. He knew damn well who killed Eta. If he went to the cops, he could get with a composite artist and describe Predator down to the mole on the back of his neck. The guy probably had a record a mile long. His face was undoubtedly in the mug books. Jace could
