Even as she uncapped her latte, Sigrid said, “Is he gambling again, Drew?”
He gave her a startled look. “You know about that?”
“His mother told us. She also told us about the stealing.”
“So is he?” Hentz asked. “Gambling again?”
It was almost painful to watch the conflict between loyalty and truthfulness in the boy’s face. After a long silence, he said, “Yeah.”
“Where’s he getting the money?”
That got them a defensive negative shrug.
“He doesn’t have anything left to hock and he’s not stealing from his parents, so who is he stealing from, Drew?”
“He’s not stealing from anybody.”
Sigrid looked up from her coffee as she registered the faint stress the boy had put on the unexpected word. “
Drew stood up so quickly that his gangly limbs almost knocked over his cup. “Look, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. You need to find Corey and ask him all this stuff. Anyhow, don’t I have a right to an attorney?”
“Sit down, please, Drew,” Sigrid said with a calm level look.
Albee watched, fascinated. There was nothing menacing in the lieutenant’s manner, but Elaine had never seen her lose a staring contest. Although the teenager clearly wanted to leave, his shoulders drooped in defeat and he did as she asked.
“The day man here. Antoine. Corey gets money from him.”
“Why?”
Silence.
Elaine Albee leaned forward sympathetically and in her most coaxing voice said, “We know you don’t want to rat your friend out, Drew, but if we’re going to find him, we need all the facts. He may be into something over his head.”
Again they saw the conflicting emotions.
“You won’t tell anybody I told you? Not Corey or anybody?”
Albee glanced at Sigrid, who said, “We can’t promise that until we know what it is, but we’ll do whatever we can to keep your name out of it.”
He slumped down in the chair. “He has something on Antoine.”
“He’s blackmailing Antoine?”
Drew nodded.
“How? What’s Antoine done?”
“Corey says Antoine’s been stealing from some of the apartments. See, the super’s wife is like a klepto or something, so everyone thinks it’s her. I don’t know how Corey found out about it, but he did and Antoine pays him to keep quiet about it.”
“He’s still stealing?”
“I guess. I don’t know.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“The stealing or the blackmail?”
“Both.”
“I don’t know. Like, a couple of months maybe? Not for much. Just enough to get him into a poker game once in a while.”
“Where’s the game?”
“Now that I really don’t know. Honest. It’s some office building down in the Fifties. He’s never said and I don’t ask. I think he’s pretty good. He says he wins enough pots that with what he gets from Antoine he can keep playing once a week. He’s like trying to taper off, you know? Like when you quit smoking or drinking? He used to want to play almost every night. Now he’s down to only Tuesday or Thursday night. It’s crazy. I mean, we all like to play cards once in a while, but just penny-ante stuff. I can understand coke or meth. That messes with your body. Changes your chemistry.” He looked at them in bewilderment. “But gambling? How can it mess with your head that much?”
And of course, they had no answer to the boy’s plaintive question. After a few more questions of their own, they thanked him and let him go.
Sigrid looked at her watch. Nearly five o’clock. “Let’s talk to the porters again. See if they know more about Corey and Antoine. Are they still here?”
“Vlad Ruzicka is, I know,” Lowry said. “He was on his way out to shovel the sidewalk when I came up. Tomorrow’s their pickup day and he had to make a place to set the bags.”
“Let’s see what else he knows,” Sigrid said as she took a final swallow of her coffee. “Might as well add our cups to his trash.” She picked up her parka, which had been lying on the back of her chair, and realized that she had forgotten to tell them about the flip-flop that Deborah had found. She took it from her pocket to show them and Hentz immediately recognized that the earring stuck in the sole was a mate to the one they had found in Lundigren’s hand.
