“Chases whores, you say?”
“Yes,” Herkus said.
“You think he has something to do with this girl that did your man Tomas in?”
“Yes.”
Maxwell stood and went to a small photocopier. “Do you mind?”
Herkus shrugged.
Maxwell slipped the envelope onto the copier’s glass and made a duplicate. “I’ll pass some copies round my drivers, see if the picture rings any bells. All right?”
Herkus nodded.
“And you be careful with that gun,” Maxwell said. “You get caught with them bullets or that coke, you didn’t get them from me, right?”
“Right,” Herkus said.
He stood and went to the door, opened it, was almost through when Maxwell called after him.
“If I turn this fella up for you, how much money are we talking?”
Herkus stopped and looked back into the office. “Good money,” he said. “Buy you a shirt that fits.”
31
GALYA HAD LISTENED to him sing for at least an hour before she fell asleep again. She heard words like “Jesus,” “savior,” and “almighty” creeping up through the floor, while occasionally the other voice, the animal voice from above, provided a skewed harmony as it wailed.
She had crawled back into the bed, wrapped herself in the blankets, and prayed to Mama. Sleep took her as she mouthed the words against the pillow.
A sound awoke her: the slamming of a door. She sat up, listened. The metallic sound of a lock. Galya squeezed her eyes shut and strained the limits of her hearing. There, maybe, the noise of an engine first clattering into life, then dissolving into the surrounding quiet.
It had been so faint, she couldn’t be sure if she’d heard anything after the door being locked. It could have been her own sleep-addled imagination.
The painted-out window only allowed the thinnest slivers of light into the room, but Galya could tell by the movement of the shadows that some time had passed. Her temples pulsed, and her tongue rasped the roof of her mouth. She pushed the blankets back, and the air crept cold and damp around her. Her breath misted. She smelled the decaying blood on her clothes, like metal and ripe meat.
The wailing from above had stopped. Quiet hung over the place, the world heavy with silence. Was she alone in this house? Had Billy Crawford, if that was really his name, left her here?
She climbed out of the bed and picked her way through the remnants of the drawer she had smashed. Once more, she pressed her ear against the door and listened.
Galya leaned her forehead against the smooth paint and commanded herself to think. Not panic like before, not cry in fear, but think until she found a way out.
She stepped back from the door and surveyed the room. The bed, the chest of drawers, a closet in the far corner, and the cheap carpet. Nothing else. She went from wall to wall, tapping each with her knuckles. All solid.
The pieces of the smashed drawer lay scattered at her feet. She dropped to her knees and peered under the bed. Dust scratched at her lungs and nasal passages. She reached for the drawer front, its handle still attached. It felt solid in her hands. She got back to her feet and dropped it on the bed.
A single painted door sealed the closet. She opened it. Empty, save for the spiders and their webs. It was perhaps sixty centimeters wide, and the same in depth, with bare floorboards at its bottom. She stepped inside, felt the rough wood on her feet.
The smell in here was different. Cleaner.
No, not cleaner. Newer. She smelled paint, not brand new, but not long applied.
She ran her fingertips over the surfaces of the walls, felt the almost imperceptible ripples left by a paintbrush. If the rest of the room was so old and worn, why paint the interior of a closet?
Galya explored further with her hands, letting them skim the walls and up into the darkness over her head. She couldn’t reach the ceiling, but her fingers found something hard and cold.
A hook.
She stretched up until she found the chain it hung from, pulled, and found it fixed solid to the closet’s ceiling. It was strong enough to support her weight, her toes skittering across the floorboards until her knees hit the rear wall with a hollow thud.
Hollow?
She released the hook, let her feet settle on the floor. With one knuckle, she tapped the left wall.
Solid.
The right wall.
Solid.
The back wall.
Hollow.
Again, Galya tapped, exploring the surface, listening as she went. She worked left to right, an inch at a time. Every gentle knock resonated until she got halfway. A solid part, perhaps two inches wide, then hollow again all the way across.
She stepped out of the closet and lifted the drawer front from the floor. Its corners were blunted from being rammed against the glass, but it was all she had. She moved back into the closet and raised the drawer front to shoulder height. Putting her weight behind it, she drove the wood into the rear wall.
The torn animal voice rose somewhere above. Galya closed her eyes and prayed once more to Mama’s spirit.
Again, she struck the wall. A sprinkling of dust fell away. The voice called in response.
Another strike, all her strength channeled through her shoulders, and a small square of plaster fell away to reveal thin wooden slats.
“Thank you, Mama,” Galya whispered.
32
LENNON FOUND ROSCOE PATTERSON playing pool in a social club off Sandy Row. Roscoe didn’t look up as Lennon entered. He took his shot, potted the purple stripe, and lined up his next.
“A word,” Lennon said, kicking snow from his shoes.
“Fuck off,” Roscoe said. The yellow stripe went down.
His pool opponent glared. The half-dozen fellow drinkers watched from the shaded corners of the bar.
“That’s not nice,” Lennon said, keeping his tone as friendly as he could manage, given the surroundings. “C’mon, just a word. It’ll only take a minute, then you can get back to beating your friend here.”
Roscoe looked up at his compatriot, but didn’t spare Lennon a glance. He placed the cue on the table and walked past Lennon toward the door, keeping his jaw firm and his eyes averted all the way. He grabbed a coat from a hook by the exit. Lennon followed him out to the patch of waste ground that served as a car park.
“You know better than to come round here,” Roscoe said as he fished a packet of cigarettes from his coat pocket. “What makes you think I’ve got anything to say to you? You’re lucky I didn’t have your fucking brains blown out after that last time you came asking questions.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Lennon said. He pointed to Roscoe’s cigarettes. “Can you spare one?” “Not for you,” Roscoe said. He cupped his hand around the flame from his lighter until the cigarette caught.
Lennon plucked the cigarette from his lips and brought it to his own. He inhaled the heat.
“Cheeky cunt,” Roscoe said, taking another from the packet. “Charming as ever,” Lennon said. “This won’t take long. Help me out, and I’ll piss off. Don’t, and I’ll be round to your house for my Christmas dinner.”
Roscoe lit his cigarette and put the packet away. Snow settled on his shaven scalp. He pulled his hood
