‘You think, wherever he went, there had to be someone already there?’
‘Not necessarily. He might have gone to an apartment with windows in the back. And it’s not that dark, even with the overcast. He could be making do.’ He turns to look at Angel, his eyes now amused. ‘You were right, Angel. The dearly departed Ricky Ditto was definitely connected to the building.’
Angel’s pleased when Carter’s gaze, as it shifts from her eyes to the van’s windshield, briefly settles on her breasts. She’s unbuttoned the top three buttons of her dowdy blouse, the better to tease him with. Carter likes to be teased, as Angel likes to tease.
‘So, what now?’
‘We need intelligence, and I think I know just the cop to get it from. Meanwhile, we sit.’ Carter drops his hands to his lap. ‘So, you’re on the plaza at Lincoln Center and there are all these rich people ...’
Angel takes a moment. Her story is essentially true, but she wants it to be entertaining as well. ‘I think I was dazzled at first,’ she finally says. ‘But after a while I began to see a pattern that caught my attention. More than half the women were much, much younger than the men, at least twenty years. I saw a lot of men in their fifties with wives in their thirties, and a few in their forties with wives in their twenties, but all of the women had diamond rings – and I’m talkin’ big, Carter – on their left hands.’
Angel holds up her own left hand with its unadorned ring finger. ‘So, like, they troop inside and go up this flight of stairs to the second floor and then down this long promenade. Avery Fisher Hall has two-story floor-to- ceiling windows and I watched the parade for a while. That’s when I realized that some of the women were in their fifties, while the men were really old. I saw two women actually pushing wheelchairs. Amazing, right? But you know what? These women were seeing their husbands into the grave. They were keeping their end of the deal.’
‘The trophy wife deal?’ Carter smiles. ‘That’s what you want, Angel? To be a trophy wife?’
‘Hey, remember those Marilyn Monroe movies,
Carter’s about to concede the point when Ruby Amaroso, still toting the gym bag, exits the Wilson Arms and dashes to his car. When he pulls away from the curb, Carter works his way into the front seat and starts the van.
‘So, what do you think, Angel? Is he bringing money in or taking it out?’
‘Why? Are you going to steal the bag?’
Carter shakes his head. ‘We’re not giving up the element of surprise for an unknown reward. Did Ricky say anything about what he did for a living?’
‘He hinted that he was some kind of gangster.’
‘Gangster covers a lot of ground, but if he was dealing drugs, especially on a wholesale level, he’d have money stashed somewhere, a lot of money. And that stash would most likely be in a place nobody would suspect. But I’m getting ahead of myself. We need more information.’
‘Does that mean you’re going to do it? You’re going to rip them off?’
‘It means I’m real interested.’
Carter turns on to Broadway, giving the BMW plenty of room. He drops his hand to Angel’s knee and runs a finger along the inside of her thigh. She responds by kissing the side of his neck.
‘Tell me more about your gold digger scheme,’ he says. ‘Tell me why you need capital.’
‘OK, my plan is to go to the Caribbean once I have my stake in place – to St Barts or Tobago where you get an international crowd – and open a small art gallery. But suppose I went there broke. How long would I last before I became somebody’s mistress? These men, the ones I’m talking about, they know how to play rough, especially if a girl doesn’t have options. That’s what having your own money really does. It gives you options.’
‘I won’t argue the point, but I have one question. Have you ever considered a plan B?’
‘Which is?’
‘Hard work, education?’
Angel doesn’t respond and they follow the BMW over the Broadway Bridge and into Manhattan. By the time they pass Columbia University, Carter knows exactly where the gangster’s headed. He’s on his way to Angel’s apartment where he finally pulls to the curb beside a fire hydrant and settles in to watch the entrance to her building. Carter drives on past, makes a right on to West End Avenue, then double-parks.
‘What are you going to do?’ Angel asks.
‘Send a message.’
‘A message.’
‘I want to concentrate Bobby Ditto’s attention. I want him to be more worried about his own skin than his money in the Bronx.’
‘Are you going to take the bag?’
‘Absolutely not.’
A car slides away from the curb and Carter pulls the van into the open slot. Angel can almost see the neurons firing away in his brain. Without warning, a single thought grabs her own attention: Get away from this man. Even if you have to sleep in the goddamned subway, even if you have to go home with the first jerk you meet in a corner bar. Carter’s traveling a road that has nothing to do with Angel Tamanaka and her plans for the future.
‘OK, Angel, here’s the way I want it to go down. We circle around the block so that we come up behind him. I want you to walk ahead of me, understand? You walk right past him, turn the corner, jump into the back of the van and stay down. I’ll take care of the rest.’
‘Which is exactly what?’
‘That depends. If there are witnesses, I’ll have to settle for a beating. If we’re alone on the block, I’m going to kill him. You understand, Angel. When he picked up the gun, he lost his right to live. He became a warrior and all wars have casualties.’
Angel doesn’t mistake the warning. If she helps him now, she’ll be picking up a gun of her own. And she understands what he means about the right to live. You can’t take human life and claim your own life to be somehow sacred. And there’s one other thing. If she goes along, she becomes an accomplice, an outlaw, in her own eyes and in the eyes of the police.
‘Why do you want me to walk past him?’
‘First, to distract him. Beyond that? Look, he fucked up last time out. Now he has a shot at redemption. I think he’ll try to force you into the car. With a little luck, he won’t notice me until I’m on top of him.’
The conflicts ricochet through her mind, the pros and cons, the costs and benefits, the risks and the rewards. Much too fast to be weighed. Angel feels only the ascension of some wild piece of herself, a chained demon suddenly freed and all the more powerful for its long imprisonment.
‘Just walk past him, right? Walk past and keep on going?’
‘That’s right.’ Carter leans forward to detach the knife strapped to his left calf. He slides it behind the waistband of his khaki pants. ‘Just walk past him and keep on going no matter what. Even if he somehow takes me out, you’ll be safe.’
‘OK, I’ll do it.’
ELEVEN
Carter’s time with Paulie has taught him that most gangsters, no matter how tough, are poorly trained and unpracticed. Maybe they’ll fight at the drop of a hat, maybe they’ll kill you and go to lunch afterward, but they lack the skills to effectively defend themselves. He follows Angel down the block, she beneath a blue umbrella, he on the opposite side of the street and slightly behind, moving in the shadows. The rain is falling hard, the entire block deserted. There’s not a surveillance camera in sight.
The gangster produces a double take worthy of a silent movie comedian when Angel walks by, his hand already groping for the door’s handle. He opens the door, slides out into the rain and takes a step, the possibility that he’s the hunted, not the hunter, never entering his mind.
