herself. She imagines vaulting over the hood, tearing through the door, fleeing across the lawn. But then Carter backs out of the car. He nudges the door closed with his knee and turns to face her.
‘Tell me what you’re doing here?’
Carter knows that he’s best served by killing this woman. Avoid collateral damage? Minimize civilian casualties? Sure, by all means. There are innocents on many battlefields. But minimize doesn’t mean eliminate. Neither does avoid. Besides, Carter doesn’t know whether or not she’s an innocent bystander. Maybe she’s a warrior, like Ricky Ditto, in which case she has no rights at all. In which case her beauty won’t save her. She’ll never leave the garage.
‘I’m, like, on a date,’ Angel finally says.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Angel.’
‘Show me some ID.’
‘What?’
‘You’re a whore, isn’t that right? When you say “date”, you mean he’s paying you to fuck him.’
Ordinarily, Angel lies about her profession. Not this time. ‘I’m a sex worker,’ she says.
‘Congratulations, it’s a lot better than being his girlfriend.’ Carter has trafficked with whores in the past, as a uniformed soldier, a mercenary and as a soldier of fortune. He harbors them no ill will. Mostly – though probably not in this case – their working lives were about survival under harsh circumstances. ‘So, what’s with the outfit? And I meant what I said. Show me some ID. In fact, just toss me your purse.’
Angel complies eagerly. She watches him extract her driver’s license, her Social Security card and her Brooklyn College ID card. That he’s memorizing her address and Social Security number is a given. That he wouldn’t bother if he intended to kill her is also a given.
When the door opens, don’t hesitate, walk on through. Seize the day. Angel opts for submission. She’s thinking that she doesn’t have to cringe. This weird-looking man, with his green jacket and his plaid sport shirt and his khaki chinos, doesn’t care what she’s feeling. He wants her to obey.
Carter tosses the purse to Angel. At least she didn’t lie when he asked her name. Angela is close enough to Angel. And her last name, Tamanaka, confirms his guess about her ancestry.
‘Your mother’s Caucasian, right?’
‘My mother’s a drunk.’
The answer takes Carter by surprise, though his expression doesn’t change. He’s thinking it’s time to get out of Dodge. Past time, actually. ‘Here’s what happens next, Angel. You and me, we’re going through that door at the back of the garage. Then we’re gonna walk around the house, down the driveway and make a right turn. There’s a van parked near the end of the block. We’ll enter it through the side door, no delay, no hesitation. Understood?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good. Now, I want you to open your umbrella so we can huddle beneath it when we get to the end of the driveway. I want us to be a loving couple just going about our business, no reason in the world to pay us any attention.’ Carter shoves the gun into his pocket. ‘Don’t make a mistake here, Angel. Plan B is real simple: I kill you. Now, tell me what’s up with the outfit? You look like a nun.’
Angel’s mind boils with unanswered questions. What if someone, a neighbor, sees them walking away from the scene of a murder? What if someone saw her drive up with Ricky? What if someone noticed a strange van parked on the block? How can he be sure that she won’t run to the cops the minute he releases her? Angel has no time to consider the answers, though she can’t stop the questions. She’s too busy doing what she does so well, entertaining a man. Angel tells Carter all about her work as they make their way around the house and along the driveway to the sidewalk, as they boldly march up the block. Her tone is engaged and somewhat intimate, as if she was revealing some juicy bit of gossip to a close friend.
‘I mean, you look in the phone book under escort services, you find hundreds of ads. But not my agency, not Pigalle Studios. At Pigalle, you have to be personally recommended. We don’t even have an address. It’s all word of mouth and Pierre runs the whole thing out of his loft. Pierre says that what we do is an art form.’
Angel notes Carter’s occasional smile and wonders if he’s turned on. ‘Far from controlling my life, I haven’t seen Pierre since last August when I ran into him at a party. He collects the fee – credit card only – and deposits my commission in my bank account. At the end of the year, I get a 1099 tax form in the mail and I pay what I owe. No harm, no foul.’
Carter unlocks the van with his remote. He opens the side door, motions Angel through and follows closely behind, forcing her against the far door. Then he locks the doors and flips a child protection switch that allows him to control the door locks throughout the van. Finally satisfied, he starts the engine and drives away.
‘If I was your client, what fantasy do you think I’d pick?’ he asks.
Angel tilts her head to one side and peers at Carter. Talk about forgettable. Carter’s neither ugly, nor handsome. He’s a twenty-something in good shape, though not especially broad or tall, with medium-length, light brown hair, not quite a nerd, but definitely edging toward that side of the spectrum. That he should be a professional killer amazes her.
‘OK, like you’re this hard-hearted, cold-blooded, merciless assassin. You’ve murdered so many people you can’t even remember their faces. And what you’re thinkin’, though you don’t say it out loud, is that you have to kill me, too. I mean, keepin’ me alive? It doesn’t make sense. But there’s something about me, so young, so innocent, that your heart is touched ...’ Angel’s about to say, ‘And your cock, too,’ but censors herself at the last moment. Which is not to say that she wouldn’t trade sex for her life.
Carter laughs for the first time in weeks, laughs at Angel’s boldness. ‘In the end, of course, I let you go. I let you go and everybody lives happily ever after.’
‘Or words to that effect.’
‘Do I get laid along the way?’
‘Do you want to?’
‘No, I want you to pass a little test for me, a one-question test: How can I be sure you won’t run to the cops if I let you go?’
Angel’s already asked herself the same question. Now, hearing it from Carter’s lips, she knows there’s an answer. She knows because she’s looking right at him and he’s not worried.
Carter takes the scenic route back to Manhattan, Broadway instead of the West Side Highway. He doesn’t want to pass over the Henry Hudson Bridge with its toll plaza and surveillance cameras that photograph every license plate. He wants more time with Angel, too.
‘Here’s a hint,’ Carter says. ‘You probably won’t have to go to the cops. Most likely, they’ll come to you.’
Damn, Angel thinks. She must be a complete idiot. Ricky Ditto can be tied to Pigalle Studios through his credit card records. And Pierre? Pierre’s a nice guy, but if the cops press him, he’ll give her up in a heartbeat.
‘So, what are you gonna tell them, Angel? If the cops should knock on your door? Will you claim that a mysterious hitman just happened to be waiting in the house when you showed up? How will you prove it? I didn’t leave any trace evidence in that house. It’s your word against nothing.’
‘OK, I get the point. So tell me what you’d do, if you were in my position.’
‘I’d call my pimp—’
‘My agent.’
‘I’d call my agent and tell him the trick didn’t—’
‘The client.’
‘I’d tell him the client never showed up. I’m cold, I’m wet and I’m really pissed off.’
‘What about the cops?’
‘If you get any warning that the cops have been around, hire a lawyer and keep his business card in your pocket. If you don’t get a warning – if the cops snatch you off the street – invoke your right to remain silent and ask for an attorney. They’ll keep coming at you, right? They’re not gonna stop the first time you ask. But if you keep your mouth shut long enough, one of two things will happen. If the cops have enough to make an arrest, they’ll put you in the system. If they don’t, they’ll let you go. This is true whether you talk to them or not. No matter what you say, if the cops have enough evidence to make an arrest, you’ll be arrested.’
They drift into silence as they pass through the valley at 125th Street, heading south, then climb a steep hill running alongside elevated subway tracks that disappear underground a third of the way up. They’re in another
