62
I STASHED the Lincoln in my garage. Strega had already seen one car; that was enough. Pansy chomped on the heavy beef bones Mama had given me for her, snarling anytime she felt the slightest resistance. Her life would have been perfect right then if I could have gotten pro wrestling on the tube, but only the cable networks carry it during the day. The hippies downstairs must have cable-their lives wouldn't be complete without MTV. I'd have to get the Mole to make the necessary adjustments.
It was getting near time to leave. There's only two ways to ride the subways in New York: dress up like a carpenter or a plumber-anyone who routinely carries tools around with him-or carry a gun. I didn't handle tools like I knew what I was doing, and if I got dropped holding a piece I was looking at some serious time upstate. I put on a dark suit over a blue chambray shirt with a darker-blue knit tie. A hard-working architect. I pulled my new attache case from under the couch. Its black fabric sides expand to hold a lot of stuff, but that's not why I wanted it. This attache case is made of Kevlar-the same stuff cops use for bullet-proof vests. It looks like nylon, but it'll blunt a knife and stop a bullet-it even has a shoulder strap so you can keep your hands free.
I unzipped the case and threw in a pack of graph paper, some pencils, an old blueprint of a sewage plant, and a little calculator. I added a telescoping metal pointer, the kind architects use to point out features on their blueprints; it works just as well for keeping people from getting close enough to stab you. Then I hunted around until I found the clear plastic T-square the Mole made for me. It looks like the real thing, but if you wishbone the two ends in your hands and snap hard, you end up with a razor-edged knife. Perfect for stabbing and not illegal to carry. The CIA uses these knives to beat airport security machines, but their best feature is the way they break off inside a body-you can put a hell of an edge on plastic, but it stays very brittle.
I caught the E Train at Chambers Street, under the World Trade Center. That was the end of the line-the return would take me right out to my meeting with Strega without changing trains. And I got a seat.
The first thing I did was open my briefcase and take out my blueprints and T- square. I made a desk of the briefcase in my lap and sat there watching. During rush hour, the trains belong to the citizens. By the time we got into midtown, the car was packed with people. An Oriental man, his dark suit shiny from too many cleanings, face buried in a book on computers, shut out the train noises and concentrated. A dress- for-success black woman was reading some kind of leather-bound report-all I could read on the cover was 'Proposal' stamped in gold letters. A pair of middle-aged women sat facing each other, arguing over whose boss was the biggest asshole.
The E Train has modern cars-blue-and-orange plastic seats set perpendicular to each other instead of lined up against the side like the older versionssubway maps set behind thick clear-plastic sheetsstainless-steel outer skins. Even the air conditioning works sometimes. By the time the train hit the long tunnel connecting Manhattan and Queens the car looked like a forest of newspapers and briefcases-gothic romances and crossword puzzles covered faces. A transit cop got on at Queens Plaza, a young guy with a mustache, carrying fifty pounds of equipment on his belt. His eyes swept the car for a second; then he started writing something in his memo book. The car was thick with people, but no skells-nobody smoking dope, no portable radio blasting. Working people going home from work. I felt like a tourist.
Roosevelt Avenue was the next stop on the express. The transit cop got off- Roosevelt Avenue was the Queens version of Times Square -the only thing free out on the streets was trouble. Next came Continental Avenue, where most of the yuppies made their exit. The train goes all the way out to Jamaica; by the time it got to the end of the line there wouldn't be too many white faces left.
I got off at Union Turnpike, stuffing the T-square back into my briefcase, checking my watch. I still had almost fifteen minutes to wait for Strega.
63
THE SUN was dropping into the west as I made my way across Queens Boulevard to the statue. The courthouse was to my right, a squat, dirty piece of undistinguished architecture that hadn't been put up by the lowest bidder-not in Queens County. Looming behind it, the House of Detention cast a shadow of its own, six stories of cross-hatched steel bars, cannon fodder for the processing system citizens call Justice. The guys inside-the ones who can't make bail-call it 'just us.' Wolfe's office was somewhere in the courthouse complex.
I found a seat at the base of the statue-some Greek god covered with tribute from the passing pigeons. I lit another smoke, watching my hands holding the wooden match. Citizens passed me without a glance-not minding their own business because it was the right thing to do, just in a hurry to get home to whatever treasures their VCRs had preserved for them. The statue was right behind a bus stop, just before the boulevard turned right into Union Turnpike. The human traffic was so thick I couldn't see the street, but I wasn't worried about missing Strega.
I was into my third cigarette when I felt the change in the air-like a cold wind without the breeze. A car horn was blasting its way through the noise of the traffic-sharper and more demanding than the others. A fog-colored BMW was standing right in the middle of the bus stop, leaning on its horn and flashing its lights.
I walked over to the passenger door. The window glass was too dark to see through. The door wasn't locked. I pulled it open and climbed inside. She had the BMW roaring into the traffic stream while I was still closing my door, the little car lurching as she forced it into second gear. We shot across to the left lane, horns protesting in our wake.
'You were late,' she snapped, staring straight ahead.
'I was where I said I'd be,' I told her, fumbling for my seat belt.
'Next time wait at the curb,' she said. Telling the cleaning woman she missed a spot.
She was wearing a bottle-green silk dress, with a black mink jacket over her shoulders, leaving her bare arms free. A thin black chain was around her waist, one end dangling past the seat-it looked like wrought iron. Her face was set and hard behind the makeup mask.
I leaned back in my seat. Strega's skirt was hiked to mid-thigh. Her stockings were dark with some kind of pattern woven into them. Spike heels the same color as the dress. She wasn't wearing her seat belt.
'Where are you going?' I wanted to know.
'My house. You got a problem with that?'
'Only if it isn't empty,' I said.
'I'm alone,' said Strega. Maybe she was talking about the house.
She wrestled the BMW through the streets to her house, fighting the wheel, riding the clutch unmercifully. The car stalled on Austin Street when she didn't give it enough gas pulling away from the light. 'Goddamned fucking clutch!' she muttered, snapping the ignition key to get it started again. She was a lousy driver.
'Why don't you get a car with an automatic transmission?'
'My legs look so good when I change gears,' she replied. 'Don't they?'
I didn't say anything.
'Look at my legs!' she snarled at me. 'Aren't they flashy?'
'I wouldn't get a car to go with my looks,' I said, mildly.
'Neither would I-if I looked like you,' she said, softening it only slightly with a smile. 'And you didn't answer my question.'
