'Maybe. Maybe a lot more. I got pieces, but they may be two different puzzles. After tonight I should know enough to come and ask you.'
He nodded. Terry came back, leading Belle by the hand. 'She knows the way,' he said, standing by the Mole.
'Take them back to the car,' the Mole told him. Nodding goodbye to me and Belle.
103
When we crossed the Triboro, I told Belle to bear left.
'That's toward Queens.'
'I know. You're going home. I need the car. I'll come back when it's over.'
'I want . . .'
'I don't care what you want. It's way past nine and I'm meeting a man at midnight. You're not coming. And I'm not telling you again.'
She drove in silence for a few minutes. 'Burke, what's that orange cloth you put in your pocket?'
I lit a smoke. 'A sign. So I'll be recognized.'
'What's it mean?'
'Signs mean different things to different people, right? Middle-class kid, he's on his way to school. There's this bully waiting for him. Middle-class kid, he don't want to fight, but he don't want to look chicken. So he wraps his hand in bandages, says he cut himself. Understand?'
'Yes.'
'You wear the same bandages in the places I was raised, just makes you an easier target. Different rules, okay?'
'Okay.'
We pulled up outside her cottage. Ten o'clock. I followed her inside. She didn't turn on the lights.
'Burke, don't hate me for asking this . . .'
'What?'
'Are you scared?'
'Scared to death.'
'Then . . .'
'I'm more scared not to go. I have to find out. Get some answers.'
'Let's run,' she said, standing close to me in the dark.
'Let's just go. We can be in Chicago by tomorrow. Or anyplace you want to go. I've got money stashed. Right here in the house. We can . . .'
'No.'
She turned away from me. 'What scares you?'
'This guy I have to meet - he's a psychopath. Behind the walls, being a psychopath is like walking a high- wire. Guys are scared of a man with eyes like an alligator's. That's good - makes people keep their distance. But it's no good to scare people too much. Just the possibility you might get hurt, that keeps you away. But if there's no doubt about it, if you know the guy's coming for you, you take him first. If you can.'
'And that's what you need to find out?'
'That's it.'
She moved close to me again, whispering in the dark room. 'Why take a chance?'
'It's not that simple. I can't do anything until I find out. I don't know what else's out there.'
'Burke, you come back here. You come back here to me.'
'I will. As best I can.'
I lit a last cigarette, pulled her to me. 'You don't see me by tomorrow morning, drive back to the junkyard. The Mole will know who to contact, what to do.'
'You'll come back. I've got something for you.'
'I know you do,' I said, giving her a kiss.
104
Eleven-fifteen. I was parked down the street from the playground. Breathing deep through my nose, sucking the air into my belly, expanding my chest as I let out each breath. Fear snapped around inside me. I gathered it together in a spot in my chest. Worked my mind, putting a fluid box around the fear. Testing the box, pushing it in different directions. I concentrated on the box, shooting clean, cold beams at it. Breaking it into little pieces. Smaller and smaller. Seeing the fear-blob break up into little liquid pieces inside me. Like tears. I held my hands out in front of me, willing the little pieces of fear to come out the ends of my fingers. Feeling them come. Some came out my eyes.
I felt so tired. Closed my eyes for a second. My watch said eleven-forty. Time.
I nosed the Plymouth up on the sidewalk, up to the playground gate. I jumped out, holding the heavy bolt- cutters in two hands. The chain around the fence gave way with one squeeze. I pulled the Plymouth inside the dark playground. Got out and closed the gate behind me. I made a slow circle of the yard, stopped when the Plymouth was pointed back at the street.
I got out, taking a six-pack of beer with me. Glass bottles. Lined them up on the trunk of the car, all in a row. Parallel to the building where the shooter would be waiting. I popped the top off one, held it to my lips. Lit a cigarette. Slouched against the car to wait.
The tip of my cigarette glowed. The streetlights didn't reach the corners of the buildings ringing the playground, but it was bright enough where I stood.
'You're early, punk.' A voice from the shadows.
I dragged on my cigarette, keeping both hands in sight. Two men walked toward me from the left. One more from the right. I watched them, not moving. Well-built Spanish guy in a shortsleeved white
'Step away from the car,' he said. His voice was a whisper-hiss, snake-thin.
The Spanish guy came to meet me. I held my hands away from my body as he searched. A diamond glinted in his ear. A fat diamond, not a stud.
'Empty,' he said, stepping back.
Mortay stopped four feet from me. His face was at the end of a long, thin neck, so small I could have covered it with my hand. Hair cropped close - l could see the shine of his scalp. A heavy shelf of bone linked his eyebrows, bulging forward, a visor over his eyes.
'I don't recognize the school,' he said. Meaning the orange headband. 'Do you fight?'
'I'm just a student.'
'You wanted to meet me?'
'Thank you for coming,' I said, my voice gentle and low. 'You had a dispute with a friend of mine. A small black man. On a cart.'
He stood stone-still, waiting.
'The dispute was our fault, and we apologize. He wasn't looking for you. We don't know anything about you. We don't want to know.'
'What was he looking for?'
'The Ghost Van.'
'Don't look for the Ghost Van,' Mortay hissed. 'You wouldn't like it if you found it.'
'I'm not looking for it. I'm off the case. I just wanted to tell you to your face. We have no quarrel with you - whatever you did, it was just business, okay?'
I turned to go.
'Stay where you are.'
