Blue Belle

slathering the stuff on. 'Yes?'

I nodded.

She turned, still on her knees, her backside to me. 'Where's that stuff?' I asked her.

She handed it to me. I covered myself again. Patted her butt, squeezed a glob on my finger, worked it inside her. Softly, slowly. She wiggled her rear. 'Uhmmmm . . .'

I put one hand on each side of her, gently pulling her apart. I felt the tip slide into her. Pushed forward.

'Easy, honey. A big house can have a little door.' I pulled out of her.

'Come on.'

'I don't want to hurt you.'

'I was just teasing, baby. Come on, now. Come on.'

I slipped in her again, working the tip back and forth, a little bit at a time. She rammed herself back against me, grunting, maybe in pain. I looked at her in the dark, split by my cock, her palms flat on the bed, elbows locked. She looked back over her shoulder. 'Nice and easy,' she said, smiling. The blue beads swinging from her neck.

I found the rhythm. She moved with me, just a little, working me deeper into her. 'Just for you,' she whispered, as I shot off inside her.

110

We were on the move before it got light outside. I swung the Plymouth into the garage, led Belle up the stairs, the pistol cocked in my hand.

Everything was as I left it. I let Pansy out to her roof, poured some food into her bowl. Belle stood next to me.

'You're not worried he'll try this place?'

'I don't think he wants anything to do with rooftops after last night.'

'What happened?'

'It doesn't matter,' I said, popping open file cabinets, handing her papers to put on the desk.

Pansy strolled into the room. Belle patted her head. The beast ignored her, demolishing the food. I opened the floorboard in a corner of the back closet. Belle knelt next to me. 'Take this stuff over there,' I told her, filling her arms with death.

She dumped it all on the couch like it was laundry. A sawed-off .12-gauge holding three-inch magnum shells. Double-O buckshot in one barrel, a rifled deer slug in the other. A Sig Sauer .45 - the closest thing to a jam-proof automatic they make. Six fragmentation grenades, little gray baseball-sized bombs. Four sticks of dynamite, wrapped together with duct tape. A heavy Ruger .357 magnum single-action revolver.

I went over to the desk, moved the papers to one side, reached for the phone. Belle was standing by the couch, watching.

'Come here,' I said, watching her face. When she got close, I made one last try.

'I don't think he's coming here. But if he does, it'll take him a while to get through that door. He does, and this whole building's going up. You understand?'

'Yes.'

'You sure? I can't use the guns. There's no way to shoot through that door, and if he gets inside, there's no room. No time. He's too fast. Mortay makes it inside here, there's no gunshots. Just one big boom.'

'I know.'

'You can work with me. I'll keep my promise. But I don't want you to stay here. You take the car, go back to your house. I'll call . . .'

'Forget it.'

'I'll call you when I need you, okay? Not when it's over. Before that. When I need a driver,' I said, trying my last hope.

She put her hands on her hips, her legs spread wide apart. 'You want me to take Pansy with me?'

'No.'

Her dark eyes were on fire. 'One bitch is good enough to die with you, not the other, huh?'

'Belle . . . Pansy wouldn't go with you.'

'That's bullshit. You could get her out of here. You just think she might do you some good.'

I threw up my hands. 'I give up,' I told her.

'Burke, don't give up. I'm not asking you to give up. Let it play out, okay?'

'Okay,' I said, reaching for her hand.

She sat on the corner of the desk, looking down at me. 'Where do you think you go when you die? You think we all go to the same place?'

'I don't know.'

'This guy comes here, we'll find out together,' she said, holding my hand tight.

111

I started going through the papers piled on my desk.

Smoking and thinking. Belle put her hand on my shoulder. 'You want some paper, write stuff down?'

'No. I'm not used to working like that. I have to do it in my head.'

'Can I help?'

'Not yet.'

I went back to the files, working over the clips on the Ghost Van, sorting what I had into little boxes inside my head. Stacking them in rows, building a foundation. You work from the ground up, brick by brick. When you reach out your hand for a brick and it's not there, you'ye found the door. Whatever's missing, that's where you have to look.

The man who played with death wanted Max. I wanted him. He had all the cards, but I had one edge. I knew something he never would. How to be afraid.

The edge burned at the corners of my guts. Seven-thirty. I picked up the phone. All clear. Dialed Mama. She answered in the middle of the first ring.

'Gardens.'

'It's me. What?'

'Gone.'

'All of them?'

'All gone. Maybe three weeks, okay?'

'Perfect.'

'You have two calls. Man called Marques, couple hours ago. And the cop. McGowan. Maybe ten minutes ago.'

She gave me the numbers. McGowan was calling from the Runaway Squad; I didn't recognize the other one.

'I'm off, Mama.'

'You come soon?'

'Soon.'

I lit a smoke. Ten minutes ago . . . I dialed McGowan. He answered himself.

'You called me?'

'We got to meet, pal. Now.'

'I'm hot.'

'Just say where.'

'Battery Park. Where they park to go out to the Statue of Liberty. The benches facing the water.'

'Thirty minutes?'

'I'll be there.'