foot on the first rung of the stairs.
'I can't do it,' she said. Slamming the box closed. 'It don't seem right to wear it inside a whorehouse, but . . .' She patted the front of her thigh. Where her mother's gravestone was etched in her flesh.
155
Upstairs I dialed McGowan again. This time he was around.
'It's me. Everything okay?'
'It's empty right now. There's an alley running behind it. Room for three cars, four if they're packed tight. Chain-link fence, barbed wire on the top. They used to keep a German shepherd out there.'
'Okay. I'm rolling.'
'Wait. There's one more thing. The joint next to it. The video store. That's ours too. You can walk in, go down to the basement, and walk through. We punched a tunnel through. You can go in and out.'
'Thanks, McGowan.'
'I should've been straight with you.' His honey-Irish voice was soft around the edges. 'Square it up, now.'
'For all of them,' I promised, hanging up.
I called the Mole, gave him the word. Whoever was listening at the other end hung up when I was finished.
Belle was unpacking her clothes, laying them across the couch, bumping Pansy out of the way with her hip.
I called Mama.
'I'm going in. You know where everything is. Max knows the rest. I'm putting it all down. In a letter. To the Jersey box.'
Mama said something in Cantonese.
'What was that?'
'If the letter come, I fix everything.'
'I know. Goodbye, Mama.'
She hung up. A sadness-shudder passed through me, leaving me chilled. I lit a cigarette and started to write.
156
Friday night. Eight o'clock. I followed Pansy down the back stairs, a heavy suitcase in each hand. Belle behind me, carrying two more. I left her in the garage with all the stuff, snapped the lead on Pansy, and went for a walk.
Electric fear-jolts danced through me. Pansy felt it. Her massive head swung back and forth, pinning everyone she saw. Her teeth snapped together in little clicks, kill noises slipping through. Her eyes were ice cubes.
A yuppie couple approached, her hand through his arm. They crossed the street. A wino was propped against the car right next to the Pontiac. I tightened the leash. Pansy lunged, snarling. He sobered up, moved off. I opened the door, put Pansy in the back seat.
Belle was ready when I pulled up in front of the garage. I popped the trunk; we threw the suitcases inside and moved off.
West Side Highway to Tenth Avenue. Across 30th down to Twelfth. And then a right turn back into what the tour guides would call the heart of Times Square.
The fear-jolts were spiking inside me. Pansy prowled the back seat, side to side; her face loomed at the windows.
'Jump!' I snapped at her. Nobody'd remember the Pontiac, but nobody'd forget Pansy. She went down, snarling her hate for whatever was frightening me.
I found the alley, nosed the car in, creeping forward, driving with my left hand, the pistol cocked in my right. The fenced-off section was where McGowan said it would be - huge padlock in place. I stopped the car, popped the door for Pansy, calling to her. 'Watch!'
I walked to the fence, the gun in front, poking its way through the darkness.
A flashlight beam behind the fence. I hit the ground, leveling the pistol as Pansy charged past me, throwing herself at the chain links. 'Don't shoot - it's me.' The Mole's voice. I called Pansy off, met him at the fence. He reached through, opened the padlock, swung the gate open. I pulled the Pontiac inside, between a white panel truck with the name of some kosher butcher shop on the side and a dark station wagon. 'All ours?' I asked the Mole.
'Sure,' he said.
157
We followed him inside. Big room, dim lights, cartons stacked against the walls, steel shelving loaded with video cassettes.
'Basement,' the Mole said.
'You know about the video store next door? Like I told you over the phone?'
The Mole barely kept the sneer from his voice. 'I was in last night.' He held up a ring of keys. We could go visit the cops, but they couldn't come see us.
Upstairs, we walked through the place. The front door was between two windows, one a little square patch of glass, the other running down the length of the place. All the glass was blacked out except for the little square near the door. Lights flashed outside.
'One-way glass,' the Mole explained.
The joint was a long hall, L-shaped at the far end. Rooms opened off the corridor. Tiny hook-and-eye locks inside. Vinyl massage tables set up for quick-change sheets. Wood benches in some, leather chairs in others. They all had tables in a corner, bottles of lotions, perfumes, air fresheners. Tiny sinks against the wall. Heavy mats on the walls. All class. The L-shaped area was much larger. Bathrooms off to the side. Big ones, complete with glassed-in stall showers. Partitions made a private office in one corner. Red leather executive's chair, blond wood desk, red leather couch, white two-line phone. Even had a view - dirt-streaked window, thick bars running the full width across.
I walked back through the place, the Mole behind me. Wall-to-wall industrial-grade carpeting that had once been pink covered every square inch of floor. Recessed lighting ran the length of the hall. A desk was set up against the wall right across from the door. A wood railing made two gates - one to the desk, one to the corridor. Huge blowup pictures covered the walls of the entryway. Only two chairs, both against the left-hand wall. No Waiting. A giant round mirror was in the upper right-hand corner, cocked at the angle formed by the wall and the ceiling. I sat at the desk, looked up. You could see the length of the corridor.
'We need a . . .'
'Periscope,' the Mole stepped on my lines. 'You stay in the back room, see every face that comes in.'
'Okay. What's that?' I asked, pointing to a light on the desk.
'Switch in every room. Girl has trouble, she pushes it.'
The phone on the desk rang. I picked it up. 'Yeah?'
'It's me.' McGowan's voice. 'I'm next door. I see you managed to get in.'
'We're in.' I looked around. 'One more thing. I can't work the bouncer job in here. Got to stay out of sight. I'm going to have some boys sent over.'
'What kind of boys?'
'Chinese boys.'
'No way! That's all I need. Can you rig up a buzzer? Between us? Your man hits it, we'll have someone
