Safe House

anywhere near Rollo’s. Finally, Max put his hands together against one cheek, tilted his head and closed his eyes. Porkpie was back inside his crib, presumably asleep, dreaming of nickel-and-dime hustles.

“Mama,” I asked her, “you know anything about palm reading?” I put a finger to my own palm, tracing the lines so Max would understand what I was saying.

“Gypsy? That just—”

“No. For real. You ever hear of—?”

“Sure. Chinese invent first. Very good.”

Naturally. Far as Mama was concerned, Galileo was Chinese. Noah too. Only he took some of the wrong animals on that ark.

“You really think some people can foretell the future?”

“Not future. Past. Which palm look at?”

“Uh, my right hand.”

“Yes! Work hand, right? Hand show what you do. What you do, what you are, see?”

“No.”

“Some men farmers, some make shoes, right? Work with hands, leave marks. Like tracks.”

“It only works on men?” I asked her, smiling to show her I was joking.

Big mistake. “Women do all work. Work in factory, come home, clean house, take care of baby, plant garden. Man do only one thing. Woman hand tell nothing.”

“Where do you look, then, Mama?”

“Look in eyes,” she said, looking deep into mine.

“The eyes tell lies,” the Prof said, right behind my shoulder. I hadn’t heard him come in. “What you do, that’s what’s true,” he finished, echoing Mama’s wisdom of a few minutes ago.

I moved over to make room for him and Clarence. “How’d you make out?” I asked him.

“We lost her, bro. Bitch vanished like cash in a whorehouse.”

I raised an eyebrow, not saying anything. There had to be more—losing the Prof in city streets would be harder than confusing a London cabdriver.

“She comes out the joint,” Clarence explained. “Pulls this parka-thing over her head so she is all in black. Then she walks around the back, right past where we are waiting. We do not see her after that, but there is no other way out of the parking lot, so we are patient. All of a sudden, mahn, we hear this roar, and she comes flying past us. On a motorcycle, mahn. A black one. Small. Japanese, I think, but she was moving too quick. By the time I get the Rover into gear, she is gone. I hear the bike, and I follow the sound. Catch a glimpse of her going around a corner. No taillight, couldn’t see a license. And that was it. We box it around, trying to pick her up at an intersection, but it is no good. That woman is a fine rider, mahn. Hard to make time on those slick streets.”

Nothing to do now but wait for a call.

It came the next day. The cell phone I was using that week chirped on the table I use as a desk, startling Pansy into some semblance of activity. The massive Neapolitan raised her huge head and glared in the direction of the noise. She’s gotten more conservative as she ages—anything new is viewed with baleful suspicion. Anything old she’s already intimidated.

“What?” I said into the mouthpiece. The Mole had some sort of portable encryption chip he planted in all the cell phones we used, switching it every time we recloned to new numbers. Anyone listening who didn’t have the right chip would only pick up gibberish, but old habits hadn’t died, and I always used the damn things as if everything was being recorded.

“Girl call. I tell her you outside, be back in half an hour, okay?”

“Good. I’m rolling.”

“Hey!”

“What?” Mama had my same habits, wouldn’t use my name on a cell phone. Fact is, I was surprised she wanted to stay on the line for anything at all.

“Girl not Chinese.”

“Uh . . . right.”

I walked down the back stairs to the garage I’d built into a narrow slot on the first floor of the old factory building I lived in. The landlord had converted it to lofts years ago, but the trust-fund twits who lived there never knew about the extra unit on the top floor. They think it’s crawl space. And even if they got curious about anything more than the bulk price of Hawaiian hemp, the triple-braced steel door would be more than enough to discourage them.

And past that, there was Pansy.

The landlord’s not my pal. We have a business relationship. I don’t pay rent. And I don’t talk either, so his firstborn is safe in the Witness Protection Program. The kid was a rat’s rat, informing for the fun of it. When I ran across the new identity the federales had rewarded him with, I’d found the key to my apartment. It’s still good after all these years. The Mole has me wired into the electricity downstairs, so I don’t show up on any Con Ed meter. I cook on a hot plate, and I heat the place with a couple of pipes tapped into an old cast-iron radiator. It’s not real well insulated, and the windows don’t seal so good, but I have a pair of electric space heaters that take the chill off when it gets too icy-ugly outside.

It’s only two rooms, but a pre-Shah Persian rug that covers one wall makes it seem like there’s another room behind it. That was for when I used the place as an office. I haven’t done that for years. The Mole rigged me a stand-up shower and a sink with a mirror over it. Stainless steel, just like the State gave me on my last bit. I have an extension phone on the ones they use in the loft below me, but I only use it for emergencies. Fact is, I haven’t used it at all since we found a way to code-grab cellular numbers off the airwaves. We change the cloned number every week or so, but one thing stays the same—when I make a call, someone else gets the bill.

I fired up the Plymouth, used the periscope to check the empty street and carefully inched my way out. By the time the pay phone at Mama’s rang for me, I’d been sitting in my booth for ten minutes.

“Gardens,” Mama answered, using a heavy Mandarin accent. She’s got a lot of them. Mama cocked her head, signaling to me she was listening, then said, “Oh sure. Right here. Just come back. I get him, okay?” into the phone, and handed it to me.

“Yeah?”

“Burke? Is that you?”

“Sure.”

“It’s Crystal Beth. From—”

“I remember,” I said, neutral-voiced.

“Can we meet someplace?”

“Sure.”

“You don’t talk much on the phone,” she said, a teasing undertone to her husky voice.

“Neither should you,” I told her.

“Why? I’m not . . . Oh, never mind. Do you know a good place?”

I thought it over fast. She didn’t want to show me her cards. I could understand that. I balanced the safety of meeting her at Mama’s with letting her see where I worked. But too many people around me had died over the years, and some of my secrets along with them. The local cops knew about Mama’s; so did the feds. A low-tier nothing like Porkpie wouldn’t know, but even he could find out if he put some money out on the street. “Yeah, I know a place,” I said. “How about if I buy you dinner? Tonight?”

“I’d like that.”

“It’s a deal,” I said. And gave her Mama’s address.

“You sure you killed him?” I asked Herk. I didn’t bother to