“What the fuck is this? I’m workin’ here.”
Vera Katakura endures the outburst without altering her stern expression. “You’re wanted,” she announces.
Goldstein’s eyes squeeze shut for a moment, then, with a visible effort, he slowly gets to his feet. “Keep an eye on this jerk,” he commands. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”
Taiku watches the door close behind Goldstein, then turns to Vera Katakura. Though clearly Asian, she might be from any of a dozen countries. He guesses Chinese, maybe Korean, but it doesn’t matter because…
“Stand up.”
The simple demand, spoken in perfect Japanese, runs up Taiku’s spine, an ice cube settling onto the back of his neck. As in a dream, he feels the muscles in his thighs flex, his knees bend, his body rising until he stares directly into Vera Katakura’s unyielding black eyes. She doesn’t speak, but she doesn’t have to speak. He can see his disgrace at the very center of her pupils, a tiny shadow, a smudge, and he knows that his dishonor extends to all-and to each-of the Japanese people. He wants to bow, to bend forward until his back is parallel to the ground; he wants to acknowledge his shame, to shrivel up and die, a cockroach in a fire. Instead, though his knees tremble, he continues to stare into Vera’s eyes until, without changing expression, she lifts her open palm to her shoulder, then cracks him right across the face.
“
“She reduced him to a puddle,” Goldstein declares, not for the first time. “The poor schmuck just melted on the spot.” He turns to Vera Katakura, his partner for the last three years, and lifts his glass.
They are drinking in a hole-in-the-wall bar on Ninth Avenue, one of the last of its kind this close to Lincoln Center. Goldstein, Katakura, Brian O’Boyle, and First Grade Detective Speedo Brown.
It’s been a very good day. A signed statement in hand before 1, the paperwork completed by 2, a crowded press conference at 3:30 with Captain Anthony Borodski taking full credit for the successful investigation, though he hadn’t arrived until after Hoshi Taiku was formally charged with murder. Mowrey had stood alongside his captain, there to field the questions that followed Borodski’s official statement, while Goldstein and Katakura lounged at the rear of the dais, trying to appear at least vaguely interested.
“You were definitely right about one thing,” O’Boyle says to Katakura. “You told me the poor bastard would beg to confess and beg he did.”
Vera glances at Speedo Brown, who earned his nickname when he appeared at Captain Borodski’s annual pool party in a tiny crimson bathing suit that fit his buttocks like a condom. “As you would, Brian, if you were in Taiku’s position. For a Japanese male, Speedo Brown is the worst nightmare imaginable.”
“I resent that,” Speedo declares. “I’m really a very nice person when you get to know me.”
They go on this way for another hour, with only Vera Katakura, who holds herself responsible, lending a passing thought to Hoshi Taiku. With malice aforethought, she’d signed, sealed, and delivered him into the hands of the state, plucking his strings as though playing a harp, effectively (and efficiently) consigning him to whatever nightmare awaited him on Rikers Island. Well, in fairness to herself, she hoped he’d asked for protective custody, or to get in touch with a lawyer, or with the Japanese embassy. An outraged embassy official had called the precinct ten minutes after the press conference ended. By that time, Taiku had already been arraigned and bail denied.
The saddest part, though it didn’t seem to sadden her comrades, was that if Jane Denning was dead before Taiku pushed her out the window, the worst charge he faces is unlawful disposal of a body, an E felony for which he will likely receive probation. It all depends on the autopsy results. If Hoshi catches a break, he’ll be out within a week. If not, he’ll sit until he is indicted and re-arraigned, until his lawyer makes an application for reduced bail, an application very likely to be denied.
“C’mon, Vera.” Goldstein nudges his partner. “You got nothin’ to say?”
Vera Katakura thinks it over for a moment, then sips at her third vodka tonic and shrugs. “You take the man’s pay,” she declares in a tone that brooks no contradiction, “you do the man’s job.”
THE LAUNDRY ROOMBY JOHN LUTZ
That it was blood didn’t seem likely.
Possible, but not likely.
Laura Frain stood in the dim basement laundry room of her apartment building and studied the stained shirt beneath a sixty-watt bulb that should have been a hundred. The rust-red stain on Davy’s blue collar looked as if it might be stubborn. And there was a similar stain on the shirt’s right sleeve.
She glanced around the laundry room, as if she feared she wasn’t alone. But she was alone. Most of the women in the building and not a few of the men didn’t like coming to the basement room to use the aging, coin- operated washing machines and clothes dryers. Especially since Wash Up, a spacious and well-lighted laundromat, had opened down the block. The basement laundry room-smelling of mold and bleach-was oppressive, even spooky, with its dimness and shadows and slitlike windows that looked out on an air shaft and hadn’t been washed in years. The truth was, she hated being there, but felt she had little choice.
The laundry room was one of the reasons she and Roger had rented the apartment, so she was determined to take advantage of the convenience. Besides, it was cheaper than a laundromat or dry cleaners.
Laura, her husband Roger, and their sixteen-year-old son Davy had lived in the Upper West Side apartment for the past two years, after being displaced when their longtime apartment on West 89th Street had gone condo. The new apartment had finally begun to feel like home.
Like her husband, Laura was in her late thirties. She and Roger had only last month celebrated their seventeenth wedding anniversary. She smiled, thinking as she often did that she was part of an attractive family. She still had her dark good looks, her lush auburn hair, and bright blue eyes. And Roger, while never a handsome man in the conventional sense, was still trim and attractive in his homely, Lincolnesque way. Davy, of course, was beautiful, with Roger’s craggy features and Laura’s bold blue eyes and wavy dark hair. A heartbreaker, Davy, though he didn’t date much.
Laura turned on the washer and listened to the ancient pipes rattle along the ceiling joists as the tub began to fill. She spread out the shirt with the stain facing up, stretching the material tight over the top of one of the nearby dryers, then reached for the aerosol can of spot remover. She sprayed the stain, then dipped a scrub brush into the warm water gushing into the machine, applied some soap to the brush’s bristles, and began to work on the stain.
When it had completely disappeared, she started on the similar stain on the shirt sleeve. Red sauce of some kind, perhaps even a thick red wine. She scrubbed until that stain had disappeared too, then continued to scrub.
When the washer was almost filled, she put the shirt in by itself, so it would be good and clean.
Davy’s shirt.
“David,” he said.
The pretty blond girl looked at him and cocked her head to the side to demonstrate she was curious. Her hair was combed straight back but ringlets had escaped to dangle in front of her ears and dance when she moved her head.
Davy smiled. “I thought you asked me my name.” They were in a video arcade near Times Square, and it was noisy not only from the games but from the traffic sounds drifting in through the open door.
“You heard wrong,” the girl said, but she returned his smile.
He shrugged and turned back to his Mounted Brigade game, swerving his horse right and lopping off the head of one of the charging Dragoons. An abbreviated shrill scream burst from the machine.
“Holly,” he heard.
He turned back to face the girl. “A beautiful name.”
She laughed cynically. “Yeah. So’s David.”
“You come in here often?” he asked, ignoring the trumpet signaling another charge.
