had to get moving.
Now, he stepped a few yards away from the phone. He could still see the red orange glow on the horizon. Cruz was out there now, rolling around like a loose ball bearing. No telling what he was going to do next. Then Smoke realized why Lola’s phone was busy. Cruz was already there. He had taken the phone off the hook – maybe ripped it out of the wall. Maybe Moss had wrapped the phone cord between his hands and…
Shit, Lola. A searing pain ripped through Smoke. It had nothing to do with the beating he had endured. It was the pain of separation, the impotent fear for her safety. His mind raced. He couldn’t breathe. He drifted back to the phone.
Call the cops. Call the fucking cops. Smoke had never called the cops in his life. Call the cops. Call them NOW.
A woman stood there next to him. She was blonde and slim, that kind of early-forties suburban mom who chauffeurs her children in a late model minivan from school to soccer practice to music lessons.
“Sir, do you need that telephone? My cell phone died.”
She smiled, but the smile died when she saw his bloodied face.
“I’m using it,” he snapped.
“Are you all right? Do you need an ambulance?”
“I’m fine.”
He punched in Lola’s number again. This time it rang. Thank God.
It rang and rang.
Finally, she picked it up. Her voice came, upbeat and musical as ever.
“Hello?”
Cruz and Moss paced through the second floor apartment.
It stood to reason it would have a similar layout to Lola’s place upstairs. Two bedrooms, a narrow bathroom, a living room, and a combined kitchen and dining room by the front door. This apartment was stripped – no furnishings, half-painted – paint cans, ladders and canvas tarps piled in a corner of the living room. It had that stale, musty smell – that stench of paint and sawdust trapped inside for too long. Cruz looked around. All the windows were closed. The smell was giving him a headache.
It was crazy roundabout bullshit to do it this way. If they had the girl Dugan would have to give himself up. Or would he? Some men would ditch, Cruz knew. It all depended on what the old boy felt for this hot little black girl he had seen in the dossier, and that remained to be seen. If she was just a piece of ass to him, he would leave her behind and run.
That simple.
And then Cruz would have blown the job and would have one more person to kill, an innocent. Two innocents, including the second girl. Not to mention Moss. He’d have to kill Moss, too, wouldn’t he? Sure. If he blew this job, there was no going home again. Man, this shit was wearing on him.
“It ain’t lightweight,” Vito had said. “You let us worry about the thinking end of it.”
Well, it wasn’t lightweight so far.
Someone was coming up the stairs. Moss pulled his gun and stepped lightly to the door and watched through the eyehole. Cruz heard the person reach the top of the first flight of stairs. Footsteps moved along the hallway.
“It’s a girl,” Moss whispered. “Going upstairs. Must be the roommate.”
Shit, another one. Another innocent in the way of this bullshit job. Cruz flashed to the cleaning woman weighted down in twenty feet of seawater, being picked clean by the crabs and the elements. When they pulled her out of there, they’d have to check the dental records just to know who she was.
Cruz didn’t want to go up there, not with Moss. Moss could turn this thing into a bloodbath. Unless…
He felt the sudden urge and let it carry him for a moment. What would it take? Pull the Glock right now and put three slugs in the back of Moss’s neck. Finish him with one to the brain. Walk out of this building then get in the car and drive.
Without the money.
No. It was too soon. Either do the job all the way through, bring Dugan back to New York, or wait around and get the money. Don’t do neither. The realization came to Cruz like something that had always been there, submerged at the bottom of a deep pool but slowly working its way to the surface over long years. The way you retire, he grasped now, is you don’t announce it beforehand.
Moss turned back to him. “Ready?”
Cruz couldn’t let Moss know just how far he had drifted in the past hour. At least, he couldn’t let him know yet. “Let’s do it,” he said.
“You’ve gotta get out of there!” Smoke shouted. “You gotta get out of there right this minute.” It made no sense.
Lola stood with the phone to her ear. She was distracted momentarily as Pamela came in from work – she had just this moment walked in the door with a bag of groceries from Micucci’s Italian Market at the bottom of Munjoy Hill. She was in her neat work attire. Slacks, a blouse, and a sports jacket. It was neat, but hardly sparkling. She wore sneakers for the long walk up the hill.
“Hey babe,” Pamela said. “You left the door open downstairs again.” She began to put the food away.
“I’m pretty sure I locked it,” Lola said.
“Listen to me! Will you listen to me?” Smoke was babbling, almost incoherent. Something about she had to get out of the house. He was insistent, he was raging, he was out of his mind. She had never heard him like this before.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Wait a minute. What are you saying?”
“I don’t have time to explain,” came his voice. He sounded like he was outside somewhere, next to a highway. Cars were going past him in the background. “Some men attacked me today.”
“What? Some men attacked you? Are you all right?” She thought of Mr. Shaggy and Mr. Blue Eyes. Had they attacked Smoke? Why would they attack Smoke? They could have been following her, seen Smoke, and decided to take out their revenge on him because they knew they couldn’t harm her. Jesus!
“Who were the men? What did they look like?”
“Lola, shut up and listen to me!”
She stopped. She hated that. She hated when any man thought he could end the conversation just by being louder, or by putting on his man-authority voice. If he had been attacked, he needed to tell her about it. But he didn’t have to tell her to shut up. She wouldn’t stand for that. He knew as much, too.
She heard her voice go cold. “I’m listening, but it had better be good, and it had better come with a box of chocolates and some roses.”
He didn’t take the hint, or even stop to comment on it. That, more than anything, made the skin on her back tighten into gooseflesh. He spoke slowly, as if to an imbecile or a child. There was something in his voice…
“Lola, I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, there’s a lot I can’t get into right now. I’ve been meaning to tell you, but I never did, and now you just have to do what I say. Some very dangerous men are in town. They want money from me. I got away from them, but I’m worried they’re coming to get you. You have to get out of there.”
“Smoke, come on. What is this, a game?”
“Go out the back way. Right now. GO!”
Pamela came out of the bathroom, in stocking feet with her shirt unbuttoned halfway down from the collar. She headed back into the kitchen.
A knock came on the door. Lola looked at it. So what? Somebody was knocking. But how did they get in the building? Pamela changed directions and headed for the door. She reached out for the lock and the knob
