“My wife,” the man said.
“What’s you say?”
“My wife is dead,” the man said in a guttural rasp.
“She died.”
“I’m so sorry… How did she die?”
“I killed her.”
Curt stopped moving. His fingers went from tickling the gun to gripping the pistol.
His eyes darted back and forth as he spoke.
“I wanted to sell her wedding ring. She told me I couldn’t. I could have bought so much with it, but she said no. I didn’t know what to do. I needed it so badly. So I took a knife and I cut it off of her.”
“Oh, Jesus…”
The man looked down, reached into his pocket.
“Okay, my friend, I’m going to come over there. I have a gun on me. Please, don’t move any more and take your hand out of your pocket.”
Without warning the man yanked his hand from his pocket. It took Curt a second to realize what he was holding.
In the man’s hand was a severed finger. A glittering diamond ring still attached to it.
“I don’t know what to do!”
Suddenly the man dropped the finger, turned around and ran out into the middle of the street.
“Stop!” Curt shouted, sprinting forward.
Half a dozen cars were speeding up Amsterdam, headlights blazing in the dark blue sky. Their horns started blaring as the man weaved in and out of the way of thousands of pounds of metal passing him by at forty miles an hour.
Suddenly there was a flash of metal, sparks, and a terrible crunching sound as Curt stopped dead in his tracks. Curt saw the man’s body go flying, literally lifted into the air, where it spun end over end until landing in a heap by the curb.
The car, a dark sedan, came screeching to a halt. The driver leaped out of the car, hands holding his head in disbelief. Cars ground to a stop all around the sedan, whose hood was dented, grill smashed inward. A slick of blood pooling around the hood ornament.
And just below the front of the car was a sight that would never leave Curt Sheffield as long as he lived.
Resting on the asphalt, in a perfect row as if placed there gently, was a pair of slippers.
“Oh my God,” he said. The man looked at Curt, his mouth wide open. “You…you saw that. He ran out in front of me. He…oh, sweet Jesus…”
Curt ran over to the body, knelt down next to it. The man’s face looked like it had been bludgeoned with a sledgehammer, and his limbs were twisted in a way that
God had most certainly not intended.
He ripped his phone from his pocket, dialed 911. “Ten fifty-three,” Curt said, his mouth dry, the words tumbling out. “Officer needs assistance. We have a motor vehicle accident. One civilian is down and hurt, potentially fatal.
He’s not breathing.”
Curt put his fingers to the man’s neck, searched for a pulse.
He felt nothing.
Picking up the man’s wrist, he tried again. Still nothing.
No use. He was long gone.
“I think I lost him,” Curt said into the phone.
When he was assured an ambulance was en route,
Curt stood up, took in the scene unfolding in front of him.
Cars were lining up down the street, drivers getting out at first to see what was causing the traffic holdup. Then when they saw what was going on, phones came out as they called 911. Onlookers began to crowd the sidewalks.
A few people started heading toward the body. Some looked concerned, fearful, but a few had a glint in their eyes that Curt didn’t like. He knew that not everybody was concerned for this guy’s well-being.
Curt stood up, pulled out his badge. Let his arm hang loose so his jacket opened up a bit, revealing the gun and holster inside.
“NYPD!” he shouted. The surge stopped. A few people slipped back into the crowds and disappeared, disappointed they didn’t have a chance to search the man for jewelry or money. “An ambulance is on the way. I’m going to need everyone to back away and clear room.”
He walked toward the crowd, and they stepped back, obeying. Then Curt remembered something.
He turned and jogged back to the street corner where he’d seen the man. Reaching into the garbage can, he managed to find the man’s cell phone he’d dropped inside. He wiped off the crud and liquid, relieved to see the machine was still working.
He clicked it on.
The home page blinked on, and an LCD screen read
Gil’s Phone.
Gil. That was the dead man’s name.
Then Curt scrolled through the numerous functions until he found a button marked Recent Calls.
He clicked on it, and saw Gil’s call log from the last twelve hours. Incoming calls marked with an orange
“down” arrow, outgoing with a red “up” arrow.
Then Curt felt his breath catch in his throat.
There was one phone number that stood out. Gil had called it no less than ten times in the last three hours.
And the number had a 718 prefix.
Without hesitating, Curt called the number from
Gil’s phone.
It rang twice, and then was picked up.
“Mr. Meadows, we’ve already explained to you the situation. Until you have legal tender available, we cannot serve you. Goodbye.”
The person on the other end hung up.
And as soon as they hung up, Curt called one more number. A number he never thought he’d be calling to help him do his job.
Curt had never gone undercover. He wasn’t sure he could pull this off.
But he knew, without a doubt, that Henry Parker could.
44
“You’re insane,” Amanda said, watching as I went about straightening up the apartment. I had already cleaned up my dirty socks, stacked the magazines into a neat pile, organized the DVD collection and even cleaned the stove top.
“They should be here in less than fifteen minutes,” I said.
“Who the hell are you expecting? Martha Stewart? It’s a freaking drug dealer, Henry. They’re not going to care if your floor is clean enough to eat off of. In fact, they’ll probably be a little suspicious if the place doesn’t look like, oh, I don’t know, somewhere a junkie might live.”
“I don’t have to be a junkie,” I said. “Just a guy who wants a late-night hit to calm my nerves.” I smiled at her.
“It has been a long week.”
She was right, of course. I was cleaning more out of nerves than anything.
I didn’t know what to expect. Curt’s call had come out of the blue, something about getting a lead on 718
