Chapter 46. Kate
WALKING STIFFLY, THE man hurries toward me, then stops before he reaches the brightly lit sidewalk.
“Half day?” he asks.
“How long you been here?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I’ve always sucked at math.”
I’m shocked to see him again but, much as I hate to admit it, kind of impressed. Tom’s always been too charming by half but has never seemed the kind of guy capable of sitting on a stone bench for fifteen hours. Hell, one of our problems was that I never knew what Tom was capable of.
“Kate, you have got to hear me out. Can I please buy you a drink?” In the streetlight now, he looks exhausted, and his eyes plead. “This is a matter of life and death. That may sound lame to you, but not to Dante Halleyville.”
“A cup of coffee,” I say.
“Really? That’s the best news I’ve had in ten years.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, hoping I caught my smile in time.
The least intimate place I can think of is a Starbucks around the corner, where Tom wolfs a muffin in three or four bites and gulps down a bottle of water.
“Here’s my spiel, Kate, the one I didn’t get a chance to give you this morning. Dante Halleyville has never had one good thing happen in his entire life. When he was twelve, his father was stabbed in front of him, and he watched him bleed to death because in his neighborhood ambulances get there a lot slower than on Beach Road. His mother-a crack addict, prostitute, and thief-wasn’t much better than no mother at all. She’d been in and out of jail even before his father died. So how does Dante deal with all this? He sees he has a talent that can take him out of this world and help everyone in his family. He can play ball.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“I mean
“What are you?”
“I don’t know what I am, Kate, but we both know it’s not a great lawyer. On a good day, I’m an okay lawyer trying his ass off. He needs a brilliant lawyer trying her ass off.”
“Excuse me?”
“Kate, it’s a figure of speech.”
It’s a good pitch. Tom didn’t waste those fifteen hours-but I don’t even think about it. The bastard could charm the birds out of the trees, but I’m not falling for it. Not TWICE. It’s a big world. He can find another sucker.
“Sorry, Tom. I can’t do it. But keep trying your ass off-you might surprise yourself.”
“Excuse me?”
“Tom, it’s a figure of speech. And thanks for the coffee.”
Chapter 47. Tom
COME WHAT MAY, I am definitely on the case now, and in the spotlight again.
Since Lucy and the Montauk Bakery don’t want my business anymore, me and Wingnut, who by the way was named after the great Knicks reserve player Harthorne Nathaniel Wingo but answers to anything with a
Since I’ve taken on Dante Halleyville’s case, my days pass in a blur and end wherever I fall asleep over my notebooks. I am nothing if not dedicated, and a little crazy.
As I sit in the steep October-morning light, pickups roll in and out and traffic streams west on 27, ten feet from my nose, but I’m too preoccupied to be distracted. When Dante dredged up that “witness” on the bench from his memory, he gave me a tantalizing lead. But I’m having a hard time following up on it.
If there’s a person out there who can corroborate Dante’s version of events or saw the real killers, the state has no case. But I barely have a description, let alone a name.
Maybe Artis LaFontaine, dealer, pimp, whatever he is, stayed at the basketball court long enough to see the guy arrive, but I have no idea how to get in touch with him. If I went to the police, they might have him on their radar, but I hate to do that unless I absolutely have to.
As I take a pull of coffee, a yellow VW Bug rolls by. Yellow is the color du jour, I guess, and that makes me think of Artis’s canary-yellow convertible.
I flip open my cell and start using up my minutes. The dealership in Hempstead refers me to an exotic-car dealership on Eleventh Avenue in Manhattan. They refer me to a dealership in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Two hours later, still at my outdoor office on the side of the road, I’m talking to Bree Elizabeth Pedi. Bree Elizabeth is the top salesperson at the Miami Auto Emporium in South Beach. “Of course I know Artis. He’s putting my kids through college.”
I persuade Pedi to give Artis a call, and a couple minutes later, Artis is on the line, but he’s chillier than I expect. “If you’re calling about that night at the basketball court, I wasn’t there.”
“Artis, if I have to, I’ll subpoena you.”
“First you got to find me.”
“Dante’s facing the death penalty. You know something, and you’re going to keep it to yourself?”
“You don’t know Loco. I’ll do time rather than testify against him. But as long as you understand that I was NOT THERE, I might be able to help.”
I describe the man lying on the bench, and Artis knows who I’m talking about right away.
“You’re looking for Manny Rodriguez,” he says. “Like everyone else, he’s an aspiring rapper. He told me he works for a tiny label called Cold Ground, Inc. I bet they’re in the phone book.”
Chapter 48. Tom
OKAY, SO NOW I’m an amateur detective. And I’m back in Manhattan because Cold Ground, Inc., turns out to be in a funky postwar building right below Union Square.
A mirrored elevator drops me on seven, where a thumping bass line pulls me down a maroon-and-yellow hallway and the scent of reefer takes me the rest of the way.
Inside the last door on the left, a little hip-hop factory is chugging industriously. What had been the living room of a one-bedroom apartment is now a recording studio.
Behind a glass wall a baby-faced rapper, his immaculate Yankee cap precisely askew, rhythmically spits rhymes into a brass microphone.
