“Go ahead and say it.”
“What? I didn’t say a word.”
“You don’t have to. I’ve got to admit, I’m thinking it myself. It’s too good to be true. We’ve been running through all of the many reasons to blow this guy off for the last four days. Remember?”
“I remember.”
“But?”
“But nothing. It’s totally up to you.”
“There has to be a catch, right?”
“Seemed so when the asshole wasn’t calling. Now the asshole’s calling with the perfect job.”
“Jesus, you are such a contrarian.”
“Am not,” she said, sticking out her tongue.
“So, all right. I’ll meet the man tomorrow. With my sisters in cynicism membership fully updated. Bullshit meter on high alert.”
“And Mace,” Lily added. “A little Mace never hurt anyone.”
As she did more often than she would have liked, Alice allowed Lily to leave enough cash on the table to cover both of their meals. In the pattern that had developed, Alice would soon return the favor, but at a less expensive establishment.
“Oh, and Alice?” Lily’s tone softened as she placed a reassuring hand on Alice’s forearm. “I really do hope this is the real thing.”
Chapter Four
H ank Beckman watched the digital numbers change on the pump, careful to add only five bucks to the tank. He felt his stomach growl, and then stole a glance at his watch. Three in the afternoon, and nothing today but two cups of coffee.
He’d already paid for the gas-cash, just in case-but dashed back into the station to grab something to tide him over.
“Forget something?”
Just his luck. He stops for gas-at the high-traffic mega station outside the Lincoln Tunnel, no less-and happens upon the one and only gas station attendant in the country who could place a customer’s face. Gold star for attentiveness. He raised a hand, both in a wave and to conceal his appearance. Damn, he was overdoing it with the paranoia. “A man’s got to eat.”
He turned away from the register to peruse the aisles. The usual convenience-store crap. Candy. Chips. Those weird, soggy sandwiches stored in triangular plastic containers. Fried pork rinds? He grabbed two granola bars and then a bottle of orange juice from the refrigerator case. Laid a five on the counter, then slipped the change into the plastic donation bucket on the counter, this one bearing a picture of sad-looking shelter animals.
He heard a bell chime against the glass door as it swung shut behind him. Tucking the OJ in the crook of his elbow, he ripped open one of the bars and ate it in three bites before getting settled behind the wheel of the Crown Vic. As he inserted the key into the ignition, he thought about turning around, driving back through the tunnel, and making his way downtown early.
He’d gone nearly two months without checking in on him. Two months since he’d been warned. Officially disciplined, as it had been put to Hank. But not one day had passed in those two months when Hank hadn’t thought about the guy. Wondered what he was doing. Imagined how pleased the guy must have been without Hank around to monitor him.
But it was precisely because Hank had been on good behavior that he was willing to risk this brief check-in. Back before he’d been hauled out to the proverbial woodshed, he’d been watching the subject at night. His intentions had been noble-personal time for personal work-but the guy had noticed the pattern. On the upside, if the guy were still checking his back for Hank, he wouldn’t be suspicious in the middle of the afternoon. No, this was the perfect time. Hank’s field stops had gone faster than planned. He could easily steal ninety minutes out on his own without anyone asking questions. He’d already bought his one-point-six gallons of gas for the round-trip drive to Newark, just in case Tommy wondered about the fuel level when Hank returned the fleet car.
As Hank removed the ring of translucent plastic from the cap of his orange juice, he thought about Ellen. Poor Ellen. He hadn’t realized it when he’d had a chance to make a difference, but his sister had been an addict. No different from the sad sacks he’d encountered (and judged) for years-junkies who told themselves they’d get off the needle next week, career offenders who said they’d retire after one last big score-Ellen had let something other than herself become a necessary part of her identity. In her case, that something was alcohol.
He remembered his sister commenting-usually with pride, but often in a resentful, teasing way if she’d had a glass of chardonnay or two-about his extraordinary discipline. “My little brother is the abstemious one in the family.” “Hank will live to be a hundred, the way he takes care of himself.” “My perfect baby brother.”
He had missed the signs of addiction in his sister, but wondered whether, if Ellen were alive, she would spot them in him. Like a drunk on the wagon never stops craving the bottle, he had managed to restrain himself in the two months that had passed since the reprimand, but he had never stopped thinking about the man who killed his sister. And like an alcoholic assuring himself that this drink will be the last-even as he knows in his heart that he has no intention of ever letting it go-Hank started the engine, telling himself he would cruise down to the apartment in Newark, just this once, just to make sure the man hadn’t gone anywhere without him.
Chapter Five
T here was a time when the name of Manhattan’s Meatpacking District required no further explanation. It was the district where the meat was packed. Not only was the name self-evident, so was the neighborhood itself. Refrigerated trucks backed up to open warehouse doors, ready to transport the hanging carcasses that would become the city’s finest steaks. Butchers-the real ones, with thick smears of pink wiped across their aprons- promised the early morning’s finest cuts. The cobblestone streets, left untended since the notorious days of the Five Points slum, were fit only for industrial vehicles and the most seasoned pedestrians, who knew from years of experience precisely where to step to avoid a tumble. Even the air was tinged with the bloody odor of raw meat.
Now the neighborhood’s name was simply a tip of the hat to history. On Alice’s route from stepping off the 14D bus to the address Drew Campbell had given her, she passed an Apple store, the Hotel Gansevoort (site of the most recent bust of a celebrity offspring for drug dealing), and the Christian Louboutin boutique. She did notice as she made her way south that the luxuriousness of the surroundings became relative. As the $700, seven-inch heels at Louboutin faded from view, she passed a modest little wine bar, then a D’Agostino grocery, even a rather ordinary-looking brick apartment complex.
Despite nearly a lifetime in the city, she always got confused in this neighborhood. She’d spent her childhood in the Upper East Side. Stayed at her parents’ townhouse on trips home from Philly in college. Lived with Bill for two years on the Upper West before the wedding and subsequent move to St. Louis. Briefly back to the folks’ place postdivorce before she’d taken an Upper East Side studio of her own during the MFA program.
Even though she lived downtown now, she was still in the numbered grid, where streets ran east to west, avenues ran north to south, and the numbers on the grid always showed the way. This morning she was turned around in the tangle of diagonals known as Jane, Washington, Hudson, and Horatio, all labeled streets, yet intersecting with one another in knots.
She pulled out her iPhone and opened up Google Maps. After a right turn past the D’Agostino, she found herself on Bethune and Washington. She recognized the intersection, just one block from the dive Mexican joint that served pitchers of fume-exuding margaritas at sidewalk picnic tables.
Her inner naysayer-that voice in her head that kept warning her that Drew’s offer was indeed too good to be true-tugged at her peripheral vision, forcing her to notice that she’d left the swank of the Meatpacking District and
