the opposite wall. The building stank of garbage and human waste. Loomis covered his nose with a handkerchief. Carella felt like wretching. A single unboarded window on the first-floor landing cast uncertain light into the hallway. Apartment 14 was the fourth door down the hall.
“We’re here,” Carella said into the phone.
“Go inside.”
They went into the apartment. They were standing in the middle of a small kitchen. There were still boards on the only window in the room. In the semi-darkness, they heard the scurrying of more rats.
A dead Golden Retriever lay on the floor in front of a gas range that had been disconnected and overturned.
It looked as if the dog’s throat had been recently slit.
Flies were still buzzing around the open wound.
“Do you see the dog?” Avery asked.
“Yes?”
“That’s what we’ll do to the girl if there are any tricks.”
Carella said nothing.
“See the refrigerator?” Avery asked.
“Yes?”
“Open the door, Steve.”
Carella opened the door.
“The fridge doesn’t work, Steve,” Avery said. “No electricity in the building. I hope you didn’t bring us hot money.”
He sounded almost jovial now. Big joke here, the son of a bitch. Slits a dog’s throat, rats running all over the place, he jokes about hot money.
“What do you want me to do here?” Carella asked.
“You sound peeved, Steve.”
Carella said nothing.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“What did you ask?”
“Is the money hot?”
“No.”
“I certainly hope it’s not marked or anything.”
“It’s not marked.”
“Because I wouldn’t want anything to happen to the girl.”
“It’s not marked. Just tell me what you want me to do, okay?”
“What’s he saying?” Loomis asked.
Carella shook his head.
“Put the dispatch case on one of the shelves, Steve.”
Carella slid the case onto the shelf under the ice cube compartment.
“Now close the door and hang up. When you’re outside the building, I’ll call again.”
Carella closed the refrigerator door, and hit the END button.
“Let’s go,” he told Loomis.
They stepped out into the hallway again. Everywhere around them, there was the sound of chittering little creatures in the near-dark, glittering little eyes suddenly disappearing as the rats turned and ran off. He remembered being a rookie, remembered other cops telling him about babies in their cribs getting their faces chewed to ribbons by rats. Moving slowly and cautiously, he scraped his feet along the floor, feeling his way toward the stairwell.
“Here it is,” he told Loomis.
With his right hand, he felt for the wall again. With his left foot, he reached out for the first stair tread, afraid he would step on a rat. Behind him, Loomis said, “He’s gone too far. Why’d he kill that dog?”
“To show us he’s serious,” Carella said.
“That wasn’t the deal.”
“He wanted me along to bear witness. So I’d go back and tell the others he’s serious about killing the girl.”
“We already knew that. He already
“Show is better than tell, Mr. Loomis.”
“That wasn’t the deal,” Loomis said again, sounding very much like a petulant child. “Nobody gets hurt, that was the deal. He didn’t have to kill the goddamn dog.”
They came down the stairs and out of the building. Both men blinked against the sunlight.
“Do you think they’re holding her in one of these buildings?” Loomis asked.
“I hope not,” Carella said.
The phone rang immediately.
“Hello?” Carella said.
“This is what I want you and Mr. Loomis to do,” Avery said. “Are you listening?”
“I’m listening.”
“Walk back to the car. Put the phone to your ear again when you get there.”
The two men walked back to the limo. Carella put the phone to his ear again.
“We’re here,” he said.
“I see you,” Avery said. “Just stand right where you are. I’ll call you again when we have the case. You can hang up now.”
Carella hit the END button.
THEY CAME DOWNfrom the seventh floor of the building at 5107 Ambrose, from which they’d been watching the action across the street at 837 South 185th. Hidden by the building itself, they crossed the empty lot behind it, and entered 837 through the rear door. They were both carrying the AK-47s they’d used on the boat gig two nights ago, but this time Cal’s rifle was fitted with a scope. On the first floor of the building, he told Avery he felt like shooting himself some rats. Avery told him to resist the urge.
They found the black dispatch case in the refrigerator, right where Carella had left it. Cal threw the beam of a flashlight on it, and Avery unclasped it. There was no time to count the money right now, but those looked like a whole lot of nice brand-new hundred-dollar bills in there.
They went downstairs and out the back door again. This time, they crossed the lot to where they’d parked the stolen Montana behind a twelve-story building on Lasser. Carella and Loomis may have heard them starting the car, but it wouldn’t matter, anyway. The girl was their insurance. Nobody was going to do anything stupid while they had the girl.
They didn’t call again until almost an hour later. By that time, they’d dumped all the cell phones they’d used since three this afternoon. It was now close to five-thirty, and Avery was using yet another stolen phone when he called from the house out on Sands Spit.
Barney Loomis answered on the second ring.
“Hello?” he said.
“You can go back to your office now,” Avery said. “We’ll call you again after we’ve counted the money. If it’s all here, you’ll get the girl back tonight. I promise.”
“Where will you…?” Loomis started, but Avery had already hung up.
10
TAMAR GUESSEDshe should have felt honored.
This was just like a summit meeting.
Yasir Arafat was smiling. So were Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush. All three of them were smiling—or
