Ireached into my memory, trying to retrieve her name. Erica or Erin, something like that. “Don’t you realize what’s happened here?”
She moved closer and trailed her fingers down my arm. “It’s Eris. We met earlier, remember?”
Had she not seen Hal? Maybe I was blocking her view. I stepped aside.
As if she’d done it many times before, she knelt beside him, checked his eyes, and pressed her fingers to his throat. Sighing, she rose again. “He’s beyond help now. But I think you already know that.” She said this sympathetically, but her lack of alarm disturbed me.
“What happened to him?”
“I’ve seen enough dead bodies. He overdosed.”
The sound of panting and whining came from next door. The neighbor’s dog. It scratched frantically at the wooden fence. Her confirmation of my suspicion threw me into a quandary. The right thing to do was call the police, but with all the drugs around I realized the blame would stop right at my doorstep, given my own run-ins with the law in my youth.
As if reading my mind, she said, “Don’t involve the cops in this.”
“Why not?”
“You argued with him earlier. You left the window open. People heard you.”
“That was nothing.” I looked around. “Are you alone here? Where’s Colin Reed?”
She turned the corners of her lips down in a mock smile. “Reed left a while ago. He was only interested in one thing and took off when I made it clear I wouldn’t play. Men can be so disappointing.” She said this flippantly, as if making a joke of it. “I wasted my time with him when I could have spent it with you.” She picked up Hal’s plastic bag and shoved it into her pocket. Her hand returned to my arm. “Look, it’s unfortunate what happened to Hal. But we can do a deal. There’s loads of money in it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She moved closer and the pressure on my arm increased. “John, it’s a stolen artifact. I know that. No big deal. Surely you don’t think I’m with the Feds or something?”
I stepped away and shook off her hand. “Frankly, I don’t care whether you’re with the FBI or Fort Knox.”
The moth I’d seen earlier reappeared, fluttering near the oil lamp. Eris stretched out her hand and flicked it toward the flame. I heard a sizzle. The moth flipped around erratically, straining to fly with burnt wings, then dropped onto the lamp base.
“This is getting tiresome,” she said. “Do I have to spell it out? What I’m telling you is we assisted with Hal’s injection. Don’t make the same bad decision he did.”
“Are you crazy? Do you have any idea how stupid that was? You killed him. He’d already taken enough. I saw him shoot up the first time.”
“He chose to be stubborn. He asked for it.”
“What are you talking about?”
Her overly sweet tone disappeared. “Look, we know you’re involved. Hal called you back here for a reason. Just tell me where it is.”
My mind raced. None of this was making sense. She was either delusional or up to something truly vicious. Either way I wanted no part of it. The whole thing was spinning out of control. All I wanted to do was get out of there. I doubted she had the muscle to tackle me, and I couldn’t see a weapon. I heard a sound and hoped someone else might be coming. Her glance darted to the shadowy brush at the end of the garden. A figure loomed. I glimpsed an enormous man stepping onto the flagstones. Eris smiled. This was no savior. I might be able to handle one of them. Two, no way.
An old lattice fence separated the Vanderlins’ from the place next door. Through the gaps in the slats the dog growled furiously, using its teeth and paws to tear away at the rotted wood. It began to splinter.
Eris turned her head, her eyes widening in fear. She opened her mouth, revealing small, perfectly spaced white teeth, and flicked a pink tongue over her lips.
The bottom of the fence cracked. Through the hole the face and slathering jaws of a bull mastiff appeared. Eris leapt away, afraid the powerful dog would push through and attack. Lights blinked on next door. A guy’s voice shouted out, “What in God’s name is going on over there?” A siren wailed in the distance.
I took the opening Eris offered and whipped Hal’s cellphone at her, jagged end forward, and ran through the open sliding glass doors.
I sped off. If the police caught me now they’d think I was running from a murder.
Four
Idrove around aimlessly, checking the rear-view mirror constantly to make sure I wasn’t being followed. My thoughts came in frantic scrambles. What in the hell was going on? Was Eris high on something? Did she really kill Hal? She was after some kind of artifact. The thing Hal told me about earlier? Had he called me back to help him, or to involve me in some scheme?
I checked the mirror again. Was that silver Range Rover tailing me? Could she have moved that fast? I don’t know why I picked that car out; any one of them could have me in their sights. I pulled a risky U-turn and sped past the silver SUV. My body quaked and I jerked the steering wheel. Thanks only to the vigilance of the driver beside me, we avoided a crash. He leaned on his horn in justifi-able rage. Add an accident to tonight’s events and I’d wind up in a monumental shitload of trouble.
My state of mind was such that I hadn’t been paying any attention to where I was actually headed and now I realized I’d ended up in Murray Hill. I scanned the cars behind me again. No sign of the silver one. I turned onto a side street and slid into a vacant spot just before realizing I was ahead of a patrol car. It took a slow roll past me and braked. The cop on the passenger side gave me the evil eye. He’d sensed my panic. I was finished. But to my surprise they lingered for only half a minute before speeding down the street. I rested my head on the steering wheel, the shock of the night’s events closing around me like a vise.
I needed somewhere to cool down and think. Going home wasn’t an option. Not yet, anyway. Eris had my business card with my address. The only other place I could conjure up was my favorite club, which had the benefit of being right across the street from my condo. I could keep an eye out for any sign of Eris.
I turned the car around and headed for Kenny’s Castaways.
The building housing Kenny’s had been a bar since the early 1800s. By the 1890s the
My love affair with the place and the songs had never ended.
Kenny’s was subdued. The band was on their last set, close to packing up and heading out the door. A few people lingered near the stage nursing their drafts. I slid onto a stool, my usual spot at the end of the bar.
Diane Chen, the bartender, had short spiky hair in two shades of purple and wore makeup that made her already pale skin ghostly. She once told me she regularly waxed her eyebrows and drew them back in with black pencil. Under her long black lashes, her eyeliner had been tattooed on. A diamond stud punctuated her bottom lip, and one earlobe sported a row of tiny silver rings. Like many restaurant staff, she used her bartending income to anchor her acting career. With all those earrings, I thought, costume changes must be hell.
She waved when she saw me and walked to the front door, looking out before returning. My hands still shook. I pushed them onto my lap so she wouldn’t notice.
“What’s up with checking out the front door?”
“The restaurant stalker’s been around again. We’re trying to avoid him.”
She saw the question in my eyes.
