Marked

FIFTEEN

It’s after two o’clock in the morning when he kicks in the door.

He hopes this will be straightforward. He hopes that Cubo and his girl will be tucked up in bed. Fast asleep. Not expecting any interruptions to their sweet dreams. Doyle will present his most fearsome aspect, wave his gun around, offer up a few simple questions and then get out of there. That’s how it will go.

Sure.

The first thing he sees is Tasha Wilmot. Which is a surprise in itself because he wasn’t expecting to be able to see a damned thing. But he can see Tasha because there is a lamp on in the room. Not only that, but there is some R amp;B playing quietly in the background. And Tasha is stark naked on the sofa. Welcome home, sugar.

And yet Tasha does not scream. Despite the fact that she is unclothed and is looking at a burly man in a ski mask who has just barged uninvited into her apartment and is now pointing a cannon at her face, she does not yell. Doesn’t even attempt to conceal her assets behind a cushion or two. And the reason for this apparent devil-may-care attitude of hers is not bravery or indignation; it is that she is stoned out of her skull. Doyle sees immediately that she can hardly focus on him, and that the only response he’s likely to get from her is some random eye-rolling accompanied by a little drooling.

He wastes no time in racing across to the bedroom, his heart now thumping warnings against his ribcage. If Tasha is awake, then there is every possibility that Cubo is also awake. And if he’s only a little more compos mentis than his girlfriend, he could well be reaching for a weapon of some kind right now.

Doyle shoulders the door open. Flies into the room. Scans the area with gun outstretched in a two-handed combat stance that would be a dead giveaway to any observer that this intruder is probably a cop, ski mask notwithstanding.

But there are no observers here. Except for perhaps those of the six-legged variety. There is a lamp on in this fleapit of a room, but no Cubo. Which leaves only. .

He hears the noise before he gets there. The bathroom. He launches himself at the door with his leg raised. Drives his foot into the area just over the handle. The door practically comes off its hinges as it crashes open. Doyle’s momentum carries him into the room, and for a terrifying moment he wonders whether an entrance like this is the wisest of moves.

He’s found Cubo.

Luckily his quarry doesn’t pose a threat. In fact, he’s probably the least threatening quarry imaginable. For one thing, he’s naked. He also makes size-zero models look obese: every bone in his body is visible through his thin pallid flesh. And his response to Doyle’s invasion is not to come at him with a knife or a gun, but to contemplate jumping out of the window he has just opened. He sits straddling the windowsill, one leg outside, one in, his gaze oscillating between Doyle and the blackness on the other side of that wall.

‘You don’t wanna do that,’ yells Doyle. ‘You’re five floors up and you’re not over the fire escape. You jump and you’re dead. And if you don’t die, where you gonna go with no clothes on?’

Cubo turns his head to the night air again. A gust of wind blows rain into his face. He turns back to Doyle.

‘I just wanna talk,’ says Doyle. ‘Don’t risk it, man.’ He pushes his Beretta into his waistband, then steps closer to Cubo. He sees that Cubo seems to relax a little, as though he is resolving his dilemma. As though he is on the verge of accepting that an encounter with a masked gunman, however undesirable that might be, beats a fall to certain death.

Doyle makes the most of the opportunity. He covers the remaining distance between himself and Cubo in one sudden bound. He reaches out his hand. .

. . and pushes Cubo out of the window.

Sometimes Doyle thinks he can be a little too impulsive for his own good. Can be a little too reckless.

Take now, for example. Dangling a naked guy out of a window by his ankles has to be one of the more outrageous acts he has perpetrated in his career. He would slap his own wrist if it didn’t mean letting go of this lowlife.

‘Quit the yelling!’ he calls down to Cubo. ‘You want the neighbors to hear? You want them to step into the backyard and see you like this?’

‘Bring me up!’ yells Cubo. ‘Get me the fuck inside, will ya!’

‘The sooner you quit yapping, the sooner I haul you back up. I ain’t exactly enjoying the view I got from up here, if you know what I mean.’

‘Okay,’ Cubo says, his voice unnaturally high-pitched. ‘Okay. I’m shutting up. Now bring me in. I ain’t good with heights.’

‘Then what the hell were you doing opening the window, dumbass? Don’t answer that. I got a more interesting question.’

‘What? What question?’

‘Anton Ruger. Where can I find him?’

‘Who? Who?’

‘Don’t prolong this, Cubo. My hands are getting pretty slippery in this rain. Anton Ruger. Where is he?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, man. I ain’t never heard of no Anton Ruger.’

Doyle allows Cubo’s ankles to slip through his grasp by about an inch. It’s enough to cause Cubo to let out another ultrasonic yelp.

‘Don’t fuck with me, Cubo. I know you been mouthing off about how you’ve been running with Ruger. Now where can I find him?’

‘All right, man. It’s true. I did say that. But it was just talk. I ain’t never met the guy.’

Doyle jerks his arms enough to shake the coins from Cubo’s pants, if he were wearing any. He gets another girlish scream.

‘Then why say it? Of all the scumbags you could claim to fraternize with, why pick Ruger? How come you know so much about him?’

‘All right, listen. There’s this other dude I know. He’s copped from me once or twice. When he was high, he told me about Ruger. About how he works for him. That’s all I know, man. It’s all hearsay. Now, please, let me up.’

Doyle doesn’t relent. Not yet.

‘Who is this guy?’

‘Calls hisself Ramone. I ain’t got no last name.’

‘What’s he look like?’

‘He’s a spic. Smart dresser. Likes the ladies. Has a gold earring.’

‘Where can I find him?’

‘I don’t know. Please. I ain’t got his address.’

Another shake. Another cry.

‘Then where’d you meet him?’

‘A strip joint in Brooklyn. The Arabesque. You know it? Close to the river.’

‘He go there every night?’

‘No. Saturdays. He goes there Saturdays.’

‘Every Saturday?’

‘Yeah. Every fucking Saturday. Now will you bring me up, please?’

Shit, thinks Doyle. This is turning into a wild-fucking-goose chase. How many more of these assholes do I have to lean on before I get to Ruger himself?

What makes it worse is that this Ramone guy is Doyle’s only lead to Ruger, and Saturday night is only hours before the deadline for getting the ring back to Bartok. There’s a big time period between now and then in which Doyle could be just sitting on his hands as far as locating Ruger is concerned.

He decides that this is the most he’s going to get out of Cubo, and hauls him back into the bathroom.

Sitting on the hard floor, dripping and shivering and rubbing his ankles, Cubo looks up at his masked attacker. ‘You didn’t have to go and do that.’

Doyle pulls his gun and aims it at Cubo’s head. ‘This never happened. All right, Cubo? I hear you talked to anyone about this, then I’m coming back. And next time it won’t be your ankles I’ll use to dangle you, if you catch my drift.’ To make his point clear, he lowers his aim. Cubo hastily places his hands over his shriveled genitals.

‘I won’t say nothing. I swear.’

Doyle nods. He believes what he’s just heard. Cubo is too terrified to risk another encounter like this one.

He leaves the bathroom. On his way out of the apartment he sees that Tasha hasn’t moved from her position on the sofa. Still hasn’t bothered to cover herself up.

Seemingly oblivious to the events that have just taken place in her bathroom, she gives Doyle an idle wave and a spaced-out smile. ‘Bye,’ she says. ‘Have a nice day.’

Cubo sits on that bathroom floor for a long time. Sits there shivering until he can’t take the cold anymore.

He drags himself up and closes the window. A last glimpse of the darkness out there makes his head swim. That guy was gonna drop him. From five floors above the ground! Jesus! He would have done it, too. It was in his voice. That dude was serious.

Cubo pulls open the bathroom door. He half expects to see the intruder still there. Maybe balling Tasha or drinking his beers or stealing his stash. And it shames him that, even if the motherfucker is doing any of those things, Cubo will smile and say nothing and wait while the guy has his fun.

But the man is not there. Just Tasha, waving her arms and yelling occasional words she remembers in the song being played, the dumb bitch.

Cubo crosses the living area and goes into the bedroom. He picks up a sweatshirt and jeans from the floor and puts them on. Then he goes back into the living room and paces up and down.

The guy said he would come back if Cubo told anyone about this, and Cubo believes it. Busting down his door, dangling him out of his own window, pointing a nine at his junk — that is one scary-ass motherfucker, man.

But, scary as he is, he is only one man. And, scary as he is, he is not scarier than Ramone, and the men who work for Ramone. When the guy goes after Ramone, and Ramone wastes him, as he surely will, then Ramone will want to know how the stranger found him. He will make inquiries — persistent and forceful inquiries that will undoubtedly lead him back to Cubo. And then hovering five floors above the ground will seem like a carnival ride in comparison to what Ramone will do to him.

And if, perchance, the man in the ski mask defeats Ramone — which he won’t — then he has to go up against Anton Ruger. And then all bets are off. Ruger is the baddest of the bad. Ruger will eat this guy for breakfast. And he too will want to know which rat squealed the information that led to him.

So weigh it up, man. Who frightens you more? A guy who is too chicken-shit even to show his face to you, or an army of killers led by a man who would slice up his own mother just to avoid boredom? Which of those is likely to triumph here, hmm? Which of those would it be sensible to stay on the right side of?

Making his decision, Cubo yells at Tasha to turn the music down, then picks up the phone.