Run Away

Chapter Thirty-Six

Ash took the Major Deegan Expressway south off the Cross Bronx.

“You have to assume,” Ash said to Dee, “that more of the fourteen sons are going to send their DNA to those genealogy sites.”

Dee Dee nodded, flipping the phone back on to check for messages.

“So what then?”

“The Truth won’t survive the week. I don’t understand all the legal stuff, but once his estate goes into probate, it’s harder to make a claim.”

“Still,” Ash said. “Someone is bound to put this together.”

“How so?”

“Another one of the Truth’s sons puts his DNA into the system.”

“Okay.”

“He sees he has three or four other brothers — and they’re all dead.”

“Right. One was shot in a robbery. One committed suicide. One is just missing, probably a runaway. One should be, I don’t know, stabbed, maybe by a drug-addled homeless nut. Horrible set of coincidences. And that’s if he’s able to track them down. Which isn’t easy. Their accounts stay active after their deaths. So first any new son would email his dead half brothers. They wouldn’t write back. He’d probably just drop it there, but even if he somehow tracks them all down and figures out the connection and somehow gets law enforcement from various states to cooperate on these old crimes, what will they find?”

Dee Dee had thought this through.

“Ash?”

“They’d find nothing,” he said.

“Right, so— Oh, hold up.”

“What?”

“A text came from Simon Greene.” She read it aloud:

“Any thoughts on who Cornelius is?” Ash asked.

“None.”

“This isn’t good.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“And what’s the deal with Mother Adiona?” he asked.

“That I don’t know.”

“She told me not to trust you.”

“But you do, Ash.”

“I do, Dee Dee.”

She smiled at him. “We can worry about her later, okay?”

They found a spot in front of some concrete barriers in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx. They both had guns on them. They also both had knives. This one was to look like a stabbing — something, Ash thought, that probably occurred a lot amongst the various drug factions on these streets.

He was about to open his door when he heard her say, “Ash?”

Her tone stopped him. He looked toward her. She gestured with her chin up ahead. She took out her phone and held up the image she’d screenshot from the PPG Wealth Management website.

“That’s him, right?” she asked.

Ash took a look. No question. Simon Greene was walking into the building.

“Who is that with him?”

“My guess? Cornelius.”

Dee Dee nodded. “I’m thinking this isn’t going to be a stabbing, Ash.”

“Yep.”

She glanced toward the weapons bag in the backseat. “I’m thinking it’s going to be more like a gun massacre.”

Rocco was the kind of gigantic it was hard to fathom, so that each time you saw him, you were struck anew by the sheer size of him. When he strolled around Cornelius’s apartment, Simon half expected to hear fee-fie-fo-fum à la “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

Rocco squinted at the books on the shelves. “You read all these, Cornelius?”

“I have. You should try it. Reading gives you empathy.”

“Is that a fact?” Rocco grabbed a book off the shelf, paged through it. “Do you have the fifty grand, Mr. Greene?”

“Do you have my daughter?” Simon countered.

“No.”

“Then I don’t have fifty grand.”

“Where’s Luther?” Cornelius asked.

“Stay cool, Cornelius. He’s close by.” Rocco lifted his mobile phone. “Luther?”

A voice came through the phone’s tinny speaker. “I’m here, Rocco.”

“Just stay put,” Rocco said. “Our friend here doesn’t have the money.”

“I have money,” Simon said. “It’s not fifty grand, but if whatever you tell me helps me find my daughter, you get the full amount. You have my word.”

“Your word?” Rocco was a big man and had a laugh to match. “And what, I’m just supposed to trust you because you white guys are so trustworthy?”

“No, none of that,” Simon said.

“Then why?”

“Because I’m a father.”

“Oooo.” Rocco wiggled his fingers. “You think that impresses me?”

Simon said nothing.

“Only thing that impresses me right now is cash money.”

Simon dropped the cash on the coffee table. “Almost ten thousand.”

“That’s not enough.”

“It’s all I could get on this short of notice.”

“Then buh-bye.”

Cornelius said, “Come on, Rocco.”

“I want more.”

“You’ll get more,” Simon said.

Rocco hemmed and hawed a bit, but the cash on the coffee table was calling to him. “So here’s how it is: I got something to tell you first. It’s pretty big. But then my boy Luther... Luther, you still there?”

From the phone: “Yeah.”

“Okay, you stay there. Just in case they try something. A little insurance.” Rocco flashed his teeth. “So when I’m done, I’m going to tell Luther to come in here, because he’s got something way bigger to say.”

Cornelius said, “We’re listening.”

Rocco picked up the cash. “I got a confirmed sighting of Paige.”

Simon felt his pulse quicken. “When?”

Rocco started counting out the bills. “Two days after her old man got murdered. Seems your daughter stayed around here for a while. Hid maybe, I don’t know. Then she got on the six.”

The six train, Simon thought. Closest subway stop.

“Someone was pretty sure of that,” Rocco said, still counting. “Not definite. But pretty sure. My other boy though, he’s convinced he saw her. No doubt at all.”

“Where?” Simon asked.

Rocco finished counting, frowned. “This is less than ten grand.”

“I’ll get you another ten tomorrow. Where did he see Paige?”

Rocco looked at Cornelius. Cornelius nodded.

“Port Authority.”

“The bus terminal?”

“Yeah.”

“Any idea where she was going?”

Rocco coughed into his fist. “Tell you what, Mr. Greene. I’m going to answer that question. Then Luther — Luther, get ready, okay? — is going to tell you the rest. For fifty K. I’m not going to negotiate either. You know why?”

Cornelius said, “Rocco, come on.”

Rocco spread those huge hands wide. “Because when you hear what Luther has to say, you’ll give us the money to keep our mouths shut.”

Simon’s eyes locked on Rocco’s. Neither man blinked. But Simon could see. Rocco meant it. Whatever Luther had to say would be huge.

“But first, let me answer your question. Buffalo. Your daughter — and this is confirmed by a reliable source — got on a bus for Buffalo.”

Simon scoured his brain for anyone he or his daughter knew in the Buffalo area. Nothing came to him. Of course, she could have gotten off earlier, really any place in upstate New York, but he still couldn’t come up with anybody.

“Luther?”

“Yeah, Rocco.”

“Come up, okay?”

Rocco disconnected the phone. Then he smiled at Cornelius. “It was you, wasn’t it, Cornelius?”

Cornelius said nothing.

“You the one who shot Luther.”

Cornelius just stared him down. Rocco laughed and held up his hands.

“Whoa, whoa, don’t worry, I ain’t going to tell him. But here’s the thing you’re about to find out. He had his reasons.”

“What reasons?” Simon asked.

Rocco moved toward the door. “Self-defense.”

“What are you talking about? I wasn’t going to—”

“Not you, man.”

Simon just looked at him.

“Think about it. Luther didn’t shoot you. He shot your wife.”

Rocco smiled and reached for the doorknob.

Several things happened at once.

From the corridor, Luther screamed, “Rocco, look out!”

Rocco, working on instinct, flung open the door.

And then the bullets started to fly.