Running of the bulls

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Carmen heard the rat before she saw it.

She was in the safe house on Avenue A, curled up with her cheek to the hardwood floor, and she could hear it. Rummaging, chittering, pushing its luck.

She opened her eyes and saw it sideways.

Ten feet away, larger than she had anticipated, eating the remains of the pastrami sandwich she bought last night at an all-night deli in the Village. Slate gray whiskers twitching, jaw chewing, eating her breakfast. Without a sound, Carmen lifted the gun nestled beneath her ribcage, checked the silencer and took aim.

“Hey,” she said. “Rat.”

Their eyes met-and suddenly the rat was a dripping gray-red smear on the crumbling brick wall.

She sat up and looked around the spare room, the floor of which had an angle steep enough to cause concern even among the most jaded of New Yorkers. Her skin was damp, sticky. Her dark hair clung to her neck in crisscrossing webs. She’d stripped down to her underwear sometime in the night, but it hadn’t helped. Despite her efforts to shut it off, the ancient iron radiator tucked beneath the open window had continued to tick off the seconds with quick bursts of steam.

She wondered if Spocatti had returned.

She got up, slipped into shorts and a T-shirt, and went into the flat’s only other room, which was small and dim in the shade-drawn light. There was a gas stove and a refrigerator here, a dirty metal sink with exposed pipes and a square metal table, on which sat Spocatti’s computer, printer, modem and a spray of red tulips arranged in a pale blue plastic water jug that hadn’t been there when she went to sleep.

She looked up and saw Spocatti hanging from the ceiling.

He’d screwed two U-shaped metal bars into one of the three exposed rotting beams and he was doing pull-ups. Save for the pair of black nylon shorts that hugged his ass, he was naked. His back was to her. Splinters of wood fell down on top of him, collecting in his hair and on the rounded curve of his shoulders. His muscles rippled with each pull and he did the exercise quickly, with absolute ease.

Carmen didn’t know what to say to him or where she stood with him. Last night, he’d been so furious with her, he’d sent her back here and left to take care of Martinez himself. In the time that had passed, she didn’t know what had happened or if he’d even found her. She’d waited until dawn for him to return before giving up and going to sleep.

She went to the refrigerator, pushed aside his clouded bag of vitamins and removed the carton of orange juice. She unscrewed the cap and drank, watched him go up, down, up. She wouldn’t be surprised if he asked her to leave.

He dropped from the ceiling, stretched, shook the splinters from his hair, twisted his back, cracked the spine. He turned, acknowledged her with a nod, came over to where she stood and took the carton of juice from her hands. As he drank, he looked at her over the dew-drop gleam of sweating cardboard. She was almost convinced she could feel the heat of his body pulsing straight through her own.

“What time did you get back?” she asked.

He emptied the carton and crushed it, raised his dark eyebrows and said nothing.

“Did you find Martinez?”

“I did more than just find her, Carmen. I killed her and her daughter.” He tossed the carton into the trash and nodded at the newspaper lying on top of the computer. “Take a look at the front page of the Times,” he said. “There’s a story that might interest you.”

She went over to the table, looked at the newspaper, saw Wood’s photograph in the lower left corner and skimmed the story that ran alongside it. Wood was dead. The details were sketchy. Carmen felt a sinking in her gut. Spocatti went ahead without her. “You killed Wood yourself? You did this without me?”

“I had nothing to do with her death. I assumed you did it.”

Wood was on their list. “I didn’t.”

“Then who?”

“I have no idea.”

“Well, that’s intriguing, isn’t it?” He dropped to the floor and started doing push-ups.

“Does Wolfhagen know she’s dead? Have you talked with him?”

“Oh, I’ve talked with him,” he said. “This morning and last night. We couldn’t reach him because he wasn’t in California. He’s here, in New York. Staying at The Plaza.” He put one arm behind his back and continued. “Wasn’t too happy with you, Carmen.”

“I’m sure he wasn’t.”

He switched arms. “You had an off night. You made a few bad decisions. We’ve all been there. I sympathize.”

He jumped to his feet and ran his hand down the length of his muscled torso, wiping away the sweat. “Anyway, things have changed. Wolfhagen wants to move on this. He wants us to get through the list by the end of the day. The police are already onto it. They’re making connections. They suspect Martinez saw something and they’re probably right.”

He paused, plucked a tulip from the arrangement, turned it over in his hands and lifted the delicate red cup to his nose. “But now, she’s dead and that’s going to be enough for the police. They’ll know Hayes was murdered and they’ll connect him to the rest. Before the others make that connection, Wolfhagen wants them dead. It’ll make for one hell of a day, but I’ve agreed.”

“But we’ve already discussed this,” Carmen said. “If we move too quickly, the police will suspect him. Wolfhagen’s got motive. They’ll know it’s him. They’ll burn his ass.”

Spocatti tossed her the tulip. Carmen snagged it with one hand and stared at him.

“Wolfhagen knows the risks, but he’s no fool. He’s willing to take them because he’s going to be everywhere when each murder happens. When they die, he’ll have alibis. He plans to be with this person, that person, at this public event, that restaurant. It’s not a bad plan. As long as he remains in public when we take out the others, he should be fine. And besides, after my last job here, I’m tired of New York. I’ve been here too long. I want this over with. It’s time for something new. He wants those people dead by the end of tonight? Fine. I’m all for it. You should be, too.”

“Tell me how we’re going to do this when we have to let everyone know why they’re being murdered and catch everything on film?”

“I mentioned that to him and he’s willing to be more lenient. If the situation allows for it, great. But if we need to take a rifle and shoot someone in the back of the head in an effort to be more efficient, that’s what we do.”

He stepped beneath the U-shaped bars, jumped and gripped them tightly. Up, down, up. “One other thing,” he said to her. “Maggie Cain? Wolfhagen wants us to kill her first, but not before we’ve found every trace of what she’s written about him and burned the manuscript.” Up, down, up. Eyes hard and narrowed and suddenly fixed on hers. “I’ll take care of Cain. In the meantime, I’ll need you to search her apartment for that manuscript.” Up, down, up. “Oh, and there’s one other thing. Just a small thing. I also need you to figure out how we finish off the rest by midnight tonight.”