Stone Cold

Chapter Fifty-Three

The flame came from a lighter that cast more shadow than light. The woman holding it crouched in front of Alex, pressing the barrel of her gun against Alex’s cheek. Sitting cross-legged, arms wrapped around her middle, Alex didn’t answer.

“I ain’t gonna ax you again. Who the fuck’re you?”

The room stopped spinning and Alex took a breath, then let it out and blinked, focusing on the now familiar face in front of her.

“I’m Alex Stone.”

Gloria scooted back, pulling the gun away but keeping it pointed at Alex. She rocked back on her heels, keeping the lighter on and thinking.

“Shit, girl, what happened to your face?”

“I fell. You’re Gloria Temple, aren’t you?”

“How you know my name?”

Alex dropped her hands in her lap, glancing around the room. The flame gave enough light to reveal something crawling across a couch, either a large rat or a small cat. Trash littered the floor. The sewer smell was stronger than in the basement, no doubt coming from an overflowing and backed-up toilet. There was a wall to her left, a foot away. She reached out her hand, bracing herself, and slowly stood. Gloria rose with her, keeping her gun trained on Alex.

“Put the gun down and I’ll tell you.”

Gloria shook her head. “Only way I’m puttin’ my gun down is if I decide not to kill you, and I ain’t decided. I know who you are. You was Dwayne’s lawyer.”

“Yes, I was. We need to talk, and I don’t like doing that while you’re pointing a gun at me.”

“Fuck you! You killed Dwayne.”

Alex nodded. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Bullshit, bitch!”

“It’s not bullshit.”

“I was there. I saw what you did.”

Alex didn’t want to go there, not yet. She wanted Gloria to be the one on the defensive. “And I know what you did. The question is whether the police know.”

“What the fuck’s that s’posed to mean?”

“It means that you were with Dwayne when he killed Wilfred Donaire.”

“How you know that?”

Alex expected a denial, not a confession. “I didn’t know it for sure, at least not until you just admitted it. You’ve got a picture on your phone of you standing in Wilfred’s backyard. You’re all bundled up because it was a cold day just like the day Dwayne killed Wilfred. A woman gave a gold necklace to Dwayne that belonged to Wilfred. That was you.”

“How you know what’s on my phone?”

“Doesn’t matter as long as I do. But here’s something I don’t get. Why did Kyrie Chapman make Jameer Henderson testify against Dwayne?”

“That fool thought if he could get Dwayne sent to jail, he’d have me to himself.”

“But you weren’t interested.”

“And I never was gonna be interested, but Kyrie, he never give up.”

“How’d he know about Dwayne and the necklace?”

Gloria didn’t answer.

“You told him? If he was the fool, what’s that make you?”

Gloria waggled the barrel of the gun. “It make me the one wit’ the gun, bitch.”

Alex nodded. “You’re right about that. So did Dwayne take your picture before or after he cut off Wilfred’s dick?”

Gloria threw her head back, laughing. “Dwayne didn’t cut that pissant muthafucka’s prick off. He saved that part for me.”

Alex held her face in check, the same as she did whenever her clients tried to shock her. Both she and Dwayne had taken credit for mutilating Donaire Reed. At this point it didn’t matter which one was telling the truth. What mattered is that Gloria wanted Alex to believe that she was a dangerous woman. The gun Gloria was aiming at her was all the convincing Alex needed.

“Do you still have your phone?”

She shook her head. “Cops took it from me.”

“Which means Detective Rossi has seen the picture of you in Donaire’s backyard. If I could put it together, he can too. Did the prosecuting attorney promise to cut you some slack on Donaire’s murder if you testify against me?”

“I tol’ him that picture don’t prove nuthin’ ’bout me and Wilfred.”

“That’s what I would have told him if I was your lawyer, so why are you telling me what you did?”

“’Cause there ain’t nuthin’ you can do ’bout it.”

“I can testify about it.”

Gloria laughed. “Girl, you see this gun? You ain’t gonna be testifyin’ about shit.”

Alex realized that if Gloria was telling the truth about mutilating Wilfred Donaire, she wouldn’t hesitate to kill her. The worst thing Alex could do was to show the fear that was rising from her belly to her throat. The best way to avoid that was to keep talking.

“Ortiz knows you’re right about the photograph, so he’s got to have something else on you to turn you into a snitch.”

She glared at Alex. “Tellin’ what some white bitch did to my man ain’t snitchin’.”

“Fair enough. What does Ortiz have on you that made you willing to do your civic duty?”

Gloria hesitated, smiling halfway like a kid about to tell a secret. “Fuckin’ baseball bat he say got my fingerprints on it.”

Alex’s jaw went slack, her mouth hanging open. “You did that to the Hendersons?”

She grinned. “Mighta had some help.”

Alex balled her fists, pressing her arms against her sides, wanting to strangle Gloria. “How could you have done that? They never did anything to you!”

Gloria shrugged. “Jameer, now, that man was a snitch, and he got to pay the price. His wife and kids, they part of the price. And me and Dwayne, we a team.”

Alex had seen a lot of bad cases and defended a lot of bad people, but she couldn’t remember anyone as casual and callous as Gloria, who treated mass murder as a team sport. She wished she had seen Gloria there when she killed Dwayne so she could have killed her too.

“Then why did you run? Why didn’t you take whatever deal Ortiz offered you?”

Gloria waved her gun at Alex again. “That waddn’t right, you killin’ Dwayne just cause he called you a dyke. You shoulda let him bone you like he said he was gonna do. Might’ve changed your mind about eatin’ pussy instead of suckin’ dick.”

Alex shuddered. “How could you-”

“’Cause I was there, bitch! Bringin’ that fuckin’ bat back to Dwayne ’cause he wanted it for a souvenir. I seen how you tol’ Dwayne to come on and do it so he’d put his gun down just so you could shoot him, and I seen how you put his gun in his hand like he was the one that pulled the trigger.”

Alex clutched her bloody shirt, Gloria’s accusation stunning her. “You were there.”

“Damn straight I was there.”

“He’d killed all those people. He was going to rape and probably kill my girlfriend. I couldn’t let him do that.”

“Like I give a shit ‘bout them people. I only cared ‘bout Dwayne and you killed him. I’d of killed you right them ‘cept that cop came runnin’ in so I went runnin’ out. Packed a bag. Left the bat in the closet at the house where I stayed ’cause I figured the cops didn’t know nuthin’ ’bout me and wouldn’t know to look for it there. Stashed the gun here in case I ever came back and needed it. Now, I would’na minded seein’ you go down for killin’ Dwayne, but Ortiz must be a fool to think I gonna spend the rest of my life in prison.”

“But-but-”

“Quit stutterin’, girl! I ain’t gonna testify.”

Alex breathed deep and let it out. “So what now?”

Gloria furrowed her brow. “What now? For real? I’m gonna kill you. What the hell you think?”

Her lighter gave out as she spoke, the sudden darkness giving Alex a chance she took, her survival instinct taking over. She threw herself at Gloria, both of them screaming and tumbling across the floor, Gloria pulling the trigger, the bullet whistling past Alex’s ear.

Alex clamped her hands around the gun, shaking it loose from Gloria’s hand. Gloria grabbed a fistful of Alex’s hair, banging her head against the floor, kicking Alex out of her way, and scrambling for her gun; then a powerful beam of light swept across the room, blinding Alex for an instant.

“Police!” Rossi shouted, aiming the light first at Alex and then at Gloria.

“She’s got a gun!” Alex cried.

Shots rang out. Alex covered her ears and shut her eyes, not opening them until she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s over,” Rossi said.