Urge to Kill

18

The late-morning sun beat down on Queens from a cloudless sky, shortening tempers as well as stark shadows. Already the temperature was almost ninety. As she drove, Pearl watched the people on the littered sidewalks, reading their faces and body language. Some of them trudged along looking beaten and resigned. Others scowled and swaggered, with fixed glares suggesting they were near the breaking point. Heat and the city.

Pearl was driving a dusty black four-door Ford. To anyone with a knowing eye it was obviously a city car.

A middle-aged man with a stomach paunch straining the silky material of a blindingly violet shirt glanced over at her from the sidewalk and frowned. What the hell are you doing here, in my neighborhood? Pearl gave him her dead-eyed look, but he continued to stare, unimpressed, as he absently unwrapped a piece of candy or stick of gum and tossed the wrapper on the sidewalk. That irritated Pearl. She considered stopping the car and bracing the arrogant bastard for littering. And that shirt must be in violation of some ordinance.

Forget it. Bigger fish to fry.

She turned up the blower on the car’s air conditioner and made a left turn. In the rearview mirror she caught a glimpse of the guy in the luminescent shirt standing and staring at her with his fists on his hips. Prick.

Pearl pulled the car to the curb diagonally across the street from Pizza Rio. It was almost eleven o’clock. She was hungry enough to eat a pizza, so somebody else would soon crave an early lunch and pick up the phone to order takeout. Then one of the two teenage boys lounging near the bike rack across the street would place a cardboard box in a warmer on the wide basket on one of the ratty bicycles and leave to make a delivery. Pearl hoped it would be the shorter, heavier of the two, leaving her to talk privately with the tall one, who must be Jorge Valento. Knowing she was a movie buff like himself, Quinn had told Pearl to look for Sal Mineo. From this distance, the tall one filled the bill.

Pearl settled in, leaving the car’s engine idling and the air conditioner on high. Even with the windows up she could smell the spicy scent of pizza being baked. It was making her hungry.

The two boys by the bike rack didn’t seem to notice her. Jorge leaned with his back against the brick wall, his hands in the pockets of his baggy, torn jeans. Now and then he casually spat off to his left, away from the bikes. The shorter kid was doing all the talking, all the time jumping around a lot like a junkie needing a fix.

After about fifteen minutes, the jumpy one was suddenly still, and Jorge raised his head with a sideways tilt. Apparently a buzzer or some other kind of signal had sounded.

Pearl was in luck. It was the short boy who scurried into Pizza Rio and emerged almost immediately with a large, padded black pizza warmer. He used bungee cords to strap it to the wire basket behind a bicycle seat, then mounted the bike and rode off, standing on the pedals and leaning out over the handlebars as he gained speed.

Good at his job, Pearl thought, which meant she might not have much time. She switched off the ignition and climbed out of the car.

Not moving from where he leaned against the wall, Jorge observed the woman from the car approaching in the corner of his vision. When she was within about ten feet, he pushed himself away from the wall and turned toward her.

Nice-looking piece, he thought. Compact, trim, good legs, great rack. Nice face on her, too. Long dark hair that’d be fun to yank on. Dark eyes. Maybe she was Hispanic, as he was. A sister. He might play that angle.

No, now that she was closer she looked Jewish. That was okay, too. It just required different moves.

He knew he had a beautiful smile. He aimed it at her.

“You’re a cop,” he said.

She didn’t change expression. Not much would surprise this one.

She flashed her shield. “I’m Detective Kasner.”

“And I’m not.” Play wise ass with her, see how she reacts.

She seemed about to yawn. “You’re Jorge Valento.”

It kind of bothered him that the bitch knew his name. “How’d you know?”

“I came to talk to you about Joseph Galin, the man whose body was found here in a parked car night before last.”

He made it a point to meet her direct stare, and then blatantly looked her up and down, lewdly appraising her.

She looked only mildly irritated.

“I don’t know much about that,” he said.

“Sure you do.”

“I told everything I know to another cop, yesterday.”

“Not everything.”

“Who says?”

“Homicide Detective Frank Quinn.”

“That the cop I talked to yesterday? Old icicle eyes?”

“Uh-hm. Those eyes are the windows to his soul.”

“So why should I tell you anything I didn’t tell him?”

“It’d be a lot easier to tell me. You see, in Quinn’s mind, me asking you is just like him asking you. When people lie or refuse to talk to me, which is to say him, he gets impatient.”

Jorge remembered the big cop, Quinn, the large hands with their knobby, scarred knuckles. Not a young guy, but you just knew he could still be mean, and that it was his way sometimes. Jorge felt nervous. It had to show. He mentally put his mask back on, rearranging his facial muscles so he looked bored.

“You look like Sal Mineo,” the titty little cop said.

“That’s what my mother says.” My mother, who died ten years ago of alcohol poisoning.

“If you don’t talk to me, you might not look like Sal Mineo much longer.”

Jorge didn’t like the way she’d said that, as if she meant it. “Is that a threat, Officer Kasner?”

“That’s Detective Kasner. And yes, it’s a threat.”

He was surprised. Usually they didn’t come right out and say it. “Cops ain’t supposed to threaten people.”

“People aren’t supposed to use illegal drugs.” She nodded toward the broken crack vials among the litter at his feet on the concrete.

“What drugs?” he asked.

“The ones in your pocket.”

Jorge realized how hot the sun was. He began to perspire.

“That pizza sure smells good,” Pearl said.

“You get used to it.”

“That’s ’cause you get to smell that way yourself. You’ll sure smell good to the lifers in your cell block. Before you know it, you’ll be Sally Mineo.”

Jorge gave her a laugh he didn’t feel. “You’re pretty tough,” he said.

“You don’t know the half of it, Jorge.”

“So how do I avoid learnin’ the other half?”

“Tell me what you know about Galin.”

“He was dirty,” Jorge said.

He watched her face, how she looked not so much surprised as disappointed. Cops were a club whose members had to believe in each other. Not to believe hurt. And it was dangerous, when you couldn’t trust the guy watching your back. The titty cop would be surprised if she knew that when he was a ten-year-old kid he’d considered trying to join that club. Before he got mixed up in the gang that saved his life.

“It’s a dirty world,” he said.

“We agree. How was Galin dirty? Was he your supplier?”

Jorge almost smiled. She didn’t know much. “Naw, Galin never moved no stuff himself. He just watched over things, made sure nothin’ went wrong.”

“For the dealer?”

“Sure. Who else?”

She moved closer. For some reason she became scary. The eyes, maybe. Even the tits looked dangerous. “What I want now, Jorge, is the name.”

“The dealer’s name?”

“The name of whoever was paying Galin for protection.”

“That could get me in real trouble,” Jorge said, trying to find some leverage, an angle.

But the lady cop had all the leverage.

“You’re five minutes away from being taken away from here in handcuffs,” she said. “You’ll give us the name or you’ll see time behind walls.”

He kept his voice level, no quaver. He was no pussy. “You scare the shit outta me, lady.”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s probably because you’re smarter than most of your asshole friends.”

He stared at her. She had him, and they both knew it.

“Name you want’s Legend Lawrence,” Jorge said. It had slipped from between his lips almost on its own, but not surprising him. His mind had made the calculation without him realizing it. She wasn’t bluffing. He had no choice but to give her something. Prison time—a real stretch in an adult lockup—scared the crap out of him.

“Don’t screw around with me, Jorge.”

“Well, that’s his street name, anyways.”

“What’s his real name?”

“That I don’t know. Honest.”

The titty little cop sighed. He didn’t like the way she sighed, as if she was giving up on him.

She turned, about to walk away. The big cop, Quinn, would be the next one he’d see, and there’d be no sense running and hiding from him. He was the kind who’d find you no matter where you went or how good you hid. Like a goddamned Doberman pinscher with a bloodhound nose. Fear washed over Jorge like cold water.

“Lawrence was shot by another dealer,” he said.

That stopped her. “When was this?”

“Four days ago.”

She took a few steps back toward him. “What dealer?”

“I dunno who shot him. That’s what I heard, is all.”

“This Legend Lawrence dead?”

“In a hospital’s what I heard.”

“Which hospital?”

“I dunno. But he’s there under another name. Vernon Lake.”

“That his real name?”

“I got no way of knowin’ that.”

She studied him, making him feel like a bug or something under a magnifying glass. This was a hard bitch.

“Okay, Jorge. We’ll see about what you said.”

“You won’t tell where you got the information, will you?”

“I’ll try not to.”

“You seem like a nice lady.”

“Don’t shit me, Jorge. You gotta learn not to keep trying that.” She walked away a few steps and then turned back to face him. “And quit lying to yourself, too.”

“Everybody does that,” he said.

She grinned with big beautiful white teeth, like a celebrity.

“Now you’re learning,” she said.

Jorge watched her walk back across the street to the dusty black Ford. Even scared as he was, he couldn’t help admiring her ass.

When the car had turned the corner and she was indeed gone, Jorge swallowed hard and thought over his predicament. Cincinnati, he decided. He had cousins in Cincinnati who’d put him up for a while. Anyplace other than New York.

The bell mounted high on the brick wall gave two brief rings, signaling that a pizza was ready for delivery.

Jorge thought the hell with that, and climbed on the remaining bike.

Then he reconsidered, dismounted the bike, and went inside for the pizza and the delivery address.

Outside again, he crumpled the address slip and tossed it on the sidewalk before throwing his leg back over the bike. He took the pizza.

He didn’t know when he’d get a chance to eat again.

Probably not soon.