The Steel Kiss

Sachs believed she knew the answer to her next question. “Those boys who posted pictures of your brother and that girl. What happened to them?”

“Oh, that’s why I moved into the apartment in Chelsea. Easier for me to do what I’d decided to—find them and kill them; they worked in the city. One I slashed to death. Sam. The other, Frank? Beat him to death. The bodies’re in a pond near Newark. I can tell you more about those, if you want. She was going to kill me, wasn’t she? Alicia.”

Sachs hesitated.

The story would come out, sooner or later. “Yes, Vernon. I’m sorry.”

Resignation on his face. “I really knew. I mean, deep down, I knew she was using me. Anybody who wants you to kill people, just comes out and asks you, after you’ve slept together.” A shrug. “What did I expect? But sometimes you let yourself be used because…  well, just because. You’re lonely or whatever. We all pay for love one way or another.” Another searching gaze of her face. “You’re nice to me. Even after I tried to kill your mother. I don’t think you’re a Shopper after all. I thought you were. But you’re not.” After a moment he continued, “Can I give you something?”

“What?”

“In the backpack. There’s another book.”

She looked inside. Found a slim volume. “This?”

“That’s right.”

The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death.

She flipped through it, examining the pictures of crime scene miniatures. Sachs had never seen anything like it. Frances Glessner Lee was the creator of the dioramas. Sachs gave a soft laugh, looking at the tiny doll, a corpse, lying in a kitchen.

“You can have it. I’d like you to.”

“We’re not allowed. You understand.”

“Oh. Why not?”

She smiled. “I don’t know. A police rule. But we’re not.”

“Sure. Maybe you could buy one, now that you know about it.”

“I’ll do that, Vernon.”

Two uniformed officers approached. “Detective.”

“Tom,” she responded to the taller of the two.

“Bus’s here.”

She said to Griffith, “We’ll take you to booking. You’re not going to be a problem, are you?”

“No.”

Sachs believed him.

CHAPTER 58

He in there.”

Ron Pulaski looked from the boy, no more than fifteen, to the building the kid was pointing at. The place was bad, worse than most in East New York. Ron and his children had seen The Hobbit not long ago and at one point the dwarves and Bilbo were heading for a cave. That’s what this place reminded him of. One of those old stone structures, dried blood, brown, and with windows black and sunken as corpse eye sockets. Some broken. Some dotted with bullet holes.

Seemed appropriate, this dim, forbidding place, for Oden to be dealing from. Or where he fabricated his infamous Catch. The drug of drugs.

Or maybe he did that elsewhere and it was here that he tortured rivals and suspected informants.

“He alone?” Ron asked.

“Dunno.” The boy’s wide brown eyes twitched around the street. Ron had dressed down again—as always on the Save-Lincoln-Rhyme operation—but he still looked just like who he was: a white cop in a black ’hood, dressing sorta-kinda undercover. He was forcing himself not to look behind him, into the alley where Tony was waiting with his Glock drawn.

He asked the kid, “Oden? Is he armed?”

“Look, man, just my green. K?”

“I’m paying you one large. Does Oden usually carry?”

“This ain’t my ’hood. I don’t know this Oden, don’t know his crew. All’s I know: Word come from Alpho, at Richie’s, vouching for you, saying you lay down some green, I find this Oden bitch for you. I heard he in there, that building. All I know. I’m saying. You sure you ain’t a cop?”

“Not a cop.”

“Okay. I done what I’m s’posed to. Now: green.”

Pulaski dug into his pocket, wrapped his fingers around a week’s take-home—in fives to make the roll sing.

“Wait.” The kid was speaking urgently.

“Whatta you mean wait?”

“Don’t gimme no cash now.” As if the cop had belched during mass.

Ron sighed. “You just said—”

“Hold on, hold on… ”

Looking around.

Ron was too. The hell was this?

Then he spotted three young men, two Latino, one black, walking down the opposite side of the street, smoking, laughing. Their age would make them early college in some places, but here they might still be in high school, if not dropouts.

“Wait, wait…  No, no, don’t look at ’em, lookit me.”

Sighing again. “What are you—?

“K. Now. Gimme. The green.”

Ron handed the money over. The boy dug into his pocket and handed him a crumpled pack of cigarettes.

Ron frowned. “What’s in there? I don’t want to score anything. I just want to talk to Oden.”

“What’s in there is cigarettes, man. Just take it. Put it away like there’s three G of rock. Careful. Hide it. Now!”

Ah. Ron understood. The kid wanted to make it seem like he was dealing. Build his street cred. Ron glanced across the street and saw that the three young men had noticed. They gave no reaction and continued on their way.

Ron looked over the building. “Okay. Oden. What unit’s he in?”

“Dunno. Just he in there. I was you, I’d start One A and work yo way up.”

Ron started across the street.

“Yo.”

“What?”

“My ciggies.”