Part 6 (2/2)
”f.u.c.k!” I kept repeating through the tears I fought to keep in my throat.
There was a phone in the back of the coffee shop. I fumbled through my wallet and found Leman Sweet's card.
I left my name and the number of the coffee shop pay-phone on his voice mail. ”It's urgent,” I added. Then I took a seat near the phone and waited.
It took about twenty minutes for him to call back.
”What can I do for you?” he began, grudgingly civil. I guess I was still riding for free on his feelings for Aubrey.
”I just read the paper,” I said. ”Do you have anything to do with that blind girl thing? The one who was murdered?”
Sweet didn't answer for a minute.
”What's that to you?” he finally said.
”Do you?”
”You figure it out, college girl. You saw me with the f.u.c.king guitar. I explained the undercover gig to you, with the street musicians. She was a street musician. I was supposed to be a street musician. What do you think?”
”The paper didn't say anything about the musician angle.”
”Paper didn't say a lot of things. How dumb are you?”
Actually, I could have answered that one. But I refrained. This was no time for self pity.
”h.e.l.lo?”
”I'm still here,” I said.
”What's this all about, college? Do you know something about that chick?”
”Yeah.”
”What have you done, girl?”
”I gave her twenty thousand dollars-the money that was missing from Charlie Conlin's socks.”
”f.u.c.k.”
”Yeah, I know.”
”Are you saying you been in that apartment where she was killed?”
”Yeah. That's what I'm saying.”
”Where are you?” he boomed into the receiver.
I'd used up every bit of the goodwill Aubrey had built for me with Leman Sweet. He was back to hating me. But I'd made up my mind that if he so much as breathed on me this time I was going to pick up a bottle and kill him with it.
I was waiting on the street when he pulled up to the coffee shop in his standard issue, plain clothes car. He reached over and opened the pa.s.senger door, barely looking at me.
”Since you like to meddle with police business so much, I'm taking you to the scene of the crime,” he said when I'd slammed the door closed.
I had deliberately placed the sax case between us on the front seat. I kept my eyes fixed on the busy streets, on the people walking free, living, happy-not trapped like me, not hurtling toward some dark unknown, like me.
”Start talking,” Sweet commanded.
”What do you want me to say?”
”How did you know Inge Carlson?”
”I didn't know her. I found her.”
”How?”
”I asked around the street. Sig-I mean Conlin-had told me about her.”
”And where did you get the bright idea to give away twenty grand of New York City Police money to a blind wh.o.r.e?”
”I didn't know it was your money, Mr. Sweet. I figured Conlin got it from someplace pretty bad, that he'd done whatever he had to do to get it, but it was his. If she was his lady, then some of it should go to her. Any kind of a man would want that.”
Sweet's mouth pulled back unattractively from his big teeth. ”I wonder,” he said, ”if you learned your line of bulls.h.i.+t in school or whether you're just a born liar.”
”I'm not lying.”
”Yeah, sure. And that blind girl ain't dead.”
One good thing had happened: Sweet's power over me-his ability to terrify me-was dwindling rapidly. His contempt and scorn were fast becoming a bore.
”Okay,” I said quietly. ”I'm the world's biggest liar. Let's move on to something else. Why are you taking me to her apartment?”
”I want you to show me exactly what happened when you gave that money away.”
”Nothing 'happened.' I just gave it to her.”
”There's a potential witness been turned up too. I want him to take a look at you. A good look.”
”Just in case I gave her the money and then came back and stole it from her-and then killed her-right?”
”You irritate the s.h.i.+t outta me, you know that?”
”I'd gathered.”
”We gonna see how smart you are later, when I take your a.s.s to the station ... little miss genius.”
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