Part 8 (2/2)

They were playing a set of Monk's thinking cap pieces. But my brain somehow wasn't turning over. What the h.e.l.l did Rhode Island Red mean? And why had Wild Bill run away from me as if he'd seen Satan on my shoulder?

On second thought, though, why shouldn't he be frightened? It appeared that Inge's murderer had shouted those words before he killed her.

With great reluctance, I turned the radio off. Then I thought better of it and turned it on again, so that the sounds would continue to fill my house even if I wasn't at home.

I also took the ghoulish sketch and scotch-taped it to the refrigerator door. I stepped back and pointed threateningly at it. ”Stay right there, a.s.shole.”

I stood across the street from the Emporium, just staring at the entrance. I really disliked going in there, even in the middle of the day. I didn't want to see the h.o.r.n.y businessmen and the grinding girls or smell the stale beer and despair.

But I made myself cross over. Then, just before I reached the door, I heard a cheerful ”Nan!” ring out. I turned. Who was calling my name?

”Nan! Nan!”

It wasn't Aubrey's voice.

A young white woman standing at the curb beside a van was waving to me, smiling. She was wearing an Antioch sweats.h.i.+rt and jeans and in the crook of her arm was a big, healthy looking rubber plant. Obviously she knew me, but I couldn't place her. It occurred to me then that she might be someone I'd gone to school with.

She called my name once again and made a broad gesture toward the plant, pointing at it and then nodding in my direction, as though it were meant for me. She hefted it once or twice and I thought she might drop it any moment.

I walked over to her, staring hard at her wide, friendly face, trying my best to remember her. She thrust the plant into my arms then, laughing.

I laughed too. ”You mean this is mine?”

”No,” she said, ”but this is.”

She was holding a small gun in the palm of one hand and she paused for a few seconds to let me look at it, as though she were a saleslady showing off a brooch. Then she curled her finger around the trigger and pressed the gun against the bottom of my jaw.

”Get in.”

I have never been mugged. I never so much as received a spanking from my parents. And now I had the sudden image of my skull splintering. Tissue and bone and blood flying every which way. The phrase at close range came back to me from all the thousands of times I'd heard or read it. Then my mind went as numb as my legs and feet felt. The van door swung open and Lady Antioch pushed me in.

As the door closed behind us I stumbled over what looked like a violin case. I was scared, but not so scared that the street musician connection wasn't immediately apparent.

The woman and I sat with our backs against one wall of the van. There was a man in the front seat. Middle-aged. Black raincoat. Short beard. Pitiless blue eyes, which he turned on me.

”We have some questions to ask you,” he said wearily, as if that were an onerous thing.

The woman kept the barrel of the gun half an inch from my chin. We were both breathing heavily, sharing the same fear, I suspect-that she would have to use that gun.

”What questions?” I managed to shake out of my throat.

”Why is a nice colored girl like yourself hanging around with gangsters?”

I could only guess how stupid I must have looked at that moment, scared to death, confounded, yet half convinced that someone was playing a practical joke on me.

”What gangsters?”

”Henry Valokus.”

Oh, okay. So it was a joke.

”That's ridiculous.”

”He's a made member of one of the New England crime families.”

Having a gun pointed at my larynx had been shock enough for one afternoon, thank you. But now I'd been given this new bit of information, casually spoken by a pale-eyed killer in a raincoat. His words had the absolute ring of veracity and so I quickly set about trying to refute them.

My knees were knocking but I had to speak up. ”The worst thing Henry's ever done is put a ca.s.sette back in the wrong case.”

”I'm not going to argue with you, Nanette. You want to hang with wise guys, hang with wise guys. What I care about is you shooting off your mouth about Rhode Island Red. You are not going to shoot off your mouth anymore.”

For a second there-just a second-I forgot I was being held captive. I leaned forward eagerly. ”You know what it is?” I asked the interrogator. ”I was only trying to find out what it means.”

At his nod, the young woman beside me pushed the gun into my neck. My head slammed hard against metal.

”Okay, Nanette. I'm through talking,” the grand inquisitor p.r.o.nounced. ”I hope you're through talking too. Because if you mention Rhode Island Red again, your big mouth won't be the only hole you've got in your head. Understand?”

I said nothing for a minute, hypnotized by those eyes.

”Do you understand me?”

I thought I'd better not force him to ask again. I nodded my understanding, the gun like dry ice on the side of my face.

The van door sc.r.a.ped open then. And they threw my a.s.s out on the street like a bundle of newspapers. I landed on all fours, lathered in sweat, shaking.

I brushed myself off a little and stumbled into the Emporium. I was told by the manager, as if I were the biggest fool who ever lived, that Aubrey ”doesn't work days.” The bartender on duty was not named Earl and nothing I said could convince him otherwise. Furthermore, he wouldn't have called me on a bet, he said.

You've been all kinds of set-up, I thought. Better have a bourbon. The fellas who had come in for a midday fix of flaccid t.i.tties and domestic beer were casting strange looks at me. f.u.c.k em.

All right. So two crazies had put a gun against my head and warned me about Rhode Island Red. And it had to have been Wild Bill who told them about me.

I ordered another Jack D.

All right. So I was not wrong about the words the killer had shouted in Inge's apartment.

I drank another.

All right. Henry was in the mafia.

Preposterous.

Did I drink that next one, or was it drinking me?

Two girls with bad permanents were writhing in unison. The weirdest sister act you can imagine. The men pressed closer to the stage. I needed to get out of there.

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