Part 15 (2/2)

The body. The body. That was no G.o.dd.a.m.n ”body”. That was Walter M. Moore. We had made love hundreds of times. Gone swimming in the country. Walked home from the movies. Argued about nothing.

I was sitting at the kitchen table and the detective was perched on the arm of a nearby chair. Someone had placed a gla.s.s of water in my hands.

Not stopping to think, not missing a beat, I was on Sweet, teeth bared, crazed. Trying to gouge his eyes with my nails, spitting incoherent curses.

It was the male cop from the white van who pulled me off. Had he flung me or did I slip? I don't know, but I landed on the floor, practically in Walter's arms.

And then, in one movement, I reached for the battered black case that Walt had been carrying. I ripped open the latches and threw back the top so that I could see the million dollar sax, the thing that so many people had died for.

The three cops rose as one.

I began to laugh wildly.

The case was filled with rusted tin cans.

Leman Sweet looked as if he'd been hit with a baseball bat. He reeled away from the case, looking sick.

The white male cop cursed despondently and sat down across the room.

”Charlie must have filled it up as a decoy and hid the sax somewhere else,” the woman cop said.

Brilliant deduction.

Leman didn't have much left after that. The three of them began a half hearted search of my place, which had already been torn apart. But they seemed to know it was futile.

I wanted to say good-bye to Walter before they called the station and the morgue and the technicians; before the whole surreal mess that had marked the night Sig died started all over again.

I made myself kneel down beside him and touch his brow. Next to him on the thrift shop rug lay his wallet, the one I'd given him for Christmas three years ago.

I could see the tip of his blue plastic Chemical Bank cash card. For some reason that started the flood of tears again. Walter had always said that if he died suddenly my only responsibility was to empty his bank account and send the money to his nieces in Baysh.o.r.e.

Was Leman Sweet right? Was Walter Moore, my erstwhile fiance, a heartless killer? Would he have calmly blown me away if I had walked in on him earlier today?

Maybe. Honey, your taste in men is so bad, anything at all is possible. But what difference does that make now? asked Ernestine, my unbending conscience, my ceaseless voice, my guide, my tormentor, my nemesis.

I saw her point. As far as those two little girls in Baysh.o.r.e were concerned, what difference did it make?

I slipped the card into the top of my boot.

After they had all cleared out, including Walt, I sat on the kitchen floor and rocked myself like a mother with a wakeful baby.

When I felt strong enough, I called Aubrey, who listened to the whole story without saying a word, and then ordered me to lock up the apartment and get into a cab. She'd be waiting for me at the bar of the Emporium.

It was dark when I left. I didn't hail a taxi right away. First I had to get to a cash machine.

The nearest one was at a funky-junkie corner of Third Avenue. It was not a safe place after dark, but I was beyond fright.

Two derelicts were lying on the floor of the ATM. I stepped over them and inserted the card in the machine.

Walter's PIN number was easy to remember the numbers translated into ”KNICKS”.

I punched it in.

The machine asked me how it could help me. I punched the information key to find the balance.

I am working on it, read the display.

Current Balance: $21,415.42.

I stared at the figure for what seemed like hours. I knew that was the blind girl's money in Walter's account. It was like I'd told Henry that day: I got her killed. I gave her that money and I got her killed. Walter. Oh G.o.d, Walter. I broke down anew every time I said his name in my head. I was crying not only because he was dead but because he had murdered.

Walter must have been keeping tabs on me, watching me, all the time he and I were apart. Otherwise, how would he have known exactly when Sig was killed?

Internal Affairs had been watching Leman Sweet. Leman Sweet and the other cops had been watching me. Diego watching Inge. Sig watching Wild Bill. On and on it went.

I staggered out, as dazed as any of the lost causes sleeping it off nearby. Everything was crumbling. Sky. Pavement beneath my feet. Little square of plastic in my fist. Looked like it wouldn't be long before there was nothing left of my world.

I needed sanctuary, even if that meant a screaming neon palace of flesh. I needed to get to Aubrey.

CHAPTER 14.

'Round midnight Where the h.e.l.l was I? All I knew was, I was wearing a fur.

Oh, right. The Emporium. Aubrey had put me to bed on the fold-out cot in the dressing room.

The clock near the small sink read three o'clock. In the morning or the afternoon?

In a few minutes Aubrey came in, naked from the waist up and wearing a spangled G-string: that casually perfect, taut, amber body glistening. She took a clean towel from the back of a chair and began daintily to blot away the sweat.

”You awake, Nan?”

”I'm awake. How long have I been sleeping?”

”About five hours. I gave you a pill and you went out like a light”

”Walter is dead, Aubrey. They shot him.”

”I know, baby. You told me.”

”He was doing some terrible things ... terrible things, Aubrey. I didn't know.”

I lay the coat aside then, and noticed that I was wearing a clean, starched s.h.i.+rt. I stared down at the whiteness of it, not able to remember changing my clothes.

”Here, Nan, take this.” Aubrey had opened a cabinet next to her dressing table. She handed me a gla.s.s and half filled it with brandy. She lit a cigarette for me as I drank.

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