Уолтер Мосли - And Sometimes I Wonder About You

“Even when you were a kid,” my father said, shaking his head, “I found it hard to understand you. It’s not so much the way you think, Trot, but it’s how you treat emotions. It’s like they were, I don’t know, like they were optional. But you’re my son. That means something, in the heart.”

I put down my glass and stood up.

“Where you goin’?” he asked me.

“I got a few more showdowns before the end of the week,” I said. “Why don’t you spend the night? Maybe you can keep Katrina from trying to kill herself again.”

I showed up at Marella’s door a little past 10:00. She was wearing a pink kimono over a short burgundy slip.

She kissed me when I walked in. I wanted that kiss. I wanted to feel it and to stay with it — but something was wrong.

“What is it?” she asked, leaning away.

“Let’s sit.”

We went to the brown sofa, sitting at opposite ends.

“Tell me,” she said.

“I didn’t go down to Philly,” I said. “I mean... I did go through Philly on my way to DC.”

From the look in her eye I hoped that Marella’s holster-purse wasn’t within reach.

“What did he offer you?” she asked.

“Anything.”

“Anything?”

“That’s exactly what I said. He offered me money, access, connections.” I counted out these wages on three blunt fingers.

“And what did you say?”

“At first I said that that would probably be a conflict of interest because I work for you.”

“At first.”

“Yeah. But then when he told me what he wanted I realized that anything I got from him was dependent on you.”

“Did you betray me, Lee?”

“No, no, but I remembered something.”

“What’s that?”

“You said that Melbourne wouldn’t have sent Lett after you or me with a gun. Do you still believe that?”

“Yes,” she said, “as far as it goes. You know people can surprise you.”

“When you say things like that it makes me want to throw you over my shoulder and take you someplace where they’d never find us.”

“I’m ready,” she said.

“But first you have to know your options.”

“Okay. What are they?”

“Melbourne said that he doesn’t want the ring back, that he wants to give you another one. He says that he feels heartbroken that he got so angry and now he wants to marry you with no prenup or stipulations.”

“No prenup?” I don’t think she meant those words to make it to her lips. That might have been the most honest thing she said in my presence.

“He wants to meet with you,” I said, “to make his case.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Obviously.”

“Why obviously?”

“Because if I didn’t he’d be a dead man by now.”

Marella’s nostrils actually flared. Her pupils opened wide.

“You’re never going to throw me over that shoulder and carry me off, are you, Lee?”

“Probably not.”

“You’ll protect me at the meeting?”

“Like a dog with his bone.”

“If I say yes will that dog share his bone with me tonight?”

The first order of business the next morning was a taxi ride to Hush’s house. I called him on the way downtown.

“It’s six a.m.,” he complained.

“What time you usually wake up?”

“Four thirty,” he said, “but this is still early.”

“I’m leaving a case and I got a lotta stops to make. Can you make me some coffee?”

“Sure. Come on by.”

He opened the front door of his Washington Square Park mansion before I pressed the bell. He handed me a ceramic mug of French roast and shook my hand. Then he did an about-face and led me through a doorway on the left side of his entrance hall. We went maybe fifteen feet and came to a dead end that was also a door. This opened upon a staircase that went up one flight, ending at a second door that looked like it belonged on a bank vault. It was made from burnished black metal and had an old-fashioned combination lock. Hush twisted the dial back and forth seven times, pressed the chrome handle down, and pulled. He ushered me in and followed.

It was a small room; nine by nine by nine. The walls were no doubt reinforced and there was no window.

They were laid out neatly, side by side on the floor — three dark plastic bundles that used to breathe and laugh. Hush slammed the vault door, which plunged us into darkness, then he flipped a light switch summoning at least a thousand watts of radiance from the ceiling.

“Two men and one woman,” Hush told me. “All of them young. They were after my houseguests.”

“How the hell did they get in?”

“I left the front door open,” he said casually. “I got every inch of this house wired for sight and sound. The observation room is just off the kitchen.”

I remembered the door. I was in the kitchen with Tamara once and asked her what was in there. She said it was just her husband being overprotective.

“I waited for them to separate and I took ’em out. They all had guns. They could have killed me. They’re packed with limestone powder. I’ll get rid of the bodies tonight after everyone else is asleep.”

The limestone retarded rotting. There was no odor in the room.

“They have homing devices on them,” I said.

“Not in this room they don’t. These walls stop any wave, pulse, or radiation.”

“Like a high-end coffin,” I commented.

“Amen,” my godless friend said.

“Where did you have Liza and Fortune while all this was going on?”

“I got a panic room in the subbasement,” he said.

“Of course you do. What did you tell them?”

“I told them the truth. I said that a couple of people were nosing around and that they might try and break in. I told ’em to go down there until I was sure it was safe. Then, when it was over, I brought ’em out and said that there wasn’t anything to worry about anyhow.”

“Where are they now?”

“Asleep of course.”

“I’m sorry about this, man,” I said.

“You don’t have to be. I knew it was serious when you asked for my help. Thanks for telling me about the homing devices.”

“They insert them under the skin at the back of a thigh.”

“I’ll dig ’em out.”

There were many things that most citizens could say and feel at a moment like that. Those three Jones kids had come to kill my clients and anyone else they encountered but they never had a chance. I could have felt outraged, sick, or maybe guilty. But it was like my father said: in a business like mine, feelings are optional.

Two blocks away from Hush’s house I called the police.

“Twenty-sixth Precinct,” a woman answered on the eighteenth ring. “How can I help you?”

“Captain Carson Kitteridge.”

“What about him?”

“I’d like to speak to him.”

“On what business?”

“My name is Leonid McGill—”

“Oh. Here you go.”

The phone went mute for some seconds and then, “Kitteridge here.”

“Hey, Kit.”

“What’s up, LT?”

“You say that like we’re almost friends, man.”

“I like you,” the perfect cop admitted. “But I’d like you better in a prison cell, that’s all.”

“Can you meet me at Gordo’s boxing gym in an hour or so?”

“This is about that information you promised me?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I’m on my way.”

I picked up my pace walking north on Fifth Avenue. I’d been so concentrated on Hush that I didn’t pay proper attention to the fact that I had lost every woman I loved or lusted after. Katrina, Aura, and Marella were all off the table for me. I didn’t feel crushed or heartbroken. My losses didn’t elicit a harsh feeling, no. For a block or two I wondered what was going on inside and then, somewhere around Seventeenth Street, it struck me: it felt, once again, like I was an orphan on the streets of New York.