Paul Johnson - The nameless dead

‘Hey, where you from?’ the man said, still eager despite the fading prospect of a sale.

‘Oh, here and there,’ replied the woman, her eyes invisible beneath the peak of her cap. ‘How about you?’

‘Astoria born and bred,’ he replied proudly. ‘My family’s from Greece.’

The woman smiled. ‘Land of brave heroes and tragic wives,’ she said, her voice hardening. ‘If memory serves, Queen Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon in the bath.’ She stepped forward, raising her hands as if she was brandishing a weapon. ‘With an ax.’

The stallholder took an involuntary step backward. ‘Crazy poutana!’ he yelled, as she disappeared into the crowd on the sidewalk.

The woman didn’t know Greek, but she could guess what the word meant. In a way, the fool was right. She was a whore, selling her services to whichever client paid most. But she didn’t open her legs for them. She…how did Havi, the guy who brokered her jobs, put it? She put people’s problems to sleep. That was quite poetic, even though Havi, a preening Puerto Rican who doubled as a Wall Street economist, wouldn’t know a poem from a postmodernist.

She was here in Queens to put a certain problem to sleep. It was a low-profile job, but she liked to kick back occasionally with something simple. There wasn’t much money in it, but that didn’t matter-she was making enough on the big contracts to retire in a few years. Not that she had any longing to duck out of the world she had slipped into so easily. The work was an addiction, but one with no side effects-as long as you weren’t in possession of a conscience.

The street she was looking for was off Ditmars Boulevard. The building was in reasonable condition and the vehicles parked by the curb were recent models, a mixture of family cars and SUVs. The red BMW Roadster stuck out like a thumb that had been caught in its door. She knew who its owner was. Besides, Havi had told her that the target always slept late and the presence of the car suggested his information was, as usual, correct. Glancing down the street in both directions and confirming there was no one nearby, the woman worked the lock. She was inside in under thirty seconds.

The lobby smelled of lemon cleaning fluid and dope. She subdued a sneeze and headed upstairs, her sneakers making no sound on the carpeted steps. Jimmy Vlastos’s apartment was on the third floor. He had made a lot of money from a coke deal and had bought the whole building without a mortgage-officially with money given by his father, a ship owner. When she got to his door, the woman slid her right hand under her belt and took out the custom-made switchblade. The blade glinted in the light from the cupola.

It took slightly longer to open these locks. The question was, had the target applied the chain? Negative. Either he wasn’t in after all or he’d forgotten after a long night in his cousin’s club. She slipped inside and closed the door quietly behind her.

The apartment was a blaze of glass and stainless steel, the drapes open to admit the sun. There were magazines all over the place, women in minimal clothing displaying their charms in positions that must have been agony for more than a few seconds. The musty smell from an ashtray full of roaches was cut by something sweet and mildly rotten. A bottle of Southern Comfort had spilled its contents onto an ugly purple rug.

The woman headed for the bedroom, extending the hand that held the well-honed plastic blade. She knew which door it was from the plan Havi had sent. Although it was closed, the sound of snoring announced that the resident was, indeed, present. She gripped the handle and turned it, her shoulder against the paneling. Then she was betrayed.

As the door opened, the hinges let out a loud screech. The woman moved forward quickly, but the man in the bed was instantly alert. He leveled a snub-nosed revolver at her before she was halfway across the varnished wood floor.

‘Who the hell are you?’ Vlastos demanded, his gun hand steady.

The woman slowly lowered the knife to her hip. ‘I’m dropping this, okay?’

‘You do that, bitch,’ Vlastos said, his eyes boring into hers. ‘That’s better. Now answer the fucking question. Who are you?’ Keeping the gun aimed at her chest, he pulled aside the quilt and stood up. He was naked.

‘Nice weapon,’ the woman said, flicking her eyes toward his groin.

‘Quit playing around. Take off that cap. Slowly.’

She complied, letting it fall to the floor beside the switchblade.

‘Now take your top off.’

So much for not getting distracted, the woman thought. She raised her hands to her neck and pulled the zipper down. Then she shucked the tracksuit jacket off.

Jimmy Vlastos eyed her breasts, which were accentuated by a tight white T-shirt. ‘Who are you working for?’

The woman smiled. ‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Don’t fuck with me, bitch!’

The smile widened. ‘I didn’t come here to fuck with you, Jimmy,’ she said, though her sultry gaze suggested the verb had some relevance.

‘You were going to gut me with that blade, poutana.’

She shook her head. ‘No, I wasn’t. Honestly.’ Suddenly she was pleading, her right hand raised toward him. ‘Please, I’m not a killer. I’m a-’

Vlastos’s eyes had followed the hand, which meant that he didn’t see the Ruger semiautomatic that she’d pulled from behind her back until it was too late. The silencer swallowed the sound of the shot. The spit was immediately followed by a loud crack as the 7.65 millimeter Parabellum bullet ricocheted off the barrel of Vlastos’s revolver and ripped it from his grasp.

‘Shit!’ he gasped, as his hand flew back.

The woman was holding the pistol in both hands now, the muzzle trained on his chest. ‘On your knees!’ She kicked the revolver under the bed. ‘Now!’

Jimmy Vlastos did as he was told, his eyes locked on the Ruger. ‘Where did you learn to shoot like that? You had the blade in your right hand.’

‘So I’m a woman and I’m ambidextrous. Get over it, asshole.’

He stared up at her. ‘So finish it,’ he said, his voice cracking. ‘But before you do it, tell me who’s paying you.’

‘I told you, that’s not for you to know.’ She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. ‘If you find out, I’ll have to kill you.’

Furrows appeared on Vlastos’s brow.

‘That’s right.’ The woman trained the pistol on the center of his face. ‘I’m not going to kill you.’

‘So what the hell are you here for?’

The woman stepped backward, holding her aim, and picked up the knife. ‘I’ve got some information for you. If you hadn’t pulled that gun on me, we’d have got along fine.’

‘Gimme a break. You came in packing.’

‘How was I to know if you were on your own or not?’

He looked dubious. ‘What good would a knife have been if there were two of us?’

She laughed. ‘Do you want to see how good I am with it?’

Jimmy Vlastos sat back on his heels and tried out a grin. ‘Not right now.’

‘Smart decision. All right, listen up. Your cousin Eleftheria.’

Vlastos tensed immediately. ‘What about her? Do you know something?’

‘I know that she’s eleven and she was raped last summer.’

He stared at her morosely. ‘So?’

‘I know who did it.’

There was a snort of disbelief. ‘How the fuck would you know anything? It was dark-even Ria didn’t see him.’

‘But he boasted about it later.’

‘What?’ Vlastos’s expression was a mixture of disgust and rage. ‘Tell me his name.’

‘Alonso Larengo.’

‘Fuck! Alonso? He’s my business partner, he’s a friend of the family.’

‘The kind of partner and friend nobody needs.’ The woman reached the door and lowered her pistol. ‘We’re done.’