Mark Smith - The Inquisitor

“You can’t go in there, Harry. That place has more traffic than the Holland Tunnel.”

They both looked at Lily. A sparrow had landed on the windowsill outside and Lily was watching it watch her. Every time it cocked and recocked its tiny head, Lily did the same, as if conversing in a silent avian language.

“Christ,” sighed Rita, “I’ll take her.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Rita.”

Harry grabbed Rita’s hand and gave it a tight squeeze. Holding her hand felt good, and abruptly he realized that he might start weeping. He had no idea why.

“Harry,” Rita said. “I can’t take her unless you let go of me.”

“Sorry.” Harry let go of Rita and took Lily by the wrist. “C’mon, kiddo.” He stepped out of the booth and helped Lily stand up.

“The birds…” she said.

Rita wrapped her arm around Lily’s waist. “Let’s go, sweetie.”

As she steered Lily toward a narrow hallway, Rita hollered to the counter. “Manny! Gimme a chedlette, bacon crisp, nuke the homeys. Carla, watch mine for a minute.”

Rita and her ward disappeared into the shadows, and Harry sat back down. The coffee was beginning to pacify the ache in his head, so he tried to unscramble his thoughts by making a mental list of the issues he needed to sort out.

One: Hall had gotten past the firewall on the website. He didn’t think that this was possible without a legitimate in, so maybe he should try to contact the referral for some dope on these guys. But Hall had used Colicos, the scrap metal guy, as his reference, and it would be a major hassle getting to him.

Two: Could Hall track people by cell phone signal? If he had somebody inside Verizon or Sprint or wherever, he could get that kind of information for a price.

Three: What the hell was he going to do with Lily? He didn’t have the cash to pay for a rental car or a cab to drive her all the way back to the home in New Rochelle, and he didn’t have the nurse’s number so he could call and tell her to come pick Lily up. For now at least, it would have to be a brother-and-sister act.

“Mission accomplished.”

It was Rita. She eased Lily down in the booth and put a plate of food in front of Harry.

“She was wearing a diaper, so now she’s not,” Rita reported. “You might want to think about picking some up for her. And Harry-she said something.”

Harry picked up a forkful of eggs but before eating said, “Yeah, she likes to sing songs.”

Rita shook her head. “No, she said something. She said, ‘Tinkle.’”

The past and all its lighter-than-air dreams closed in on Harry like a force field. He put his fork back down on the plate and stared into his sister’s dark, wishing-well eyes.

“She said that? ‘Tinkle’?”

“Yeah. You know, when she was on the toilet peeing.”

Harry felt Rita’s hand on his shoulder and then realized that tears were sliding down his cheeks. He reached across and rubbed his sister’s arm softly.

“Jesus, Lily. You’re still in there somewhere, aren’t you?”

Rita gave his shoulder a squeeze and said, “I’m gonna tell you something, Harry. You’re a good man. The way she is? Not every guy would take care of a sister like this.”

Harry sat back and wiped the tears away with his palm. “Not true, Rita, but thanks.” He picked up his fork. “Funny, though-you’re the second person to say that today.”

“That makes it two against one, Harry, so I must be right.”

“Yeah, how can I argue with you and a cabbie from Louisiana?” He shoveled some eggs into his mouth, but even before he finished the bite he stopped chewing. That cabbie: suddenly he heard the driver’s drawling voice say, I got a sister, too.

His senses ping-ponged from uncertainty to paranoia and back as he replayed the scene with the taxi driver in his head. Almost immediately he was sure: he had never told the cabbie that Lily was his sister.

He and Lily didn’t look anything alike now, but could the driver have overheard some part of their conversation and made a reasonable deduction about who Lily was? Or-more likely-had the cabbie known who Harry and Lily were before they got into the cab? Geiger said the boy thought there had been three men. Harry had to swallow hard to force the food all the way down his throat.

“Rita, is there a back way out of here?”

“I thought you were starved.”

“I am. Is there?”

“Yeah, down the hall. Goes out to the alley.”

Harry stood up and got Lily to her feet, took a few bills from his pocket, and put them on the table.

“If a guy with red hair and a mustache comes in, you didn’t see us. He might have a southern accent, too.”

“You’re giving me the creeps, Harry.”

“That makes two of us.”

Harry suddenly grabbed Rita’s startled face in his hands and gave her a hard, quick kiss.

“See you,” he said, and pulled Lily toward the hall.

Out in the alley, the morning heat was cooking the pavement’s patina of garbage scum. Harry took hold of Lily’s skinny forearm, pinned her behind him, and peeked out from the corner like a mouse checking out cat-ruled terrain. Cars sped by playing beat-the-light, power chords roared out of the apartment window of some heavy-metal freak, and two women tottering on silver stiletto heels walked their little foo-foos on rhinestoned leashes. Everything was loud and busy and moving, but Harry picked out a taxi parked half a dozen cars in from the corner on the opposite side of the street. The shade of the trees turned the profile of the driver inside into a smudged silhouette. The head was moving-talking, or bobbing to the radio, or chewing something-but Harry couldn’t tell if it was the good ol’ boy or not.

He leaned back out of view and turned to Lily. She stood against the wall with her eyes closed.

“So what do you think, sis?” Harry said. “Your redneck buddy one of the bad guys?”

“I see you, baby,” she said, her eyes still shut. She smiled.

Harry sighed so deeply he heard himself do it. “‘Tinkle.’ I can’t believe you said that.”

A stoner came down the sidewalk, nursing a butt and scratching his patchy attempt at a beard.

“Hey, kid,” said Harry.

The teenager turned. His T-shirt read, “Blow it up and start over.”

“Yeah?” he said.

“You want to make twenty bucks?”

The kid’s middle finger sprang up. “Fuck off, perv.” He flicked his cigarette at Harry and kept walking.

“Hey, wait, it’s not like that! Thirty bucks!”

The stoner stopped and looked back. “To do what?”

“See that cab parked up there? I need you to cross the street, get a look at the driver, keep going to the corner, come back, and tell me what he looks like.”

“Who’re you? James Bond?”

“That’s right. I’m James fucking Bond. Deal?”

“Fuck yeah.”

As the guy started across the street, Harry gave him a loud whisper. “And don’t be too obvious.”

The stoner nodded and walked toward the taxi. Harry watched as the kid took out a cigarette and then leaned right down into the window of the cab. The driver’s darkened profile turned to the stoner; a moment later, Harry saw a flash of amber light.

“Jesus,” Harry said. He leaned back behind the wall and waited for the kid to return. When he didn’t show, Harry peeked out again and came nose to nose with him. He flinched and felt a hot zap of pain slice through the side of his face.

“Hey, Double-oh-seven,” the stoner said. “How ya doin’?”

“What’d he look like?”

“Cash first.”

Harry pulled his wad out, peeled off three tens, and put them in the kid’s outstretched palm.

“So?”

“Red hair. Nice thick ’stache. Baseball cap.”