Jeffery Deaver - Hell's Kitchen

“I don’t know.”

Bitterly she asked, “Well, so what I’ve got some money?”

“Ettie…”

“It’s my damn business, not theirs.”

“They say that you – or somebody – made a withdrawal just a day before the fire.”

“What? I didn’t take anything out.” Her eyes were wide with alarm and anger.

“Two thousand.”

She rose and limped in a frantic circle as if she were about to charge into the streets in search of the stolen cash. “Somebody robbed me? My money! Somebody told ’em ’bout my money! Some Judas did that.”

The speech seemed too prepared, as if she’d planned an excuse if the money was found. More conspiracies, Pellam thought wearily. Under Ettie’s shrunken frown Pellam turned away and gazed out the window. He wondered if she was accusing him. Was he the Judas? He asked finally, “Where’s the passbook?”

“In my apartment. It got burnt up, I guess. How can somebody take my money just like that? What am I going to do?”

“The police froze the account.”

“What?” Ettie cried.

“Nobody can take any more money out.”

“I can’t get my money?” she whispered. “I need that. I need every penny of my money.”

Why? Pellam wondered. What for?

He asked, “You didn’t use that money for bail. Don’t look that way, Ettie. I’m just telling you what they’re saying. That it’s suspicious.”

“They think I paid it to the firebug man?” She gave a sour laugh.

“Reckon they do,” Pellam said after a moment.

“And you think that too.”

“No. I don’t.”

Ettie walked to the window. “Somebody betrayed me. Somebody betrayed me good.” The words were bitter and she couldn’t hold Pellam’s eye when she said this. Again Ettie remained still as stone. Then her head rose inches, just enough for her to gaze at the dimly lit windowsill. “Leave me alone now, please. I’d as soon not see anybody. No, don’t say anything, John. Please, just leave.”

When the got him this time, they frisked him carefully.

Oh, man, not now. I don’t need this now.

Pellam had just walked into his apartment building lobby in the East Village, lost in his doubts about Ettie and her secret money, when six hands grabbed him from behind and slammed him against the wall.

Last time, with Ramirez, the Irishmen had been content to slug him once and forgo a search for wild west pistols. Now, they turned his pockets inside out and, satisfied that he was unarmed, spun him around.

Little Jacko Drugh was accompanied by a tall man vaguely resembling Jimmy Corcoran and a third one, a redhead. The lobby wasn’t that big a space but it offered plenty of room for three guys to beat the crap out of him.

The look in Drugh’s eye told him this wasn’t his idea and Pellam had some sympathy for the young man.

Let’s see. What scene would this be? Toward the end of Act Two in your standard Hollywood action/adventure script. The good gunfighter gets blindsided by the cattle baron’s boys. The heroic reporter gets nailed by the oil company security guards. The commando gets set up and kidnapped by the enemy.

Score one for the bad guys – setting up the hero for his triumphant return. And audiences love it when their boy goes down hard.

“I’d invite you up,” Pellam said, wincing at the vice grips on his arms, “but I don’t really want to.”

The taller of the thugs – probably Corcoran’s brother – drew back a fist but Drugh shook his head. Said to Pellam, “Jimmy heard what happened last night. Seany McCray taking it on himself to wax Ramirez. Heard you were playing second for the spic… Anyway, like you maya heard, Jimmy don’t want no excitement, too much attention in the Kitchen right now. So he ain’t going to kill you and Ramirez, like he probably ought. But youse took out one of our boys so we gotta come and do something about it. There’s gotta be some, you know, payback.”

“Wait, why me?” Pellam asked. “What about Ramirez?”

“Well, what it is is Jimmy don’t want to start nothing, no crew wars, so he figured everybody’d be happier we play Mike Tyson on you.”

“Not everybody,” Pellam muttered. “ I’m not real crazy about the idea.

“Yeah, well, that’s how it goes, doesn’t it? Jacko don’t make the rules.”

And I just paid five C-notes to this guy. Damn.

“Look, you want me to apologize, I will. I’m sorry.”

Redhead said, “Sorry don’t count for shit.” He stepped forward. Pellam turned to face him but Drugh held up an arm to stop his fellow gangster.

“Hold up. He’s Jacko’s. Isn’t he now?” Five-foot-two Drugh turned to face Pellam.

Who relaxed considerably. He understood now. That’s why Jacko’d volunteered. It’d be like O’Neil and Ramirez. A sham. Drugh’d pull punches, Pellam’d take a fall and it’d all be over with in three minutes. He knew how to fake-fight – from his stuntman days. Pellam shook free of the other two Irishmen and stepped forward. “Okay, you want some, you got it.” He lifted his arms, making fists.

Drugh’s first swing nearly knocked him out. The bony fist slammed viciously into Pellam’s jaw. He blinked and flew back, his head slamming into the brass mailboxes. Drugh followed up with a left to the gut. Pellam went down on his knees, retching.

“Goddamn-”

“Shut the fuck up,” Drugh muttered. He joined his hands together and brought them down hard on Pellam’s neck. In two seconds Pellam was flat on the filthy tiles.

Drugh’s coup de grace was a work-booted foot slamming into his kidney and gut. Jesus…

“You don’t got no gun now, you asshole,” Drugh recited, as if he’d been working on the line all day. He was a far worse actor than Pellam had suspected. “You’ve fucked with the wrong people.”

Pellam rose to his knees, swung at Drugh, missing completely and took three hard blows to the belly.

The little man whispered in Pellam’s ear: “How’m I doing?”

Pellam couldn’t speak. He was close to vomiting.

Drugh whispered: “Hit me back. It’s looking too fake.”

Pellam crawled away from him, struggled to his feet. He spun around and swung hard. He connected, a weak glancing blow to the man’s cheek.

Drugh blinked in surprise and screamed, “You fucking prick!” Redhead and the other one held Pellam while Drugh rained blows into his belly and face. Pellam simply gave up, he held his hands over his face and dropped to the floor again.

“Not so hot shit now,” the redhead said. He was laughing.

“Way to go, Jacko.”

Then Drugh had his gun in his hand and he pressed the muzzle against Pellam’s face. Pellam, thinking how he’d never really trusted the trigger cogs in guns. They could be notoriously edgy. The little bantam leaned closer, whispered, “See, you get me that part in a movie, I can do my own fighting and everything. I don’t need no stuntmen. An’ I got my own gun too.”

Pellam groaned.

“Shoot him in the foot or knee or something, Jacko.”

“Yeah. Fuck up his hand. Boom, boom.”

Drugh seemed to be debating “Naw, he’s had enough. These fucking queers from Hollywood, they can’t take shit.”

Drugh leaned forward once again, whispered, “What it is, that kid Alex you wanted to know about? He’s staying at the Eagleton Hotel on Ninth Avenue. Room 434.”

Pellam mumbled something that Drugh took to be, ‘’Thank you,” though the phrase shared only one word with that expression of gratitude.

Drugh gave him a friendly kick in the ribs as a farewell and then vanished with the others. “Hey, Tommy,” he said to Redhead, “you remember that scene in that movie I was telling you about?… Wht the fuck movie you think I mean?…”