Jeffery Deaver - Hell's Kitchen

“Wassup, homes?”

“Not much,” Pellam answered. “Wassup with you?”

“Hangin’, you know how it is. Whatchu got there?”

“A present.”

“All right , cuz.” The boy stared at the large shopping bag with huge eyes. Pellam handed it to him. The boy opened it up and pulled out the basketball. “Yo, you all right, Pellam! This be fine ! Yo, homes, lookit!”

Two other young boys, a little older, came over and admired the ball. They passed it back and forth.

“How is it here?” Pellam nodded at the YOC storefront.

“Ain’t so bad. They don’t dis you so much. But what it is they make you sit an’ listen to these hatters, like priests and counselors, don’t know shit. They tell you stuff. Talking at you, wearing yo’ ear off, axing you things they don’t know ’bout.” He offered an adult shrug. “But, fuck, that life, ain’t it?”

Pellam couldn’t argue with that.

“An’, man, that Carol bitch,” he whispered, looking around. “Don’t go messing with her. She ax me why I be comin’ in at three this morning. Give me all kindsa shit. I tell that bitch what she can do.”

“Did you now?”

“Hell’s yeah… Well, I tried. But there ain’t no talking to that woman, cuz.”

“Why were you out at three a.m.?”

“I was-”

“Just hangin’.”

“That straight, Pellam.” He said to his homies, “Let’s get a game up.” They disappeared toward an alley, happy as ten-year-old boys the world over.

Pellam pushed through the squeaking door.

Carol looked up at him from the desk. Her wan smile faded as soon as she saw his expression.

“Hi,” she said.

“Howdy.”

“Sorry I’ve been so hard to get a hold of,” she said. “We’ve been busy as hell here.” The words were leaden.

Silence. Motes of dust floated between them. Amoeba, caught in the brutal light.

“All right,” she said at last. “I didn’t call because I got scared. It’s been a long time since I got involved with somebody. And my history with men hasn’t been so great.”

Pellam crossed his arms. He looked down at what Carol was working on, a stack of papers. Government forms. They seemed overwhelmingly dense and complicated.

Carol sat back in her chair. “This isn’t about that, is it?”

“No.”

“So?”

“I just heard a few things I was curious about.”

“Such as?”

“The day of the fire you were asking about me.”

The Word. On the street.

“Hey, cute guy, wearing cowboy boots. Sure, I was asking.” She laughed but she couldn’t bring the levity off. Her hands rose to her pearl necklace then continued up to her glasses and compulsively kneaded the taped joint on the frame.

Pellam said, “You found out where I lived. And you broke into my apartment the morning I stayed over. While I was asleep in your bed.”

Carol was nodding. Not to agree or protest or to convey any message at all. It was a reflex. She looked around. Set her pen down. Her face was a grim mask as she considered something. “Can we go upstairs? It’s more private.”

They walked to the elevator. Inside, Carol leaned against the car wall, looking somber. She glanced down and brushed absently at some dust that marred the stalwart Latin word for truth on her sweatshirt.

Carol avoided Pellam’s eyes as she made meaningless conversation. She told him in a breezy voice that an elevator company was going to donate a new car to the YOC. It would have a big “compliments of ” plaque inside. As if the kids would run out and buy elevators of their own. “Crazy what people’ll do for publicity.” He gave no response and she fell silent.

The doors opened and Carol led them down a deserted corridor oppressive with dirty tiles and murky in the weak fluorescent light. “Here.” Carol pushed the door open and Pellam stepped in – before he realized that it wasn’t a lunch room or office, as he’d expected, but a dim storeroom.

Carol closed the door. She had purpose in her movements and her eyes had grown chill. In the back of the room she moved aside boxes. Bent down and rummaged for something.

“I’m so sorry, Pellam.”

She paused. Took a deep breath. He couldn’t see what she held in her hand.

His thoughts strayed to the Colt in his back waistband. Ridiculous to think that she’d hurt him. But this was the Kitchen.

You’re walking past a little garden at noon in front of a tenement, thinking, Hey, those’re pretty flowers, and the next thing you know you’re on the ground and there’s a bullet in your leg or an ice pick in your back.

And her eyes… her cold, pale eyes.

“Oh, what a fucking mess.” Carol’s mouth tightened. Then suddenly she turned, her hand rising, holding something dark. Pellam reached back for his gun. But in her pudgy fingers were only the two videocassettes she’d stolen from his apartment.

“For the past week, I’ve actually thought about running away. Going someplace else and starting a new life. Not saying a word, just vanishing.”

“Tell me.”

“That man who mentioned me. About saving his son?”

Pellam nodded. He remembered about the young man nearly dying inside a building about to be torn down, how she’d rescued him.

She said, “I was afraid you might have me on tape. I can’t afford any publicity.”

He remembered her distrust of reporters.

“Why?”

“I’m not who you think I am.”

A recurring motif in Hell’s Kitchen.

“And who are you?” Pellam snapped.

Carol hung her arm around the riser of a shelf and lowered her head onto her biceps. “A few years ago I was released from prison after serving time for dealing. In Massachusetts. I was also convicted…” Her voice faltered. “… convicted of endangering the welfare of a minor. I sold to some fifteen-year-olds. One of them overdosed and nearly died. What can I tell you, Pellam? What happened to me was so boring, so TV-movie… I dropped out of school, I met the wrong men. Street dealing, basing, smack, fucking for dollars… Oh, brother, I did it all.”

“What’s this got to do with the tapes?” he asked in a cold voice.

She compulsively ordered a stack of thin towels. “I knew you were making that movie about the Kitchen. And when I heard that man had mentioned me I thought you’d include me in the story. I thought somebody in Boston might hear about it and word would get back to the Outreach Center board. I couldn’t risk any publicity. Look, Pellam, I’ve ruined my life… I’m so messed up from abortions I can’t have kids… I’m a felon.”

Carol laughed bitterly. “You know what I heard the other day? This bank robber was released from Attica and was having trouble getting work. He was furious that somebody referred to him as an ex-con. He said he was ‘societally challenged.’ ”

Pellam wasn’t smiling.

“Well, that’s me. ‘Societally challenged.’ There’s no way I can get a job with a government social agency. No day care center in the world would give me the time of day. But the Youth Outreach Center board was so desperate for help they didn’t have much of a screening process. I showed them my social work license and a massaged resume. And they hired me. If they find out who I am they’ll fire me in a second.”

“For the good of the children… Why’d you lie to me?”

“I didn’t trust you. I didn’t know who you were. All I know about reporters is that they look for the dirt. That’s all they fucking care about.”

“Well, we’ll never know what I would’ve done, will we? You never gave me the chance.”

“Please don’t be angry, Pellam. What I do here is so important to me. It’s the only thing I have in my life. I can’t lose it. I lied when I met you, yes. I wanted you to go away but I also wanted you to stay.”