Billy Povich: Loot The Moon Part 16

"So he was calm enough to break in and kill the judge in cold blood, but too panicked to put a pair of diamonds in his pocket?" In a robotic voice, Kit said, "Does-not-com-pute."

Billy grinned at Kits first show of whimsy since he had met her. Maybe she wasnt completely hard-minded and in love with only the judge and the law. She had, he realized, punched clean through his theory. "Thats why we have to search his home," Billy said, "whether or not we violate t.i.tle eleven, chapter eight-dash-my-a.s.s, of the General Laws."

The apartment where the diamond dealer had sent the loupe was on the third floor of a triple-decker. In the vestibule, the doorbell for that apartment was listed under the name Gary Gleason.

"An alias?" Kit asked.

"A roommate, maybe," Billy said. "Its hard to carry off an alias. Fake drivers license, fake credit cards-those things are hard to get, expensive to maintain over time, and a good way to get noticed by the IRS or the FBI or some other set of government initials."

He checked the inner door of the vestibule.

Locked.

"So what do we do?" Kit asked. "We cant just ring the bell."

Billy crouched to examine the lock on the inner door. Very old. Poorly maintained. A wide crack between the door and the jamb. He stood and leaned a shoulder on the door. "Spare me the legal citation, okay?"

"What?"

Billy rocked back, then violently drove his shoulder into the door just above the lock. It burst open. Billy staggered into an inner hallway that smelled of p.i.s.s and dust. He gathered himself, stood at attention, held the door for Kit, and swept his hand through the air like an overdramatic doorman.

"Billy!" she said in a stage whisper, cut with giggly laughter. "Ive just witnessed my first real crime!" She hurried inside. Billy let the door wheeze shut. The corridor continued to the ground-level apartments. To the left, battered wooden stairs and a decorative banister led to the second floor.

Kit waved a hand in front of her nose. "Stinks in here," she said. "What is that awful smell?"

"Poverty," Billy replied.

She went on about the smell. Billy barely listened. His attention was on a string of small spots near the base of a banister post. The hallway light was no better than forty watts, so Billy could not be sure, but the dark streaks on the wood looked like dried blood. He sc.r.a.ped some away with a fingernail and sniffed it.

Crusty, sharp-smelling blood.

He hid the discovery from Kit, wiped his fingers on his pants, then leaned close and briefed her: "Were going to the third floor. If we run into anybody, we ignore them. We do not make eye contact. We do not strike up a conversation. We will look like we belong because we will believe that we do. If anyone questions us, we tell them to f.u.c.k off and we keep moving with absolute confidence."

Without waiting for an answer, he started up the stairs. Thousands of footsteps over ten decades had pressed the creaks out of the old staircase. Billy was pleased to climb it without making a racket. Kit followed close behind.

At the second-floor landing, a black cat with a regal white s.h.i.+eld on its chest watched them from a corner. The cat held its ground as they pa.s.sed. It hissed once, not aggressively, just a friendly warning to tell Billy and Kit to keep moving, and to mind their own business.

More streaks of dried blood spotted the banister on the staircase to the third floor. The stairwell seemed colder than the outdoors. Billy blew into his hands. Someone had pilfered the lightbulb in the ceiling lamp at the top of the stairs. The landing was dark. Billy pulled a small hikers headlamp from his coat, turned it on, and panned the beam around. Under the white light, the bloodstains that speckled the floor were deep burgundy.

Kit took three loud, choppy breaths and pointed to a smear on the doorjamb. Billy put the light to it. More blood. He slipped on the flashlights elastic headband and wore the light like a coal miner.

He looked at Kit. She squinted and turned away from the brightness. Her cheeks and nose were red from the cold, or maybe from fear. Her nostrils shone wet. Tension had raised ripples in the skin over her brow. Billy slowly scanned her with the light. Her hands were steady. Her stomach rose and fell with each deep breath. He held the light on her shoelace, coming undone, until she reached down and tightened it. Should they have to run, he wanted Kit to have every advantage.

She nodded that she was ready. Billy winked, then turned to the door. It was dark wood, with a bra.s.s k.n.o.b and deadbolt fixture. An index card taped to the jamb had a name in block letters: GLEASON, G.

Gary Gleason, same as the mailbox downstairs.

Billy pressed an ear to the wood. Two sounds competed to be heard: the rush of water through old pipes and the heavy drone of a refrigerator, right on the other side of the door.

He drew a handkerchief from his pocket, wrapped the doork.n.o.b to keep it free of his fingerprints-no sense giving any detectives the wrong idea-and turned the k.n.o.b. It resisted a moment, then smoothly rotated a half turn and clicked when the bolt snapped into the door. Holy s.h.i.+t, unlocked. Who would leave his door open in this neighborhood?

Now what. Should they knock?

Oh, well, what the h.e.l.l.

Billy pushed open the door.

What he saw brought a flash of horror that broiled his skin and raised a sweat.

A thick stripe of blood, like from a housepainters brush, slashed across the side of a white refrigerator to the left of the door. The refrigerator was wide open; it cast a dim yellow glow that cut the room into triangles of shadow and light. Bottles of beer lay scattered across a floor stained deep red.

Footprints and scuff marks in the blood marked the scene of a savage fight.

Chairs and a table had been tipped over. What looked for a moment like a human arm lay across a counter, a bright glob of congealed blood where the wrist would be.

Billys eyes widened at a human form across the room. He aimed his flashlight at it. A male mannequin, missing an arm, stood over the scene like a wounded survivor, sh.e.l.l-shocked to silence.

Billy stepped toward the door. Kit grabbed a handful of his s.h.i.+rt and pulled him back. He turned to her and whispered, "This is what we came for."

"We have to call the authorities," she pleaded.

"As soon as were done, well drop the dime, anonymously."

He turned away before she could argue, and stepped into the room, taking long strides onto islands of white linoleum between the bloodstains. Several identical womens business suits were piled in a heap at the feet of the mannequin. The security tags were still attached, so he guessed these suits had been boosted from some local department store. That seemed more like Rackerss style than shooting a judge.

He glanced back to Kit, who was still in the hallway, looking pensively at the carnage across the kitchen. Billy waved her inside. She came haltingly, then quietly closed the door behind her. With the door shut, Billy felt free to speak.

"Im going to explore," he said. "Look around in here but dont touch anything."

"Look around for what?" she asked, but Billy did not answer, for he had noticed a blood trail leading down a wide hallway. The drops were s.p.a.ced a few feet apart, and he imagined they had been left by a wounded man running at top speed. But running where? Into the bathroom?

No, he decided.

Running for the door.

The deduction calmed Billys roiling stomach. With so much blood, he would not have been surprised to find a body splayed on the floor. But if the bleeder had been wounded in the bathroom ... he must have escaped the apartment, down the stairs to the street.

He walked silently past a battered sofa and a storage chest, which sat across from a small bathroom. Shards of broken mirror on the bathroom floor reflected his headlamp, and scattered light around the room like a poor mans dis...o...b..ll.

This is where the fight began.

The light switch was just inside the bathroom door. He couldnt think of a reason to stumble around with a flashlight in an apartment with perfectly good utilities, and he clicked on the light.

No dead body. Whew. He stepped inside.

The top half of a broken mirror hung above the sink, reflecting the blue shower curtain across the tiny room. He noted a toothbrush in a gla.s.s on the vanity. He watched a soap bubble pop on a glistening wet bar of Ivory. On the floor, blood had spattered the chips of broken mirror. The ten-inch shaft of an ice pick stuck out from the wall at shoulder height, like a giant nail. The tools wooden handle lay splintered on the floor.

Billy swallowed hard and closely examined the ice pick, until his imagination began to guess how it might feel to have that metal slide through his guts, and he had to turn away.

The toilet lid was up, the water inside clear, and the old porcelain bowl stained with rust. A few magazines were scattered.

He walked back to the hall and turned toward the bedroom.

Wait ...

He froze, thinking ...

Holyf.u.c.kings.h.i.+t.

Gooseflesh erupted over his body. He looked desperately at Kit, who was in the kitchen, grimly leaning over the counter for a closer inspection of the mannequin arm. Billy tried to warn her but the words never left his thoughts.

The soap on the vanity ... why is it wet?

Somebody else was there.

Billy looked again toward the bedroom, dark and unexplored. The line of sight from the kitchen door went straight down the hall. If Kit and Billy had surprised somebody using the bathroom, Billy would have seen him duck into the bedroom.

But he was convinced he had heard water running when he listened at the apartment door. Distracted by the gore in the kitchen, he had forgotten about the noise. So they had surprised someone ... someone who was was.h.i.+ng his hands ... who had heard the door ... and killed the light ... .

So where did he run?

Or ... did he run at all? Billys head slowly turned, more slowly than the red second hand of a clock, until he stared straight at the shower stall.

The curtain hung motionless.

He s.h.i.+vered against another wave of goose b.u.mps.

nineteen.

Of all the f.u.c.king no good luck!

Scratch shrank in his shower stall into an uncomfortable squatting position, with his tailbone against the tiled wall and his a.s.s on his heels, coiled like a spring-the position should provide the best leverage to explode from the shower and make a run for his life. Except that he had squatted there so long, afraid to move, barely breathing, hardly blinking, he could not be sure his legs had not gone numb.

He listened to the footsteps coming closer. Oh, Jesus Christ, is he coming back? Scratch screamed orders to the intruder in his mind: Youve already searched the bathroom. Remember? Two minutes ago. Are you thick or something? n.o.body is here so go the h.e.l.l away!

Scratch had been positive he had not been followed to his apartment. Not after riding a cab from the airport to the train station downtown, and then hopping a second cab from the train station to the city park, through which Scratch had shadow-hiked along strolling trails that circled the duck ponds. Not to mention the ten-minute ride on a rickety three-speed bicycle he had liberated from a backyard on the Cranston city line. No way he could have been followed; his trail was scrubbed.

Had they been waiting for him? This was his first time home since the attack. He only wanted some spare cash, fresh clothing, his favorite marked deck of poker cards, and a shoe box stuffed with resalable PDA cell phones, which Adam had pilfered from Radio World before he died in the wreck. Eh, maybe a few beers, too. Just some necessities to make life on the lam more bearable.

And then to be caught at home with his pants down. Not down, actually-but unzipped. Either way, big trouble. He hadnt heard them at the door until it was too late to run. He practically had to drag himself by the collar into the shower stall, from which the masked attacker had plotted Scratchs murder.

But there he squatted, hiding from an intruder in the place an intruder had hidden from him.

Scratch was beginning to detest irony.

To be murdered in his bathroom after escaping a murder in the same d.a.m.n bathroom would be too much.

A woman called softly from the kitchen, "Billy? Have you found anything? Billy?"

No, Scratch answered silently. Theres nothing to find. Now split.

The womans voice had a nasally thickness. Something about her p.r.o.nunciations suggested she was well educated. Who was she? Did hit men bring their wives along? Were they on a date? Hang on, babe. Well get to Phantom of the Opera, soon as I waste this guy.

Scratchs left leg began to quiver. From fear? From the stress of squatting? He couldnt be sure. He clutched his knee with both hands, as if to choke it to death if it didnt calm down.

A sliver of broken mirror crunched underfoot on the other side of the curtain.

Whoever this guy was-Billy, the woman had called him-he was standing directly in front of the shower stall.

Scratch waited, waited ... . His eyeb.a.l.l.s stung, and he realized they had dried out from not blinking. He blinked the pain away and wondered, how long was this guy going to stand there?

"Billy?" the woman called again, more urgently. She was coming down the hall. "Ive checked in the kitchen-" She stopped suddenly. "What? Whats wrong with you?"

With a ferocious grunt, the man suddenly punched the shower curtain. It bulged where Scratchs head would have been, had he been standing.

The woman shouted, "Billy!"

Scratch sprang into the curtain like a bull into the matadors cape. The man said, "Oomph," hurtled backward, and skidded on broken gla.s.s. Scratch tore past the curtain, raced to the door. He stiff-armed the woman square on the forehead and crushed her out of his way.

"Hold it!" the man screamed.

Uh-uh.

"We gotta talk to you!"

Busy, sorry. No time to be executed. Call my agent.

He dashed to the bedroom, the way he had entered. The window to the fire escape was open and he scrambled through it. A hand grabbed his foot. Scratch slammed his feet together and caught fingers between the heels of his shoes.

The man yelped and Scratch pulled free.

He dragged himself on his elbows, then rose to crawl on hands and knees, then triumphantly gained his feet, like a swamp fish evolving from water to land in the s.p.a.ce of two seconds. Down the iron ladder he toe-tapped. The man thundered down behind him, laboring heavily. His clip-clop limp was no match for a cat burglar.

And once I hit earth ... whoos.h.!.+

Scratch dropped to the porch roof, then to the ground, and glanced up. The intruder was still between the first and second floors; he might as well have been a mile away.

Good-bye, Mr. Slow Motion. Tallyho!

Scratch turned to run and saw the woman sprint out the front door. What comedy! She was trying to run him down. Scratch aimed his feet toward Asia and made like Man oWar down the home stretch. Running was easy for Scratch. In every scam he ever pulled, running was Plan B. He had employed this secret backup plan more frequently than he liked to admit. But he had never needed Plan C, because n.o.body had ever caught him.

Im singing in my brain ...