Chapter 1
I’ve got a funny feeling. It’s one of those mornings when even the air doesn’t feel right. At eight a.m. the sun hangs over Long Island City like a ripe plum. The sky is ash-gray with a glimmer of pink. And my teeth are about to break because they’re chattering so hard.
“Come on, Snowball, do your business,” I plead with Maya’s shih tzu as I stand on the rim of Manhattan, a knot of blue-jeaned kids behind me smoking a jay and giggling like they just invented getting high. My eyes are following a 737 up the river to LaGuardia Airport when my cellphone starts vibrating.
“What is it, Lukey?” I ask because his name appears on the screen.
“Smokey,” he says like something’s up.
Luke is my oldest, bluest buddy in the NYPD. Fifteen years ago, when it was dangerous, we patrolled the alphabets together. That’s before I was booted off the force.
“How’s the family? How’s Luke Junior? He get those Fantastic Four comic books I sent him?”
Last I heard, the kid had been checked into Bethpage Hospital with double pneumonia. This unexpected call is making me think something’s wrong.
Luke says, “You’d better get over to Two-forty-seven West Twenty-ninth Street fast. Fourth floor.”
“Why?”
“Go! Now!”
“Sure, Luke. But how come?”
“They’ll explain when you get there. Just go.”
I ditch the dog at Maya’s on East 13th Street just as she’s getting out of the shower. Little bulbs of water cling to the slope of her back.
“How’d you sleep last night?” I ask, because lately she’s been having terrible nightmares about strange men chasing her through unfamiliar streets. She thinks they might be echoes from another life.
“Better,” she says, her dark skin warming the cool light. When it glows at night it turns more honey. Her eyes change, too, from amber to deep gold. Watching her and the way she moves, I’m reminded of a cheetah, which was my favorite animal as a kid growing up in the Bronx.
I’m damn fortunate she’s in my life.
“Where you going, Smokey?” Maya asks. “We’ve got to talk.”
I know what she wants to talk about—the job that’s been offered to me by an international security firm in Miami. She wants to move out of the city for a bunch of reasons—her dance career is over, she’s tired of teaching, the city is wearing her down. But I don’t have time for that now.
“Sorry, baby, I gotta run.”
“You gonna walk out on this?” she asks, pulling back the terry towel to reveal a slice of her right breast and nipple, the taut contours of her stomach and thighs. We met three months ago squeezing tomatoes at the Chelsea Market, and we’re been together ever since.
Life has been good.
I give her a kiss, a quick pat on the butt and a “later” before scooting out the door. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror—dark penetrating eyes, strong nose, unruly black-and-silver hair, taut lines around my mouth that remind me I’m nearing fifty.
West 29th Street is a jag uptown and west.
“Can’t you move this thing any faster?” I ask the driver. He’s spouting a stream of Arabic or something into a mouthpiece then hits the gas. A couple near misses later, we skid to a stop in front of a nondescript six- story dirty gray building, the kind you hardly notice in the architectural jumble of midtown.
“Thanks.” I hand him a ten for his trouble then flash my PI badge at the red-haired cop guarding the entrance. He walkie-talkies upstairs.
“Detective Donnelly wants to see you,” he snarls.
I slap him on the shoulder. Ask: “Why? What’d I do wrong?”
He’s got no sense of humor. Points to the elevator.
“Four.”
Police tape and a crowd of officers tangle up the narrow hall. A paramedic with a mean goatee zips up the stiff. Behind him is the deepest, widest pool of blood I’ve ever seen.
“What happened?’ I ask a detective in one of those lived-in blazers. “Looks like someone squeezed him dry.”
2
He’s a squat guy unknown to me, with a big nose that juts in three directions and heavy hangdog eyes.
“That’s what happens when you get shot nine times in the back,” he says, squinting up. “What are you doing here?”
“I was called.”
“You a priest?”
“Do I look like a priest?”
“You look like you don’t belong here.”
“The name’s Smokey,” I say. “Tony Annicelli.”
He sniffs at me like he smells something bad.
“I’m Donnelly,” is all he says. Then his eyes light up like sparks. “Shit.”
A tall Irish-looking guy wrapped in a white apron screams a line of curses a mile long, and the cops clear fast.
“You dumb cocksuckers! You stupid, clumsy bastards! You mess up my crime scene, and I’ll fry your asses.”
“It’s the crime scene investigator,” Donnelly says. “You’d better cool your heels downstairs.”
Twenty minutes of trying to get Luke on the phone, scanning the sports page and two cups of bitter coffee later, Donnelly pulls me inside. “Follow me,” he says, fishing something out of his nose.
We push past some uniforms chewing gum and sipping coffee. Take the elevator up to four then start down. The stairway is narrow and dark. Smeared across the worn metal steps lies a thick ribbon of blood.
“Watch your step,” he says.
We follow it down to between two and three. That’s when Detective Donnelly turns to me.
“This is where he got clipped.”
“Who?”
Instead of an answer, he stares at me hard.
“Who?” I ask again.
He just keeps staring like he’s miles away. So, I ask, “Any suspects?”
“A Korean lady in the dry cleaner’s downstairs put an ID on a kid with a cap who nearly knocked her over when she was opening her shop. I got a dozen officers out there looking for him. Roughly five-seven, wearing jeans and a hoodie. Disappeared into Penn Station at rush hour. Gonna be a bitch to find him.”
“You recover the murder weapon?” I ask as I follow him up to three.
He doesn’t bother to turn, just shakes his head. Back up on four, he steps carefully over the pool of blood and pushes a door. It opens to a big loft space with bare walls, scraggly plants, cats looking for cover and a big desk piled high with papers and books. I follow him into a square bedroom. An older, baldheaded guy sits collapsed on the bed, his eyes flashing all over the place. As soon as he sees Detective Donnelly, he starts talking.
