Angelo moved the cat to the side and stood up. He took a step toward Laurie and, without warning, backhanded her viciously across the face. The blow propelled Laurie back against the wall, where her legs gave way. She slumped to her hands and knees. A few drops of bright red blood dropped from her split upper lip, splattering on the hardwood floor.
Angelo grabbed her by the upper arm and roughly hoisted her to her feet. Then he powered her over to the chair and pushed her into a sitting position. Laurie’s terror made her incapable of resisting.
“That’s better,” Franco said.
Angelo leaned over and stuck his face in Laurie’s. “Recognize me?”
Laurie forced herself to look up into the man’s horribly scarred face. He looked like a character in a horror movie. She swallowed; her throat had gone dry. Incapable of speech, all she could do was shake her head.
“No?” Franco questioned. “Doctor, I’m afraid you are going to hurt Angelo’s feelings and, under the circumstances, that’s a dangerous thing to do.”
“I’m sorry,” Laurie squeaked. But no sooner had the words come out, then Laurie associated the name with the fact that the man standing in front of her had been burned. It was Angelo Facciolo, Cerino’s main hit man, now obviously out of jail.
“I’ve been waiting five years,” Angelo snarled. Then he struck Laurie again, half knocking her off the chair. She ended up with her head down. There was more blood. This time it came from her nose and soaked into the carpet.
“Okay, Angelo!” Franco said. “Remember! We’ve got to talk with her.”
Angelo trembled for a moment over Laurie, as if struggling to restrain himself. Abruptly, he went back to the couch and sat down. He picked the cat back up and began roughly petting it. Tom didn’t mind and began to purr.
Laurie managed to right herself. With her hand, she felt both her lip and her nose. Her lip was already beginning to swell. She pinched her nose to halt the bleeding.
“Listen, Doctor Montgomery,” Franco said. “As you might imagine, it was very easy for us to come in here. I say this so you will comprehend how vulnerable you are. You see, we have a problem that you can help us with. We’re here to ask you nicely to leave the Franconi thing alone. Am I making myself clear?”
Laurie nodded. She was afraid not to.
“Good,” Franco said. “Now, we are very reasonable people. We’ll consider this a favor on your part, and we’re willing to do a favor in return. We happen to know who killed Mr. Franconi, and we’re willing to pass that information on to you. You see, Mr. Franconi wasn’t a nice man, so he was killed. End of story. Are you still with me?”
Laurie nodded again. She glanced at Angelo but quickly averted her eyes.
“The killer’s name is Vido Delbario,” Franco continued. “He’s not a nice person, either, although he did do the world a favor in getting rid of Franconi. I’ve even taken the trouble to write the name down.” Franco leaned forward and put a piece of paper on the coffee table. “So, a favor for a favor.”
Franco paused and looked expectantly at Laurie.
“You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you?” Franco asked after a moment of silence.
Laurie nodded for the third time.
“I mean, we’re not asking much,” Franco said. “To be blunt, Franconi was a bad guy. He killed a bunch of people and deserved to die himself. Now, as far as you are concerned, I hope you will be sensible because in a city this size there’s no way to protect yourself, and Angelo here would like no better than have his way with you. Lucky for you, our boss is not heavy-handed. He’s a negotiator. Do you understand?”
Franco paused again. Laurie felt compelled to respond. With difficulty, she managed to say she understood.
“Wonderful!” Franco said. He slapped his knees and stood up. “When I heard how intelligent and resourceful you are, Doc, I was confident we could see eye to eye.”
Franco slipped his handgun into his shoulder holster and put on his Ferragamo coat. “Come on, Angelo,” he said. “I’m sure the doctor wants to shower and have her dinner. She looks kind’a tired to me.”
Angelo got up, took a step in Laurie’s direction, and then viciously wrenched the cat’s neck. There was a sickening snap, and Tom went limp without a sound. Angelo dumped the dead cat in Laurie’s lap, and followed Franco out the front door.
“Oh, no!” Laurie whimpered as she cradled her pet of six years. She knew its neck had been cruelly broken. She stood up on rubbery legs. Out in the hall, she heard the elevator arrive and then descend.
With sudden panic she rushed to the front door and re-locked all the locks while still clutching Tom’s body. Then, realizing the intruders had to have come in the back door, she raced there only to find it wide open and splintered. She forced it closed as best she could.
Back in the kitchen she took the phone off the hook with trembling hands. Her first response was to call the police, but then she hesitated, hearing Franco’s voice in the back of her mind warning her how vulnerable she was. She also could see Angelo’s horrid face and the intensity of his eyes.
Recognizing she was in shock and fighting tears, Laurie replaced the receiver. She thought she’d call Jack, but she knew he wouldn’t be home yet. So, instead of calling anyone for the moment, she tenderly packed her pet in a Styrofoam box with several trays of ice cubes. Then she went into the bathroom to check out her own wounds.
Jack’s bike ride from the morgue home was not the ordeal he expected. In fact, once he got under way, he felt better than he had for most of the day. He even allowed himself to cut through Central Park. It had been the first time he’d been in the park after dark for a year. Although he was uneasy, it was also exhilarating to sprint along the dark, winding paths.
For most of the trip, he’d pondered about GenSys and Equatorial Guinea. He wondered what it was really like in that part of Africa. He’d joked earlier with Lou that it was buggy, hot, and wet, but he didn’t know for sure.
He also thought about Ted Lynch and wondered what Ted would be able to do the following day. Before Jack had left the morgue, he’d called him at home to outline the unlikely possibility of a xenograft. Ted said that he thought he’d be able to tell by checking an area on the DNA that specified ribosomal proteins. He’d explained that the area differed considerably from species to species and that the information to make a species identification was available on a CD-ROM.
Jack turned onto his street with the idea of going to the local bookstore to see if there was any material on Equatorial Guinea. But as he approached the playground with its daily late afternoon and evening game of basketball under way, he had another idea. It occurred to him that there might be expatriate Equatoguineans in New York. After all, the city harbored people from every country in the world.
Turning his bike into the playground, Jack dismounted and leaned it up against the chain-link fence. He didn’t bother to lock it, though most people would have thought the neighborhood a risky place to leave a thousand-dollar bike. In reality, the playground was the only place in New York Jack felt he didn’t have to lock up.
Jack walked over to the sidelines and nodded to Spit and Flash, who were part of the crowd waiting to play. The game in progress swept up and down the court as the ball changed hands or baskets were made. As usual, Warren was dominating the play. Before each of his shots he’d say “money,” which was aggravating to the opponents because ninety percent of the time, the ball would sail through the basket.
A quarter hour later the game was decided by one of Warren’s “money” shots, and the losers slunk off the court. Warren caught sight of Jack and strutted over.
“Hey, man, you going to run or what?” Warren asked.
“I’m thinking about it,” Jack said. “But I’ve got a couple of questions. First of all, how about you and Natalie getting together with Laurie and me this weekend?”
“Hell, yes,” Warren said. “Anything to shut my shortie up. She’s been ragging on me fierce
about you and Laurie.”
“Secondly, do you know any brothers from a tiny African country called Equatorial Guinea?”
“Man, I never know what’s going to come out of your mouth,” Warren complained. “Let me think.”
“It’s on the west coast of Africa,” Jack said. “Between Cameroon and Gabon.”
“I know where it is,” Warren said indignantly. “It was supposedly discovered by the Portuguese and colonized by the Spanish. Actually, it was discovered a long time earlier by black people.”
“I’m impressed you know of it,” Jack said. “I’d never heard of the country.”
“I’m not surprised,” Warren said. “I’m sure you didn’t take any black history courses. But to answer your question, yes, I do know a couple of people from there, and one family in particular. Their name is Ndeme. They live two doors down from you, toward the park.”
Jack looked over at the building, then back at Warren. “Do you know them well enough to introduce me?” Jack asked. “I’ve developed a sudden interest in Equatorial Guinea.”
“Yeah, sure,” Warren said. “The father’s name is Esteban. He owns the Mercado Market over on Columbus. That’s his son over there with the orange kicks.”
Jack followed Warren’s pointing finger until he spotted the orange sneakers. He recognized the boy as one of the basketball regulars. He was a quiet kid and an intense player.
“Why don’t you come down and run a few games?” Warren suggested. “Then I’ll take you over and introduce you to Esteban. He’s a friendly dude.”
“Fair enough,” Jack said. After being revived by the bicycle ride, he was looking for an excuse to play basketball. The events of the day had him in knots.
Jack went back and got his bike. Hurrying over to his building, he carried the bicycle up the stairs. He unlocked his door without even taking it off his shoulder. Once inside, he made a beeline for his bedroom and his basketball gear.
Within five minutes, Jack was already on his way out when his phone rang. For a moment, he debated answering it, but thinking it might be Ted calling back with a bit of arcane DNA trivia, Jack picked it up. It was Laurie, and she was beside herself.
Jack crammed enough bills through the Plexiglas partition in the taxi to more than cover the fare and jumped out. He was in front of Laurie’s apartment building, where he’d been less than an hour earlier. Dressed in his basketball gear he raced to the front door and was buzzed in. Laurie met him in the elevator foyer on her floor.
“My god!” Jack wailed. “Look at your lip.”
“That will heal,” Laurie said stoically. Then she caught Debra Engler’s eye peering through the crack in her door. Laurie lunged at the woman and shouted for her to mind her own business. The door snapped shut.
Jack put his arm around Laurie to calm her and led her into her apartment.
“All right,” Jack said, after getting Laurie seated on the couch. “Tell me what happened.”
“They killed Tom,” Laurie whimpered. After the initial shock, Laurie had cried for her pet, but her tears had dried until Jack’s question.
“Who?” Jack demanded.
Laurie waited until she had her emotions under control. “There were two of them, but I only knew one,” she said. “And he’s the one who struck me and killed Tom. His name is Angelo. He’s the person I’ve had nightmares about. I had a terrible run-in with him during the Cerino affair. I thought he was still in prison. I can’t imagine how or why he is out. He’s horrid to look at. His face is terribly scarred from burns, and I’m sure he blames me.”
“So this visit was for revenge?” Jack asked.
“No,” Laurie said. “This was a warning for me. In their words I’m to ‘leave the Franconi thing alone.’”
“I don’t believe this,” Jack said. “I’m the one investigating the case, not you.”
“You warned me. I’ve obviously irritated the wrong people by trying to find out how Franconi’s body was lifted from the morgue,” Laurie said. “For all I know it was my visit to the Spoletto Funeral Home that set them off.”
“I’m not going to take any credit for foreseeing this,” Jack said. “I thought you would get in trouble with Bingham, not mobsters.”
“Angelo’s warning was presented in the guise of a favor for a favor,” Laurie said. “His favor was to tell me who killed Franconi. In fact, he wrote the name down.” Laurie lifted the piece of paper from the coffee table and handed it to Jack.
“Vido Delbario,” Jack read. He looked back at Laurie’s battered face. Both her nose and lip were swollen, and she was developing a black eye. “This case has been bizarre from the start, now it’s getting out of hand. I think you’d better tell me everything that happened.”
Laurie related to Jack the details from the moment she’d walked in the door until she’d called him on the phone. She even told him why she’d hesitated calling 911.
Jack nodded. “I understand,” he said. “There’s little the local precinct could do at this point.”
“What am I going to do?” Laurie asked rhetorically. She didn’t expect an answer.
“Let me look at the back door,” Jack said.
Laurie led him through the kitchen and into the pantry.
“Whoa!” Jack said. Because of the multiple dead bolts the entire edge split when the door had been forced. “I’ll tell you one thing, you’re not staying here tonight.”
“I suppose I could go home to my parents,” Laurie said.
“You’re coming home with me,” Jack said. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
Laurie looked into the depths of Jack’s eyes. She couldn’t help but wonder if there were more to this sudden invitation than the issue of her safety.
“Get your things,” Jack said. “And pack for a few days. It will take that long to replace this door.”
“I hate to bring this up,” Laurie said. “But I have to do something with poor Tom.”
Jack scratched the back of his head. “Do you have access to a shovel?”
“I have a gardening trowel,” Laurie said. “What are you thinking?”
“We could bury him in the backyard,” Jack said.
Laurie smiled. “You are a softie, aren’t you?”
“I just know what it’s like to lose things you love,” Jack said. His voice caught. For a painful moment he recalled the phone call that had informed him of his wife and daughters’ deaths in a commuter plane crash.
While Laurie packed her things, Jack paced her bedroom. He forced his mind to concentrate on current concerns. “We’re going to have to tell Lou about this,” Jack said, “and give him Vido Delbario’s name.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Laurie said from the depths of her walk-in closet. “Do you think we should do it tonight?”
“I think we should,” Jack said. “Then he can decide when he wants to act on it. We’ll call from my house. Do you have his home number?”
“I do,” Laurie said.
“You know, this episode is disturbing for more reasons than just your safety,” Jack said. “It adds to my worry that organized crime is somehow involved in liver transplantation. Maybe there is some kind of black-market operation going on.”
Laurie came out of her closet with a hangup bag. “But how can it be transplantation when Franconi wasn’t on immunosuppressant drugs? And don’t forget the strange results Ted got with his DNA testing.”
Jack sighed. “You’re right,” he admitted. “It doesn’t fit together.”
“Maybe Lou can make sense of it all,” Laurie said.
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Jack said. “Meanwhile, this episode makes the idea of going to Africa a lot more appealing.”
Laurie stopped short on her way into the bathroom. “What on earth are you talking about?” she demanded.
“I haven’t had any personal experience with organized crime,” Jack said. “But I have with street gangs, and I believe there’s a similarity that I learned the hard way. If eit
her of these groups gets it in their mind to get rid of you, the police can’t protect you unless they are committed to guarding you twenty-four hours a day. The problem is, they don’t have the manpower. Maybe it would be good for both of us to get out of town for a while. It could give Lou a chance to sort this out.”
“I’d go, too?” Laurie asked. Suddenly the idea of going to Africa had a very different connotation. She’d never been to Africa, and it could be interesting. In fact, it might even be fun.
“We’d consider it a forced vacation,” Jack said. “Of course, Equatorial Guinea might not be a prime destination, but it would be . . . different. And perhaps, in the process, we’ll be able to figure out exactly what GenSys is doing there and why Franconi made the trip.”
“Hmmm,” Laurie said. “I’m starting to warm to the idea.”
After Laurie had her things ready, she and Jack took Tom’s Styrofoam casket into the backyard. In the far corner of the garden where there was loose loam, they dug a deep hole. The chance discovery of a rusted spade made the job easy, and Tom was put to rest.
“My word!” Jack complained as he hauled Laurie’s suitcase out the front door. “What did you put in here?”
“You told me to pack for several days,” Laurie said defensively.
“But you didn’t have to bring your bowling ball,” Jack quipped.
“It’s the cosmetics,” Laurie said. “They are not travel size.”
They caught a cab on First Avenue. En route to Jack’s they stopped at a bookstore on Fifth Avenue. While Jack waited in the taxi, Laurie dashed inside to get a book on Equatorial Guinea. Unfortunately, there weren’t any, and she had to settle for a guidebook for all of Central Africa.
“The clerk laughed at me when I asked for a book on Equatorial Guinea,” Laurie said, when she got back in the cab.
“That’s one more hint it’s not a top vacation destination,” Jack said.
Laurie laughed. She reached over and gave Jack’s arm a squeeze. “I haven’t thanked you yet for coming over,” she said. “I really appreciated it, and I’m feeling much better.”