He gives me a little push so I fall off his lap, between his legs. "Well, go on. Ain't going to wait all night."
There's not enough room in the car to kick him like I did with the Worm. I don't think my teeth are strong enough to bite through his member either, though that would serve the bastard right. So while I lean my head in towards his crotch, I grope around for my purse and the knife I took off the Worm.
My hope is Blades will be too distracted to notice me as I reach for the purse. He isn't. Before I can pull the bag over to me, he grabs at my head and yanks the wig off. "What the fuck?" he says. Then he grabs my real hair and wrenches my head back. "You want this bag, huh? Let's see what you got in there."
I flail at him, but for a short guy he's got a lot of muscle, enough to keep me at bay while he empties out the purse. The makeup, compact, and tampons all fall out, along with my identification. Followed by the knife with a thump.
He grabs the knife before I can try to reach it. "That what you want, little bitch?" He pushes the button and the blade springs out of it. He clucks his tongue. "You want to see a real knife, I can show you a real knife."
I hope this isn't an analogy for his dick. Turns out he means it literally. He reaches into a jacket pocket to pull out a twelve-inch knife, one I saw before at Lennox Pharmaceuticals. He holds it close to my face to give me a good look at it. "You like to play with knives, little bitch? Then let's play."
I do the only thing a woman in my position can do: I scream. One of my hands manages to slap the intercom button as I do. The driver slams on the brakes. Before Blades can slice my throat open, the knife slips from his hands.
He slams my head into the door and then lets me drop to the floor. My head spins. While he lunges for his knife, I see the Worm's knife on the seat, against the door, just inches from my hand. I snatch the knife, the blade already out thanks to Blades. I don't aim for any specific part of him, just whatever happens to be closest.
The knife digs into his right thigh. I drag it along while he screams. He writhes in pain, for the moment any thoughts of his knife forgotten. I yank the knife free and then find his.
The screen between the halves of the limo comes down. The driver finally works up the courage to ask, "What's going on back there?"
"Just a little foreplay," I say. "Drop us somewhere private and then take the girl home."
Blades's screams are enough motivation for the driver to do as I order. He stops the limo in the parking lot of an Italian restaurant closed for the night. To make sure Blades can't escape, I slash his left calf with the knife, which prompts him to scream again. Then I kick him out of the limo. While he tries to crawl away, I grab my clothes from the car and gather up the contents of my purse.
Then I jump out and the moment the door is shut, the limo speeds away. Now we're alone.
***
I let him crawl while I slip back into the dress. He can't get too far with a sliced calf and thigh. For a moment I almost feel bad to watch him struggle. Then I remind myself what he took from me and the kind of things he had me doing all night and I run over to kick him in the face.
He spits up some blood and then rolls onto his back to stare up at me. "What the fuck are you? A cop?"
"Do I look like a cop?" I bend down to look him in the eye. "Just think of me as your conscience."
"What do you want?"
"We'll get to that. First I want you to tell me something: how many girls have you done that to? How many have you dragged into your limo and forced to give you a blow job?"
"I don't know!"
"Too many to count? That's what I figured." I stab him in the right side, just above his pelvis. He screams again. Though I'd like to, I don't feel any pleasure about his screams.
"Whatever you want, I'll get it for you: money, drugs, you name it."
I look him in the eye again. "I want Artie Luther dead. That's what I want. You're going to give him to me or you're going to end up in little pieces scattered all over this parking lot for the rats to snack on."
Half-naked, cut, and bleeding, he starts to cry like a woman. "I don't want to die!" he shrieks. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Don't kill me!"
"I don't give a shit if you're sorry. All I care about is Artie Luther. Where can I find him?"
"I don't know!"
I stab him in the other side. He's dying the proverbial death of a thousand cuts here in the Italian restaurant parking lot. I wait for his screams to subside and then ask again. "You have to know where he is. You're one of his top dogs. I know it. You were there at Lennox Pharmaceuticals when he knocked over the place. You and his other little buddies, the ones he trusts the most."
"Lennox? What's that got to do with anything?"
"You remember a woman named Gita Nath? Dr. Gita Nath? She had her wrists slit. I bet you helped her with that, didn't you?"
"So what? She a friend of yours or something?"
Tired of games, I stab him in the gut. It'll take him a long time to die from a wound like that. "Now that we've got that settled, tell me where Lex is and maybe I'll go call an ambulance for you."
"I don't know where he is now!" Blades says and braces for another stab.
"But you know where he's going to be?" I ask.
"There's a big deal going down in two days. On the waterfront."
"Where?"
"An old warehouse on Pier 35."
"What time?"
"Midnight." That figures. The Lennox robbery was set for midnight too.
"Thanks."
"Now you'll call for that ambulance?"
"Would you if you were in my position?"
"But-" I silence the rest of it when I slit his throat. I put the knife to his neck, close my eyes, and then pull the knife across as far as I can. When I open my eyes, Blades's are still wide open; they stare back at me, to accuse me. I've never killed anyone in cold blood before, not like Jake on the Mackenzie case. Just like that creep, Blades needed to die. If I let him live, he could go back to Artie Luther.
Now I have to dispose of the body. I wipe the knife clean to drop down the first storm drain I see. Then I cut off Blades's clothes and empty his wallet of cash and credit cards. The clothes I toss into the restaurant's dumpster. I'd throw Blades in there too, but he's too heavy for me. Instead, I drag him behind the dumpster and sit him up to face whoever finds him.
I look around to make sure no one's seen me. Then I run.
Chapter 35
The blood money I take off Blades allows me to live comfortably on my own for the first time as a woman. The first thing I do is get to a train on its way upstate. That's about the last place anyone will look for me-if they look for me. The limo driver is the only one who saw me without the wig and I doubt he'll go to the police. He'd be more likely to snitch to someone on Lex's crew about who killed their boy.
There aren't many people on the train, which makes it easier for me to avoid everyone. I curl up in the back of a car and hug myself to keep warm in the skimpy dress I stole. For once the tears don't come.
I've killed plenty of people in my thirty years as a cop. The first couple I felt bad about even though they were scum bags, one a bank robber and the other a pimp. For months after each one I replayed the incident in my head, even in my dreams. I didn't sleep well back in those days.
Jake sensed my distress and one night took me to Squiggy's. While I was getting plastered, Jake said, "You're a cop, Steve. Killing dirtbags comes with the badge. You can either accept that or sign up to be a crossing guard."
In manly fashion I sucked the emotions down deep, locked them away until they didn't bother me anymore. The more people I killed in the line of duty, the easier it got. Now I can't remember what those first two looked like, only what they did.
This time is different. I'm not a cop anymore. I'm just a girl, little more than a kid. Until about twelve hours ago I was a salesgirl at a
bohemian clothes store. Now I've tortured and murdered another human being, even if someone like Bobby Blades barely qualifies as one.
In thirty years as a cop I've heard my share of stories that began with, "He [or she] had it coming." If anyone tracks me down and takes me to a police station it'll be my turn to say it. But I won't end up any better off than those other saps. I'll wind up in prison for the rest of my life with a bunch of other women who thought someone had it coming.
Still I can't cry because he did have it coming. Bobby Blades was scum. He helped Artie Luther break into Lennox Pharmaceuticals and kill the security guards there. He killed Dr. Nath in her own home. The rest of his rap sheet is about as long as this train. And that doesn't include the kinky shit he had that other girl and I do and what he probably would have done to us later on.
What makes it worse is that I know he's just the first. There's still the rest of Lex's henchmen and then the big boy himself. Blades was the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Maybe I am just a stupid kid now, but they still have it coming.
And I'll give it to them.
***
I ride the train upstate to the capital. By then it's started to take on commuters to head into the city for their jobs. I'm one of the few who goes the opposite way. I have to push my way through a bunch of people in business suits to get off.
I've been here a few times for legal hearings, mostly when some punk complains about excessive force to the state cops. The capital's a nice place if you've got money and I happen to have a fat wad of cash in my purse thanks to Bobby Blades. Not just his cash, but also his credit cards. Those will probably be canceled once someone finds the body and alerts the company; until then they're mine to use as I wish.
I get a cab from the station and then head into town. I'm not dressed for the nicer restaurants, so I just hit a McDonald's and nurse a coffee for a little while. I read the morning paper, but of course there's nothing about Blades in it yet. The TV will probably carry the news about him by six o'clock. That would be enough time for the body to be found, identified, and for word to hit the wires.
Blades wouldn't usually draw much attention, but I've inadvertently helped his bid for immortality. The brutal way I killed him and then left him is sure to draw attention as a "gangland killing." The media love those; it gives them a chance to write their own little episode of The Sopranos with all the colorful characters. If the limo driver does come forward or the other girl in the car remembers me, I can expect to have an artist's rendering of my face plastered all over the papers and the TV by tomorrow.
Even if they draw me with the blond wig, I'm sure Jake will recognize me. I might as well have left him a trail of breadcrumbs the way I left Grace's store. He's smart enough to pair my sudden disappearance with Blades's murder. I can hear him say, "What the hell have you done?"
What have I done? Scaring the shit out of the Worm was one thing. No jury in the country would put me in jail for what happened in that alley. The department wouldn't bother to press charges.
Murder is something else. High-profile murders get everyone into a tizzy. Woods and Jefferson will beg Captain Archer to get let in on the case so they can be the ones on the TV and in the papers. That was the kind of stuff that got people promoted, not that Jake and I ever gave a shit about that. Neither of us wanted to sit behind a desk and push papers around. Woods or Jefferson would be all too happy to track me down if it meant a cushy job for them.
I finish with my coffee and then look up at the clock. It's ten o'clock, time to do a little shopping.
***
I've never worn designer clothes before. My old suits and other clothes used to come from the clearance racks at low-end department stores. As a woman my clothes had all come from the thrift store or Grace's shop. The closest I've ever come to something fancy was my dress uniform.
So it feels weird to stroll around the department store in an outfit that costs more than all the other clothes I've ever worn put together. The sunglasses perched on the top of my head cost a thousand bucks by themselves. My new purse-genuine Gucci, not like the imitations I've seen on the street-cost another grand. Then there's the black leather jacket, slinky black dress, and the black heels that would have killed me yesterday, before Grace tutored me. All of it thanks to Bobby Blades's platinum AmEx.
The extreme makeover doesn't end there. I also visit the makeup counter, where I let a salesgirl apply all kinds of stuff to my face and squirt me with a number of different fragrances, so that I probably smell like a greenhouse. She's a lot more experienced with all of that stuff, so when she's finished, I look as if I barely have makeup on. I buy everything she suggests and put it on Bobby's gold MasterCard.
And then comes the jewelry! I buy a diamond necklace, earrings even though my ears aren't pierced, and bracelets for my wrists and ankles. I also buy a few men's watches-honest to God Rolexes-that I claim are for my boyfriends. By the time I've finished there I've spent another five grand. I jingle like Santa's sleigh as I leave the jewelry counter.
The last stop is the salon. I might have started there first, but I wanted to look the part of the spoiled rich girl when I went in there. I give the receptionist a shake of my hair and say, "I want to dye it black, like my dress."
No one has any problem with that. I sit in the chair for two hours and let them wash my hair, cut it to shoulder length, wrap it up in tinfoil, and then go through it with a comb until it's even smoother and shinier than Tess ever got it. The end result is that my hair is now the kind of black that looks dark blue in the right light, which reminds me of what Grace said the night before.
When it's all done, I've spent about ten thousand dollars and transformed myself from a grubby tomboy into a glamorous rich girl. On my way out I even start to feel rich; I swagger along on my heels down the aisles, heedless of anyone around me. I know where the money came from, but for the moment I don't care. I look like a million bucks, almost literally.
Maybe it's that I've been a girl long enough or maybe because I've never had such financial freedom or maybe just that I need a distraction from the guilt over Blades's murder, but I can't stop there. I hit another five clothes stores and buy everything from silk lingerie to bikinis to a floor-length ball gown.
When I've sated my appetite for clothes, I stop at the shoe stores. I never understood why Debbie owned so many shoes, but now I do. There are so many shapes and styles, from sandals to pumps. Despite that I couldn't walk on heels a day ago, I scoop up five pairs of them. I try each one on and feel like a princess as I strut around in them. It's hard to believe eight hours ago I had to figure out how to dispose of a dead body.
My last stops are more practical. At a cell phone kiosk I get a phone, a prepaid one that doesn't require a lot of credit or security information to activate it. I pay for the phone in cash, so that when the cops track Blades's credit card purchases they won't be able to get the phone's number. At the bookstore I buy a couple of the latest fashion magazines so I can better look the part. My last stop is to get some luggage, sumptuous leather bags that fit all of my new purchases.
With my new phone I call for a cab. I've got so many bags I'm grateful there's a big strong man there to stuff them all in the trunk for me. He even opens the back door for me and tips his hat as if I'm a celebrity. I feel like a celebrity. For the first time since I became a woman-probably the first time ever-I don't mind if people stare at me. Let them look at Princess Stacey and wish they could be her, if only for a little while.
I smile to myself and then tell the driver to drop me at a hotel.
***
The driver claims it's the nicest hotel in town. It certainly seems like it from the lobby, which is all marble floors and mahogany furniture. It's even nicer than Lennox Pharmaceutical's lobby. I strut up to the counter; a bellhop trails behind with my purchases. I have my shades down so I don't have to look the common desk clerk in the eyes. I'm lucky the
clerk is a man; he looks ready to salivate as I stroll up to him.
"I'd like your best room," I say. The expensive clothes, jewelry, and hair give me far more authority in my voice than I've ever had in this body.
"For how long?"
"I'm not sure yet. What is there to do in this dreadful place?"
The clerk goes on to list a bunch of stuff that I tune out. To play the part of the snobby rich girl, I take out my phone and then begin to hit buttons as if I'm texting one of my many rich friends. I look up about thirty seconds after the clerk's finished his spiel. "Whatever. Put it on Daddy's card," I say and then hand over the AmEx card.
"Can I see some ID, Miss-"
"Sharon Blades," I say. I don't offer to shake hands. I pretend to rummage around in my purse for a driver's license. "Oh dear. I must have left it in one of my other bags."
"That's all right," the clerk says. The hotel is the kind that still uses the old-fashioned keys. He hands a set to me. "This is for our presidential suite."
"That will have to do." I do a quick turn and then start fake texting again while the bellhop follows me to the elevator. I let him push the button for me. He takes the room key from me as well to open the door so I don't have to strain myself.
The suite is twice as big as my old apartment and nearly as big as the whole downstairs of where Debbie and I used to live. From the doorway I can see a living room, a dining room with seating for eight, and a fully-stocked bar. I pout and say, "Is this it?"
"Yes, ma'am," the bellhop says.
"I guess it'll do," I whine. "Take those to the bedroom."
While the bellhop scurries off to the bedroom, I look around the rest of the place. There's a hot tub off the living room that could fit a half-dozen people. There's an equally big tub in the bathroom, along with a separate shower and a toilet with a mahogany seat and a gilded handle. "Wow," I whisper.
The bedroom is no less spacious. The king-size bed could fit me about a dozen times over. I'd need about fifty more bags of clothes to fill up the closet. There's even the standard mint on the pillow.
"Thank you," I tell the bellhop. I give him a hundred bucks for his trouble. It's hard to wait until he's gone to kick off my shoes and then leap onto the bed with a whoop. The mattress is so soft, it's like quicksand. Since I didn't get any sleep last night, I allow myself to drift away.