Chapter 7 Continued
II.
Cruz produced another of the little sugar donuts - the last - and began to eat it listlessly as she went back to watching the hotel.
Still nothing. She could make out what might have been the shape of the desk clerk bobbing around through one of the first floor windows, but that was as far as signs of life went. Nobody coming in or going out. And no sign of her old pal.
Nine-forty-five now.
The Voice of Doubt piped up suddenly, speaking clearly from its seat in the center of her head for the first time in several hours: What if he's with somebody when he comes out? A woman, maybe. Remember the one on the balcony the day you and Bosco dropped in on him at the Melrose. Doesn't seem to have much trouble in that area, does he?
To this Cruz only offered an mental shrug. If he had somebody with him then her plan would probably be dead in the water. Simple answer to a stupid question. And there was no end to the questions, stupid or otherwise. No end to the variables. And none of it could be helped. The only question she cared about right now was the simplest: where was the stupid son of a bitch?
What if he never comes out? the Voice of Doubt went on smoothly. Hmm? What if he decided to get high and watch a movie in his jockeys? You assume an awful lot, Maritza.
Then I guess I sit here all night, she thought peevishly back at herself, still chewing the tough little donut. God knows I have nothing better to do.
Roughly thirty seconds after this all passed through her mind, Aaron Noble came out of the Bridgeview hotel.
Alone.
Cruz froze in mid-bite, heart stuttering. There was a weird moment of disbelief and unreality and even an odd, unexpected jealousy, because it was him over there, really him, looking invigorated and relaxed and utterly at ease - a neat one-eighty degree turn from the physical and mental jellyfish he'd been the last time she'd seen him. He didn't appear to be dressed for anywhere as uppity as the Crimson Lion - he was wearing jeans, an open-throated work-shirt, and a fashionably dusty and worn denim jacket, but it didn't take long to see that he had the distinct air of a man headed out for a night on the town. He was out of jail, out of trouble, and not missing a beat getting back into the swing of things. Just a middle-aged man of the upper crust who felt and lived younger than his years.
Still getting laid, still getting high, his body whole and intact and free of pain.
Cruz was hit with a sudden, fiercely seductive idea; shoot the pretentious fuck. Just forget everything else and shoot him. Make that the last hurrah instead of some improbable scheme to blow away some biker she'd never even met. She could walk straight up to him, fire off a casual hello, and then empty all thirty rounds into his sorry ass.
She threw the remains of the soggy donut aside, stood up, and started across the street at a fairly respectable clip. By now she had developed a certain delicate, ginger way of moving that minimized the pain, a kind of shuffling, loping gait that didn't quite qualify as a run. It also added a little extra spice to the illusion that she was just another of New York's muddled homeless. If he caught sight of her too soon, he might not even notice her.
Noble paused on the porch just outside the hotel's main doors. Then, mimicking what Cruz herself had done after waking out of her doze, he tipped his head back and seemed to draw in a deep lungful of air, smelling the rain. Tasting it. Savoring it.
Ah, so cleansing, wasn't it? So revitalizing! Didn't it feel so good to be alive?
Fucker, Cruz thought blackly as she reached the sidewalk on the other side of the street, heart cycling up to a healthy gallop. Motherfucker.
Noble got his fill of the air, nipped down the front steps, and started along a small path that curled around the building to the parking lot, merrily juggling his keys from hand to hand as he went. Moving fast, and with a ridiculous little spring in his step. Look out ladies - the old tom's on the prowl. Cruz increased her speed as much as she dared.
She also slipped her hand under her coat and took hold of the gun. As a precaution. Just in case he did something stupid.
I'm not gonna shoot him, she told herself calmly. He's not worth it. Not worth it at all.
But as she approached him she was less and less sure she believed herself. Seeing Noble for the first time since the hotel room - and so different than before - she was reminded of how detestable she'd found him from the very beginning. This bigshot, tough-guy cabron who ran with New York's trendiest crowd, a bigshot, tough-guy cabron - a man of the upper crust - who was really nothing more than a glorified junkie. A man who wrote a lot of sensational trash, destroying the lives and careers of cops while building men like Richard Buford into folk-heroes. Hypocrisy personified, folks. Noble really and truly was the embodiment of everything she despised.
He reached his car and unlocked the door. Cruz came up on him almost soundlessly, the rain masking what little noise her footsteps made. Noble was humming - she could hear it as she approached, could even pick out the tune: Hotel California. Her hand tightened on the gun, and it was at that moment, just as he was opening the car door, that Noble turned and saw her standing there.
For a heartbeat or two there was no recognition.
Then his face went slack. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in what was almost a parody of perfect disbelief.
The mad impulse to start shooting vanished abruptly. It was replaced by the even madder impulse to laugh at him, at how goddam stupid he looked. And yet at the same time she found she could almost sympathize; the last time she and Noble were in the same room together, she'd been unconscious and bleeding out on the floor.
Boys and girls, brothers and sisters, if ever there was a situation that begged the phrase you look like you've seen a ghost, this was surely it.
"Cruz," he said at last, breathing her name in the low, awed way a savage might breathe the name of a feared deity. The easy calm he'd had when he came out of the Bridgeview fell away like mask, and suddenly he was no longer Aaron Noble the bigshot tough-guy cabron. Now he was Aaron Noble the whiny, hopeless addict, and Cruz liked that onemuch better. Much.
She smiled sweetly and gestured at the car. "Step away."
He swallowed, eyes dancing around in search of help, the rain dribbling ridiculously from the end of his nose. He licked his lips nervously and said, in a very small voice: "No."
"Come on, Noble!" she chided him, trying to keep the laughter out of her voice and not quite managing it. She was truly enjoying herself now, in spite of it all. "We're still friends, right?"
He looked at her warily. Then, apparently deciding his cojones were safe for the moment, he straightened and slammed the car door. "What the hell do you want from me?"
Cruz studied him for a moment, again taking in the startling change in his appearance and bearing. She could feel that good humor slipping away already; when you got right down to the raw flesh of the matter, Noble just wasn't very funny. "How'd you do it?" she said, and though her voice still cheery there was an ominous edge in it now, one that Noble clearly heard. "Huh? How did you manage to get off so fucking clean?"
He squinted through the rain. "You mean the Willie G. thing?"
"What else would I be talking about?"
"It was self-defense, Cruz." He snorted. "Jesus, you were the one trying to cover it up."
She moved in on him, making him back up a step. The initial burst of euphoria was completely gone now. "What did you tell them? Hmm? How about you tell me that, Noble. What did you tell them about me?"
He shifted from one foot to the other, looking away from her and fastening his gaze almost longingly on his car. "What could I say, Cruz? They found my gun. I had to tell them what really happened."
She frowned darkly. "Oh, so you just turned around and stabbed me in the back? Just like that? After I tried to help you?"
He licked his lips again and shot another glance at the car. She could quite clearly see him gauging his chances of getting to it before she could start shooting. He was probably armed himself, and if he decided the odds were stacked against a getaway, it was possible that he might start shooting.
Careful now. This isn't the way you wanted to start with him. You don't want to scare him off, and you sure as hell don't want to start a stupid goddam firefight right here. He probably figures you don't have much to lose.
And he would be right.
"Look, Cruz," he said slowly, speaking in the wary, aw-shucks-I'm-on-your-side tone one uses to reason with a lunatic. "You were only covering my ass because it would fuck up your case if you didn't. You got me into the whole mess. You were using me. So pardon me if I seem ungrateful."
She clenched her teeth and didn't reply. This line of discussion was pointless, she knew. A complete dead-end proposition. Pointless, and irrelevant in the bargain. He'd gotten his ass of the hook somehow, leave it at that. For killing Willie, for running away afterwards, even for those goddam expanding bullets that had put her in this miserable state; the last time she checked, it was illegal for private citizens to own them. He'd done it, somehow he'd done it, but when all was said and done what did the hows and whys matter anyway? It was another variation on the same old tune. Guys like Noble seemed able to grease their way out of anything.
Ah, to be a Rich White Male.
"Forget it," she said tightly, hating him. "Just forget it. It's history."
He nodded and offered a terse, agreeable grunt. But she could still see the relief in his expression, in the way his whole posture relaxed.
"You carrying?" she asked casually.
Noble shrugged indifferently. "Colt .45 in my jacket."
She smiled a bit. "You wouldn't be thinking of putting me on a slab next to Willie, would you?"
"I don't need the aggravation." He gave her a quick once-over and snorted again. "You look like shit, Cruz. I'm guessing nobody knows you're here."
"You guess right."
"So what do I owe the honor of this very special visit?"
Her smile soured. "I came to ask how the new book's coming along these days."
"Didn't realize you were such a fan!" He grinned. "Oh! I get it! You must have dragged yourself out here for an autograph! Sorry - don't have a pen handy at the moment."
"See, this is exactly what I have trouble with. You seem pretty cheery for a guy who was shitting his pants over being on the Disciples' hit list last week. Not worried?"
"Oh, so you're here to check on me, then. I'm flattered, but I'm afraid I don't like you ... you know ... in that way."
"You want to get serious with me," she said quietly. She kept her voice cold and dangerous, but inside her excitement was growing. "It's one thing to con your way out of a murder charge. It's a whole other trick to get a bunch of redneck bikers to stop breathing down your neck."
He shrugged. "Things change."
"No. You were in a bad way, Noble." Her voice became reedy and mocking. "'You gotta protect me, Cruz. You gotta give me my gun back, Cruz. You gotta keep the big bad bikers away from me, Cruz.' You'd burned all your bridges with the Disciples when you helped us bust Willie, and you dug yourself in deeper when you gave us that tip on Buford. So tell me - what's different now?"
Noble smiled thinly. "Yeah, well, I might have ... exaggerated a bit. About how much trouble I was in."
"Now we're getting somewhere. Keep talking."
Noble visibly loosened up another notch, and Cruz felt another little squeeze of hatred for him. Sixty seconds ago you had a man getting psyched up for an impromptu gunfight, and now he was eager for a chance to brag. "Okay - Willie tried to kill me because I set him up, right? And I just assumed that he was doing it on Buford's orders. After all, he must have had to get permission for the hit, right?"
Cruz nodded slowly. She thought she could already see where this was headed, although it was almost too ludicrously straightforward to believe.
"Buford said no, Cruz," Noble said, after an appropriate pause for effect. "He didn't believe Willie because, as it turns out, Willie was a hothead. Nobody ever believed anything the guy said. So Willie decided he'd take it out of my hide on his own terms." He shook his head. "The Disciples never knew about any of it. Buford never knew. He never knew I helped bust Willie, never knew that I sent you guys after him."
Cruz smiled in spite of herself. It was a misunderstanding. An assumption. That was what it all came down to. She thought back to when she and Bosco were tailing Willie, how the biker had thrown a hissy-fit and started kicking the shit out of a payphone just before going to kill Noble. Now she knew why - he'd gotten the order to back off, straight from Da Man himself. But Willie hadn't wanted to back off.
"That must have been quite a relief when you found that out, Noble," she said dryly. "And so here you are, right back to where you started."
Noble shrugged and said nothing. But he was smirking openly now.
You egotistical bastard, she thought bitterly. Played everybody and got off scott-free. At least it'll make things easier for me.
"On the other hand," she said mildly. "You must have been pretty pissed off when you found out you'd spent a week laying low, not being able to score any dope." She eyed him, giving him the same shrewd, leering once-over he'd treated her to a moment ago. "I'd say you're doing okay these days."
Noble sighed. "I know why you're here, Cruz," he said grimly. "At least, I think I do."
Cruz arched her eyebrows innocently. "Oh? Why?"
"You want me to take you to Buford," he said. He was using a slow, patronizing, somehow parental tone, one that brought back that earlier urge to just drop the whole thing, put a hot round in his guts, and leave him to scream himself to death on the wet asphalt. Or at least sweep the barrel of the Tec-9 across his face and break his jaw. It was the tone a father in a moldy '50's sitcom might use to say, You're hinting at a pony for Christmas, aren't you, dear?
"Right, Cruz? You want me to help you kill him."
"Got it on the first try, Noble," she said simply. She wasn't smiling anymore.
Now he would laugh at her. Laugh or call her crazy. And that would be okay, she would understand and forgive him that much - it would be a perfectly natural reaction. He could laugh at her, and once he had it out of his system, she could get to work convincing him.
But he didn't laugh. He just stared at her, his expression hovering somewhere between distaste and a kind of bewildered fascination. It was the way you'd look at someone with a terrible physical deformity; it was much the same way Schaeffer had looked down at her in the hospital. A thin skin of civility around a more obvious, deep-seated revulsion. Cruz didn't like being looked at that way. She most definitely didn't like being looked at that way by Aaron Noble.
He had no right to look at her that way.
After a few contemplative seconds, his lips turned up at the corners in a pitying little smile.
Then he said, very softly: "Fuck you, Two-Bags."
Then, incredibly, he started to get into his car.
As if it was over. As if he could just brush her off.
Cruz's paralysis broke, the anger surging up her throat like thick, hot bile, almost tangible.
"That is NOT the way you want to talk to me, Noble!" she screamed hoarsely, unmindful of anyone who might hear, unmindful of the bolt of agony that her shoulder sent priority-mail to her brain. Her hand slid into her coat and grasped the Tec-9. There was no conscious thought in the movement whatsoever.
Noble saw the gun and froze half in and half out of his car. "What, you gonna shoot me now?" he said. Trying to sound defiant. Defiant, and ready to call the bluff.
Problem was, she didn't think it was a bluff. Problem was, she was getting some serious deja vu going here. Leo Gaines had died this way - just this same way. Gaines had pushed her. Gaines had pushed her and taunted her and dared her, and she had not been in the best of mindsets then, either. And Gaines had ended up face-down in the dirt for it.
Cool it. Cool it and focus. Remember the catchphrase of the day. Focus
Cruz worked to get herself under control, to focus, her whole body - abused, exhausted, nearing the breaking point - seething with pain now, just from the exertion of yelling at him. The thought of literally screaming herself to death right here was as good a reason as any to cool off. She released her grip on the gun and let the coat fall over it.
"Listen," she said, as calm and as reasonable as she could manage under the circumstances. "You don't have to be anywhere near this. All you have to do is point me in the right direction."
"And what would that get me?" Noble said, slamming the car door yet again and throwing his hands up angrily. "Huh? Aiding and abetting, that's what. You're a fugitive right now, you know. Your face is in the news. Biggest corruption scandal in NYPD history, they're calling it. Haven't you turned on a TV lately?"
Cruz clenched her teeth and said nothing.
"I'm not shitting you," Noble went on, as if she'd tried to argue the point. "If I actually landed a meeting with Buford - and it looks very unlikely, at least anytime soon - I sure as hell wouldn't let you tag along. You're hot property, babe."
"What did I just say?" she spat. "All you have to do is lead me to him. You go in, get your interview, and leave. I take over from there."
"You're insane," he said with genuine wonder. "You're absolutely off the fucking rails, Cruz. So ... what's the plan? You're just gonna walk up to him and shoot him? Just like that?"
She shrugged. "Yeah."
Noble shook his head and laughed. "Let me tell you a few things about our friend br'er Buford. First, he'll have bodyguards. He always has bodyguards. Handpicked guys - hardcore, lifelong Disciples, and they're on him twenty-four hours a day. At least two, maybe four, all armed. Heavy artillery. MP5 submachine-guns or SPAS combat shotguns, most likely. Maybe an AK-47 for good measure. Make that thing under your coat look like a popgun." He smiled, evidently impressed by this little speech, which sounded like it had come straight out of one of his books ... which, for all Cruz knew, it had. "They'll have to bury what's left of you in a shoebox, Two-Bags."
Cruz chuckled. "All of that isn't your problem, Noble," she said gently.
"Oh, I think it is, Cruz. I can't help feeling that just talking to you right now is very bad for my health."
"I don't know about that," she said lightly. "In fact, I might have exactly what you need to stay healthy."
He grunted, unimpressed. "I can score just fine for myself these days, thank you very much. You said it yourself - I'm doing okay."
"But think for a minute, Noble - if you help me, you get all you want, any time you want. Safer than buying it from some skell on the street. Plus, you know that from me it's always quality product - cops always have the best stuff, right? And as long as you help me, it's free."
Noble tried hard to keep his composure, tried to keep that haughty, narrow contempt on his face, but she could see that she had struck a nerve. A big one. He wiped the rainwater from his nose anxiously, eyes dancing.
He was on the ropes now. She was sure of it. So it was time to play her Ace.
Cruz took a step towards him and put her right hand up, palm-out and as far away from the Tec-9 as it could get, the final peace-offering. "You could really get something out of this, you know. Say you interview Buford, and you get the crowning chapter for your book. Then, just after you leave, I show up and kill him. I probably won't make it out alive, and maybe I won't even get him, but what the hell? It'll make an even better chapter. What you writers call an epilogue, right? Put whatever spin on it you like, call me the crazy ex-cop from hell, whatever you want. I don't care."
Noble bit his lip and watched her, the rain running in little rills over his face, the gears clearly spinning again. He believed her. Or at least, he wanted to. And this was it, of course, this was the key she'd been counting on, the way into his head. Noble was, in many ways, a coward - when he wasn't getting his regular fix, anyway. But he also considered himself a dedicated writer, and to him that meant immersing himself in what he was writing about to the point where he actually took up the lifestyle. Cruz supposed there could be merit in such heavily involved field research if you were, say, pulling a few shifts as a zookeeper so you could write a kid's book about Gary the Grumpy Gorilla. For Noble, however, living the life meant experimenting with drugs, hanging out with guys like Willie Griffin, and making lifelong connections with the likes of Richard Buford. Cruz was no expert, but she believed that most sensible writers wouldn't call that field research. She believed most sensible writers would call that sheer stupidity.
Aaron Noble, however, didn't see it that way. Aaron Noble saw it as devotion to the art. Aaron Noble was a man who always thought he was on a Great Writer's Adventure.
She was simply offering to take him on another one. And he knew it - he could almost see it. Cruz thought she could almost see it herself, painted in flowery tabloid strokes:
A Notorious and Elusive Drug Dealer sits down for an honest, candid interview (under a pseudonym) with an Award-Winning Writer ...
... but then, after the Award-Winning Writer packs up and leaves, a Disgraced, Crazed Ex-Cop shows up like some avenging spook (a sidebar on Lettie may be included). She must have followed him!
There's a bloody gun battle. Disgraced, Crazed Ex-Cop is shot to pieces. And who knows - maybe Buford is, too. However it turns out, it makes for one hell of a finale, and folks, get THIS - it's one hundred percent TRUE!
Oh, sensationalism like that would sell. God-damned right it would.
"All I have to do is point you to Buford?" he said hesitantly.
"I'll stick close to you until the time comes. We'll both lay low. You get your interview, and I'll handle everything after that. We'll figure out the details once you know how it's gonna go down."
He seemed to think on it a moment longer, then wiped the rain out of his eyes. "You have to realize this isn't gonna be fast or easy. My new contact's this guy from up north. Rene Marchand. They call him Iggy 'cause he looks like Iggy Pop. He's one of the Disciples' connections from Montreal. Apparently Buford ran to Canada after you guys almost nailed him, instead of L.A. like everybody thought. Word is, he's on his way back."
Her heart sped up. "When?"
"Don't know. That's what I'm gonna find out from Iggy. I'm meeting him next week."
"No," she said. "You're meeting him tomorrow. You're gonna re-schedule."
Noble touched the center of his forehead tenderly and groaned. "This isn't a dentist appointment, Cruz! You're walking on eggshells with these guys all the time. Especially now."
"Is this Iggy hump in New York right now?"
"Yeah, but - "
"Do you know how to reach him?"
"Look, Cruz - "
"Do you know how to reach him?"
"Yes! But goddammit, I'm telling you - "
"Re-schedule!" she shouted, hammering out each word. "Can - you - do - that?"
"Yeah!" he cried. "Yeah, all right! Iggy spends most of his days shooting pool down in one Disciples shithole or another. I guess I could find out which one and hook up with him."
"Damn right you will," she said, though not unkindly. She found she was quickly rediscovering her sense of him, of how to pull his strings. She nudged him playfully, letting out some of the slack now, trying to calm him. "Remember, Noble - this is gonna make that book of yours."
Noble shook his head. "Christ, what the hell am I doing?" he asked no-one in particular, and uttered a wild, shrill little laugh. "This is crazy. Just crazy. Why am I doing this?"
Because you're a pathetic, drug-addicted egomaniac, that's why, she thought jovially. And right now, I wouldn't have it any other way.
Cruz leaned in close and shot him a sly, confidential smile. "Remember busting Willie? Remember how you told me after what an adrenaline rush it was?" The smile broadened. "This is gonna be a thousand times better."
Noble scratched his lower lip and looked away. Then he scratched his chin. Rubbed his neck. Tilted his head and took another of those head-clearing sniffs of the air, then swiped rain out of his eyes again.
Then he looked at her sharply, as if some big and potentially world-shattering idea had just dawned on him.
"This is about your sister, isn't it?" he said, smiling. "All of it. Revenge for Lettie."
Her own companionable little smile faded abruptly. "You don't talk about her," she said softly. "You understand me, Noble? I saw what you wrote about her, how you wrote about her in that notepad. Lettie the ho. Lettie the slut. Lettie the scrawny little crack-whore, on her back twenty-four-seven for her drugs. My sister was behind that, Noble. My sister. She was a footnote to you. So you never talk about her. You don't have the right."
Noble shifted and looked poutily at his feet like a scolded child. "Look, you want to get in the car?" he asked shortly. "Or do you want to just stand here in the rain all night and try for a case of pneumonia?"