Ladykiller Read online

  “Lord God must’ve made garbage about the same as He made men,” she muttered to herself. “It dirty, it smell bad, it stubborn.” She tugged at an auspicious piece of cloth. Despite the darkness, her instinct told her the fabric was good quality. Probably the hem of a coat. “It like to break your heart, the things people throw away.”

  She tugged and met unusual resistance. She set her jaw and hunkered down to pull harder while trying not to tear the fabric. A stiletto stab pierced her back. She grunted with the effort and gave one more desperate, angry tug.

  The entire heap shifted suddenly. The old lady, caught off balance, fell awkwardly beneath the weight of something far heavier than a coat. She blinked and pushed up her stocking cap, which had descended over her eyes, and with her other hand pushed at the weight that held her down.

  Swearing, spitting lint and God knows what, her nose running like a gutter in the rain, Stinky took a full fifteen seconds to grasp what lay in front of her. She found herself gazing into the cold, timeless face of the dead whore, inches from her own, with its parade of slow, sad, red tears leaking from the terrible crater that had been its right eye.

  She let out a demon screech of terror.

  TWO

  Detective Dave Dillon listened to the informant talk. You listened first, then you asked questions. And tonight, amid the crackling, otherworldly neon light of Times Square, Dave was listening very closely.

  “I know this is the dude, man,” Finesse said. “Scary motherfucker. Cold.” Finesse pumped his head up and down, in agreement with himself, and the three rings in his nose tinkled against each other.

  Dave said nothing. He watched Finesse with a blank Irish cop’s stare and let him talk.

  “I seen him before. He smacked some brothers around once. Stay clear of that motherfucker, no shit. He big. Big white guy. Like you. Bigger. He said he done them women. I was in the bar and I heard it myself. Motherfucker’s drunk off his ass. Say he shot them bitches in the head.”

  Dave’s eyes narrowed a millimeter. He needed more detail.

  “He had a .45. Stuck in his pants. Stuck in like, it went off, it’d blow off the family jewels.”

  Dave watched impassively. Anyone who read the papers knew the victims were shot in the head with a .45.

  “Said he shot them in the eye.”

  Dave’s reaction didn’t show on his face. “In the eye?”

  “Said he didn’t like the way they looked at him. Said they could give him the fish-eye in hell. I mean, this is one scary motherfucker. I ain’t lying.”

  “This was last night?”

  “Yeah, last night. Like I told you,” Finesse said nervously, checking up and down the sidewalk to make sure no one was watching. “At the Foxy Lady. I didn’t want my ass near this mean motherfucker. I was with this dude, Ace. Ace the kind of dude likes to be close to the action. Fucker’s going to get himself killed nosing around that kind of shit. Anyways, Ace is buying this hard-ass drinks — actually, I’m paying — and the mother starts up about killing them bitches, shooting them in the eye. I figured he was jiving. Trying to impress us. But he hauls up his windbreaker and shows us his .45 in his pants, pointed at his goddamn dick. I mean, I like to’ve shit my pants.”

  “What color windbreaker?”

  “Blue. Maybe green. It’s dark in there, you know. They keep the lights down so’s you can’t tell how old and ugly a lot of them dancers getting.” Finesse drew a breath.

  “What else did he say?”

  “Damned if I know. I got out of there so damn fast, you’d’ve thought my ass was on fire.”

  “He have a name?”

  “Shit, all I wanted to know about him was how many miles between him and me.”

  Dave pulled a photo out of his leather jacket. It was a criminal booking shot, taken by the Miami Police Department, cropped to omit the biographical information on the board that the prisoner held beneath his chin. “This him?”

  Finesse’s nose rings clinked. “That’s him. Mean looking, ain’t he?”

  Dave got up and grabbed Finesse’s hand high in a brother’s grip. The crisp bills clasped in Dave’s palm were easily transferred to Finesse’s. “Stay in touch.”

  Without examining the money, Finesse slipped it in his pocket. His palms had eyes. “You generous tonight, Dillon.”

  “In honor of spring.” He turned to go.

  “You nail this dude, it make up for the bad mark on your record, huh?” Finesse gave Dave a small, superior smile.

  Dave was back in his face so fast that Finesse jumped a little. Dave grabbed a handful of collar. “What did you say?”

  Finesse’s cool expression slipped a little. “Sorry. People talk, is all.”

  Dave leaned toward him until his teeth were close enough to Finesse to tear the rings off his nose. “You tell me what goes down on the street, not your opinions on my career,” he muttered with barely caged ferocity.

  “No problem,” Finesse blubbered.

  After a few seconds, Dillon relaxed and stepped back. “Now, you just get back to living the life.”

  Finesse edged away, crab-like, into the swirling honky-tonk night of 42nd Street’s eternal carnival. Dave watched the Deuce swallow him up. He felt a twinge of guilt for leaning on the brother, but certain references to his past triggered a knee-jerk reaction. He should have more control.

  Dave sighed as he stepped into the doorway of the shuttered electronics store and pulled out his radio.

  Lt. Blake was at the other end. “Positive ID?”

  “Pretty good. Sufficient for questioning. Last night, suspect was in a blue or green windbreaker. Carries his piece in his waistband. Last seen in Foxy Lady. I’m close. I’m going there now.”

  “I’ll send out an APB.Wait for backup.” Dave clicked off the radio.

  Blake had personally requested Dave for this task force. If not for him, Dave would be back in a uniform, with the coldhearted brass waiting for him to slip up one more time so they could bounce him out. Blake was an old friend of his father and one sodden evening at McSorley’s, Blake had told him: “I couldn’t help your dad because I didn’t have the rank back then. I do now and you’re his boy. Don’t let me down, though, Dave.”

  Not a chance, lieutenant. Dave trekked toward the Foxy Lady. This case would save his life.This case was his life.

  He took out the booking picture. New York had its share of homegrown bad guys; it didn’t need to import them from Miami. Billy Ray Battle had killed a man with a pipe in a fight over a woman outside some redneck bar. Next, he had kidnapped the poor peckerwood’s girlfriend, raped her repeatedly, and ripped up her face. He told the cops he’d done it for love. Billy Ray did five years hard time in the Florida penal system before convincing the local yahoos that he was a reformed man. After that, he was chief suspect in a series of rapes. One had resulted in a woman’s death: from a .45 to the head. Unfortunately, the Florida cops were too busy sucking on oranges or skinning gators or whatever they did.They could pin nothing on him. And now, Billy Ray Battle had shifted his horizons.

  Dave saw two uniforms walking ahead, a man and a woman.They were giving each face they passed a hard look.

  One of them, a pale kid with the nametag “Blitzer,” nodded to Dillon. “Green or blue windbreaker, right?” he asked.

  “You got it,” Dave said.The all-points bulletin had gone out quickly.

  “I hear he’s dangerous,” Blitzer said. “Carries a .45.”

  “Yeah. Be careful.” Dave glanced at his nametag again, then at his face. “You’re Zoltan Blitzer’s younger brother.Vic, isn’t it? I heard you were out of the Academy.Welcome to hell.”

  Blitzer grinned sheepishly. Veteran cops usually weren’t friendly to rookies. “Sir.”

  “How’s Zoltan? I haven’t been to see him in a month or two.”

  “He’s okay. Working on weights in the basement a lot, y’know. Builds up his upper-body strength.”

  “Tell him I said hello,” Dave said. “
And give my best to Cathy and the kids.”

  “He talks about you all the time,”Vic Blitzer said.

  Dave interrupted him by clapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s get back to work.” He nodded at the kid’s partner, a tough female cop who sported an admirable arrest record and a reputation for street smarts. “Keep an eye on this guy, Martino.”

  The Foxy Lady was exactly what high-minded city planners meant by cleaning up the Deuce. They talked of bringing in Disney, But if Donald Duck set one webbed foot in the Foxy Lady, he’d end up rolled and sodomized. Actually, 42nd Street had no more hope of being cleaned up than a plutonium dump site.

  The Foxy Lady was so sleazy that Dave, after a visit, felt like taking a shower. Major slimeballs hung out here. Billy Ray Battle would naturally gravitate to it.

  You couldn’t avoid knowing about the place. On each street corner for blocks around, skeevy types passed out handbills promising: “Hot girls and more at the Foxy Lady.” The street-corner touts snapped the handbills like a lash, catching attention. The “more” that they promised had provided numerous arrests when Dave was working the street. Still did.

  The Foxy Lady had a life-sized neon sign, the red silhouette of a woman that flashed back and forth as if she were dancing. Loud 1970s rock tunes blared out the door. As usual, Tony Topnut, the owner, stood guard at the front door, repeating, “Check it out, check it out, check it out,” into the auto exhaust of the traffic heading for the Lincoln Tunnel.

  “You back?”Tony Topnut exclaimed. “They let you back?”

  “They do a lot of things without consulting you,” Dave said dryly. “Busy tonight?”

  “Not bad.” Despite the cool temperature, Topnut wore a garish short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt that covered his ample gut.The hula girls on the shirt were lifting their grass skirts to expose themselves. His short goatee failed to give the desired Satanic effect due to his bulging triple chin.

  “Seen a big white guy in a blue or green windbreaker? Southern accent.”

  “You know my memory’s shitty, Dillon.”

  “Sort of like your taste in clothing. I’ll just have a look inside.”

  Dave shouldered his way into the bar.A dancer, clad in a G-string and tiny bra, undulated on the small stage. Her body was nice for the Foxy Lady: a tight, snaky torso moving with the music. But her downcast face would have been more at home at a funeral.The major stripping action was a while off. This act was just to keep the clientele’s blood moving.

  Every physically and mentally misshapen boulevardier of the Deuce seemed to have found his way into the Foxy Lady tonight. Horny, pimply college boys. Horny, alcoholic businessmen. Horny, chain-wearing street hustlers. Horny, ugly — well, maybe they were extra-terrestrials on shore leave.They sipped their watery drinks and waited patiently for more skin.

  The bartender nodded at Dave, squirted club soda into a glass, and passed it to him without being asked.

  Dave took the glass and walked along the bar, peering at the hunched-over horny toads as they ogled or pretended not to ogle the bored looking woman on the stage. He heard Billy Ray Battle before he saw him.

  “Where’s the tits?” he bellowed.You could tell he had enough mule muscle packed in his arms and shoulders to disconnect a man’s life with a punch. Never mind the .45 in his waistband. Dave could see the L-shape outline of the weapon through the fabric of the windbreaker.

  “Where’s the pussy?” Billy Ray foghorned across the bar. The smaller men seated on the stools near him stared straight ahead as if he were not there. No sense riling the boy up.

  Keeping Billy Ray Battle firmly in view, Dave dialed Blake on the pay phone. Using his radio wasn’t an option.

  “We’re on the way,” Blake said. “Five minutes.Tops.”

  As Dave hung up,Tony Topnut popped up next to Billy Ray, who was busy drinking shooters. Billy Ray gave a displeased roar at being interrupted.Then he listened.Tony jerked his head in the direction of the red exit sign. Billy Ray made for it. Fast.

  “Shit,” Dave said. He ran after the man, dodging through the tables, and caught up with him as he was pushing the crash bar into the alley. “Halt, police.” Dave had his .38 out now. Just in case.

  Billy Ray hesitated for only a moment. Long enough to glance back at Dave with such hatred it was like opening the door to a furnace.Then he slammed the crash bar down and vaulted into the alley.

  Dave followed, spinning outside low and quick, in case Billy Ray had the doorway sighted with his .45. He hadn’t. Billy Ray’s long legs had sped him down the alley and out onto the Deuce. He wore large, heavy work boots of stone-hard leather.

  “Halt. Police,” Dave called again. He pounded out to the street. If that enormous cracker thought he could run, he was about to learn something. From a cop who wore Air Jordans.The balls of Dave’s feet bounced along the crowded sidewalk, darting among the walkers. Stark faces that didn’t want to know too much swiveled at him, saw the gun, then looked away. Bright storefronts reeled by on his right. Dave’s leather jacket billowed behind him. His breath huffed, locomotive-like, relentless, gathering steampower.

  Billy Ray’s broad, satin-clad back — the windbreaker was blue — heaved ahead, elbows working like pistons, down the sidewalk. He was a strong runner, but the constricting leather of his dead-weight boots sucked the flight out of each stride. And his running tactics made him a bad sidewalk fugitive. Good sidewalk fugitives weaved among the pedestrians. Billy Ray bumped into them, sent them sprawling along the cruel concrete.That slowed him down still more.

  “Halt. Police,” Dave was almost on him now. Almost within grabbing range. His father had taught him never to let anyone get away with running on you.When you caught him, smack the shit out of him.

  Hearing Dave right behind him, sensing the menace in the cop’s command, Billy Ray made a sudden, broken-field dodge into a T-shirt store, knocking over a carousel of postcards.

  Dave overshot the store and skidded to a stop. He warily inched to the side of the door, .38 ready, crouched low.

  Billy Ray had a sobbing Korean salesclerk by the neck in an armlock. His arm was like an oversized blue noose. He held the dull gray .45 against her skull. Sweat cascaded down Billy Ray’s mottled red face. His jaw hung open so he could suck in air.

  “It don’t matter to me,” Billy Ray shouted over the screams of the passersby as they fled.

  “Let her go, you stupid fuck.” Dave sighted his pistol at Billy Ray’s head, which was in clear view. But he had to take the bastard alive. Besides, hitting a target in the head, even from twenty feet like now, was never easy except on TV.The best place to aim was the chest. Billy Ray at least knew that. He held the hysterical salesclerk in front of him.

  “It don’t matter to me.” He twisted the gun barrel back and forth against his hostage’s head. And showed Dave an opening.

  Dave sheathed his .38 in the holster at his hip. He stepped into full sight. “Okay, Billy Ray. Here I am.” He held his arms wide.

  Billy Ray jerked his head to get the salty, stinging sweat out of his eyes. A sprinkle of it shot from his face. The movement tightened his armlock on the salesclerk, who squeaked in pain.

  Dave advanced a few feet toward Billy Ray. “I’m coming to get you, fuck.” He looked fierce, his teeth bared in an animal rictus, eyes full of fire, flesh molded to the bone. Scare them, his father had said. Scare them.

  Billy Ray arced the gun around to point at Dave. Right where he should aim, at the chest. The center of mass. The cage of his fragile, pulsing heart. As he shifted the weapon, his grip inadvertently loosened on the salesclerk. She wiggled free and scrambled past Dave. Billy Ray, his gun on the cop, didn’t seem to notice her departure.

  “Coming to get you...” Dave paused and took another step. “Coming to get you, you fuck.”

  Dave stood inches from the .45’s black hole of eternity. Close enough for what he wanted. He could smell Billy Ray’s breath, part booze, part landfill. Billy Ray was considerably bigger than Da
ve — a full three inches. If Billy Ray connected a fist to Dave’s head, it would snap his spinal cord like uncooked spaghetti.That’s why Dave was glad Billy Ray’s hitting hand had wrapped around the handle of a .45.

  The first second, not much happened. Dave growled as his muscles knit all his power into his fist. Billy Ray pulled the trigger.

  The next second, Dave’s fist collided with Billy Ray’s right eye. Drove a knuckle deep into the firm jelly of his cornea.

  The third second, not much happened. Dave’s fist withdrew at rapidly as it had struck. Billy Ray’s eye closed up like reverse time-lapse photography of a flower blossoming. His lips pulled apart to howl. His gun-free hand moved upward to clasp his blood-gorged eyeball.The gun fell, skidding away on the dirty linoleum.

  The fourth second, not much happened either. Dave brought up his knee so he could kick heel first. Wearing Air Jordans, you didn’t kick with your toe.

  The fifth second, Dave kicked Billy Ray so hard in the crotch that the boy’s genes jangled back for twenty generations of Battles.

  The sixth second, Dave watched as Billy Ray did an imitation of a shotgun breaking open, as he bent over from the hips in hellish torment.

  The seventh second, Dave clasped his hands together prayerfully and drew his arms over his head.

  The eighth second, as Billy Ray bent over in pain-wracked penitence, Dave’s clasped hands connected with the four-inch-square patch of nerves where Billy Ray’s thick neck met his thick head.

  The ninth second, Dave hopped back to permit Billy Ray’s face to slam unimpeded against the filthy floor.

  Martino briskly handcuffed Billy Ray, who was curled up fetally and moaning. Since the suspect was conscious, she told Blitzer to read him his Miranda rights.

  “I don’t know that he’s gonna say shit,” Blitzer whispered

  “Don’t be too sure,” Dave said.