Authors: Carol Lea Benjamin

The Long Good Boy (28 page)

BOOK: The Long Good Boy

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Or was Dashiell keeping
him
completely still? On this street, at this time of night, you never knew for sure.

I reached for my cell phone when I saw him coming around from the other side of the car. He pulled a pen out of his pocket, stooped, and picked up the gun with it, holding it out in front of him. He looked at the car, then at the dead cop behind me, then at Grace.

“What the fuck is going on here?”

“The night Detective Mulrooney was killed, was there a nun anywhere in the vicinity?” My voice raw, my words swallowing each other, figuring I had a minute, or less, before he got me off his back once and for all.

Vinnie turned to look at me. For a moment, I thought he didn't quite know who I was. “
Detective
Mulrooney?”

I watched his face, watched him get it, watched the color leave his skin, as if he'd been shot with bullets instead of words.

“Did you see a nun anywhere near Keller's that night, asking for money, or just passing by?”

Of course not. He was down in the subcellar, getting drugs for his hooker. Or he was back in his office, the compressor covering any sound coming from below. He never saw a thing, never heard a thing, not until it was over, way over for Mulrooney, Rosalinda gone, getting some heavy shit off her chest.

He looked at Grace, at where her hand was, close to where the gun had been, then he slid the gun off the pen and into his hand, letting the pen drop, moving that gun back and forth between his hands, as if he needed to get the feel of it, then he held the grip, his finger on the trigger, but he never said a word. He stepped past Grace. We were face-to-face again. Only this time, he was the one who was armed.

LaDonna's Eyes Were Shining

Vinnie turned. The hand holding the gun moved. This time that black hole wasn't pointed at me; Vinnie's hand stopped almost as soon as it had started.

“No,” I shouted. “Vinnie, don't.”

He looked up at me, a shopworn man, used up, his face sagging, his eyes dark and dead.

“Detective Esposito,” I said. Then I did the only thing I could. I dropped the hypodermic and reached for Dashiell, pulling him back by one flank. The sound of the gun was deafening. Grace's body jumped once, then lay completely still.

Vinnie stood there, the gun hanging down at his side. “Call it in, Rachel.” He laid the gun carefully on the roof of the unmarked car, then changed his mind and took it back, turning away, going back the way he'd come. “They'll know where to find me,” he said, his back to me, the wind taking his words and blowing them by me so fast I didn't get their meaning until a minute later, until he was already out of sight.

My hand shaking, I dialed nine-one-one. “Officers down,” I said, giving the location, hanging up without answering any questions. Then I turned to look at the dead detectives, seeing LaDonna coming down Little West Twelfth Street, Ebony and Chi Chi behind her, Devon, too, the troops coming to save me. Unless it was Rendell they'd come to save, in which case they were years and years too late.

Devon shook his head from side to side. “You do that?”

“You better not hang around. Grace did them. Vinnie did her. It's over. The cops are on the way.”

I looked around on the ground for the syringe, stamping on it with my red shoes like a deranged flamenco dancer.

“I hear you won't be working for me no more,” Devon said.

“That's right,” I told him. “No need. Your girls are safe now, in a manner of speaking.”

He nodded, pointing a long finger to where he'd come from, Ebony heading back that way, Devon right behind her, LaDonna and Chi Chi staying.

“Don't do this. You're okay now. Don't stay here and wait for the cops. Go on. Go on.” I slipped off the boa and draped it around Chi Chi's neck. “It turned out to be lucky after all,” I told her. For a moment, she stood there. Then she ran after Devon and Ebony.

I turned around to tell LaDonna to go, too, but she was behind the car, bending over Ryan.

“The white one's alive,” she said. “The other one, he's gone.” She thumped her fist on Ryan's chest. “This one had a vest on. He's still breathing.” She stood and came over to me. “You got guts, girl.”

“You better get out of here, you don't want to answer to the police.”

“Remember what I told you, Rachel, how I was going to protect you?”

“LaDonna, you can'tâ”

“She killed my dad?”

I nodded.

“How come? Just pure hate?”

“The night your father's partner was killed in a drug raid near Hunts Point, two brothers were killed. A third dealer, the third brother, got away because your father stayed with his dying partner instead of going out the window after him. Her.”

“Whatever. And that was Grace here?”

I nodded again. “I thought she was one of the girls.”

“No. She didn't do no tricks. Didn't have to, all that money she made selling shit to us and the johns.”

“She was your dealer?”

She nodded. “Sometimes Devon, he wouldn't give us the stuff, to show his power, you know? Then we'd go to Grace, buy what we needed with our pocket money, not eat that day, maybe not be able to pay the rent.” She shrugged. “Way it is, no sense whining about it. So what'd she do, Grace, follow my dad here from Hunts Point?”

“I don't think so. I think she just changed neighborhoods. The heat was on after that drug bust, it was too dangerous for her to stay there. So she gave herself a new look and set up business here. What could be safer? Then shortly after she got here, an amazing thing happens. She sees Mulrooney, someone she'd know anywhere, even in a white coat pretending to manage a meat plant.”

“And then what?”

“I imagine she stalked him, waited for a chance to find him alone, made it look like a mob hit.”

“Why was my dad here?”

“Drugs. I found them tonight. I'm sure your dad had the location, but he was probably trying to get the whole route, where the drugs started, where they ended up, get some of the major players, not just the bit parts.”

“And Vinnie, he was in it with Grace?”

I shook my head.

“Why'd he kill her?”

“He's a cop, LaDonna. That's what tonight was all about, trying to scare me off, get me to keep my nose out of their business.”

“Vinnie's a cop?”

I nodded. “He went in undercover and turned. Your dad was sent in â¦”

“What are you saying?”

“The only way Vinnie could still be a free man is if he was on the job, too, if he was there undercover and so deep in, he'd gone over. That's a lot of temptation, the endless amount of money you see dealing drugs. It was more than Vinnie could resist. So your dad was brought in because Vinnie got corrupted, the good cop sent to set a trap for the bad cop. Only that's not how it turned out.”

“The good cop.”

“Not entirely good.”

She nodded.

“And the bad cop, he never would have stood for the murder of a fellow police officer. He proved that tonight, didn't he?”

“Not entirely bad,” she said.

“Not entirely.”

“That means there's others in there, in on the dope? Civilians?”

“At least one. Not my concern.”

“And Rosalinda? She is your concern.”

“I thought she'd seen the murder, got seen seeing it. But that's not what happened.” I shook my head. “She was there and left. I doubt she saw anything. She was in her white gown, walking to the corner, and she sees Grace, decked out the way she was tonight, like a nun.”

“It was Halloween.”

“True. But beside the point. Wearing that outfit was the perfect way to get close to your father without arousing suspicion.”

LaDonna winced, lit another cigarette. I could see her hand tremble as she took it out of her mouth, blew the smoke off to the side.

“Vinnie had given Rosalinda something, in lieu of a payment or as part of her payment. She's feeling no pain, until she sees the nun, feels an overwhelming need to unburden herself of her life of sin. And all Grace needed was a blabby hooker who'd been in the vicinity of the crime she'd just commited.”

LaDonna's eyes were shining. “So after doing my dad, she did Rosalinda.”

I nodded.

“Go now,” I told her. “Quickly.”

I heard the sirens before I saw the cars, two of them, coming the wrong way on Washington Street, the headlights hitting me, standing over Grace. Chiclets was lying near the rear bumper, Ryan, moaning now, behind the car. Just before the cars reached me, I heard a single gunshot, a muffled sound, but no mistaking it, the report echoing against the old buildings on Little West Twelfth Street between where I was on the stroll and the river. The cars stopped, the doors on both sides opening immediately. I raised my hands above my head and waited.

Acknowledgments

For the sharing of information, opinions, and great stories, my thanks to the late Lee Brewster of Lee's Mardi Gras, Janine Adams, Peter Fenty, Emma Jean Stephenson, Mark D'Alessio, David Schneider, Nick Brous, and the hookers of the Gansevoort Meat Market.

For advice, encouragement, and taking care of business, thanks to my agent, Gail Hochman.

My gratitude also to all the good people at Walker & Company for their skill, humor, and warmth; to Job Michael Evans and Wayde Vickrey for incomparable conversations, then and now; to Daneil Hu for the
tui na
; to Stephen Lennard, my favorite husband; and to Dexter and Flash for bringing Zen into the office. Good on ya, one and all.

About the Author

Carol Lea Benjamin is the author of the Rachel Alexander and Dash mystery novels, which feature a Greenwich Villageâbased private investigator and her pit bull sidekick.
This Dog for Hire
, the first book in the series, won the Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel. Benjamin has also been a teacher, worked as a private investigator, trained dogs, and written dog-training manuals such as
Mother Knows Best
:
The Natural Way to Train Your Dog
. She lives in New York City with her husband and two dogs.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Neil Alexander Heacox

ISBN: 978-1-5040-0678-1

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com