Bronx Requiem(34)

Manny whipped the long barrel of his .38 against someone’s head to put him down. Ciro rammed the butt of the Bennelli into the last man standing.

It took nine seconds from the time the door broke open until everyone lay flat on the floor.

Beck felt his heart pounding. He was out of breath. He wiped his brass knuckles off on an old upholstered chair then slipped them back into his pockets.

Demarco walked into the room holding the Winchester shotgun in one hand and the arm of a barefoot young woman showing a good deal of skin in his other hand. He sat her in a straight-back chair near a beat-up red velour couch.

All the shouting had stopped. Ciro kept his shotgun pointed at the crew while Manny went from prone body to prone body, telling them to put their hands on the back of their heads as he searched them for weapons and ID. When he found a gun, he tossed it on the ratty couch.

Beck heard gasping from the man he’d knocked unconscious, the kind of labored breathing that occurs when a brain has shut down except for the autonomic reactions that keep a heart beating and lungs working. He rolled Tyrell Williams over on his side so he wouldn’t choke on the blood flowing from his broken nose.

He looked for the one he thought he’d skulled with the brass-knuckled backhand, hoping he hadn’t killed him. He found him lying flat on the floor, his right hand pressed against a bleeding forehead. It was Derrick Watkins, quietly cursing at the pain.

Beck walked to the front door and wedged it into the cracked frame, sealing off the apartment from the landing. Demarco took a position near the door, his shotgun held low, aimed at the group.

Beck asked Demarco, “Anybody else in the back?”

“Nope.”

Ciro firing the Benelli had caused a lot of noise, but it certainly helped put a stop to anybody fighting back. Nobody was dead. None of Beck’s crew was injured. So far, so good, as long as the two shotgun blasts didn’t bring the police.

Beck waited until Manny finished disarming and collecting identification from the last man on the floor, then he sat on the scabby red couch and gathered the guns and other weapons into a pile.

There were six men of various sizes and ages on the dirty floor of the Mount Hope Place apartment. All of them had been armed, but none of them had been able to get off a shot.

Beck looked at the girl sitting to his right. She was dressed in a way that revealed nearly everything about her body. Her short-shorts and tight T-shirt made it difficult for Beck not to stare, which, of course, was exactly the point of the clothes.

He didn’t want to hear the answer to the question he was about to ask, but he asked it.

“Young lady.”

Amelia looked over at Beck.

“What’s your name?”

She paused for a moment, staring at Beck with an expression he couldn’t quite decipher. She seemed stunned, yet, at the same time, strangely alert. She took a quick look at the bodies on the floor, and then answered, “Princess.”

Beck paused. Speaking carefully, he said, “No. I don’t mean your working name. What’s your real name?”

“Why?”

“Are you Amelia Johnson?”

She stopped looking at Derrick’s crew on the floor and turned to Beck. “Who are you?”

“My name is James Beck. I was a friend of your father’s.”

He saw a look of confusion on the young girl’s face. It confirmed two things. She was, in fact, Amelia Johnson, and she probably didn’t know her father had been shot and killed.

Amelia asked, “What do you mean, was?”

Beck hesitated. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him. Which one of these is Derrick Watkins?”

Amelia didn’t answer, but tipped her head toward Derrick.

Beck said to Amelia, “Would you do me a favor? Go in the kitchen and get a towel or something. Run cold water over it, wring it out, and give it to Derrick.”

Amelia stared at Beck for a moment, then got up to do as he’d asked.

Beck turned to the bleeding man on the floor.

“Derrick, get up and go sit in that chair.”

Derrick lifted his head off the floor to glare at Beck, but made no move to get up. Manny Guzman stood closest to him. Without a second’s hesitation, he began kicking Derrick Watkins—hard, fast, brutal kicks into his leg and ribs. Derrick scrambled away from the kicks and got to his feet. He staggered over to the chair and fell into it more than sat on it.

The others watched, but didn’t move.

Amelia returned from the kitchen with a threadbare hand towel she had rinsed as Beck had asked. She’d also put on her pink hoodie, zipping it up to her neck. She handed the towel to Derrick without looking at him.

Beck thanked her and said, “One more favor. There are bedrooms back there, right?”

“Yes.”

“Go back and find me a couple of pillowcases if you can, and bring them out here.”

Beck spoke to Amelia, but stared at Derrick Watkins, taking in the sight of him. Coming to an opinion about him.

Derrick sat in the upholstered armchair, holding the wet towel to his bleeding head.

Beck took note that Derrick appeared to be older than most of the others in the room. He wore better clothes than expected: a square-cut oversized shirt that hung out over black, pleated slacks, and black suede sneakers.

Beck figured him for midthirties, about twenty pounds overweight, mean, blank eyes. He had none of the expected gang tattoos or garish jewelry, but he did have a typical hateful, defiant expression.