Live to Tell (Live to Tell #1)(23)
With a twinge of guilt, he pats his pocket to make sure the folded piece of paper is still there.
What he did wasn’t really wrong, though. In fact, it was actually kind of heroic. He imagines himself telling Irena about it when he sees her. She has a soft spot for little kids. Wait till she hears how he helped a total stranger get his dying daughter’s favorite toy back from whoever snagged it from the lost and found.
Heroics aside, no one in his right mind would have turned down the offer to make such easy money. Especially since JT had been told he’d be paid a token amount for his efforts to find the toy even if he failed.
But he hadn’t. It had taken all of two minutes for JT to let himself into the closed lost and found office and find the record of the person who had mistakenly claimed the damned thing.
Mission accomplished, easy breezy. The ultra-organized lost and found photocopies the driver’s license of everyone who claims lost property, attaching it to the original claim form and filing away a hard copy just ripe for the taking.
Now all JT has to do is go over to the pub, hand over the photocopy, and collect his money.
Exiting the terminal on the west side, he’s hit with a blast of muggy August air laced with the faint stench of stagnant gutter water from a late day thunderstorm. A few stray commuters hurry along Vanderbilt Avenue, but midtown is relatively quiet at this hour.
Passing a hand-in-hand couple, JT thinks wistfully of Irena, who’s probably in bed by now. Her breakfast shift at an Astoria Boulevard diner begins at four.
Someday, they’ll be able to see more of each other. Someday, when Irena has graduated from Queensborough Community College and no longer has to work two jobs just to pay her tuition. Someday, when she’s his wife.
His pulse quickens at the thought of the diamond ring he’s been saving up to buy. With his next paycheck and the extra cash he’s about to pocket, they’ll be engaged by Labor Day.
He crosses the narrow avenue and walks up two blocks, toward the pub. Turning west, he sees that the sidewalk between here and Madison becomes a plywood-framed tunnel, protection from the construction zone on an overhead skyscraper.
Yeah. Like some flimsy strips of wood will keep pedestrians safe from a falling crane or steel beam. Things drop from the sky all the time here—construction equipment, air-conditioning units, suicides—but native New Yorkers take that sort of thing in stride.
His footsteps echoing through the deserted wooden walkway, JT notes that the overhead bulbs meant to light the area are burned out. Figures.
He wipes a trickle of sweat from his brow, thinking that a cold beer would go down easily right about now. Maybe this guy he’s meeting at the pub will buy him one, in addition to paying him for his efforts.
If not, maybe I’ll just treat myself.
“Excuse me?”
JT glances over his shoulder to see a beefy-looking stranger coming up through the shadows behind him. After he looks around to see that there’s no one else in the walkway, JT’s street smarts kick in. He takes a wary step backward. “Yeah?”
“I’m supposed to give you this in exchange for some information.” The guy flashes a fistful of green.
“But—”
“Yeah, I know, my brother was supposed to meet you over at the pub…”
Brother? Momentarily confused, JT thinks of the guy he met earlier. He was on the short side, wiry, balding.
This one is built like a bull. A bull with a hand that’s now fanning a bunch of hundred-dollar bills—a lot more than JT was supposed to be paid. His eyes widen.
“But,” the bull continues, “he couldn’t make it. Had to rush over to the hospital.”
Oh geez. JT wonders if the brother’s kid is going to live long enough to see her favorite toy.
“So he sent me to close the deal for him.”
Close the deal?
JT laughs nervously. This guy makes it sound almost like they’re doing something shady here.
Which you are, he reminds himself. But in the grand scheme of things, considering his own past, this isn’t so bad. He’s not hurting anyone—he’s helping.
“Did you get the information for my brother?”
JT nods, again checking the street, making sure there’s no one around to see the exchange and mistake it for a drug deal or something.
Coast is clear.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the piece of paper.
The guy unfolds it and looks at the photocopied driver’s license while JT looks at all those hundred-dollar bills, almost within his reach. Yeah, he’ll definitely go get himself a cold one after this. Maybe a couple, to celebrate the unexpected windfall.
Giving a satisfied nod, the guy folds the paper again and tucks it into his pocket. When his hand emerges, it isn’t empty.
Too late, JT spots the pistol. Before he can react, he feels its hard nose probing point-blank against his chest…
And then he feels nothing at all.
Lauren wipes a trickle of sweat from her forehead as she carries a glass of ice water into the living room. She stepped out of a tepid shower less than ten minutes ago and she’s wearing only a thin baby doll nightgown, but it’s impossible to cool off tonight.
Exhausted, she sinks onto the living room couch, directly in front of the rotating floor fan. The blades stir the sticky air but don’t cool it, and there’s not a breath of breeze through the screen at the open window.