Forgive Me(62)

“I am. Paul does it all. You forget I’ve been here a few days now. I have the lay of the land.”

“Just get me a salad, but wait to go until after I get back,” Angie reminded him before ending the call. She grabbed her purse from the back seat and made sure the camera hidden in her glasses was recording.

Mike hadn’t gotten any pictures of Ivan and the others. Angie hoped she might get lucky. If one of them had a warrant, it could inspire a little more attention from the police.

Then Angie went walking. She pretended to window shop at the art supply place, but gave real consideration to trying Zumba after peering in on a class in progress. Her situational awareness sharpened once she crossed the street. She strolled in front of the auto repair place, and then came upon the alley that Ivan Markovich took to reach to the back of the apartment building. It was the same alley Casper had chased her down, though it looked a lot different during the day—far less threatening. She could still feel Casper’s presence looming behind her.

When Angie came to the front of the apartment building, she considered backtracking, cutting through the alley, and going to the basement door, but decided against it. Too much risk for potentially too little reward. She decided to try to sneak a peek into one of the apartment windows instead, and maybe record some video evidence for the police. The windows weren’t quite at eye level, but she noticed an overturned milk crate she could use as a step stool.

Letting go a long exhale, followed by a couple furtive glances, Angie emboldened herself to step onto a patch of dirt in front of the apartment where a small garden could have gone. She picked up the milk crate and positioned it directly underneath one of the first floor windows. She climbed up and her weight sank the plastic edges of the crate a couple inches into the loosely packed soil.

She craned her neck to get a look inside, but the windows were grimy, the lights were off, and the bars made it difficult to get a clear view of anything. Angie put her face closer to those rust speckled bars when a sound drew her attention toward the front steps.

The front door came open and out stepped Mr. Fedora, hat in hand, shielding his eyes from the bright sunshine. He slipped on his shades to combat the glare and noticed Angie after she had jumped down from the milk crate. While getting down, she’d pulled out one of her earrings and tossed it to the ground, then directed her gaze to her feet. She pretended not to look at Mr. Fedora, but from her peripheral vision, saw him put his hat on his head. His swagger blossomed.

“Yo, yo, lady,” he said, dirtying his brown shoes to traipse through the soil. “Whatcha you doing here?”

Angie looked up, her camera filming the man’s scowl in enough detail to capture wisps of hair coating his top lip. Her heart rate accelerated, but she masqueraded her fear with confidence. “I dropped an earring. It hit the curb and bounced into the dirt. I can’t seem to find it.”

Mr. Fedora became the consummate gentleman. “I’ll help you look, baby.”

Funny how his stare seemed more focused on Angie’s figure than on the ground.

“What’s your name, sweetheart? They call me Buggy.”

“Buggy?” Angie said, not looking up and not moving her foot where the missing earring would be found underneath.

“It’s a family name,” Buggy said with a laugh. “Say, you fine looking. Who you here with?”

Am I supposed to thank him for the compliment? What Angie wanted to do was hit him with her TASER again. But the weapon was in her purse and right now, unnecessary.

“I’m just on my way to meet a friend,” Angie said, careful not to move her head too much because the wig wasn’t fitting quite as snugly as it should.

Buggy moved in, allowing Angie’s camera to film a close up of his leering grin. She smelled beer on his breath.

“You live around here, baby? I ain’t seen you before.”

“Like I said, I’m visiting my friend,” Angie said, maybe a little too quickly.

“Yeah? Where she at? She fine lookin’ like you, Big Red?”

If Buggy understood the concept of personal space, he damn well knew he was violating hers. Angie’s throat tightened as she shifted her foot ever so slightly, her mind churning for a simple answer to a simple question.

She lives down on . . . on . . . on where?

Angie had had brain freezes before, but never quite like this. She didn’t know these streets, this neighborhood. She knew the apartment and the alley, nothing more. But she did remember Mike saying they were on the outskirts of east Baltimore, what was commonly referred to as “Middle East” in reference to the ever-present violence.

“She’s over in west Baltimore,” Angie said, hoping being vague wasn’t inviting suspicion. “But we’re taking a Zumba class here.”

“Come a long way to Zumba,” Buggy said.

“Well, she’s trying out new studios. A good instructor makes all the difference.”

“Yeah, I’m a teacher. You should take my class.” Buggy gyrated his hips.

Angie moved her foot and made a delighted sound. She bent down, retrieved her dirt-covered earring, and held it up for Buggy to see. She took a step in retreat.

Buggy held his ground. He seemed to be weighing the earring discovery against the Zumba story, deciding if his BS radar should be pinging loudly.

“You come back here any time you want to party,” Buggy said, slipping a smoke in his mouth from a pack he kept in the pocket of his bowling shirt. He lit it and blew a waft in Angie’s face that wouldn’t have bothered her twenty-year-old self, but made the older version want to gag.