Gone, Baby, Gone (Kenzie & Gennaro #4)(47)

I thought about the pure nothing that had come into Broussard’s eyes after he’d slapped Cheese. A nothing so complete it had overwhelmed even his fury.

Angie was right: How many dead kids could you find?

“He’ll burn down the city if he thinks it’ll lead to Amanda,” I said.

Angie nodded. “Both of them will.”

“And she may already be dead.”

Angie flicked her cigarette ash over the top of her window. “Don’t say that.”

“Can’t help it. It’s a distinct possibility. You know it. So do I.”

The towering quiet of the empty street slipped into the car for a bit.

“Cheese hates witnesses,” Angie said eventually.

“Hates ’em,” I agreed.

“If that child is dead,” Angie said, and cleared her throat, “then Broussard definitely—and Poole most probably—will snap.”

I nodded. “And God help whoever they think was involved.”

“You think God’ll help?”

“Huh?”

“God,” she said, and crushed her cigarette in the ashtray. “You think He’ll help Amanda’s kidnappers any more than He helped her?”

“Probably not.”

“Then again…” She looked out the windshield.

“What?”

“If Amanda is dead and Broussard flips out, kills her kidnappers, maybe God is helping.”

“Heck of a strange God.”

Angie shrugged. “You take what you can get,” she said.





14





I’d heard about Chris Mullen’s banker’s hours, his determination to run a nighttime business during daylight hours, and the next morning, at exactly 8:55, he walked out of Devonshire Towers and turned right on Washington.

I was parked on Washington a half block up from the condo towers, and when I picked up Mullen walking toward State in my rearview mirror, I depressed the transmit button on the walkie-talkie lying on the seat and said, “He just left through the front.”

From her post on Devonshire Street, where no cars were allowed to park or even idle in the morning, Angie said, “Gotcha.”

Broussard, wearing a gray T-shirt, black sweats, and a dark blue and white warm-up jacket, stood across from my car in front of Pi Alley. He sipped coffee from a Styrofoam cup and read the sports page like a jogger just finished his run. He’d rigged a headset to a receiver strapped to his waistband and painted both the earphones and receiver yellow and black to look like a Discman. He’d even sprayed water down the front of his shirt five minutes ago to make it look like sweat. These ex-vice and narcotics guys—masters of the small details of disguise.

As Mullen took a right at the flower stand in front of the Old State House, Broussard crossed Washington and followed. I saw him raise his coffee to his mouth and his lips move as he spoke into the transmitter strapped under his watchband.

“Moving east on State. I got him. Showtime, kids.”

I turned the walkie-talkie off and slipped it into my coat pocket until my part had been played. In keeping with the disguise motif of the day, I was dressed in the rattiest gray trench coat this side of a subway bum, and I’d stained it freshly this morning with egg yolk and Pepsi. My soiled T-shirt was torn across the chest and my jeans and the tops of my shoes were speckled with paint and dirt. The tips of my shoe soles were separated from the top and clapped softly as I walked, and my bare toes peeked out. I’d brushed my hair straight off my forehead and blown it dry to give it that Don King look, and what remained of the egg I’d used on the trench coat I’d rubbed into my beard.

Styling.

I unzipped my fly as I stumbled across Washington Street and poured the rest of my morning coffee down my chest. People saw me coming and sidestepped my lumbering steps and swinging arms, and I mumbled a whole stream of words I’d never learned from my mom and pushed through the gilt-edged front doors of Devonshire Place.

Boy, did the security guard look psyched to see me.

So did the three people who exited the elevator and cut a wide swath around me on the marble floor. I leered at the two women in the trio, smiled at the cut of their legs dropping from the hems of their Anne Klein suits.

“Join me for a pizza?” I asked.

The businessman steered the women even farther away as the security guard said, “Hey! Hey, you!”

I turned toward him as he came out from behind his gleaming black horseshoe desk. He was young and lean, and he had a finger rudely pointed in my direction.

The businessman pushed the women out of the building and pulled a cell phone from his inside pocket, extended the antenna by gripping it between his teeth, but kept walking up Washington.

“Come on,” the security guard said. “Turn around and go out the way you came in. Right now. Come on.”

I swayed in front of him and licked my beard, came back with eggshell. I left my mouth open as I chewed on it and it crackled.

The security guard set his feet on the marble and placed a hand on his nightstick. “You,” he said, like he was talking to a dog. “Go.”

“Uh-ah,” I mumbled, and swayed some more.

The elevator bank dinged as another car reached the lobby.

The security guard reached for my elbow, but I pivoted and his fingers snapped at air.