There was nothing wrong with her ankle, of course. She stood up and listened for any indication of a commotion outside. She heard nothing. Probably no one had heard the shots through the security shutters.
Her purse was trapped underneath Ed’s body. She had to lift him up, straining at the weight—dead weight, literally—in order to retrieve it.
In the purse she kept a pair of gloves. She pulled them on and wiped down every surface she’d touched, including the rifle from the game. She recovered the sunglass frames, took Ed’s wallet and his wristwatch, but left his revolver. Let the police think it was a holdup gone wrong. Ed fought back and lost.
When the crime scene had been properly sanitized, she left via a back door that opened on an alleyway. No one saw her return to the Jeep. In the glow of the dome light she went through Ed’s wallet, pocketing the cash. She noted with satisfaction that she’d gotten her twenty bucks back. Finally she studied his driver’s license.
He was calling himself Roger Coverdell now. His address was someplace on Devil’s Hook Island, a barrier island south of Brighton Cove. Bonnie knew Devil’s Hook pretty well. She’d killed three men there during Hurricane Sandy. Only one was a hit; the other two had been strictly self-defense.
On her way home, she stopped at a public park on the Crab River Inlet. She tossed the gloves into a dump bin, along with her windbreaker—she’d gotten blood on it when she reached under Ed’s body to recover her purse—and Ed’s wallet. She’d already memorized his address.
The derringer went into the water. It was never a good idea to hold on to a murder gun.
She noticed the plastic bangle on her wrist and thought about tossing it, too. She decided against it. Hell, maybe it had brought her luck. She left it on.
Then she took a few moments to process what had happened. As usual, the period immediately after the action had passed in something like a sleepwalker’s trance. There was the initial euphoria, then the calm professionalism of a programmed routine. Now she could unwind a little and allow herself to feel again.
Had she been scared when she sat in the corner, tugging at her sock and trying to work the derringer loose without letting Ed see? She thought she probably had been. Honestly, she couldn’t remember. But she’d known he might snap off a round at any moment. He’d done some talking, but not much. All he’d really wanted to know was if she’d tracked him down deliberately. Probably he’d been afraid she’d left a trail that could lead to him.
Once he’d been satisfied on that score, he had been ready to shoot. Hadn’t wasted any time, either. If she hadn’t been carrying the derringer, she would have been all out of options. There would have been nothing she could do except die.
But she hadn’t died. She’d outplayed the son of a bitch. And, for better or worse, she’d enjoyed it. It was more satisfying than firing a fake rifle at fake targets at five dollars a pop. More satisfying than tailing a closeted gay hubby, or negotiating a deal with a low-level mobster, or pretty much anything else she’d done lately.
For the second time that night, she asked herself if she actually liked killing people. She hoped not. It seemed like the kind of sentiment Hannibal Lecter would relate to. She didn’t want to be Hannibal Lecter. That facemask thing they’d put him in would do absolutely nothing for her.
Finally she gave up thinking about it. She’d never been any damn good at psychoanalyzing herself. Introspection was not her forte. What she needed to do was get drunk. Well, there was booze at home, among the many other unhealthy foodstuffs Kyle Ridley disapproved of.
She crossed into Brighton Cove and was approaching her duplex when she caught sight of a squad car prowling the neighborhood.
Brad and Dan again, most likely. And here she was, driving a vandalized vehicle with one dead headlight. Another writeup for sure, if Dan had anything to say about it. Shit.
Prudently she detoured to her office, figuring she’d lie low there for a little while. She parked in the gravel lot and checked the time. Midnight exactly. She must have lingered at the inlet a little longer than she’d thought.
The offices of Last Resort were housed on the second floor of a 1920s brick building next door to an upscale shoe store called Oxfords, whose snooty proprietor always treated Bonnie like she was patient zero in the zombie apocalypse. She couldn’t blame him. Only eight months ago Streinikov’s gang had shot up her office with automatic weapons, and a few stray rounds had drilled through Oxfords’ wall. From what she understood, a pair of Italian leather pumps had been the only casualties.
She unlocked the lobby door and made her way up the steep, narrow staircase. After the Streinikov incident, she’d installed a top-of-the-line Schlage lock on her office door. It wouldn’t stop another crew from blasting their way in, but at least it earned her a rebate on her insurance premium.
The office didn’t amount to much, just two rooms with unreliable heat in the winter and no AC in the summer. Still, she’d had to fight to hold on to it. Her landlord had tried to get her out of her lease. Apparently he didn’t like having his building shot up. The other tenants weren’t exactly overjoyed about it either. They gave her cold stares in the hallway.
But she’d stubbornly refused to vacate, and eventually the landlord had surrendered. She wasn’t optimistic about the prospects of renewing the lease next month, but she’d learned not to look that far ahead. What the hell, by next month she could be dead. It might not be the outcome she was hoping for, but she had to admit it would solve a lot of problems.
The office had been totally redecorated—a necessity, inasmuch as the original decor had been blown to shit. In place of her yard-sale furnishings, she’d sprung for some decent stuff from a local office supply store. Got a good price on it, too; the proprietor was the same guy who’d needed her help in making things right with the Dragushas last year, and he’d given her the employee discount.
As a result, she was able to sit at a smart contemporary desk with a commodious knee hole in which to conceal a loaded .44—a precaution in case the next shooters who came after her happened to drop by during business hours. The new computer on the desk—her old one had resembled an exploded hand grenade—was a no-name box out of South Korea, but it ran Windows okay. Her screensaver was a photo of the historical Bonnie Parker, looking mean and young, but mostly young. There had been a pic of old Bonnie on her wall, but the gunmen had turned it into so much confetti; now she displayed dismayingly anodyne seascapes from Art Attack, a nearby print shop.
Yeah, that’s right—generic desk, generic computer, generic art. Her new office had all the personality of an Egg McMuffin. But with her rep in town at an all-time low, she felt obliged to make a bid for respectability.
She Googled Roger Coverdell’s address and discovered that it was part of the Locust Hill RV Park. It seemed that Ed and Edna were still grooving on the mobile home lifestyle. She checked the location on a map, zeroing in on 63 Red Hawk Lane, their assigned slot. Campers on either side of theirs; not much space between them. Hardly the perfect place for a hit, but it could be managed …
Sure. Anything could be managed. Question was, did she intend to go that route?
She sat back in the desk chair, thinking it over.
Every living part of her wanted to take care of Edna Goodman personally. The woman was trash, she was a killer, and Bonnie couldn’t forget how she’d just sat there knitting.
Knitting …
She shook off the thought. Yes. The woman deserved to die. That much was certain. Still …
Shooting Ed in self-defense was one thing. Kill or be killed—no choice about it. But a straight-up hit was something else. She could call it an execution, street justice, but it was premeditated murder just the same.
A year ago, she wouldn’t have hesitated. But these days she was coloring inside the lines, right? Turning over a new leaf—though what leaves had to do with it, she couldn’t imagine. Anyway, the point was that she’d promised herself she was through with all that. She was on the wagon. And she guessed she had to keep it that way.
She shook her head, pissed off at herself for having so goddamn much integrity. All right, all right. She would play by the rules. Wait a few days so the connection with the midway shooting wasn’t obvious, then call the police. Trust the authorities not to screw it up. It would be hard. Her whole life was based on not trusting anyone. But that, too, had to change.
Admittedly it would be nowhere near as satisfying as doing the job herself, up close and personal.
Of course, it was possible Edna would suspect the truth about her husband’s demise. She might find it just a little too convenient that Ed Goodman, of all people, should meet with foul play in a town as normally crime-free as Point Clement. But that didn’t matter. Edna wouldn’t run. Even if she knew justice was on the way … even then, she wouldn’t run. Bonnie was certain of that.
She erased her browsing history—a habitual caution—then shut down the PC and locked up the office. By now the prowl car must have left her neighborhood.
It had. Unfortunately, it was parked outside her office, and Brad was standing by her Jeep.
She put her newsboy cap on her head and strode up to him while Dan looked on from inside the squad car, amused.
“This really is fucking harassment, Walsh.”
Brad raised a placating hand. “Calm down. I’m not here to ticket you. Though I did notice your headlight is broken …”
“Don’t even. I swear I will physically hurt you.”
“It was just an observation.”
“Be sure it stays that way.”
“Your Jeep is pretty trashed, though. What’ve you been up to tonight?”
“Murder and mayhem.”
“I wish I could be sure you were kidding around.”
“I wish you could, too. Why the fuck are you here?”
“Just wanted to pass on some information. About an hour ago, Dan and I ran into a car full of questionable characters. Four young males, Eastern European types. They were driving a black Hummer and they had a lot of attitude.”
“Eastern European,” she said slowly.
“Russians, maybe. I don’t know. I got their names.” He recited a list beginning with Raco Prifti and continuing with other unfamiliar combinations of syllables. “Mean anything?”
“It’s Greek to me.” More like Albanian, she thought.
“The driver had a beard with a white stripe in it. Pretty distinctive.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell. They live locally?”
“Hoboken and Jersey City.”
Dragusha territory. “Why were they paying us a visit?”
“Just out for a drive, they said.”
“Doesn’t sound like they were being completely truthful.”
“Is anybody ever completely truthful?”
She was pretty sure that was a dig, but she let it pass. No point getting into an argument. Dan was listening, after all.
“The chief and I,” Brad went on, “have been going back and forth between your house and your office in case they come back. But they seem to be gone for good.”
“Yeah. You made ’em, so they had to call off the party. If there was a party.”
“They may still be looking for you.”
“For their sake, they better hope they don’t find me.”
He studied her with a mistrustful gaze. “You really don’t know what’s happening?”
“I really don’t. But I’d like to find out.”
“Well, anyway, we just thought you ought to know.”
“We? As in you and Danno?”
“Yes. Both of us.” Brad lowered his voice. “Whatever you may think, he doesn’t want you dead.”
“Just in jail.”
“Right.”
She took a step back, hands on hips. “You probably think that’s where I belong, too.”
“Maybe I do.”
She watched him climb back into the squad car. It pulled off, and she was left leaning on the Jeep, thinking about the crew in the Hummer and feeling plenty steamed.
She’d done the right thing tonight. She’d kept Shaban alive, and Kyle too. And all the same, it looked like she’d ended up with a bull’s-eye on her back. What good was coloring inside the lines if the other guy had an eraser?
One thing was for sure. She and Shabby were gonna have a little talk about this.
Right now.