He shoved her into the room and stood next to the closet, just on the edge of the room.
“How you doing?” he asked me.
“Fine, Bellamy, just fine,” I said. “But maybe not as well as you.”
He wore a long gray coat, the bulky kind, and had both hands stuffed in his pockets.
“Where’s your cane?” I asked.
“Left it at home.”
“You don’t really need it, do you?”
“Nah. But this,” he said, “this I need.” He withdrew his right hand and showed his heater. “I never leave home without it.”
Beth quailed. “Please. Please, don’t.”
“Get your coat,” he snapped.
“I won’t tell. I—”
“Get your fucking coat. Or I swear I’ll do you right here, right now.”
Beth threw me a terrified glance.
“Get it!” he barked.
Beth jumped and grabbed the thin coat that lay at the foot of the bed.
“How’d you know I was here?” I asked.
“I started keeping tabs on you after that last phone call, the one where you asked me if I’d spread Whitfield's name around. That’s when I knew, dealing with you wasn’t going to be so easy.”
His threw a lustful glance at Beth, then said to me, “You know, you almost caught me, that last time you were here. I was on my way over, for my regular appointment, you might say. If you’d stayed a minute longer, you would’ve seen me.”
No wonder Beth had been such a hurry to make us leave. I didn’t want to think about how much time and effort might’ve been saved.
“Well, I guess some people have all the luck,” I said.
“You’d better believe it.” He motioned toward the hall. “Let’s go.”
“Where’re you taking us?” Beth asked.
“You’ll find out when you get there. Now move.”
He shoved the gun back in his pocket and we went downstairs, with me in front. He had parked his car at the corner, he said.
It was freezing outside. A frigid wind whipped us as we walked. Street lamps threw weak circles of light across the deserted street and created pools of blackness in between.
Bellamy gripped Beth by the elbow and held her close to cover the gun. When we reached the car, he tossed me the keys and told me to do the driving. He made Beth sit in the back with him.
“One false move and I’ll blow her heart out of her chest.”
I started the car.
“Head downtown. A hundred and twenty-fifth.”
“What’s down there?”
“The dock.”
Our eyes met in the rearview mirror, Beth’s and mine: stark terror in hers; fear battling reason in mine. I had to keep my wits.
Two minutes of silence. Traffic thin going both ways. Cold sweat on my hands. A surreal conversation from the back seat.
“Please,” Beth moaned. “What you going to kill me for? I didn’t tell her nothing.”
“Which is why I got to do it now, before it’s too late.” A pause. “C’mon baby, don’t cry. You knew what you were getting into.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Maybe not. You’re pretty, but dumb.” A thoughtful sigh. “On the other hand, you did do a damn good job of telling our lady reporter here about Whitfield.”
I met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “So you’re the one who told her to tell me about Whitfield?”
“Called her right after you left my house. I didn’t think you’d actually find him, though. It took me for a loop when you did. Had to do some quick thinking. But I’m good at that.”
That last self-serving compliment I ignored. “Why did you guys hang around? Why didn’t you clear out?”
“Why should we? I like this city. After the heist, I felt like I ruled it. Furthermore, I liked the idea of sitting it out. I liked the idea that while everybody was running around—thinking about how the robbers must’ve burned rubber down to Mexico, they were all right here. Anyway, it was the best place for me to be. I could keep an eye out in case any smart alecks came along … and I was right. One did.”
Pausing for the light at 135th and Broadway, I glanced up at the rearview mirror and saw the grille of a familiar car in the distance. I picked up the conversation where I’d left it when we got into the car.
“Ritchie was in on it, too, wasn’t he? He must’ve been. You couldn’t have done it without him. You guys worked together for more than thirty years. You were that close.”
I kept my eyes on the road, but took my right hand off the steering wheel and held my index finger and thumb half an inch apart. My eyes flicked up at the rearview mirror. The grille was still back there.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to have an accident, would we?”
I shrugged. “According to you, we’re dead women, anyway. An accident now would just take you with us.”
Uncertainty flickered in his eyes. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Please—” said Beth.
“I would, if I wanted to. But I don’t. Not anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
I forced my gaze away and trained it on a point up ahead. He didn’t need to know how many times I’d thought of ending it since Hamp’s death. He didn’t need to know anything about me.
“So why’d you kill him?” I asked.
A muscle moved in his jaw. Otherwise, he was as still and hard as stone. Behind him, the grille had disappeared. I’d been mistaken. There was no one back there. No one ahead. Just darkness and the devil behind me.
“Did Ritchie get cold feet?” I persisted. “Was he gonna gab? Or did you guys have a falling out over how to split the proceeds?”
“You’re mighty curious for a woman who’s about to die.”
“I risked my life for this information. I deserve to have it.”
“All right, then. Yeah, he chickened out. The sweetest deal we’d ever made and he was gonna mess it up.” He made a sound of disgust.
“Were you guys part of the original plan?”
“No, we figured it out. When I confronted them, they offered us a cut. Why not? But Ritchie wouldn’t have nothing to do with it.”
“He threatened to turn you in?”
“Nah. Me and Ritchie, we went way back. He said he wouldn’t.”
“Obviously, you didn’t believe him.”
Bellamy stared ahead. “Well, let’s just put it this way: he was a good cop.”
“Who knew too much. So you set him up. Did you pay that prisoner?”
“Didn’t have to. Just gave him the opportunity.”
“And then you shot him, too.”
“Yeah, just like any good cop would.”
He spoke without irony. He meant it. He was crazy and he was going to kill us. I should’ve been scared. Instead I was numb, so numb I couldn’t even feel my hands on the steering wheel. It was as if they belonged to somebody else. None of this seemed real. Not even the sound of my voice.
“So was it worth it? Betraying the badge, and all that?”
“Yeah, I’d say so.”
We were at 125th Street, sitting under the elevated tracks of the Broadway local. I debated the wisdom of taking instructions from a killer. Once we were at the dock, we’d be alone with him.
Of course, sitting in a car on an empty, icy street in the dead of the night, we were already pretty far from help. If I tried something—
“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it. She’d be dead in a second. And you a second after.”
I turned the wheel, passing under the pylons and arches of interlaced steel of the Riverside Drive viaduct, and headed down toward the dock, the river and a darkness deeper than night.