Once the child was inside the Jaguar, the two policemen left their vehicle, moving quickly, silently. It was a fight not to laugh out loud – or cry. When Markowitz bent down to the open door of the Jaguar, the little girl was sitting on the front seat, calmly dismantling the dashboard toys, tape deck and radio, using Sparrow’s knife as a screwdriver. Lou leaned in close, saying, ‘Hey, kid, whatcha doin’?’
The little girl smelled of sulfur and smoke; that should have been a warning. How indignant she was, and so angry, pointing her knife and yelling, ‘Back off, old man, or I’ll cut you.’
Lou’s right hand flashed out, and startled, Kathy looked down to see that her tiny fist was empty.
‘So then, Lou says to the kid, „Pretty fast moves for a fat man, huh, Kathy?“ He pulled her out of the car, but she got away from him. Ran straight into Sparrow’s arms. And then, what happened next – well, the kid never saw that coming. It was brutal. The whore drags Kathy back to Lou, and she’s saying, „Baby, if you don’t go with the man, how am I gonna get paid?“ ‘
‘So she did accept the – ’
‘Not one dime. At the end of the day, that whore showed a lotta class.’ The detective lifted his glass in a salute, not noticing that it was empty, for he was still looking at Kathy’s face, the confusion in her eyes. Her world was collapsing all around her, above and beneath her. ‘The kid’s survival was geared on running. Sparrow made sure she had no one to run to – no one who cared.’
And that was the moment when the little girl died, her bones going to liquid as she was sliding to the ground, trying to save herself by grabbing Sparrow’s skirt, then collapsing and crying at the whore’s feet. ‘Kathy risked her life – and this was her payback. Sparrow just walked away. No goodbye, nothin’.’ Riker looked down at his glass for a moment. ‘So Kathy thinks she’s been sold for money, right? That’s all she’s worth to the whore, another damn needle – and still she tried to run after Sparrow.’
‘Because she loved her?’
‘Because that whore was all she had.’ Riker could hear the small needy voice crying, begging Sparrow to come back, please, please. So much pain – the child’s and his own. Oh, the panic in Kathy’s eyes when Sparrow turned a corner and disappeared.
‘And then the kid went wild. All the guns and knives came out. I mean that literally. She drew on us with a damn pellet gun. God, how she hated Lou. He’d run her ragged, took everything away from her – first her books and then her whore.’
‘Well, that explains the early animosity,’ said Charles. ‘Why she never called him anything but Markowitz.’
‘Yeah, she blamed him for turning Sparrow against her. He spent years paying for that. So did I. That brat never forgets, never forgives.’ Riker pushed his glass to the edge of the bar. ‘So now we’re headin’ for Brooklyn. I’m in the back seat, and the kid’s up front with Lou.’ He recalled every detail of that drive, the smell of rain-washed air, the suburban lawns Uttered with bicycles and tricycles. The car radio was cranked up all the way, breaking the peace in a rock ‘n’ roll celebration. Dogs barked to the high notes, and the lights of fireflies winked in sync with the beat of a golden oldie by Buddy Holly.
And a feral child was manacled to the dashboard. Kathy was a hellmouth of obscenities, a small storm of energy fighting against her chains, though she must have known she could never break them.
‘Now it gets a little spooky.’ And the music had changed to the Rolling Stones. ‘But it helps if you know that Lou’s wife could hear lost children crying on other planets.’ The old green sedan pulled up to the curb in front of the house, where Helen Markowitz was framed in a square of yellow light – waiting. Suddenly, she was drawn away from the window and moving toward the front door with a sense of great urgency.
The car and the music should have reassured her that nothing was wrong. Bad news was so seldom announced by loud rock ‘n’ roll. And Lou’s wife could not have seen the baby thief in the dark of the car, nor heard one small angry voice above a chorus of wailing rockers, steel guitars and drums. Yet Helen was clearly on a mission when she burst through the front door, flew down the porch steps and ran across the wet grass.
The little girl was screaming death threats at the top of her tiny lungs while Lou Markowitz grinned broadly and foolishly. His life was complete. His wife was busy ripping the passenger door off its hinges, and Kathy was almost home.
CHAPTER 25
The long summer fever was over. The heat was dying off in cool wet gusts of air and rain. The two men stepped out on to the sidewalk and stood beneath the awning.
‘Louis must have told Mallory about the murder charge,’ said Charles. ‘When she joined the police department, he would’ve – ’
‘Yeah.’ Riker was on the lookout for a cab to carry him home. ‘He told her that much. Now she thinks it was Sparrow who pinned the murder on her. Lou couldn’t set her straight. She would’ve wondered why he didn’t make a case against the whore.’
Charles kept silent for a moment and listened to the steady rain. ‘Mallory will never have any peace.’
‘Neither will you… Me either.’
Disregarding Riker’s plans to take a cab, Charles opened the door of his Mercedes and guided him into the passenger seat, then politely looked the other way while the man wrestled with a drunk’s problem of fastening a safety belt.
Charles started the engine, then pulled into traffic. ‘Did Sparrow tell you she was defending Kathy when she got stabbed?’
‘No, we couldn’t ask her anything about that night. Guilty knowledge. If you know about a murder, then you’re part of the crime. But it wasn’t hard to work out. Frankie Delight was outmatched, a real flyweight. But good as Sparrow was in a street fight, she was never the aggressor. She would’ve kicked off her high heels and run when that knife came out. But she’s got the kid with her, and little legs can’t run as fast as a barefoot whore. So we figured Frankie stabbed her while she was shielding Kathy. I know he made the first cut, ‘cause the whore was on her knees when she put her shiv in his leg.’
Charles vividly recalled the photograph of Sparrow’s scar. He could see it now – not a slit, but a gaping hole dug into her side. Yet she had found the strength to drive a knife through a man’s clothing and muscle.
Riker read his mind and said, ‘Sparrow’s knife was razor sharp, and she got damn lucky when she hit that artery.’
Charles nodded absently, listening to the rain on the roof. ‘Mallory’s at the hospital now, isn’t she? That’s why you didn’t go. She wouldn’t allow it.’
His friend wore a look of surprise, perhaps wondering what he might have said to give that away. One hand on the armrest, he tapped his fingers to the beat of the windshield wipers.
‘So,’ said Charles, ‘you’re planning to let her bludgeon a dying woman? Oh, not with her fists – but you know what’s going on in that hospital room. You know.’
‘I can’t tell her the truth. And neither can you. I had to pick a memory she could believe in. I’m gonna let her hold on to Lou.’
So she would never discover that Louis had ripped out her ten-year-old heart with a conspiracy of lies. ‘And she goes on hating Sparrow until it’s too late?’
‘It won’t be long now.’ Riker rolled down the window and sent his cigarette flying into the rain.
Charles sensed a door closing here, and he picked up the thread of the previous conversation. ‘Lucky the wound was in Frankie’s thigh. I suppose that made it easy to blame a child.’
‘You make it sound like we framed the kid.’ Riker almost smiled. ‘It wasn’t even our case. Two other detectives closed out the paperwork. The death was self-defense, but connected to felony arson. Sparrow would’ve gone to prison.’