F Paul Wilson - Secret History 02 (3 page)

           
"What do we do now?"

           
"We wait for
Chico
to call and say it's okay for you to go
down to da main Lotto office and collect my money."

           
Rob shook his head in wonder. The
gullibility of people never ceased to amaze him. This grifter was using the
latest wrinkle on the Spanish handkerchief—a phony lottery ticket. It worked
like this: The grifter has a state lottery ticket dated for, say, January 3
that has the correct lottery numbers for that date. Except that it's a ticket
from January 31 with the "1" scraped off. The scam artist poses as an
illegal alien who can't cash the ticket for fear of deportation. He corners
some poor sucker, usually of similar roots, and pleads for help, promising to
share the prize if the mark can prove that he or she is "a person of
substance" whom the grifter can trust with his "winning" ticket.
The mark checks with a local Lotto stand and confirms that, yes, the ticket
does indeed have all the winning numbers. To prove her 'substance,' this
particular mark had withdrawn five thousand in cash and shown it to the
grifter. It was now in the pencil case.

           
Rob was sure that when "
Chico
" called, the scam artist would have to
go meet him immediately due to some unexpected development. But to show his
good faith, the grifter would offer to leave his lucky lottery ticket with the
mark. He'd stick it in the pencil pouch with the cash. That was when the switch
would be made, leaving the mark holding an identical pencil case stuffed with
dollar-sized strips of newspaper.

           
Rob ambled over the phone where the
pair hovered and reached for the receiver. The man knocked his hand away.

           
"We're waitin' for a call, man.
Use dat phone over dere."

           
"Oh, okay," Rob said,
smiling shyly. "Sure."

           
Rob moved four phones away and
dropped a quarter into the slot. The encounter seconds before had enabled him
to read the number on the other phone. He punched it in.

           
Down the line to his right, the
phone rang.

           
"Tha' mus' be
Chico
," the grifter said, and lifted the
receiver. "
Si
?
Chico
?"

           
"Heeeyyyy, man!
Que pasa
?" Rob said in his best
imitation of Cheech Marin. "Like what's happenin', man?"

           
"
Chico
?"

           
"
Chico
's dead, asshole," he said in his own
voice. "And you'll wish you were too if you don't hang up the phone and
walk your ass out of here pronto. And don't try to take that pencil case along
because I'll be all over you like flies on shit before you reach the door.
Vamoose
, dirt bag!"

           
Rob had pulled his badge from his
pocket and now he held it up over the sound baffle of his booth. He noticed
that the grifter's face was pale as he hung up his receiver. The guy scanned
the lobby and froze as his eyes fixed on the gold detective badge. He locked
eyes with Rob for a second, then, without a word, hurried from the lobby. Rob
strolled over to the confused mark.

           
"The money still in there,
ma'am?"

           
She looked at him in bewilderment,
then unzipped the case. A sheaf of hundred dollar bills sat cozily within.

           
"Good. Put it back in the bank
and leave it there. And next time don't be so trusting."

           
Rob lit another cigarette and
returned to his station by the front entrance. He checked his watch. Kara was
late. Normally he didn't mind waiting. He was used to it. Waiting was an
integral part of the job for a NYPD detective. He'd spent entire shifts and
more sitting in a cold, cramped car with his eyes trained on a single doorway.
This morning he was warm and comfortable. Why should he be antsy?

           
She fooled him. Rob had expected her
to arrive by cab, so he hadn't been paying much attention to the sidewalk. He
was surprised when he spotted her half a block away, walking down from
Thirty-first. He picked up the blond hair first, then the easy, long-legged
gait. Kara had never learned to walk like a New Yorker.

           
He studied her as she neared,
feeling a strange tingle spread across his chest and arms as more details of
her appearance came into view. Her hair was blond as ever, longer than before,
chin length now, curved slightly inward, with bangs in front. She was wearing a
long, dark red cloth coat, with matching stockings, and matching shoes with a
low heel; beneath the coat she appeared to be as slim as ever. She still looked
painfully young. Her skin was still fair and smooth, her eyes were as clear and
blue as before, her lips were still a perfect bow. As she came up the front
steps, he noticed that she wore little make-up. She'd never needed much. He
searched her face for wrinkles, crows feet, worry lines. Not a one. Her face
was leaner, and slightly drawn, but that could be explained by grief.
Otherwise, she looked trim and fit, as if she'd aged maybe five years in the
ten since she'd left.

           
Could that be disappointment he was
feeling? Had he been hoping that she'd have gone to seed since she left him? So
he could tell himself it was probably for the best that they'd broken up? Or
was he looking for proof that she wasn't as self-sufficient as she thought she
was? That she really needed him and couldn't get along well without him?

           
Maybe.

           
From the look of things, though,
Kara Wade was doing just fine.

           
As she reached the top of the steps,
Rob stubbed out his cigarette and moved toward the glass doors. After their
brief conversation last night, he'd been anticipating this reunion with both
eagerness and dread. Well, the wait was over. When he determined which door she
was heading for, he reached it first and pushed on the bar to open it. She
glanced up at him.

           
"Thank—" she began, then
looked at him more closely. "Rob! It's you!"

           
They embraced briefly. He was
surprised how good it was to hold her again, even if only for a few seconds.
They backed off to arm's length. His mouth was dry and his heart was thumping.
After all these years?

           
"Yeah. It's me. I told you I'd
meet you here."

           
"Yes, but I didn't expect you
to open the door for me. Where's your uniform?"

           
"I made detective. Midtown
North."

           
"Congratulations."

           
"It never hurts to have an old
man who's an ex-cop."

           
"He retired?"

           
For an instant he was surprised she
didn't know. But then, how could she?

           
"He had a couple of heart
attacks. He gets chest pains walking across the living room, but he won't agree
to a bypass."

           
"I'm sorry to hear that."

           
Sorry
.
Here they were talking about his father when Kelly…

           
"And I'm sorry about Kelly.
It's… it's tragic."

           
Rob watched her throat work as she
nodded.

           
"Yes." It was barely a
whisper. "Which way is…?"

           
"I'll take you."

           
He guided her toward the elevators.
He could feel the tension in her, could almost feel her body trying to run
away. He'd told her yesterday that this trip was unnecessary, but she'd
insisted. Same old Kara. Stubborn as ever. He looked at her grim, frightened
face and decided he had to give her one more chance to back out of this. As
they stepped out of the elevator into the hallway of the bottom floor, the City
Morgue floor, he took her arm.

           
"You don't have to do
this."

           
Kara stared at Rob. He had changed
considerably since she'd last seen him a decade ago. His mustache was gone, but
that was minor. He was slightly heavier, and he looked older, but his face
wasn't aged so much as lined. He looked
worn
.
Like someone steering along the edge of burn-out. Maybe that was what a dozen
years as a
New
York City
cop did to you. At least that was what it seemed to have done to Rob.

           
But his brown eyes were still bright
and clear, and even here in the City Morgue he still exuded the same physical
presence that had attracted her way back when.

           
At first she'd been hesitant about
his coming here, feeling it was an intrusion on her grief. But when he'd opened
the lobby door for her, some of the old feelings had rushed back. It was good
to see him. And it was a comfort to find a familiar face in these indifferent
surroundings, especially when it belonged to someone who knew his way around
and could cut through much of the red tape.

           
"Don't you usually have to have
someone identify the body?" Kara said.

           
"Kelly's supervisor from
St. Vincent
's did that yesterday. Plus we've got a
perfect print match." He glanced away. "Besides… it's not
pretty."

           
A burst of resentment shot through
her.

           
"I didn't expect it to be
pretty
," she said coldly.

           
Rob didn't back down.

           
"She's a mess, Kara. And she's
been posted."

           
"Posted?"

           
"Autopsied."

           
I
know! I know! Stop reminding me
!

           
"I. Want. To. See. Her."
Kara said slowly. She was not going to back down either. "She's my
sister."

           
She realized she'd used the present
tense. She'd probably continue doing that until she'd actually seen Kelly's
dead face. She didn't want to see a dead Kelly. Oh, God, she'd give anything
not to have to do this. It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed just
to come here. Part of her wanted to run screaming from the building, from this
awful city, and take the next train back to
Pennsylvania
. But she knew that another larger part of
her would never accept her sister's death without actually seeing her lifeless
body.