Ladykiller Read Free Page A

sure no one was watching. “At
the Foxy Lady. I didn’t want my ass near this mean motherfucker. I
was with this dude, Ace. Ace the kind of dude likes to be close to the
action. Fucker’s going to get himself killed nosing around that kind
of shit. Anyways, Ace is buying this hard-ass drinks — actually, I’m
paying — and the mother starts up about killing them bitches, shooting them in the eye. I figured he was jiving. Trying to impress us. But
he hauls up his windbreaker and shows us his .45 in his pants, pointed
at his goddamn dick. I mean, I like to’ve shit my pants.”
“What color windbreaker?”
“Blue. Maybe green. It’s dark in there, you know. They keep the
lights down so’s you can’t tell how old and ugly a lot of them dancers
getting.” Finesse drew a breath.
“What else did he say?”
“Damned if I know. I got out of there so damn fast, you’d’ve
thought my ass was on fire.”
“He have a name?”
“Shit, all I wanted to know about him was how many miles between him and me.”
Dave pulled a photo out of his leather jacket. It was a criminal
booking shot, taken by the Miami Police Department, cropped to
omit the biographical information on the board that the prisoner held
beneath his chin. “This him?”
Finesse’s nose rings clinked. “That’s him. Mean looking, ain’t he?”
Dave got up and grabbed Finesse’s hand high in a brother’s grip.
The crisp bills clasped in Dave’s palm were easily transferred to
Finesse’s. “Stay in touch.”
Without examining the money, Finesse slipped it in his pocket.
His palms had eyes. “You generous tonight, Dillon.”
“In honor of spring.” He turned to go.
“You nail this dude, it make up for the bad mark on your record,
huh?” Finesse gave Dave a small, superior smile.
Dave was back in his face so fast that Finesse jumped a little.
Dave grabbed a handful of collar. “What did you say?”
Finesse’s cool expression slipped a little. “Sorry. People talk, is all.”
Dave leaned toward him until his teeth were close enough to
Finesse to tear the rings off his nose. “You tell me what goes down on
the street, not your opinions on my career,” he muttered with barely
caged ferocity.
“No problem,” Finesse blubbered.
After a few seconds, Dillon relaxed and stepped back. “Now, you
just get back to living the life.”
Finesse edged away, crab-like, into the swirling honky-tonk night
of 42nd Street’s eternal carnival. Dave watched the Deuce swallow
him up. He felt a twinge of guilt for leaning on the brother, but certain
references to his past triggered a knee-jerk reaction. He should have
more control.
Dave sighed as he stepped into the doorway of the shuttered
electronics store and pulled out his radio.
Lt. Blake was at the other end. “Positive ID?”
“Pretty good. Sufficient for questioning. Last night, suspect was
in a blue or green windbreaker. Carries his piece in his waistband. Last
seen in Foxy Lady. I’m close. I’m going there now.”
“I’ll send out an APB.Wait for backup.” Dave clicked off the radio.
Blake had personally requested Dave for this task force. If not for
him, Dave would be back in a uniform, with the coldhearted brass
waiting for him to slip up one more time so they could bounce him
out. Blake was an old friend of his father and one sodden evening at
McSorley’s, Blake had told him: “I couldn’t help your dad because I
didn’t have the rank back then. I do now and you’re his boy. Don’t let
me down, though, Dave.”
Not a chance, lieutenant. Dave trekked toward the Foxy Lady.
This case would save his life.This case was his life.
He took out the booking picture. New York had its share of
homegrown bad guys; it didn’t need to import them from Miami.
Billy Ray Battle had killed a man with a pipe in a fight over a woman
outside some redneck bar. Next, he had kidnapped the poor peckerwood’s girlfriend, raped her repeatedly, and ripped up her face. He
told the cops he’d done it for love.