He robbed her of an additional two dollars and sixty-two cents, and quarters and tokens for tolls. Her watch and necklace weren’t worth the trouble, and pawn shops were risky. She stunk so bad he was about to gag, and the fucking kid was waking up and beginning to cry.
‘Loraine, it’s all right, sweetie. Please be quiet, honey. My name’s Miss Sink and this is my grandniece, Loraine,’ Miss Sink prattled on. ‘You don’t want to hurt us. For God’s sake, you must have a mother, a grandmother
‘SHUT UP! QUIT NAGGING ME, YOU UGLY OLD BITCH!’
Smoke turned the radio up loud. The kid began to howl.
‘SHUT THE FUCK UP!’ Smoke yelled at the baby.
‘Oh God in heaven! Please don’t hurt us! Dear God! Think about what you’re doing! You look like a smart young man. You don’t want trouble like this!’
‘I hate ugly old women like you. So you better shut the fuck up and consider yourself lucky I don’t do other things to you. But you stink too bad,’ he said in a low, cold voice. ‘So now you’re gonna bend over. So you don’t see me when I get out. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ Miss Sink whimpered.
She pressed her face against the steering wheel. She squeezed her eyes shut and tightly covered them with her hands. She didn’t move. She barely breathed. Annie Lennox was stepping on broken glass on the radio as Smoke dug through the glove box and the kid screamed. Smoke emptied the purse on the floor mat and helped himself to a pack of spearmint Freedent gum, fingernail clippers and a prescription bottle of Atavan.
‘Thanks, Miss Sink,’ he said. ‘Grow up to be a good girl, Loraine. Y’all don’t forget me, promise?’ He laughed.
He popped a stick of Freedent into his mouth and scanned the area. No one was around.
‘You know what I look like, bitch?’ he said. ‘I mean, you gonna recognize me on the street?’
‘No. No. I didn’t see you! Please,’ Miss Sink begged.
‘What ’bout that ugly little motherfucker of yours in her little seat back there. She know what I look like?’ ‘No! She’s just a baby! You don’t want to hurt us!’ Miss Sink was shaking as if she was having a seizure. ‘Let me think about this. What’s a guy to do?’ Smoke smacked his gum. He pulled back the slide of his Glock and it snapped forward with a loud clack. He felt the power. Smoke was high and hard with it as he pumped three Winchester hollowpoints into the back of Miss Sink’s head.
CHAPTER twenty-six
Brazil stood with his hands in his pockets, impatiently staring out at sloped, loamy land sutured by railroad tracks and tangled with brambles and trees. Steam billowed from the Fort James Paper Company, and the river was soft music played with fingers of wind and bright notes of sun.
The portable radio on Brazil’s belt was a staccato of dispatchers and cops cutting in and out in spurts and codes. Nothing was going on. A handicap van was abandoned on a roadside, traffic was tied up because a light wouldn’t flash, a driver had been stopped at a Kmart.
Unit numbers and military time peppered the air, but Passman and Rhoad were strangely silent. Passman dispatched no calls. Rhoad answered no one. Brazil was furious. He was certain the cops were messing with him.
‘Eleven,’ Brazil tried again.
‘Go ahead, 11,’ answered a communications officer whose name Brazil did not know.
‘Radio, I’m still at the cemetery,’ Brazil said, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. ‘Need someone to 10-25 me right away.’
‘That’s Hollywood.’
‘Ten-4.’
‘Any unit in the area of Hollywood Cemetery, need someone to 10-25 unit 11 there.’
‘Unit 199-‘
‘Go ahead, 199.’
‘Just two blocks away, I’ll swing by the cemetery, 10-25 11.’
Ten-5, 199, 0812 hours.’
Brazil turned away from the river as he heard a rustle. He caught a flash of red on the other side of the cemetery fence where Spring and South Cherry streets intersected. The chain link was dense with ivy. Through it Brazil could just make out the back of the large metal sign advertising Victory Rug Cleaning, an arrow pointing to the business a block away. He turned off his radio and didn’t move.