Espresso Shot Page 4

  “Aw, come on,” the guy replied with an oily smile. “You musss be thirsssy after all that sexy dancin’ . . .”

  “I told you, no thanks. Now, can I please have my phone back?”

  “Not till you give me that private dance I asssked you for. Jusss turn around now, an’ you won’t get hurt. We’ll use the john—”

  The scumbag reached out a grease-stained hand for a clumsy grope, but he never got it. Matt grabbed the guy’s arm, tightening his fingers around the man’s wrist.

  “What the hell!”

  “Didn’t you hear the lady?” Matt said, twisting the guy’s arm just enough to make his point. “She doesn’t want to drink with you, and she didn’t come here to dance for you.”

  Without shifting his gaze from the jerk’s face, Matt pulled the phone out of his grip and handed it back to the dancer. The man stared blankly at Matt. I held my breath as the two remained locked together. When Matt finally released his grip, the other man stumbled back.

  “Screw you,” he muttered, rubbing the arm Matt had twisted.

  Like all bullies, this guy was obviously brilliant at pushing around a weaker opponent. A head-to-head challenge was another matter.

  “The lady’s with us, okay?” Matt said. “And we’re leaving.”

  “Lady?” The punk snorted. “She’s a ho, asshole!”

  Matt stepped uncomfortably close again. “Unless you want to experience a world of hurt, I suggest you stay here, have another drink, and stay the hell away from this lady.”

  Matt took the dancer’s arm, then mine, and guided us quickly through the exit. We didn’t slow down until we reached the next street corner.

  “Lordy,” the dancer said, staring up at Matt with wide blue eyes. “Thanks for your help. I thought I could charm my way around that horndog, but he was a real A-hole, wasn’t he?”

  “Don’t you have a driver?” Matt asked. “A guy to watch your back?”

  She vigorously nodded. “Normally, I do. But he’s down with the flu.”

  Hearing more of her accent, I placed it as possibly West Virginian—a twang I’d heard when I was raising Joy in New Jersey. A big, friendly family had moved onto our street from a small town outside of Wheeling.

  “What about transportation?” I asked.

  “The agency’s car service is supposed to send a limo over.” She held up her cell phone. “All I have to do is call for it. But I kept gettin’ their dang voice mail!” She sighed theatrically. “That happens sometimes. I guess there just aren’t enough cars in this big ol’ city. Anyway, I don’t have much cash on me. Not enough for a cab to Brooklyn. I guess I should just take the subway.”

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “At this hour? With those expensive clothes and high heels? You may as well shout, ‘Mug me.’ ”

  The girl scratched her head. “Think so?”

  I exchanged glances with Matt. “Why don’t you walk with us,” I told her. “We’re headed back to our coffeehouse just down the street. You can straighten out your car service problems from there. At least you’ll be safe from half-drunk rapists.”

  “That’s a fine idea,” she said. “And it’ll be my pleasure, too, with this hunky hero here watchin’ out for me!”

  I rolled my eyes. Matt grunted. Then the girl wrapped her arm around my ex’s biceps and we were off.

  The weather had turned colder by now, and Hudson Street was practically deserted. We strolled through the shadows on the empty sidewalk, past closed storefronts, parked cars, chained-up bicycles, and the redbrick fronts of restored Federal-style town houses.

  The girl continued to coo what a gentleman Matt was. He didn’t say much, but I could see he was soaking it up. Her flirting was cute and innocent, nothing like the sophisticated temptress persona she’d projected while performing back at the White Horse. She seemed naive, too, but also funny and open, and (unlike the woman she’d been paid to impersonate) easy for me to like.

  She told us she’d been living in New York for only about six months, something I could believe, given her bubbly optimism. The city usually beat it out of girls like her in a year or two.

  “I came here to become a Broadway star,” she said, “but the only steady work I could get was dancing at a club uptown. These side jobs with an agency pay a lot more, though.”

  “Agency?” I asked.

  “It specializes in look-alike strippers. Funny, huh? They’ve got guys doin’ it, too. There’s a Matt Damon and a Brad Pitt. They even got a Mel Gibson, but he’s so old, I can’t imagine anyone wanting Mel to strip for ’em, can you?”

  Matt shot me an exasperated look. I bit my lip to keep from laughing.

  Curious, I couldn’t help asking, “Have you ever done the Breanne act before?”

  “Only once, for some guy’s birthday party at the New York Journal.”

  Hearing that, Matt grunted and gave me the I-told-you-so look.

  “I’m usually tapped to do Uma,” the girl said.

  “Uma Thurman?” I asked. “The actress?”

  The dancer rolled her eyes. “Who else? How many girls named Uma do you know?”

  “Well, I—”

  “For Uma, I keep my hair blond like tonight for Breanne Summour, but instead of the suit and briefcase I wear this sweet li’l yellow jumpsuit and carry a samurai sword—”

  “Excuse me?” I broke in again. “Did you say a samurai sword?”

  “From Kill Bill. You know, the movie? Uma played a kick-ass assassin!”

  “Wild guess,” I said. “When you’re dressed as Uma, you don’t have any problem with mashers.”

  “You’re right about that one, honey!” The girl snorted. “I just point the tip of my li’l ol’ Japanese blade to a certain part of the horndog’s anatomy, and he’s hightailin’ it right down the road!”

  We both laughed so hard that Matt had to stop us from stepping into oncoming traffic. We waited for the few cars to pass. Then I looked up and noticed we were almost home. I could see the golden light spilling from the Blend’s tall windows just a block away.

  “I haven’t given up, though,” the girl chattered on. “I’m just starting out. I’m going to make my mark on this town!” she declared to the century-old buildings.

  That’s when I heard the pop, like a car backfiring, only not as loud. The sound merged with a hollow thump that seemed much closer. I turned to see the dancer’s face had blanched whiter than milk froth. She staggered forward. Her mouth opened to speak, but no words came out. Then she fell to the pavement.

  “My God!” Matt lunged to catch the girl, but her body dropped too fast.

  Eyes wide and staring, bone china arms spread like a discarded doll, Breanne’s look-alike was dead an instant later. Her seeping blood on the hard sidewalk was the last mark on New York she’d ever make.

  FOUR

  WITHIN seconds of the girl’s collapse, Matt and I had called 911. Now we stood staring as two FDNY paramedics attempted to breathe life back into a motionless mannequin.

  From the grim expressions on their faces, I knew every last vital sign pointed to one conclusion. Resigned to the inevitable, the men snapped off their latex gloves and withdrew.

  I stepped back into a nearby doorway and sank like a defeated boxer onto the chilly concrete stoop. Matt followed, but he didn’t collapse beside me. Instead, he fisted his hands and paced back and forth in a tight pattern, the sizable silhouette of his muscular shoulders continually eclipsing the bloodred flashes of the police emergency lights.

  I swiped my wet eyes and returned my gaze to the girl’s corpse, pale as moonlight against the dark sidewalk. For a bizarre moment, her pretty form and ruined skull reminded me of Joy’s old Malibu Barbie.

  Back when I’d been raising my daughter alone in New Jersey, a slobbering pit bull had slipped into our yard and chewed up the doll’s pretty blond head. While Joy was still at school, I’d raced to the mall to replace the mangled plaything, determined as any mother to hold off my child’s inevitable enco
unters with the world’s brutalities. But there was no running to a store to replace this lost life, no do-over, no turning back the clock. The young woman had taken a shot to the brain, and she hadn’t survived. It sounded simple enough to understand, but so what? When death was involved, understanding and acceptance were two very different things.

  I closed my eyes, said a quiet prayer, and realized how forcefully my ex-husband’s lungs were now exhaling breaths. I was horrified by the girl’s death, shocked and saddened, but Matt seemed to be struggling with a mounting rage. With nowhere to vent, he threw up his arms at the growing crowd.

  “Where did all these people come from?!”

  I opened my eyes, surveyed the two Sixth Precinct sector cars, their radios squawking; the boxy FDNY ambulance with its doors thrown wide; and the rubbernecking drivers now backing up traffic. Four uniformed officers were hovering around the scene. One of them asked onlookers to stand back, another made a large perimeter with yellow crime-scene tape.

  “They’re gawking like it’s a sideshow.”

  “Well, you know what they say.” I shrugged numbly. “Dead bodies attract everything, not just flies.”

  “They say?” Matt grunted, folded his arms. “And who the hell is they? Wait, don’t tell me. That’s one of your boyfriend’s little quips, isn’t it?”

  Matt was right. Mike Quinn had been the one to convey that pithy piece of postmortem philosophy. The way Matt spat out the word boyfriend, however, reminded me that he still hadn’t forgiven the detective for arresting him last fall.

  I could see Matt didn’t appreciate Quinn’s use of humor, either. But his quips weren’t meant to be disrespectful, just a way to help lighten the relentlessly weighty work of evaluating crime scenes. I was about to make that point when I heard the fast click of heels on concrete. Two pairs of women’s boots approached us and stopped abruptly in front of Matt.

  “Excuse me, sir. You gave a statement to Officer Spinelli? He said you were a witness to the shooting?”

  I looked up. A familiar pair of detectives was standing on the sidewalk, staring nearly eye to eye with my six foot ex. Like Mike Quinn, Lori Soles and Sue Ellen Bass worked out of the Sixth Precinct on West Tenth.

  “We were with the girl,” Matt told the women, “but we didn’t see much.”

  Lori Soles finally noticed me far below her and smiled in recognition. “Clare Cosi? Is that you?”

  I nodded and rose off the low stoop—all five foot two of me. (I may as well have stayed sitting.)

  Detective Soles gazed down at me, her short, tight curls making her look like a giant cherub. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to find you here. Isn’t you coffeehouse just a block away?” She held a small notebook in one hand, gestured to the Village Blend with the other.

  I nodded.

  Next to Detective Soles, Detective Sue Ellen Bass stepped closer to my ex. I put both women in their thirties, although Sue Ellen appeared older than Lori by at least five years. And where Lori had the long, friendly face of a horsey-set blond, Sue Ellen had a lean, triangular look. It suited her personality, as did her jet-black hair, much longer than Lori’s short, blond curls, though it was hard to tell, since Sue Ellen wore her hair in a slicked-back ponytail. Both women sported nylon jackets over blue turtlenecks and dark slacks, gold detective shields dangling on long cords around their necks.

  I’d first met the pair when they were working undercover on a special task force headed by Mike Quinn. At that time, they were trying to bring down a ring of nightclub predators. Glammed to the max, the pair had repeatedly baited likely suspects at several area nightspots. From what I remembered, Detective Soles was happily married. For her, it had been just another assignment. But I got the distinct impression from some private banter between the two women that Sue Ellen hadn’t ruled out meeting future romantic hookups while on her eight-hour tour of club duty.

  “So, Cosi, who’s this tall drink of water?” Sue Ellen asked me, jerking her thumb at my ex-husband.

  I scratched my head, disconcerted for a moment by her choice of words. “Uh, this is Matteo Allegro. He’s my . . . business partner.” I could have said more, but what was the point?

  She gave Matt’s strong form a quick, open appraisal. “Single?”

  “Engaged,” I said.

  “Is that so?” Sue Ellen replied, still looking him over. “Then he’s technically still available?”

  Matt exhaled with what sounded like extreme irritation. “I’m standing right here, ladies, and I’m quite capable of answering my own questions.”

  “He does look capable, doesn’t he?” Sue Ellen remarked to me with an arched eyebrow. Then she turned to Matt. “In cases like this, sir, it’s best if we direct initial queries to the professional on the scene. And since we have one here—”

  “Professional?” Matt interrupted.

  Ignoring Matt, Lori Soles now addressed me, her pen poised over her open notebook. “Tell us, Clare, did you hear the gunshot from inside the Blend?”

  “No. We weren’t in the Blend. We were headed there, all three of us. Matt and I were walking with the victim. We’d just left Matt’s bachelor party at the White Horse on Eleventh. We reached this corner, and we were waiting for the traffic light to change. I heard a pop, and the woman fell—”

  “One pop?” Sue Ellen Bass asked. “Only one? You’re sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  Several halogen lamps were turned on just then, and I lifted my arm to shield my eyes from the glare of tiny suns. More officers had arrived on the scene, some in uniform, others in plain clothes, and they appeared to be using the light to scour the dark ground—for forensic evidence, I assumed.

  I also noticed a middle-aged Asian man and a young white woman in dark-blue nylon jackets. Together they crouched next to the dead girl and began to examine her body and head.

  “Then what happened, Clare?” Detective Soles prompted.

  “It took a few seconds for Matt and me to realize what had happened. Then Matt called 911, and I looked around for any sign of the shooter.”

  “And?” she asked almost hopefully. But I had to disappoint her.

  “The street was empty, the sidewalks, too. Whoever shot her had already ducked for cover.”

  Sue Ellen glanced at the girl’s body for a moment, then back to me. “Did you know this woman, Cosi? Was she a client of yours?”

  “Client?” Matt sputtered. “What do you mean, client?”

  I elbowed Matt. He grunted, and I shot him a look that said, I’ll explain later.

  Sue Ellen stepped closer to Matt, lowered her voice. “Sorry, honey-lumps, I know you can’t wait to give me your statement.” She winked. “But don’t worry. I’ll make sure to take it personally in a minute.”

  Matt groaned.

  “Go ahead, Cosi.” Sue Ellen nodded. “You were saying?”

  “The victim wasn’t my client,” I clarified. “We don’t even know her name. We met her tonight for the first time in our lives. She was at Matt’s party at the tavern. Actually, she was the entertainer at the party . . .”

  I proceeded to give the detectives a rundown of the events leading up to the shooting, making sure they got a detailed description of the drunken scumbag who’d nearly assaulted the girl at the bar.

  Scribbling furiously, Lori took everything down.

  When I was done, Sue Ellen shook her head. “An exotic dancer, huh? It’s no surprise she came to a bad end.”

  Lori Soles waved over a pair of uniformed officers. She gave them my description of the jerk at the bar and sent them to the White Horse to find the guy, if they could, and report back. Then she got on her radio and had the police dispatcher issue a BOLO, otherwise known as a be on the lookout for—an acronym I’d learned a short time ago when a Brooklyn cop (unfortunately) had issued one on me.

  “So do you think he’s the one who did this?” I asked, gesturing to the girl’s cooling corpse.

  Lori exchanged a glance with her part
ner. “Both of us started out in vice, Clare. We’ve seen this kind of thing firsthand.”

  “What kind of thing exactly?”

  “These women play a dangerous game,” Sue Ellen said, folding her arms. “They spend hours a day titillating men; it’s no surprise a percentage of these guys turn out to be pervs and rapists. The shooter could have been this guy at the bar—”

  “That’s right, it could,” Lori jumped in. “You witnessed him harass the victim, and that’s good. We can make a case against this guy if we find the weapon on him or even powder burns, but . . .” Again, she exchanged a glance with her partner. “It could very well be some other guy.”

  Sue Ellen nodded. “The girl may have had a boyfriend she jilted or lied to about what she did for a living. Or she could have a whole other stalker scenario going on.”

  “You mean someone who saw her dance and became sexually obsessed with her?” I assumed. “Something like that?”

  “Exactly.” Lori’s gaze speared me. “Did the girl mention anyone like that? An old boyfriend? A guy who might have been harassing her?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. She didn’t mention anyone like that. Just that the agency hired her to do the job tonight.”

  “Did she tell you the agency’s name?”

  “No, but she mentioned it specialized in look-alike strippers. She said they have male performers, too . . .” I told them everything the girl had said. “I’m sure our friend Koa Waipuna can give you the name and contact number for the agency. The agency was supposed to send a man to look after her—”

  “That’s right. That’s how it’s usually done,” Lori said. “What happened to hers?”

  I glanced at Matt. “She said he was sick with the flu, but I suppose it could also be a lead . . .”

  “Good.” Lori continued to scribble notes.

  Sue Ellen frowned at her partner’s furious writing. “I still like the scumbag from the White Horse for this,” she said quietly.

  “So do I,” Lori said, “but you know what Lieutenant Quinn always says . . .”