Little Girl Lost jb-1 Read online

  “Then, if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll put my shirt back on.” She pulled a folded flannel shirt from under the chair and buttoned it up over her T-shirt.

  “What gave me away?” I said.

  She held up a fist and unfolded fingers from it one by one. “First of all, I’ve never seen a club owner or manager who looked like you. You look like some prep school kid from the Upper West Side. Second, Calder Street’s two blocks long and there’s a church on one of them. No way the city’s going to let you open a titty bar where the faithful might have to look at it. Third, I seem to remember a friend of mine telling me about a John Blake who was passing out business cards to the girls at the club where she works, asking questions about Miranda Sugarman. As it happens, I knew Miranda Sugarman.”

  “I know.”

  “So the name stuck in my mind. John Blake. I may even have your card in here somewhere.” She lifted a handbag that was hanging from one arm of the chair.

  “That’s okay. I’ll give you a new one.” I fished one out of my wallet. She looked at it, slipped it into the breast pocket of her lumberjack shirt.

  “So, you want to tell me why you’re wasting my time on this beautiful Saturday afternoon?”

  “I guess you know I’m a private detective. My firm’s been looking into Miranda’s death. I understand you knew her partner, too. Jocelyn Mastaduno.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, we’re trying to find her. Do you have any idea where Jocelyn is now?”

  “Why?”

  “We think she might know something about what happened.”

  “Know something like what?”

  “Like what happened.”

  Tracy folded her arms over her chest. “You’d better start talking straight, or I’m walking out that door.”

  “Miranda was killed by two gunshots fired at close range into the back of her head. The person who did it had to be someone who was able to get close to her, someone Miranda trusted.”

  “You think Jocelyn killed her?”

  “It’s one possibility. We’d like to rule it out.”

  “No way,” she said. “I’m not saying I can’t imagine Jocelyn doing something crazy – the girl had her issues. But there’s no way she would kill Miranda. She was still in love with her.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because she was. She couldn’t go two nights without mentioning her name. She kept her fucking picture up on the wall. Even after I moved in, she wouldn’t take it down.”

  “You lived with her?”

  “Not for long. I don’t mind the occasional three-way, but I’m not competing with some girl’s not even there. And Jocelyn was a little too crazy for me – too needy, too high strung. But none of that makes her a killer.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I said. “But if she didn’t do it, someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to make it look like she did. She might be in danger herself, frankly. I’d at least like to talk to her, get her side of the story.”

  She closed her eyes, leaned her head back. “Don’t bullshit me. You think she did it.”

  I didn’t say anything for a while and neither did she.

  “Yes,” I said. “I do.”

  “When Miranda moved out, Jocelyn had the apartment all to herself, and she asked me to stay with her, so I moved in. You know how long it lasted? Two months. I couldn’t take it. Every word out of her mouth was Miranda this and Miranda that, and did I think she’d call, and what should she say if she did. It was like they were a married couple and I was just some one-night stand Jocelyn had hooked up with.”

  “The way you describe it, I’m surprised it lasted two months.”

  “Me, too,” she said. “But when you’re in the middle of it, you always think you’re going to be able to make it work. The problem is, someone like Jocelyn, there’s just no way. She needed to get Miranda out of her system, but she couldn’t.”

  That sounded like a perfect recipe for murder to me, even if you didn’t take the circumstances of the burglary into account. But I didn’t say so. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Been close to a year now. I called her once after I moved out, but she never called back.”

  “Do you think she’s still living in the same apartment?”

  “I have no idea. Probably.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Down in Alphabet City, near the water,” she said.

  “You remember the address?”

  “Before I answer that,” she said carefully, “I want to know what you’re going to do with it.”

  “I’m going to go talk to her. That’s all.” She stared at me and I held her eyes.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  “For God’s sake, Tracy you want it straight? I’ll give it to you straight. It’s not just Miranda that’s dead. Four people are dead because of Jocelyn. I don’t know for sure whether she shot Miranda, but I do know she shot a man named Wayne Lenz yesterday.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I was there.” I bent my head forward. “She gave me this. Hit me with a heavy statue so hard it shattered, then took my gun and used it to kill a man she’d been working with.”

  She was silent.

  “And that’s not the half of it. There’s a drug dealer involved, and even if I drop the case right now, he’s not going to, because she’s got a half million dollars of stolen money that he wants back. Do you understand, Tracy? She’s in way over her head. I know you want to protect her, but you can’t.”

  “That doesn’t mean I have to help you find her,” she said.

  “No, it doesn’t. And I’m sure you’ll be glad you didn’t help me if she decides to come after you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There are professional killers looking for her. The only thing keeping her alive is her anonymity. You know where she lives, you know what she looks like – why wouldn’t she come after you?”

  She started to say something, then stopped herself. I waited her out. “She’s just a screwed-up girl,” she said. “She’s not a killer.”

  “And I’m telling you she is. Are you willing to bet your life on it?”

  I waited some more while she wrestled with her decision.

  “Hell with it,” she said finally. “It’s the top floor apartment at 51 Avenue D. Facing the street.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I got up and walked to the door.

  “You won’t tell her I gave you the address, will you?”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “And what are you going to tell Andy?”

  “I’ll tell him I think you’re perfect, then I’ll call him next week and tell him the financing fell through, the club’s not going to open after all. That way he won’t blame you.”

  “Fine.” She sounded sullen, or maybe just disgusted with herself. Or with me.

  “Listen, Tracy, I’m sorry about using a ruse to get you in here. I wish I did have a job to give you.”

  “Oh, you gave me a job,” she said. “You just didn’t pay me my thirty pieces of silver for doing it.”

  Chapter 25

  If you read the Village Voice, it sounds like Alphabet City has become hopelessly gentrified over the past ten years, all the quaint, stoop-sitting crackheads and heroin addicts replaced with Starbucks junkies out for a double latte. It’s only true up to a point. I still wouldn’t want to be caught east of Avenue C after dark.

  But that’s where I was headed, and the sky wasn’t getting any lighter. In the summer you’d see guys with boomboxes hanging out till eight, nine at night, and though you knew some of them were up to no good, you also knew some of them were just enjoying what passed for fresh air in this part of town. You’d see some women on the streets, too, and not only hookers. You didn’t get the feeling that all the honest people were locked up indoors, leaving the streets to the predators. But it was not summer now, and in the winter the combination of the ea
rly darkness and the bone-chilling cold kept everyone off the streets who had someplace better to go.

  I didn’t. I had one place to go and only one, and it was on Avenue D, as far east as you could walk before you hit the waterfront housing projects, the FDR Drive, and then the East River itself. The wind blew harder as you got closer to the water. There were few tall buildings here to block it, mostly just red brick tenements and little Spanish churches. When the wind came from the east, you could smell the river on it. It stank of diesel fuel.

  I wasn’t the only one on the streets, but in some ways I’d have preferred it if I had been. I passed two young men walking together, and we all eyed each other as we passed. It was at times like this that I wished I looked older, bigger, harder. Tracy wasn’t so far off with her description, and this was not a neighborhood for slumming prep school kids.

  I crossed Avenue C and walked east on Sixth Street, where the concentration of churches was highest. Iglesia Cristiana, Abounding Grace, Emmanuel Presbyterian, all on one block – it was a little safer, I figured, than the blocks on either side. But then the churches were behind me and the avenue I turned onto had nothing warm and welcoming on it. A few bodegas, some shuttered with metal gates, some open behind grimy windows. One Chinese restaurant. There were two men in khaki jackets transacting some business under the awning of what had once been a butcher shop and now had a big “Store for Rent” sign in the window. The one who pocketed the money fell into step beside me as I passed.

  “Smoke, smoke,” he muttered under his breath – though why he bothered to keep quiet, I don’t know. There wasn’t a cop for blocks around.

  “No, thanks.” I shook his fingers off my sleeve.

  “Come on, man. I’ve got good shit.”

  “I’m sure you do. I’m not buying.”

  “That’s cool, man. How about just helping a brother out, cold night like this.” He had a hand out, and I was tempted to give him something just to make him go away, but that was a path I knew better than to go down. Not because he was a drug dealer – the hell with that. Just because once I took anything out of my pocket, he’d want whatever else I had in there.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Try someone else.”

  “No,” he said, and suddenly his voice wasn’t so quiet any more, “how about I try you, motherfucker?” He whipped something out of his jacket pocket, and I heard the click-click of a butterfly knife swinging open. Butterfly knives are illegal in New York, but then so are drug deals and muggings. If there had been a cop around, I could have had this guy booked for all three.

  I held my palms up. “Don’t do this.”

  “Shut the fuck up and give me your wallet.” He gestured with the knife. It was a short blade, only four inches or so, but you can do plenty of damage with a short blade. Simon Corrina had always used a knife like this.

  I looked around, but there was no one in sight. The guy who’d made a buy just a minute ago had vanished, and I didn’t blame him.

  I reached into my pocket for my wallet, held it out to him. I thought about flipping it open and showing him my license, but I wasn’t sure whether that would get me my wallet back or a knife in the guts.

  He snatched it. “Come on, come on,” he said. “What else you got?”

  He reached under my jacket to pat down my pockets. He found my cell phone in its holster on my hip, popped it out, and slipped it into his own pocket. He slapped my right pants pocket. “What’s that?”

  “Just my keys,” I said. “You don’t want my keys, man. Come on.”

  “Show me.”

  I pulled out the keyholder, opened it for him. He gestured with the knife. “Okay.” I put it back. “Give me your watch.”

  “I don’t wear a watch,” I said.

  “Bullshit,” he said. “This can’t be all you’ve got.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It is.”

  We both heard a buzzing sound then. It started quiet and got louder. He looked down toward his pocket, and so did I, but only for a second. Before he could look back, I stepped in, braced his knife hand with one forearm, put my other hand around his throat and ran him back against the wall of the building next to us. He swung at me with his free hand, but it was a weak punch and I blocked it with my elbow. I hammered his head against the wall until his grip on the knife loosened and it fell to the sidewalk, and then a few more times just because it felt good. I brought my knee up, aiming for his crotch, but got his stomach instead. He folded up all the same. I let go of him and he collapsed on the pavement. I kicked the knife out of his reach and then squatted next to him to go through his pockets. I found my wallet and phone in one and some loose bills and a baggie full of plastic vials in the other. The phone had stopped buzzing. I took it all, rolled him into the doorway of the butcher shop, and left him there.

  I shoved the baggie deep into the garbage can on the corner. The butterfly knife was lying in the gutter, so I picked it up, folded it shut, and pocketed it. Now I was the one breaking the law, but what the hell. It probably wouldn’t be the last time tonight. I checked the readout of my phone, but all it said was “Missed Call – Unavailable.” Well, there was nothing I could do. If it was important, whoever it had been would call back.

  I crossed to the next block and checked building numbers till I found 51. It was a grey stone building with a fire escape zigzagging down the front. The windows were all dark, and on the ground floor some were boarded up. I didn’t see any intercom buttons next to the front door, which said something about how old this building was – it must have been from the throw-the-key-down era. I looked up at the top-floor apartment. Was Jocelyn in there? If she were, I thought, the lights would be on – she wouldn’t be asleep at five o’clock, and she wouldn’t be sitting in the dark, either. Or would she? She might if she knew I was coming. But how could she know? Tracy wouldn’t have called her – would she?

  Of course, all of this assumed she had come back here at all. Just because Susan thought that was what she would do in Jocelyn’s place, it didn’t mean Jocelyn had actually done it. The most likely case was that the apart- ment was dark because it was empty, and that it was empty because Jocelyn knew better than to come here.

  There was only one way to find out. I jumped for the bottom rung of the fire escape ladder. On my second try, the ladder slipped its hook and clattered down. I pulled myself up and started climbing. At the first landing, I crouched between the two windows to catch my breath. I figured the noise would draw some attention, but the street was empty now and none of the windows around me flew open, no angry tenant stuck his head out to see what the racket was. I climbed up to the second landing, and then slowly, working hard not to make any noise, went on to the third. I felt very conspicuous. It wasn’t broad daylight, but anyone who happened to look this way would spot me. Who knew what neighbor might be calling the police right now to report what they were seeing? But I kept going.

  The top floor was next, and I took each step gently on the way up. The window on my right looked into a bedroom, the one on my left into a kitchen, and I dodged away quickly after risking a glance through each. Both rooms were dark and looked empty. I tried raising the bedroom window, but it was locked. I opened the blade of the butterfly knife and slipped it between the upper and lower panes, forced the latch of the lock sideways, then shifted the blade to the bottom and used it to lever the window up enough to give me a fingerhold on the frame. I slid the window all the way up, climbed inside, and pulled it down behind me.

  The room was empty, all right – but at some point recently it hadn’t been. On the queen-sized bed a crumpled comforter was pushed to one side. And on a table next to the bed there was a quarter-full glass of water.

  I kept the knife ready as I slid the closet door open, but there was no one waiting inside to jump out at me. No one was in the living room either, or the bathroom when I quickly looked inside. The apartment was empty. I was tempted to turn on a light, but that would have been crazy – I didn’t know when Joce
lyn would be back, and if she saw the light from the street, she’d know someone was there. I went back into the bedroom and gave it a more thorough once-over. The room’s one dresser was nearly empty and so was the closet – lots of empty wire hangers and drawers with only a shirt or two in them. It looked like Jocelyn was planning a quick departure.

  I was about to close the closet when I noticed something on the floor in the back behind the sliding door. I pulled it out to get a better look at it. It was a wheeled luggage cart, lying on its back, unzipped and open, crammed full of clothing. It was too dark to see anything on the hard rubber wheels, but I had a feeling I knew what the police would find if they scraped them. Wayne Lenz’s blood.

  I pawed through the clothing, but that was all the luggage contained, all the way to the bottom: T-shirts, underwear, two pairs of shoes, some costumes of the sort I’d seen on the video and in Miranda’s apartment. There was a small cosmetics bag, but it contained nothing but cosmetics. There was no sign of the money.

  Not that Jocelyn would be likely to leave five hundred thousand dollars in cash lying around in the closet of a tenement apartment. I tried to guess how much space that much money would take up. About as much as two reams of typing paper, maybe three, even if you packed it tightly. I went through the luggage again, felt around the bottom of the closet, glanced under the bed.

  It was disappointing, but only slightly. The money was why Murco was after her, and if it didn’t turn up he would be very unhappy, but otherwise it meant nothing to me. What I was after was Jocelyn. I wanted to hear her admit what she had done, and then And then what? I felt my hand tighten around the knife. And then I’d call the police, damn it. And then I’d have her arrested, have them test the luggage, have them clear my name and put her in jail where she belonged. There was a part of me that ached for a rawer sort of justice, the sort Murco and his son would deal out – part of me felt Miranda deserved that sort of retribution. But I was not Murco. Justice didn’t have to come at the point of a knife.

  I pushed the luggage back into place and drew the closet door in front of it. I went back into the living room, searched through the small pile of mail I found on a table. A clothing catalogue, a credit card bill, a belated Christmas card, all addressed to “Jessie Masters.” I left them where they were.