ELEVEN
Anthea
I wasn’t actuallya prisoner in the Rosanos’ brownstone. No one stopped me when I meandered out the front door the following evening. If asked, I would have said I was looking to grab a bite to eat rather than cooking tonight, and since Brant had come through in pawning Clyde’s trinkets, I even had the cash to support that story.
What I actually did was walk in the direction of the nearest shopping strip on a winding route for a few minutes until I’d played out all my tricks to confirm I wasn’t being followed, then circle back around and flag a cab. Mick had stopped by the brownstone again this afternoon. I’d seen which direction his car had arrived in, and I was gambling that he’d drive off in the same direction.
The cabbie gave me an odd look when I told him just to park a few blocks down from the brownstone and let the meter run, but he was getting paid for nothing, so he didn’t complain. I handed over a twenty to show I was good for it. It was only a few minutes more before the subtly sleek silver Hyundai cruised past us.
“Follow that car,” I told the cabbie. “Just don’t get too close.”
He shrugged. “Whatever you say, lady. You figure he’s cheating on you or something?”
I smiled tightly. “Something like that, yeah.”
The Hyundai headed east, winding through the Brooklyn streets and on into Queens. I dropped another twenty on the front passenger seat so the cabbie wouldn’t get antsy about the length of the journey. Finally, we eased to a stop when the silver car pulled into the driveway of a modest but pretty neo-Tudor style house in Kew Gardens.
It wasn’t a mansion like the Noble home in Paradise City or as posh as the Rosanos’ brownstone, but I’d bet it’d cost a good chunk of change. From the pink bike with sparkly streamers tipped over in the small, otherwise neat front yard, Mick was a family man. Was this why he’d have screwed over the Rosanos—had he taken on too much debt and now he was struggling to stay afloat? He wouldn’t be the first person it’d happened to.
If that was the case and he’d been too embarrassed to admit it to his boss, he might even have started his downward descent by borrowing money from other crooks. Crooks who’d threatened severe enough consequences that murdering his colleagues to steal a shipment of goods and the money for them had seemed like the better option.
That was all speculation, though. I hadn’t seen any actual evidence. My brother had sent me to take care of this task because he knew I’d be thorough—he knew I’d make sure the right people paid.
The residents at a house on the other side of the street were just heading out to their car—their voices carried through the window with comments about the dinner they were looking forward to. Perfect. I waited until they’d driven away, paid the cabbie the rest of the fare along with a generous tip, and slipped over to the shadows next to the recently vacated garage. In the thickening dusk, no one would notice me there.
I watched Mick’s house for as long as seemed wise, about an hour. No one else drove up to the home. Various cars cruised by along the street, but I didn’t notice any that seemed to slow down or otherwise focus on his place. Mick didn’t emerge from the house again, although toward the end of the hour a middle-aged woman came out with a girl who looked around ten, who grumbled as she dragged her bike down the driveway.
They didn’t seem worried about anything, but of course, that wasn’t proof one way or another either. At least I had some additional data I could bring to bear in later investigations. Maybe I could use the second burner phone I’d hidden in my things to contact Wylder and see if that techie friend of his, Gideon, would dig up any financial records that’d give me a sense of what pressures the Rosanos’ lead smuggler might be facing.
I walked until I reached a busier street where I could hail another cab and hopped into the back. When the driver asked, “Where to?” I opened my mouth to give him the Rosanos’ address and then hesitated. A sudden urge gripped me.
“Orvil Street,” I said, drawing up a mental image of the map I’d peered at yesterday. “Orvil and Fifth.”
“No problem.”
We drove back into Brooklyn, reaching the big shopping strip down the west end of the borough. Orvil branched off from the busier street with a variety of shops of its own. Many of them had already closed for the night, but I spotted some activity farther down the street, furtive movements that set my nerves on the alert.
I got out of the cab by Fifth Avenue and slunk down Orvil, sticking close to the storefronts. Men were hustling in and out of a small office building with a shoe store on the first floor. I didn’t recognize any of them in the darkness, but I spotted the unmistakable bulge of pistols shoved in the backs of a few pairs of jeans.
A prickle of apprehension ran down my back. I eased right back into a nearby doorway to watch from that relative shelter.
A truck was parked a few feet down from the office building. Some of the men were carrying crates from it into the building, and others were carrying boxes and bags out, like it was moving day and they were handling both the old and new owners’ possessions.
“Where did Griffin want this shit?” one of the guys called to another, just barely loud enough for me to make out the words.
The second guy motioned to the truck. “Stick it at the back. They’ll sort through it later.”
This was part of the operation that prick had been discussing with Marcel, then. Why had the two of them been so secretive about it? Setting up a new place of business operations wasn’t that out of the ordinary.
Then a few of the guys barged out through the office doors not carrying boxes but ushering a couple of men who looked worse for wear in the hazy glow of the streetlamps. One had a bruise on his jaw and another a cut on his temple that was still seeping blood.
“Go on, then,” one of the Hell Kickers said, shoving them away. “There’s nothing here for you anymore. You bet on the wrong horse.”
One of the men hurried off, but the other stopped in the middle of the street to spin around and sneer at the Hell Kickers. “I don’t think so. You’d better believe the Nobles are going to make you pay for this, you fuckers.”
A chill washed through me. Those were Noble men—this had been my family’s property?
A Hell Kicker lackey raised his gun in a clear threat. “Get the fuck out of here, or you’ll end up in the dirt like the guys you used to work with.”