Red on Red (38 page)

Esposito tensed up and elbowed Nick. A livery cab had arrived, and when the door opened, three men walked over from the front of the funeral home to greet the passenger. A dignitary, worth watching, but the figure was obscured by hugs as soon as he stepped out of the vehicle. Respects
were being paid. When the huggers stepped back from the passenger, Nick saw he was a fat guy in a white sweat suit, made of material so shiny it nearly glowed. The best sweat suit, worn only for formal occasions. Fat guy. Not their man.

“Who is it?”

“Tino,” said Espo without hesitation. “I guess he steps up now. I didn’t think he was under Kiko. Maybe he wasn’t, but now there’s vacancies—Miguelito, Miguel, Kiko. He’s gonna fill all the spots, the fat jackass. Watch. After he goes in and sees all the stuff there, he’s gonna send a bigger cross tomorrow, even pinker, to show how much he cares. Daysi’s gonna make even more money. That business would make a decent cover. If you were in the game like these guys, you could move a lot of cash through it.”

“Stop.”

“Sorry. You oughta run a few checks before you marry her, though. The ex, maybe—”

“Stop.”

Nick didn’t like it when Esposito mentioned Daysi, when he talked about the dealers. Nick didn’t like it the first time, and he liked it less, hearing it again. But he wasn’t going to bring it up now. They had to concentrate. Nick put it out of his mind for half an hour, more. The sun began to decline over the river. There were no other arrivals of street-readable significance, but the clothing started to change to flashier stuff, people dressed for nightclubs, guys in groups, some with dates. It was getting cool on the roof, hotter down below. Esposito was starting to get frustrated.

“Kiko’s looking to make an appearance, probably not a big show. Probably not, but who knows? All these people, does he want them to see his face, show he’s still got balls? Or maybe he slipped in before visiting hours, like we took Malcolm in.”

“What’s the hours for this? Is there a dinner break?”

Esposito raised an eyebrow, as if he suspected Nick was asking for himself. “An hour for dinner, but I’m not leaving. I’m hungry, too.”

“Easy. Just asking. I ain’t going anywhere. You know that.”

“Sorry, pal. I just know this is gonna happen. I don’t know how….”

The light was going. Not a lot of people left the funeral home; a few did, but others came back, with bags of food. Another dog on the roof
across, a terrier mutt with a teenager. Nick went back on the roof to piss. Another dog, and then Esposito went back too. At seven, the streetlights were lit. Behind them on the roof, a solitary lightbulb was mounted above the stairwell enclosure, barely glowing in the dusk. There was one on each nearby rooftop, beside them and across the street. They seemed more ornamental than useful, like holiday decorations. Nick went back to unscrew the bulb. When he returned, he said, “The food last night, it was unbelievable. One thing, then another.”

Esposito put the binoculars down. “You’re killing me, Nick.”

“For me, the best was the soup—no, the soup was second. First was—”

“Nick?”

“Yeah, all right…. I wonder, maybe we shoulda done something with Tino’s phone.”

“Nice change of topic. Believe me, I appreciate it. But Tino’s phone was point-to-point, the walkie-talkie thing. Can’t triangulate on it the regular way. Subpoenas, and it’s still weeks before we get the cell sites. And all they’d tell us is he’s in the neighborhood. Which I know. I wish Kim Martone gave me her snitch….”

“You wouldn’t give up yours. You wouldn’t let anybody talk to Malcolm.”

“No. But it don’t matter…. This is a pissing contest here, and I’m gonna win.”

Esposito rubbed his face, and picked up the binoculars again. Nick wondered what he could see. Not much, but Esposito could read in the dark, the patterns in the traffic, who curtsied in the dance. More and more people came in, in bigger packs. Nick watched the dog roof when someone else came out, a middle-aged man, a young dog—another mutt, too shaggy for a pit bull. The faint light above the stairwell enclosure cast the figures in silhouette. The dog started to bark at the building next door, leaping up to the wall on the west side, over the alley gap.

There was a man there … a dark figure, in dark clothes. The binoculars got you closer, but there was no light. No eye could reach. The dog began to yelp, to leap into the air. That was what it knew, territory, who belonged, who didn’t. The dog made a show. The dark figure on the roof fired a gun at the dog. Three shots, four, five. The dog’s owner ran to the door and closed it behind him, quitting outright. The dog ran to the door,
then ran back to the wall, yelping and leaping; his post would not be abandoned, even after his master had abandoned him. Another shot, but the dog wasn’t hit. Kiko? No, not Kiko, Michael Cole.

There were a few people on the sidewalk, and then a few more, looking up, stupidly. The man on the roof lifted his hands up, both of them, and threw them down. A car window smashed on the street. Michael Cole, yes. Nick couldn’t see him, his face or much of anything else, but there was no question, no doubt. Six shots, a revolver, and Michael had emptied his gun even before he’d begun what he’d come for. Another brick, another stone, down to the street, buckling the hood of a car. The people below began to scatter, even as more ran out from the funeral home. And then there were three shots from Nick and Esposito’s right, from the roof next to them, shooting across the street.

They hadn’t seen anyone there, either, but it had to be Kiko. It had to be. Michael Cole threw another missile down; another window smashed. The funeral home emptied out. “What? What? What?” Two more shots, and Michael Cole looked around—“What? What?”
Somebody’s shooting at you, stupid. That’s what
. Kiko shot again, near the detectives. No. Nick saw the muzzle flash, pointed away; this was from below, armed mourners. A window beneath them popped, shattered. Nick crouched in, close to the parapet. Esposito put a hand on his shoulder.
Quiet. Let it play….
No need to say so. Nick knew they were invisible still. The magical thinking of a child still in bed, closing his eyes, making the bad ones go away. No, it was true. They were on the sidelines, not yet part of the game.

The alley between the buildings was six feet, maybe eight. The same layout, identical buildings facing each other. The dog made his own calculations, running back, rushing across to leap. A gap between the walls, for the fire escapes, the alley between. Good dog, good jump. Falling stones, breaking glass, so many guns that Kiko had to duck down before he shot back. The dog scrambled up, then leapt across the alley, clearing the next roof. Michael ran inside the door, yanking it shut behind him. He would face a mob, enraged and battle-ready, but not a dog? Michael had escaped, for now, from the dog. The crowd? Well, Nick hoped he had his helmet on.

Kiko yelled down to the gathering mob on the street, a swirling pattern of men looking up, dodging, taking cover and letting off rounds.

“
El otro lado! Al cruzar la calle!
The other side of the street!”

Kiko dropped down again to avoid friendly fire, then ran back across the roof. He yanked at the door, but it wouldn’t open. Maybe he wasn’t strong, maybe it was badly rusted, maybe an upstairs neighbor had locked it behind him, just to be safe. He yelled curses, but the door didn’t open. Nick and Esposito crouched, still quiet, watching Kiko look around for a way out. Shouts and shots were coming up from the street. Kiko picked up his phone and screamed, then shut it. Not a good place for reception, not a good time. He walked to the far side of the roof, then walked back; the near side was better. Six feet, maybe eight. They do it in movies, all the time. Across the street, the dog barked on the other rooftop, circling the door, on the hunt. Not the hunt; his territory had already been won. Kiko still hadn’t seen the detectives; he reckoned the distance, the way out, the way across. Six feet, maybe eight. He stepped back to make a run for it. One jump. He would cross over, he would run downstairs, he would be back in the thick of it, be the hero of the funeral games. From fifty feet, in the dark, Nick could see the picture in his head. But after Kiko started to run, Esposito stood up and turned on his flashlight.

“You coming to me, Kiko?”

These five words were spoken with bold slowness, and there was a solemn and martial music to them, familiar and arresting, like taps or reveille. Esposito put the flashlight down, then rolled it across the rooftop, so it wouldn’t give Kiko a target. But Kiko had already jumped, and the five words stopped him in the air. Reveille, then taps. He did not cross over. Could Nick hear it, the fall? Yes, he could. A soft call going down—“Ohh!”—no screaming, no protest, two bumps along the fire escape, garbage cans spilled when he hit. Nick walked past Esposito and looked down, as if he might have been able to see the bottom, as if he needed to know how it had ended.

“We oughta work on getting outta here,” Nick said.

Esposito nodded, and took out his radio. “There’s no way to put a good face on this…. Central? Ten-thirteen, ten-thirteen, ten-thirteen. Multiple shots fired, man down, large crowd, lots of ’em shooting. Be advised, you got two detectives on the roof. Advise responding units…. Yes, Central, I will stand by. The address is …”

Bedlam. That was the word for it, the only one. They tried to barricade the door with the bucket and crate. Footsteps coming up the stairs, yelling. Nick didn’t think the yellers were cops. Esposito grabbed Nick’s
arm and led them over to the fire escape before the door broke. They started creeping downstairs, slowly, from the sixth floor to the fifth. The fire escape shivered with each step, lurched when their weight gathered at weak points. Angry men on the roof now, shouting, shooting guns anywhere, nowhere, into the night. Down from the fifth floor to the fourth. Better, but Nick knew that when they got to the ground, there would be a bigger crowd, madder still, when Kiko’s body was found. More guns, but Nick heard the sirens, too, the cavalry, the skull-crackers, hats and bats. Bring ’em on. They kept going down, but on the third floor, a woman opened her window and screamed. And then her man started yelling inside, and he started shooting, too. The detectives scrambled down the creaky metal stairs, the fire escape groaning against the building with the weight, rounds dinking off the metal bars as they moved down, flight by flight. There were missing slats and loose rails. The whole structure gave and groaned like a pained spine, the rusty bolts easing from the softening brick. Kiko had been found in the alley below by one man, two, who called out for witness, aid, revenge. One of them ran when the shots came from the third floor, but others came into the alley; more shots, more than you could place where they came from. A few of them in the alley, one of them shooting in the air. Nick and Esposito hugged the wall, and felt the platform sag.

There were flowerpots on the lowest ledge of the fire escape, a little garden, carefully tended and growing golden, green. Esposito started to hurl them down, the first with a warning—“Police! Get out! Get away, or I will kill you!” When shots came up past them, he grabbed handfuls of the pots, smashing them down below. Someone fell, groaning: bedlam. Nick shot two rounds into the back of the alley. Did that clear them? No, it did not. Nick took the radio and gave their position, keeping the line open when he let another round go, so Central could hear. The dispatcher began to scream, “Are you okay? Ten-thirteen! Ten-thirteen! Ten-thirteen!” The fire escape slipped and whined; it would not wait. Nick helped Esposito heave the last of the flowerpots over the side, aiming for heads. Another one down, with a brief, huffing sound, like a couch shoved on a carpet. Eight feet to the ground, maybe ten. They jumped.

Even as Nick landed on the garbage can, and even as he felt the ankle twist, the pain shooting up the leg—even then, he knew the landing could have been worse. The leg buckled under Nick, and when he fell over, the gun slid out of his holster, in the dark. Kiko lay beside him,
arms bent back, head twisted, his face a few inches away. He still looked surprised. Esposito was oddly catlike in his drop, falling into a crouch, then alighting on agile feet. Nick felt for his gun and found it, wedged by Kiko’s dead leg. Not a bad landing, not as bad as it might have been. Esposito stepped over. “You okay?”

“The ankle.”

“Can you walk?” “Gimme a hand.”

Esposito turned to the front of the alley. It looked clear. He looked up. The fire escape made no more noises, no more threats to collapse. It would be good for another day, another week, until somebody else stepped onto it. It was time to go. There were sirens, the screech of cars in the street; their people were here. Esposito took hold of an elbow and armpit and lifted Nick up, as if he were light. “Easy, easy,” Nick said. “Okay, I’m up now.”

The right leg was solid; the left, not much.

“Can you walk?”

“Almost …”

“C’mere,” he said, putting Nick’s arm around his shoulder, grabbing hold of Nick’s belt from the back. “Anybody comes in, you gotta shoot. I got my right hand holding your ass up…. Does Daysi sell pots?”

“What?”

“Flowerpots. If she does, I gotta get some nice ones for the first floor fire escape. They saved us. Looks like I brained a couple of guys. You can shoot?”

“I can shoot. But let me go if you gotta fight. I can hop.”

“Okay, Hopalong. Let’s get outta here.”

What movie was that? Nick would remember later. It took a few steps to coordinate their tripod paces, but then they moved easily, toward the bright vertical bar of the exit, where the crowd surged, the nightsticks swung, and the threats and wails filled the air. It looked so much better than where they were, the fire escape ready to collapse, the dead man, the other two down, the shots going off; the alley made the street look nearly wholesome. Nick had his gun out, pointed down, as they marched, three-legged, to some better place. This fight was over for them, even if no one else knew. Bedlam still, for the rest of them.

A child ran up to them, bawling, then stopped. The ugly baby of the other day, Kiko’s kid. Little Jose! Now in a blue velvet suit, with a bow
tie. Jose stared at them for a moment, maybe remembering. With a tin cup and a fez, the kid could have worked with an organ-grinder, Nick thought, ashamed of himself that it even occurred to him. Fatherless, now that the job was done, not that the child knew. His mother screamed, too, but she did not notice the detectives as she caught up with Jose, snatching him in her arms to bear him away. She wouldn’t have known about Kiko yet, either.