Cold Wind to Valhalla (Abby Fouchet Mysteries Book 3) Page 3

  “I’m fine. Last year they stuffed Vanessa into boxes or flew me around in helicopters and had me bungee-jump off a bridge. Spending half a day with my backside on railroad tracks will be a breeze. Just so the engineer driving whatever train comes bearing down stops before I get squooshed into those tracks.

  We’d reached West 79th Street. It was now close to three in the morning. Ivan and I stumbled out (me being the primary stumbler) then headed for the stairs leading to the exit. I glanced at Ivan and muttered, “I think we’re being followed.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. By someone in a hoodie.”

  He snorted. “Abigail Marie Fouchet, everyone in our car had on a hoodie or a beret. Except you, since yours is currently gracing the New York Crime lab downtown.”

  “Oh. Well, I still feel creepy. Everyone in our car got out and is behind us. I’m totally spooked. This is nuts.”

  “I agree. But I also understand. Seeing a friend get shot isn’t part of your normal routine and you have every right to break down and scream and cry.” He smiled. “Although, it might be better to hold off on a couple of those while we’re walking so we don’t scare the other denizens of the Upper West Side who shared space with us the whole way up here.”

  I nodded. “Hey? Can we go to the bagel place? It’s open all night.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Oh, help me, Mama! I forgot. Abby Fouchet. Stress eater. Happy eater. Book or script-in-hand eater. Morning, noon, night, and in-between snack eater.”

  “Please?”

  “Fine. Yes. But, only because Shay won’t be home and I don’t like the idea of you being in an empty apartment for the rest of the night. Although, I will stay with you there if you’d like.”

  I thought for a second. “Nah. You don’t have to stay. Barry will be waiting for you. Wait. Actually, I don’t need to go to the bagel joint. There's some decent Chinese leftovers from Wiki Woks. I love them. They're way the fool uptown in Washington Heights and they still deliver to Shay and me. Anyway. Home. Shower. Kung Po chicken and egg rolls and semi-soggy fortune cookies. Bed. That’s it.”

  We walked in silence toward my apartment building. I still felt creepy. “Ivan.”

  “Hmm?”

  “I really do swear we’re being followed.”

  “By someone in a hoodie?”

  “Yeah.”

  He turned. Five guys in hoodies were indeed about twenty yards behind us. Ivan squinted, then grinned.

  “Abby?”

  “Yo.”

  “Take a look.”

  I turned and directly faced our stalkers in hoodies. They waved. I knew all of them from a show (clothed) that was currently playing down in the Village. Actors. Not exactly a terrifying bunch.

  What I failed to notice was the other hooded figure following only a few steps behind them.

  Chapter 4

  Cold metal jabbed into my back.

  “Inside. Hurry it up and open the damn door,” grunted the someone as he jabbed a cylindrical object into my spine.

  I did as asked, inserting the key into the front door of my apartment building, then stumbling inside along with Ivan. My entire body was shaking and I was freezing.

  But once we were in the lobby, I got brave. Moderately brave. “What do you want, you slimy toad-sucking sicko?” I squeaked.

  “I want to know what Colette Currie told you.”

  “Say what?”

  “You heard me. Now spill.”

  I would have spilled too. It wasn’t as if Colette’s last words on this earth were exactly filled with great import—at least not to civilization as we know it—or at least not that I was aware. Colette had given me a jumbling puzzle of words and I had no problem telling the maniac who was pressing cold steel against my body every damn one of them. I’d had a really bad night and I had no desire for it to end with me in a morgue somewhere.

  I never got the chance to even mutter, “Ken or clown.” My mouth was actually open and I’d taken a large breath so I could do a stream of consciousness sharing Colette’s last words when a tall figure with curly hair spiraled a la the 1980s, wearing a long red and white University of Wisconsin Badgers football jersey, extremely short cut-offs and pink bunny slippers, came sailing out of the elevator, ran to my left side, wailing like a drunken Irish banshee and executed a marvelous clip that was worthy of a first-draft pick for next season’s crop of NCAA defensive tackle hopefuls wanting to make that same Wisconsin team.

  It took down Mr. Cold Metal much the same way it would have taken down a wide receiver. Cold Metal was on the floor, writhing and crying. Ivan and I simultaneously hugged our rescuer.

  “Still auditioning for a spot on the Badgers line, I see.” I grinned.

  “They do not know what they’re missing and sadly, never will.”

  I hugged my best friend. “Shay. Thanks. Hey! I didn’t know you were home.”

  “Got in two stinkin’ hours ago. Horrible flight. Three small children who apparently were never diaper or potty trained, with voices louder than a Met coloratura and a parent too drunk to care, were two seats in front of me. And I swear I’ve got to start packing trail mix or even those crackers with peanut butter or power bars or cheese sticks or something on planes because the food really is rank even if you order in advance and get kosher or vegetarian or Hindi or whatever.”

  “Hindi?”

  Shay glared at me. “A meal of rice, okay? Which of course, I didn’t get anyway because I didn’t know I’d be flying home until too late to order anything special so I ended up with lousy faux Veal Parmigiana and dried-up rigatoni and a few sprigs of dry broccoli which I don’t eat even if it’s covered in Hollandaise sauce. Which this certainly was not. And the airsick meds worked too well and I was hungry, hungry, hungry.”

  A groan escaped the lips of the prone figure on the floor. I can’t say as I blame him. Shay has a tendency to ramble but she was surpassing herself and it was time for quiet and some explanations from the mugger.

  “Hush.” I glared at the mugger then nodded at Shay. “Thanks for the rescue but that little admonition goes for you as well. The quiet; not the explanations.”

  She nodded so meekly I knew she must be beyond exhausted. Shay is never meek. And it generally takes food or blackmail of some kind to get her to shut up.

  I nudged the mugger with my foot. “Where’s that gun, you little weasel?”

  “Don’t have one.”

  “Then what the crap was digging into my spine while I was opening the door?”

  Ivan groaned in an almost pitch-perfect voice match to the kid in the grey hoodie who’d changed his sound from a groan to a moan. “Look.” He pointed to an object that lay on the floor, where it must have landed during Shay’s brilliant tackle. It was a baton. Minus the rubber tip.

  That did it. “Seriously? Who the hell are you and why are you threatening us with an object identical to what I twirled through four years of high school?” I yelled.

  “I’m sorry! Wasn’t my idea. I’m supposed to get twenty bucks to get you to tell me what some chick named Colette said. I’m supposed to give the info to Diamond the bartender down at the Cameo Theatre.”

  “Wait. You’re mugging me for information and you don’t even want it for yourself?" I took a breath." Okay. First of all, kid, what’s your name?”

  “Omar. Omar Richards. And I think my ankle’s broken!”

  Shay snorted. “ You’re a wimp, you little twerp. I didn’t take you down that hard and if your ankle was broken you’d be screaming, not moaning, so shut up and answer Ms. Abby here.”

  “I already told you! The bartender at the Cameo—Diamond—said I’d get twenty dollars if I followed you and found out what this Colette broad had said. And she said you’d get a big goof about it if I pretended to rob you.”

  I stared at Ivan, then at Shay. “I was introduced to Diamond before that ghastly show started but I don’t recall seeing her after. Could she have
been the one who shot Colette?” I glared at Omar. “And quit calling her a chick or a broad. She was a lady—something Diamond obviously is not.” I nodded at Ivan. “What do you think? About the shooting?”

  Ivan shook his head. “Not unless she had a rifle with a scope that could shoot through walls and hit a target dead on. I remember her. Attractive in kind of a cheap sleazy way. She was pouring drinks for the audience members who were crazy enough to stay for that receiving line. Then again, I wasn’t watching her all that closely and she might well have snuck backstage with a tinier weapon. Honestly? I’m not a reliable witness at this point so ignore everything I just said. Sorry."

  Shay interrupted. “How was the show?”

  Ivan beamed at her. “Unbelievably terrible but you would have loved it since everyone and his brother was stark naked.”

  Shay sighed. “What about Frank Raymonde? I’m telling you, I want to bear his children.”

  “If he’s the one I’m thinking of, I said the same thing to Abby right after the show. He’s the guy with the tattoo of a martini glass complete with olive and straw on his left cheek? And by cheek I’m not talking—”

  “Ivan! Shay! Stop it!”

  “What?” Two faces with expressions mirroring kindergartners caught playing “doctor” in the sand pile opened wide eyes and pretended innocence.

  I growled. “A. Neither of you would make a fit parent for Frank Raymonde’s children. B. There is a wannabe mugger on the floor and we need to figure out what to do with him. C . . . “ My eyes were suddenly damp. “C which really isn’t C because it should be A is that Colette Currie took a bullet tonight and died and we’re over here giggling like we’re pre-pubescent imbeciles about Frank ’s cheeky tattoo which doesn’t really seem fitting now, does it and I think I’m about to get hysterical again and I’d really rather not.”

  Shay and Ivan’s features changed to thoroughly chastened. Then Shay’s eyes widened.

  “Did you say Colette Currie died? When? How? What?”

  I nodded. “She did. That’s why Ivan and I are so late getting back here. It was awful.” I told her about Colette dying in my arms and being questioned by a very nice Detective Clark. “Hang on a sec. How did you know something was wrong with Omar here trying to be a tough guy and show up just in time to make that spectacular tackle a few moments ago?”

  “Window. I couldn’t sleep after the plane trip which was nothing less than a horror movie— I swear— and I was wandering around the apartment and opened the window because as usual the radiator is pumping out heat in May and I heard your dulcet tones outside and saw this ungainly putz pull the weaponry out and try to hold you guys up by means a lethal baton. So I figured I’d take him down.”

  I hugged my best friend and roommate. “And you did!”

  The three of us stared at the kid.

  “Wait.” I narrowed my eyes at Omar. “It just hit me. This is a direct steal from the episodes on Search for Serenity where Colette's character, uh, Nevada Fury, went undercover as a waitress to find out whether the contortionist was involved with Beecher's ex-wife. Anyway, Nevada hires some loser to get information from the contortionist herself but the waitress wasn’t the one who did the killing and didn’t even know who did. She was just another patsy.”

  Ivan brightened. “I remember that episode. You were on as Desdemona the belly dancer before they sent you off with Spike to the drug cartel in South America. You had on this really swank black leather mini-skirt with the cute little ankle strap lace up half boots. And that great black Sinatra fedora. I love fedoras. I’m glad they’re coming back in style."

  Shay and I wasted approximately two complete seconds to stare at Ivan. Pointless. The man was a hopeless fashionista who couldn’t follow a devious or deviant plotline unless it was hanging on a clothes rack.

  I sighed. “I’ve had it. This has not been a good night; starting with watching naked people with an inability to sustain pitch in the few songs they had where they weren’t jumping around. I’m hitting the sack for about three days of serious sleep, which will doubtless be interrupted by a ton of crying. First, we need to decide what to do with our budding majorette here. Which reminds me. Omar. Where did you get the baton?”

  “Props room at the Cameo. I still got the tip in my pocket.” He handed me the rubber tip and I absently plunked it back on the nude side of the baton and began doing “horizontals.” For no good reason this made me happy. But I continued glaring at Omar while addressing my question to Shay and Ivan. “Do y'all think we need to call the cops?”

  Omar trembled. “I really did think this was just a joke, ya know? Please don’t call them. Look, go talk to Diamond and she’ll tell you—okay?”

  “Why you?” Shay asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Why did this Diamond person—who needs to get a real name—ask you to follow Abby and Ivan?”

  “Well, shoot, who else would she ask? I’m her son.”

  My eyes popped. “How old are you?”

  “Thirteen.”

  Chapter 5

  We decided not to call the police to come grab our wannabe felon. He was thirteen. A ridiculously large thirteen but still going through puberty. Plus, Omar was by no means a Rhodes scholar. His mother was a bartender who didn’t have enough sense not to send a moronic teenager out in the middle of the night to fake an attack. He’d been tackled by a flying rabid Shay and twisted his ankle. Hauling him to the police station to be interrogated when we already knew the answers just didn’t seem right. So, after getting all pertinent information as to where he lived and went to school and cell phone number and major verbal contracts on his part agreeing never to do anything like this again even for a thousand dollars and the assurance he really believed it was a joke, we gave him money for his Metro Card (he’d used up his ride limit following Ivan and me and hadn’t received that twenty bucks from “Mom” yet) and sent him off to reunite with her somewhere back down in Hell’s Kitchen.

  We did however first give Diamond Richards a call from Omar’s cell. Either she was a better actress than the majority of the cast in Hangin’ or she was genuinely horrified to hear this was not a joke and her precious baby was an inch away from being arrested, which was followed by her tale of having to ride in the police van to the police station to reveal all she knew about Colette’s murder. Diamond’s explanation regarding her son was fairly entertaining but not very enlightening.

  “I am so sorry! Honest. I found this napkin under one of the drinks I was clearing—Scotch and soda—and someone had written on it ‘want to play a fun joke and earn a couple a hundred bucks?’ I’m around actors all the time so I know they can come up with some crazy practical jokes. It never occurred to me this was serious.”

  I growled, “What the fool did you think after Colette Currie died on the floor of that theatre and someone asked you to follow the girl who found her back to her house and pry information out of her? Did you really believe this was going to end up on some web video for millions of people to see and chuckle over Abby Fouchet getting mugged by a kid wielding a baton?”

  Shay snickered and whispered. “Which really was kind of funny.”

  I decimated my roommate with one look. “Not.”

  “Well, obviously not Colette—the funny part— but the baton used as a weapon is pretty cool.”

  “Shut up, Shay.”

  She wrinkled her nose at me. “From rescuer to ‘shut up, Shay’ in less than ten minutes. I’m beyond offended.”

  I looked up toward the heavens for support then returned to the phone conversation. “Diamond? How were you supposed to be paid? And was everything on the napkin?”

  “No, no. I got another message a few minutes later tucked on top of my bag telling me that I could expect some cash as soon as you told Omar what you knew. A real note on real paper this time.”

  “Who was it?” I growled.

  “I dunno. Swear to God. ” She paused. “But it was someone who knew you had been here. The
note mentioned you were wearing chocolate brown boots and that you're about five-two and that you had a beige beret and that you had sort of chestnut-colored hair."

  That got me shaking so hard I had to pass the phone to Ivan. He continued the interrogation of Diamond but she swore she’d told us all she knew. We all believed her.

  So we had a clueless bartender and her definitely-more-clueless son but no idea who’d put them up to intimidating me into giving up a few words that made no sense anyway.

  Ivan headed back to his own apartment, which is directly across the street from Shay and me. He’d called his partner, Barry, from the Cameo Theatre telling him not to wait up but he knew Barry would be anxious if he didn’t come barging through the front door in the next half hour. So he hugged Shay, hugged me, then offered to escort our teenage limping mugger down West 79th Street to make sure he made it back to the subway without getting mugged himself.

  When I finally made it inside my own comforting, comfortable, wonderful apartment, I started shedding clothes and bee-lined it to the bathroom. I stayed in the shower for twenty minutes, alternately scrubbing away the images threatening to derail my brain right into the post-traumatic-syndrome land and crying because those images refused to rinse away along with my coconut-scented shampoo.

  Shay was calmly ensconced in my favorite overstuffed chair. I took one look and undid the towel covering my sopping but now clean hair. I threw it at her. “Out.”

  “Hey, I had a lousy flight. I deserve comfort.”

  “Tough flippin’ pancakes, woman. I watched naked people caper around a stage singing unmelodic melodies, then witnessed a friend die. I’d say my lousy night trumps your lousy flight any damned day or night of the week.”

  “Gad, you’re testy.” She rose, then handed me a newly made margarita. Yes, it was nearly four in the morning but I didn’t care. I took it and downed about half of it within twenty seconds. Then I sank into the cushions of my favorite chair—Shay had kindly refrained from fighting me for it—and sighed. Deeply.