Angel Face Read online

  So, all right, remember to stare down at the floor when you get into the car. Answer in monosyllables and don’t forget to mumble. You’ve made up your mind. This time you’ll tell Dr Rick the whole truth, which he suspects anyway. You’ll do it, but you’re scared out of your mind and …

  Angel’s thoughts are interrupted by the honking of a horn. She stares for just a moment at the Lincoln Towncar parked in the bus stop while she slips into the part. Then she walks forward, slowly, as if approaching a gallows, to peer through the window. The client is sitting at the wheel. Marked by acne scars on both cheeks, his meaty flesh, the color of ground beef, drapes his jawbones like a shroud. But his little black eyes are on full alert. They’re balls of desire. Most likely, he’s been jerking off all week in anticipation.

  The client reaches across the seat to open the door and Angel, after only a brief hesitation, closes her umbrella and slips inside. Without looking up, she fumbles in her worn brown purse, pulls out an aerosol breath freshener and squirts it into her mouth, a good touch.

  ‘Hi, Dr Rick,’ she mumbles.

  Angel takes a certain amount of pride in her theatrical talents. Creative by nature, she can improvise with the best of them. Still, she needs cooperation. She needs the client to participate, to work the game. But Dr Rick’s imagination is as thick and meaty as his complexion. He keeps reverting to Ricky Ditto, which is what his gangster friends call him, and he can’t stop bragging about the bars he owns in Queens and Staten Island, or his string of Manhattan laundromats, or the house he owns in Riverdale, or the house in Flushing he bought for his mom.

  Maybe he wants me to admire him, she thinks. Or maybe he thinks the game doesn’t start until he gets into the house. Whatever, Angel decides to stay in character.

  ‘I feel little, Dr Rick,’ she says. ‘Like I can’t do anything.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Ricky Ditto chuckles. ‘Well I could show you a few good moves.’

  And what’s she supposed to say to that? Except that she’s not going to work with any more gangster jerks. Most of her clients are wealthy and successful businessmen. They’re sharp and quick and they know how to play the game. Sometimes, they’re even fun. But this guy? He’s a CFA, born and bred, a Complete Fucking Asshole.

  ‘Please, Dr Rick, you’re making me very nervous.’

  Ricky Ditto has the seat pushed all the way back to accommodate his belly. His arms are stretched out, both hands on the wheel, and he stares fixedly through the wiper-streaked windshield. They’re driving north on Broadway, headed over the Broadway Bridge connecting Manhattan to the Bronx, running four blocks at a time between the red lights. Ricky finally turns left on 234th Street and pushes the Lincoln toward the steep hill leading into the neighborhood of Riverdale, an upper middle-class enclave tucked between the Hudson River and the slums on the other side of Broadway. On Riverdale’s far western edge, the views over the Hudson River are spectacular.

  ‘Hey, check this out,’ Ricky says when they’re about halfway up the hill. ‘See that apartment building?’

  ‘It’s very nice,’ Angel replies, although she’s looking at a six-storey, red-brick, plain-as-mud structure with a sagging cornice.

  ‘There’s an apartment in that building, right now it’s got three hundred grand sittin’ under the fuckin’ floorboards. You wouldn’t believe just lookin’, right? Me, I could put my hands on the cash right now. And that’s just one place. We got others.’

  Angel’s trying to decide where to go with the bragging. How can she work it into the scenario? Make a reference to his exalted credentials? Make him a Harvard graduate? Or maybe he’s won the Nobel Prize. Yeah, that’s good. She’ll look directly into his eyes when she congratulates him. She’ll project trust and awe and deep, deep respect. He’ll come around.

  They drive the rest of the way in silence, finally turning into a cul-de-sac lined with single-family homes on generous lots. At the far end, a garage door opens and Ricky guides the Lincoln into the space, inching forward until his bumper touches a wooden rail on the far wall. Then he presses a button and the door rumbles down.

  Show time, Angel tells herself, as she always does. She gets out of the car and half-drags herself to a door leading into a kitchen. Ricky Ditto walks ahead of her. He flips on the overhead light and crosses the kitchen floor.

  ‘Lemme show ya where the office is gonna be. I got a couch in there, ya know, like in a shrink’s—’

  A loud crack brings Rick’s broad body to an abrupt halt, a crack Angel knows to be a gunshot, though she can’t bring herself to think the word. But then Ricky falls backward, his body tipping over, his spine straight. His head bounces when he crashes on to the linoleum, just once before he lies inert, eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling. Blood runs in three directions from a hole in his head, to the right and the left and into his stiff black hair.

  Angel’s only beginning to process the data when Carter steps into the kitchen. He’s holding a small caliber revolver in his right hand and he’s looking directly into her eyes.

  ‘Did you touch anything?’ he asks.

  THREE

  Not that it makes any difference, but Carter’s stunned for just a moment. He’s looking at one of the most beautiful women he’s ever seen. Eurasian, no doubt, with big dark eyes that taper sharply at the corners, an assertive little nose and a luscious mouth. Her face is heart-shaped, her chin rounded, her complexion is the color of newly carved ivory. Carter’s eyes rake her face in search of a flaw, a pimple, a blackhead, a mole, but her skin might have been painted by an artist working from his personal fantasy of the ideal woman. And not a sexual fantasy, either.

  Only at the very last minute, before he gets back to business, does Carter realize that she’s not wearing any make-up.

  ‘Did you touch anything?’ he repeats.

  ‘Huh … I … Oh, God, don’t kill me.’

  Carter’s virtually devoid of sadistic impulses. Good thing for this woman. If he did harbor a well of sadism, if he liked to cause pain, her fear would only turn him on.

  ‘Stop for a minute and think. Did you touch anything?’

  Angel finally does stop, long enough at least to draw a breath. He’s hasn’t killed her yet. That has to be good news, right? Assuming he doesn’t plan to drag her into the basement and take his time about it.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she says.

  ‘What about inside the car?’

  ‘The handles? Maybe the door?’

  Carter pulls a navy-blue handkerchief from the back pocket of his trousers. ‘We’re going to go into the garage and I’m going to wipe down the car on your side. You’re going to walk ahead of me and you’re going to stay between the front door of the car and the wall of the garage. Do you understand what I just said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Repeat it.’

  Gradually calming, Angel does as she’s told, careful to focus on the task at hand, and not on Ricky Ditto, whose head rests in a swelling pool of blood.

  ‘OK, move.’

  Angel walks into the garage, around the Lincoln’s trunk, to the far wall. Her legs wobble slightly, but they get her there. She’s about to lean back when Carter shakes his head.

  ‘That wall is rough brick. If you touch it, you’ll leave fibers behind. Just stay upright. We’ll be out of here in a few minutes.’

  Carter begins on the outside of the car, but instead of wiping the door handle, he dabs at the chrome, only giving a little twist at the end. His painstaking approach catches Angel’s attention. Then she realizes that he’s wearing gloves, silk gloves by the look of them. She didn’t notice them earlier because they’re almost the same shade of tan as the skin on his forearms.

  ‘How did you do that?’ she asks.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Find a pair of gloves that color.’

  ‘I didn’t.’ In fact, Carter dyed a pair of white gloves with tea, a trick learned when he was still a soldier proudly serving in the armed forces of the United Sta
tes. He leans into the car’s interior and dabs at the dashboard. ‘Any more questions?’

  ‘Yeah, why are you dabbing like that? You look like you’re cleaning a spill off your suit.’

  The answer is simple enough. If the cops fingerprint the car, they’ll notice any wiped surfaces and draw the appropriate conclusion. ‘I’m not wearing a suit. And something else you might want to consider: if it wasn’t for you, I’d already be gone. So I’m probably not in the best of moods.’

  There’s a door leading into the backyard on the other side of the Lincoln. For just an instant, Angel indulges herself. She imagines vaulting over the hood, tearing through the door, fleeing across the lawn. But then Carter backs out of the car. He nudges the door closed with his knee and turns to face her.

  ‘Tell me what you’re doing here?’

  Carter knows that he’s best served by killing this woman. Avoid collateral damage? Minimize civilian casualties? Sure, by all means. There are innocents on many battlefields. But minimize doesn’t mean eliminate. Neither does avoid. Besides, Carter doesn’t know whether or not she’s an innocent bystander. Maybe she’s a warrior, like Ricky Ditto, in which case she has no rights at all. In which case her beauty won’t save her. She’ll never leave the garage.

  ‘I’m, like, on a date,’ Angel finally says.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Angel.’

  ‘Show me some ID.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re a whore, isn’t that right? When you say “date”, you mean he’s paying you to fuck him.’

  Ordinarily, Angel lies about her profession. Not this time. ‘I’m a sex worker,’ she says.

  ‘Congratulations, it’s a lot better than being his girlfriend.’ Carter has trafficked with whores in the past, as a uniformed soldier, a mercenary and as a soldier of fortune. He harbors them no ill will. Mostly – though probably not in this case – their working lives were about survival under harsh circumstances. ‘So, what’s with the outfit? And I meant what I said. Show me some ID. In fact, just toss me your purse.’

  Angel complies eagerly. She watches him extract her driver’s license, her Social Security card and her Brooklyn College ID card. That he’s memorizing her address and Social Security number is a given. That he wouldn’t bother if he intended to kill her is also a given.

  When the door opens, don’t hesitate, walk on through. Seize the day. Angel opts for submission. She’s thinking that she doesn’t have to cringe. This weird-looking man, with his green jacket and his plaid sport shirt and his khaki chinos, doesn’t care what she’s feeling. He wants her to obey.

  Carter tosses the purse to Angel. At least she didn’t lie when he asked her name. Angela is close enough to Angel. And her last name, Tamanaka, confirms his guess about her ancestry.

  ‘Your mother’s Caucasian, right?’

  ‘My mother’s a drunk.’

  The answer takes Carter by surprise, though his expression doesn’t change. He’s thinking it’s time to get out of Dodge. Past time, actually. ‘Here’s what happens next, Angel. You and me, we’re going through that door at the back of the garage. Then we’re gonna walk around the house, down the driveway and make a right turn. There’s a van parked near the end of the block. We’ll enter it through the side door, no delay, no hesitation. Understood?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Good. Now, I want you to open your umbrella so we can huddle beneath it when we get to the end of the driveway. I want us to be a loving couple just going about our business, no reason in the world to pay us any attention.’ Carter shoves the gun into his pocket. ‘Don’t make a mistake here, Angel. Plan B is real simple: I kill you. Now, tell me what’s up with the outfit? You look like a nun.’

  Angel’s mind boils with unanswered questions. What if someone, a neighbor, sees them walking away from the scene of a murder? What if someone saw her drive up with Ricky? What if someone noticed a strange van parked on the block? How can he be sure that she won’t run to the cops the minute he releases her? Angel has no time to consider the answers, though she can’t stop the questions. She’s too busy doing what she does so well, entertaining a man. Angel tells Carter all about her work as they make their way around the house and along the driveway to the sidewalk, as they boldly march up the block. Her tone is engaged and somewhat intimate, as if she was revealing some juicy bit of gossip to a close friend.

  ‘I mean, you look in the phone book under escort services, you find hundreds of ads. But not my agency, not Pigalle Studios. At Pigalle, you have to be personally recommended. We don’t even have an address. It’s all word of mouth and Pierre runs the whole thing out of his loft. Pierre says that what we do is an art form.’

  Angel notes Carter’s occasional smile and wonders if he’s turned on. ‘Far from controlling my life, I haven’t seen Pierre since last August when I ran into him at a party. He collects the fee – credit card only – and deposits my commission in my bank account. At the end of the year, I get a 1099 tax form in the mail and I pay what I owe. No harm, no foul.’

  Carter unlocks the van with his remote. He opens the side door, motions Angel through and follows closely behind, forcing her against the far door. Then he locks the doors and flips a child protection switch that allows him to control the door locks throughout the van. Finally satisfied, he starts the engine and drives away.

  ‘If I was your client, what fantasy do you think I’d pick?’ he asks.

  Angel tilts her head to one side and peers at Carter. Talk about forgettable. Carter’s neither ugly, nor handsome. He’s a twenty-something in good shape, though not especially broad or tall, with medium-length, light brown hair, not quite a nerd, but definitely edging toward that side of the spectrum. That he should be a professional killer amazes her.

  ‘OK, like you’re this hard-hearted, cold-blooded, merciless assassin. You’ve murdered so many people you can’t even remember their faces. And what you’re thinkin’, though you don’t say it out loud, is that you have to kill me, too. I mean, keepin’ me alive? It doesn’t make sense. But there’s something about me, so young, so innocent, that your heart is touched …’ Angel’s about to say, ‘And your cock, too,’ but censors herself at the last moment. Which is not to say that she wouldn’t trade sex for her life.

  Carter laughs for the first time in weeks, laughs at Angel’s boldness. ‘In the end, of course, I let you go. I let you go and everybody lives happily ever after.’

  ‘Or words to that effect.’

  ‘Do I get laid along the way?’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘No, I want you to pass a little test for me, a one-question test: How can I be sure you won’t run to the cops if I let you go?’

  Angel’s already asked herself the same question. Now, hearing it from Carter’s lips, she knows there’s an answer. She knows because she’s looking right at him and he’s not worried.

  Carter takes the scenic route back to Manhattan, Broadway instead of the West Side Highway. He doesn’t want to pass over the Henry Hudson Bridge with its toll plaza and surveillance cameras that photograph every license plate. He wants more time with Angel, too.

  ‘Here’s a hint,’ Carter says. ‘You probably won’t have to go to the cops. Most likely, they’ll come to you.’

  Damn, Angel thinks. She must be a complete idiot. Ricky Ditto can be tied to Pigalle Studios through his credit card records. And Pierre? Pierre’s a nice guy, but if the cops press him, he’ll give her up in a heartbeat.

  ‘So, what are you gonna tell them, Angel? If the cops should knock on your door? Will you claim that a mysterious hitman just happened to be waiting in the house when you showed up? How will you prove it? I didn’t leave any trace evidence in that house. It’s your word against nothing.’

  ‘OK, I get the point. So tell me what you’d do, if you were in my position.’

  ‘I’d call my pimp—’

  ‘My agent.’

  ‘I’d call my agent and tell him the tric
k didn’t—’

  ‘The client.’

  ‘I’d tell him the client never showed up. I’m cold, I’m wet and I’m really pissed off.’

  ‘What about the cops?’

  ‘If you get any warning that the cops have been around, hire a lawyer and keep his business card in your pocket. If you don’t get a warning – if the cops snatch you off the street – invoke your right to remain silent and ask for an attorney. They’ll keep coming at you, right? They’re not gonna stop the first time you ask. But if you keep your mouth shut long enough, one of two things will happen. If the cops have enough to make an arrest, they’ll put you in the system. If they don’t, they’ll let you go. This is true whether you talk to them or not. No matter what you say, if the cops have enough evidence to make an arrest, you’ll be arrested.’

  They drift into silence as they pass through the valley at 125th Street, heading south, then climb a steep hill running alongside elevated subway tracks that disappear underground a third of the way up. They’re in another world now, Harlem behind them, Columbia University and Barnard College to either side. Landscaped medians, carefully attended, run the length of each block. Even in the rain, even lit by the odd amber light cast by the street lamps, the contrast with the black and Latino neighborhood to the north catches Carter’s attention, as it has before. Thousands of tulips rise straight from the earth, tulips of every color, proud as soldiers on a parade ground. And there’s at least one cherry tree on every block. In another week, if the weather stays warm, they’ll be in their full glory. For now, their tight blossoms cast a fuzzy pink haze over the rain-slicked branches.