The Polka Dot Girl Read online

  I moved forward and said, “You can relax, Ileana. I know this chick. How’s it going, Merrylegs?”

  Camilla’s gunsel gave a small bow—it came across as sincere, not sarcastic—and a smaller smile. “It goes well, Detective Auf der Maur. I have a message for you from Ms Castelmagno.”

  She glanced at Misery and Ileana, then back at me, and raised her eyebrows.

  I said, “It’s cool. You can speak in front of them.”

  Merrylegs lit a cigarette, the match-strike casting her face in wan yellow. She said, “My employer said you’d want to know this. We’ve located Erika Baton.”

  Chapter 25

  Erika

  I GOT the jump on her. At least, I thought I had.

  Standing in the door frame of Erika Baton’s apartment, my gun pointed directly at the center of her face, I thought: I have you now, you fucker. Dead bang. Then I said out loud, “Move just a half-inch and I’ll paint the wall with your brains.” She didn’t react. She didn’t seem worried. She didn’t even seem surprised. Erika sneered and put down her can of beer and mumbled, “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere, buttercup.”

  I had bid a hasty goodbye to Misery at the Fallen Officer monument. After Merrylegs’ bombshell there wasn’t time for explanations or apologies. The old lady seemed to understand: she just nodded gravely, as if to say: “Go do what you have to.” I said, “We’ll talk again”, grabbed Merrylegs by the arm and started walking briskly, almost jogging, towards the entrance to Golden Park. The skinny heavy didn’t object, just ambled along beside me.

  I said, breathless, “Where is she?”

  “Holed up in an apartment. Above a laundromat on the corner of Fairywren and White Sands. You know it?”

  I knew it. A scummy part of town, no doubt a scummy apartment…where else would a scumbag like Erika hide out, like the rat she was?

  I nodded. Merrylegs said, “Number 4C. Top floor. Elevator ’s busted—you’ll have to go up by the stairs. Our source says she’s on her own all day. Nobody in or out. She don’t go in or out. I don’t know what she does in there all day. Personally I’d get kinda…bored.”

  She gave me that funny, crooked smile. I smiled back and let go of her arm as we passed through the black wrought-iron

  gates, frosted with snow around the edges like some kind of elaborate, food-as-art-statement confectionary.

  “Thanks,” I said. “And tell Camilla the same.”

  “Sure. Hey, uh… I don’t know I should be saying this but: you need some back-up? This Baton broad, I heard she can be pretty saucy when she wants to be.”

  Jesus, that’s all I needed—a racketeer ’s henchwoman riding shotgun on an official bust. I said, “No. But thank you. I’m okay. I’ll be okay.”

  I patted the bulge under my jacket and grinned, momentarily feeling braver than I really did. A false courage, I guess, flooding through my system, flushed by all that adrenaline. Merrylegs said, “Alright”, tipped her hat to me and withdrew into the shadows like a spirit stealing away, leaving me on my own. I checked my watch: the small hand creeping past four. I was tired and colder than I’d realized but I had to keep going.

  Fairywren and White Sands: you couldn’t get two bigger misnomers on the entire map of Hera City. One sounded like an enchanted glade in a children’s fable, the other like a beautiful beach or an exclusive golfing resort. But these two streets, and the junction at which they met, were the complete opposite to any of that: run-down, sleazy, rubbish-strewn, dangerous. Above all, dangerous. This was a place where, like in the old cliché, life was cheap and everything was for sale. Drugs, guns, prostitutes, even kids, illegal exotic pets, body parts, assassinations…and assassins. I parked three blocks away and walked the rest of the way. A panhandler lurched towards me as I approached along Fairywren, padding through the dank pools of light cast by crooked streetlamps. She moaned, “Something for my head, come on, come on, gimme something for the head.” I ignored her and kept padding. A piece of crumpled plastic rattled along in the quiet, blown by the wind. There was even something menacing in that sound.

  Nobody hanging around outside Kleen ‘n’ Kleer Laundromat, nobody walking the streets that I could see. I stopped ten yards from the junction and scoped out Fairywren both ways—still nobody—then flitted across the street on light feet. I dashed into the alcove next to the laundromat, the entrance to the apartments above, pulling back into the darkness. Deep breaths, slowing my system down, getting the measure of things. I leaned against the door; it was unlocked, as these places always are. They’re supposed to have a street-side locking and alarm system—you’re supposed to have to buzz through for someone inside to allow you access—but in a shithole like this, locks are a luxury and alarms are little more than a myth. I eased the door open.

  Darkness. It took my eyes eight or ten seconds to adjust, to dredge whatever residual light there was from the atmosphere and process it into visuals. The joint looked slightly better inside than outside, but only just. Shabby, depressing, with cracks on the wall, peeling paint, mold and damp spreading on the ceiling like a black disease. A smell of burst pipes somewhere, that vague but always recognizable tang of human effluent. And fumes off harsh chemicals, presumably from the laundromat, which were strong enough to make your eyes water. The place came into focus: a block of mailboxes, access door to stairs and elevator, a large but sickly-looking houseplant in a pot, a chair standing in the middle of the corridor for no obvious reason. Apartment 4C, that’s what Merrylegs had said. I moved towards the stairs.

  Quietly, carefully—my life could depend on it. I crept up each floor, wincing at each creak of the wood, each heavy footfall, my heart hammering up high in my throat, my head filled with that irrational but overwhelming thought that everyone else can hear it. Ba-dum-dum, ba-dum-dum… Stay cool, Genie. Then I was at Erika’s floor, and at Erika’s door. I almost walked past it, because 4C was directly across the corridor when I opened the access door on that story. I clocked the number in imitation brass and took five or six steps towards the next door and realised what I’d seen and came back on tiptoes. 4C.

  This was it. I pulled my gun, chambered a round and leaned towards the door. No sound inside. I stood like that for what seemed an age—maybe three minutes in reality, maybe more. Just listening, for any sound of movement, of life inside, with one eye always on the door to the stairs in case Erika might be getting in late herself. Still no sound. I ran through my options: kick the door down and burst in there? Pick the lock and sneak through? Either way I didn’t know the layout of the place. I had surprise on my side but fumbling around for a light switch or tripping over the couch would negate that. Call for back-up? I was reluctant: there were other people in this building, regular people, and who knew what kind of bullets-flying clusterfuck Erika would unleash if she thought she was trapped?

  Then the woman herself solved my conundrum—I heard bedsprings creak and footsteps from a room to the right of the door, coming left, stopping straight in front of where I stood. A heavy sigh. A light came on inside, visible through the large gap at the foot of the door. Another creak sounded, this time of a large body sitting into an armchair. A can of something being cracked open. A TV blurting into life, gabbled talkshow bullshit at a low volume. Looked like Erika Baton suffered the same sleep problems as the rest of us.

  I waited another two minutes, silent, unmoving, petrified. Then I chanced a peek through the keyhole and there she sat, slumped and beefy, wearing a vest and shorts, drinking a beer, staring dully at the TV, her face bathed in the electric blue of the screen and the greenish-yellow cast of a tall lamp with a fringed shade. In that light, in that position, she didn’t look like a remorseless killing machine. Erika looked like a fucking slob.

  No more thinking, no more waiting. I took a few steps back, went down low on one leg and kicked hard with the other. The door-lock went straight away, crappy little thing, useless to all intents and purposes, like they always are in these dumps. The door flew inwa
rds and I stepped in after it, standing in the doorframe with my legs set wide apart, gun in both hands, her head the target. Bang. Got you.

  Which brings us back to the start. Cue cool line about using her brains as house-paint. Cue her nonplussed retort. The place was a toilet, a shitty dive. It smelled as bad as it looked, and it looked even worse than the rest of this building. I took one step forward and felt really goddamn nervous, even though I was drawing a bead with a fully loaded Beretta 950 and I knew that she knew that I knew how to use it. That’s the sort of effect a woman like that has on you: edginess, panic, even terror. I knew what she was capable of. I knew she was twice my weight and had three times my strength. I knew she was a psycho who couldn’t feel a fucking thing.

  Erika took a slug from her beer and let it down on the ground with a surprisingly dainty movement. She reached for something on the far side of the armchair—I tensed—she sneered again and said, “Relax, little sister. Just getting my smokes.”

  She brought up the pack and a lighter with exaggerated slowness and care, showing them to me and raising her eyebrows sardonically. My hands trembled slightly. Putting as much bravado as I could into my voice, I said, “I wouldn’t be too cute if I were you. I’ve got an itchy trigger finger. A nervous one.”

  “Yeah, so I noticed. That day, you put ten fuckin’ holes in my car. Should I bill you for the repairs?”

  “The more you get cute, the more it gets itchy, Erika.”

  “Oh, so you know my name, huh? Well, good for you, buttercup. Won’t help you in the long run, but shit. Good job by the police.”

  She lit a cigarette and took a few long, deep drags, then flicked ash on the floor. She turned to face me full-on and said, “So—how can I help the HCPD?”

  I noticed she had a large, vivid bruise on the left side of her face, running from the jawline right up to the eyebrow. It looked bad. It looked the color of an over-ripe aubergine. It looked like the tough gal had met someone tougher.

  “What happened your face?”

  “I was born like this. Genetics, they call it.”

  “You know what I mean. How does it feel to be on the receiving end for once?”

  “Oh, you mean this?” She pointed to the bruise. “She wants to know how does it feel. Not so good, Detective Auf der Maur. But don’t worry. I’ll get mine yet.”

  The gun, my hands, my whole body trembled a little more. “How do you know my name?”

  Erika gave me a look as if to say, Don’t be so fucking stupid. And she was right in a way—the question was totally redundant, on every level. I said, “You didn’t answer me. Who gave you the shiner?”

  “Why? Are you gonna investigate? Collar someone for assault?” She laughed. “Some crazy bitch jumped me with a tire- iron. I fought her off. She’s a dead woman, she just don’t know it yet.”

  “It looks painful, Erika. I’m glad.”

  “Now, that ain’t a very charitable thing to say.”

  “I’m not in a charitable mood. I saw what you did to Madeleine Greenhill.”

  She let the smoke drop into the can of beer—it quenched with a wet fizzle. Then she said, “What I did? And what exactly was that, buttercup?”

  I took another few steps towards her, feeling ever-so-slightly emboldened. I mean, I had her: she wasn’t getting out of this, she couldn’t get to me. I said, “Come off it. What you did? Quit the shit, please. It’s boring for both of us.”

  She smiled and shrugged. I said, “You ruined her face. That poor girl, you smashed it up. So what I want to know is: how does it feel, motherfucker? To get a taste of your own medicine?”

  “I told you. It doesn’t feel too good.” She paused. “Okay. Suppose I—what’s the word for it? Suppose I hypothetically agree with you. I say, sure, it’s possible I may have had something to do with that little cooze dying. So what?”

  “Watch how you fucking speak about her, Erika.”

  “Oh, so she got to you too, huh? Poor Madeleine. That little cunt is everyone’s favorite victim, ain’t she?”

  “I said watch your fucking mouth!”

  I realized I was shouting and angry. I realized she’d got to me. Dumb, Genie, really dumb. Erika smiled, pleased and smug. I calmed my mind, stared into space, breathed urgently and as quietly as I could. Stay cool, for Christ’s sake. For your sake. I transferred the Beretta to my right hand and wriggled a pack of Dark Nine out of my jacket pocket with my left and wriggled a smoke out of the pack.

  Putting it in my mouth I said, “I wanna know. Why did you destroy her face like that? What was it, throw the cops off the scent for a while longer? You might as well tell me now. Were you paid extra for it?”

  I wriggled out my lighter and lit the Dark Nine while she said, “Fine. Fuck it. Won’t make a lick of difference anyway. Sure, I killed her. I fucked her up good. But I didn’t deliberately do the face. No extra money. My orders were, kill the bitch, dump the body, thank you and goodnight.”

  “So what happened to her face?”

  “The fish happened to her face. The fucking animals in the water, buttercup. They gotta eat something, right? I killed the kid by hammering her skull with my best friend. Several times. I only aimed for the head but she probably took a few to the face as well, I don’t know. I wasn’t being real careful, you know what I’m saying? Anyway, what difference does it make to you? She’s dead. She don’t care how she looks.”

  “Your best friend. That’s what you call it—that weapon. The, the, baton thing.”

  She pointed to herself and smiled again. “Hence the name. Yeah, you’ve met my best friend, ain’t you? Got real close to it in the Zig-Zag the other night. Actually, you’re real special, buttercup.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Very few people get a kiss from my best friend and live to tell the tale. …It’s a thing of beauty, you know that? Place it nice and close to the head, release the catch and boom-boom: lights out. Really is beautiful.”

  “You’re sick. You’re, you actually have a psychiatric problem.” Jesus Christ, Genie, shut up. Don’t let her rattle you. She’s trying to rattle you. And it’s working.

  I gulped heavily and said, “Alright, that’s enough. Get up. We’re going downtown.”

  I took a few quick drags on my smoke, tossed it to the floor and edged further into the room, creeping along by the wall, painfully slowly, so slowly I was barely moving. Past a high cupboard, rotting wood curling at the edges of the floor, grime in there, probably roaches, maybe rats. I felt dirty just being here.

  Erika gave that horrible unhinged smile and said, “I got time for another beer?”

  “I said get up, you bitch. Now.”

  “Ooh. She’s impatient, this one. But don’t worry, buttercup. Not long to wait now. Not long at all.”

  “Not long for what?”

  “For your fucking death, whaddyou think?”

  “And that’s another one I’ve got you on: threatening a police officer. I’ll just add that to all the others.”

  “Do what you like. I told you—won’t make no difference. You’re dead. You’re all fucking dead.”

  She actually growled at this point, low and ragged, from the chest. The monster was waking up, and I didn’t like it one bit. But I had to know: “So I was the intended target all along, then? On Datlow Street, in the rain that day? It’s funny: I figured you had the wrong woman. Figured on mistaken identity. Guess I was wrong. Who put out the hit on me, Erika? And why?”

  “Well, there’s the thing, buttercup: you figured right. I did think you were someone else. Not that it woulda bothered me to ice you too, but you weren’t the target. You are now, but you weren’t then.” She stood out of the chair and I remembered how large she was, brawny and hulking; I remembered her bulk leaning over me in the Zig-Zag, my doom in her thick muscular hands.

  I waggled the gun at her and said, “Alright, that’ll do. Just stay right where you are. …So who? That day, the first day. Who was your real target? I’ll get it out o
f you eventually, might as well ’fess up now.”

  I stopped at an archway which led, I figured, through to an ante-room and then onto the bedroom. I took the Beretta in my left hand and began fumbling for my cuffs with the other.

  Erika took two quick steps towards me. My heart-rate shot up another notch, a new tempo, more panicky: badda-dum-badda- dum-badda-dum. She said, “You won’t get shit from me, and we both know it.” Another notch, and another, I was like a fucking mouse on a treadmill, I didn’t think a person’s heart could beat that fast.

  She was one more step closer to me and I took my hand back around from the cuffs and placed it on the gun again and steadied both trembling hands and yelled, “I said that’s enough. One more step and I’ll fire. Last warning.”

  She smiled and stopped. She put up her hands in surrender. She glanced for a split-second to a spot behind my right shoulder. Before I’d even processed it, let alone had time to physically react, someone unseen had cracked me on the back of the head with something heavy and hard-edged. My mind was swamped with unconsciousness for a second and then I resur- faced but groggy, weak-kneed, on the way out. I think my gun might have fired once. I think I might have heard it fire. Then the unseen someone was pinning my arms to my sides while Erika stepped forward much quicker than I would have thought someone that big could move and knocked the Beretta to the ground. She smiled at me once more. Unconsciousness beckoned me back and Erika sent me to it with a right fist that nearly took my little fucking head off.

  When I came around, it wasn’t quite me that was coming around. I felt nauseous, off-kilter, my brain trying to stage-dive out of my skull. And it wasn’t just concussion from the knock-out blow. She’d given me something—some wicked little chemical, sneaking into my system like molecular spies of Jericho, snooping around, doing damage, a very precise kind of sabotage.

  I opened my eyes a fraction and promptly closed them again. The light was too bright, it seared my eyeballs and took a razor to my forebrain. Or maybe the light wasn’t bright at all, maybe my perception was all blooey and I just thought it was too bright. I don’t know; I never was all that bright. I moved my left arm to rub my eyes, soothe the ache, distract myself from how bad I felt, and it was strapped to the chair in which I sat. Same for the other one. Erika Baton had me, and good.