Adieu Warm Sunshine Page 3

  "My God," Pamela said as she got her feet into the machine.

  "I like to be ready for anything."

  "I can imagine the things you're ready for."

  Sunny snorted. "Race you."

  They sprinted then relaxed into a rhythm, chatting amiably while General Hospital played on the screens in front of them.

  "...And then her leotard split, right up her ass!" Pamela said.

  Sunny stopped mid-laugh as her phone chirped. She stopped her machine, hopped off, and read the screen. "Gotta go."

  "Yeah?"

  "Right now." Sunny grabbed her coat and made for the door.

  Pamela glanced over her shoulder at the retreating form. "Well. That will probably get old fast."

  But Sunny turned and smiled just before she was out of sight. "Tomorrow," she called. "Your dressing room."

  Pamela smiled and waved back. "Tomorrow."

  Chapter Two

  The job was a solo one near Sunny's location at the gym. She knew there were fifty other agents operating in shifts in New York City at the moment, spread out or concentrated as needed.

  Around the block was a bodega. Its basement entrance was open, presenting a gaping maw in the middle of the sidewalk. A young man was hauling up a trash bag to the curb as she descended the steps. He didn't glance at her.

  They never did.

  She went through the basement and its stinking refuse to a door at the far end, which led into a proper, well-lit corridor, then another at a right angle, and then upstairs again into the faceless offices that had no street entrance, no windows, and no clients but plenty of work.

  People typed at computers. She walked swiftly past them, only a shadow to startle them from whatever reverie, and she found more stairs. Third floor. Fourth.

  Then she was in concrete apartments, no more space than a convent's cell, often with double beds. Immigrants crowded them. She could sense the rats in the walls. Another door and into an old library of dust-covered books, a beautiful desk with a laptop, and a sudden, sunny, startling view of the financial district out a floor-to-ceiling window.

  A man was working at the laptop, facing away from the sunlight. He looked up. He seemed surprised to see her.

  "How did you get here?"

  She had blueprints on her phone. Nothing was really hidden in the city. She shrugged.

  "Not even my clients know where I work."

  "Victor Red?"

  "Yes. And you?"

  "I'm here to arrest you."

  He didn't stand up or look perturbed. But she saw his arm twitch. He was reaching for something under his desk. "On what charges?"

  "Sending money to Bulgaria." She was Constitutionally obligated to tell them. They never admitted their crimes anyway. It didn't hurt anything to be blunt.

  "Is that a crime?"

  "When you send it to the wrong people. Put the gun down, Mr. Red."

  He shot at her instead. The shot went wide, splintering a book. Dust rained down on her. She walked around the table, and he shot again, this time grazing her side, but she'd worn a bulletproof vest. Standard protocol. She took the gun from him.

  He'd peed his pants. "I'm just an accountant."

  "Tell me who you work for, then."

  He looked scared but then looked at his gun, looked at her face, and straightened. "I'll tell my lawyer."

  "You don't get a lawyer, Mr. Red."

  "What?"

  "If you give us the information, we'll deport you to Hungary. If you don't, we'll detain you."

  "Where?"

  "You don't get to know that either, Mr. Red."

  He was afraid again. "I'll cooperate. Please. I have a daughter."

  "Good. We'll see what we can do. Let's go."

  He put on his coat, long enough to hide his pants, and his hat, pulled down low over his ears, and then he followed her out. Compliant. Friendly, even.

  They left through the front entrance, down two staircases, a secret door, and out through the bodega. He gave a pained smile to the shopkeeper, who waved and said, "Have a nice day, Vicki." No one noticed her or called her a nice girl or seemed too threatened.

  She radioed for a car, and when it came, she shoved Victor Red inside, and forgot about him. Techs would come for the laptop, but they already had the evidence they needed. In a year, if he was truly compliant, his daughter could visit him in a state prison, minimum security. In five years, he could be out.

  She didn't care. This wasn't her primary job in New York City. She had merely been in the right place at the right time for a side extraction. Her targets always cooperated. The mobsters especially, if they were second or third generation. First generation, they left to SWAT. Those old guys had better aim than Victor Red, who'd never shot a gun in his life. Now he was two shots up on her.

  A job well done. She checked her watch. Too late for the gym. Too early for dinner. She hired an Uber. It came faster than the extraction car had. She hopped in.

  "You didn't put a destination in your phone," the driver, a young, dark-skinned woman, maybe Indian, said.

  "Drive all the way down to the tip, then up again through Harlem to the Bronx, then down to the airport."

  "What? Come on, don't be one of them crazy ones."

  Sunny proffered up a hundred dollar bill. "And keep the radio off."

  "You want silence on our little five hour drive?"

  "No. I want to know how your day is going."

  "What?"

  "Really."

  "You mean, my day before I picked up the weirdo."

  Sunny's expression softened. "Yes, before then. What was your last fare?"

  Accustomed to chatting with every customer, the woman began to talk with Sunny.

  Sunny sat back and gazed out the window, listening and comparing everything to a list of keywords she'd memorized. It went well.

  #

  At intermission, Pamela was dragged into the hallway by her ear by Derek Little, the stage manager. "Where is your head today? You're showboating!"

  "I'm in a good mood?"

  "Well, stop it. You're supposed to be invisible out there, not radiating energy like a damn star."

  She brightened. "Am I acting like a star?"

  He glowered. "Stop it."

  She rotated her jaw.

  "Concentrate on your moves. One, two, three. One, two, three. Be in the now, not...wherever you are."

  She nodded.

  He headed toward the stairwell. "Goddamn dancers getting laid, fucks up the energy..."

  Brie bounced toward her. "You got laid?"

  Pamela grinned. "Can't you tell?"

  "You do seem... relaxed."

  "Mmhm."

  "How long has it been?" Brie asked.

  "Since I got laid?"

  "Yeah. Wait, didn't you just have a fling with whatshisname?"

  "What? Who knows about that?" Pamela lowered her voice.

  "Um, everyone. I think you even made BroadwayWorld."

  Pamela's mood came crashing down. She sighed and didn't answer.

  Brie squeezed her shoulder. "Well, he sure didn't make you glow like that."

  "I'm going to get fired. Derek said he was going to have to peel me off the ceiling."

  "Just don't let Angela see you. You know how she is."

  "Murderous," Pamela answered.

  Brie nodded enthusiastically.

  "I'll be cool."

  "Want to run lines in the bathroom?"

  It was code. Coke was freely available, white powder like stage snow or foundation.

  Pamela shook her head.

  Brie headed off with a wave.

  Pamela went to her makeup counter—well, the little shelf and mirror she shared with two other dancers—and found her eye drops. Two in one eye, that's all it took. She blinked against the brown of the liquid and let the cold wash through her.

  Focus came and calmed her racing heart. Everything would be okay.

  Except she wouldn't be seeing Sunny tonight. There was naught to do but work.

  The red light flashed, and she had to scramble to get into her Act II, Scene I dress. She'd be one of the townspeople, invisible and in a stupid hat. Not even her biggest fan would recognize her. That was all right for now.

  Angela strutted by, an assistant following her, still making pin adjustments to her gown. All eyes would be on her in city seconds, leaving Pamela in peace.

  Try as she might, she couldn't keep a tiny, happy grin coming back to her face.

  #

  Sunny brought donuts to the squad room.

  "You missed roll-call," Vash said as he reached for a cruller.

  "Was my name called?" she asked.

  "Mysteriously not."

  She smiled, settled her chair and booted up her computer.

  "It wasn't called last week, either."

  "I close a lot of cases."

  "What kind?"

  "That murder in Tudor City, for one. You were there."

  Vash swallowed his doughnut and nodded. "Murders on the island make you uncomfortable."

  "Especially out in the open like that."

  "So that was last week. What's this week?"

  Sunny reached across their desks and picked up a file. "Bench warrants? Really?"

  "I volunteered us."

  "Why?"

  "You know why."

  Sunny narrowed her eyes. Having a cover as a cop was an annoyance with an inquisitive partner like Vash. Manhattan didn't play the too-smart-to-police game, and he was a Columbia graduate with a B.A. in journalism. He'd gotten his gold shield by busting a case wide open on his own. And he had never had a whiff of corruption. He didn't like to get his hands dirty. Didn't like to beat anyone. Loved paperwork.

  Worst partner ever. He knew too much. She should have had a cover in patrol, but that didn't give enough computer access. As if ViCAP had ever helped anyone solve a case.

  Vash loved patterns, and he'd sniffed out hers.

  "I'll give you another doughnut if you just spit it out, Vash."

  He grinned. One doughnut was the rule. "You're good at finding people, Sunflower."

  "And why do you think that is?" She pushed over the doughnut box.

  He chose chocolate this time. "Why? I don't know. Maybe you can smell them."

  "Impossible. I can't smell shit with that cologne you're wearing."

  "Bitch, please. Are you going to play bench warrant with me or not?"

  "What's the alternative?"

  "Door-to-doors on the Franklin robbery."

  "Fuck."

  "Or extra patrols down in Brooklyn. Gang activity."

  Sunny shook her head.

  "Black car police escort for the mayor."

  She chose her doughnut. "Fine, fine, we can go find—" She opened the folder. "—Henrich Washington after I'm done eating."

  He nodded. "Where do you think he is?"

  She chewed and swallowed a piece of doughnut. "Twenty bucks he's at his momma's house."

  "I'm going for the girlfriend."

  "You always lose the girlfriend bet, Vash."

  "Not this time."

  "Twenty on the down-low," called Smitty from her desk.

  "That's so hard to prove. They just say they're hanging out."

  "Yeah, hanging out naked and watching porn. If it's so hard to prove, I want double or nothing."

  Vash grinned. "Double or nothing on the down-low."

  Sunny finished her doughnut. "Let's go."

  They found Henrich Washington at the public library, reading Facebook. Sunny had Googled him, and he'd checked in with his status update.

  The library security guard was more than happy to help them as they quietly led him to the car, no cuffs, only the security guard in uniform. Like they were just taking him for a nice ride.

  Sunny cuffed him when he was settled into the back seat.

  "What did I do?" Henrich asked.

  "Failure to appear."

  "Bitch. I don't have any warrants out on me. I'm clean. Ask my girlfriend."

  Vash raised his eyebrows encouragingly.

  Sunny rolled his eyes. "Doesn't count."

  Vash sighed and started the car.

  "Failure to appear for jury duty, numbnuts."

  "That's a crime?"

  "After the fourth time we go looking for you. To see, you know, if you've died."

  "Damnit. Do I have to go to jail?"

  "Probably just a fine. And a brisk exploration of your butticular regions."

  "As long as I'm home for dinner."

  Sunny leaned back in the front seat and closed her yes. "You and me both, Mr. Washington."

  "Hot date, Sunny?" Vash asked.

  "For once, you're right."

  "What?"

  Sunny nodded.

  "Well, well, well, lupus solitarius makes a friend."

  #

  Sunny paced outside the stage door. People looked at her, which she hated. She imagined them memorizing her face, surreptitiously telling the cops there was a woman all in black stalking some famous actress. Like she could tell. She'd done security once for an Annie Potts show, that was it.

  The stars had apparently come and gone, and the crowd had dissipated to a few hardcore fans deep in conversation and one professional photographer who was flipping through the pictures he'd gotten of the lead and her mother. There had been flowers and tears.

  Usually Sunny knew what was going on. She hated being above-ground and outside.

  Finally she went through the stage door.

  A bored security officer behind a panel glanced up at her. "Yeah?"

  "Where's Pamela Costis?"

  "Who are you to ask?"

  She pushed back her coat, revealing the gold shield on her belt.

  He flipped through his papers. "Pamela wasn't on tonight."

  "What? What does that mean?"

  "In layman's terms, she didn't come to work today."

  "Why? Was she sick?"

  He shrugged.

  "Who can I talk to?"

  "I don't know who's left. Derek, the stage manager, might still be backstage." He jerked his head toward a door.

  Sunny headed for the door.

  "Hey, can you sign in?" he asked.

  "No." She went through the door and found a staircase. She jogged upstairs and down a narrow hallway to backstage. Which was really just the stage. Pulleys and ropes and wires hung from the rafters. Workers grunted from the catwalk. Huge props and costume racks created little corridors she had to push through until she found an overweight, white, young man with a beard staring at a clipboard.

  "Derek?" she asked.

  He looked up, squinted at her. "You shouldn't be back here."

  "I'm looking for Pamela Costis."

  "She didn't show up for work today."

  "Is she sick?"

  "She didn't call. We called her number. She didn't call us back."

  "Where is she?"

  "Jesus, lady, I don't know. If you find her, tell her she's fired."

  Sunny winced. "Got her emergency contact information?"

  "The guard can look it up for you downstairs. Who the fuck are you?"

  "Cop," she said.

  "Maybe that's why she didn't show up for work today."

  It's not like that, she wanted to say but didn't. Because maybe it was.

  "Why do you say that?" she asked.

  He gave her a hard look and then turned back to his clipboard. She could push him, get it out of him, make him twist and bleed and confess every bad thing he'd ever done. But her heart was failing, at least that's what it felt like, that cold emptiness in her chest and stomach. So she turned around and went downstairs and got Pamela's emergency contact information.

  She called Pamela's cell three times.

  "I got stood up," she'd have to tell Vash. Then she'd go back to her life, how it was before, and forget about it. One night stands happened all the time, didn't they? And even one night stands that felt like miracles happened, and it didn't change anything. At least that's what the music said.

  If she pulled Pamela's sheet, she'd be a stalker. But it might put her mind at ease.

  It might discredit her. That was the real truth of it. Sunny could go searching and find imperfection, and that would justify walking away.

  But the gym... Their bed... It had all felt like there was a next time to it. A set date. Quitting one's job to avoid a date seemed a little extreme. But maybe Pamela was flighty. Maybe she was just pretending to be a dancer, like Sunny was pretending to be a cop.

  Maybe... Maybe...

  Sunny went home on the subway and didn't notice the shadows in the corners, didn't see drugs trading hands, kids without parents, clean-cut men paying too much attention to things, women or Arabs being hassled, bikes getting stolen, floors getting sticky.

  She only saw what wasn't there. Pamela.

  Chapter Three

  Vash leaned over and tapped Sunny's shoulder. "I haven't seen you in two days, and you're... moping?"

  "I'm not moping." Sunny ducked her chin.

  "Sulking?"

  "Thinking."

  "Brooding."

  "Maybe brooding." She gave him a hooded glance.

  "Last time I saw you, you were on top of the world. You even brought doughnuts."

  "Yeah, well."

  "Relationship problems?"

  "Like I'd ever be in a relationship." It broke her heart to say it.

  "Sex problems?"

  She didn't dignify that with a response.

  "Sunny, I can't have you brooding all over. We have to execute a search warrant today."

  "No bench warrants?"

  Vash shook his head. "Too much drug activity. They think a shipment came in. We missed it."

  "We're not Narcotics."

  "Right, and because we're not Narcos, we're going to be dealing with a lot of bodies on our streets."

  "That's overdramatic."

  "Says Ms. Sulky."

  Sunny rolled her head and sighed. "It's just that... this girl went missing, and I don't know whether or not I should track her down."

  "She a missing person?"

  "I haven't checked."

  Vash frowned. "It's not like you to have moral qualms about pulling a sheet, Sunny."

  "What's that mean?"

  "It means you're good with computers." He let the real answer hang between them. She didn't take the bait.

  "The moral question isn't to pull just anyone's jacket. It's to pull hers."