couldn’t stay with him much longer. My legs weighed three hundred pounds. Each. My fingers tingled. My eyes hurt. And there was a sense of dread I’d never felt before. If I cashed in right here, right now, it wouldn’t be for lack of my body’s warnings.
I stopped. I told myself discretion was the better part of valor. I told myself I’d like to go back to Long Island and make love to Alicia. I told myself I’d get Sosenko soon, anyway. Let him go.
I turned and got on an up escalator, drained but relieved, feeling the knots inside me begin to ease, just a little. My watch told me it was 1:25. Which meant that Teague had been pacing in front of the library, watching for me, for nearly a half hour. By now he would be, as Wally Prager liked to say, red-faced and bug-eyed.
Tough.
Back through the Met Life lobby and out onto Forty-Fifth, then west to Fifth Avenue. Walking slowly, breathing deeply.
He’d doubled back and followed me. I felt his hand on my shoulder when I stopped for a red light at Fifth and Forty-Third. “Hey, fat-ass, don’t you want to play no more?” Sosenko said, his voice higher than a man who looked like that should have. “You’re pitiful, you know that? Gonna put you outta your fuckin misery. Pretty soon, now.” He didn’t just look dirty, he smelled dirty.
“We know who you are,” I said. “We know what you’re doing. We’re going to track you down and you just might make me kill you.”
“Well, I’m standin next to you right now, old man. Your big fuckin chance. Why don’t you take out your piece and blow me away?” Another surprise: his laugh was a kind of juvenile giggle, high-pitched and discordant. “Better lock your doors,” he said. He made a face, and turned back up Fifth Avenue. I walked on, quite certain now that I didn’t know half of this story yet.
I could see Teague standing in front of the library with his fists on his hips. “Forty-five minutes I’ve been standing here,” he announced while I was just barely within shouting distance. “You really go out of your way to piss me off, Seidenberg.”
Just what I needed.
CHAPTER XI
It’s not easy to tell when Roger Teague is truly angry, because even when he isn’t exploding, he looks as if he’s going to. His face is florid all the time, and you can see the veins at his temples. It’s as though everything inside him is under great pressure. You get the notion that blood could easily spurt from around his eyes, though I’ve never actually seen it happen. Being near him is like walking through a minefield. There’s always the sense that something terrible is going to happen.
I suspected that right now he was truly angry, though. I think it was the way he beat the air with his closed fists to punctuate what he said. “Forty-five minutes marching back and forth in front of the New York Public Library while you, what? take your goddamn time strolling down Fifth Avenue. I saw you. Couldn’t move your ass much slower, could you?”
“You saw me coming?” I said.
“Crawling along. Let Teague wait, right? What you thought?”
“You saw me talking to that grimy guy with the black portfolio case, then.”
“Got time to talk to every bum while you keep me waiting. Yeah, I saw. So what?”
“So what? So what is, his name is Hick Sosenko,” I told him. “He’s the sweet guy who killed David Newalis. Pulled him under water and drowned him, right in front of Ingo Julian’s house on Shelter Island. Since then he took a shot at Lisa Harper, one of Ingo’s inner circle. Been stalking Arthur Brody. Oh, and incidentally, tried to take me out a couple of times. ”
“What? And you were just standing there chatting with him?”
“I wouldn’t say chatting, exactly. I was telling him I’d have to kill him.”
“But you what? let him walk away?
“I know I should have shot him right there on the corner, Teague. But there were too many witnesses.”
“The
I stopped. I told myself discretion was the better part of valor. I told myself I’d like to go back to Long Island and make love to Alicia. I told myself I’d get Sosenko soon, anyway. Let him go.
I turned and got on an up escalator, drained but relieved, feeling the knots inside me begin to ease, just a little. My watch told me it was 1:25. Which meant that Teague had been pacing in front of the library, watching for me, for nearly a half hour. By now he would be, as Wally Prager liked to say, red-faced and bug-eyed.
Tough.
Back through the Met Life lobby and out onto Forty-Fifth, then west to Fifth Avenue. Walking slowly, breathing deeply.
He’d doubled back and followed me. I felt his hand on my shoulder when I stopped for a red light at Fifth and Forty-Third. “Hey, fat-ass, don’t you want to play no more?” Sosenko said, his voice higher than a man who looked like that should have. “You’re pitiful, you know that? Gonna put you outta your fuckin misery. Pretty soon, now.” He didn’t just look dirty, he smelled dirty.
“We know who you are,” I said. “We know what you’re doing. We’re going to track you down and you just might make me kill you.”
“Well, I’m standin next to you right now, old man. Your big fuckin chance. Why don’t you take out your piece and blow me away?” Another surprise: his laugh was a kind of juvenile giggle, high-pitched and discordant. “Better lock your doors,” he said. He made a face, and turned back up Fifth Avenue. I walked on, quite certain now that I didn’t know half of this story yet.
I could see Teague standing in front of the library with his fists on his hips. “Forty-five minutes I’ve been standing here,” he announced while I was just barely within shouting distance. “You really go out of your way to piss me off, Seidenberg.”
Just what I needed.
CHAPTER XI
It’s not easy to tell when Roger Teague is truly angry, because even when he isn’t exploding, he looks as if he’s going to. His face is florid all the time, and you can see the veins at his temples. It’s as though everything inside him is under great pressure. You get the notion that blood could easily spurt from around his eyes, though I’ve never actually seen it happen. Being near him is like walking through a minefield. There’s always the sense that something terrible is going to happen.
I suspected that right now he was truly angry, though. I think it was the way he beat the air with his closed fists to punctuate what he said. “Forty-five minutes marching back and forth in front of the New York Public Library while you, what? take your goddamn time strolling down Fifth Avenue. I saw you. Couldn’t move your ass much slower, could you?”
“You saw me coming?” I said.
“Crawling along. Let Teague wait, right? What you thought?”
“You saw me talking to that grimy guy with the black portfolio case, then.”
“Got time to talk to every bum while you keep me waiting. Yeah, I saw. So what?”
“So what? So what is, his name is Hick Sosenko,” I told him. “He’s the sweet guy who killed David Newalis. Pulled him under water and drowned him, right in front of Ingo Julian’s house on Shelter Island. Since then he took a shot at Lisa Harper, one of Ingo’s inner circle. Been stalking Arthur Brody. Oh, and incidentally, tried to take me out a couple of times. ”
“What? And you were just standing there chatting with him?”
“I wouldn’t say chatting, exactly. I was telling him I’d have to kill him.”
“But you what? let him walk away?
“I know I should have shot him right there on the corner, Teague. But there were too many witnesses.”
“The
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