Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [readnow TXT] 📗

She loved steak.

I smiled. One of the first things she ever told me was that she could get intense about steak.

I put the griddle on to heat and took another slug of whiskey. In my mind’s eye, I could see the church garden, the sun shining, the stall, the crowds milling, and Sylvie and Mary, both pretty and demure, with their cakes and cookies all laid out. Always together, always supporting each other, Sylvie et Mary, contra mundum.

But two years ago, she had not been there. What had Mary said? “…she came and got them herself.” Mary had stayed home. I was prepared to lay money on it. Because she was sick and her mother, who cared for her so much, would not have gotten her up and out of a sickbed to help on the stall. Not unless she had a damn good reason.

My eyes slowly focused on the griddle. There was a thick column of smoke rising from it. I sprinkled coarse salt on the meat and threw it on. There was a loud hiss and the griddle caught fire. I leaned my ass on the side and watched it, feeling sour. I took another swig, reached through the flames with a large fork, and flipped the steak. Once I had scorched it on both sides, I dropped it on a plate and carried it, with the bottle of whiskey and my glass, to the table.

I cut into it, and in my mind, I followed Sylvie as she ran across the garden, dodging through the crowds, slipped through the hedge and ran across her lawn, in through the kitchen door…

What did she find there? What was happening that made her get Mary out of bed and take her to the fête? Because surely that was what had happened. There was no other explanation. Was it Jacob? Jacob’s new friends? Were his pals there, giving Mary a hard time?

I stared hard at the image in my mind. There were hints, suspicions, vague ideas, but nothing concrete. Nothing solid. I stabbed the chunk of steak, stuck it in my mouth and chewed, and drained my glass and refilled it.

Fleetingly, I wondered if Dehan had put on make up. She hadn’t brought any with her. So perhaps he had taken her home to change.

I cut into the steak again and forced my mind back to Jacob. The word was there, begging for me to articulate it. Sureños. So why didn’t I want to? The Sureños were not that active in that neighborhood. They were there, just like they were everywhere in the Bronx. And for sure, he would have made Latino friends at school. Did he get into a gang? Was that what was at the root of all of this? Jacob had got into a gang? That was not exactly a ‘different faith’.

I chewed and stared at the black window with its amber speckles of rain. It looked cold and desolate. I got up to close the drapes. The traffic was gone. So were the people. There was only the cold splash of water falling from the gutter, and the liquid sheen on the blacktop; and far off the lonely tap of feet, somebody hurrying home through the rain.

I pulled the drapes closed and stood looking across the room at my plate and the bottle in the bright glare from the kitchen light.

Jacob hooking up with young Sureños made sense. It explained some things. It might explain his death. But how did it tie in with Simon? The two deaths tied in somehow. They had to. But how?

I returned to the table, sat, and cut again at my steak. I stuffed another slice in my mouth and the doorbell rang. I swallowed, took a slug of whiskey and walked without enthusiasm to the door.

She was drenched. Her black hair was hanging in shiny rat’s tails over her face. She was wearing what might have been a grin, or might equally have been a wet wince, but she was not wearing makeup. She was holding a bottle of wine in one hand and a carrier bag in the other. I stood staring at her for a moment.

“You going to let me in, or do I have to do penance out here on the stoop?”

I stood back. “No, of course not. Come in. Go up and get dry.”

I looked in the bag and took the bottle to the kitchen. There were two steaks, a bottle of tequila, and a couple of lemons. I heard the shower start upstairs. I had a long glass of water, threw my burnt steak in the trash, and washed the griddle. Upstairs, I heard the shower stop, footsteps, and drawers being opened and closed in the spare bedroom. I opened the wine.

I heard her shout down the stairs, “Let me cook. I need to. It is therapeutic.” There was a pause and I heard her feet trotting down the stairs. She was toweling her hair and she had changed her clothes. “Besides, I saw you burnt the one you were eating.”

“You brought a change of clothes with you?”

She shook her head. “Uh-uh. I left some here when we went to Frisco last time, looking for Tamara Gunthersen. Remember?”

“Oh.”

“Did you open the wine? It’s a good one. The guy said it was good. It needs to breathe.”

“Dehan?”

“What?”

“Why aren’t you having dinner with Saul?”

“Give me a drink, will you?”

I poured her a glass of whiskey and poured myself another. She threw the steaks on the griddle and they did not catch fire.

She sipped. “My uncle. My father’s brother. He hooked me—he wanted to hook me up—up with his business partner’s son. He is a good Jewish boy, got a great future, he’s a surgeon, comes from a great family. I