The Ghost by Marc Olden

Author:Marc Olden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

23

Jackpot

At 2:35 that afternoon, Ross Magellan left a TriBeCa bank, carrying a thousand dollars in cash. An uptown subway took her to Broadway and Ninety-sixth Street. From there she walked three blocks in a heavy downpour to Ninety-fourth Street and Amsterdam Avenue, a Spanish-speaking neighborhood of bodegas, check-cashing locations, and stores selling religious candles. She stopped at a traffic light long enough to touch the .380 in her jacket pocket and look back toward Broadway. She hadn’t been followed. She was sure of it.

She crossed the street and entered a small coffee shop. Her watch read five minutes to three.

There was no sign of Jackie Blue or Jenn Sanchez.

The coffee shop was a grease pit—three booths, a counter with frayed stools, and a cracked front window held together by duct tape. The air smelled of burnt food, cigarettes, and disinfectant. There was no air-conditioning. Ross chose a counter stool nearest the front, giving her a view of the street and the entrance.

Jackie Blue was a regular. He came for the pancakes, he told Ross. He did everything but wink and jab Ross in the ribs when he said it.

They both knew he came to the coffee shop to sell product, networking with small-time locals who lacked his wholesale drug connections. Jackie Blue wouldn’t know a pancake if it fell from the sky and bit him in the ass. He and Ross had gotten together in this dump a few times, and not once had he ordered pancakes.

She unbuttoned her jacket, considered running a comb through her hair, then decided it wasn’t worth the effort. She told herself to think positive. Sanchez was going to show up. Why shouldn’t she? Jackie Blue, God’s gift to all women, could talk her into it. All he had to do was try.

Thirty minutes. That’s all Ross intended to give them. If Jackie Blue and Sanchez hadn’t shown by then, Ross was heading back to the office and contacting Frank Beebe about the “divorce” payment to Lou Angelo.

She already had company. With her in the coffee shop were three Dominican males, all in their late teens or early twenties. One was the counterman, a beanpole with a fade haircut, pointed chin, and wearing a spotted white apron. He dried silverware and watched a televised soccer game out of Mexico City.

The remaining two played dominoes in a back booth, slapping the tiles on the table so loud that Ross jumped every time she heard the sound. The oldest had prematurely thinning black hair and wore silver earrings shaped like crucifixes. His friend, younger and broad-shouldered, was bare-chested under a leather vest and wore bracelets made of bent spoons on both wrists. He drank from a brown paper bag, smacking his lips after each swallow. Neither bothered looking at Ross. Strange because Latinos always checked her out.

She was getting a feeling. They knew she was a cop.

The skinny counterman looked at Ross.

“Coffee,” she said, “no food.” Ross would sooner swim in raw sewage than eat here.

The counterman grinned.

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