Page 21 of Two Kinds of Stranger (Eddie Flynn #9)

Bloch

As a private investigator Bloch should only have had access to a limited number of databases that provide information, including criminal convictions, on individuals within the state.

Bloch had a habit of rubbing certain cops up the wrong way.

It was possible that they were intimidated by a female former officer who was stronger and smarter than them.

Or, Bloch thought, it was more likely that they were just a-holes.

But they were fewer in number than when Bloch was on the force.

The more intelligent police officers quickly recognized Bloch’s forensic thought processes and respected her.

The rest, with the exception of the a-holes, knew her by reputation and valued their limbs being attached in all the right places.

This brought a different but equally useful level of respect.

The result was that Bloch, with a few calls and encrypted text messages to former colleagues, could get a lot more information on an individual than the average PI.

Not just a complete criminal record, but police reports, tax returns, social-worker reviews, every little document generated in a life that could hold some clue or insight.

All this she had printed out and it now lay in a folder on Gabriel Lake’s lap.

He sat in the passenger seat of Bloch’s Jeep as they drove to the last known address for Arthur Cross, the man who had been harassing Eddie’s ex-wife, her new husband Kevin and Flynn’s daughter.

Lake flicked through the last pages of the dossier, closed it.

He sat quietly for a moment as Bloch weaved through the light evening traffic on Long Island.

Bloch wasn’t great at reading people, but detected a change in Lake.

It wasn’t that he had restless limbs – it was more a case of having a restless body.

He was always tapping, or fidgeting, or clicking his tongue, or cracking his knuckles – something – always in perpetual motion, a physical manifestation of his mind, which was continuously dialed up to eleven.

But, having closed the folder on Cross, his right leg stopped hammering his heel into the footwell. His hands rested lightly on top of the file, his head still and his gaze fixed on the road ahead.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Bloch.

‘Huh? Nothing, I’m fine . . . I . . . I’m fine,’ he said.

Bloch said nothing.

They drove for another half a mile.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Bloch again, uncomfortable now with Lake’s calm demeanor. She had never seen him like this. It was almost like he’d been unplugged.

‘Nothing.’

‘What did you see in that file?’ she asked.

‘Same as you.’

‘Come on, what’s on your mind?’

‘This isn’t going to work,’ said Lake. ‘If this guy Cross has a problem with somebody, there’s no way we’re going to persuade him to let it go. There are a lot of red flags in this file, particularly in his juve history. The illegal images of children on his laptop, the animal cruelty . . . ’

The steering wheel squeaked as Bloch strangled the leather at the memory of reading that in the file herself.

She couldn’t abide any kind of mistreatment of children or animals.

Cross had three juve convictions for torturing neighborhood pets.

There was a detailed history of what had happened in each case, but Bloch couldn’t bring herself to read any of it.

When he was arrested, they checked his computer and found something worse than animal cruelty.

Lake continued, ‘He was bad before he did his first year in an adult prison. Seems like he learned a lot from his time inside, mainly how to play the system. He has a long list of known accomplices, but most of them are dead or back in prison. Apart from one – Bruno Mont. I saw his rap sheet. He met Cross in juve?’

‘Timeline fits. And I made some calls. Mont was fifteen years old, locked up for assault. He’d knocked out four of his mother’s teeth. After that he graduated to armed robbery and spent another eight years inside. It’s not in the file, but he killed a man during that stretch,’ said Bloch.

‘How come it’s not in here?’

‘He was initially charged, but the DA bought a self-defense argument. Mont refused to join a neo-Nazi gang; one of their crew tried to take him out. A CO caught a shiv in the leg during the attack. Mont was stabbed eight times, but still managed to kill his attacker. He’s a steroid junkie and the rage took over.

The attacker bled out after Mont tore his jaw off of his face. ’

‘Holy shit, how big is this guy?’

‘Six-five, three hundred pounds and change. Cross is cruel and dangerous, but he’s smart. I think he likes to get Mont to do his wet work. Like killing his elderly wife.’

‘Any sign of Mont being involved in the beef with Kevin?’ asked Lake.

‘None so far, but we need to be careful when we pull up at Cross’s place. Make sure he doesn’t have any visitors before we knock on his door.’

Lake opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, then decided to spit out.

‘Cross is a sociopath and an obsessive compulsive. I don’t think he’s gonna back off no matter what we do here.’

‘We know he’s smart,’ said Bloch. ‘The smart play is to drop this and move on.’

Lake nodded, said, ‘I don’t think it’s a question of intelligence. There’s a narcissistic element to his personality. In his eyes, Kevin robbed him of a lot of money and he wants payback. He won’t stop.’

‘Let’s see how it goes. Be positive,’ said Bloch.

‘You’ve been reading those self-help books again.’

‘Being positive doesn’t hurt.’

‘Okay, then, I’m positive we’re not going to achieve anything tonight.’

Bloch drove the rest of the way in silence, unnerved by Lake’s stillness.

She pulled up outside a one-story stucco house in a neighborhood that had once been perfectly pleasant, but which time and weather and neglect had rendered poor.

Garbage littered every sidewalk. None of the neighbors cut their lawns, and the white picket fencing that surrounded them had fallen down or rotted away, or been replaced altogether by aluminum poles and chicken wire.

There were no lights visible from the front windows of Cross’s house. A single car in the driveway. No signs of visitors.

‘Doesn’t look like he’s home,’ said Lake.

‘Let’s see. And if he is at home, remember don’t shoot him.’

Lake drew his Glock from his shoulder holster, put the gun in the glovebox, said, ‘Eddie told me to tell you not to hurt him. No broken bones. No pieces missing. He is to be left as we found him.’

Bloch tutted. Flynn knew her all too well. She got out of the Jeep, closed the door. Lake hadn’t moved. He seemed to be thinking. He leaned over, opened the glovebox and retrieved the Glock. He put it back in its holster and got out of the car.

Bloch raised an eyebrow.

‘It’s just for emergencies,’ he said.

Together they made their way along the flagstone path to the front porch of the house.

Weeds grew a foot tall in between the cracks in the paving.

The front door was heavy hardwood, no glass.

Iron latticework, painted black, covered the door in a grid pattern, to make it appear old, like something you’d see on a medieval castle.

It looked cheap on a house like this. But it would help strengthen the door in case anyone tried to put their foot through it.

No cameras outside. Bloch checked every corner on the porch.

She pressed the doorbell.

Lake stood beside her, and a little behind. Letting her take the lead.

They waited for thirty seconds, Bloch counting time silently. She reached for the doorbell again, but hesitated when she heard movement on the other side of the door, the rattle of a security chain being slipped into its housing.

Bloch lowered her arm, waited. The door opened six inches.

The brass security chain snapped taut, preventing the door from opening any farther, and in the gap she saw the face of Arthur Cross.

Twenty years had passed since his last mugshot. Thin lines crossed his wide forehead, and above it was short dark hair. His skin was pale and dry. Hollow cheeks. Lips that appeared slightly feminine, but with no color, as if the blood had been drained from them.

These details she scanned quickly, but it was his eyes that held her attention.

Large eyes. Round and almost too big. And even though it was nighttime Bloch knew those eyes would look the same beneath a clear blue sky.

They were black.

Of course, they were not actually black.

Not really. Dark brown, but so dark as to make the irises indistinguishable from the pupils.

Those huge eyes dominated his aspect, as if he was a creature that lived in the dark and his senses had evolved to accommodate his surroundings: his eyes grown larger to suck up even the smallest slivers of light.

Long fine eyelashes only served to make his appearance feral, as if something wild and dangerous lay behind this facade of a human face.

He wore no expression. No curiosity. No alarm.

His face seemed dead.

But his black eyes burned into the night.

Bloch’s lips parted, but she said nothing.

Cross didn’t show the slightest hint of intimidation, nor curiosity.

Bloch had no words. Her body and mind were engaged in more primal functions.

She realized that she had clenched her fists, gooseflesh covered the back of her neck.

Every nerve-ending was screaming at her to beware. To be ready.

‘Mr. Cross, we have a matter we would like to discuss. Can we come in?’ asked Lake.

For a moment, Cross didn’t reply. At first it appeared as though he didn’t hear Lake. But then he slowly shook his head, said, ‘Who are you?’

His voice sounded childlike. A sing-song pattern, high and strange for a man in his mid-thirties. The sound of it made Bloch clench her jaw.

‘We’re friends of the lawyer you’re harassing,’ said Lake.

‘Who are you?’ asked Cross again in that unnerving voice.

Lake said, ‘It doesn’t matter who we are. You’re going to leave the lawyer and his family alone.’

‘Who are you?’

‘We’re going to be watching them closely. You need to back off,’ said Lake.

Cross blinked his eyes, lazily, and Bloch realized it was the first time she had seen him blink. Those black eyes stared out constantly. Alive and full of wickedness.

His lips curled a little at the edges, not a smile, but more of a sketch of a smile drawn from distant memory.

‘You’re not police. What are your names ?’ asked Cross.

‘You don’t know us. We know you. Back off from the lawyer,’ said Lake.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Cross innocently, but that strange smile on his lips betrayed the statement.

They all stood in heavy silence for a moment. None of them moved. Lake had been right. Cross didn’t scare easily.

That smile on his face broadened, as if an evil thought played out in his mind.

‘Oh, wait. I know who you’re talking about now. Kevin, yeesssss. Oh, I have no interest in him. Or his bitch wife, but . . . ’

Bloch dropped her right foot behind her. A fighting stance. Her muscles tight. She could feel her heartbeat quicken.

‘. . . the daughter , Amy. Yeah, I like her. I think she likes me too . . . ’

Cross’s gaze switched from Lake, to Bloch.

‘. . . I think Amy and I could have a lot of fun together . . . ’

One moment, Bloch stood very still. The next moment, the sole of her right boot hit the front door parallel with the security chain, her weight and momentum busting the chain housing free from the frame, wood splintering. The door swinging open knocked Cross off his feet, flat on his back.

Black eyes wide open.

Bloch was still moving, dropping to her knees, instinct and training taking over.

She trapped his left wrist with both hands, kicked her feet out to land on her butt, with legs over Cross’s torso.

Her heels dug in, dragging her tight against him.

Her left leg went across his body, keeping him on the floor, her right leg covered his face, pinning him down.

She gripped his wrist tightly, and leaned back.

His arm was trapped across Bloch’s body, his elbow at her waist and she held his wrist centered in her chest.

She arched her spine, the back of her shoulders hit the floor.

‘Bloch!’ cried Lake.

She engaged her core muscles.

Cinched the hold.

‘Don’t do it!’ cried Lake.

She drove her hips toward the ceiling.

Hard to tell which bone fractured first as Cross’s arm bowed, sickeningly, in the wrong direction.

Most certainly the lateral and medial epicondyle, then the radial head. Like a twig being snapped in the middle.

Bloch heard the bones cracking, cartilage snapping like a whip, and pushed harder, twisting her body away from Cross, making sure to tear his shoulder out too.

Cross let out a high-pitched scream, like a deer caught in a steel trap.

And then another voice. Lake was screaming at her.

‘ Bloch!’

She let go of Cross’s ruined limb. Let the small of her back hit the floor, then curled her legs up and over her head in a smooth backward roll. Her boots found the floor, and she pushed herself upright.

Stared down at Cross.

He was panting, but had managed to sit up. He cradled his arm, got onto one knee and stood as Lake put an arm round Bloch’s waist and hauled her out of the house. She let him, of course, but all the while she stared at Cross.

They walked backward over the flagstone path, both keeping Cross in their eyeline. He was panting, his expression twisted in pain, but there were no screams now. Just the sound of his breath.

Just as Bloch and Lake reached the car, Cross spoke.

‘ Bloch ,’ he said, slowly. Letting every sound linger on his lips, the K on the end of her name clicking his tongue.

‘ B-L-O-C-K . . . ’

Lake told her to get in the car. Bloch turned away from Cross, got into the driver’s seat and fired up the Jeep. They pulled away in silence. Lake’s fingers drummed on his knees.

Neither of them said a word until they were crossing the Queensboro Bridge over the East River and Roosevelt Island lay beneath them.

Lake drew breath, said, ‘That didn’t go—’

‘I don’t want to hear it,’ said Bloch.

‘I told you it wouldn’t work. That guy is a pure sociopath.’

‘I could tell. But you’re wrong. It did work.’

Lake angled in his seat to face Bloch. ‘How exactly do you figure that?’

‘He wasn’t going to listen to us. He wasn’t going to back off. Now, he’s got no choice – he’s only got one arm for six, maybe seven months. He’s a lot less dangerous if he only has one hand.’

She could tell Lake wasn’t sold on the methods, but there was no denying Bloch’s logic.

The head-up display on the Jeep’s console lit up with an incoming phone call. Caller ID said EDDIE .

Bloch looked at the screen. Then returned her gaze to the front.

Lake hit the answer icon on the screen.

‘How did it go?’ said Eddie.

Lake and Bloch’s eyes met for a second, in silence.

She looked back at the road.

Lake said, ‘There’s good news and bad news.’

‘What’s the good news?’ asked Eddie.

‘I didn’t shoot him . . . ’