Blood on the Street (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #4)

going to sit around waiting for you?”
    “That’s not true.” But she heard defensive in his voice, and he was ignoring what she said about waiting around for him.
    “I don’t know who you are anymore, Silvestri,” she said, and then couldn’t help herself. She started to cry.
    “Aw, Les, don’t do that.” His words were all bunched up with emotion. “Come on. We’ll work it out. Come down this weekend—”
    “I don’t want to come down there. I don’t belong. It’s a cop world.”
    “A cop world? That’s my world, Les.”
    “This is not a one-way street, Silvestri. I don’t want to talk any more tonight. I’m too tired.” She hung up and lifted herself carefully out of the tub, releasing the plug. She rolled her hair into a hand towel and wrapped herself up in a bath towel.
    “Beddie-bye,” she murmured. No more thinking.
    She turned out the lights and crawled into bed. All this emotion was tearing her up.
    A clang—metal against metal. The sound of her iron garden chairs, if one hit the other. Had it come from inside the apartment? Had she fallen asleep and dreamed it? She didn’t want to get up, went fetal and pulled the covers over her head. It would go away.
    It came again. Along with a scream. Then thumping, clanging. The gun. She threw off the covers, left the tangle of towels, and pulled the black leather box from under her lingerie. The gun emerged, a cold ebony carving, and she held it in her hand. With her other hand she calmly punched out 911, gave her name and address, and asked for help.
    A woman screamed. More clanging. A thud outside her window. The squeal of metal tearing. Footsteps.
    Someone was on the fire escape outside her bedroom window.

32.
    T HE POUNDING ON her window came again. Someone was shouting. A familiar voice. More pounding.
    Grabbing up the terry robe, Wetzon put it on, shifting the gun from one hand to the other.
    “Leslie! Let me in! It’s me, Louie.”
    Wetzon flung the window open. The screen had been torn away. A fire alarm bit the fragile silence of night in Greenwich Village. “God, Louie, you scared me. What happened?”
    “Are you all right?” Louie, barefoot, in cut-down jeans and a worn paint-stained sweatshirt, slipped through the open window. “Would you point that somewhere else, please?”
    Wetzon looked down at her hand. She was still holding the gun. “It’s not loaded. At least, I don’t think it is.”
    “Here, let me.” Louie held out her hand and Wetzon gave her the gun, handle first. “What you have here is a revolver, double action.” Expertly, Louie flipped the cylinder sideways and held it up to Wetzon. “See.” The six slots were empty. She snapped it closed and handed it back to Wetzon, saying, “Nice piece.”
    “You do that very well.” Wetzon slipped the gun back in the leather box and returned the box to its place in the chest of drawers. “How do you know all this?”
    “I come from a long line of cops. Broke tradition.”
    Wetzon turned on the bedside light. “Do you want to tell me what this is about?”
    “There was someone on the fire escape. I was putting together my proposal for you when I saw a shadow pass my window, and then he knocked over one of my flowerpots. That’s when I started making a ton of noise.To scare him off.”
    “I guess you did. Thank you. I can’t believe he climbed up in full view of the street.” Suddenly weak-kneed, Wetzon sat down on the rumpled bed.
    “It’s these druggies. Dark apartment. A fire escape. They take chances.”
    Wetzon shuddered. “I’ve always hated fire escapes.”
    Louie patted Wetzon’s head. Her face was pale under her freckles, and she had a smudge of blue paint on her chin. “Listen, kiddo, I’ve lived in the Village twenty-five years. Eight years here. Never had a problem—ask Carlos. But things are changing down here. Too many strangers, kids, gay bashers, dopers. The homeless ... and God knows what.” She ran her fingers through her red hair, pulling it away from her face.
    Wetzon stretched and rotated her head from side to side. “Well, I can forget about a good night’s sleep. Would you like some coffee?”
    The buzzer sounded downstairs, startling both women.
    “Omigod,” Wetzon said, hand to her mouth. “I forgot. I called 911.” She checked the small video screen near the door and saw two uniforms. She buzzed them in. They’d come pretty quickly. So much for the statistics on poor response time on the part of the NYPD.