Gin Palace 01 - The Poisoned Rose

horizon. There were still a few stars in the lighter patch of sky just above the trees, pins of silver light that always burned brightest in the minutes before they died.
    Two minutes later the pay phone rang.
    “Yeah,” Frank said.
    “It’s me.”
    “Where are you?”
    “It doesn’t matter.”
    “The prefix is Montauk. What are you doing out there?”
    “I don’t have much time. You’re a hard man to get hold of lately.”
    “I’m just cautious. A lot of big players on the field. Don’t want to get crushed.”
    “So you put me out front to take the hits.”
    “What do you want, MacManus?”
    “Answers.”
    “What do you need to know?”
    “I want you to tell me if anything happened in town last night.”
    “Could you be more specific?”
    “The animal that jumped Augie, Searls, he was on the loose, in case you didn’t know.”
    “I heard.”
    “Did you hear anything about the cops bringing him in last night?”
    “No.”
    “You’re sure.”
    “I would have heard about that. I understand through the grapevine that Bishop gave you a gun and a forensics report and some fairy-tale story and called it the Deal of the Century.”
    “You don’t miss much, do you?”
    “I’m not next door to Village Hall for nothing. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing you’ve done.”
    “Just add it to the list.”
    “Sweep up your tracks and get out of there, MacManus. I’ll put some men on this, we’ll figure out what’s going on. I can protect you.”
    “Thanks, but no thanks. I need you to find out if Searls is still running wild. There’s a dead body in Montauk that tells me he is. If Searls hasn’t been brought in yet, I want you to warn Augie. I want you to do what you can for him and Tina. This isn’t a favor to me. Augie’s your friend and you’re going to make sure nothing happens to him. If something does, I’m going to hold you responsible. Are we clear?”
    “You sound to me like a man about to leave town.”
    “She wants to get free of him. I’m going to make sure she does.”
    “You found the Bishop girl. I’d like to talk to her.”
    “No.”
    “We had a deal.”
    “Sue me. I don’t care about the Chief anymore. I don’t care about anything. I’m going to make sure she gets away once and for all.”
    “You don’t want to cross her insane brother, MacManus. Fucking me over is one thing, but fucking him over is something else.”
    “Tell me the truth, Frank. For once. Did he really hire you?”
    “I’m sorry, that’s confidential—”
    “Did he hire you?”
    “No.”
    “So why tell me he did?”
    “I needed someone to stir the shit.”
    “Someone with no connection to you.”
    “I had some unfinished business, MacManus. There were some things I needed to know. I did what I had to do. We’re alike in that way, don’t you think?”
    “You used up your favor, Frank. That’s what you did. We’re even now.”
    I hung up before he could say anything more. I looked around once, then headed back across the empty street to Marie’s apartment.
    She was still asleep when I entered. I stretched out on her mattress without waking her. I lay there a while, thinking, and eventually fell into a shallow, turbulent sleep.
    We were lying on our sides, facing each other, when we awoke around noon. We looked at each other for a moment, then finally got out of bed to begin her last day on the East End.
    I was tired and moved slowly for the first hour after getting up. My back and joints were stiff and I was groggy. Marie, as far as I knew, had slept straight through the night. But she didn’t seem any better off than I was. I watched as she sat up in her bed and tilted two pills from the prescription bottle on the table into her palm. Then she tossed them into the back of her mouth and downed a long sip from the glass of water she kept next to the bottle.
    Her back was to me as she did this. But she didn’t seem to be making any effort to hide what she was doing. When she was done, she returned the glass to the table, then looked over her shoulder at me for a moment before getting up and walking into the bathroom.
    I heard the shower running. I wrote her a note on the back of a paper towel telling her that I was going out to get us something to eat. I went downstairs to the street and found a small market at the end of her block. I bought fresh bagels and apples and prepackaged slices of watermelon. It was getting warm out, but the air was still pleasant. A sea breeze