Good Deeds and Bad Intentions Read online

  Helena eyed the woman suspiciously, but she didn’t move.

  “Thank you,” continued Cheryl. “I’m helping out a friend of mine. He got hold of a list of women like yourself who are trying to get away from abusive partners.”

  “How would you get that? They don’t just hand that kind of information out.”

  “No. I know somebody who works in an emergency room. Let’s just say he got tired of seeing a certain kind of injury.”

  Helena said nothing, instead looking down at her hands clasped in her lap.

  “We,” continued Cheryl, “well, mainly my friend – he keeps an eye on these ladies, just in case the abusers show up again. We know the law doesn’t offer enough protection, and we’re just trying to fill in the gaps.”

  “And what’s in it for you?” The fear in Helena’s voice was turning to anger now.

  “First and foremost, we want to stop bad things happening. I get you being suspicious, I really do. That’s why I’m approaching you like this. We want to help you. Also…” The woman shifted in her seat. “Also,” she repeated, “to be completely honest with you, honey, my friend… he’s trying to find a bunch of nuns that operate in New York, helping women in situations like yourself. We figure we help out enough people, somebody might know them, put us in contact.”

  Helena shook her head. “I don’t know any nuns.”

  “OK, not a problem. Like I said, we want to help regardless, and we can. Believe me. We’ve done this a few times now.”

  Helena gave her a suspicious look. “Why can’t you just go talk to these nuns?”

  Cheryl shrugged. “He can’t find them. He’s been here looking for them for like…” She took a moment to think. “Damn, nine months now. They don’t officially exist. It’s complicated, but if they’re here at all, they don’t want to be found. So this is what we came up with.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Cheryl pursed her lips. “You might be right, honey, but – to be straight with you – this is his last hope. He’s kinda desperate. And besides, he likes helping people – people who need help. And no offence, but that is you.”

  Helena ran her hand over her brow. “Jonny said he’d kill me if he found me. I’ve got to run.”

  “You do that, he’ll find you again.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand. He’s a dangerous man.”

  “Jonny Risbury, suspected lieutenant for the Los Zetas Cartel, on the run after skipping bail in Miami on two serious assault charges. He was previously charged but not convicted in three first-degree murder cases and was a person of interest in several more investigations.”

  Helena gulped and put her head in her hands. “Oh God.”

  “He’s a dangerous man alright. The good news is so is my friend.”

  Helena looked into the distance and didn’t speak for about thirty seconds. Finally, she pushed her hair back behind her ear and spoke in a soft voice. “You’re probably wondering how I could ever go with a guy like that?”

  Cheryl shook her head. “No, I’m not. I know as well as anyone, sweetheart, the evil bastards can be just as charming as the good guys – sometimes even more so, precisely because they are the evil bastards.”

  Helena nodded, tears in her eyes now. “He wasn’t always… When we met, he was just a nice guy working in a bar. Mostly.”

  “His actions are his actions. None of this is your fault. If you’ll let us, we’d like to make it so he’ll never bother you again.”

  “I’ve got a son.”

  “We know. If it makes you feel better, right now my beau is outside his school, making sure he’s safe.”

  “This guy you work with,” said Helena. “The one looking for the nuns, he is your…?”

  Cheryl laughed. “Oh no. Lord, no. He’s a friend. Me and my man just help him out.”

  “How do you know him?”

  Cheryl smiled. “That’s a long story. Let’s just say the crazy Irishman dropped into our—”

  “He’s Irish?” asked Helena with such abruptness that Cheryl sat back.

  “Ehm, yes.”

  “Big guy? Beard?”

  It was Cheryl’s turn to look surprised. “You know him?”

  “He has a…” She waved a hand at her face. “Y’know, a sort of ‘off’ eye?”

  Cheryl nodded. “You really have met him.”

  Helena shook her head. “No, but I got a friend. Well, I mean, I know her. We’re in this support group together. Her name’s Marcia. She lives out in Brooklyn somewhere, I think.”

  “Ah. Right.”

  “Her old boyfriend came looking for her. Came after her with a baseball bat.”

  Cheryl nodded. “Like I said, we’ve done this before.”

  “Your friend? That was the guy who bust in and…?”

  Cheryl nodded again.

  “Is it true they found her ex hanging upside down from a street light?”

  “My friend has a… Let’s call it a certain sense of flair.”

  “Carol told us it took them hours to remove the bat.”

  Cheryl tried to suppress a smile. “He ain’t a big fan of baseball.”

  Helena bit her knuckle and then turned back to Cheryl with a very different look in her eyes. “What would I have to do?”

  Smile – It Confuses People

  Jackson Diller leaned against the lamp post and smiled. He was a young black guy standing on a street corner in one of New York’s nicer suburbs, and that made people nervous. People being nervous because a black dude was just standing doing absolutely nothing really shouldn’t be his problem, but it was. Rather than taking steps to bring about meaningful social change at 8pm on Christmas Eve, he was smiling just to stop the white people from calling the cops. Smiling had been Diller’s preferred mode of defence since birth, and that had seen him through more challenging situations than this. He had been stationed here for over two hours now and it was getting cold. He’d found a thick duffle coat in a thrift store a few weeks ago and it was proving to be a superb purchase. It was two sizes too big for his skinny frame, but Diller loved it. He clapped his hands together to keep the blood flowing. An old lady looked at him nervously and Diller upped the wattage on the smile.

  “Happy Christmas to you, ma’am.”

  The woman nodded, smiled and noticeably increased her pace. Diller was between meaningful positions of employment. He wondered if he could get a gig as a personal trainer for the elderly? He’d had two weeks of acting work booked in, but that had gone south after the one-act play’s opening night turned out to be its closing night too. Not only had there been only one performance – well, there hadn’t even been that, really. Their leading lady/director/writer/backer had shimmied down a drainpipe mid-performance and disappeared. It turned out she had stolen a painting from her psychiatrist’s office and had been shocked to see him sitting in the audience – although not as shocked as he was to see his painting hanging on the back wall of the set. Diller had finished the play by performing both parts. The consensus was that it had improved it greatly.

  Diller returned to watching the six-storey brownstone about a hundred yards away on the opposite side of the street. It was the building where Helena Martinez and her son lived, up on the fourth floor. He had followed them home earlier that day. Actually, he had followed the guy who was following them home, and then watched as he’d checked their precise address before leaving. The theory was that he and his boss, Helena Martinez’s ex, would be back later tonight, which was why Diller was standing on a street corner smiling at nervous strangers. His job for this part of proceedings was to be lookout. They had a plan. He personally felt that at least one part of it was terrible and another part was verging on the suicidal, but nobody seemed keen to hear his thoughts, and besides, his mom had always told him that if you can’t say anything nice…

  Diller’s upbringing had been, to say the least, unconventional, but his mom had always made a big effort for the holidays. They’d
never had much, but she had done everything in her power to make something out of it. Looking at all of these apartments, their windows aglow with warm lights, snapshots of lives festooned with decorations and presents under the Christmas tree, felt like looking into a different world, one he’d only ever seen on TV.

  He heard a noise and glanced behind him, then he turned again, executing a textbook double take.

  “Is that a pig?”

  The slight woman in a bobble hat and thick-rimmed glasses did nothing to hide her eye-roll. “Yes, it’s a pig,” she said, before adding with a sigh, “just once it would be nice to bring him for a walk without people asking us questions.”

  Diller pulled back. “Sorry, but you’re walking a pot-bellied pig in New York. I think you’re going to have to get used to the fact that people will have questions.” Diller gave his best winning smile which still lost.

  “Honestly, you’d think people haven’t seen a pig before.”

  The woman would have undoubtedly liked to storm off, but the pig had taken this moment to engage in a large dump.

  There was an awkward silence – or at least there would have been, but for the sounds of the pig popping out a prodigious poop. Diller wasn’t a big fan of silences.

  “So what’s his name?”

  “Mr Oinks.”

  “Right. Hey, Mr Oinks!” Diller gave a wave in the pig’s direction, but the pig seemed preoccupied.

  His owner shuffled her feet. “Sorry about snapping before. It’s just… It’s my last day with him.”

  “Oh,” said Diller, before lowering his voice. “Is he…?”

  “What?”

  “Going to be Christmas dinner?”

  The woman reared back in outrage. “No! I am a strict vegan, as is Mr Oinks.”

  “Right. Sorry,” said Diller, who happened to know pigs were omnivores by nature and Mr Oinks was very unlikely to be vegan by choice, but elected, rightly, not to mention it.

  “It turns out that technically” – she said “technically” like it was a very bad word – “it is illegal to keep a pig as a pet in New York City. It’s fine to slaughter them en masse, of course.”

  “Right,” said Diller. He glanced over at the building he was supposed to be watching, aware that he was getting dragged into a distraction he could not afford.

  “One of my neighbours complained. Bitch! So now Mr Oinks has to go live with my Uncle Jeffrey in Jersey. I’m taking him over there tomorrow.”

  “I see. Is it legal to keep him in Jersey?”

  “Have you been to Jersey? It’s barely fit for human habitation.”

  The woman bent down before storming off, or at least as much as it was possible to storm off with a pig’s lead in one hand and a freezer bag full of pig poop in the other.

  In the opposite direction, Diller noticed a yellow Mustang pulling up to park. The man Diller recognised from earlier got out of the driver’s side, and another man got out on the passenger side. They had a brief discussion over the hood and then the driver stayed with the car while the other one headed towards the building’s front door.

  Diller casually took his mobile out of his pocket and sent a group text.

  THEY ARE HERE.

  The Man Comes Around

  Jonny Risbury stepped back as a hassled-looking guy, laden with too much luggage and with his phone clamped to his ear, emerged from the building’s front door.

  “No, Mom, Janice said she was getting the cranberry sauce. I don’t even eat it. Why would I… No, I’m not… I have… Alright, fine, I’ll get it. I’ll ask the Uber driver to stop on the way. OK.”

  He dropped his bags and looked at Jonny, who gave him a polite smile in return.

  “So, where are you parked?” He looked at Jonny expectantly and then, after a few moments of blankness, looked mortified. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. You’re not my Uber driver, are you?”

  Jonny shook his head. “No.”

  Designer leather jacket, Rolex on his wrist – this guy obviously thought the people-ferrying business paid really well.

  “Sorry, dude. Sorry. I’m a little stressed out, y’know – family!”

  Jonny gave him a big grin and caught the door before it closed behind him. “Yeah. Tell me about it.” Then he moved inside and headed for the stairs.

  No Good Deed

  Rolo sat in the Mustang and fiddled irritably with the heater. It somehow managed to blow a lot of hot air around without making the car warm. He’d already spent most of the day trudging around New York following the boss’s ex, and he was getting royally sick of this. Not that he’d say anything. Jonny was real friendly and amicable, right up until the point he wasn’t. Rolo had been there the night Jonny had messed up Xavier Fuentes bad, when they had been playing cards. Jonny was alright with losing, but Xavier had had to go twisting the knife, making it all personal. Xavier wouldn’t be running his mouth off like that again – the dude spoke with a permanent slur now, like his tongue was too big for his mouth. Last Rolo heard, Xavier had got himself deliberately arrested robbing a five-and-dime, because he couldn’t cope with being outside since he was all messed up. These days he pushed a broom up in Rikers and didn’t say nothing to nobody.

  Rolo didn’t like this. If it was up to him, Jonny would just forget about his ex-wife and kid, but it very definitely wasn’t up to him. They were supposed to be making money for the bosses. Jonny got a lot of rope because he was an earner, but that only went so far. They had something they were meant to be doing, and this wasn’t it. Rolo knew better than to bring it up though. Jonny was full-on crazy on this particular subject – like he took the whole thing as a personal insult. Rolo didn’t get it. it wasn’t like Jonny didn’t have plenty of women, and it wasn’t like he was a contender for dad of the year either. He had another kid he never saw. This was all because she had walked away from him and the man couldn’t take losing. It was messed up. Rolo wasn’t sure what the endgame was supposed to be. Did Jonny think they were going to see each other again and it’d be happy families? Did he just want to scare her? Or worse? Rolo had plans for the night; the last thing he wanted was to have to go dump a body in the river on Christmas Eve. He had surf and turf at Marco’s booked in.

  A van pulled up in front of him and a blonde got out. She was cute, and not exactly dressed for the weather. Leather miniskirt and a mirrorball top that clung in all the right places. She had legs to die for. She looked around, searching for something that wasn’t there. Rolo watched as she twirled around and then pulled out her phone. She rang a number and swore into somebody’s voicemail. Rolo looked up from checking out her body to find her eyes on him. He felt himself redden, but she gave him a big smile and headed straight for him. As she reached the window, he pressed the button to bring it down. She leaned in with a big smile and Rolo tried to look without looking at what was on display below the smile.

  “Hey, baby, I’m real sorry to bother you. I’m supposed to be meeting my friend but he ain’t here. I’ve got to drop a sound desk just over there to my girl Janice’s apartment. Is there any chance you could help me lift it?”

  Rolo looked up. “Sorry, I’m just waiting for somebody.”

  “Please?” She gave him a little pout. “I’d be real grateful. It’s just over there. We’re in a band. I’ll give you tickets to a show we got coming up at the Roxy.”

  Rolo thought about it. Jonny was likely to be a while yet.

  “Please, baby. I’ll make sure you get the VIP treatment too.”

  She said it with a sly smile that won him over.

  “Alright then.”

  “Oh, thank you. You’re such a sweetheart.”

  Rolo got out of the car and moved around.

  “It’ll just take a second.”

  “Sure, no problem. So what’s the name of the band?”

  “Shocker. We’re funk metal.”

  “Right,” said Rolo. “Sounds cool.” It didn’t, but Rolo was warming to the idea of the VIP treatment and what exactly th
at might entail.

  “Can you get the doors there, baby?”

  Rolo opened the van doors. “I ain’t been to the Roxy for—”

  He stopped talking because, upon opening the van doors, he’d seen it was empty. A flicker of suspicion flashed through him a millisecond before the 1200 volts of electricity. He fell to the ground. As Rolo’s scrambled brain tried to process this unexpected turn of events, he was dimly aware of the woman’s knee digging into his back and then a hand pressing a material with a sweet chemical smell to his face.

  Diller moved over to stand beside Cheryl as she kneeled on top of the big guy’s back. He looked around.

  “Are we cool?” asked Cheryl.

  “Yeah. I don’t think anybody saw.”

  “Excellent. I told you this would work.”

  Diller nodded. “You did. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you would make an excellent serial killer.”

  Cheryl looked up at him and smiled. “And what exactly is the right way to take that?”

  Diller shrugged.

  “How long do I have to hold this chloroform over his mouth?”

  “I’d give it another minute. People think it acts instantly because they’ve seen it go down like that in movies, but it doesn’t.”

  “OK,” said Cheryl, pulling her blonde wig off with her free hand and tossing it into the back of the van. “Damn, I’m freezing my ass off.”

  Diller nodded. “You should’ve worn a thick coat.”

  Cheryl laughed and shook her head. “Dill, honey, for such a smart dude, there are some big things you don’t understand – like if I was wearing a big warm coat, this guy would still be sitting in his car. Anyway, do you think that’s enough?”

  Diller looked at the big dude’s face. “Yeah, he looks out of it. Besides, too much chloroform could kill him.”

  Cheryl pulled the rag away. “Jesus, Dill, couldn’t you have mentioned that before?”

  “Sorry. I thought I had?”

  “Nope, you definitely didn’t.” Cheryl stood up and glanced around. “C’mon, let’s get him into the back before somebody sees.”