Read Online The Cross: An Eddie Flynn Novella by Steve Cavanagh - Free Book Online

lights. We waited.
    I nodded at Jack and got out of the Caddy. Before I got into my own car, I went down on my knees and checked underneath it. Nothing looked unusual, certainly no alien devices hanging beneath. I unlocked the car, got in, and hesitated before I inserted the key. Checking around the center console, I couldn’t see any signs of tampering. I put the key into the ignition. What if somebody hooked the starter motor to a device tucked in beside the engine block? I popped the hood. Got out. Nothing out of place on the old Ford. I got back in, took two deep breaths, and turned the key. Just the regular splutter from the V6. Thumbs-up to Jack. He passed me in the Caddy, and I pulled out behind him.
    Left onto Furman Street and then a right loop onto Atlantic Avenue and the access road for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. A steady forty miles an hour behind Jack’s big taillights. Turning east, the three-lane highway became partially covered on the right by the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. I followed Jack off the 278 at Bridge Park, and another loop brought us onto the Manhattan Bridge. As we’d agreed, I overtook Jack on the bridge. Hehung back and changed lanes. Far as I could tell, we didn’t have a tail, and Jack was double-checking, watching the vehicles to the rear, keeping a lookout for the blue SUV, or any other car that seemed to be hugging our tail.
    Jack sped past me, flashed the lights. No tail that he could see. We exited at Forsyth, which brought us down to ground level, and then a left took us past the end of Chinatown and to the Lower East Side. Fine-dining restaurants, invitation-only art galleries, boutique furniture stores, and hipster coffee that ran at eight dollars a cup. Half a mile north, then a dogleg right at the end of Allen Street onto East Houston and then Avenue B. The coffee got cheaper, the beards a little shorter, and the area a little friendlier.
    The tattoo parlor below Jack’s apartment looked empty, but the lights were still on. Probably getting ready to close up. The Caddy’s nose stopped in front of a roller door. Jack got out, used a key to raise the shutter, stepped inside, and hit the lights. He drove in. I followed. A neighbor of Jack’s, a Miss. Corstana, was staying with her mother for a week. Mrs. Corstana Senior had just been released from hospital following a minor stroke. While she was away, Jack was feeding her cat, or was supposed to be. Miss. Corstana’s parking space was free, and I pulled up beside the Caddy.
    I killed the engine and waited while Jack closed the shutter doors. The clang of the metal tongue hitting the concrete killed the motor noise from the rollers. I got out and stood at the trunk of my car, beside Jack.
    I popped the trunk. Detective McAllister unfolded herself and got out. She stretched her back, letting her arms hyperextend, rolled her neck, and turned back toward the trunk. She came up with a large, bulky brown paper envelope.
    “It’s all here,” she said.

 
    Chapter Fourteen
    “What kind of man doesn’t have any food in his refrigerator?” said McAllister.
    “Jack’s not convinced that eating is good for you,” I said.
    “Then why the hell is his fridge so big?” said McAllister.
    She had a point. The one appliance that dominated Jack’s studio apartment was the extra-large classic red refrigerator. Home to the loneliest aerosol can of cheese in Manhattan. She settled for a beer but didn’t pop the can. Instead, she held it against her neck, then her forehead.
    I guessed that McAllister was in her late twenties, maybe early thirties, thin but physically strong. I could tell that she looked after herself. Frost had trusted her with the information he’d offered to me, so by definition she was a serious operator. There was no wedding band on her tanned fingers.
    Jack and I sat at his dining table. The large envelope McAllister had brought with her rested unopened on the table in front of us. There were only two dining