It was like a game of spin the bottle.
Shoot Larkin.
Shoot Doyle.
Shoot himself.
No matter what, the bottle was going to land on one of them.
Costa slowly raised the SIG from between Larkin’s eyes, took his finger off the trigger, and set it on the floor beside his foot.
“Stand up and put your hands on your head,” Doyle ordered.
Costa shifted his weight, but then lurched hard to his right like he’d lost his balance, overcorrected. His flail was stagey from where Larkin saw it play out, sprawled prone on the floor, but in the near dark, six or seven feet away, to Doyle it’d probably looked as if Costa really did stumble.
Larkin shouted as loud as he could through a mouth thick with fabric, but it wasn’t enough—his words made no sense. Costa had grabbed the pistol, raised it, and fired.
The sound was deafening in the enclosed space and it ripped through Larkin like a lightning bolt—fraying nerves, breaking teeth, shattering his skull into a hundred thousand little pieces. He surely had a concussion, and the gunfire made Larkin feel like he was about to throw up. But all that’d accomplish was asphyxiation, so he swallowed the acid and bile licking at the back of his throat and rolled onto his stomach as Costa grabbed a big Maglite from the floor, probably what he’d hit Larkin with, and steamrolled into Doyle full force. They tumbled and crashed into the closet door on the opposite wall.
Maybe Costa had been afraid of somehow getting caught by bullet ricochet in the tiny apartment, or maybe he’d seen an opening that Larkin hadn’t from his vantage point, but Larkin didn’t think so. There was nothing but predatory rage fueling Costa to react, and the adrenaline rush superseded logic, causing him to drop the gun in favor of attempting to beat Doyle to death.
Larkin, wrists too tightly bound to break free on his own, shuffled forward on his knees, reached once—missed—twice, scooped up the SIG, and took aim. It looked like Costa’s aim had been for shit, because Doyle was alive and fighting. Costa’s back was to Larkin and he was shoving the length of the Maglite against Doyle’s throat, trying to crush his Adam’s apple.
“La-Larkin,” Doyle grunted. “Get out!”
Larkin lowered the gun, blinked, then raised it again. His vision was doubled so severely that he couldn’t tell which Costa to shoot at. The combative man was shorter than Doyle, meaning a wild shot would potentially hit him square in the chest. Or worse, his head. Larkin dropped the pistol, lurched to his feet, and ran at Costa. Larkin raised his taped arms high, got them around Costa’s neck from behind, and yanked hard.
Costa made a gurgling sound as Larkin’s bound wrists caught him right in the windpipe.
Doyle shoved the Maglite back enough to cough, to catch his breath.
Larkin yelled around the makeshift muzzle, yanked hard a second time, and twisted out of the way just as Costa tripped over his own feet and went to the floor in a loud and unceremonious crash. Larkin stumbled back a step, leaned against the nearest wall, and reached up with both hands to tear the tape from his face.
Doyle was on Costa immediately, wrenching the Maglite from his hold and throwing it deeper into the apartment. He shoved Costa onto his stomach, pulled his arms behind his back, and snapped a pair of handcuffs on him.
Larkin gagged and spat as he pulled a large handkerchief from his mouth. It was a handmade thing of differently sized and colored fabrics, all of it haphazardly stitched together. Gripping the memento, the trophy, the reminder of twenty-two lives to mourn, Larkin screamed at Costa, “You messed with the wrong goddamn faggot,didn’t you?”
Doyle grabbed Larkin by the shoulders. He looked like he wanted to shake Larkin apart until he was a pile of nuts and bolts to be reassembled into a smarter man. “What the fuck were you thinking, Evie?”
But Larkin didn’t have a chance to respond before Doyle pulled him against his chest and hugged Larkin until the sound of police sirens filled the street outside.
Chapter Eighteen
“Matilde Wagner née Costa is your older sister.”
It was Friday, June 19, and Larkin stared at Sal Costa across a dented metal tabletop. Costa said nothing in response. He sat sullenly, wearing property of the Tombs that consisted of an orange jumpsuit, slip-on shoes, and a waist chain. He looked older, and in only a week’s time, had lost all of his bravado and swagger.
“Where did Matilde go,” Larkin asked. Into the silence that answered, he continued, “It’s only a matter of time before we find her. It would be in your best interest to assist the police, because I can assure you, Mr. Costa, orange is not your color.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Costa said through clenched teeth.
Larkin crossed his legs and settled his hands in his lap. “Would you like to hear what I believe to have happened.”
“I couldn’t care less.”
“Well, you don’t have anywhere to be,” Larkin answered indifferently. “So I’ll tell you anyway. Your sister Matilde is one of six children in a devout, Italian-American household. In adulthood, she took to one of the few professions women could pursue at the time—nursing. It was at the New York Infirmary that she met petty thief and sex addict Earl Wagner. He was easy to control and manipulate, and that’s where she killed first, where she honed her craft. Earl showed her how to scam digoxin, and she murdered at least three patients. There might be more, but the records are forty-one years old and no one ever suspected a killer nurse. Those three patients were the only sudden and unexplained heart attacks I could link to the night shift she worked.
“But Matilde wanted to branch out. Wanted to rid the earth ofreal scum. After Earl was released from jail for smuggling digoxin out of the hospital for Matilde, they found him a job at the Dirty Dollhouse. Of course, the owner didn’t have a problem hiring a guy with a record, because Matilde asked her baby brother, Sal, the apple of Uncle Vinny’s eye, to put in a good word for Earl. He was trying to get his life together, needed solid employment, and before you knew it, he was the resident spunk cleaner.
