Bullet To The Head (Part 2)

Eddie Cardone woke to the sound of a teapot whistling. The bed beside him was empty, sheets still warm but twisted like a crime scene. Light leaked through the crooked blinds in dull slats. His body ached in good places. And bad places. He stood, winced, and limped to the window.

Outside, Doyers Street had vanished beneath a blanket of morning mist thick enough to swallow the sidewalk whole. A man, or what appeared to be the shape of one, stood on the corner beneath a broken streetlamp, looking up. Right at the window.

Eddie blinked. The figure turned and disappeared into the fog, legs trailing behind like smoke.

From the kitchenette, Eddie heard the clink of ceramic. He turned and followed.

Lillianne stood barefoot in a silk robe, hair pinned up with the same precision as the questions on her mind. She poured coffee into a chipped cup, added nothing, and slid it across the counter without looking at him.

"You take coffee?"

Eddie rubbed his neck. “Good guess.”

She made coffee for him, tea for herself, and eggs for both, sizzled in a pan. The place still smelled like crab, sex, and last night’s bad decisions.

“Did I tell you I used to work at an art gallery?” she asked.

“No.”

“Cultural center,” she clarified. “Asian arts. Mostly diaspora stuff, second-gen pieces with too much anger or not enough soul.” She gestured vaguely toward the walls, where artwork leaned in mismatched frames.

Eddie’s eyes settled on a crooked painting: an abstract sprawl of ink and oil, all shadows and implied geometry. It looked like a street scene caught mid-melt, a Chinatown alley glimpsed in a dream.

“You paint?” he asked, stepping closer.

“Used to.” Her voice dropped half a note. “Before I was shot.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, just thick.

“You work?” she asked.

“Yeah. A little of this, little of that. Storage, mostly.”

“Storage,” she echoed as if the word amused her. “You look like a man who holds onto things.”

Eddie took a sip of the coffee. It was strong, almost too strong, but welcome. “Some things are worth holding onto.”

She looked at him then. And for a moment, it seemed like she wanted to believe that.

She cracked an egg with the edge of a spatula. “So what’s your real story, Eddie Cardone? You from the West Side, or is that just a line you use when you’re down here hunting for trouble?”

He smiled thinly. “Columbus Avenue. Why would I make that up?”

“People do that.”

“Lie about themselves?”

“Yeah, lie about themselves.”

“There’s nothing much more to me. I grew up above a deli. Ma worked nights, dad split early. You want my report card too?”

“No. I want to know what a white boy with soft hands is doing running rackets with Jimmy Tong.”

Eddie froze for a second. She flipped the egg.

“I’m not running rackets,” he said.

She smiled without turning. “Okay.”

He leaned against the counter. “You always do this?”

“Do what?”

“Cross-examine your conquests the morning after? I mean, you didn’t even say ‘good morning.’”

“Good morning,” Lillianne said, sliding a plate of sunny-side-up eggs Eddie’s way. “Sorry, Eddie, I intermittently lose track of who, where, and what I am.”

“You know, I spotted someone down on the street a moment ago looking up at your bedroom window.”

“One of Tommy’s look-outs,” Lillianne conceded.

Eddie picked up his fork, pierced an egg yolk, and let it bleed. “Do you know who tried to kill Tommy that night?”

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she reached for the teapot and poured with ceremonial calm, the stream steady, almost meditative. “No,” she said finally. “But I have a flash. A shadow. A man. Not Chinese. White. Good-looking. Like you. You’ve heard of déjà vu?”

Eddie chewed slowly, eyes narrowing. “The sensation that something has happened before even though it’s happening for the first time.”

“Exactly.” She cradled her cup. “What about presque vu?”

He paused, uncertain. “Sounds French.”

“It is. Means ‘almost seen.’ The sensation of standing at the edge of memory, knowing something’s there, just out of reach.” Her gaze lifted, calm and direct. “Like something on the tip of your tongue. Like something about Eddie Cardone.”

The air shifted and tightened.

Eddie swallowed the mouthful like it had turned to stone and then said, half-joking, “You don’t think I had anything to do with it?”

She looked at him then, really looked. Her eyes were not accusing, but they weren’t kind either. “No,” she said. “But maybe you knew him.”

Silence followed. Outside, a distant siren rose and faded like the world was holding its breath with them.

“You think I’d be in this kitchen right now if I tried to kill Tommy Huang?” Eddie said v