A Walk Among the Tombstones (3 page)

"What?"

"I'll bet you've never been toIreland ."

"I've never been out of the country," I said. "Wait a minute, that's not true, I've been toCanada a couple of times andMexico once, but--"

"You've never been toEurope ?"

"No."

"Well, for Jesus' sake, get on a plane and come over. Bring herself if you want"-- meaning Elaine-- "or come alone, it makes no matter. I talked to Rosenstein and he says I'd best stay out of the country awhile yet. He says he can get it all straightened out but they've got this fucking federal task force and he doesn't want me on American soil until the all clear's sounded. I could be stuck in this fucking pesthole another month or more. What's so funny?"

"I thought you loved the place, and now it's a pesthole."

"Anywhere's a pesthole when you haven't your friends about you.

Come on over, man. What do you say?"

PETER Khoury got to his brother's house just after Kenan had had still another conversation with the gentler of the kidnappers. The man had seemed rather less gentle this time, especially toward the end of the conversation when Khoury tried to demand some evidence that Francine was alive and well. The conversation went something like this: KHOURY: I want to talk to my wife.

KIDNAPPER: That's impossible. She's at a safe house. I'm at a pay phone.

KHOURY: How do I know she's all right?

KIDNAPPER: Because we've had every reason to take good care of her. Look how much she's worth to us.

KHOURY: Jesus, how do I even know you've got her in the first place?

KIDNAPPER: Are you familiar with her breasts?

KHOURY: Huh?

KIDNAPPER: Would you recognize one of them? That would be the simplest way. I'll cut off one of her tits and leave it on your doorstep, and that will put your mind at rest.

KHOURY: Jesus, don't say that. Don't even say that.

KIDNAPPER: Then let's not talk about proof, shall we? We have to trust each other, Mr. Khoury.

Believe me, trust is everything in this business.

That was the whole thing, Kenan told Peter. He had to trust them, and how could he do that? He didn't even know who they were.

"I tried to think who I could call," he said. "You know, people in the business. Someone to stand by me,

back me up. Anybody I can think of, for all I know, they're in on it.

How can I rule anybody out?

Somebody set this up."

"How did they--"

"I don't know. I don't know anything, all I know is she went shopping and she never came back. She went out, took the car, and five hours later the phone rings."

"Five hours?"

"I don't know, something like that. Petey, I don't know what I'm doing here, I got no experience in this shit."

"You do deals all the time, babe."

"A dope deal's completely different. You structure that so everybody's safe, everybody's covered. This case--"

"People get killed in dope deals all the time."

"Yeah, but there's generally a reason. Number one, dealing with people you don't know. That's the killer. It looks good and it turns into a rip-off. Number two, or maybe its number one and a half, dealing with people you think you know but you don't really. And the other thing, whatever number you want to give it, people get in trouble because they try to chisel. They try to do the deal without the money, figure they'll make it good afterward. They get in over their heads, they get away with it, and then one time they don't. You know where that comes from nine times out of ten, it's people who get into their own product and their judgment goes down the toilet."

"Or they do everything right and then six Jamaicans kick the door in and shoot everybody."

"Well, that happens," Kenan said. "It doesn't have to be Jamokes.

What was I reading the other day,

Laotians inSan Francisco . Every week there's some new ethnic group looking to kill you." He shook his head. "The thing is, in a righteous dope deal you can walk away from anything that doesn't look right.

You never have to do the deal. If you've got the money, you can spend it somewhere else. If you've got the product, you can sell it to somebody else. You're only in the deal for as long as it works, and you can back yourself up, build in safeguards along the way, and from the jump you know the people and whether or not you can trust them."

"Whereas here--"

"Whereas here we got nothing. We got our thumb up our ass, that's what we got. I said we'll bring the money and you bring my wife, they said no. They said that's not the way it works. What am I gonna say, keep my wife? Sell her to somebody else, you don't like the way I do business? I can't do that."

"No."

"Except I could. He said a million, I said four hundred thousand. I said fuck you, that's all there is, and he bought it. Suppose I said--"

The phone rang. Kenan talked a few minutes, making notes on a scratch pad. "I'm not coming alone," he said at one point. "I got my brother here, he's coming with me. No arguments." He listened some more and was about to say something else when the phone clicked in his ear.

"We gotta roll," he said. "They want the money in two Hefty bags.

That's easy enough. Why two, I wonder? Maybe they don't know what four hundred large is, how much space it takes up."

"Maybe the doctor told them no heavy lifting."

"Maybe. We're supposed to go to the corner ofOcean Avenue andFarragut Road ."

"That's in Flatbush, isn't it?"

"I think so."

"Sure,Farragut Road , that's a couple of blocks fromBrooklynCollege . What's there?"

"A phone booth." When they had the money divided up and packed in a pair of garbage bags, Kenan handed Peter a gun, a 9-mm automatic. "Take it," he insisted. "We don't want to walk into this unarmed."

"We don't want to walk into it at all. What good's a gun gonna do me?"

"I don't know. Take it anyway."

On the way out the door Peter grabbed his brother's arm. "You forgot to set the alarm," he said.

"So? They got Francey and we're carrying the money. What's left to steal?"

"You got the alarm, you might as well set it. It can't be any less useful than the goddamn guns."

"Yeah, you're right," he said, and ducked into the house. When he emerged he said, "State-of-the-art security system. You can't break into my house, can't tap my phones, can't bug the premises. All you can do is snatch my wife and make me run around the city with trash bags full of hundred-dollar bills."

"What's the best way, babe? I was thinkingBay Ridge Parkway and thenKings Highway to Ocean."

"Yeah, I guess. There's a dozen ways you could go, but that's as good as any. You want to drive, Petey?"

"You want me to?"

"Yeah, why don't you? I'd probably rear-end a cop car, the way I am now. Or run over a nun."

THEY were supposed to be at theFarragut Road pay phone at eight-thirty. They got there three minutes early, according to Peter's watch. He stayed in the car while Kenan went over to the phone and stood there waiting for it to ring. Earlier, Peter had wedged the gun under his belt in the small of his back. He'd been conscious of the pressure of it while he was driving, and now he took it out and held it in his lap.

The phone rang and Kenan answered it. Eight-thirty, Peter's watch said. Were they doing this by the clock or were they eyeballing the whole operation, somebody sitting in a window in one of the buildings across the street, watching it all happen?

Kenan trotted back to the car, leaned against it. "Veterans Avenue," he said.

"Never heard of it."

"It's somewhere between Flatlands andMillBasin , that area. He gave me directions, Farragut to Flatbush and Flatbush to Avenue N and that runs you right intoVeterans Avenue ."

"And then what happens?"

"Another pay phone at the corner of Veterans andEast Sixty-sixth Street ."

"Why the running around, do you have any idea?"

"Make us crazy. Make sure we don't have a backup. I don't know, Petey. Maybe they're just trying to break our balls."

"It's working." Kenan went around to the passenger side, got in.

Peter said, "Farragut to Flatbush, Flatbush to N. That'd be a right on Flatbush and then I guess a left turn on N?"

"Right. I mean yes, right on Flatbush and left on N."

"How much time have we got?"

"They didn't say. I don't think they said a time. They said to hurry."

"I guess we won't stop for coffee."

"No," Kenan said. "I guess not."

* * *

THE drill was the same at the corner of Veterans and Sixty-sixth.

Peter waited in the car. Kenan went to the phone, and it rang almost immediately.

The kidnapper said, "Very good. That didn't take long."

"Now what?"

"Where's the money?"

"In the backseat. In two Hefty bags, just like you said."

"Good. Now I want you and your brother to walk upSixty-sixth Street to Avenue M."

"You want us to walk there?"

"Yes."

"With the money?"

"No, leave the money right where it is."

"In the backseat of the car."

"Yes. And leave the car unlocked."

"We leave the money in an unlocked car and walk a block--"

"Two blocks, actually."

"And then what?"

"Wait on the corner of Avenue M for five minutes. Then get in your car and go home."

"What about my wife?"

"Your wife is fine."

"How do I--"

"She'll be in the car waiting for you."

"She better be."

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Look, there's one thing bothers me, that's leaving the money unattended in an unlocked car.

What I'm worried, somebody grabbing it before you get to it."

"Not to worry," the man said. "This is a good neighborhood."

THEY left the car unlocked, left the money in it, walked one short block and one long block to Avenue M. They waited five minutes by Peter's watch. Then they headed back toward the Buick.

I don't think I ever described them, did I? They looked like brothers, Kenan and Peter. Kenan stood five-ten, which made him a scant inch taller than his brother. They were both built like rangy middleweights, although Peter was beginning to thicken just the least bit at the waist. Both had olive skin tones and straight dark hair, parted on the left and combed back neatly. At thirty-three, Kenan was starting to develop a slightly higher forehead as his hairline receded. Peter, two years older, still had all his hair.

They were handsome men, with long straight noses and dark eyes set deep under prominent brows.

Peter had a mustache, neatly trimmed. Kenan was cleanshaven.

If you were going by appearances, and if you were up against the two of them, you would take Kenan out first. Or try to, anyway. There was something about him that suggested he was the more dangerous of the two, that his responses would be more sudden and more certain.

That's how they looked, then, walking rapidly but not too rapidly back to the corner where Kenan's car was parked. It was still there, and still unlocked. The bags of money were no longer in the backseat.

Francine Khoury wasn't there, either.

Kenan said, "Fuck this shit, man."

"The trunk?"

He opened the glove box, triggered the trunk release. He went around and lifted the lid. There was nothing in the trunk but the spare tire and the jack. He had just closed the trunk lid when the pay phone rang a dozen yards away.

He ran to it, grabbed it.

"Go home," the man said. "She'll probably get there before you do."

* * *

I WENT to my usual evening meeting around the corner from my hotel atSt. Paul the Apostle, but I left on the break. I returned to my room and called Elaine and told her about the conversation with Mick.

"I think you should go," she said. "I think that's a great idea."

"Suppose we both go."

"Oh, I don't know, Matt. It would mean missing classes."

She was taking a course Thursday evenings at Hunter, in fact she'd just got back from it when I called.

"Indian Art and Architecture Under the Moghuls." "We'd just go for a week or ten days," I said. "You'd miss one class."

"One class isn't such a big deal."

"Exactly, so--"

"So I guess what it comes down to is I don't really want to go. I'd be a fifth wheel, wouldn't I? I have this picture in my mind of you and Mick rocketing around the countryside and teaching the Irish how to raise hell."

"That's some picture."

"But what I mean is it'd be a sort of boy's night out, wouldn't it, and who needs a girl along? Seriously, I don't particularly want to go, and I know you're restless and I think it would do you a world of good.

You've never been anywhere inEurope ?"

"Never."

"How long has Mick been gone? A month?"

"Just about."

"I think you should go."

"Maybe," I said. "I'll think about it."

SHE wasn't there.

Nowhere in the house. Kenan went compulsively from room to room, knowing it was senseless, knowing she couldn't have gotten past the alarm system without either setting it off or disarming it. When he ran out of rooms he went back to the kitchen, where Peter was making coffee.

He said, "Petey, this really sucks."

"I know it, babe."

"You're making coffee? I don't think I want any. Bother you if I have a drink?"

"Bother me if I have a drink. Not if you do."

"I just thought-- never mind. I don't even want one."

"That's where we differ, babe."

"Yeah, I guess." He spun around. "Why the fuck are they jerking me around like this, Petey? They say she's gonna be in the car and then she's not. They say she'll be here and she isn't. What the fuck's going on?"