Bloodroot (26 page)

HIS BLACK EYES ON FIRE, AL SAT ALONE IN THE BACK BOOTH AT
the Red Lion when I arrived, a watery, half-finished cocktail in front of him and three empty glasses beside it. His simmering fury told me my conditions had made it at least as far as his ears. Had I gotten him in trouble with Santoro? I tried not to care. I swallowed hard and glanced around the room for Danny. I didn’t see him.

I stopped at the bar, ordered a Jack and Coke. I slurped at it while waiting for my change, thinking about the scene in
Star Wars
where Han Solo blows up that alien bounty hunter from under the table. Sweat trickled down both sides of my rib cage. What if I’d made things worse for everyone? Or maybe just for me? I could feel Al’s eyes boring into my back. That a sci-fi movie was my only reference for this situation made me horribly aware of how much of a fucking amateur I was at these dangerous, grown-up games. All my life I’d excelled at keeping my mouth shut. Why’d I pick
now
to be brave?

I slid the ones from my change around on the bar. If I stuck a couple in the jukebox, I could kill another few minutes and hope Danny appeared. I looked over at the door. Maybe I should walk back out. What if Al followed me? Caught me alone on the street? In his voice message, Danny had told me to arrive at nine. He hadn’t said specifically that he was coming. What if he wasn’t? Could Danny have set me up? No way. Never. I didn’t really think that; I was just scared. Al was an overpaid, overgrown schoolyard bully. I wasn’t gonna let him get to me like he had outside my building.

I picked up my cocktail and walked over to the booth. I opened my mouth to say something as I sat but Al cut me off.

“He’ll be here in a little while,” Al said.

He shifted in his seat. My stomach cramped up. I told myself to relax. I’d asked for this conference. Danny knew about this meet, had set it up. I’d be okay. Al might not think twice about splitting my skull, I knew that now, but he wouldn’t cross Danny like that.

“You got my message?” I asked.

“Are you on crack?” Al spat. “I thought Danny was the crazy brother, but you? You got me rethinking my opinions. What the fuck are you doin’ making demands on me? On Mr. S.?”

I reached for my glass. Al’s arm shot out across the table, pinning my wrist. He slammed the elbow of his other arm on the table. I searched the room to see if anyone had heard. If they had, they were ignoring it.

“Eyes front, motherfucker,” Al said. He pinched the forefinger and thumb of his hand close together; the same gesture Danny had used just that afternoon. I wondered, bizarrely, if Bavasi had taught them that move, like a secret handshake.

“You, shitbird, are a tiny, tiny piece of all this. That means you carry exactly no weight, which means you got exactly nothing to say. Zero. Playin’ hero for that frisky cunt you’re bangin’ is only gonna get people hurt. People that ain’t me.” Al released my wrist and sat back hard in the booth. His hands settled into his lap. “Follow me, Professor?”

My hand tingled and burned as the blood returned. I curled my fingers as best I could around my glass. I leaned over the table, never taking my eyes from Al’s, from his self-satisfied grin. I put all my energy into keeping both my voice and my Jack and Coke from shaking.

“You call Kelsey that name again,” I said, “and right before I burn you to death in that fucking short-dick car of yours, I’ll feed you your own balls.”

Al blinked at me a couple times. Never let it be said I didn’t learn something from my old man. Then Al moved. I froze. All the breath fell out of my chest. Al was halfway out of his seat when a hand seized his shoulder, pushing him back down. Danny.

“I only caught the end of that,” Danny said, “but something tells me there’s trouble in the sandbox.”

He smiled as he spoke, but the air around him rippled with menace like heat waves rising off sunbaked asphalt. It frightened me and it was no trick of the light.

“I was just explaining the facts to your brother here,” Al said.

“That true?” Danny asked.

He hadn’t sat, or even taken his hand from Al’s shoulder. I noticed Al had started sweating, spiking the strength of his already powerful cologne.

“More or less,” I said.

Danny clapped his hands. Al and I both nearly jumped out of our skin.

“Okay then,” Danny said, dropping into the booth next to me. “Who’s gonna buy me a drink?”

Al about exploded from his seat. “I got that. Just let me hit the pisser first.”

I watched Al make his way to the men’s room, wondering if he had really just asked my brother’s permission to take a leak. I realized that no matter how hard Al tried to sell it as an equal partnership, the balance of power in their situation had tilted in Danny’s favor.

“As long as he doesn’t put on any more cologne,” Danny said, waving his hand in front of his face. “How’d he take it, about the cop?”

“I thought you told him,” I said. “And I thought maybe you’d told our uncle, too. I figured that’s why Al was so pissed.”

Danny laughed. “Our uncle, you’re getting good at this. It’s okay, though, save that shit for the phone. I told Al that you wanted to speak privately with him and that Bavasi approved it.”

“So Santoro knows about this meeting?” I asked. “You got through that high?”

“Are you kidding? You think Santoro gets involved with this piddly shit? I told Bavasi that the three of us were meeting tonight to map out an attack strategy and that’s all.” Danny elbowed me, nodding at Al, who was on his way back from the bar. “I bent the truth a bit in Al’s case. He’ll be more receptive if he thinks Bavasi’s mad at him. But it’s best if we work this out among ourselves. The bosses hate drama.”

Al set drinks in front of Danny and me and sat down across from us. The volume on his Drakkar had come down a notch, but he was breathing a cloud of bad tequila all over the booth. He’d helped himself to some liquid courage at the bar.

“Two Jack and Cokes,” he said. “That cool?”

Danny nodded. Al seemed to relax. I felt relief but also a twinge of disappointment. I wanted Danny to make Al crawl some more.

“Kev,” Danny said, “tell Al about the cop.”

“What cop?” Al asked, a squeak in his voice I hadn’t heard before.

“There’s a cop that lives in Kelsey’s building,” I said. “A detective named Waters. You scared her. She put him on to your car. He’s looking for you, asking for the plates.”

Danny burst into hysterics and Al actually blushed, deflating in his seat. I could almost hear the air whistling out of him. I looked at one then the other, totally lost. My brother was the first to recover.

“Oooooh, shit,” he said, giggling. “Too much. Al, you have no fucking luck.” He drummed his hands on the table. “Let’s flip the script. Al, why don’t you tell Kevin about the cop?”

“Fuck you, man,” Al said, staring straight down. With his thumb, he tore pieces from the wet cocktail napkin under his drink.

“What else did Kelsey tell you about Waters?” Danny asked, clearly reveling in Al’s misery.

“That he was older, lived alone,” I said. “He keeps an eye out for the single women in the building. He helped out another girl with an ex-boyfriend last year.”

Danny’s eyebrows danced on his forehead. “Oh, really?”

“This girl sicced Waters on her ex and the guy never came around again. Nobody knows how it went down.”

“Not nobody,” Danny said, jerking his thumb at Al. I finally caught on.

“No way,” I said. “Al? You’re the ex?”

“Yes, indeed,” Danny said, clapping his hands. “I love this shitty island, there’s no getting away with anything.” He leaned across the table, calling Al’s name in a low, singsong voice. “Tell him, Al. Or I will.”

Al shot up in his seat then tilted a bit, looking for the first time like he might be really drunk.

“All right, fuck both you bitches. So Cheri fills this fat cop’s head full of lies about me, she’s probably bobbin’ his knob like she was everyone else in the fuckin’ neighborhood, cokehead whore that she is, which, might I add, is why she was the problem to begin with, not me, and gives him my name, tag number, all kinds a shit. He’s got nothin’ else to do, the no-life-havin’ motherfucker, so late one night he pulls me over on the South Shore Expressway. He makes me spread ’em on the trunk and then suckers me with his flashlight when I ain’t lookin’. So I’m already all dizzy and when I turn around to even the score he shines that fuckin’ light right in my eyes, blindin’ me, and so I trip and twist up my ankle real bad and hit the pavement. Then, the pussy-whipped dicklicker that he is, Waters works out on me while I’m down, talking like a tough guy the whole time, when he’s really just a no-account sneaker.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s some story.”

“The beauty is in the telling,” Danny said. “Some of it’s even true.”

“In case I forgot to say so,” Al said, “fuck you bitches.”

“Anyway,” Danny said, “the point is, Al, that this cop knows you.”

“Fuck him. I don’t even drive the same car anymore.”

“Is that what I should tell Bavasi,” Danny said, “when I gotta tell him you’ve been arrested?” He snapped his fingers in Al’s face. “Look at me, fool. When Kevin goes to see his girl, you leave them be. In fact, leave Kevin be at all times.”

“It ain’t up to us,” Al said. “Fuck, Kevin here is about the most boring-ass motherfucker I ever met. You think I like following around after Mr. Excitement here? But Bavasi wants Kevin babysat until this is over.” Al shrugged. “It ain’t our call, D.”

“Long as Al leaves Kelsey alone, I’m cool,” I said.

“Well, thank fucking Christ,” Al said. “That’s a load off my fucking mind.”

“I want them left alone,” Danny said. “Permanent. Let me worry about Bavasi. I got you covered.”

Al threw up his hands. “Fine, fine. Just don’t fuck me, Danny. I don’t want Bavasi asking me for information that I oughta have and don’t got. You can’t lie to that guy, you know that.”

“Trust me,” Danny said.

Al scoffed and slid out of his seat. “Trust you? You’re a fucking junkie. I’m fuckin’ outta here.” He staggered away from the table. “Seems you two got everything figured out.”

“Hey! Come back here!” I shouted. I tried to push past Danny. He wouldn’t budge.

“Forget it,” Danny said. “It’s not like it ain’t true.”

“What’s gotten into him?”

Danny sighed. “He’s already in the doghouse over that shit with the bodies. Now he thinks he’s blown another assignment. I know what he’s thinking, that the minute you showed up his life hit the shitter.”

“Me? All I’m doing is what you asked. Getting me involved was your idea, remember?”

“Hey, forget it,” Danny said. “Al’s been on borrowed time for a while.”

My brother seemed pretty nonchalant about Al’s situation. It didn’t seem to me that people got demoted in Santoro’s organization; they burned up at the dump. Danny plucked his cocktail straw from his drink and stuck it in his mouth.

“What happens when Bavasi asks Al about me,” I said, “and Al’s got nothing to tell him?”

“Relax. It’s not like Al’s gotta file a daily report,” Danny said. “He says nothing, Bavasi assumes nothing’s happening, at least for a while.” He sighed, rubbing his hands on his thighs. “Still, it’s probably best if we get things moving along. I did tell Bavasi that we’re making progress. Am I gonna go back to him with my dick in my hands?”

I swallowed a huge mouthful of Jack and Coke. “Word around the office is that Friends of Bloodroot is nothing serious. Whitestone’s fucking with his bosses. There’s a position he wanted that he didn’t get. He’s getting his jollies being a thorn.”

“Good news, I guess,” Danny said. He stared into his drink. He’d hardly touched it. “If this guy Whitestone was a real crusader, he could be a problem. How do we get him to back off?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But, listen, I’m gonna tell Whitestone I’m designing a class on Bloodroot, get on his good side for a change. I’ll learn more that way. I know the faculty in the group. I’ll get in touch with each of them and see what they know. In a couple of weeks I’ll have details. We can go from there.”

Danny shook his head. “Santoro’s losing his patience.” He tossed his straw on the floor. “This bullshit’s already held him up almost a year. The longer Whitestone’s stupid vanity project hangs around, the more churches and charities and little old ladies start kicking in. We need an angle on the man. Somewhere to squeeze him. You need to work that meeting with him. If you can’t get something professional, get something personal.”

“Jesus, Danny,” I said, raising my hands. “What do you want from me? I don’t like where this is going.”

“Where’d you think it was gonna go?”

I crossed my arms, sank deeper into the booth. I thought about Ida Horace. “I think the money keeps him going. He got a donation the other day worth at least ten grand. Why not just buy him off?”

“Bribes mean establishing contact,” Danny said. “Starting a relationship. We don’t know Whitestone from Adam, if he’s greedy, if he scares easy. Can Whitestone be trusted to take his slice like a good soldier and keep his mouth shut? Is he smart enough to fool the IRS? You find these things out for us, maybe we can make that move.”

While Danny talked, I watched the bartender flip channels on the TV. I didn’t need a meeting to know bribing Whitestone would never work. I’d just wanted an easy answer. You couldn’t take bribes in front of a camera, at least not the kind of camera that Whitestone liked. And once the payoffs started, he’d never let go. He’d be worse than that guy with the bad hairpiece in
Goodfellas
, always nagging after his money. Which meant Whitestone would come to the same bad end, as well. And it wouldn’t be Joe Pesci doing the job; it might be Danny.

All our lives would be a lot easier, though, if Whitestone turned up dead. It was a horrible thought, but I couldn’t let it go. “How come no one’s just shot him?”