Bloodroot (34 page)

“So you’ll tell me, right?” I asked again. “If those files you copied say anything about me? Anything that might come in handy the next time Whitestone’s giving me shit?”

When we hit the bottom of the stairs, we hid the flashlights in my schoolbag and I unlocked the door with my faculty key. Outside, Danny tossed the key to Whitestone’s office into a trash can. We headed for the parking lot, having not yet encountered a single security guard.

“I didn’t copy any files,” Danny said. “I planted a spy program in his computer.”

“Don’t tell me we have to get in there again. You threw away the key.”

“Whitestone’s Internet hookup is wireless, right?”

I nodded. The whole campus had gone wireless.

“With that program in there,” Danny said, “I can access everything he does, every file he has now or gets or creates in the future. All from my own computer in Brooklyn. I can e-mail his shit, print it, change it if I really wanted. Basically, I made his computer an extension of mine. Think about what schedule you want for next semester.”

I waited at the passenger-side door as Danny slipped into the driver’s seat. He reached across the car and let me in.

“Goddamn,” I said. “I didn’t know that kind of shit even existed.”

Danny started the car. “Dude, technology-wise, I’m on the same level as Israeli military intelligence. All it takes is cash and a certain morally casual attitude.” He turned as he backed us out of the parking space. “You wanna know the best part?”

“Do I?”

“You do, you’re like me, you have a deep appreciation for irony.”

We headed down Campus Road, passing in and out of the glow of the streetlamps.

“All this fancy computer shit I use?” Danny said. “I order it off the Net. God bless America.”

 

 

 

WHEN WE HIT THE EXPRESSWAY
and headed north, I figured Danny was taking me home. That was fine with me; I didn’t need him to keep his promise to buy drinks. What I really wanted to do was take a quick shower and call Kelsey. I needed some company; no, if I was going to be honest, I needed
her
company. But then Danny turned the wrong way at the Bay Street exit and I knew I’d have to wait. I protested weakly, telling Danny of my plans.

“Give me another hour,” he said. “Maybe less. We gotta talk to Al real quick. He called when we were in the office.”

I rolled my shoulders and looked out the window. I hoped Kelsey had told me the truth when she said not to worry about the time.

“So, loverboy, you get a drawer yet?” Danny asked. “C’mon, don’t pout. We’re having fun.”

“A what?”

“A drawer in her dresser for your stuff,” Danny said. “That’s the next logical step.”

“I haven’t asked and she hasn’t offered,” I said. “It’s weird. We seem to be doing everything backward.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Danny said. “You pass through the drawer stage no matter what direction you come at it from. You gonna give her one?”

I said nothing, keeping my gaze fixed on the passing mix of sagging, tumbledown houses and gated, graffiti-stained storefronts.

“Has she even been to your place yet?” Danny asked. He sighed. “Of course not. That money’s sitting in a shoe box under your bed, isn’t it? Spend some, pretty the place up for her. Go out on a limb and buy a bed.”

“And who’s got a drawer set aside for you?” I asked.

“My line of work prohibits enduring romantic relationships,” Danny said. “Trust issues.” He slid the car into a parking space about a block and a half from the Cargo Café. “My clothes go from my back to the floor and on again before they wrinkle. No big deal. Couplehood ain’t a priority for me right now.” He put the car in park and turned to me. “Listen, bro. Your life is different now, live like it. Take advantage. What’s the point of all this otherwise?”

“For the record, the money’s not in a shoe box,” I said, one hand on the door handle. “It’s in a loafer in my closet. And couplehood wasn’t on my list, either.”

 

 

 

THANKFULLY, A LARGE, NOISY
crowd filled the Cargo. I was feeling the need to disappear. The bar was three deep. Under the plate-glass windows along the front of the building, every booth brimmed with patrons sitting jammed shoulder to shoulder or propped up on one folded knee. The tables overflowed with spent napkins, sweaty pitchers of beer, plastic taco baskets, and metal pizza trays. Shirley Manson growled through old boxy speakers suspended in the ceiling corners. The chalkboard above the pool table had a long waiting list.

A waterfront bar with a great view of Manhattan, the Cargo had been my regular haunt when I’d first moved to the neighborhood, not long after I took the job at Richmond. With its proximity to the boat, and thereby Wall Street, the Village, and midtown, its long list of designer drafts and fruit-flavored vodkas, and its early alternative-heavy jukebox, the Cargo hosted a lot of Staten Islanders for whom thirty was a memory but who still saw forty as a curve in the road yet to appear.

The main attraction for me had been the better than average menu; the bar had for months been my kitchen. I’d liked both the food and the chance to float among people my age making something of themselves and their lives. Of course, at the end of the night I took a cab back to my dark apartment while they drove home in Explorers and Pilots back to houses they owned, many of them with husbands or wives. Any survey or census would’ve called them my peers but I spoke to very few of them.

Talking baseball with the head bartender, a guy who had introduced himself to me as John but who answered to Junior, constituted the limit to my socializing. I could see him behind the bar as Danny and I shuffled out of the way of the entrance.

John wouldn’t talk about it but I’d heard stories that he’d mixed it up pretty good with the cops and the Mob over his father’s murder and lived to tell about it. And that he’d stolen some hotshot lawyer’s girl in the process. I hadn’t put much stock in the stories when I heard them. They were too outlandish for a moody but otherwise pretty contented, normal person.

But as I watched John pour out a brace of martinis into chilled glasses, the stories didn’t seem so unbelievable. Not because of any new information or perception I had of him, but because of what I’d done myself recently and still planned to do. I’d slipped without any real effort from a normal life into a criminal enterprise. Slipping back aboveground was going to be difficult, if not impossible. My stomach went cold when a woman seated in front of John asked for a splash more martini in her glass, holding her forefinger and thumb an inch apart.

While Danny scanned the crowd for Al, a redheaded waitress blew by, leaving us awash in a cloud of Secret, fried jalapeños, and burnt cheddar cheese. I couldn’t place exactly when and why I’d stopped coming to the Cargo. The staff at least pretended to be friendly. The clientele hadn’t deteriorated, nor had the prices gone up. Looking out the front windows at the Manhattan skyline, I realized my balcony did offer almost the same exact view. Maybe that had been the reason. A sad one if that was the case.

As if he’d felt Danny’s eyes seeking him out, Al stood and gave a lazy wave from a corner of the bar. Danny nodded toward the courtyard entrance. I followed Danny and Al followed us. The three of us found an empty table in the far corner.

Al looked downright bad, his face pale and clammy, his eyes restless and vague. His hair sprung up in all directions. Instead of cologne, I smelled only alcohol. He’d been drinking pretty hard while he waited for us and he made no effort to disguise it. Danny ordered two Guinness from the frazzled waitress, the same redhead from inside. She hurried away.

“And another goddamn double Crown and Seven,” Al yelled after her. “Ya dumb bitch. Can’t you fucking count? There’s three of us here.” He turned to us, his mouth hanging open, his hands raised, as if he expected commiseration over the waitress’s shoddy counting skills

I turned away from him, my face burning with embarrassment. I hoped no one working that night recognized me. I sank lower in my seat. Al kept staring at Danny and me, sucking on the ice from his dead cocktail.

Danny sat back in his chair, his hands in the air. “You wanted this meet, Al. What’s up?”

Al rolled his eyes and pushed up out of his chair, tottering as he stood. “Didn’t realize I was wasting your precious fucking time. Never fucking mind.”

“Sit down,” Danny said, glaring up at Al and pointing to the empty chair. His words were a quiet, firm command. Danny picked up the candle in the center of the table and lit it with his lighter. Using the candle, he lit a smoke. “You cursed at that poor girl for a drink, sit the fuck down and drink it. You’re buying this round, too, and you better fucking come up with a righteous tip.”

Grumbling, Al tossed his credit card on the table. “Like I give a fuck.” He dropped back into his chair, nearly going over backward into the landscaping. “It ain’t fair. It ain’t right.”

“What ain’t?” Danny asked. “You can afford it.”

Al shot his arm over the table, pushing his inverted palm at me. “Him. He ain’t.”

“What’d I do?” I asked.

John brought out our drinks. Not a good sign. The waitress, a skinny slip of a girl, glared at us from the doorway, chewing on her thumbnail. John set the three drinks down one by one. He looked at me. “Kevin, right? Been a while.”

I stood to shake his hand. “Right. This here is my brother, Danny, and our friend Al.” John nodded at the others but he didn’t shake any more hands. “Look,” I said, “I’m sorry about the bad manners.”

“Don’t apologize to that cunt for me,” Al said from low in his chair, deep in the shadows. He wiggled his fingers at his credit card. “Put it there.”

“I’m out here as a courtesy to you guys,” John said, looking back and forth between Danny and me, pointedly excluding Al from the conversation. “Next time this trained ape talks to Maureen like that, she’s gonna stab him in the eye with a four-inch switch-blade. There’s nothing I can do to prevent it. And believe me, when that happens? I’m gonna be way too busy to call nine-one-one.” He picked up Al’s empty glass. “This round is on me but I’m afraid it’s gonna be the last one for you fellas tonight.”

Danny leaned forward, folding his hands on the tabletop, his face warm with obvious admiration. “We’re grateful for the hospitality.” He turned to Al. “You won’t have any more trouble from us, I promise. We’ll make things right with Maureen.”

“Appreciate it,” John said. “Nice to meet you, Danny. Don’t be a stranger, Kev. Shame about the Mets. We’ll get ’em next year.”

On his way back into the bar, John said something into Maureen’s ear that pleased her. She shot us a self-satisfied grin and walked into the bar.

“Tell me when I became your bitch,” Al said, staring into the space that Maureen had just vacated.

“When you started acting like one,” Danny said. “What’s your fucking problem?”

“I’m losing work and money,” Al said. “I been, like, practically laid off. Bavasi said the word came from Santoro himself. They’re in love with Mr. Smarty-Pants over here.” He threw his hands in the air. “I got bills to pay, man. Debts. What if there is no next job? What if it goes to the professor over here?”

“This is a one-time thing for me,” I said. “After this project, I’m out.”

“Al, you’re overreacting,” Danny said. “I know for a fact you got another job. Shit, you’re lucky you’re still sucking air after that fuck-up with the bodies. And that was after that shit in Atlantic City. Which was after you got whipped by Waters.”

“La-dee-fucking-da on the new job,” Al whined. He spit on the deck. “I’m fucking babysitting again. Sitting on some creep from the school named Whitestone. He’s almost as boring as the professor here.”

“I got you that fucking job,” Danny said. “And I had to work it hard.” Turning away from me, Danny leaned closer to Al. “Whitestone’s important work. We can probably turn this whole thing on just him. Kevin and I are working him from the inside.”

“It’s fucking charity baby work, is what it is,” Al said.

“I’m telling you it’s important,” Danny said. “Whitestone knows Kevin and he’s met me. You’re the only one that can tail him and not get made. Tell me you’ve got something on him and that’s why you called. We could really use some help.”

Al straightened in his chair and hopped it closer to the table. Danny’s bringing him back into the mix reinvigorated him. That Danny had gone to bat for him surprised and impressed him.

“He’s married,” Al said. “The broad’s got a face like a hyena but she’s got money. Couple of young kids in the house. Two boys. Also the broad’s. Never takes ’em anywhere.” Al stared into his hands as if they held an open notebook. “Kids go back and forth to school, that’s it. Nice house by the water in Great Kills, over by the beach. Decent but nothing too fancy. He drives an old Saab convertible.”

It made me queasy, the ease with which Danny manipulated Al’s interest and mood. I wondered if someone else would see the same dynamic, someone like Kelsey, maybe, in the way Danny talked to me. I didn’t want to know. Besides, I wasn’t as dumb or as drunk as Al.

“The kids,” I said. “They do anything after school? Play sports or anything?”

Al shook his head. “Don’t look like it to me. Couple miserable spoiled bastards from the looks of them.”

“Nieces?” I asked. “Nephews?”

“Doubt it,” Al said. “I know what you’re talking about. I seen him out there at Willowbrook. He doesn’t talk to anyone, just wanders around. I don’t know whose kids he’s interested in out there, but they’re not his.”

I turned to Danny. His face had gone cold, become a stone mask, his eyes disappearing deep into his face. He wasn’t breathing. Al noticed it, too.

“Oh, shit,” Al said, half-covering his mouth with his hand, his eyes popping wide. “You don’t think . . . oh, fucking gross.”

“I knew that guy was wrong,” Danny said. “Minute I laid eyes on him.”