Peril (7 page)

“So make the deal with this little shit owes me fifteen grand,” Labriola said. “Then get back to me.”

“Yes, sir,” Caruso repeated in what had become the litany of his life. He hung up, paused briefly, then picked up the phone and dialed one of the scores of numbers he had stored in the hard drive of his mind, this one under the heading “Deadbeats,” the mental file to which he'd but recently added Morty's name.

STARK

He ate in the garden at Gascogne, surrounded on three sides by high brick walls laced with vines. Within a week the garden would be closed, and so he lingered over a final glass of brandy until nearly midnight.

After that he walked to his apartment on West Nineteenth Street. He'd bought the first-floor apartment nearly twenty years before, and bit by bit he'd turned it into a home that suited him, the walls decorated with carefully chosen oils, the floors draped with large Oriental carpets.

Once inside, he poured a glass of port, sat down in a high-back leather chair, and drew a book from the small mahogany table beside it. In his youth, reading had been his passion. He'd pored over the classics, devouring the Greeks, Shakespeare, scores of nineteenth-century novels, but now he read only for business—travel guides, catalogues filled with the latest high-tech surveillance equipment, computer manuals, private publications from the field, tips of the trade exchanged by the few people who'd made it to the top of his precarious profession.

He knew why this radical shift had occurred, and as he drank, he revisited the grim reason in a series of ghastly mental photographs—a body strewn in a Madrid alleyway, another floating in the shallow currents of the nearby river, and finally a dark-haired beauty tied to a chair, her body drooping forward, mercifully dead after what had been done to her.

Marisol.

At just past midnight, the buzzer signaled someone at the door.

He opened it to find Mortimer swiping droplets of rain from his jacket and stamping his rubber galoshes on the mat outside the door.

“Fucking wet,” Mortimer said morosely. He drew an envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to Stark. “From Brandenberg. Payment in full.”

Stark took the envelope. “Would you like a drink?”

Mortimer nodded, then followed Stark inside and took a seat on the leather sofa.

Stark poured Mortimer a scotch and handed it to him. “You look a little rumpled.”

“It ain't been a great day,” Mortimer said. He took a long pull on the scotch, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Stark watched Mortimer silently, now recalling how, after the murders, he'd had to create a new identity, find a go-between he trusted, and so had gone to Mortimer, the platoon sergeant he'd commanded through countless bloody days. Even now Stark was not exactly sure why he'd chosen Mortimer to assist him in his shadowy profession, save that there was a melancholy ponderousness to him that went well with the weighty confidences he was expected to hold. On a cold, snowy night, Stark had told Mortimer about Marisol's murder, along with the brutal penalty he had exacted from the men who'd committed it. He'd never forgotten Mortimer's reply,
Guys like that, nobody's gonna miss 'em.
He'd known at that moment that Mortimer was a man for whom moral subtlety amounted to mindless abstraction. Only the clearest lines appeared in his field of vision. On the confidence of that insight, he'd hired him immediately.

“Something bothering you?” Stark asked now.

“Me?” Mortimer laughed nervously. “Nothing.”

Stark peered at him intently. “Something's bothering you, Mortimer.”

Mortimer shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Well, there is this . . . other job . . . but I don't know if you'd want to do it.”

Stark eased himself into the chair opposite Mortimer. “Brandenberg again?”

“No. He had this Arab, but I know you don't want no foreigners.” He took a sip from the glass. “But this other thing come in.”

“What is it?”

Mortimer seemed hesitant to go on. “It's kind of personal,” he said. “A friend from the old days. He called me a couple hours ago.” He took another sip. “The thing is, his wife run out on him.”

“That's hardly new in life,” Stark said. “I'm sure you told him that in most cases the woman returns.”

“Yeah, I did,” Mortimer said. “But the thing is, he's set on tracking her down. He figured I might be able to help him.”

“Why would he figure that?”

“He figures I know people,” Mortimer answered. “I mean, not you. Just people who . . . do things.”

“What do you know about the woman?”

“Nothing. And the thing is, it's embarrassing, you know? To my friend. He don't want nobody to know about it. The neighbors, relatives, people like that. So what information I get, it's got to come from him. He don't want no asking around.”

“How much information can he give me?”

“I don't know. He's getting a few things together.”

“I can't work on thin air,” Stark said.

“I know,” Mortimer said. “Believe me, I know that. And there's something else. This guy, he ain't got much money. I mean, fifteen grand at the most. I know you don't work for less than thirty but . . .”

“You said he was a friend of yours.”

“Yeah,” Mortimer answered. “But like I said, we're talking fifteen . . .”

“I'll take it,” Stark said. “As a favor to you.” He waited for Mortimer to finish his drink, then escorted him to the door.

“Good night,” Mortimer said as he stepped into the corridor.

Stark nodded. “This friend of yours, you vouch for him, right?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Okay,” Stark said.

“Well, good night, then,” Mortimer said, returning his hat to his head.

“Good night,” Stark said, and closed the door and returned to his chair as well as to his thoughts of Marisol.

SARA

“Della, it's me.”

“Sara?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Just a sec, honey. Mike's sleeping. I'll go to the other room.” A pause, then, “Tony's looking for you, Sara. He sent a guy over here and the guy saw me, and he made me go in the house and look for you. He said Tony had been calling you, and didn't get an answer, you know, and so he sent this guy. So, what happened, Sara? You have a fight, you and Tony?”

“I better go now,” Sara said. “I just wanted to let you know that I'm okay.”

“No, wait, Sara, where are you?”

“I have to go, Della.”

“But—”

“I have to go.”

“But . . . wait . . . listen . . . you're not coming back?”

“No.”

“It's that bad?”

“Yes.”

“He hit you, Sara? Tony hit you?”

“No, but . . . I have to go, Della.”

“Yeah, okay,” Della said quietly. “Sure, honey.”

“So . . . take it easy, Della.”

“Yeah. You too.”

Sara hung up. A quick metallic click. That was what it sounded like, then, when someone dropped out of your story.

She put down the phone, turned on the television, then turned it off, and walked down the stairs and out into the night, along the Promenade, her eyes drawn to the glittering light show of Manhattan. Time passed. She was not sure how much time.

“Lady?”

She whirled, her gaze now fixed on the badge, staring at it with the same fear she'd first experienced on that summer afternoon when Sheriff Caulfield had pulled her over.
Got a broke taillight there, girl.

“I didn't mean to scare you,” the policeman said. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

She drew in a shallow breath. “I'm fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

The cop studied her for a moment, then touched the rim of his cap with a single finger. “Okay, good night, then.”

“Good night.”

She watched as the policeman moved on down the Promenade, waiting for him to turn around, head back toward her, the way Sheriff Caulfield had on that distant afternoon, down a dusty country road, moving slowly and without fear, superior to his prey. She felt his hand on her shoulder, drawing her from the car, confused, frightened, a teenage girl in a car with a broken taillight, eased out into the crystalline air.
Just do what I tell you and you'll be on your way.

But this time the policeman didn't turn back toward her, and once he was out of view, she returned her gaze to the Manhattan skyline, avoiding the empty space where the Towers had once stood. They'd been like her, she thought, just standing there in the open, weaponless and vulnerable.

The memory of a sweet, liquored breath swept into her face, and suddenly she heard the wind in the corn, saw herself glancing back to where both taillights remained intact.
But . . . Sheriff . . . my light isn't broken,
then saw him step over to the back of her car, take out his pistol, and shatter the left taillight, sending little shards of blood-red plastic onto the dusty road.
Now it is.

The memory of that moment filled her with a burning ire, the way she'd promised herself that she would never let it happen again. Next time,
Kill him,
the voice had whispered, and she had vowed,
I will.

TWO

Blame It on My Youth

ABE

“So what are you gonna do, Abe?” Jake lifted a glass, examined it for spots.

Abe looked up from yet another pile of bills. “Do?”

“You know, about Lucille. You gonna replace her?”

“Yeah,” Abe said.

That Lucille was dead still seemed unreal to him. He'd seen her body hauled away and yet he expected her to walk through the door at the usual hour, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth.

“ ‘Blame It on My Youth,' ” he said. “Lucille didn't sing that until she was forty-six, remember?”

Jake swiped the counter with a white cloth. “Made it seem like only old broads could sing that song.”

“Yeah,” Abe said. Then, because he could find nothing else to do, he walked to the piano, placed his fingers on the old familiar keys. “What do you want to hear?” he called.

“That peppy one she liked. I mean, when she wasn't in a mood.”

Abe knew the one Jake meant, and so began a bright, up-tempo version of “Your Feet's Too Big.”

When he finished, he returned to the bar. Susanne had come in by then, another book by one of what she called “the great minds” under her arm. She was a philosophy major at NYU and peppered her drink deliveries with pithy little aphorisms from her latest readings. Abe had heard scores of them during the few months Susanne had worked for him, but the only one that had stuck came from some Greek whose name he couldn't remember. Courage in a man, this Greek had said, was simply this, to endure silently whatever heaven sends.

He thought of Mavis, then of Lucille, and finally of that fucking cat, Pookie, the one he'd found dead on the kitchen floor three weeks after Mavis' abrupt departure. No, he thought, that Greek got it wrong. Courage was to endure silently whatever heaven takes away.

“So, what about Lucille?” Jake asked. “You gonna put an ad in
Variety,
something like that?”

Abe shook his head. “Nah,” he said.

If he put an ad in
Variety
, he knew a thousand kids would show up, all of them scooping the notes or singing through their noses, girls with tattoos and neon hair, with pierced tongues and ears and God knows what else under their blouses or below their belts.

“How about an open mike?” he said. “We did that when Lucille left for a year. Just put a sign in the window that says Open Mike and see who drops in.”

Jake shrugged. “You'll get that woman who makes all her clothes out of carpet remnants, remember her?”

Abe laughed. “Or the one who only sang songs with animals in the titles.”

“But changed the titles. ‘Sweet Doggie Brown,' for Christ's sake.”

“ ‘My Funny Butterfly.' ”

“Jesus, what a nutbag.”

“But not as bad as the one dressed in red rubber,” Abe said. “Changed the titles too, remember. ‘I'll Be Peeing You.' ”

They were both laughing now, and in their laughter Abe caught a glimpse of what life had been before Mavis fled. “Yeah,” he said, the laughter trailing off now. “Open mike is the way to go.”

MORTIMER

Mortimer rolled the coffee cup in his hand and tried to keep the pain in his belly from showing in his eyes. Only three days had passed since he'd taken the deal, and here Caruso was making changes.

“This is how Mr. Labriola sees it,” Caruso said. “Since he's paying the bill, he's got a right to check out the guy who's doing the job. The guy himself, I mean. Directly.”

“No way,” Mortimer told him.

They were sitting in a coffee shop at Port Authority, the morning commuters rushing by in noisy waves, the city in full morning frenzy. Nobody smelling the roses, Mortimer thought, though he'd never stopped to smell them either. Did anyone?

Caruso sipped a hazelnut blend from a paper cup. “That could be a deal breaker, you know, if the guy won't show.”

“He won't show,” Mortimer said flatly. “There ain't no give in this. He won't show . . . period.”

Caruso looked offended. “So who does he think he is, fucking Batman?”

“He won't show,” Mortimer repeated.

“You won't even talk to him?”

“There wouldn't be no point in talking to him, Vinnie,” Mortimer said emphatically. “The deal don't include no meeting. He don't meet with nobody. My guy ain't never done that, and he ain't gonna start now.”

Caruso leaned forward. “I just give you fifteen grand, remember?”

Mortimer remembered all too well. He could feel the envelope in his jacket pocket. The only thing, it didn't feel like bills, all silent and crinkly. It felt like thirty pieces of silver, loud and jangling, rattling through his soul.

“You gonna give a dime of that money to Batman?” Caruso asked him.

Mortimer shrugged.

“That's what I figured,” Caruso said. “You're shorting him. Batman, I mean. What if he found out you was doing that, Morty?”

“He ain't gonna find out.”

“What I'm saying is we got to have some trust here. Between us, I mean. I know you're shorting your guy and—” Caruso stopped, looking somewhat baffled, like a man who'd started following a thought, then lost it on the way. “Trust, that's what I'm saying. You can trust me. So your guy should show if I tell you he should show.”

Mortimer took a sip of coffee, tried to act firm, businesslike, beyond intimidation. “Look, Vinnie, if Labriola wants to have a look at me, fine. But that's where it stops.”

Caruso regarded Mortimer warily. “You know, I've been thinking maybe it stops with you, period. I've been thinking maybe Batman is you, Morty. That maybe you're going to grab the whole thirty grand.” He took another sip of coffee. “So is there another guy or not?”

“There is,” Mortimer said. “But what his cut is, that's between me and him.”

Caruso shrugged. “Look, if you want to cheat your guy, so what? It's no skin off my nose who gets what in this deal, long as you come up with this fucking broad Mr. Labriola is all lathered up about. But remember this: Labriola don't like getting fucked.” He waited for that to sink in, then added, “The Old Man gets real pissed a guy tries to screw him. And on this deal, he's really steaming to get the job done. Otherwise why would he be paying thirty grand?”

“Why
is
he paying that?” Mortimer asked. “It ain't his wife skipped town.”

“Close enough,” Caruso said. “He don't like his kid getting screwed by this broad and her getting away with it, and all that. So he's willing to pay to get her back. But believe me, he don't like paying that much, Morty. He don't like it he's got to go that deep into his pocket to get this thing done. Put all that together, it adds up to a bad mood. He's not to be fucked with is what I'm telling you.”

Mortimer glanced about anxiously. Why couldn't he have just worked in a goddamn factory like his father, or sold shoes, anything but this. And now cheating Stark? How fucking crazy could things get?

“And what steams the Old Man more than anything is being played for a chump,” Caruso added.

“Yeah, I understand,” Mortimer said. “But it don't change the way it is. What I'm telling you is that if Labriola wants to meet with me, I'm willing to do it. Anytime. Anyplace. But it's got to be with me 'cause nobody else is gonna show.”

“I don't know if he'll go for it, Morty.”

“It's the best I can do.”

“Which leaves you where, exactly? If the Old Man calls off the deal.”

Mortimer felt his tough-guy act crumble beneath Caruso's knowing gaze.

“It means you're back to where you was, right?” Caruso asked. “With a fifteen-thousand-dollar price on your fucking head.”

“If I have to come up with the money, I'll come up with the money.” Mortimer tried to sound confident but failed.

“But you don't have that money, Morty,” Caruso said cannily. “If you had it, or knew where you could get it, we wouldn't be having this conversation, right? Which means if this deal don't go through, you're fucked.”

“Which is why I'm ready to meet with Labriola,” Mortimer said. “Jesus, Vinnie, I know I'm in a fix. But the guy I work for, he's got nothing to do with that. He don't even know about it. And there's no way I can tell him, because it wouldn't do no good, because he don't show . . . never.”

Caruso considered this briefly. “Okay, suppose Mr. L. is willing to meet with you, when could you get together with him?”

“Whenever he says.”

“Today?”

“Today. Tonight. Any fucking time.”

“Okay, how about we make it Columbus Circle. This afternoon. Two-thirty. If I can get the Old Man to go for it, I mean.”

“Fine,” Mortimer said.

Caruso smiled. “And feel free to bring Batman if you can get him out of his fucking cave.”

Mortimer drew in a tense breath. “There's something else. You got to supply a few details, Vinnie. Stuff about the woman. Something to go on.”

“Like what?”

“Like who she is. Background. Where she might go. What she might do. My guy's got to have something to work on.”

Caruso smiled. “If your guy needs that, then he should meet with Mr. Labriola.”

Mortimer shook his head. “If he knew it was Labriola, he wouldn't do the job at all.”

“Why not?”

“ 'Cause he don't work for . . . guys like that.”

“Guys like what?”

“Guys that ain't . . . legit.”

Caruso looked at him quizzically.

“It's something that happened,” Mortimer said. “Long time ago. It don't matter what it was, but the bottom line, he don't work for . . . you know, a certain kind of guy.”

“So, who does Batman think he's working for in this deal?”

“A friend of mine, that's what I told him. He ever finds out otherwise, he'll ditch the whole thing.”

“And you along with it, right, Morty?” Caruso asked with a cagey grin. He sat back, took another sip of coffee, his eyes poised like small brown marbles over the white rim of the cup. “The thing is, I don't think Mr. Labriola knows much about that fucking broad.”

“Then maybe her husband's got some idea about—”

“Labriola's kid don't know nothing about this deal,” Caruso interrupted. “And that's the way it stays, 'cause Mr. Labriola ain't told the kid nothing.”

“The kid don't know Labriola's looking for his wife?”

“That's right.”

“Why ain't he told him?”

Caruso's face stiffened. “You ask a lot of questions, Morty. First it's how come Mr. Labriola's paying so much to find this broad. Now this thing about why he ain't telling the kid nothing about it. A lot of fucking questions, Morty.”

Morty lifted his hands defensively. “I'm asking, that's all. Calm down, for Christ's sake. You don't got to answer.”

“All I know is, Labriola wants this broad found . . . and quick. He's got a bug up his ass about it, that's what I'm telling you. He wants it done fast.”

“So get me the information I need,” Mortimer said. “Something for my guy to go on. He can't do a fucking thing till he gets something to go on.”

“Okay, I'll tell the Old Man, but between you and me, ain't it Batman's job to come up with this shit?”

“Yeah it is,” Morty said. “But like I just told you, Vinnie, if he comes into it at that level, it'd take him about five fucking seconds to figure out it's Labriola pulling the strings.” He looked at Caruso piercingly. “If you can't keep this between us, Vinnie, then I got to pull out. That means we're back to square one with me owing the Old Man, and you having to get it out of me or he'll get it out of you, remember?”

Caruso nodded.

“So are we good on this thing or not?” Mortimer asked.

“We're good,” Caruso said reluctantly. He emptied his coffee cup, then crushed it. “Just make sure your guy finds this fucking bitch.”

“You get him what he needs to know,” Morty said, “and he'll find her, believe me.”

STARK

Buenas tardes, señor.

Marisol's voice was still as real to him as the first time he'd heard it.

Sitting in Washington Square Park, Stark watched the young woman who'd just reminded him of her in the way she moved so gracefully along the pathway, books cradled in her arms. She was dressed in a black skirt and blouse of dark red, and as he followed her progress through the park, Stark was once again impressed by the vividness of his memory of Marisol, how in an instant he could bring her fully into view, the dark oval eyes, the gleaming black hair, the elegant taper of her long brown legs. He knew that at first he'd reacted to her with nothing but unabated lust, and that if by some unimaginable circumstance she had accompanied him to his hotel room on that sweltering Spanish afternoon, he might simply have made love to her and in that sweaty union washed her forever from his mind. But she had looked up as he approached, softly uttered her
“buenas tardes,”
and he had sat down instead, playing the American expatriate, expecting only to confirm her identity, then notify his client that she was found. But the conversation had turned unexpectedly intimate, and he'd felt a formerly dead part of himself quicken to life, so that by the time dusk had fallen over the tangled streets of Chueca, he'd arranged to meet her the next day at the Plaza del Sol.

A breeze fingered the bare limbs of the trees across the way. He glanced at his watch, felt the crawl of time, then shifted his gaze to the right and followed another young woman as she made her way past the cement fountain at the center of the park. She did not remind him of Marisol. Instead, she directed his mind to the woman he had to find for Mortimer's friend. He didn't care why she'd left her husband or what she might be seeking in her flight. Such speculations were a waste of time. They contributed nothing to his search.