The Barbed-Wire Kiss (15 page)

“So you swept her off her feet?”

“Like I said, this guy, he didn’t know it was time to let go. For him it was already a lost cause, he just wouldn’t accept it. He should have walked away, counted himself lucky that a loser like him ever knew a woman like that at all. But he couldn’t. So he got hurt—and why? Because he was stupid. No other reason. What was going to happen was inevitable.”

“How did she feel about that?”

“To tell the truth, I don’t know that she ever knew the whole story. But what’s done is done. It was natural selection. Darwin. No woman ever got wet over a man because he was a nice guy. It doesn’t work that way.”

Harry sat back.

“I’m sorry I got her involved in this,” he said. “It was just the way things worked out.”

“Like I said, past is past. What’s important is what happens now. Mickey tells me you have something for me.”

“Not a lot. But something. More than last time.”

“It’s always been my feeling that, in business, it’s good faith that counts most. That’s what’s important. A couple bucks here, a couple bucks there, it all balances out in the end. What matters is how you treat the people you do business with.”

Harry nodded.

“You’re a smart guy, Harry. I sensed that when we met, even before Mickey told me about you. I think we may be able to wrap this up today, if we’re lucky. I’d like to see that. And you and your buddy, I’m sure you’d like the same thing.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

A pager went off, a shrill insistent beep.

“It’s me,” Dunleavy said. He twisted, pulled the pager from his belt, looked at the number.

“There a phone around here?”

“Down in the lobby,” Fallon said. “There’s a couple of booths there if somebody hasn’t ripped the phones out to sell them.”

“I’ll be back in a minute.” He got up from the table.

Fallon gestured at his back as he walked away. “That’s a good man there. He caught a bad break, that trouble with those niggers. He didn’t deserve it.”

Harry lifted his glass.

“I was out before that happened.”

“A real shame that was. That’s a guy who’d give his left nut for you if you asked. Whenever he’s taking care of something, I don’t have to worry about it. It’s as good as done. That’s why, after he told me about you, I knew we could do business, settle this thing.”

“We knew each other briefly. But I can’t say we were friends.”

“But you don’t have to be beer-drinking buddies, playing cards on Friday, slapping each other on the back to know what’s what, right? Sometimes you meet a man and you know him right away. Sometimes you know a man twenty years and then he goes and does something that proves he was a stranger all along.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“Hey, believe me, I know. I’ve seen it. You can love and trust someone like a brother and the next thing you know, he turns around and tries to fuck you. And it’s usually because someone’s waving something green at him. But when you’re on your deathbed, do you wish you had more money, more cars, a bigger house? No. You wish you still had the friends you lost along the way. That’s the tragedy of it. Because then it’s too late.

“So I know what you’re going through here, Harry, getting involved for your friend and all. I understand it and I admire it. That’s why I asked Mickey to set this thing up. I don’t want our misunderstandings to go any farther. I was angry when I called you, but I was out of line, I admit it. Whatever was said that night between us is forgotten. All right?”

“Forgotten.”

“Good. Now that’s what I mean about acting in good faith. That tells me everything I need to know about you.”

Dunleavy came back, sat down, poured the rest of his beer into the glass.

“You find it?” Fallon said.

“Yeah.”

“We’re wrapping up here,” Fallon said. “We were just working out some details.” He turned back to Harry.

“So let’s do it this way,” he said. “Whatever it is you have that belongs to me, hold on to it for a while. Knowing you’ve got it is good enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“Keep it for now. You brought something to the table. Now it’s my turn. I’m willing to accept that this whole thing was an unfortunate accident, that your friend trusted someone he shouldn’t have. It happens.

“So I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. We’ll make it forty and call it quits. You already gave me eight and a half. Give me the other thirty-one and change and that’s it, debt’s closed as far as I’m concerned. That’s forty paid on fifty, more like sixty if you were adding in interest. So an even forty and we finish this once and for all, lick our wounds, and walk away. I’ll chalk the rest up to experience, the price of doing business. How’s that sound?”

Harry gave that a moment, sipped beer, conscious of both of them watching him.

“Well?” Fallon said.

“I’ll pass that on to him. What kind of time frame are we looking at?”

Fallon shrugged. “Hey, I’m not a bank. Or a mortgage company that’s going to come and take everything and leave some family out on the street. This is business. These things happen. But I’m not a fool, you know? Best intentions and all, people can get a little lazy if they’re not motivated. The clearer things are between us, the better for everybody.”

“How long?”

“Let’s say a week. No, ten days. Take ten days. From today.”

“That’s not enough time.”

“Look at it this way, with whatever you’ve got for me now, you’re probably about halfway there already, right?”

“I had fifteen to give you. You’re talking about raising another sixteen in ten days. That’s too much money and too little time.”

“Well, that’s my offer. I think it’s more than fair. Ten days. If we have to negotiate further on details, we’ll do that. But understand, Harry, this is going on a month. I’ve been very patient up to now. If Mickey hadn’t vouched for you, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

“It could be a problem. I’d have to talk to Bobby.”

“Go ahead. Call him from here if you want to. But I have to tell you, this is a limited-time offer. Just like on TV. I want to put this matter to rest. I don’t even want to think about it anymore. When you walk out of here, I want this thing to be settled.”

Harry looked at him, scratched his elbow.

“It’s not much time,” he said.

Fallon sat back, watched him.

“Make the call,” he said. “See what he says.”

“I don’t need to.”

Fallon smiled, leaned forward. He put his hand across the table. Harry took it.

“I’m going to be out of town for a few days, beginning tomorrow,” Fallon said. “I have to go up to Boston to settle some things. Mick will be with me. When I get back, we’ll hook up, work out the details. Are we agreed?”

Harry nodded.

“See? That was easy.” He looked from Harry to Dunleavy. “You were right.”

Harry stood up.

“When it’s all together, I’ll call the restaurant,” he said. “We can set up a time and place.”

“However you want to do it,” Fallon said. “I’ll leave it to you.”

“Hang on,” Dunleavy said, getting up. “I’ll walk you out.”

“Send Tommy back if you see him,” Fallon said. “I’ll buy him a drink.”

“So,” Dunleavy said as they started back toward the hall. “Miss the job?”

“Not too much these days.”

As they passed the table with the two black men, one of them mumbled something. Dunleavy stopped, turned toward them, smiling. They watched him, hard-eyed. They were in their late twenties, cold, confident. The one with the thug cross had pushed his chair back slightly from the table.

“Excuse me,” Dunleavy said. “I should apologize. My friend back there doesn’t always realize what he’s saying. But he doesn’t mean anything by it.”

Harry looked around. The waitress was alone behind the minibar, watching them. Fallon had his back to them, oblivious.

“What I’d like to do,” Dunleavy said, “is buy you two a drink.”

“Just go about your business, man,” the one on the left said, low, almost a whisper.

“Nah, I insist,” Dunleavy said. “It would make me feel better. What you guys got there, Heineken? I’ll get you two more. Unless you’d prefer a couple of 40s, some of that malt shit you people drink.”

“Mother
fuck
,” Cross said and started to get up.

Dunleavy was still smiling when he kicked the edge of the table hard. It caught the rising man in the stomach, sent him backward along with the chair. The table crashed down onto its side, the second man trying to get clear, getting his legs tangled in his own chair. The Heineken bottles hit the boardwalk, spraying foam.

Harry watched as if frozen, everything moving fast but in sharp focus. Cross kicked the table away, rolled onto all fours and reached for one of the Heineken bottles. As he got his fingers around it, Dunleavy stepped around the table, raised his knee high, and brought his foot down hard on the man’s hand.

The bottle exploded with a flat pop, and when Cross drew his hand back, there were shards of green glass embedded in his palm. He reeled back onto his knees, cradling his hand, and Dunleavy heel-kicked him in the face.

It was over as quickly as that. Harry was stepping in, reaching for Dunleavy’s sleeve, but Cross was already falling back limp, his nose flat and bloody, his eyes half open. He rolled onto his side and a cell phone fell from his pocket and clattered onto the boardwalk.

Dunleavy turned toward the second man, who was still on the ground. He gestured at him to get up. The man looked up at him, then slumped back into a sitting position, shook his head.

Dunleavy caught the edge of the table, righted it.

“You should have taken the drink,” he said.

He stepped on the cell phone, crushed it, then kicked the pieces off the boardwalk and onto the sand.

“I hate those things,” he said.

He turned to face the waitress, who was still behind the bar.

“You get out of here,” she said. “You get out of here now.”

He turned back to the second man. Fallon had turned his chair around, was watching them.

“You want her to call the police?” Dunleavy said to the man. “Get a cop here?”

He shook his head again.

“What?” Dunleavy said.

“No, man.” He looked at the waitress. “No police.”

“You get out of here,” she said again.

The unconscious man groaned, shifted slightly.

“Hope he had his tetanus shot,” Dunleavy said.

He turned to Harry. “Come on, let’s go.”

Harry stayed where he was.

Dunleavy looked at him. “That bother you?”

“Was it necessary?”

“He dealt the hand.”

They watched each other. After a moment, Dunleavy seemed to relax, the smile creeping back over his face. He stepped aside, gestured as if to let Harry go by.

“We’ll have to get together someday,” he said. “Talk about old days. With no distractions.”

“Maybe. But like I said, I don’t think much about the old days. There’s a lot I’d like to forget.”

Dunleavy almost laughed. “Wouldn’t we all?”

Harry went past him, back into the hall and the crowd noise. Two fighters clinched in the ring, heads together, arms moving weakly. Harry started for the lobby and then turned and looked back out the door he’d come through. On the boardwalk, the waitress was kneeling alongside the unconscious man. Beside her, ignoring them, Dunleavy stood with his hands on his hips, watching Harry.

Harry turned, headed for the doors that led to the lobby. Behind him, he heard the crowd roar, heard the hard slap of leather against flesh. He didn’t look back.

He stood on the floating dock, watched Bobby bring the runabout in off the river. It was a low, fast boat with a single outboard engine, fiberglass body gleaming in the late morning sun. Bobby waved, throttled back, the exhaust chugging. He steered carefully, slid the boat in against the plastic fenders, killed the engine. He caught the line Harry tossed, fixed it around a cleat, then flung the noosed stern rope onto the dock. Harry slipped it around a piling, reached down to give Bobby a hand up. The dock moved beneath them.

“Yours?” Harry said.

“Yeah, right. Owner’s picking her up today. I replaced the fuel pump, blew out the lines. I wanted to take her out, see how she ran before he came to get her. You’re not here to look at boats, I guess.”

“Got five minutes?”

“Yeah. Let’s go back to the office. I need to drop off this key.”

They went up weathered stairs onto the main landing.

“I’ll wait here,” Harry said.

Bobby crossed the parking lot to the single-story office, went inside. Harry watched a trio of shirtless men, burned red by the sun, using electric sanders to scrape the underside of a cabin cruiser careened in the dry dock.

“Okay,” Bobby said when he came back out. They walked toward the river’s edge, away from the sound of the sanders. Harry could see new homes being built on the other side, could hear the drone of power saws. A jet skier went past, the craft thumping in the water, spray flying around him. Harry waited until the roar of the engine had died away.

“Good news,” he said. “Bad news.”

“Good news first. I don’t get enough.”

“I talked to Fallon.”

“You give him the money?”

“No, I still have it. He just wanted to talk this time. He asked me to hold on to it.”

“And?”

“He’s willing to cut you a break, shave ten grand from what you owe him.”

“Why?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say he’s tired of this. It’s too much bullshit and he has more important irons in the fire. He wants done with it.”

“That makes two of us.”

“He says he’ll take forty on the fifty. Since we’ve already given him eight five, that means thirty-one five, minus the fifteen you raised already.”

“So sixteen more and we’re quits?”

“That’s what he says.”

“Well, hell. We can do that. What’s the bad news?”

“He wants it in ten days.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“I told him yes.”

“Oh, boy.”

“It’s too good an offer to let pass. We bite the bullet, raise the final sixteen, get it over with. Go on with our lives.”

“There you go with that ‘we’ shit again.”