Damaged Goods (17 page)

“Ain’t gonna do that no more.” Uncle Jackson shook his head from side to side.

“That right?”

“It’s the God’s truth, Jilly.”

“Too bad, cause I had somethin’ real nice all set up for ya. Guess I’ll have to handle it myself.”

Theresa was still thinking about Uncle Jackson’s job when Uncle Jilly dropped back onto the seat next to her. She wanted to look up at him, but her head seemed frozen, like a Popsicle on a stick. It just wouldn’t move.

Moodrow drained his fourth Pepsi of the afternoon, belched softly, rubbed his swollen gut by way of apology. It was nearly seven-thirty and a blazing orange sun hung just above the flat roofline of a Pathmark drugstore on the other side of William Floyd Parkway. Time, Moodrow thought, for the vampire to rise from his grave.

“Whatta ya think, Moodrow? Think I should give Carlo another call? Make sure he’s still in there?”

Moodrow tossed the empty can into the Volvo, then rolled up the window and started the engine. The temperature was dropping fast. They’d need some heat before too long.

“We going somewhere?”

Moodrow looked over, noted the crumbs on Gadd’s sweater, wondered if there was something about surveillance that wilted investigators. Maybe the boredom, or the cramped quarters. “Just warming it up,” he said. “Carlo’ll be coming out soon. We’d better switch seats.”

“If you knew when he was coming out, why’d we get here so early? We could’ve gone to a movie. Read a book. Enriched our miserable lives.”

“Just a feeling.” Moodrow stepped out of the car without acknowledging the joke. He walked around to the other side, opened the door, then simply stood there, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. All irrelevant considerations—Betty, the foundation, Jim Tilley, the FBI, even Theresa Kalkadonis—had vanished without a trace, like gangsters in a New Jersey swamp. Carlo Sappone himself had been reduced to something less than human, to a resting moth awaiting the appetite of a mother robin.

“Hey, Moodrow, either get inside or close the damn door.”

“What?” He squatted down, stared at Gadd as if trying to place her.

“First, it’s getting dark and the overhead light’s on.” She pointed to the glowing dome light. “But even if it wasn’t, you’re much too big to be inconspicuous. If Carlo should happen to look out the window and see you hopping around, he’s not gonna think you’re the Easter bunny on a trial run.”

Moodrow nodded agreement, slid inside, closed the door. “If Sappone makes the tail,” he said without preamble, “if he flies, I want you to come right up on his bumper. This Chevy used to work for the Alabama State Police and it’s got enough horses to run with almost anything on the road. Carlo’s sure to think we’re narcs. He’ll pull over, eventually, try to bluff us.”

Gadd let her eyes follow Moodrow’s back to the house. The wall closest to them, part of the garage, had no windows, which was good and bad. Good because they couldn’t be spotted from inside; bad because there were no cars parked in the driveway and Carlo would appear without warning. If he went right, away from William Floyd Parkway, they’d have a hell of a time catching up before he vanished into the suburban night.

“Hey, tell me something, Moodrow. It’s almost dark and the street lamp’s on the other side of the road. If somebody backs out of that garage, how are we gonna know who it is? How are we gonna know it’s not Sappone’s grandmother on a laxative run?”

“Whoever it is, they’re gonna have to get out and close the garage door.”

“What makes you think the door’s not automatic?”

Moodrow answered without turning to face her. “Because I checked it when we drove by.”

Gadd closed her eyes for a moment, thinking, It’s not bad enough that I have to obey this old bastard’s commands like a trained puppy, I also have to come off looking like a complete jerk. What I should’ve done is drive out here by myself. Then I could have come off like a jerk without anybody noticing.

“Game time.”

She looked over at Moodrow, then at the house. The garage door was opening up and out, pushed by an invisible hand from inside. A moment later, a heavily customized van backed onto the driveway and stopped. Carlo Sappone emerged, strode up to the garage door, and closed it with a single, smooth motion.

“He’s wasted, look at him.” Moodrow licked his lips and rubbed his hands together, both gestures totally unconscious. “The mutt’s doin’ his own product.”

Gadd watched Carlo Sappone walk back to the van. Skinny, verging on gaunt, his obviously expensive clothes hung on his narrow frame like hand-me-downs from an older brother. She couldn’t see his face, but she could easily imagine the red-rimmed eyes, the runny nose, the tight, nervous jaw.

“Don’t you ever get tired of being right?”

She threw the car into reverse, turned around without flipping on the headlights, then inched up to the edge of the road.

Theresa endured the long, boring ride from Worcester, Massachusetts, to the northern outskirts of the Bronx by pretending she was Mackie, her stuffed dog. You could leave Mackie any place you wanted and he was always waiting in exactly that same place when you came back. It didn’t matter how long you were away or where you went. One time, her mommy and daddy had taken her all the way to Disney World, in Florida, and they stayed so long that she nearly forgot Mackie. But there he was, flopped on her pillow, his black button eyes and round white nose tilted up. As if he was expecting her any minute.

Of course, Mackie was part of her old world, not her new one. In her old world, she made the grown-ups happy by doing things. Things like brushing her teeth without being reminded or reciting the alphabet without making a mistake. Her new world was a lot more complicated. Uncle Jilly hated it when she did something. He didn’t want her to eat or talk or wash her hands before dinner; he didn’t even want her to go to the bathroom. And he could be very mean, like when he put her in the trunk.

Uncle Jackson was different. He liked it when she played his baby games and sang his baby songs, but when she recited the alphabet, he got very angry and called her a “highfalutin darn show-off.” She didn’t know exactly what that meant except that she shouldn’t recite the alphabet, a fact she dutifully added to a growing “do and don’t” list—her Book of Rules.

It was her daddy who first told her about the Book of Rules. “It’s in the book,” he’d say whenever she asked why she had to do something like go to bed at eight o’clock. “It’s in the Book of Rules.”

She’d almost forgotten about the Book—like she’d almost forgotten about the monster under the bed—but the Book was very important in her new world. That was because the monster had come out and was sitting right next to her.

“Jackson?”

“Yeah, Jilly.”

“Gimme the phone. I gotta make a call. And slow it down. We’re gonna be makin’ a stop pretty soon.”

Theresa wanted to watch Uncle Jilly use the special phone, because she’d never seen one like it in her old world. But she knew better. Looking directly at Uncle Jilly was a definite don’t.

“It’s Jilly. We on?”

She could hear a tinny voice coming from the phone, but she couldn’t understand the words.

“Yeah, yeah. Twenty minutes.” He stopped again. “Don’t give me no fuckin’ bullshit about you gotta go and pick up the package. Not when ya chargin’ me twice what the shit is worth. Wait, wait, wait. Don’t say nothin’. I’m gonna be over your way in about twenty minutes, maybe a half hour at the fuckin’ most.” He was yelling now, the roar of his voice filling the small car. “You ain’t there to meet me, I’m gonna come lookin’ for ya.”

Theresa heard him click the little button that shut the phone off, then take a deep breath.

“Hey,” he said, “you wanna talk to ya mommy? Huh?”

At first, Theresa didn’t realize that Uncle Jilly was speaking to her. Uncle Jilly hardly ever spoke to her now that she had stopped crying.

“What’s the matter with this fuckin’ kid, Jackson? She sits there like a fuckin’ doll and when you talk, she don’t answer. I swear, it’s gettin’ me pissed off.”

“Theresa?” Uncle Jackson was grinning at her in the mirror. “Didn’t you hear what ol’ Jilly just said? About gettin’ to speak with your mommy? You wanna speak with your mommy, don’t ya?”

What was she supposed to say? What response did her new world require? Theresa wasn’t sure and when she turned slightly to find Uncle Jilly’s black snake eyes fixed on her own, she became even more confused.

“My mommy’s gone,” she finally whispered. “You … she got hurt.”

Jilly’s nasty laugh echoed in the small space. “Fuckin’ kid’s smarter than she looks.” He grabbed her left earlobe and twisted sharply. “I’m gonna call ya mommy and talk to her for a minute. Then I’m gonna put you on the phone. Ya better not clam up on me, kid, ’cause if ya do, I’m gonna rip this ear right off ya fuckin’ head.”

He held her close to him while he dialed the telephone, close enough for her to understand the man’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Hello.”

“Which little piggy stayed home?”

“That you, Jilly?”

“Hey, that’s answerin’ a question with a question. I’m surprised the nuns didn’t teach ya better.”

“I’m not a Roman Catholic. I’m a Lutheran.”

“That ain’t what I asked ya. I asked ya which little piggy stayed home. As in, who am I fuckin’ talkin’ to?”

“This is Agent Ewing. I spoke to you last time you called.”

“Did you do what I told ya to do?”

“What’s that, Jilly?”

Theresa watched Uncle Jilly closely, hoping for some hint of what was expected from her. He was breathing real fast through his mouth, which he always did when he got mad. What she didn’t know was who he was mad at, her or the man on the phone. She wanted to wriggle away, to slide across to the other side of the car, but the arm wrapped around her waist was rock-hard.

“You wanna play fuckin’ games?” Jilly’s eyes were blazing. “Cause I got games you never dreamed about.”

“No, Jilly.” The man’s voice was very calm, as if he was trying to soothe a frightened puppy. “She’s here, just as you asked.”

“Good. Now put the bitch on the phone.”

“Hello, Jilly?”

“Is that my ever-lovin’ wifeykins? Is that my sweet honey-girl?”

Even though her crying time was past, Theresa felt like she wanted to sob. Mommy was part of her old life and she couldn’t think about her old life without becoming very, very sad. That was
why
she didn’t think about her old life.

“Please, Jilly … Theresa …”

“Fit as a fiddle. Except for when her right hand got crushed with the pliers.” Uncle Jilly’s laugh boomed out. “But she’s a southpaw, right? So it ain’t no big deal.”

Theresa held her right hand up to her eyes. What was Uncle Jilly talking about?

“I’m okay, mommy. My hand’s okay, too.” Theresa shouted the words into the telephone, then squeezed her eyes shut. She was sure Uncle Jilly would kill her for talking before he said to, but Uncle Jilly just kept on laughing.

“Theresa? Theresa?”

Uncle Jilly jammed his fingers over her mouth before she could answer.

“Listen up,” he said, his voice suddenly cold enough to send a shiver up the back of Theresa’s neck. “Because I ain’t got a whole lotta time here. See, I got no reason to hurt the little brat.
Theresa
ain’t done nothin’ to me, if ya catch my drift. But that don’t mean I won’t go into one of my shitstorms. Ya with me on this?”

“I’m listening, Jilly.”

“Okay, so what ya gotta do is gimme some kinda reason to hand her over. Like
before
I go off. Y’understand?”

“Tell me what you want.”

“What I want is my fourteen fucking
years
back.”

“I can’t give you that.”

“Well then, we got something in common, bitch.” He paused, wiped his wet mouth with the back of his hand. “Because I got somethin’
you
want. Somethin’ I can’t give back.”

When Uncle Jilly finally shut off the phone and loosened his grip, Theresa slid over to the opposite side of the car. Before she could make any sense of what had happened, Uncle Jilly leaned forward and tapped Uncle Jackson’s shoulder. “A little ways up,” he said, “you’re gonna see a sign for the Cross Bronx Expressway. Take the exit for the east Bronx. We’re goin’ to the zoo.”

“The zoo?” Uncle Jackson seemed very excited. “That’s just great, Jilly, but you better keep a sharp eye out. Bein’ as you know I cain’t read no signs.”

“Would you mind telling me exactly what you’re waiting for?” Gadd put the Caprice in gear and pulled out onto Montauk Highway. She was careful to keep two vehicles between their car and Sappone’s van, as instructed, but she had the definite feeling she could ride on Sappone’s bumper without his noticing. “Because if this goes on much longer, the mope’s gonna overdose and we’ll end up taking him to the hospital.”

They’d been following Sappone for more than an hour, trailing him as he bounced from one bar to another along a seemingly endless series of commercially zoned roads that crisscrossed Suffolk County’s southern shore like varicose veins on the back of a dowager’s thigh. Privately owned businesses lined both sides of the road, sharing strip-mall space with the inevitable fast-food operations and the company-owned gas stations. McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Citgo, Exxon, Gulf, Texaco … the list went on and on and on.

The terrain itself was table-flat, the buildings no more than two stories high. As if the county planners had conspired with nature to create a world so lacking in definition as to be without any character at all.

“What it is,” Gadd said, once she realized that Moodrow wasn’t going to respond, “is that I’m used to vertical. Horizontal makes me seasick.”

What it is, Moodrow said to himself, is that your nerves are showing.

Still, she was right about Sappone. He was distributing powder (most likely to bartenders running a little coke business on the side) and clearly sampling the product as he made his rounds. With each ten-minute stop, he looked a little more like a mature gobbler on the weekend before Thanksgiving. Getting him off the street would be no problem. Getting him off the street without being seen by some misguided citizen was something else again.