Find Her a Grave (34 page)

“Is this a one-way ride?” Chin asked. His voice, Bernhardt realized, was dead level. His face was impassive. Once again, Brian Chin was giving a magnificent performance: ice water in his veins, no fear showing, even facing death. While, certainly, his thoughts were running wild.

Ignoring the question, Ricca said, “When we were coming here, I saw a couple of cars following us. They were your guys, weren’t they?” It was a low-keyed question, matter-of-factly asked.

Gravely, Chin nodded.

“And when we patted you down in front of your restaurant, before you got in my car, you were carrying a mini walkie-talkie. Which you’ve still got in your pocket.”

Once more, Chin nodded.

“Okay.” Satisfied, Ricca also nodded. He drew a large automatic pistol from beneath the sports jacket he wore. He pulled back the slide, checked the load, released the slide, eased off the hammer. “Okay,” he repeated. “Now, I want you to call your guys, tell them we’re coming out. Tell them Jimmy’ll come first. Then Bernhardt. Then you. Then me. You probably have some kind of a signal that’ll tell your guys how you want them to handle this. Maybe your guys have Uzis, something like that. But if you tell them to start a war, rescue you, some shit like that—well, naturally, you’ll be the first to go. First you, then your family.”

“I expect to be the first to go no matter what happens.” Still Chin’s voice was dead level; his eyes revealed nothing.

Ricca’s smile was directed at Chin. The smile was genuine, Bernhardt realized. Signifying a simple professional respect. How many gangsters could face death so calmly? Still smiling, Ricca shook his head. “Maybe not. We’ve got a way to go, you and me. You want my advice, you’ll take it one step at a time. Don’t do anything dumb.” When Chin made no reply, Ricca gestured impatiently. “You going to call your guys, or what?”

Chin let a long, thoughtful moment of silence pass before, with measured deliberation, he took a tiny portable radio from an inside pocket. He extended the antenna, punched out a number. Then he began speaking in Chinese. Startled, Bernhardt looked at Ricca. But Ricca only nodded. The message: he’d expected Chin to speak in Chinese. In less than a minute, Chin returned the radio to his pocket, nodded to Ricca.

“Okay.” Ricca looked first at Bernhardt, then at Jimmy. “Ready?” When each man nodded, Ricca spoke to Bernhardt directly: “You better get that three fifty-seven in your hand, unless you’re some kind of a fast-draw artist.”

Bernhardt drew the gun with his right hand; with his left hand, once again, he verified that, yes, the jewels were safe in his jacket pocket.

“Okay,” Ricca repeated, “let’s go, like I just said, in that order. You first, Jimmy. Then Bernhardt.”

Nodding, Jimmy began moving out of the kitchen and into a short central hallway, leading the way to the front door. When Ricca reached the archway to the living room he spoke to Al: “You and Freddy stay put. I’ll call you on the phone, tell you when.” Momentarily Ricca swept the grandmother and mother with a look of practiced intimidation. “Anybody gives you a problem, Al, you shoot. Got it?”

Al nodded. “Got it.”

“Good.” Ricca motioned for Jimmy to open the front door and begin descending the outside stairs, followed by Bernhardt, Chin, and Ricca. At the curb, the man riding passenger in the front seat of the Lincoln was getting out of the car. In his left hand he carried a sawed-off shotgun. With his right he pulled open the car’s rear door, then stood with his back to the car. His head was in constant motion; he held the sawed-off with both hands, ready. As Bernhardt followed Jimmy down the single flight of concrete steps to the sidewalk, he saw a car turning onto the quiet residential street. On both sides of the street, cars were parked in almost every available parking place. The car in motion could carry Chin’s gunmen, a flying wedge: cavalry, in the vanguard of the main attack. On these stairs, how close behind him was Chin? When the shooting started, Chin would certainly throw himself on Bernhardt’s back.

UNDERWORLD SHOOTOUT IN QUIET RUSSIAN HILL DISTRICT
, the headline would read. Followed by the subhead:
MAFIA BATTLES CHINESE GANG, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR DIES CARRYING A FORTUNE IN GEMS.

Traveling slowly, the oncoming car drew abreast of the Chin house. Two figures were inside: two men, Caucasians, both facing forward, incurious. Ahead, Jimmy was on the sidewalk. As, yes, the car was peacefully passing, proceeding up the block. Three more steps down, and Bernhardt, too, stood on the sidewalk. Now the passenger door of the Oldsmobile swung open. At the Lincoln, Jimmy turned back to face Bernhardt. Jimmy held his big automatic with the muzzle raised, the approved pre-combat stance.

“Okay,” Jimmy said, jerking his head to Bernhardt. “Get in the car.
Move.”

As Bernhardt stooped, Jimmy hissed, “Be careful of that goddam gun. Don’t let him grab it off you.” Bernhardt nodded, shifted the .357 to his left hand as he slid into the car, holding the revolver between his thigh and the door. The bulk of the jewels in his left pocket pressed against the Lincoln’s door, a palpable presence. Incredibly, since he’d left the shelter of the house and begun descending the front stairs, he hadn’t been aware of the jewels: a million dollars, in the pocket of his jacket.

A million dollars, and already one dead.

Now Chin was sitting close beside Bernhardt. Also guarding his pistol, Ricca entered the car. Jimmy slammed the door, exchanged a look with Ricca. Both men nodded. Jimmy straightened, went to the Oldsmobile, got in beside the driver. In the front seat of the Lincoln, the gunman on the passenger side turned to face the three men in the rear seat. He held a large-caliber stainless-steel revolver similar to Bernhardt’s. Trained on Chin’s chest, the revolver rested on the back of the front seat. Still holding his .357 along his left thigh, Bernhardt twisted to face Chin. Ricca, too, was facing Chin. Impassively, Chin stared straight ahead. Once more, Bernhardt could only marvel at the role Chin was portraying with such incredible composure.

Suddenly Ricca spoke: the boss, briskly taking charge. “Okay. So far so good. Now, Brian, I want you to get in touch with your guys again.” Ricca gestured to the pocket that held Chin’s miniature walkie-talkie.

“Oh?” Chin’s eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “Why is that?”

“They’re around here somewhere, right?”

Chin considered the question, then gravely nodded.

“How many cars?”

“Two.”

“How many men?”

“Four. Two in each car.”

“So they’re—what—within a block or two, something like that?”

“Yes.” Chin’s inflection suggested a delicate irony, a supercilious superiority to Ricca’s streetwise patois. Repeating mockingly: “Something like that.”

“Okay.” Pleased, Ricca nodded. “So here’s what I’m going to do, Brian.” A pause, for added weight. “What I’m going to do, I’m going to give you a choice. It’s you or one of your guys, take your pick.”

“You mean—” Chin frowned, began again: “You mean either I die or one of them dies?”

Ricca smiled. “You got it. And, at that, you’re getting off lucky. If I was calling it, you wouldn’t get a choice.”

“Orders from New York,” Chin said.

Grimly, Ricca nodded. “That’s right, asshole. Just so I’m sure you know what this is all about, what you did was hijack jewels that belonged to Carlo Venezzio. So you robbed from our people. And that’s like a death sentence, you rob from us. And then, Christ, you kill one of our soldiers. Plus, you kidnap Carlo Venezzio’s granddaughter. And for all that, Cella’s willing to let you live.” Marveling, Ricca shook his head. “To be honest, I don’t get it. I mean, something like this happened and I was running things, I’d kill two of your guys, not just one. And I’d take two million dollars, plus the jewels. But Cella, he’s—you know—a statesman, whatever you want to call it. He doesn’t want to start a war out here, not when he isn’t even the official head man yet. So you’re lucky, Brian. Believe me, you’re the luckiest Chinaman around.”

“When I killed Fabrese,” Chin said, “he was in the process of hijacking those jewels. I stopped him.”

“The answer to that one,” Ricca said, “is that I couldn’t care less. This whole thing is a mess, and all I want is to get it over with. So I’m obeying orders. No more, no less. So you decide, Brian. It’s your move.”

“And if I should refuse to make the call—then what?”

“Then we all drive out by the ocean, and we put a bullet in your head.”

“And if I make the call?”

“You tell the guy to get in the Olds, in back. Then you tell the rest of your guys to go home.”

“And then?”

“Then we all go out to Ocean Beach, like I said. Same plan, different faces. By the way, tell your man to bring a gun with him.”

“A gun?”

Ricca nodded. “We take it off him. See?”

“Ah …” In turn, Chin nodded appreciatively. “Yes, I see. That’s the gun you use.”

Ricca smiled: a small, smug smile.

“Very clever,” Chin conceded.

“Thanks.” Ricca looked again at his watch. “I’ll give you exactly two minutes to decide.”

Chin nodded, drew a long breath, took out the miniature radio.

F
OR MORE THAN A
mile they’d been driving south on the Great Highway, with the ocean on their right. Out to sea, Bernhardt saw a fog bank: a low line of white lying between the dark of the sky and the dark of the ocean. Since Chin’s gunman had gotten into the Oldsmobile, no one had spoken. It was the most oppressive silence Bernhardt had ever experienced: a burden of impossible weight that smothered the soul. Yet the silence served somehow to soften the enormity of their mission: coldblooded murder. Only the barrel of the stainless-steel revolver trained on Chin gave proof of the truth to come: the execution of one human being by another.

No, not another. Not by just one of them. They would all be executioners, all conspirators. It was, Bernhardt knew, an enormity that would always haunt him, never set him free. When he’d been a child, at odd times in odd places, he had sometimes been overtaken by a sudden shift of reality, a strange, isolated, frightening objectivity: who was he, really? How had he come here, now? Of all the possible combinations of time and place, how had it happened? It was as if he’d separated from himself, a spectator to his own fate.

A spectator? A helpless spectator?

No. Not helpless. Here, now, he must—

“Okay,” Ricca said, “this looks good. Signal that we’re pulling over.” As the Lincoln slowed, then began to rumble on the gravel shoulder of the Great Highway, Bernhardt saw the Oldsmobile’s turn signal come on. Slowly, the two cars came to a stop, separated by only a few yards. With his eyes straight ahead, his shoulder and thigh in contact with Chin’s, Bernhardt could feel Chin’s whole body tighten. Chin’s gunman was riding in the back seat of the Oldsmobile, with Jimmy’s gun on him. Did the gunman know what awaited him? Chin’s orders to the unknown man had been given in Chinese; their content would never be known. Had Chin told the man to resist? Submit? In their native language, had they said goodbye?

The Lincoln drew to a stop. Still holding the .357 along his left thigh, secured, Bernhardt realized that he was using his right hand to cover the jewels in his jacket pocket, as if to protect them.

A treasure in jewels …

Three days ago he hadn’t known the treasure existed. There’d been no Bacardo in his life three days ago—no Fabrese, no Chin. Above all, no Ricca. Three days ago, he and Paula had—

“Okay,” Ricca was saying. He leaned forward, tripped the right rear-door latch. “I’ll be right back. You can—”

“No. Don’t.”

It was, Bernhardt realized, his voice. He’s spoken without awareness, without conscious forethought, himself surprised—

—himself astounded.

With the door already open, with his right foot already on the ground, careful to hold his cocked automatic clear of Chin’s grasp, Ricca frowned, turned to face Bernhardt. “What?”

“I’m a party to this. And you’re not going to kill anyone—not when I’m here.”

“Shut up, Bernhardt. Keep your goddam fancy-talking Jewish mouth to yourself. This is business. You hear me?
Business.”

As, on the back of the front seat, the barrel of the stainless-steel revolver moved, centering now on Bernhardt’s chest.

Crossing his right arm over his body, Bernhardt opened the door on his side.

“Bern
hardt!”
Ricca’s low-pitched voice was pure distilled menace, the essence of evil. But the actual words could have been addressed to an unruly child:
“Get—back—in—the—car.”

“No.” Outside the car, with the door open, both feet on the ground, Bernhardt stooped, confronted Ricca across Chin, who sat motionless, his eyes fixed on the stainless-steel revolver, once more aimed at Chin’s chest. Now, with great deliberation, Ricca straightened to face Bernhardt across the roof of the Lincoln. Ricca’s automatic was aimed at Bernhardt, who was also standing erect. Holding the .357 in his right hand, Bernhardt rested his own gun on the roof of the car. But the .357 was uncocked, and angled away from Ricca.

“You’re over your head, Bernhardt. Way over your head.”

“I’m sworn to uphold the law.” As he said it, heard himself speaking the fatuous-sounding line, Bernhardt looked to his left, back along the highway. The highway was six lanes wide, and only carried a handful of cars at this hour. The only storefronts, a scattering of neon lights, were a half mile behind them. Surely, there, he would find a gas station that was open, or a bar. He would phone Paula to come and get him. He would—

“Then I guess you better give me that gun,” Ricca said. “And the jewels, too.”

“No. I’m not going to give you either one, Ricca. I’m going to walk to a gas station, and I’m going to call for a ride home. Tomorrow morning, as soon as these jewels are safe, I’m going to call Bacardo. I’m going to tell him everything that happened tonight.
Everything.
I’m going to tell him that, as far as I’m concerned, everything’s finished. I’m also going to thank him for his help. Especially, I’m going to tell him that—”

“You won’t ever make it to that gas station, Bernhardt. Not with those jewels, you won’t. Not after all this shit.”