Hard Candy (17 page)

108

E
LVIRA was quiet, sitting between Max and me on the way back.

"Your friend Lily… she was nice."

"But you know it was all game, right?"

She flashed the no–soul smile of a little girl who learned to do tricks too soon. I pulled up outside Train's place. Max stepped out, holding the door for Elvira like a chauffeur.

"Tell Train I'll be around to see him soon," I told the girl. "I won't be taking you back. Just one last talk. I want to part friends. Tell him, he'll know what I mean."

She turned to face me. "Did my mother kiss you goodbye the last time you saw her?"

"No."

She slid off the seat without a word. I didn't look back.

109

M
AX DIDN'T react when I passed by Mama's. Didn't change expression when I cruised by his warehouse. I knew the look on his face. Whatever. It. Takes.

I backed the Plymouth into the last slot in the loading bay of what had been a factory years ago. When the landlord rented it out for lofts, he left the last piece to use as a private garage. When I explained to the landlord that his son's identity was safe with me, he gave me a hell of a break on the rent. Free. Threw in the garage too.

We took the back stairs to my office. Max stood well aside as I opened the door. I threw Pansy the signal—she waited patiently to see what I'd brought her. The beast watched Max with her homicide eyes, a soft growl just inside her teeth. Talking about him the way he had talked about Wesley.

Anytime. Anytime you want.

They'd known each other for years. Max never patted her. She never bothered him. He bowed to Pansy, no expression on his face. Pansy watched.

I got her some liverwurst out of the refrigerator, gave her the magic word, watched it vanish. She stretched out in a corner by the couch, bored. I crossed over to my desk, cleared a place so I had a flat, blank table. Gestured for Max to sit in the chair I use for clients.

He made a gesture like he was dealing cards. I shook my head. Our life–sentence gin game wasn't going to be continued tonight.

What was the truth? My promise to Immaculata? Or could Max really know? Why didn't it hurt me more…like it should have? How come? Bad pun.

How to explain it? I lit a smoke. Put it on the lip of the ashtray, folding my hands behind my head, looking at the cracked cement ceiling. Max reached over, put the cigarette to his lips, took a deep drag. Smoke fired out his flat nose in two broad jets.

I pointed at myself Put my hands under the desk, tried to lift it off the floor. Strained. Gave it up. Too much weight for me to lift.

Max hooked two fingers under the desk. It came off the Astroturf I use for carpet like it was floating.

I shook my head. It wasn't a weight someone could lift for me.

He spread his hands. "What?"

I drew an hourglass figure in the air. Made my right forefinger rigid, poked it into an opening I made in my left fist. Again and again. Okay?

He nodded, watching.

I pointed at my chest. At my heart. Stiffened the forefinger. Approached the opening in my fist. The forefinger went limp. Wouldn't go in. Pointed at myself again.

Max pointed at me. Smiled. I was joking, right?

Wrong.

He made an hourglass sign of his own. Made a "no good" gesture. Drew another in the air. Opened his hands. Try another woman.

I drew another woman. Another. One more. Pointed at myself again. Stiffened the forefinger—let it sag limp. It was me, not the women. Me.

He pointed at his groin, shook his head. Tapped his skull. That's where the problem was.

I nodded. Yeah, so?

He pointed at an old calendar on my wall. Since when?

I made the sign of a pistol firing. Looked at the ground. Blew a goodbye kiss. Since Belle.

He made an "it's okay" gesture. Tapped my wristwatch. It would get better.

No.

His face closed. He went off somewhere inside himself, looking. I smoked, watched my dog, let my sad eyes play over this miserable little place I lived in. The last time Belle was there, it had sparkled.

Max got up, went by himself into the back room. Pansy tracked him. Once you got in, you could move around. You just couldn't leave until I told her it was okay. Nothing back there but a hot plate and the refrigerator. Toilet, sink, and stall shower. I waited. He came back with two paper packets of sugar, the kind they give you in diners. Put them both on the desk, side by side. Tapped one closed eye. Pay attention.

He pointed at me. Tore open one of the packets. Emptied it into his palm. Tossed the sugar into the air. Wiped his hands. All gone. Looked at me.

I nodded. Yeah, that was it.

He shook his head. No. Took the other packet and put it in my desk drawer. Pointed at the desk top. Nothing there. Still gone?

I opened the drawer. Took out the other packet.

The warrior nodded. Took it from my hand. Slipped it into my coat pocket. Patted me down like a cop doing a search. Pulled out the packet, held it up to the light. Made a gesture, "get it?"

No.

He took the packet, walked over to the couch. Stuffed it under one of the cushions. Looked around the room, confused look on his face. Where is it?

I pulled it free from under the cushion, held it in my hand.

Watched my brother, watched his eyes. He'd said all he could.

Then I got it. Hell of a difference between something lost and something missing. It wasn't gone—I just didn't know where I'd put it.

I bowed to Max.

He took the packet from my hand. Pointed to my chair. I sat down. He made frantic searching gestures, opening drawers, looking under stacks of paper, rapping the walls with his knuckles, looking for a hiding place. Shook his head. No. Not that way. He leaned back, put his feet on the desk, closed his eyes, folded his hands over his stomach. Pointed at me. I imitated him. It was peaceful lying there. Safe and peaceful. I wondered if the fear–jolts would come back someday too. I hated them so when I was young and doing time. Wished them away. It never worked. Back then, when I wanted to be somebody I couldn't be. Something Candy always knew I wasn't.

Something brushed my face. I opened my eyes. The packet of sugar was lying on my chest. Waiting.

Which is what I had to do.

It would come to me.

I held a clenched fist in front of my face. Yes!

Max tapped my fist with his own.

Sparking flame to light the way.

110

W
HEN I got back to the office after dropping Max off, I let Pansy out to her roof. Turned on the radio. A car bombing out in Ozone Park, Queens. A soldier and an underboss splattered. I had some rye toast and ginger ale, thinking I might like to bet on a horse when this was all over.

Pansy came back inside. I worked on her commands for a half hour or so, just to keep her sharp. Like oiling a gun. Then I went to sleep.

The radio was still on when I woke up around ten o'clock that night. Another bombing, this one in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The wise–guys would be paying people to start their cars for a while.

I went into the street. Called Strega. She was right by the phone, like she knew.

"It's me. You find out?"

"I think so. I'll be sure by tomorrow night."

I hung up. Called Mama. Nothing from Morehouse, the lazy bastard.

Dialed the Mole. Heard the phone picked up. The Mole never speaks first. "I need a car," I said. "You got one?"

"Yes." Terry's voice. The connection went dead.

Terry let me into the junkyard. I slid over and he took the wheel, guiding the Plymouth through the maze to a resting place.

"They still fighting?" I asked the kid.

"Mole says Mom has to make her own decision."

"He tell
her
that?"

"No. But she knows."

The Mole was working in one of the Quonset huts he has scattered around the place. No windows, but it was as well–lit as an operating table. A tired–looking Ford four–door sedan was in pieces on the floor.

"What're you doing, Mole?" I greeted him.

"Working." Mr. Personality.

I remembered the counsel the Prof had given me when I was a kid first learning to do time. Watch. Watch and learn. Pay attention or pay the price. I sat down on an old engine block, lit a smoke.

Terry worked with the Mole like gears meshing. Nothing wasted, quick and clean. Each of them took an end of the Ford's back seat. They slid it back into place. I heard a sharp click. The boy shoved harder, using his shoulder. Another click. The rocker panels were off. I saw what looked like a long, thin shock absorber running parallel to the ground. Where the running board would be if they still used them on cars. The Mole fitted a short length of track between the back and front seats. Fiddled around in the trunk. A sound like something being released. I went closer, peered over his shoulder. The back of the front seat was a solid–steel plate, ugly welds slashed across the corners. The front seat was welded to the chassis around the bottom seams. A brick wall.

The Mole signaled to Terry. They each took an end of the back seat, slid it back and forth on the runners. It reached all the way to the welded steel plate. Terry sprayed the runners with silicon.

"We'll test it," the Mole said.

Terry pointed to a pile of green plastic garbage bags stacked against the wall. "Give us a hand, Burke."

I picked one up. Heavy. Maybe sixty pounds. "How many you need?" I asked.

"Six?" the boy said, looking at the Mole. He nodded, absorbed.

I took a sack in each hand, brought them over to the car. Terry wrapped both arms around one sack and followed me. The Mole watched. One more trip each and we had them all.

"What now?" I asked.

The Mole pointed at the back seat. "Four there, two in front."

I loaded them in. Terry struggled until he had one sack on top of another. Two big lumps in the back, one in the front, behind the wheel. Driver and two passengers.

The Mole threaded a wire from the dashboard through the open car window. Backed up until we were against the wall. He stripped the wire, wound it around a terminal on the workbench.

"Stand back," he said.

The back seat shot forward like it was fired from a rocket launcher, slamming into the steel wall. The car rocked on its tires. The back seat bounced off the steel plate, floating listlessly on the siliconed tracks. We went to take a look. The four green plastic bags were plastered to the steel wall like paint on canvas. It smelled of old smeared death. In the front, the top bag had hit the steering wheel and ripped open. White suet mess inside, blood–streaked.

"It works," the Mole said. "We have to tighten the front seat braces."

I stepped outside to get away from the smell. Waited for the Mole and Terry to join me.

The kid was first out. "What was that mess?" I asked him.

"Just fat they slice off the sides of beef in the meat market. They throw it out in big tubs. The Mole says it's pretty much like people, only without the bones."

Michelle would love it. The Mole lumbered out into the night air.

I looked over my shoulder at the car. "How does it work?"

"Two hydraulic pumps. Compressed air. When you hit the trigger, the back seat releases from the catches and slides forward on the tracks. Very fast. Into the wall behind the front seat."

"So if anyone's sitting in the back seat…?"

"Crushed. No escape."

"And the driver."

"Once it's strengthened, no problem. If you wear a seat belt."

I dragged deep on my cigarette, thinking about what my family had been telling me. About not acting like myself. Thinking about insurance. "Mole, could I borrow that car?"

"It has to be cleaned. Then we have to reset the trigger, wire it to a button on the dash, put slipcovers over the front seat. A lot of work. This was just an experiment."

"But you could do it."

"Yes." He hesitated. "The car, it's a killing machine. For Nazis."

"Mole, you know about Wesley. You know he's back and…"

"I know."

"Well? Can I…?"

The Mole's lumpy body stiffened as he looked up into my eyes. "Wesley's not a Nazi, Burke."

"Mole…"

"What he does, it's not for freakish fun. Not like them."

"You're saying he's like…us?"

"More like us than them," he said as he walked away, the kid trailing behind.

I left the Plymouth in the junkyard. Switched it for a dark blue Buick sedan with clean plates.

By the time I stashed the car in my garage it was four in the morning.

I let Pansy out to her roof one more time. Then I went back to sleep.

111

I
WAS IN the restaurant early the next morning. Mama brought me a copy of the
Daily
News
. The headline said "Sniper Killing on Staten Island." A middleweight mobster had been shot late last night in the living room of his home in Todt Hill. Watching television with his wife. All she heard was glass breaking. A neat hole in his head, right at the hairline. Police said the sniper must have worked his way onto the grounds, lain prone, and fired at a slight upward angle. There were a half dozen pieces about who the guy was, speculation about what it all meant.

Morehouse was on the money with his column. All the Strike Force charts and graphs don't mean a thing when there's a wild card in the deck. He ended it nicely: "Once the feeding frenzy starts, it doesn't matter where you rank in the food chain."

112

T
HE REPORTER finally called. Mama took the message. I rang him back.

"You got it?"

"Sure."

"Meet me…"

"Oh, man. Why can't you be civilized once? You know my address, come to my house."

"Not tonight."

"Okay, man. Talk to me. Be quick now, I got work to do."

"Tomorrow morning. Eleven o'clock. You know where the guys work on their cars under the FDR? Like around Thirty–third?"

"Sure."

"I'll be there."

He made a disgusted noise. Hung up.

113

N
IGHTTIME. Strega's time. Could there be a good witch? Compared with Candy, Strega was as pure as driven snow. The kind they drive across the border in ten–kilo shrink–wrapped packages. Ice–pure.

I drove into Queens. Dialed her number from a pay phone.

"I'm waiting for you," was how she answered.

The empty spot in her garage was like the impression your body leaves when you get out of bed. The Buick fit.

She stepped into the garage as I closed the car door. Wearing a steel–gray seamless sheath that stopped at mid–thigh. Matching spikes. A single strand of black pearls. Her hair was wild, face scrubbed clean. Not quite ready to go out on the town. She took my hand, pulling me up the stairs. "Let's tell secrets," she whispered.

The living room was dark, pierced by thin beams from the track lighting mounted on the ceiling. The smoke from my cigarette spiraled up into the light.

She took my coat, slipped it off my shoulders, tossed it on the couch. Sat next to me.

"You don't carry a gun anymore?"

"Julio fixed that. I'm out on bail. I can't afford a fall."

"It doesn't matter. You don't need a gun here—it's safe."

"No man's safe around you."

She smiled a witch's smile—rheostated. "You're mine. I never hurt what's mine. Remember Scotty? Remember why I needed you? I never let anyone hurt what's mine. You wouldn't let anyone hurt me either. I know you."

Yeah, everybody knows me. "We had a deal," I said. "I kept my piece, you kept yours. This is another. Another deal."

"I know. I found him. The compound in Sands Point. It's out on the Island. It's a fortress, soldiers all over the place. Dogs. Electronic stuff. He stays in the basement. Julio said even if you dropped a bomb on the place, the don would be okay."

"Great."

"He can't even talk on the phone. He's too scared. He told Julio this man…Wesley?…is the devil. The real, real devil. He's going mad in his stone basement. He won't watch television—he thinks this man can see him through the screen. Julio, he thinks it's funny—the don would pay a million dollars for Wesley's head, but he doesn't even know what he looks like."

"Julio saw the don?"

"Oh yes. At the compound. Julio's got his own plan. He's going to make Wesley dead. Do what the don couldn't do. Be the
boss
. He'll never be my boss again."

"So he wins no matter what happens?"

"That's what he thinks. Ugly evil old man. He feels strong when he thinks of the don cowering in his basement, afraid of the dark. But when he thinks of me, his strength is gone. That's why he has to go. He thinks it's my time. Time to free himself But it's
his
time. I waited long enough."

"He's got to leave that basement sometime." Thinking of Train, safe in his house. With his human polygraph and his bodyguards who made little girls' bodies disappear.

She leaned into me, head against my chest. I'd never seen a black orchid, but then I knew what one smelled like. Her hand went to the inside of my thigh. "I'll tell you a secret now. In the chair."

"Jina…"

"Please."

Such a strange word from a witch. I sat in the big chair. She squirmed into my lap, lips against my neck. I heard every word, like she was talking into my brain.

"The don can't stay in the basement. He'd lose it all. The others, they'd know. And you know what happens then. When you drop the leash, the dog bites. So every Monday night, he meets with his captain. On the Fifty–ninth Street Bridge."

"How do they work it?"

"The captain's boys park on the Manhattan side. The don's boys park on the Queens side. Then they
walk
across. Soldiers in front, soldiers behind. They do their business and they go back."

"Every Monday night."

"At one in the morning."

She turned sideways so her thigh was across my lap. "I'm a good girl," she whispered in that witchy little girl's voice. Reaching for my crotch. Nobody home.

"Let the beast out," she said. "I know what to do with him."

"Ssssh" I said in the darkness. Patting her just above her hips, stroking her back. "It doesn't matter. There is no beast. You
are
a good girl, Jina."

Her hand came away from my crotch, pulled gently at a button on my shirt. "Sleepy," she said.

I shifted my weight. Her skirt rode up. A faint trail of light on her stockings. I wrapped my other arm around her, rocked her gently. "It's okay, girl."

She took my thumb into her mouth. Didn't bite it this time, or suck on it. Just left it there, touching it with her tongue. Made a quiet noise in her throat.

I held her for a long time while she slept.