Hard Case Crime: Fifty to One (17 page)

“Well, there you go. Good thing you didn’t do it, then. Come on.” He guided her by the shoulder toward the stairs and they descended to the ground floor together.

“What are you going to do with me?”

“I’m going to hand you off to a senior officer,” Lenahan said. “He’s going to take you to central booking and get you processed. I’m sure they’ll make it as quick and painless as they can.”

“And then,” Tricia said, “you’ll lock me up?”

“You’re a wanted fugitive, miss. You’ll be a guest of the state till your case is resolved.”

Tricia thought of Charley and Erin and Coral, trapped with Nicolazzo, not to mention with Bruno. How long before Nicolazzo lost his patience and began taking it out on them? How long before he heard about Mitch?

“Officer,” Tricia said, “I need to talk to someone before you lock me up—my sister is in serious danger, she’s being held captive by a fugitive much worse than me—”

“Miss, please,” Lenahan said. “You’ll have your chance to tell your story, I promise.”

“But not in time! Please, he’s going to kill her—”

Lenahan nodded politely, but he wasn’t listening. He’d been snookered by her once; he wasn’t going to fall for it again.

He walked her out through the building’s front door, down a few steps to the sidewalk and over toward a police car parked at an angle to the curb. There was a crowd in the street, cops and ordinary citizens attracted by the sound of gunfire. Down the block she saw Coral’s building, where the biggest mass of people was.

A figure came toward them out of a narrow alleyway between buildings, a policeman with captain’s bars on his jacket and his cap pulled down low. The jacket hung a little loose on him, Tricia thought, like he’d lost weight recently; funny, the things you think about at a time like this.

He strode up to Lenahan, put one hand out to stop him. “Nice going, officer,” he said in a broad Bronx accent. “I’ll take it from here.”

“Captain,” Tricia said, “you’ve got to listen to me, my sister’s life is in danger—”

“Shut up,” the captain said. And when she kept talking he turned to face her, raised his cap for a second and drew a finger along his lips. “Zip it.”

She dropped silent in the middle of her sentence.

“She’s the one we’re looking for,” Lenahan said, “I’m sure of it. I caught her in an apartment she’d broken into—”

“That’s excellent police work,” the captain said. “I’ll make sure you’re recognized for it. Now hand her over. I’ll take full responsibility.”

“Thank you, sir. My name’s Lenahan, sir, Bill Lenahan.”

“All right, Lenahan. You’ll get a commendation for this.” He reached out for Tricia’s arm.

“Is there anything else you need, Captain...” Lenahan leaned forward to look at the captain’s nameplate, but it was half covered by his jacket’s lapel. “Captain...?”

“Um,” the captain said.

Tricia bent to peer under the lapel. “Clohessy,” she read.

“Clohessy,” the captain said.

“Is there anything...?” Lenahan said, looking only slightly more puzzled than he had when Tricia had told him about the long earlobes.

“Yes, there is,” said Captain Clohessy, pulling Tricia out of Lenahan’s grasp. “I want you to go over there,” he pointed toward the big crowd, “find Sergeant Mulvaney, and tell him I’m taking the suspect downtown.”

“Downtown, sir?”

“That’s right, downtown. Oh, and Lenahan, let me use your car.” He held out a hand for the keys.

“My car, sir?”

“Yes. I can’t get mine out, just look at that mob.”

“Yes, sir.” Lenahan found his car keys and handed them over. The captain snatched them and Lenahan turned to go find Sergeant Mulvaney. “Oh, Lenahan,” the captain said, and Lenahan turned back.

“Sir?”

The captain waved at the cars nearest to them. “Which one...?”

“This one, sir,” Lenahan said, patting the nearest on the hood.

“Of course,” the captain said, and unlocked the door. “Thank you. That’s all.” And when Lenahan didn’t depart, “What are you waiting for?”

“Sir!” Lenahan spun on his heel and dived into the throng, looking for a police sergeant Tricia firmly believed existed only in the realm of imagination.

“My god,” she said, but the captain held up a finger in warning.

“In the car.” He opened the rear door of the police cruiser and Tricia slid in. Then he climbed behind the wheel, cranked the ignition, backed out, and made the turn onto West 4th.

Tricia waited to speak till she saw Washington Square Park racing past the windows.

“So where’s Captain Clohessy?” she finally said.

“Never fear. He’s sleeping peacefully, right where I left him.”

“And how did you manage to get away from Uncle Nick?”

“It’s a funny story,” Borden replied.

Nicolazzo smiled narrowly as he walked Borden to a pair of overstuffed, leather-upholstered armchairs on either side of a glass-topped oval table. He pulled the stiletto, sprang the blade, stepped behind Borden’s back, and for a moment Borden feared the worst. But all Nicolazzo used the blade on was the rope holding his hands together, sawing away until it dropped to the ground. Borden rubbed his wrists and when Nicolazzo gestured for him to do so, sat.

“So you’re the one published the book,” Nicolazzo said.

“What book?” Borden said.

“What book. Very good.” Nicolazzo opened the cardboard box the playing cards were in, set it aside, shuffled. “They warned me you were a
rompiculo
.” He slid the deck across the table. “Cut.”

Borden split the deck in half, set the top half over to the right of the bottom. Nicolazzo reassembled the deck, shuffled again.

“Why would you publish a book like this, revealing a man’s private concerns?”

“For money,” Borden said.

Nicolazzo nodded. That was reasoning he could understand, could appreciate. “Why not just come to me? I might have paid you not to publish it.”

“It’s not just this book,” Borden said. “I publish one book that’s a hit, it puts the whole line on the map.”

“I might have paid you not to publish the whole line.”

“Or you might have killed me,” Borden said. “Saved yourself some money.”

“I might kill you now,” Nicolazzo said.

“The horse is out of the barn now,” Borden said. “What good would killing me now do?”

“Maybe it would just make me feel better,” Nicolazzo said. “Maybe it would keep some
other farabutto
from screwing with me next time.”

“What’s
a farabutto?”

“You,” Nicolazzo said. “You’re
a farabutto.
And—” he glanced at his watch “—for the next fifty minutes or so, you’re a live
farabutto.
After that...” He raised his shoulders expressively, let them fall. “So, canasta? Rummy? Or you like something simpler?”

“Simple is always nice,” Borden said.

Nicolazzo slapped the cards down. “Straight cut. High card wins.”

“How much?” Borden said.

“How much can you afford? Hundred bucks a point?”

Borden, who couldn’t afford one buck a point, said, “Sure.” He divided the deck into two parts, roughly equal.

Nicolazzo pushed the top two cards off the bottom half with a plump index finger. “Choose,” he said.

Borden looked at the backs of the two cards, scrutinized them as though the intricate pattern could reveal something to him about what was on the other side. Finally he flipped one face up. Two of diamonds.

Nicolazzo turned over the other card. Seven of clubs. “You owe me five hundred dollars.”

“I thought you said one hundred,” Borden said.

“One hundred a point. Seven minus two is five points. Five hundred. Do you disagree?”

Borden shook his head. Nicolazzo gathered up the cards, shuffled again, slapped them down. “Cut,” he said.

Borden cut, Nicolazzo slid two cards forward, and Borden turned over the jack of hearts. Nicolazzo turned over the queen of hearts. “One point,” Nicolazzo said. “That’s one hundred dollars. For a total of six hundred. Double or nothing?”

“What the hell,” Borden said. “Double or nothing.”

Half an hour later, Borden was forty thousand dollars in the hole and still plunging, no bottom in sight.

“At this rate,” Borden said, “you’ll have your three million back before the night’s out.”

“That assumes you have three million to lose,” Nicolazzo said, “which I’m betting you don’t.”

“You’re right about that,” Borden said. “But what if I told you I knew who did?”

“My three million?”

“Your three million.”

Nicolazzo pushed the deck toward him. Borden cut it and Nicolazzo fingered off two cards. By this point, they could do it without talking, without even paying much attention. Borden turned over the four of clubs, Nicolazzo the nine of spades. Eighty thousand.

“Quite the losing streak,” Nicolazzo said. “You haven’t gotten one right yet.”

Borden shrugged. “Happens.”

“So,” Nicolazzo said, “where’s my money?”

“You may find this surprising,” Borden said, “but I don’t keep eighty thousand dollars in my wallet.”

“Not that money,” Nicolazzo said. “The three million dollars this Judas took from me.”

“Ah, yes. That money.” Borden fingered the cards thoughtfully. “Well, I may not be winning right now, but I’m sure you’ll agree I don’t owe you that much quite yet.”

Nicolazzo leaned forward across the table, glared at Borden ominously. “Where’s my money? You don’t want to play games with me.”

“I thought you liked games,” Borden said. “Canasta and all.”

“If you don’t tell me right now—”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Borden said. “Let’s cut for it. Make a little wager. Three million dollars if you win.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Why not?” Borden said.

Nicolazzo thought about it. “And if you win?”

“I walk out of here right now,” Borden said, “and you don’t stop me. You don’t touch me. You don’t get that bruiser of yours to stop me and you don’t send him after me. I win and we’re even. I don’t owe you the eighty thousand, I don’t owe you anything.” Charley leaned in, matched Nicolazzo stare for stare. “Or are you scared to risk that much on a hand of cards?”

Nicolazzo raised a meaty fist, shook it at Borden. “Salvatore Nicolazzo,” he said in a strangled voice, “is not afraid of any bet.”

Borden pushed the cards toward him. “Then shuffle, big man.”

Nicolazzo snatched up the cards, violently riffled them together. It sounded like a string of firecrackers going off. “All right, Borden,” he said. “All right. But we play my game now. No more straight cut. We play Fifty-to-One, eh?”

“You give your word on the stakes?” Borden said.

“Absolutely. If you win, you walk out of here. But you won’t win. And if you don’t win, you’ll tell me where my money is, and you’ll tell me who took it, or I will cut your hands and feet off, I’ll take your eyes out, I’ll feed you your
coglioni,
and then, when you beg me on your knees to kill you, I will kindly and lovingly slit your throat. Do we understand each other, Mr. Borden?”

Borden swallowed, nodded.

“So.” Nicolazzo set the cards down gently, squared up the edges of the deck. He flipped the top card face up. It was the four of spades. He set it aside. He looked at Borden, waited with a vicious and self-satisfied smile on his face.

“What do I do?” Borden said.

“It’s very simple, Borden,” Nicolazzo said. He tapped his index finger on the back of the topmost card on the deck. “You just tell me what this card is.”

“What do you mean what that card is?” Borden said. “How am I supposed to know? That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not ridiculous,” Nicolazzo said. “You’ve got fifty chances to be wrong, one chance to be right. Fifty-to-one. Now name your card.”

Borden stared at the deck.

“I’m waiting,” Nicolazzo said.

Borden stared some more.

“Say
something,
Borden.”

“Six of diamonds,” Borden said.

Nicolazzo shoved the top card forward, dug a thumbnail under it, flipped it over.

Both men stared at it.

Borden smiled weakly.

“Fare un bidone
—” Nicolazzo sputtered.

Borden stood, walked quickly to the door.

“You just
left
them there?” Tricia said. “Erin and Coral, with Nicolazzo fuming like that—”

Borden glanced at her in the rear-view mirror. “You think it’d be better if I was still locked up with them?”

“Maybe,” Tricia said.

“And who’s this ‘Coral’?”

“My sister.”

“Your sister,” Borden said.

“Yes. And god only knows what he’s doing to her right now, and to Erin, thanks to you.”

“He’d be doing it to me, too, if I were there,” Borden said. “This way we at least have a chance.”

“You took an awful risk,” Tricia said, “using marked cards. That’s what you did, isn’t it?”

“You don’t believe I just got lucky?”

“No, and Nicolazzo shouldn’t either. You went through how many straight cuts with him and didn’t guess right even once? That’s as improbable as if you’d guessed right every time. He should have been tipped off by that alone.”

Borden thought about it. “You’re right,” he said. “I should’ve given myself one or two.”

“How long till he figures it out? You know he’s not going to feel obliged to keep his word once he does. And now he thinks you know where his money is!”

“All true,” Borden said, “but at least I’m here and not there, and he’s there and not here, and I got you out of the bind you were in, so you know, I’d say we’re not doing too bad.”

“I’m handcuffed in the back seat of a stolen police car,” Tricia said, “driving god knows where, you’re wanted for assaulting
two
policemen now and impersonating one of them, I’m probably wanted for murder—”

“Murder?”

“Mitch,” Tricia said, “got shot. I didn’t do it. But they think I did—that’s what all the cops were there for. And now one of the most bloodthirsty gangsters on the east coast is gunning for us both. That’s your idea of not doing too bad?”