In Shadows (14 page)

  CAN’T BELIEVE IT,”
said Smitty, shaking his head as he wove between two trucks flying down the interstate. “The phone at the restaurant was totally vandalized. What kind of people would do something like that?”

Jimmy shook his head, too. “Criminals. Lowlifes. We’ll find you a phone, don’t you worry.”

“I should have stopped in Providence,” said Smitty, craning his neck to stare up into the bean-size drops of rain. The day was thick and gray, the clouds barely holding back the flood that hung threateningly over their heads. “She worries.”

“How many months?” asked Jimmy.

“Five. But she’s really big already, and this is our first. I should stay home, but how am I going to support us if I don’t get out and press the actual flesh? She kind of understands. And she kind of doesn’t.”

“Five months isn’t bad,” said Jimmy. “She’s got plenty of time.”

“You got kids?”

Jimmy laughed. “Not that I know of. But I got lots of cousins. And they’re pregnant all the time.”

Smitty sighed. “I’m sure you’re right. But like I say, it’s our first. I really should be there with her. At least in the same town, I guess.”

“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” muttered Paco.

“You sound like you’re really scrambling for money,” said Jimmy.

Smitty laughed. “Who isn’t?”

“Me,” said Jimmy.

Smitty gave him a questioning look. “Your companies do really well, then?”

Jimmy nodded. “Extremely.”

Smitty sighed. “Most of the companies we deal with are struggling. I guess I shouldn’t complain. That’s what pays my bills. But I’m glad someone’s making it in today’s economy.”

“What economy?” said Jimmy, laughing.

“You got that right,” said Smitty.

“So, how about I
pay
you a lot of money to drive us to Maine?”

Smitty frowned. “How much money?”

“How much you want?”

“No, seriously.”

“I am serious.”

Smitty computed. “A thousand dollars.”

“Are you for real?”

“Seven-fifty?”

“Five thousand.”

Smitty choked and Jimmy slapped him on the back.

“One condition,” said Jimmy.

“What?” asked Smitty suspiciously.

“No phone calls until we split up. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone else you’d seen us.”

“I knew it,” said Smitty. “This is something illegal, isn’t it?”

“No.”

“It has to be.”

“Only mildly,” Jimmy said.

“How mildly?”

“You won’t be involved, and no one is getting hurt, and there are no drugs. How’s that?”

Smitty made a face. “So what kind of crime is it that no one get’s hurt, and doesn’t involve drugs? I really don’t want to be a part of this, guys. I’m sorry.”

“Hey!” said Jimmy, holding up both hands. “I’m telling the truth. But there’s no hard feelings.”

Smitty took a long time considering. When he spoke his voice was resolute.

“I don’t want to be involved in this, whatever
this
is. I’m sorry. I made a mistake picking you guys up.”

Jimmy spread both hands. “You can drop us off when we stop for gas again, and you’ll have seen the last of us. I really would appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention you’d seen us, though. All right? I mean, have I done you any harm?”

“You aren’t like escaped criminals or something, are you?”

Jimmy laughed again, fingering the lapel on his suit. “Does this speak to you of escaped criminal? I don’t think so.”

Smitty shook his head, jumping a little when a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky followed quickly by thunder. “Corporate crime. That’s what you’re talking about, right?”

“Right,” said Jimmy. “No one gets hurt.”

“What about the investors, the little guys?”

“Well,” admitted Jimmy. “I guess you’re right. Someone always gets hurt a little.”

“When you’re little already it doesn’t take much to hurt you pretty bad.”

“Sounds like you’re talking from experience.”

“I lost some retirement to a company that folded. The accountant had been embezzling.”

“That’s too bad. Guess you could really use that five thousand.”

“Not that bad,” said Smitty, taking the next exit.

A sudden gust of wind pummeled the car as Smitty spotted the lights of a gas station ahead and whipped into the lot. “I have to, fellas. This just isn’t my kinda deal. I’m sorry.”

Jimmy shrugged, waving toward the side of the building. “No hard feelings. But I need to go to the bathroom, and I’m sure Paco does, too.”

Smitty nodded, pulling up to the white metal doors. Rain poured down the white stucco sides of the station, glistening.

“You’re probably going to have to go inside to get a key, anyway,” he said.

“That’s all right,” said Jimmy, shoving a pistol barrel up under Smitty’s arm and pulling the trigger twice. “I don’t have to go anymore.”

Paco raced around to the driver’s side while Jimmy slipped out of the car and into the backseat. Paco shouldered Smitty’s corpse over against the passenger side door.

“Why didn’t we just rent another car?” he asked nervously.

Jimmy frowned. “We already
had
this one.”

He didn’t like having to explain himself, especially when he wasn’t sure why he’d just murdered Smitty. It had been an impulse, and Jimmy didn’t often act on those. Perhaps it was as simple as him transferring some of his hatred for Jake Crowley and his partner to Smitty. Whatever. They had a car now. They didn’t need another.

“What now, boss?” said Paco.

“We’re here. Fill her up.”

Paco pulled the car under the roofed pump island, as
Jimmy leaned across the seat and adjusted Smitty to look as though he were sleeping. When the tank was full Paco hurried inside to pay cash, then slipped behind the wheel again, easing back out into the storm and heading for the highway.

“Now let’s quit fucking around and get to Crowley,” said Jimmy.

“How come you spent all that time telling him we were some kind of corporate criminals, boss? All that stuff about no one getting hurt. Why bother making up a bullshit story? Why all the talking?”

“I wasn’t talking,” said Jimmy, shaking his head and sinking back into the seat. “I was mollifying.”

ULES SLAMMED THE RECEIVER
of the phone back into the cradle so hard he had to check to make sure he hadn’t shattered it. The message kept telling him the boss was out of his cell phone carrier area. Jules really needed to know how things were going. But mostly he wanted to have the boss tell him that the job was finished, and now the old woman was expendable. Because she was seriously creeping him out.

She didn’t seem to have anything in her wardrobe but clothes made out of sheets, and she padded around the apartment on rubber flip-flops that sounded like a giant frog smacking its lips. She always seemed to be watching him, and constantly muttering in that indecipherable Cajun bullshit. When he shouted at her to stop, she just laughed.

Now she was mixing up some kind of evil-looking concoction in the kitchen, smashing it together in a stone pot and nodding to herself like some old witch, which was exactly what Jules thought she was. She tossed in herbs from crockery beneath the cupboards and juices stored in murky
green bottles in the fridge and kept mashing with the stone pestle, grinning to herself and muttering.

“What the hell is that?” he finally blurted. “What are you doing?”

She shrugged, leaning the pot so he could see the nasty-looking green goop. “Making de guacamole. You want some?”

He squinted. It might have been guacamole. Or it might be some kind of poisonous paste. He shook his head, and she shrugged again.

“Can’t get you boss?” she said, nodding toward the phone.

“He’s busy.”

She laughed. “Gonna be heap busy. You bet.”

“You are so full of shit, old woman. You don’t scare me.”

“Scare you? Big fella like yourself? Howso little old woman like me gonna scare man like you?”

“You better believe it.”

“You like snakes?”

“What?”

She nodded toward the living room carpet. Jules glanced over his shoulder and froze. The biggest rattlesnake he’d ever seen was winding its way toward him. His breath froze in his lungs, his stomach tightened like a giant rubber band, and his mouth went dry all in that instant. With a quivering hand he reached under his left arm and tried to pull his pistol out of its holster. But it seemed to be stuck. He whispered a curse as the snake wove slowly around the post in the center of the room, never taking its gleaming eyes off Jules. Finally the snap broke free, and he jerked the gun out, trying to get a bead on the snake.

“You gonna shoot dat in here? Make one hell of a noise. Probably sure de cops come.”

He glanced at the old woman, wanting to slap the grin away. Instead he shoved the gun into her face. “Do something!”

Her smile never broke. “Sure. I do something. Big man like you can’t do something. No.”

She walked casually around the counter and right up to the snake, who eyed her curiously but didn’t show any sign of striking. She reached out and, crooning in that damned Cajun lingo again, gently stroked the wide back of the scaly head as though the poisonous reptile were a house cat. Then she took it by the throat, and as it wrapped sinuously around her arm she disappeared into the other room. When she returned the snake was gone.

“Don’t let that thing out again if you know what’s good for you,” said Jules.

Memere dipped a chip in the bowl and stared at the guacamole on the end for a long moment. “Snakes get de bad rap on account of de Bible. But serpents be de guardians of good. Dey see ever’ t’ing wit dem eyes. I’m gonna set a snake on you boss,” she said thoughtfully. “Gonna set a serpent against him dat don’ know how to stop.”

Sweat broke out on Jules’s forehead, and he wiped it away with his sleeve. “You fucked with the wrong man, you old bitch. You and that grandson of yours. Jimmy Torrio is nobody to screw with. When Jimmy’s done with Jake Crowley and that boy of yours, I’m personally gonna blow your brains out.”

“Why for you wait, then, hunh?” teased Memere, smacking another chip between toothless gums.

“Your time’s coming,” said Jules, shoving the pistol back into his holster.

HEN
M
ANDI HEARD
P
IERCE
splashing around in the tub she rushed to the door. He was halfway out of the bath, climbing the tile wall, slapping the shower curtain aside. His face was deathly pale when she grabbed him by the shoulders. He tried to shove her away, and she shook him. But even as his body went limp his fingers raced beneath her palms.

It’s here!

There’s nothing here but us.

Pierce nodded violently, his chin beating against his chest like a drumstick.

She signed into his palm.
There’s nothing here!

He scratched along the wall, jerking a towel from the rod and wrapping himself in it. His face was a mask of fear, embarrassment, and hurt. Mandi stared at him with a sinking heart. He knew she didn’t believe him, and she was the only one he had to trust.

“There’s nothing here,” she whispered. “Nothing.”

When he finally calmed a little she eased him onto the
edge of the tub and dried him off. Then she handed him his robe, and he let her put his slippers on his feet.

“There’s nothing here,” she muttered again, staring around the bright, windowless bathroom. But Pierce seemed so sure, so terrified. She hugged him, and he hugged back hard. She stroked his face, and he shrugged.

Finally she took his hand and signed.
I’m right here. Always. Nothing is going to hurt you again. I won’t let it.

He pulled her close, and she stroked his back, feeling the familiar burn growing within her, her hatred of Rich welling in her throat. She placed Pierce’s hand on the door, and he took over from there, finding his way down the hall and into his room without bumping into the wall once.

Nothing but door. That was what Pierce said when he made it through one of them without touching the jamb. She finally managed to settle in the living room with a paperback she’d been trying to finish for weeks. But every time she looked down at the words on the page they blurred and twisted, and she finally realized that she’d been reading the same sentence over and over.

Albert’s home lay a hundred yards through the trees beyond her window. On the other side of the house it was probably three times that far through the woods to the highway. To the spot where the girl had been murdered. She was still staring out into the storm when a distant streak of lightning lit the sky, and she wondered if she’d allowed her stupid pride to place Pierce in danger. Since Rich had left she hadn’t wanted a gun in the house, and even if she had one, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to use it on a human being.

She glanced at the phone and then out at the car.

Not yet. She wasn’t ready to freak out yet.

But what if a stranger knocked on the door right now? What would she do? The thought of something terrible happening to
her, and Pierce being alone and helpless in the house, not knowing . . .

What was stopping her from snatching Pierce and climbing in the car? Was it Jake?

She had to admit that was part of it. Maybe a big part. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she couldn’t take care of herself or her son.

But her fear was beginning to overcome her pride.

Pierce lightly traced his fingertips across the rough cardboard covering the window. It was damp and cool, and now and then he could feel the wind brush it. An almost imperceptible vibration ran through the floor and then was gone, and he assumed it had just thundered.

But the sense of dark presence that had assaulted him in the bathroom was still out there, as well. Breathing slowly, opening himself to the night outside, he could sense it moving. It seemed almost as if it were lost. Or hunting for something.

Or someone.

The thought sent a quiver up his spine.

He didn’t know how he could stop it if it returned. But he had to. Because his mother would never even know that it was here until it was too late. The most he could think of to do was keep a watch on it, try to tell when it was coming nearer. Maybe, just maybe he could get his mom to run away. Maybe they could get in the car and go.

Only he knew she’d never believe him until it was too late. A tear of frustration trickled down his cheek, and he wiped it away on his pajama sleeve.

He wished he wasn’t deaf and blind. Wished he wasn’t crippled.

He wished he had a father who was big and strong and brave.