Peril (16 page)

“I know.”

“You told him this?”

“Yeah. And that you was doing it on the cheap.”

“He understands that I don't owe him anything, correct?”

“Right.”

“And that I don't need his money?”

“He knows that, sure.”

“So where does that leave me, Mortimer?”

“Leave you?”

“Yes, leave me. Because I can't do what he wants me to do if he doesn't give me more information.”

“I don't think he'll give nothing more,” Mortimer said.

“If that's the case, then there's nothing more I can do.” Stark scooped the notes and picture into the envelope and held it out to Mortimer. “You can return all this to your friend with my best regards.”

Mortimer didn't take the envelope from Stark's hand. “You can't do that,” he said, and immediately realized that he'd made a terrible mistake, that Stark would hear the sudden hint of dread in his voice.

“What do you mean, I can't?” Stark asked.

“You have to go through with it.”

“Why?”

Mortimer labored to make his answer genuine. “Because you agreed to do it, and he's counting on you.”

“Your friend is counting on me?”

“Yes.”

“But he won't give me any additional information?”

Mortimer hesitated. He knew he was in a box, that Stark would drop the case if more information were not provided. But he also knew that there'd be no more information. Unless he made it up.

“Well?” Stark demanded.

“I'll talk to him,” Mortimer said. “I'll get it out of him. Whatever you need.”

Stark watched him intently. “Does this friend of yours have any idea where his wife might be?”

The cityscape beyond the window provided the only answer Mortimer could think of. “Here,” he said. “He thinks she came to New York.”

“Why does he think that?”

Mortimer shrugged. “He figures that she just wants to disappear, and so she'd come to the city. Disappear into the crowd.” He could tell one part of Stark's mind was willing to accept the modest logic of this, while the other part labored to peel back his skin, peer into his brain, find the elusive something that Mortimer was holding back.

“All right,” Stark said finally. “I'll give this friend of yours one more chance to provide something useful. One chance, Mortimer.”

“Okay,” Mortimer said.

For a moment the two men peered silently at each other, a gaze Mortimer found uncomfortable.

“This friend of yours,” Stark said, “what does he intend to do when he finds this woman?”

Mortimer had no idea, but said, “He just wants her to come back to him.”

“Are you sure that's all he wants?”

Mortimer knew that Stark was thinking of Marisol. “He wouldn't hurt her. He wants her back, that's all.”

Stark's gaze bore into him, and he knew that if his eyes rested on him in that way just a moment longer, he'd spill his guts.

“I gotta go,” he said, then turned quickly and headed for the door.

He'd just reached it, when Stark called to him.

“Mortimer, we can trust each other, can't we?”

Mortimer turned toward Stark, saw something unexpectedly troubled in his eyes, as if he were working hard not to believe something he couldn't stop himself from believing.

“Yeah, sure,” he answered lightly. What else, he wondered, could he say?

EDDIE

The beer was growing warm in his hands, but there was nothing to do but wait. Vinnie Caruso had never been a stickler for getting to a place on time, and Eddie had long ago accepted the fact that he came when he came. In the meantime, Eddie tried to think of the right approach, what he'd say once Vinnie had downed a couple of beers, loosened up, dropped the wise-guy routine, and returned to the kid Eddie had known years before, a nice guy, like so many others, but with lousy parents, the mother a lush, the father missing altogether. What could you do but feel sorry for a kid like that, a little guy, picked on. Eddie had saved him from a bully once, and after that Vinnie had hung close for a few years. Then they'd gone their separate ways until one night they'd met again at the Saint Lawrence Hotel, where Vinnie ran a shylocking operation from the office of an otherwise legit car service. Vinnie had ushered him into the little cubicle he used for business, and the two of them had talked for a few minutes, Vinnie propped back in his chair, his feet on the desk, puffing a cigar that was almost as long as his arm, acting the made-man routine, though all Eddie had to do was look around to know just how little-made he was, just how low on the pecking order. But it was the moment he'd started to leave, Eddie recalled now. He'd gotten up, smiling as always, started for the door, when Vinnie, still seated, had called him back,
So, Eddie.

Eddie had turned around to find the little guy staring at him intently, the cigar lowered, the old Vinnie peering at him, almost sweetly, so that Eddie knew that Vinnie was remembering how Eddie had saved him from that bully so many years before.
So, Eddie, how you doing, huh?

That was the moment, Eddie thought now, his large hands wrapped around the mug, that was the moment when he could have asked anything of Vinnie Caruso. If he'd been in debt, the money would have been there. If some guy had been giving him trouble—on the job, say, or anywhere else—that guy would have been spoken to by Vinnie or some thug Vinnie sent, and the trouble would have instantly gone away. But Eddie had only shrugged and said that he was doing fine. Then they'd shaken hands, and Vinnie had tapped the side of his head, and said his parting words,
You was good to me, Eddie. And when somebody's good to Vinnie Caruso, he don't forget.

The problem was this. Eddie didn't like asking favors. He didn't like doing it ever, and normally wouldn't have done it at all. You didn't do a guy a good turn because you expected to get something back. The priests had taught him that. If you do good to get good, they'd told him, it wasn't really good at all. But now, as he thought about it, he hadn't helped Vinnie Caruso all those many years before because he'd expected to get something back. So it was okay, he figured, asking Vinnie for a favor now, as long as it was just this one.

Caruso came through the door with the peculiar swagger he'd adopted over the last few years, and which Eddie thought he'd probably gotten from mob movies, especially the one where this wiry little guy talks big and screws this gorgeous blonde, and backs up everything he says with sudden bursts of annihilating violence.

“Hey, Eddie,” Vinnie said brightly as he strode up to the booth. “How they hanging?”

“I'm good,” Eddie said. “Want a beer?”

“Nah,” Vinnie said. He stripped off his jacket and hung it on the metal hanger beside the booth. “I'm a scotch guy.” He snapped his fingers and the barmaid appeared. “You got Glenfiddich, sweetheart?”

“Yeah.”

“Two cubes. Three fingers.”

The barmaid looked as if she'd just bitten into a lemon. “Okay,” she said, then turned on her heel and disappeared.

“So, how you doing?” Vinnie asked.

“Good,” Eddie said. He took a sip of warm beer.

“At the marina, right? That was the last time?”

Eddie started to answer, but the barmaid returned with the scotch, placed it on a small paper square in front of Caruso, then stepped away.

Vinnie lifted the glass. “To old times.”

“Old times,” Eddie echoed.

The glasses clinked together and each man drank.

“You been waiting long?” Vinnie asked.

Eddie shook his head.

Vinnie leaned forward. “So, what's on your mind, Eddie?”

There seemed no way to edge around it, close in slowly, so Eddie said, “You know about Tony, right? That his wife left him?”

“Yeah, I heard about it.”

“Tony says his father is trying to find her.”

Vinnie's fingers tightened around the scotch. “So?”

“So I was wondering if he asked you to do it.”

Vinnie took a quick hit from the scotch, then set the glass down hard. “I don't talk about business, Eddie.”

“That means yes, right?”

“That means I don't talk about business is what that means.”

“The thing is, Tony's spooked,” Eddie said.

“Spooked? Why?”

“ 'Cause he don't know what his father has in mind.”

“For that wife of his?”

“Yeah. He don't want nobody strong-arming her.”

“Who said anybody was gonna strong-arm her?”

“He's afraid, that's all,” Eddie said. “You know how Labriola is.”

“Mr. Labriola just wants to find his wife for him,” Caruso said. “Then he'll tell Tony where she is and Tony, he goes and talks to her.”

“He told you that? The Old Man?”

“Yeah,” Caruso said.

“So you're looking for her?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Caruso admitted. “But like I said, Mr. Labriola, he just wants they should talk, Tony and his wife, work things out, you know what I mean? Make nice. He don't like it when things don't go smooth.”

Eddie looked at Vinnie doubtfully.

“What?” Vinnie asked crisply.

“And if the wife didn't want to make nice, you wouldn't do nothing to her, would you, Vinnie?”

“What would I do?”

“You wouldn't do nothing is what I'm asking.”

“Why you asking me that, Eddie?”

“I'm asking because suppose you find Tony's wife and she don't want to have nothing to do with Tony. What then?”

“What then?”

“What do you do?”

“To the broad, you mean?”

“Tony's wife, yeah. Supposing you find her and she don't want to . . .”

Caruso laughed. “Suppose I ain't actually the guy looking is what you should be supposing.”

“You ain't looking for her?”

“No,” Vinnie said. “Not me personal.”

“Who is?”

Vinnie laughed. “I ain't sure myself. All I know is this. Mr. Labriola had me pay a guy to find Tony's wife. So I did.”

“You paid a guy?”

“Paid him plenty.”

“What guy you pay, Vinnie?”

“A guy ain't connected to Mr. Labriola or me or Tony or nobody else you ever heard of.” Caruso laughed. “Mr. Labriola mulled over some guys. Burt Marx, remember him? I told the Old Man, I said, ‘Burt Marx? That fucking guy couldn't find a chink in Chinatown.' ”

“So who's looking? Who's the guy?”

Vinnie suddenly glanced about nervously. “You think I can tell you that, Eddie?”

“Vinnie, you remember that night when we come up on each other there at the hotel?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“And we talked awhile, right, you and me? And then I got up to leave and you said, ‘So, Eddie, how you doing?' Remember that?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, so, this is how I'm doing. I need to know who this guy is, Vinnie. The one looking for Tony's wife.”

“What's it to you?”

“It ain't for me,” Eddie answered. “It's for Tony.”

“What does he care who's looking, long as she turns up?”

“He wants to know what's going on, that's all. It's his wife, you know, so he wants to know.”

Caruso downed the last of his scotch. “Okay, suppose I give you this guy. What then?”

“I'll keep an eye on him, that's all.”

“Just you?”

“Yeah.”

Caruso laughed. “You can't watch a guy twenty-four hours a day.”

“As much as I can, then. When he turns in, I'll turn in.”

Caruso considered this for a moment, then said, “You know what Mr. Labriola would do to me, don't you, Eddie?”

Eddie nodded.

“You get any idea the guy's maybe getting suspicious, maybe catching on to you, you got to back off, you understand? And I mean fast, Eddie. You don't look back. You just back off and he don't see you no more.”

“Okay.”

Caruso plucked a cigar from his jacket. “ 'Cause let me tell you something, this guy, he'll drop the deal he gets wind of something. And you know what would happen if this guy dropped the deal he has with Mr. Labriola?” He lowered his voice to a desperate whisper. “I'd have to whack him, that's what.”

“You?”

Caruso lit the cigar and waved out the match expansively. “Who else would Mr. Labriola trust with a job like that?”

Eddie gave no answer.

“So we're clear on this?” Caruso asked.

“Yeah.”

Caruso rose and motioned Eddie to follow him outside. They walked to Caruso's car and got in. “Okay, Eddie, here's the deal.” In the car's shadowy interior, Caruso's eyes gleamed eerily. “There are two guys could be looking for Tony's wife. I ain't sure which one. There's a guy runs a bar on Twelfth Street in Manhattan. Morgenstern. It could be him, but I don't think so. The other guy lives in Chelsea, 445 West 19 Street. Right off Ninth Avenue. You pick.”

“The bar guy, you don't think it's him looking for Sara?”

“My guess, no.”

“Okay.” Eddie offered his hand. “I'll keep an eye on the other one.”

“Up to you,” Caruso said with a light shrug.

“Yeah, okay, the other one. Chelsea.”

“Good enough,” Caruso said. “I only seen the guy once. Fifties, I'd say. White hair. Tall. Thin.” He grasped Eddie's hand. “One thing, though,” he added. “Whatever you find out about this fuck, you gotta let me know.”

“Yeah, sure,” Eddie said. He drew his hand back, but Caruso held on to it.

“I mean it, Eddie,” Caruso warned. “This is business, and you tell me you're going to keep me posted, you gotta do it.” He released Eddie's hand. “You don't, then favors, friendship, that's all in the shitcan now.”