Second Skin (59 page)

But the truth was Caesare did understand. The truth was that he respected her more than he had ever respected that
gavonne
Tony D. What Dominic saw in him Caesare would never figure out. But this woman had stood up to him, and had taken whatever he had dished out. She had been shot at, had reacted with courage in firing back at her assailants, had further been bold enough to enlist the help of an NYPD detective, and if not for Paul Chiaramonte, would have gotten away from his machine. Then she had withstood the assault of psychological torture.

But now, looking at her curled on the sofa, he knew he had her. All he had to do was drag in the kid and openly threaten her with bodily harm and Margarite would fold like cards in the wind.

It was time to call Paul out of the guesthouse and get the kid over here. He went painfully over to the intercom. After buzzing Paul three times with no response, he called in a couple of the guards and ordered them to hustle over to investigate.

It seemed an eternity before the intercom buzzed. Hitting the button with the butt of his pistol, Caesare barked, ‘Yeah?’

‘They’re gone,’ came the metallic voice.

‘Fuck d’you mean?’

‘We searched everywhere,’ the voice came back, raspy and devoid of emotion. ‘The house, the grounds, everywhere. Chiaramonte and the girl have split.’

‘How the fuck’s that possible?’

‘I dunno, boss. They just –’

Caesare pointed the muzzle of his pistol at the intercom and, with a deep roar of rage, fired.

‘He’ll kill my mom.’

Paul Chiaramonte stared into those keenly intelligent eyes and said with every ounce of sincerity he could muster, ‘No, he won’t.’

‘Bullshit.’ Francie was sitting, staring out the window at the soft parade of semidressed people along South Beach’s Ocean Boulevard.

‘It ain’t bullshit. You were the leverage, see? Why he wanted you inna first place. Your mama will do anything for you – even betray her own people. Bad Clams knows that.’ Paul flailed his arms. ‘And, hey, get outta the window. Whatta you, a sign?’ He shook his head. ‘Like I was sayin’, without you –’

‘Without me, she’s of no use to him.’ Francie turned back into the hotel room, which was decorated in high-tone art deco fashion, with blues, greens, and purples that made the eyeballs ache. ‘We should never have gone without her.’

‘We got the chance an’ we took it. That’s what life is all about.’

Francie shook her head. ‘Life’s not about running out on people you love – not for any reason.’

‘Tell that to my father,’ Paul said darkly. ‘He ran out on me ’n’ my mom when the shit came down.’

‘So that’s your reason for doing the same thing to the members of the Abriola family who treated you like one of their sons?’

He jammed his hands in his pockets and said nothing.

Francie cocked her head. ‘Don’t you get it?’ she said softly. ‘Without me Mom won’t tell Caesare anything and he’ll turn on her. He won’t care if she lives or dies.’

Paul, damning her to six kinds of hell, was staring at her fixedly. ‘You don’t give your mama half enough credit.’

‘Maybe. But what if you’re wrong?’ Her eyes caught his. ‘I think Caesare is out of her league.’

He was just thinking she might be right when she said, ‘We gotta go back.’

‘‘Scuse me?’ He shook his head. ‘I got wax inna ears. I thought you said we gotta go back.’

‘Right.’ Francie nodded. ‘We gotta go back and get my mom.’

Paul goggled at her. ‘We’ll all get shot to death, is what we’ll get.’

She shook her head. ‘No, we won’t. Caesare wants me.’

‘Sure he does.’ Paul rolled his eyes and said slowly and carefully, ‘But we don’t want him to get you, an’ if we go back, guess what?’ He threw up his hands, as if to say, Kids!

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Wha’?’ Paul’s head turned so quickly his vertebrae made a cracking sound.

‘Listen to me,’ Francie said, slipping from her perch on the windowsill. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

‘Yeah, well, I don’ wanna hear it. You wanted t’go straight t’the airport. Bad Clams woulda been able to track us for sure.’

‘Okay, so maybe that was a bum idea.’ Francie pulled him down onto the bed. It was covered in a spread whose pattern was reminiscent of something Frank Lloyd Wright would have designed. ‘But going back isn’t.’

‘You’re nuts, you know that? The place is crawling with button men. How we gonna get past ’em?’

‘No problem. They’re going to let us in.’ Francie was grinning. ‘You put a gun to my head and tell them I escaped and you caught me. You’re just bringing me back is all.’

Paul rested his hands on his thighs. ‘Okay, genius. Then what?’

‘Then we get my mom and split.’

Paul sighed. ‘An’ I s’pose Bad Clams will sit back an’ let me do that.’

‘Of course he won’t.’ Francie pointed her forefinger and cocked her thumb like a gun. ‘But when he tries to stop us, you’ll shoot him.’

Paul laughed. ‘Kid, you give me too much credit.’

She jutted her chin. ‘Don’t have the balls for it, huh?’

Paul jumped up. ‘Would you, for the love of God, stop talking like, like…’

‘Like what?’ There was a defiant tone to her voice, hard as brass.

His hands flew in small circles. ‘Like a guy, damnit! Why don’t you act like what you are?’

‘Did Jaqui?’

He pursed his lips, spurted air through them. ‘Did she what?’

‘Act like a girl?’

‘Sure she did.’ But it was a lie and they both knew it. Paul raked a hand through his hair, sat down abruptly. ‘Ah, nuts.’ He glanced at her. ‘My life went to shit the moment I met you.’

‘It already
was
shit.’ She went to the minibar and opened it. ‘Want something?’

‘Nah, ever notice the prices they put on that crap? Six bucks for a Coke? What a rip-off.’

‘What do you care?’ She threw him a can of Coke, took a diet Coke for herself. ‘Chances are you’re not going to pay for it.’

He laughed and they popped the tops at almost the same time. He took a swig. It felt almost as good as a beer going down. Thing was, he didn’t like to drink around her. It was probably stupid, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself. He felt proprietary toward her, as if she were his own daughter.

‘How come you’re so smart?’

‘I’m not so smart.’ She ran her tongue around the beaded top of the can. ‘I just wised up pretty quickly. But I have to say I had some help. My mom, once she straightened herself up. Uncle Lew. And, the more I think about it, Sister Marie Rose – Jaqui, I mean.’ She crossed one leg over the other, rocked it gently, watching her toes bounce up and down. ‘I used to hate her. What a little Hitler she is, I used to tell my mom. Rules, discipline, the law of God. “You should’ve been a watchmaker,” I once told her. “Or a drill instructor.”’ Her eyes rose to meet Paul’s. ‘You know what she said to me? “It’s about time you paid me a compliment.”’ Francie shook her head in disbelief. ‘I think I threw something, a plaster statue of the Virgin Mary or something. Shattered it into a million pieces.’

‘Uh-oh. That’s bad.’

Francie drank some diet Coke. ‘You’d think so. But Sister Marie Rose never got angry with me no matter what nasty stuff I pulled. That was smart, now I think of it. I guess I was trying to get her mad, and when I found out she wasn’t going to bite, I lost interest in being a beast around her.’ She took another swallow. ‘That was half of it. The other half was when I discovered she never told Mom how badly I acted with her. “Sister Marie Rose says you’re such an angel,” Mom said to me one day. “I wish I knew her secret.”’ Francie drained the can, put it aside. ‘Right then I knew. Sister Marie Rose was on my side, no matter what. That made such a difference. My mother first took me to see her when I was eight, and I saw her regularly. Then, later, when I was sick with bulimia and everything – I mean, really sick in my head, you know? – I needed someone who wasn’t going to judge me.’

‘Yeah, but all those rules she laid on you.’

‘But, see, they weren’t
hers.
They were God’s rules.’ Francie put her hands together as if in prayer. ‘Then I found out that Sister Marie Rose had no rules of her own and I fell in love with her. She was my kind of person.’ She laughed somewhat embarrassedly. ‘Imagine, a nun – and she was the only one I could talk to – until Uncle Lew.’

‘That would be Lew Croaker, the ex-cop.’

‘You know him?’

He shook his head. ‘Only what I’ve picked up from Bad Clams.’ Paul paused a moment. ‘You think he’s a good guy, huh?’

Francie’s eyes lit up. ‘Yeah.’

He got up and put his half-finished Coke on top of the minibar, then rubbed his palms down the sides of his trousers. He took out his gun, checked the cartridge. Then he replaced it, turned around to face her. ‘I may be nuts myself for sayin’ this but –’ He nodded and gave her a lopsided grin she decided she liked a whole lot. ‘Okay, let’s go back an’ get your mom outta that den of thieves.’

‘You are so very beautiful.’

Nicholas smiled at the slim European man with short hair and sensual lips.

‘Care to accompany me? There’s a love hotel right around the corner.’

‘Sorry,’ Nicholas said. ‘I’ve already got a date.’

‘Some other time, maybe.’ The European slinked off toward another candidate on his predatory quest.

Nicholas went to the bar and ordered a Scotch and soda. He was in Twenty-One Roses, a gay bar in Shinjuku 2-chome. Many eyes wandered in his direction. He did not feel threatened in this atmosphere.
Nanshoku,
the idea of lust between males, had a long and hallowed history in Japan, where among samurai, showing any affinity for women was considered a sign of weakness. Taking a young man or, even, a boy as a lover had its roots in the culture of ancient Greece, where the male form was revered. In Japan, the practice was widely attributed to the influx of Buddhist monks from China.

Nicholas paid for his drink, turned, and scanned the room for any sign of Takuo Hatta. The prosecutor was notorious for spending a couple of nights a week in one gay bar or another in this district. Nicholas had confirmed with Hatta’s wife that he was not at home. Twenty-One Roses was the fourth bar Nicholas had been in that night. Male couples were slow-dancing on the packed and minuscule dance floor, the bar was three deep, and everywhere bodies pressed lasciviously against one another. The place was dark and smoky, with a vaguely thirties look of seedy decadence that was at once evocative and comforting to its habitués.

Nicholas was propositioned twice more, was groped once intimately, and had made up his mind that this place was a real meat market when he saw someone who looked like Hatta emerging from the men’s room. With some difficulty he made his way through the shifting, sweaty throng. Someone grabbed his ass, and as he slithered through the dance floor, a Japanese salaryman with a wedding ring kissed him hard on the lips.

Nicholas survived it all and, arriving on the other side of the barely controlled melee, discovered that the figure was indeed Takuo Hatta. Unfortunately, Hatta spotted him. His eyes opened wide behind his spectacles and, shoving aside a pair of young men pawing each other, he broke into an ungainly run.

Slick as an eel, he made it to the front door before Nicholas could get to him. He darted out the door. Nicholas, feeling as if he were stuck in a dream, made progress as slowly as if he were in quicksand. Using his elbows, he wedged himself into one of the two main traffic lanes and was whirled, possibly by centrifugal force, toward the door.

Gaining the street, he saw Hatta opening the rear door of a big black Mercedes sedan idling at the curb. Nicholas shouted as he sprinted toward the car, and Hatta jerked his head around, his eyes opened wide in fear. He dove into the backseat of the Mercedes as the driver threw the car in gear and depressed the accelerator.

With a harsh squeal of rubber, the Mercedes peeled away from the curb, banged to a temporary halt as it hit the front fender of a cruising taxi. It lurched, swung out in a wider arc.

Nicholas, who had been gaining on it, threw his body forward just as the driver accelerated the car again. He lunged out, extending his body fully, and grabbed onto the open window frame as the Mercedes hurtled into the rain-slicked street.

A wiry Yakuza
kobun
was driving the Mercedes. Now the
kobun
spun the wheel hard over, almost rocketing the Mercedes into the stainless-steel grille of an oncoming truck. Nicholas’s body slammed hard against the side of the car as he hung on. The Mercedes rocked on its shocks as, amid the shrill blare of an air horn, the
kobun
righted it and hurtled it down the street. As he did so, he swerved back and forth. Every time he jerked the car to the right Nicholas’s shoes would be flayed by the tarmac; and on each leftward cut the prosecutor would be thrown hard against the door. And when the
kobun
took a skidding left turn, it seemed just another evasive maneuver.

Nicholas was reaching into the interior for a better hold when something black and looming caught in the periphery of his vision. He turned his head slightly, saw the narrow blackness of the alley coming up fast and knew he could not remain where he was – there was hardly enough room for the Mercedes itself to squeeze through.

A whump! and crackle as the near-side headlight smashed against a soot-encrusted wall presaged the car’s entrance into the alley. With no time to spare, Nicholas dropped his legs, let his heels hit painfully on the tarmac, bump up, did it again, this time harder, and used the more powerful bump upward as momentum to swing his body up over the open window and onto the roof of the car.

The Mercedes rocketed down the alley in a squeal of protesting body metal and occasional bright blue showers of sparks at the contact. Nicholas, on his stomach, was holding on with the curled tips of his fingers to the trim at the top of the windshield.

An explosion close to his ears caused him to twist his body, almost losing his fingerhold. Another one and he saw a chunk of the roof disintegrate, and he thought,
The bastard’s shooting at me!
He rolled back across the roof the other way as a third shot took a chunk of metal off.