Sweetheart (6 page)

“What are they doing here?”

“Boozing.”

“Stupid place to do it.”

“Maybe they jack off,” Rita O’Dea said in a deadly sweet voice.

“You guys just going to sit here?” Gardella said, and Augie opened his door and got out. As he did, he brushed something into his mouth and swallowed hard. Gardella saw him do it but said nothing. Outside, Augie shivered. Ralph joined him and whispered, “Don’t shit your pants, kid.” The Cadillac purred in place, glued to its lights. Augie and Ralph lifted the hood. Within seconds the doors of the Thunderbird winged open, shedding a weak light, and the Bass brothers showed their faces. Ralph called out in apparent perplexity, “You guys know anything about engines?”

The brothers shuffled forward, flaccid, carelessly bold. Their arms hung long. The bigger of them, Leroy, said, “We don’t get our hands dirty for nothin’.”

Ralph said, “We’ll give you something.”

The brothers angled their way between Augie and Ralph. “Looks like a hearse,” Leroy said thickly. His brother Wally couldn’t speak. His nose was full. Leroy plunged his head under the hood and then backed away fast. “Hell, it’s runnin’. What more do you want?” Ralph smiled, his sack of a face illegible. Augie shifted close to Wally, who suddenly was nervous. Leroy, on guard, glanced sideways and said, “Who are those people?”

Scandura, Gardella, and Rita O’Dea had emerged from the Cadillac and lined themselves in a row, Rita O’Dea in the middle. Bearlike in her fur, she was smoking a cigarette; Gardella stood very straight. Scandura smiled, his teeth glittering, some more than others. He said, “I’m nobody, but these people recently buried their parents, Santo and Rosalie Gardella. Maybe you remember them.”

Gardella and Rita O’Dea uttered oaths in Italian. The brothers did not know the words but were terrified by the sound. Leroy Bass rose on his toes and froze, while Wally failed to react, as if he did not know how. Ralph and Augie dredged up long objects from their coats in almost a benign way. The brothers did not respond; they felt as if they were hallucinating.

Victor Scandura said, “Good-bye, boys.”

Ralph swung his tire iron and broke the flesh in Leroy Bass’s face, and then he swung again and destroyed the skull. Augie’s aim was off, and he merely fractured the younger brother’s shoulder. Ralph completed the job for him, each swing of the iron progressively emphatic, until there was not a whimper left.

Rita O’Dea said, “Leave something to spit on.”

Afterward Scandura made a quick gesture. Ralph and Augie knew what to do. He had coached them. They dragged the bodies to the Thunderbird and rammed them into the front seat. Ralph steered from the outside with an arm through the open window, the gear shift in drive and the motor snorting, while Augie pushed from the opposite side, twice falling to his knees because of city shoes. The crunch of tires over the snow was oddly musical. The two men leaped away when they neared the edge. The crash was muffled.

Gardella and his sister climbed back into the Cadillac, anxious to leave, their satisfaction scant and their disappointment great. Scandura waited outside for Ralph and Augie, who both arrived breathless. Opening a door, Scandura said, “Let’s move.” But nobody did. A police cruiser whirling blue and red rays veered off the road and braked behind them. In a fateful tone from the depths of the Cadillac, Gardella said, “Handle it, Victor.”

The cruiser door flew open. The man who tumbled out wore a fur cap and a badge glinting off his mackinaw. Scandura murmured, “A local, alone.” Ralph was ready to act, but Augie wasn’t. Augie had put a hand to his throat. His lack of a chin placed his mouth too low in his face, and for the moment the face looked abject. “Get in the car,” Scandura whispered to him savagely. “We don’t need you.”

Quickly, hands buried in his topcoat pockets, Scandura walked toward the officer, who had set himself in a defensive manner. Scandura greeted him in a clear voice and gave him a story, apparently plausible, about an accident. Officer Hunkins exclaimed, “Jesus Christ, how many in it?”

“Looked like two,” Scandura said in a specious tone of cooperation. “Like I said, they were going like a bat out of hell.”

The two of them began tramping over the hard snow, their breaths trailing them. Officer Hunkins said matter-of-factly, “That’s Steuben’s Bluff. They went over it, they’re dead.” Suddenly he stopped. He had a flashlight and he clicked it on and fanned the light over the ground. “Where are the skids? I don’t see any.”

Scandura freed his left hand from his coat pocket and surreptitiously let something fall from his fingers. “They just didn’t make the turn. Kids, I think. Probably drunk.”

“What kind of car?”

“Looked like an old T-bird.”

“All rusted up?”

“Might’ve been.”

Officer Hunkins shrugged. “I think I knew the suckers. Hardworking kids, but a little wild.” His voice abruptly turned official and grave. “You and your friends are going to have to stick around.”

Scandura stepped casually to one side, his hand slipping back into his pocket, and looked down with a mild show of surprise. “What’s that?”

Hunkins bent down fast and straightened slowly. “Jesus Christ, it’s somebody’s roll. Enough to choke a horse.” He looked at Scandura, who said nothing. “Must be a grand here.”

“At least.”

Hunkins started counting with trembling fingers and then quit. “More than a grand.”

A moment passed.

“It’s yours,” Scandura said.

“What d’you mean?”

“Finders keepers.” Scandura’s smile was slight, offhand, and unmistakable. He turned softly on his heel. “I’ll be leaving now.”

Hunkins hesitated a bare second. “Sure, why not?”

• • •

At three-thirty in the morning the bedside telephone in Russell Thurston’s bachelor apartment rang. A bare arm snaked over him to get it. “Don’t!” he said. “Don’t
ever
answer my phone.” The call was from a confidential source, code name Honey. The voice said, “They’re back.”

Several hours later, from his cubicle in the Kennedy Building, Thurston placed a call across the state. Trooper Denton came on the line. Thurston said, “I don’t want you, I want your boss.” At the same time he smiled at Blodgett and then wryly at Blue, who had been told little but had guessed much, which had been Thurston’s intention all along, one of his ways of amusing himself. His secret was that he had more confidence in Blue than in Blodgett, which neither suspected.

When Lieutenant Wade finally came on the line, Thurston increased his smile and said, “I understand justice has been served.”

I
N A BAR LOUNGE
at Miami International Airport two men sat at a low table. One of them, Ty O’Dea, had a pickled Irish face and prematurely white hair that was neatly parted. His nose was drawn out at the end, as if pulled, and his smile was fake. His blue eyes blended vulnerability with caution. The other man, Miguel, half Puerto Rican and half Floridian, was small, like a jockey, with black eyes that seemed too big for their sockets. He spoke poor Spanish and fluent street English. His gaze was riveted on two figures who had hesitated outside the wide, doorless entrance to the lounge.

“Who’s the guy looks like Cesar Romero?”

“That’s him,” O’Dea said with a start. “That’s Tony Gardella.”

“Who’s the cunt hanging all over him?”

“Must be his wife. Look beyond him, you’ll see his muscle, Ralph Roselli.”

Miguel frowned. “Phone Alvaro. Find out what the fuck’s going on.”

“I move, he’ll see me.”

“You scared?” Miguel’s quick smile was sardonic. “It was his sister used to beat you up, not him.”

O’Dea lowered his head. “I can’t call. Rita’ll recognize my voice.”

“She answers, you hang up. What’s so hard about that?”

Anthony Gardella and his wife moved out of sight, followed by Ralph Roselli. O’Dea lifted his glass and drained it. He took his whiskey neat. Then he rose quickly and wended his way to the rear of the lounge. He had on a sky-blue suit and a matching vest and a print shirt with the collar flipped over the top of the jacket. His shoes were white. He stayed on the phone less than three minutes. When he returned to the table, he said, “He’s down here on business.”

“Business?” Miguel looked a shade skeptical. “And he brings his wife with him?”

“She didn’t want to be left.”

“I thought Victor Scandura did his dealing. Scandura sick or something?”

“Sometimes Tony likes to do things himself.”

“Funny family.” Miguel’s manner was superior and indulgent, his face soft, and his voice a degree away from being girlish. “What’s with Alvaro?”

“He says for you not to sweat. It’ll be done.”

• • •

Lieutenant Christopher Wade checked into the Howard Johnson’s in downtown Boston and was in his room less than a half hour when he had a visitor. It was a black man, tall and slender and impeccably groomed. Wade shut the door behind him and said, “You don’t look like an agent. You look more like affirmative action at its corporate best. What do you want me to call you?”

“Blue’s good enough.”

Wade sat on the edge of the bed, and Blue lowered himself into a vinyl chair. A moment of quiet passed as each sized up the other. Blue’s mouth curved doubtfully under his trim mustache.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t,” Wade said. “As a matter of fact I’ve got a sour feeling I can’t get rid of. I suppose that’s something you’ll have to tell Thurston.”

Blue shrugged. “We’ve leased an apartment for you, something suitable but within your income.”

“That was nice of you guys. How do you know I’ll like it?”

“It’s better than what you’re living in now.”

“How do you know what I’m living in?”

“We’ve been through it,” Blue said, and Wade flushed, partly from outrage and partly from embarrassment. “You can move in March first,” Blue went on easily. “That’s the effective date of your transfer. We’ve deposited a sum in your checking account for next year’s tuition for your daughters at Boston University. You’ll be pleased to know the amount includes room and board, books, and a clothing allowance.”

Wade forced himself to relax somewhat. He lit a cigarette, which helped. “Should I consider you my contact?”

“Could be me, could be somebody else,” Blue said effortlessly. “Thurston has a lot of moves.”

“I gathered that. While we’re on the subject, maybe you could give me your honest opinion of him.”

“I don’t tell tales out of school. But I’ll listen to your opinion of him.”

“You’re smooth, Blue.”

“Comes with the suit.” Blue got to his feet. He had said all he had come to say.

“That was quick,” Wade said, rising, and together they walked to the door. Before opening it for him, Wade said, “By the way, you guys got a code name for me yet?”

Blue nodded. “Sweetheart.”

• • •

Wade drove from Boston to Wellesley, to the sedate horseshoe-shaped street off the main drag, where he had once lived. It was seven in the evening, the streetlights burning in the cold. He still had a key to the house, though no longer the right to use it. But he did, as if from habit. Gently opening the door, he stepped into the light that shone from the living room. Nothing had been changed. No new furniture had been added and none of the old rearranged, but he felt like a stranger. Though not like an intruder. He went to the bottom of the carpeted stairs and called up to his wife, startling her.

“Chris, what are you doing here?”

Her voice revealed annoyance but no anger. She was doing her hair in the lit mirrors of the bathroom, obviously preparing to go out. When he got halfway up the stairs he could see her.

“Don’t come up,” she said, but he did, and she faced him with a frown, wearing only a soft cream blouse and speckled pantyhose. She had a long, attractive face and a well-kept figure. Her eyes were brown and serious. “I don’t appreciate this,” she said.

He said, “You look wonderful.”

“And you look tired. What do you want, Chris?”

He smiled. “You.”

“Don’t,” she said and began brushing her hair. “Don’t play games.”

He leaned against the door frame and took in her every movement. Their years together, in his eyes, had been precious, especially the early years when they lived in a housing project and put aside every dime they could for a house of their own. Their first child arrived five months after their marriage, which put a crib in their bedroom but not a crimp in their lovemaking. It seemed he could never get enough of her. He remembered her ingenious ways of disguising meatloaf and of creating files for myriad grocery coupons. He remembered his habit of tracing a finger around her ankle when they watched television together, and he remembered her face being full of light, as if from some radiant purpose, when she tried to peer into their future. His goal was to wangle his way into the detective division, which he managed the same year they passed papers on this house. The house was her joy, his new job was his. In time she said the job was excluding her from four-fifths of his life because of his obsession with every case he handled, his irregular hours, and his prolonged absences, weeks when he was tracking down leads, months when he was undercover, times when she didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. The last straw for her was his seeming indifference to his daughters, who shocked him by growing up. He couldn’t fault her decision to separate, but neither could he accept it as final.

“I’m being transferred back to Boston,” he said and held his breath for a favorable reaction.

“I’m glad for you,” she said. “I know you don’t like it out there.”

“Susan, listen — ”

“Don’t,” she interjected. “Don’t say it.” She put the brush down and glanced quickly at her watch. “Chris, I have to hurry.”

He could tell from her tone that she did not want to hurt him but at the same time did not want to delude him. The fact was that he was already hurt and would not have minded being deluded. The question he wanted to ask would not take shape.

She said, “Go downstairs. I’ll join you in a minute.”

It was nearly ten minutes before she came down dressed in a pearl-gray bolero and a fitted skirt that matched it. He looked up at her slowly from his chair and said, “Who is he, Susan? Anybody I know?”

“No, Chris, nobody you know.”

“Somebody at work?”

She hesitated. She was a travel agent, Benson Tours. “Yes,” she said, “somebody at work.”

“A nice guy?”

“Yes, a nice guy.”

He said, “I suppose I could stick around and meet him. It would be the civilized thing to do.”

“I don’t think it’s necessary, Chris.”

He lifted himself from the chair, working hard to keep his emotions hidden. “I have something for you,” he said and gave her a check he had written out while he was waiting. “It’s for the kids’ schooling next year.”

Her eyes widened when she read the amount, and then she looked at him suspiciously. “Where did you get this much all at once?”

He shrugged his shoulders and gave her a story he knew she found difficult to believe. Had she the time she would have sought a further explanation. Instead she again shot a look at her watch.

“Should I deposit it, or wait?”

“Deposit it,” he said.

• • •

He drove back to the Howard Johnson’s hotel and left the car in the underground garage and then, tightening his overcoat, walked the few blocks to the Combat Zone, where he jockeyed his way through the motley crowd on narrow Washington Street and eyed the gaudy arcades, movie houses, smut shops, and girlie joints. Despite the cold, the air was carnival. Bare-legged prostitutes, some underage, all insensible to the weather, tossed out smiles like peanuts to pigeons. A small band of pimps, tall fur or felt hats a part of their regalia, filed into a lounge as if for a meeting; the last to enter gave Wade a curt glance. Wade went farther up the street and entered a joint he knew Anthony Gardella had a piece of.

It was one of the busiest, perhaps the loudest, with a succession of three circular bars, each with a miniature stage where a young woman gyrated to music too electronic for Wade, too ear-shattering, too crushing to his nerves. Yet he stayed. He found a seat at the second bar and wedged himself in between two black men, who gave him furtive looks without moving their heads. The stripper noticed his arrival and welcomed it with a sudden thrust. She had milk-white skin and a smattering of stretch marks on an otherwise fine belly. Wade drank bottled beer.

He was on his second bottle when the man on his right picked up his cigarettes and left, which gave him room to relax his shoulders. Twice, from the corner of his eye, he spotted someone from the Gardella organization. Their pictures were among those in a file Thurston had given him. Mostly they were watching the tills, occasionally the strippers. He retracted an elbow when a young black woman perched herself on the vacated chair and smiled at him through gilded eyelids and dangling cornrow braids. She said something he couldn’t hear over the music. Then suddenly her breath was in his ear. “Hey, you a cop? People here saying you’re a cop.”

He leaned toward her. “Yes, I’m a cop, but don’t worry about it. I’m here to relax. Buy you a drink?”

“Sure,” she said and touched his hand by way of thanks, her nails sparkling. “But we can’t hear each other here. Why don’t we go to a booth?”

His beer bottle was only half-empty, and he took it with him. She led the way into almost total darkness. Though it was impossible to see, the booths all seemed occupied, but she found one free down at the end and stepped aside for him to slip in first. Then she crowded in on the same side as he sat at an angle, his back to the wall. He could not see her face, only her eyes and teeth.

“We’ll wait a second, okay?”

“Wait for what?” he asked as someone leaned into the booth. A full bottle was deposited near his half-empty one. He knew it was there by touching it, and he knew something was there for her. It glistened.

She said, “You sure you’re not here to bust people?”

“I give you my word.”

“How much you want to relax?” she asked and let her hand fall into his lap. “I can do some awful nice things for you right here. Depending on what you want is what it’ll cost.”

“I want so much,” he said in a low voice, “here wouldn’t do.”

“We can go someplace, three-minute walk.”

Wade shook his head. His eyes had adjusted, and he could see more of her. “Not tonight. Another night. Tonight I’m hurting, carrying too much inside me.”

“What kind of problems you got?”

“Wife problems. Wife’s two-timing me.”

The young woman’s teeth flashed. “There’s a way to fix that, you two-time her, that way you come out even and both be happy again. What you think of that, huh?”

“I think you’ve got it all together, I just wish that I did.” Somebody was passing by the booth. He could not see who it was, but he sensed it was a man. “This is worth money to you, listening to me talk.”

“I get all kinds,” she said.

“I’m sure.”

Before he left, he slipped a ten-dollar bill onto the table for the drinks and pressed a larger denomination into her hand. She looked at it with the eyes of a lynx and whispered, “You’re an all-right guy.”

On his way out, letting his shoulders droop, he glimpsed Gardella’s people. Their eyes burned into his back, which had been his purpose. He knew that everything he had told the young woman would be repeated.

• • •

Victor Scandura leaned over a cup of cappuccino inside the Caffè Pompei, his elbows on the tiny table, his glasses off. His eyes, flyspecks, seemed blind. He said to Augie, “I’ve got to ask you something, be nice you answer me straight. What are you on?”

Augie made a face. “What you talking about?”

“You’d better tell me,” Scandura said and rubbed the pinch marks on his nose. “Anthony wants to know.”

Augie wrestled with something inside himself and finally said, “So I pop a little, what’s the harm? I got a lot of scores behind me. The Skelly warehouse job was mine, so was the meat truck on Route One.”

“You pop. What do you pop?”

“Uppers, okay? Now and then.”

“You ask the harm, I’ll tell you. You didn’t perform well in Greenwood. Ralph wasn’t there, I don’t know what would have happened. You understand what I’m saying? You dirty yourself on junk, you’re dangerous to us. It wasn’t for Anthony’s regard for your uncle, I wouldn’t be talking to you. You wouldn’t be here.”

Augie’s chinless face, already pale, went white. He tried to lift his cup of cappuccino, but his hand shook too much. “You don’t have to worry about me, I understand.”

“You make a mistake in these things,” Scandura said evenly, “a lot of people have to pay. No more pills.”