The Coldest Mile (8 page)

“Most of them do porn,” the Deuce said. “It's a hot item, guys banging these chicks who can barely speak English but got that nice pale look to them. They're so goddamn happy to be out of a freezing country and in Southern California, they do double anals, the whole gonzo shebang. Or they do the Web site thing. You go in a chat room and tell them what you want and they do it right there, live on the webcams. You say, ‘Lift your legs wider, I want to see beaver’ and they do it. Mooks ordering them around from a safe distance, their wives in the other room bitching about the broken dishwasher. Guys like that.” It took him a couple seconds to add, “So they tell me.”

“Uh huh. So anybody who can help?”

“These Romanian people I know, they live down the block from my mother. Good folks, been here in Jersey a long time, but they still got ties. I used to cut their lawn when I was a kid. In ’79 they got a Pontiac LeMans that I nabbed for a night. Took my girlfriend to the drive- in. She gave me a blowjob while Kirk and Spock and some bald chick tracked down the Voyager module.”

Chase said, “I'm hoping these people never
caught wise to the stains on their leather interior and they'd still be willing to help you.”

“Yeah, sure, they'll do what they can, they've set up relatives before. But the old man's retired and they live on his pension. They're not going to be able to pay her freight.”

“I've got twenty- five hundred to give them to get a head start until she finds a job and a place to live.”

“That'll help a little. You're giving money away now?”

“Give me the address then call them.”

Deucie gave him the address and said, “Who is this girl?”

“I don't know. Just somebody in trouble.”

“Since when is that your problem? Aren't you supposed to be robbing the family instead?”

“I've got time to do both,” Chase said.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, see if you can find Jonah.”

“I thought you'd split with him after what happened.”

“Just see if you can track him down.”

“Scoring the Langans, dealing with your grandfather again, it's not good business, kid. Listen to me, you don't have to do any of this. Come on in, I can give you a nice safe job, something that won't be so rough for you. I can use another good man with your skills.”

“I think I want to see this thing through.”

“It's all about being on the edge, right? You think your wife would want this for you? You think—”

Chase hung up.

Mara had started to nod off. She'd snap her chin up and murmur in Romanian and tremble as she became aware of her surroundings. Her body jerked as if being pricked with needles. She caught Chase's gaze in the rearview and gave him a true death glare. There it was, the real thing. No anger, no wanting, just bottomless human emptiness.

The baby hiccuped. The woman unbuttoned her blouse and began to breast- feed her child, who sucked greedily. She looked out the window with stagnant eyes, and every so often she'd run her hand over the sleeping baby's hair, plucking at it, curling it around her fingers the way Lila used to do with Chase's after they'd made love.

The dead owned him.

The dead would always find a way to make him listen. The threefold hook twisted deep. Blood mattered, even if it wasn't his own.

Lila said to him, Never let your heart dim, love.

S
ometime after the moon had risen, with the severe
gray light rolling in across the bed like foam drifting by the Asbury Park pier, Chase came awake to find a .44 pressed to his forehead, Bishop standing there giving the friendly smile.

“So what's this for?” Chase asked.

“You're not even worried?”

“Not much.” Chase tried to sit up but Bishop exerted pressure, holding his head down to the pillow. Chase very slowly reached out and pressed the gun aside, liking the way Bishop's eyes went wide like he couldn't believe Chase wasn't just going to lie there. He must've had nothing but easy kills lately. “If you were going to ace me, you'd do it on the ground floor so you wouldn't have to carry my body two flights.”

Raising the pistol, Bishop rubbed the side of the barrel across his chin, lulling himself like a child with a blanket, loving the feel of contained murder.

You couldn't do much with guys like this. Money
was only a part of their action. They didn't get thrills the way everybody else did. Their juice was hardwired in the God complex.

Studying Chase, Bishop pursed his lips, really trying to see who was in front of him. Chase didn't like the look.

Bishop said, “No, that's not it at all. You're hoping someone will do it. You're a snuff case.”

“You're trying to slur me? You nearly creamed your pants touching that Magnum the other day.” Chase swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “You pop people for pay. I think I'd hold my own against you at Sunday morning mass.”

That got an earnest laugh out of Bishop. “What happened to the last load?”

“The last load?”

“The women. You came back empty- handed. Where's Ivanka? Where's the women? The kid?”

“I dropped them off in Staten Island, like she said.”

“They checked in but didn't stay. Where'd they go?”

“How's that my problem?”

“If I say it's your problem, it is.”

“Then don't say it.”

Dust in the moonlight looked like swirling snow drifting around them. The room a little cold now because Chase had left the window open and Bishop had left the door open when he sneaked in. Chase wondered how long he'd been in the room, watching him sleep, savoring his urge toward murder.

“Where are the women?”

That smile was really getting to Chase. He thought he might have to needle Bishop some, see if he could draw blood. “I sent them back.”

“What?”

“I sent them back home. I hate these loose immigration laws. The Mexicans and Norwegians and the Irish and all those Biafrans. They all come over and steal American jobs, put the workingman on welfare, and like that. So in the name of American values, I sent them back.”

“You want it, don't you? You want it right in the head.”

Stone killer eyes and flashing teeth in the silver moonshine. Chase hadn't met many hitters, but those he'd come across were just like Bishop. They liked to have a little fun before pulling the trigger. Liked to talk. These guys who were paid to kill, sometimes they'd buy their marks a beer first, pretend to meet them in a bar, get to know them a little. Spend a night talking about wives and kids and almost become friends with the patsy before putting two in the back of his head. Maybe it was instinct, a cat playing with a dying pigeon. Chase didn't know what it was all about, but he wasn't about to accept a beer from Bishop.

“Who are you working for?” Bishop asked.

“You people.”

“Did you deal yourself in? Did you score the merchandise?”

“ Black- market babies aren't a score,” he said. “And they're not merchandise.”

“You don't think so? It's a hundred-million-dollar-a-year industry.”

The two of them now in the dark, the wind rising outside in the frigid predawn, draft floating by, the house creaking and settling. Somewhere a tele vision was playing, the electrical hum of it working through the walls. Chase heard gruff asshole comments and low canned laughter beaming in.

“How old are you?” Bishop asked. “ Twenty- five, six? But you've been in the life for a while, it's written right into you. That might mean your parents were on the grift, except you toss around terms like ‘strongarm.’ So maybe not your parents, more likely a grandfather. Took you on the bend early. You've been at this for a long time. But what are you doing here? If you're a driver, you ought to be crewed up with bank heisters, stickup men.”

Chase was impressed as hell that Bishop had been able to glean all that and hit so close to home. A killer with acumen. The guy only had Chase's fake ID but maybe he'd cracked it, had asked around and found out Chase's real name, his story. That would be bad news. It would back Chase into a corner. He liked the idea that he could always fade back into his own life if he ever needed to. Not that it seemed likely to happen.

“You don't get charming conversation like this with stickup men,” Chase said. “You've got to go all
the way up to the big hitters if you want to chat about stealing babies from their mothers.”

“Jackie said you liked to talk back.”

Bishop brought the barrel of the .44 down hard on Chase's bad shoulder.

Red, pulsating agony swarmed Chase's brain, but he somehow managed to swallow down a scream. The torn muscle hadn't healed yet and the hole, poorly stitched in the first place, had remained constantly infected. He felt hot fluid pulse down his back.

Thrashing across the bed, Chase swept his hand out as if to prop himself in place, but he was actually going for the switchblade under the pillow. He'd felt a little stupid putting it there, the weight of it pressing against the side of his face while he tried to sleep, but he was glad for it now. Of course, if he'd really been smart, he would've slept with the 9mm under the pillow, instead of leaving it in the gym bag at the back of the closet. He thought he'd have to somehow get over his hatred of guns.

Bishop was still talking. “I saw that someone was using the bandages in the bathroom up here. So, you do like to tussle, huh? That a bullet wound? You got some mean friends someplace?”

“Don't we all?” Chase said through gritted teeth.

He popped the blade thinking, I have to be fast.

In a short, direct arc he slammed the point of the knife into Bishop's wrist, turned it hard, and slashed up the arm.

Blood lunged in a short fountain. Bishop let out a
laugh, the prick. You really had to worry about the guys who had fun when you hurt them. The knife hit the floor. The .44 fell on the mattress and gave a short bounce. Chase made a grab for it but Bishop elbowed him aside, leaving a swathe of blood down Chase's T-shirt. Before the pistol could hit the bed again, Bishop made a snatch for it with his left hand. He wasn't as good with that one, Chase noticed, but he was still damn fine. He caught the gun and started to turn and point.

Chase chopped him with a left hook under the heart. Bishop coughed up another laugh while Chase swallowed a shout, his damaged fingers flaring. The blow should've slowed Bishop down but it didn't, and the .44 continued to come around. The blood swept with it, a black pumping spray that splashed Chase's chin and made him think of the parking- lot showdown with Earl Raymond, seeing Earl's head exploding in the Roadrunner, all the weeping red on the inside of the windshield.

Focus, Jonah said, or you're dead.

Going in tight, Chase snapped his forearm up against Bishop's elbow, shoving the gun away again. He clamped his hand down on Bishop's wounded wrist and squeezed, digging his fingernails into the gash and listening to the slup of running blood washing over his own knuckles. Bishop didn't laugh this time. Good. Chase kicked out with his right leg trying to catch the hitter in the groin, but Bishop had started to back away, dragging Chase along. He tried to stomp Chase's left foot, doing it the right
way close to the instep, just like Chase had done to the thug the other day, but in the dark Bishop missed and caught Chase on the big toe. It hurt like fuck- all, but the only thing that mattered now was trying to get the gun.

All of this but Bishop wasn't calling to anybody else in the house. He wanted to take care of it himself.

Chase hooked too wide with his right and Bishop stepped inside and head- butted him. He'd been going for Chase's nose but instead caught his chin. Chase's teeth snapped together painfully and he felt a small sliver of his tongue come off as his mouth filled with blood. He turned and spit and the .44 was in his face again, the moonshine glinting off the highly polished metal.

Lila said, Love, and Jonah said, You idiot, you never should've stabbed him in the hand, you should've gone for his throat.

When the old man was right he was right, and there was nothing you could do.

Blood oozed across his lips.

Backing toward the door, Bishop reholstered the pistol and said, “Don't worry about anything. I like you, I really do. Maybe you didn't have anything to do with the merchandise, maybe you did. I'll find out. We'll settle up then. I'll even save you some bandages in the bathroom up the hall, okay?” He grabbed his leaking wrist with his good hand, the smile glowing. “Hey, how about if we go out for a beer sometime?”

A
t eleven in the morning, the phone rang and the
same voice that Chase didn't recognize told him he was to drive Miss Sherry to her theater group, which would be meeting at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway in Manhattan. Like Chase might get it confused with another Winter Garden Theater on another Broadway in a different town.

He was stiff as hell and the right arm was mostly useless. So was the left hand. The retaped fingers had turned a nasty purple. The piece of tongue he'd nipped off had been from the side and didn't seem to bother him much. He could talk fine and still managed to eat a late breakfast.

Cessy saw his pain and said, “I got aspirin.” “I think I need something a little stronger.” “I got that too,” she told him, and left the kitchen to return with an unlabeled bottle of huge white pills. “Take two or three of these now. Don't take any more for at least four, maybe six hours, then you can have another two. No more than that tonight.
They'll mellow you out and take away the hurt, but you'll still be able to think clearly and drive as fine as ever.”

“Thanks.”

She never mentioned what they were and he didn't ask. She looked at his fingers and said, “You wrapped them too tight. They must really hurt if you couldn't tell. They'll go numb and fall off.” He popped the pills and swallowed them down with a glass of milk while she cut the tape off. “You don't even have on any splints. What's the matter with you? You need a doctor, but I'll do what I can.”

“I appreciate it. And while you're fixing me up I'll be able to drink in more of your beauty.”