The Guardian (14 page)

But apparently he refused. “He said he wants Uncle R.”

Ross took the phone. “I’m her uncle.”

“You’re the guy who shot me?”

“That’s right. Let me speak to Janine.”

“In a minute.” The man’s voice sounded amused. “Bad news for you. Your bullet just scraped me, and if I read that ad right, you buried your brother?”

“Yes.”

The man whistled. “Cold. You must not have liked him much, huh?”

The man hung up.

The next call came about ten minutes later. “Got plenty of quarters. Don’t try to trace this.”

“If we’d involved the police, you think you would’ve gotten away in the first place?”

“So why haven’t you now?” The man sniffed.

“Same exact reason. We want Janine. We don’t give a damn about the money.”

“Yeah, talk to me about that. Tell me why I shouldn’t waste the little chick.”

“Because you saw the cash. You know it’s real and that we’re willing to give it to you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. And we’ll meet again, the only difference being that I’m bringing a gun, and I will have it on you the whole time.”

The man paused, and Ross heard him sniff again.

“You ought to take one of those courses,” the man said. “On
persuasion.
You seem to forget who I’ve got my hands on. You should be worrying about my health, telling me not to take any risks, telling me to take it easy on the coke, sleep good at night … you get what I’m saying? Her life and mine, all tied together. So don’t go threatening me.”

“You’d expect the gun, anyhow. And I’m sure you’ll have one on me.”

“On her.”

Ross let that go. “Let me speak to her.”

“She’s not with me.”

Ross closed his eyes. He could feel Beth looking at him, and his mind went blank momentarily as the man’s words washed over him, words saying the man didn’t want to take Janine out in daylight, words saying that everything would be fine if Ross just dropped the money off where he was told.

Words that sounded just like lies to Ross.

The guy was talking too much, telling more than he had to. Ross opened his eyes. And said, “No. You get her on the phone. Sometime today, you call back with her on the phone, and we’ll make plans to meet then.”

“Hey, fuckhead, ask your brother what happens when you start giving me instructions. You go pull the dirt and worms out of his mouth, hear what he has to tell you.”

“I need to know she’s alive,” Ross said. “I’ll make you rich, but you’ve got to prove that to me.”

The man slammed the phone down.

They waited for the call all afternoon, but it never came.

Ross went to see Tommy Datano that night.

Datano saw him as he entered the restaurant and waved him to his booth ahead of three other people. “How’s your little niece?” he said. “Good news, I hope.”

Ross shook his head.

“You didn’t find a buyer?” Datano’s look of dismay appeared well practiced.

“No,” Ross said. He’d decided that telling Datano they had the money would only leave them open to being ripped off. “We’ve lost all contact with the kidnappers.”

Datano shook his head. “Such a shame. So are you looking for the five hundred? I’m afraid I’ve committed those funds, but perhaps we can do something for you.”

“No. Although I appreciate the offer.” Ross kept his tone level, professional. The man’s whole manner encouraged him to talk, to spill his rage. To tell him about the hours he’d spent with Beth, about how she needed something, anything, to believe her daughter was still alive.

But Ross kept all of that to himself. He knew Datano’s sympathy would cost them. Instead, he showed the clippings about both convenience store robberies, the one in Watertown where Janine was abducted as well as the one in Cambridge. “I’m willing to pay to find out who did these.”

Datano shrugged. “You don’t think we get involved in this kind of thing, do you? This kind of thing is very random. It’d be nice to think the punk who did this knows whose territory he’s stepping on, but this kinda punk is usually fried out of his brains.”

“I understand. But there are a lot of people you know who have their eyes and ears open, and they can learn things … say when a guy like this wants to buy a gun, buy some dope, brags in a bar, or sells or hocks something he stole … there are people you know who can find things out.”

“But you don’t know if the same man did these robberies.”

“Not definitely, no. But if it’d be worth ten thousand dollars to find out … and introduce me when the time comes, with whatever name I give you. I should tell you the man may have a girlfriend or wife named ‘Nat.’ Probably Natalie.”

“We’re not in the detective business, Mr. Stearns.”

“You are in the money and information business. And that’s all this is.”

Datano sipped his wine and shrugged his shoulders slightly. “I suppose I can introduce you to some people.” He leaned forward, adopting a confidential tone. “Perhaps we should discuss a more direct relationship. If you have some success selling your property, or perhaps if we can complete a sale ourselves, that might free up enough cash for you to make it worth our while to really do a job for you.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, find this man … and do whatever is appropriate.” Datano smiled gently. “We’d look to your guidance on exactly what that would be.”

Ross was tempted. But he wasn’t ready to accept that Janine was dead yet, and until he was, he couldn’t put a contract out on her kidnapper. It could go wrong so easily; the hit man might even find it expedient to kill Janine if she saw too much.

“That’s a kind offer,” Ross said. “But that introduction is all I want.”

Datano sat back. “You sure?”

“I’m sure,” Ross said. He passed an envelope under the table.

Datano took the envelope but didn’t look in it.

“That’s ten,” Ross said. “For now, finding who did this is all I ask of you.”

Datano finished his wine. “All right, I think I know someone who might be able to help you. His name is T.S. He’s crazy and he appreciates other crazies. You can trust him about as far as you can lift him over your head with one hand, and you’ll understand when you see him just how impossible that would be.”

“Can you make him talk to me?”

“I can introduce you.
Do not
tell him why you’re looking for the guy. He’d rather brush his teeth than help an average citizen in trouble.” Datano touched the clippings. “You can’t even be specific about looking for the person doing these robberies. He’d figure you for a cop. But he knows the low-level nuts better than me, and he runs some guns, sells some dope. If your kidnapper’s black, or really any color except mean and white, T.S. isn’t going to be much good to you. But that still leaves a lot of people he knows, and sometimes he pulls them together for jobs.”

Datano put the envelope in his inside jacket pocket. “And that’s as far as this takes you.”

Chapter 24

The blue Caprice pulled up to the corner of Boylston and Massachusetts Avenue, and the man inside yelled, “You Blackie?”

Ross bent down. “Keep your voice down.” He got inside the car. “The name’s Black.”

“Yeah, yeah, hardass,” the man said. “I’ll call you whatever I want, however loud I want.” Ross took a good look at the man. He was fat, easily over 250 pounds. He wore a leather vest, blue jeans, leather gloves, and bathroom slippers, and he smelled very bad. A silver earring glinted under long graying hair. He was smoking a joint.

“Datano tell you what I want?” Ross asked.

The man said, “Let me explain one or two things to you: I do not work for Datano. I do not take orders from him. I got a certain amount of respect, ’cause I know he could kill me anytime this afternoon that he wanted “ Here he took a deep toke of the joint and blew the smoke in Ross’s face.

“… On the other hand, I just happen to not give that much of a shit about things like living and dying, and he knows that, and since we both get some things off the other, we pretty much leave each other alone.”

“That’s about what Datano said.”

“So what do you want?” T.S. drew on the joint until the tip glowed. He leaned forward and ran the burning ember down the dashboard a couple of inches. The vinyl melted in a small line, and T.S.’s attention was clearly off Ross and the road.

“Watch it,” Ross said, as a flower van pulled in front of them.

T.S. swerved around the van in the right lane, snapped the wheel back hard to the left, and the van driver must’ve stood on the brakes, the way the tires screamed. T.S. laughed. “Smell the fertilizer in among those flowers?” He drew deep on the joint again and laid the tip across the top of the line on the dashboard and started on the second bar, making an
F.

“Aren’t you a little old for this?”

T.S. said, “Shit, no. Never too old to write dirty words in a stolen car. So why you wasting my time, Blackie?”

Ross was wearing black jeans and a black leather jacket. He’d cropped his hair short with a razor the night before, cutting it off in purposely sloppy hunks. And he’d shaved off his beard. He’d checked himself out in the mirror just before he left. At a minimum, he looked quite different from the man the kidnapper had seen in the brief flash of car light. What was more important, the paleness of his skin and the signs of stress around his mouth and eyes gave him a desperate look that fit just fine with his cover story about being part of a two-man team in from New York looking for some jobs. Fit the way he was feeling pretty damn well, too.

“I need some work.”

“Burger King’s hiring.”

“I need a shooter who can help me scare up some money right now, and then maybe help me and my partner out with something else.”

“What kind of jobs you got in mind?”

“Something tonight, to help me build a war chest. Then I’m gonna be coming back to you for guns on a bigger job.”

“What, you talking banks and shit?”

“I’m not ready to talk about it now. Consider it a test. You get me a guy who can help line me up with some fast cash, I’ll come back and spend it with you on the other job. He’ll get himself some work, if he’s any good. You’ll get a cut on the whole thing.”

T.S. grunted. “Why’d Datano pass you along? He know you?”

“I’ve got references.”

“Who?”

“That’s none of your business,” Ross said mildly. “Datano sent me to you.”

T.S. gave him a hard look.

Ross stared back at him, not putting too much into it, just letting the big man know he wasn’t scared of the steely gaze.

“I’ve got a tough guy,” T.S. said finally. “Sitting right beside me.”

“Just like to keep my business my own.”

T.S. apparently decided to move on. “What else do you do?”

“Driver and shooter.”

“So why don’t you go take care of business yourself?”

Ross kept looking straight ahead. T.S. had circled the block and was now back on Massachusetts Avenue. There was a police car up ahead of them in the left lane. Ross looked over at the speedometer, saw they were doing about forty. He put on his seat belt. “I told you, I need cash to buy me a few days’ time to set this other thing up. I don’t have time to set up this low-level shit. That’s why I’m coming to you.”

T.S. gave him the look for a moment, but Ross ignored him. Finally the man said, “Tell me about your partner.”

“Name’s Mr. Gray.”

“Gray and Black, huh?”

“That’s right.

“How good you know him?”

“Very well.”

“Huh. What’re you going to do
if I
set something up for you tonight?”

“Check out your man’s game plan, do the driving. Get him home, no cops.”

“Yeah? There’s people around. Why do you need me?”

Ross shook his head. “I don’t want just anyone. Someone good with a shotgun who isn’t afraid to use it. Someone who’s active right now. I want someone hot and loose, and ready to move fast.”

T.S. glanced at him, shrugged. “How the fuck do I know you’re not a cop?”

Ross let his eyes settle on T.S. now. “You think Datano would send a cop?”

T.S. yawned. “If it was convenient for him. I don’t think I want to find out.”

“You think he sent
them?”
Ross pointed to the police car in the left lane just ahead of them.

T.S. had already put his right turn signal on, getting ready to pull over. But his grip on the wheel was light, just his fingertips. Ross grabbed the wheel and stepped on top of T.S.’s slippered foot. The big car kicked into low gear and lunged up to the right side of the police car’s rear quarter.

Ross pulled the wheel hard over, planting the front left of the Caprice against the side of the squad car trunk, and shoved his foot all the way down. The engine roared, and so did T.S.