Peril

by Thomas H. Cook

  Mike’s large hands gripped her shoulders, turning her to face him. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Della answered, but saw instantly that he didn’t buy it.

  “Della, what do you know about this? Did Sara talk to you?”

  “No.”

  “Did Tony?”

  “Tony? ’Course not. I don’t know anything, Mike. Really.”

  He considered this briefly, then said, “Okay,” but in that voice that meant “for now.”

  She smiled and quickly changed the subject. “I’m going to drop Nicky off at my mother’s this afternoon. Then a little shopping.”

  “Okay,” Mike said. He kissed her lightly, then went back upstairs, grabbed his jacket, and came tromping down again, the jacket slung over his right shoulder.

  “I’ve got an early tee-off time,” he said as he headed out the door.

  “Have a nice day,” Della called to him, though no longer sure she herself would ever have another. After a moment she heard the car as it backed down the driveway. From the kitchen window she could see Mike as he drifted into the cul-de-sac then drove away, and this entirely familiar scene suddenly struck her as infinitely precious, something that had seemed so sure and firm before but now gave off a sense of being terribly at risk.

  EDDIE

  He didn’t like it, but he had to do it. When you were a guy’s friend, you helped that guy out. And so, with no further consideration, he picked up the phone and dialed the number.

  “Caruso.”

  “Vinnie, it’s Eddie. It’s been a while, huh?”

  “Since what?”

  “Since we seen each other.”

  “I was down at the marina a couple weeks ago.”

  Caruso was right, and Eddie thought it was pretty stupid how he’d said it had been a while when it really hadn’t. He thought fast and said, “Yeah, but we didn’t really have time to talk, you know. So, listen, I was thinking maybe we could have a drink sometime. I mean, like tonight.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  There was a pause, during which Eddie tried to imagine what Caruso was thinking.

  “Eddie, let me ask you something,” Caruso said finally. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “I mean, that little shit fire you, something like that?”

  “Little shit?”

  “That little shit you work for. Fucking Tony. Did he fire you is what I’m asking.”

  “No.”

  “ ’Cause if he did, I could do something about it, Eddie,” Caruso said. “ ’Cause Mr. Labriola, he trusts me, you know, like a son.”

  “Tony didn’t fire me,” Eddie told him. “How come you think that?”

  “ ’Cause I figure you want to see me ’cause you need a little cash, maybe.”

  “Oh, no, it’s not that.”

  “But, Eddie, if you need cash, you don’t come to me like you would some fucking shylock, you know? You come to me like a friend.”

  “I don’t need money, Vinnie.”

  “You don’t need money?”

  “No.”

  “So, what do you need, Eddie?”

  Eddie sensed that the phone was not the best place to tell Caruso what he was after. A guy would say okay to a certain kind of favor over the phone, but there were favors that called for a guy to really put something on the line, and when you asked for one of those, you needed to look the guy in the eye.

  “I was thinking we might have a drink, Vinnie. I could tell you then.”

  “And it don’t have to do with money?”

  “Money, no. It ain’t about money.”

  The fact that it wasn’t about money seemed to put Caruso on alert.

  Eddie tried to ease his mind. “It ain’t nothing bad, Vinnie. Nothing to worry about. Just a favor.”

  “Okay,” Caruso said. “Where you want to meet?”

  “How about Billy’s Grill?”

  Caruso laughed. “Jesus, Billy’s Grill. I ain’t been there in fifteen, twenty years.”

  “But we used to hang out there, remember?”

  “I remember. Especially that night when I was all . . . fucked up.”

  Eddie recalled that night well. Caruso had gotten all steamed and decided to whack Rudy Kellogg for stealing Cindy Mankowitz even though Rudy had done no such thing and Cindy had gone out with Vinnie only once, and that on a dare from Kathy Myerson.

  “I would have done it, you know,” Caruso said. “I would have done it if you hadn’t got that knife away from me.”

  Eddie doubted that Vinnie would have done anything at all, but this didn’t seem the right time to say so. “So, Billy’s Grill?”

  “Sure, okay.”

  They settled on a time, then Eddie listened while Caruso boastfully jawed about the easy money he had and the big expensive things he bought with it. After that, Vinnie yapped away about the nightspots he preferred, and even claimed to have a few babes who just couldn’t get enough of him. Eddie doubted that any of this was true, and the fact that Vinnie felt compelled to spin such stories suggested that the awkward, orphaned kid he remembered from his boyhood had been a better guy than the man Eddie was scheduled to meet at Billy’s Grill later in the day. It was because he’d gone to work for Old Man Labriola, he supposed. You couldn’t work for a guy like that and not have some of it rub off on you. It was like working in a coal mine, Eddie decided, only the black dust was on your soul. Too bad, he concluded when he finally hung up. Too bad Vinnie went that way.

  SARA

  The phone rang. She picked it up.

  “Samantha?” a voice said. “Damonte?”

  The guy, Sara thought, surprised, the guy at the bar. “Yes.”

  “This is Abe, the guy owns the place that had the open mike deal last night? Morgenstern? We talked for a couple minutes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, the thing is, I liked the way you sang, you know? I liked it a lot.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So, I was wondering. Would you be interested in coming by again?”

  “Coming by?”

  “I’d like to talk to you about, maybe, developing an act, you know? For the bar, I mean. Would you . . . well . . . would you be interested in that?”

  “Yes, I would,” she told him.

  “Okay, so, when could you drop by?”

  She thought of the brief conversation she’d had with the man the night before. He’d seemed easygoing, a guy who probably never got mad or snapped at anybody. A boss like that was what she needed, she supposed, because she was jumpy, on edge, always looking over her shoulder, felt in every heartbeat a little ache of fear. “Would this afternoon be okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, fine,” the man said. “How about two-thirty?”

  “Okay.”

  “See you then.”

  She put down the phone and felt a little burst of hope. Not much, she admitted, but maybe just enough to get her through the day.

  ABE

  Okay, so, that’s done, Abe thought as he hung up the phone. He had not intended to do it, but there it was, acting on impulse, one of the many things that had driven Mavis nuts, usually because when he did it, it was a screwup. As this might be a screwup too, Abe thought, this woman he didn’t even know but liked for no good reason except that she sang well and there was something about her that . . . well . . . got to him.

  He sat back and glanced around his office, and it seemed to him that everything he saw confirmed that, impulse or not, he’d done the right thing. Going through the motions, that was what his life had become, a daily going through the motions. There were the bills on his desk, the orders in the box, the file cabinet stuffed with forms and catalogs and tax receipts, and God only knew whatever else he’d crammed in there. There were the boxes of whiskey, overflow from the storeroom, stacks of promotional material dropped off by the salesman, a bottle of wine Mrs. Higgins had brought back, claiming it was corked, which it was, and so he’d
refunded her money, and now was supposed to contact the distributor for a refund of his own, but never would because . . . well . . . why bother since he’d sold it to her illegally, as a favor, McPherson’s being a bar, not a liquor store, and besides it was only twelve bucks, and his time wasn’t worth it.

  But what was his time worth, he asked himself now. What were the days and hours that remained to him actually worth if he lived on as he now lived? Not much, he decided, which was why he’d changed his mind about that singer, gone with that little charge Susanne thought was so funny, but which, he knew, even “old guys” felt, perhaps old guys felt even more sharply than young guys because the horizon was closing in and the next chance you had might well be your last.

  So, okay, he thought again, now rising with a curious energy, so, okay, done.

  MORTIMER

  He followed Stark over to the large antique desk, where the contents of the envelope had been spread out for display.

  “You didn’t look at any of this, did you, Mortimer?” Stark asked.

  Mortimer knew that he was being instructed to look at the few spare items Stark had assembled on the desk.

  “The notes, if you can call them that, are very general,” Stark said. “And the photograph, I don’t even know how recent it is.”

  Mortimer had never seen the missing woman before, and he was struck by how kind she looked for a woman who was supposed to be such a raving bitch. In fact, she had the delicate beauty of women he worshipped from afar, and it was hard for him to believe that anyone had been so stupid as to drive her from his life.

  “How old is the picture, Mortimer?” Stark asked. “Did the husband tell you?”

  “It’s recent,” Mortimer answered, though he had no idea if this was true. But what did it matter now if he lied to Stark again and again? With the first lie, the dam had broken, and he knew that the poisoned water was now destined to leak out until not a drop was left. “She’s in her thirties. That’s all I know.”

  “She’s never had a job.” Stark nodded toward the single sheet of notes. “Except years before. A singer. She’s from down south originally. She took none of the husband’s money. She left her car in the driveway. Do you have anything to add to this?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s a problem, Mortimer, because there’s nothing to go on in any of this,” Stark said. He picked up the photograph and the notes and returned them to the envelope. “This friend of yours has to give me more.”

  “He won’t,” Mortimer said.

  Stark sat down behind the desk and stared Mortimer dead in the eye. “This is a favor I was willing to do for this man,” he said. “But really, I was doing the favor for you.”

  “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.