The police sirens, meanwhile, had grown louder as the hoofbeats faded. A pair of cars squealed to a halt at the bottom of the hill. Tricia glanced around, saw Erin beside her doing the same. There wasn’t much here: the stone mausoleums, whose doors presumably were locked; a narrow footpath, winding off into the heart of the cemetery; another path, leading down the hill; a plot of graves, mostly old and overgrown, though one was freshly dug and covered with a tarpaulin, presumably for a burial later today.
Tricia and Erin looked at each other, gave each other a chance to object or to propose a better idea. Instead, they nodded simultaneously, then scampered on hands and knees toward the grave, lifted the side of the tarp, and slid under it. Carefully, they let themselves down into the hole. The tarp settled back into place.
Moments later, they heard the police arrive. They saw shadows through the tarp, heard sounds of men arguing, walking this way and that overhead, complaining. A radio crackled with static followed by the voice of someone back in the stationhouse issuing orders. Tricia couldn’t quite hear what they were but made out a few incredulous-sounding words, “horse” chief among them.
The cops departed a moment later, no doubt following the horse’s tracks. Tricia reached above her to push the tarp back, but Erin raised one palm in a gesture that meant Wait. The caution did make a certain amount of sense—what if the cops had left a man or two behind to search the area?
So they waited. It was cool and damp standing in the grave. Surprisingly, it wasn’t unpleasant. A bit of light filtered in through the tarp, the fabric tinting it a lush shade of green. Being off the horse gave Tricia the opportunity to flex her legs, strained from straddling the animal’s shoulders. She hadn’t ridden like that in years and her thighs had taken a pounding. She saw Erin doing the same, bending her knees in the limited space the grave afforded and massaging her lower back with one hand.
When a few minutes had passed without any further voices or tumult overhead (it felt like more than a few minutes, but Tricia figured everything felt longer when you were standing in a grave), Erin knelt and put her hands out in a cupped position. Tricia set one foot into them and Erin hefted her toward the tarp.
Tricia yanked the fabric to one side and popped her head out of the grave. Behind her, she heard a sharp intake of breath.
She pulled herself out of the hole and scrambled to her feet. A small man in a surplice stood at graveside, a prayer book open in his hands; beside him, an old woman in black, a veil lowered over her face, dipped a gloved hand below the veil to bring a handkerchief to her eyes. Beside her was a slightly younger woman. Her eyes, prominent to begin with, looked positively ready to leave their sockets.
Tricia bent down, extended an arm, and helped Erin out of the hole.
“Inspection,” Tricia said, by way of explanation, and Erin nodded. They both wiped their palms off on their sides.
“Everything’s in order,” Erin said.
“Good drainage,” Tricia said.
“Solid foundation,” Erin said.
“Up to code,” Tricia said.
“Carry on,” Erin said, nodding to the priest.
“Thank you so much,” the old woman said, “for taking the trouble. Calvin would be so grateful.”
Feeling like a heel, Tricia led the way past a wheeled gurney holding a coffin and off into the graveyard’s crowded interior.
37.
Dead Street
As soon as they were out of sight of the hilltop, Tricia said, “We have to go back.”
“Back? What are you talking about? Back where?”
“Wherever they were holding you,” Tricia said. “And Coral. Colleen. My sister—the fighter?” Erin’s face showed no sign of recognition. “The Colorado Kid, remember?”
“That’s your sister?”
“It’s a long story,” Tricia said. “But yes, she’s my sister. And we’ve got to—”
“All we’ve got to do is get out of here. There’s no point in going back. I’m sure they’re not there anymore. They hustled us out of the other place as soon as Charley got out—now that I’ve escaped, you can bet they’re gone from this one.”
She was right, of course. But Tricia’s heart fell at the prospect of having to figure out where Nicolazzo might hole up next. Would Coral have been able to leave her another message, scratched on another wall in another basement cell? It was too much to hope for.
“How did you escape?” Tricia asked.
“That’s kind of a long story, too,” Erin said. She kept walking swiftly, picking a path between gravestones and along the edges of the tree-lined lawns.
“You got a gun somehow,” Tricia said.
“That’s right. I got a gun somehow.”
“You don’t want to talk about it?”
“No,” Erin said, “and you don’t want to hear about it. It’d turn your hair white, Wyoming. Better than that bleach we used.”
“That bad?”
Erin nodded. Looking her over, Tricia couldn’t see any particular signs—no marks on her face, for instance. But what did that mean? Tricia let the subject drop, tried not to think about what Nicolazzo’s men might be doing to Coral right now. At least there were two fewer of them now. That was something.
“Is Charley okay?” Erin asked.
“So-so,” Tricia said. And when Erin looked alarmed, “Oh, he’s safe. He just had a...run-in, with someone who works for this mobster we met.”
“For Nicolazzo?”
“No, Barrone.”
“Barrone?”
“Long story.”
They were making their way now through a rough, untamed bit of wilderness, the border between two abutting cemeteries. It felt a little like one of those black-and-white spy movies, crossing from Hungary into Austria under cover of darkness, only without the darkness, and without the zither music.
“Where are we going?” Tricia said.
“Best chance of catching a ride around here’s on Dead Street,” Erin said, and Tricia gave her a blank look. “Never heard it called that?” Tricia shook her head. “The Inter-borough Parkway—between Cypress and Forest Parkway it runs right through the cemetery. Blame Robert Moses. Twenty-some years ago he came along and said, ‘What we need here’s a highway, a nice four-lane highway.’ ”
“In the middle of a cemetery?”
“This is Robert Moses we’re talking about. Where he wants a highway, he gets a highway,” Erin said. “They had to dig up hundreds of graves, move the bodies...you really never heard about this? What do they teach you in Wyoming, anyway?”
“South Dakota.”
“South Dakota,” Erin conceded. She looked around. “Not too much farther.”
“Good,” Tricia said.
“When we were kids,” Erin said, “the story was they didn’t move all the bodies, just paved over some of them. If your parents drove along Dead Street, you wouldn’t roll down your window. You ever walked it or rode a bike, you held your breath.”
“You grew up in this area?”
“Oh, yeah,” Erin said. “Woodhaven born and bred. Me and George Gershwin.”
“Is he buried here?”
Erin sneered. “This place is for the working classes, honey. I’m sure he’s got a fine plot upstate somewhere, or maybe in Hollywood, with a lovely view, and not of a highway, either.”
Up ahead, a steep embankment led to a low concrete wall. The sound of cars rushing by came through from the other side.
“What if the cops are waiting for us?” Tricia asked in a low voice.
“Then we find another grave to go stand in till they go away.”
They crept up to the wall, keeping their heads down as they went. Erin peeked over the top and Tricia felt a sudden wave of anxiety. She reached toward her pocket, where the gun lay. But before she could get to it, Erin stood, waved Tricia up. “We’re alone.”
Tricia let her hand drop. Her fingers, she noticed, were trembling.
They made their way onto the shoul
der of the highway. Traffic was light, just a car every thirty seconds or so, drivers zooming from west to east at top speed. Maybe trying to cover the length of Dead Street without taking a breath.
In one of the lulls, they crossed to the other side.
“Now what?” Tricia said.
“You never hitchhiked, Trixie? Back in that small town of yours?”
“Sure, but it’s different in a small town—”
“It’s no different,” Erin said. “Just show a little leg.” She gave Tricia a nudge toward the traffic. “You showed plenty when we were on that horse.”
Tricia felt foolish standing on the side of the road, one hip cocked, thumb extended in imitation of countless stranded movie heroines; but she did it. After the third car passed them by, Erin joined her, unbuttoning a few buttons on the front of her dress and throwing back her shoulders.
The next car that passed slowed down and tootled its horn as it went by, but it didn’t stop.
“Thanks a lot,” Erin shouted. She opened a few more buttons, bent forward so more of her bosom spilled out.
“Erin!” Tricia said.
“No time to be a shrinking violet,” Erin said. “I’d take it off if it would get us a ride.”
But that proved unnecessary. A white Pontiac convertible with a chrome dart running along the side drew to a stop, throwing up a little cloud of dust. The driver was a man in his middle forties, corpulent and sunburned, driving with one hand on the wheel and the other arm extended over the back of the empty passenger seat beside him.
“Car broke down, girls?” he said, eyeing the two of them over the top of his black-framed sunglasses.
“That’s right,” Erin said, leaning on the side of the car. “We need to get back to Manhattan.”
“Ah,” the man said. “That’s a shame. A real shame.” He tore his gaze away from her cleavage with some difficulty. “I’m headed to Bensonhurst. Much as I’d enjoy your company...” He made a movement toward the steering wheel and Tricia saw his foot inch toward the gas. He gestured with his chin at Erin, who was still leaning on the door. “If you don’t mind...?”
“Lucy,” Erin said, and it took Tricia a moment to realize Erin meant her, “why don’t you show the man what you’ve got in your pocket?”
“The pict—” Tricia said, and then: “Oh.” She took out the gun, aimed it at the driver, whose face fell. He looked ten years older suddenly.
“We need to get back to Manhattan,” Erin said. “You want to drive us, or would you rather get out here so we can drive ourselves? Or would you prefer the third option?”
“What’s that?” the man said nervously.
“They call it Dead Street for a reason,” Erin said, and smiled.
For a moment it looked like the man might stomp the gas and peel away, but he must’ve figured his chances of outrunning a bullet weren’t good enough to risk it.
Grudgingly he said, “Get in.” And to Tricia, “Please, just be careful with that thing.”
“Don’t worry about Lucy,” Erin said. “She’s a crack shot. Steadiest hands in the east.”
“That right,” the man said.
“Oh, yeah,” Erin said. “Took home three medals for marksmanship. Isn’t that right, Lucy?” Tricia didn’t say anything, just concentrated on keeping the steadiest hands in the east from shaking while she climbed into the car.
“She’s modest,” Erin said. “But deadly. So drive carefully.”
He drove very carefully.
Half a mile down the road, they saw a bay stallion grazing at the side of the highway. Two cops were beside it, one talking into a radio.
Erin and Tricia both turned slightly in their seats to face away from the policemen.
“Keep your hands on the wheel,” Erin said, “and your mouth shut.”
“What are you,” the driver muttered, “car thieves or horse thieves?”
“Now, now,” Erin said. “No reason a girl can’t be both.”
38.
Deadly Beloved
They pulled to a stop in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge. “Don’t look back,” Tricia said, the first words yet that she’d spoken to the driver, and she said them in the most menacing tone she could muster. She kept one hand in her pocket as she climbed out of the car, then hastened with Erin to the subway the instant the Pontiac sped out of sight.
Would the driver stop at the nearest police station and report them or just count himself lucky and hurry off to whatever he was late for in Bensonhurst? No way to know, and it was best not to take any chances.
The Times Square station was crowded when they arrived there and Tricia briefly lost sight of Erin on the way out. They found each other on the street.
“I left Charley in a bar near here,” Tricia said, “a sort of after-hours place run by a guy named—”
“Mike?” Erin said. Tricia nodded. “I know Mike. He’s okay.”
“He was very decent to us,” Tricia said. “Let us use his back room.”
Erin gave her a funny look. “You and Charley? You used Mike’s back room?”
“Yes. We needed some sleep. Only managed to get an hour or so, but...”
“I bet you did,” Erin said. “I didn’t think you had it in you, kid. Or that he had it in you. I guess I shouldn’t underestimate Charley.”
Tricia found herself blushing furiously. “We just slept there,” she said. “Nothing else.”
“Save it for the folks back home,” Erin said. “I know better. Charley took me to Mike’s back room once, too.”
“I’m telling you, nothing happened!”
“Well, if that’s true,” Erin said, making the turn onto 44th Street, “I’m sorry for you. You missed something fine.”
Tricia found herself wondering, from the look on Erin’s face, whether maybe she had.
They climbed the stairs to Mike’s place, knocked on the door, knocked again when no answer came. After another minute, footsteps approached, the panel slid open, and then Mike opened the door. “Did Charley find you?” Mike said breathlessly.
“What do you mean did he find me?” Tricia said.
“When he woke up and saw that you were gone, he was pretty sore. Mostly with me. Wanted to know why I let you go off by yourself.”
“What were you supposed to do, physically restrain me?”
“That’s exactly what I asked him. He said yes, physically restrain you. If that’s what it took.”
“So where is he?”
“He went through all those papers you left here—the photos and letters and so on, and he found this.” Mike picked up Royal Barrone’s note from the bar. There was Coral’s handwriting, in the margin: AQUEDUCT, STABLE 8, STALL 3. “He asked if that’s where you’d gone. I said I didn’t know. He went anyway.”
“When was this?”
“Maybe an hour after you left? Hour and a half?”
“And you haven’t heard from him since?” Erin said.
Mike shook his head. He led them over to the bar, walked behind it, took out two glasses unasked and filled them with beer from a tap. “I’m sorry, Erin. I shouldn’t have let him go.”
“That’s right,” Erin said. “You should’ve physically restrained him.”
“You think he’s in trouble?”
“Yes,” Erin said.
“But he’ll get out of it,” Mike said. “He always does.”
“You just keep telling yourself that,” Erin said. “If it makes you feel better.”
Tricia, meanwhile, was trying to think who would have been waiting for Charley at the track when he arrived—Nicolazzo’s men? Or the police?
“We’ve got to go back, Erin,” Tricia said. “Now we really do.”
“No way,” Erin said. “You think Charley would want us to put ourselves in danger?”
“I think he’d want us to get him out of there,” Tricia said, “just like he came for me when the police tried to arrest me downtown.”
“Get him out of where?” Erin sai
d. “We don’t even know where he is.”
“I’ve been calling around,” Mike said. “That’s why I couldn’t come right away when you knocked—I was on the phone. He hasn’t been arrested. I’ve got friends on the force who’d know it if he had.”
“You might think that’s good news, Mike,” Tricia said, “but arrested’s probably the better of the alternatives right now.”
“I’m just saying, he’s not in police custody. That’s all I know.”
“Well, he’s in someone’s custody,” Tricia said. “Or he’d be back here already. Or at least he’d have called.”
The phone on the wall behind the bar chose that moment to ring.
They all looked at each other. Mike reached out an arm, lifted the receiver the way a ranger might pick up a snake.
“Mike? Mike?” came a tiny voice. “Say something, Mike, I can’t talk for long.”
“Charley?” Mike said, bringing the receiver to one ear but keeping it tilted away from his head so they could all hear.
“Listen, if you see Tricia or Erin, tell them I’m fine, don’t let them know—”
“We’re right here,” Erin shouted.
“Oh,” came the voice. “Well. I’m fine.”
“Stop it,” Tricia said. “We’re going to come get you.”
“Don’t,” Charley said. “You’ll just get yourself killed. Let Mike. He’s got experience.”
“Where are you?” Mike said.
“On the waterfront,” Charley said, “somewhere near the Gowanus. They’re putting me on a diet of treacle this evening.”
“On what?”
“A diet of treacle,” Charley said. “It’s a boat. That’s its name: A Diet of Treacle. Mike, are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“Nicolazzo’s here, too. I think we’re going to meet his yacht off the coast.”
“Is Coral there?” Tricia said.
“I don’t know, I haven’t seen her. I’m sorry. Mike? Listen, you’ve got to come get me before the third race at Belmont. They’re just staying long enough to pick up the purse from that race and then they’re gone. It’s at—ah, jeez, I’ve got to go, he’s coming to.” And the phone went click.
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