Mike replaced the handset on its hooks, reached beneath the bar for a telephone book. He flipped to the back where the maps were printed. He didn’t say anything, and neither did Tricia or Erin. It didn’t feel like there was anything to say, or any time to say it.
Mike ran his finger along the coastline of Brooklyn till he found the piers by the Gowanus Expressway, jutting provocatively at New Jersey across the water. He flipped back through the business listings, looking for something. It took a while for him to find it. When he finally did, he reached for the phone—but before he could lift it, it rang again.
“Hello?” he answered.
A different voice this time, deeper and bearing a familiar accent.
“Put the girl on,” said Uncle Nick.
“What girl?”
“Hold on,” he said, and then they heard the unmistakable sound of a punch landing, someone going oof. Then Nicolazzo returned. “Now: Put the girl on.”
“Which—” Mike started to ask, but Tricia shouted, “I’m here!”
“Good. Thank you. It isn’t so much to ask, a little courtesy, is it?”
“How’d you get this number?” Mike said.
“Your friend here was kind enough to supply it,” Nicolazzo said. “We only had to break one of his fingers.”
Erin erupted, tears suddenly in her eyes, “If you hurt him again—”
“Yes? If I hurt him, then what? You’ll hurt me? Please. Don’t be foolish. Now, put the other girl back on.”
“I’m here,” Tricia said.
“Get closer to the phone or speak up, young lady. I can barely hear you.”
“I’m here,” Tricia said.
“All right. So.” Nicolazzo cleared his throat. “I know you have my pictures. I also know who took my money and then bragged to you about how he did so.”
“You do?” Tricia said.
“Oh, yes. I received a visit earlier today from my beloved niece, and she brought the voltagabanna with her.”
“Who?”
“As if you don’t know. I have to say, young Edward denied it most convincingly, right up to the end. But he did finally confess. At the very end.”
Tricia could barely speak. She thought of Eddie with his black eye, racing past her in Queens. When they found the building empty, he must have driven on to the shuttered racetrack, Renata surely having known about that hideout from when her father had used it the year before. Tricia pictured it, Eddie driving furiously and unknowingly to his own death, Renata urging him on from the back seat.
“You killed him?” Tricia said. She said it quietly, but Nicolazzo heard her.
“No, of course not,” Nicolazzo said, and Tricia let out a relieved breath. But then he continued: “My beloved niece did. She really wanted to do it herself. Seemed to bear the boy some ill will.”
At this, Tricia felt herself start to shake. She remembered the look on Eddie’s face just before he headed upstairs. Thanks, Trixie, he’d said. You’re a pal.
If I’d been a pal, Eddie, I’d have put a bullet in you right then and there. Would’ve been kinder.
“What do you want?” Tricia said, in a dead voice.
“What do you think? I want my pictures and I want my money. And according to Eddie, he left both with you.”
“With me?”
“That’s what he said. With his dying breath. A man’s not going to lie with his dying breath, now is he?”
“This one did,” Tricia said.
“Please. I’m not a fool. You have what I want. If you give it to me, I’ll let your friend here go. You, too. I know you’re not the one who took it from me, you’re not the thief. You just let this man use you. There’s no reason you need to suffer.”
No, no reason. But you’ll make me suffer anyway if you get your hands on me, won’t you? Your promises notwithstanding.
But playing along seemed to be the only thing to do. Playing along and playing for time.
“Fine,” Tricia said. “I’ll do it. But I need some time.”
“How much time?”
Tricia looked over at Mike, who held up six fingers. “Till six,” she said, but Mike shook his head furiously, mouthed Six hours. “...in the morning,” she finished. Mike thought about it, shrugged, nodded.
“That’s too late,” Nicolazzo said. “It has to be today.”
“It’s Sunday afternoon,” Tricia said. “The banks aren’t open.”
“You put my money in a bank?”
“Safe deposit box,” Tricia said.
“And this bank opens before six in the morning?”
“Yes,” Tricia said. “It does.”
“What kind of bank opens before six in the morning?”
“Mine,” Tricia said, coldly.
Nicolazzo was silent for a bit, then she heard the muffled sounds of a conversation in the background. He came back on the line. “Fine. Six. You’ll be picked up by two men and brought to me. You’ll get a call at this number telling you where. Be there, with my money and my photographs, and no police, or your friend here will suffer more than a broken finger.” Nicolazzo paused to punch Charley again. It sounded like a boxer socking a heavy bag. “Your sister, too. Oh, yes, I know that’s who she is. I know a good deal, Miss Heverstadt. Of Aberdeen, South Dakota. That’s right, isn’t it? Hmm?” He paused, but Tricia couldn’t have answered him if she wanted to, her throat having constricted to the width of a pencil. “Don’t cross me, young lady. I’m not such a nice man when I’m crossed.”
Nicolazzo broke the connection.
“What are we going to do?” Erin said.
“I’m going to find where they’re holding him,” Mike said. “You’re going to stay here and wait for that phone call.”
“That’s right, Erin,” Tricia said. “We need you here.”
“Both of you are going to stay here,” Mike said. “You heard what Charley said. You can’t come with me.”
“Who said anything about coming with you?” Tricia asked. “I’ve got to go get that money.”
“You know where it is?” Erin said.
“I have an idea,” Tricia said.
39.
A Diet of Treacle
Mike telephoned Volker’s from the street and was relieved to find them open. They were the only business he knew in the neighborhood, an importer of German beers that had somehow kept plying its trade all through Prohibition and two wars against the Fatherland. Damned if he knew how they’d pulled that off, what palms they’d had to grease, what lies they’d had to tell, what business they’d had to pretend to be in. But there they were, celebrating their fiftieth year in the same location, according to the brass plaque by the entryway.
This stretch of the Gowanus area of Brooklyn stank, not just of industry and trash and too many people in too close a space, but of fermentation and hops, since in addition to whatever spills and leaks Volker’s produced on a daily basis there was, right next door, a one-time leather-work factory that had more recently been turned into a brewery. The painted brick wall still said JAS. PORTER — SADDLES, RIDING GEAR, &C. — FOUNDED 1870, but the smell said something else altogether.
Volker’s eldest son, Adolphe—and speaking of saddles, could his father possibly have saddled the poor boy with a more unfortunate name?—greeted Mike at the door, pinning his hand in the iron grip of one who spent all day every day lifting barrels off ships and onto trucks. “Marie tells me you were coming. Is there anything the matter with our shippings?” He’d been born here; there was no reason for his English to be less than perfect. But it was, and slightly accented, too, as if he’d taken over more than just his father’s business when the old man died.
“Not at all,” Mike said. “You’re on time every time. I just need a favor.”
“What is it, Michael? Anything, for one customer of ours.”
“I’m looking for a boat that’s down here somewhere. Its name’s A Diet of Treacle. Does that ring any bells?”
“Diet of tree-kill?” Adolphe
scrunched up his forehead in thought. “Not a bell,” he said. “Not a one. But someone here might know.” He walked down onto the floor and called out something in German to the brawny workers moving crates stacked five-high on metal hand-trucks. Mike saw a few shrugs, some heads shaken from side to side. One man said something, though, and Mike looked to Adolphe for a translation.
“He says he does not know this boat himself but suggests you ask at Biro’s down the block. Many shipping folk can be found there.”
“Thank you,” Mike said. And to the man who’d made the suggestion: “Danke.” It was all the German he remembered from his time on the front.
Outside in the sun again, Mike scanned the block for a sign that would point him in the right direction. He spotted one swaying in the wind, a wooden shingle with the word “Biro” painted on it in faded letters over a sketch of a bull standing in what looked like a pool of blood. He approached a little cautiously, half expecting to walk into an abattoir, but Biro’s turned out to be a saloon. The walls were lined with wine bottles, the labels incoherent to any but one of Mr. Biro’s fellow Magyars.
“That one’s called ‘Bull’s Blood,’ ” said a voice behind Mike’s left shoulder. “Specialty of the house. It’s from a town called Eger. You have heard of Eger?”
“No,” Mike said, “but I’ll try a glass.” He laid a ten dollar bill on the bar. “You can keep the change if you answer a question for me.”
“That must be some question,” said the man, a compact fellow with a broad face and a florid mustache. Mr. Biro, presumably.
“We’ll see,” Mike said. “You ever hear of a boat called A Diet of Treacle?”
Biro snatched the bill, made it vanish into the pocket of his vest quick as a dog swallowing a scrap of meat. “Mr. Kraus got a telephone call about it just a few minutes ago. You can talk to him over there.” He pointed to a table in a shadowy corner where a white-haired man sat alone. “I bring your wine.”
“Mr. Kraus?” Mike said, extending one hand as he approached. The old man looked up from where he sat, stooped, over a half-empty glass. There was a telephone beside the glass, its cord dangling beneath the table.
The man straightened as much as he could, which wasn’t very much. “Yes?”
“My name’s Mike Hanlon. I’m trying to find a boat called A Diet of Treacle. I was told to see you.”
“You were told right,” Mr. Kraus said. His voice was soft and he had a wet sort of lisp, as if his dentures hadn’t been fitted quite right. “It’s my boat. I imagine you’re curious why I gave it that name.”
Mike wasn’t, particularly, and more importantly felt the urgency of Charley’s situation weighing on him—but he figured saying he wasn’t interested was no way to gain the man’s confidence. “Of course,” he said, sitting down. A hand appeared over his shoulder and set a glass of red wine before him. He sipped it. It was nothing special.
Mr. Kraus said, “My first name is Dorman. Dorman Kraus. In school, the other boys called me Dormouse. Like in Alice In Wonderland.”
“And...?”
“Are you not a reader, Mr. Hanlon?” Kraus said. “The Mad Hatter’s tea party. The Dormouse tells a story about three girls who live on a diet of treacle.”
“Sure,” Mike said unconvincingly, “that makes perfect sense.”
“What did you want to know about my boat, Mr. Hanlon?”
“Do you ever rent it out?”
“Certainly not.”
“That’s odd,” Mike said, “because I understand someone is making a trip in it this evening.”
“Nonsense,” said Mr. Kraus.
“What was the phone call you got about it?”
“Who says I got a phone call about it?”
“Biro.”
“He’s wrong.”
Mike dug a ten dollar bill out of his pocket and slid it across the table. Mr. Kraus stared at it.
“I don’t need to know much,” Mike said. “Just where you dock the boat. That’ll be plenty.”
“It might be too much.”
“How so?” Mike said.
“I may be an old man,” Kraus said, “but I look forward to living a few years still. Why should I risk that for ten lousy dollars?”
“Another man’s life is at stake, too. A friend of mine. A young man, who should have more than a few years ahead of him. He won’t if you don’t help me.”
“This is not my concern,” Kraus said.
Mike set a second ten dollar bill on top of the first.
Kraus took out a pocket watch, stared at its face, wound its stem, returned it to his pocket. “It is starting to concern me somewhat more,” he said.
“But not enough?”
“Not quite.”
A third sawbuck joined the other two. Krauss neatened up their edges, folded the bills in two and then in two again, set his palm down over them. “Come with me,” he said and slowly, painfully stood. He took two teetering steps away from the table with the aid of a cane. “Will you take my arm? I don’t walk very well anymore.”
“You don’t have to walk,” Mike said. “Just tell me where it is and I’ll go there myself.”
“No,” Kraus said. “I’ll take you there. Or you can have your money back.” When Mike hesitated, Kraus said, “Those are my terms.”
Mike reluctantly took his arm, walked with him to the door. On the sidewalk outside, Kraus looked at his watch again, then set off at a snail’s pace in the direction of the water.
They walked up First Avenue, pausing repeatedly to let Kraus rest and catch what little remained of his breath. In this fashion, they passed warehouses and slips and a cavernous import-export arcade where traders of various sorts maintained one-man booths and fanned themselves to combat the stifling heat. At the pier off 57th Street, a tugboat labored valiantly to pull an overladen barge out of its dock. At 53rd, the pier was walled off and Mike could only see the upper decks of the two ships tied up there.
When Kraus halted for the third or fourth time in one block, Mike considered abandoning him and continuing his search by brute force, hunting down every boat one by one. But there were too many—too many boats, too many buildings, too many blocks. He could spend the next three hours at it and not see them all. And what if the Treacle was docked behind one of the waterfront’s locked gates?
Between 50th Street and 47th, the piers were overgrown with grass and weeds, but a profusion of boats still stood at them, bobbing gently, while others rode at anchor just off some the longer outcroppings of the shore. Mike scanned the hulls, looking for any names longer than a word or two. “How much farther?” he asked. And, each time they came to a pier, “Is this the one?” But Kraus just shook his head, kept his gaze trained on the ground, and concentrated on putting one frail leg in front of the other.
Only when they reached the far end of the avenue did Kraus take one last look at his watch and say, “All right.”
“Where’s the boat?” Mike said, staring at the empty pier they were approaching.
“There,” Kraus said, and pointed out toward the horizon. There was a ship in the middle distance, chugging swiftly toward the open water. It wasn’t so far that Mike couldn’t make out figures on her deck. One of them looked like it might be Charley.
Mike rounded on the old man, had to restrain himself from picking him up bodily by the lapels and shaking him. “You knew,” he said accusingly. “You—that’s why all the time with the watch. Jesus Christ. I bet you can probably walk just fine.”
“Sadly, no,” Kraus said.
“But you can do better than creeping along like this, can’t you? You were making sure they had time to get away!”
“You said all you wanted to know was where I dock the boat,” Kraus said. “Well, now you know. I dock it here. You got what you paid for.”
“But why...why would they leave now? I thought they weren’t going to leave till tonight—” Mike closed his eyes. “They changed their plans, didn’t they. That’s what the phone call
was—telling you they were leaving early. As long as they’re collecting the money from Tricia tomorrow morning, they can pick up the purse from the race then, too.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kraus said. “And I don’t want to know. I’m going back now. You don’t have to walk with me.”
“Walk with you?” Mike growled. “I ought to throw you in the goddamn bay.”
“Don’t you dare,” Kraus said. “I’ll scream if you touch me. You’ll have the police on you so fast, young man, you won’t know what hit you.”
“You know something,” Mike said, “it’d almost—
40.
Money Shot
—be worth it,’ I told him.” Mike shook his head. “But of course it wouldn’t have been. It would’ve been a disaster. So I left him there and grabbed the first train back.” He swallowed the shot of whiskey he’d poured himself from the row of bottles on his back bar. “I hope you had better luck.”
“Not exactly,” Tricia said.
“So you didn’t find the money?” Erin said.
“Do you see three million dollars on me?”
“What happened?” Mike said. “Where did you go?”
“To Fulton Street,” Tricia said.
The brownstone was where she’d left it, looking much the way it had at dawn. She watched from across the street as men entered and departed, one by one or in pairs. She didn’t recognize any of them. The limousine wasn’t parked out front or, the one time she circled the block to peek at the building from the rear, out back either. There were some cars along the curb, but no way to know whether they belonged to Barrone and his men or to the neighbors.
The curtains were drawn in the windows all the way up, except for one room at the top where the window was open. It was too high up for Tricia to see in, though.
She thought about walking up the stone steps and ringing the doorbell, trying to talk her way in, but it wasn’t hard to imagine more ways that could turn out badly than well. So she waited, and she watched.
Renata came out twenty minutes later. She was by herself, Tricia was happy to see, wearing a patterned sundress in red and white and cat’s eye sunglasses with her hair pinned up. She looked a bit like an actress trying to go incognito. Tricia fell into step behind her. She kept half a block back, kept other pedestrians between them, but at the same time kept an eye on Renata, watched to see where she’d go. And when she stopped outside a dressmaker’s window to light a cigarette, Tricia took the opportunity to come up behind her and plant the nose of her gun in the small of Renata’s back.
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