Kings of Midnight

by Wallace Stroby

  She put the .32 in her pocket, switched the Browning to her right hand. With her left, she took out her pocket knife, a short-bladed Buck, handed it to Benny. “Cut her loose.”

  “Do you know who that is?” the older one said. “What’s he’s done? You really think you can trust him?”

  “Car keys,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Car keys. Put them on the dresser.”

  “I don’t have them.”

  “Who does?”

  “Frankie,” he said. “Give her the keys.”

  The one with the bandage said, “They’re in my coat. On the bed. I’ll get ’em.”

  “Stay where you are,” she said.

  Benny was cutting through the plastic flex-cuffs that bound the woman’s wrists. When he was done, she pulled away from him, massaging her wrists. They were red and welted. He closed the knife.

  Crissa got the revolver from the bed, her hands full again, said, “Benny, get the keys.”

  The girl moved fast. Benny reached for her, but it was too late. She struck Frankie full across the face with an open hand, nails scraping his cheek. He grabbed her wrist, pulled his other hand back to hit her.

  “Don’t,” Crissa said. She pointed the Browning at his face. “Let her go.”

  The girl pulled her arm back, and when Frankie let go she stumbled away, almost falling. Benny caught her.

  “Bitch,” Frankie said. He touched his face, fingertips coming away with blood. There were two red lines along his cheek, just below his left eye.

  It was time to go. Crissa backed away, keeping the bed in front of her. It would slow them down when they made their move.

  “What’s your name?” the older one said.

  To Benny, she said, “Get your things. Now.”

  He got two suitcases from the closet, opened them on the bed, pulled clothes from dresser drawers. The girl stood by the door, rubbing her wrists.

  “My name is Danny Taliferro,” the older one said. “Maybe you heard of me.”

  “No,” Crissa said.

  “Ask around, and you will.”

  Benny closed the suitcases. He went through Frankie’s overcoat pockets, came out with a set of Lincoln keys on a leather fob.

  “You know who you’re partnering with there?” Taliferro said. “Who he is?”

  “We’re ready,” Benny said. He and the girl were at the door, suitcases in hand.

  “Outside,” Crissa said. “My car.”

  “Let me tell you about this guy,” Taliferro said. “He’s got a long history of fucking over his friends.”

  “He’s a piece of shit, is what he is,” Frankie said. He’d moved closer.

  “Go on,” Crissa said to Benny. “Go.”

  They went out into the rain. The door shut behind them.

  “Listen to me,” Taliferro said. “That guy ratted out his partners to save himself. He’ll rat you out, too, after he gets what he wants.”

  She backed toward the door. Frankie had taken another step toward her.

  “You got some balls coming in here like that,” Taliferro said. “I respect that. You know my name now. You come find me. Maybe we got some common ground. We can talk this out.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But we will, sooner or later. There’s nowhere you can go we can’t track you down. We found him twice now. You think we can’t do it again?”

  She stuck the revolver in her belt, reached back with her left hand, felt the doorknob.

  “If you don’t come see me,” Taliferro said, “then I’m going to have to go find you. And that won’t be so nice.”

  She opened the door. “Anyone comes out after me gets a bullet in the head.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Taliferro said. “I’m just going to sit right here.” He straightened the chair, sat. The others were watching him, as if waiting for a signal.

  She went out fast, pulled the door shut. Benny and the girl were waiting by the Taurus.

  “Get in,” Crissa said. “Hurry.” She got out her keypad, unlocked the doors.

  There was a storm drain by the car, water swirling down below. She popped the magazine out of the Browning, slid the gun into the drain, heard it splash. The revolver and the magazine went in after it.

  Benny and the girl were already in the backseat, crowded in with their suitcases. Crissa got behind the wheel, started the engine, peeled out, tires kicking up water. She watched the motel in the rearview, waiting for someone to come after them.

  The girl’s face was white. “Who are you?”

  Crissa didn’t answer. She got on the highway, headed west, wipers thumping. When the motel was out of sight, she said, “Give me those keys.”

  He handed them up to her. She powered the window down, tossed them out. Thunder sounded above them.

  The girl touched Benny’s face gingerly. He winced.

  “Either of you need a doctor?” Crissa said.

  “No,” he said. “I think we’re all right.”

  “Good.”

  She merged onto the Staten Island Expressway, cut quickly across two lanes of traffic, still watching the rearview. There was always the chance they had another set of keys, another car. She moved into the passing lane, gunned it, the Goethals Bridge in sight ahead.

  “My car,” Benny said.

  “Forget it. And whatever name you used to check into that motel, forget that, too. It’s no good anymore. What else did you leave behind?”

  “An overnight bag. But there wasn’t much in it. I think we got everything important.”

  The girl clung to his left arm, holding it tight. There were tears in her eyes, all of it hitting her now. She put her head on his shoulder, began to shake. He kissed her hair.

  Crissa changed lanes again, signaling for the exit that would take them onto the bridge and into Jersey.

  “I don’t know how they found me,” he said.

  “Keeping the car was foolish,” Crissa said. “It would have been easy to track. Using it was a mistake.”

  “They were there about the money.”

  “I guessed.”

  “So now you know I was telling the truth.”

  “Jury’s still out on that,” she said.

  In New Jersey, they got on the turnpike, headed south. A few minutes later, there were signs for the parkway entrance. The rain was heavier now, the traffic slowing. Night coming quick.

  “You followed me all the way back there?” he said. “I never even saw you.”

  “I’m not surprised. I wanted to see where you would go. Who you were with.”

  “But you came in. You didn’t have to. You could have just driven away.”

  “I thought about it.”

  The girl was sniffling. Crissa opened the glove box, took out a small plastic package of tissues, handed it back. The girl took it, blew her nose loudly, wadded up another tissue and wiped her eyes. Benny rubbed her back gently.

  “This is Marta,” he said. Crissa nodded at her in the rearview.

  “Whoever you are,” Marta said, “thank you. For coming in. For not driving away. You saved our lives.”

  “This time,” Crissa said.

  “It was all my fault,” he said. “Getting myself into that position. Making it easy for them. I’m forgetting things I used to know.”

  “Then start remembering,” Crissa said. “You’re going to need them.”

  THIRTEEN

  They were in Crissa’s kitchen, Benny with a New Jersey map spread out on the table. He looked it over a moment, then pointed to a spot in the top west corner. The side of his face was darkening into a bruise.

  “Your memory that good?” Crissa said.

  “That’s the place. Sussex County. Like I said, middle of nowhere.”

  Marta was on the living room couch, arms crossed tight, Benny’s coat around her. Rain blew against the windows.

  Three hours since they’d left the motel. She’d driven back to Avon by a circuitous route, maki
ng sure they weren’t followed. Marta was calmer now. She’d made coffee for all of them, happy to have something to do. But Crissa could see the exhaustion in her eyes.

  Benny drank from his mug. Crissa nodded at Marta. “You sure she’s all right?”

  “I think so,” he said. “Angry more than anything.”

  “At you?”

  “Maybe.”

  She sipped coffee, looked at the map. The place he’d pointed out was equidistant from the New York and Pennsylvania state lines, the Delaware River a border to the west. It would be a two- to three-hour drive from Avon. She read town names: Colesville, Plumbsock, Libertyville. Patches of green between them with no names at all.

  “Rural area,” she said. “Tough to operate there without calling attention to ourselves. We’ll have to stake the house out, watch it, maybe for a week or more. And we have to find it in the first place.”

  “I can find it. I’m sure of that.”

  She traced a finger along the routes out of town. Local roads to Route 15 South, then another twenty miles before they reached Interstate 80, and the straight run east.

  “We can’t wait too long,” he said. “Danny and his crew will be looking, too. He may already know about the Scalise woman, where she is.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t like this. Too many things we don’t know.”

  “Worth going up there to take a look, though, isn’t it?”

  “Tell me more about this Taliferro.”

  He sat back. “I’ve told you most of it. He used to be a capo, worked for a guy named Patsy Spinnell.”

  “Used to be?”

  “Patsy’s been gone a while. Most of his people are in jail, or dead. Danny’s on his own now, runs some sort of renegade crew, doesn’t answer to anyone. He’s got a rep, though, goes way back.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “You see the scar on his throat?”

  “No.”

  He ran a finger above his Adam’s apple. “Piano wire. Late seventies. He got into a beef with a crew out of Flatbush. One night they caught him alone in a bar in Maspeth, two of them, like three in the morning. They came up behind, put a wire around his neck. He wasn’t carrying, he never did back then. Fought them off with his bare hands, killed both of them, got cut up pretty bad in the process. But it sent a message.”

  “What was that?”

  “That he didn’t die easy. That if you came looking for Danny Taliferro, you better bring an army.”

  “What kind of a crew does he have now?”

  “I don’t know. Even back in the day, it was like eight, ten guys at most. They were heavy hitters, though, and loyal. Danny used to work out of a bar he owned in Canarsie, place called the Victory Lounge. That was his headquarters. Don’t know if it’s still there. That was a long time ago. A lot of bad shit happened in that place.”

  “Like what?”

  “It started as a typical wiseguy joint, left over from the fifties. If you went in for a drink, they’d charge you like ten dollars for a beer, just so you got the message, ‘Don’t come back.’ Lots of deals went down there, scores got planned. But there was an apartment on the second floor, above the bar, that Danny used for other things. Guys went in there, never came out.”

  “Go on.”

  “Danny was Patsy’s chief hitter. You got on Patsy’s bad side, you had to worry about Danny and his crew coming after you. He wasn’t afraid to do the heavy work.”

  He looked over at Marta, lowered his voice. “Word was people got hacked up in there, in the apartment. Danny and some of the others would do it right there, in the bathtub. Six pieces—arms, legs, chest, head. They’d put the parts in suitcases, leave ’em in the Fountain Avenue dump. Or maybe weigh ’em down, take a boat out, drop ’em in Sheepshead Bay.”

  “Nice friends you had.”

  “No friends of mine. It was crazy back then, before the feds started putting away all the bosses. Some outrageous shit happened. Guys like Joey Dio, Patsy—they ran the city. Nobody could touch them. And if you were affiliated with them, forget about it. They were the kings, and the rest of us, we were like the princes. Anything we wanted, we got.”

  “Until you end up in a suitcase.”

  “Why do you think I went over to the G? After Lufthansa, when people started disappearing, I knew it was only a matter of time.”

  Marta came into the kitchen.

  “How you doing, baby?” he said.

  She took the chair next to him, hooked her arm through his. She touched his face. “We should put some ice on that.”

  “It’s okay. Just a little sore.”

  Crissa looked at Marta’s wrists, the welts there starting to fade. “You sure you don’t need a doctor?”

  “I’m fine. But I still don’t know who you are.”

  Crissa looked at Benny. He took one of Marta’s hands, said, “She’s a friend.”

  “How do you know Benny?”

  “I didn’t, until a couple days ago,” Crissa said. “We have a mutual acquaintance.”

  “Are we safe here?”

  “For now. Better than being out on the street. You two can take the bedroom tonight, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  “I don’t want to put you out,” he said.

  “Don’t worry about it. How’d they get in?”

  “It was my fault,” Marta said. “The one who knocked at the door, Perry, I’d never seen him before. I would have recognized the others. He told me he was with the police. Then the other two pushed their way in.”

  He squeezed her hand.

  “You were lucky,” Crissa said. “Things could have gone bad in there.”

  Marta brushed hair from her eyes. “I’d say they got pretty bad as it was.”

  “You’re angry,” Crissa said. “That’s good. Hold on to it.”

  Benny slipped an arm over Marta’s shoulders, squeezed.

  Crissa folded up the map. “I have to go see someone tomorrow. I want you two to stay here. Don’t go out for any reason. Not even to walk around, look at the water. There’s food in the refrigerator. When I get back, we’ll talk more.”

  “We shouldn’t even be here,” Marta said. She looked at Benny. “We should go someplace far away, before they find us again.”

  “We will, baby. But it’s like I told you—”

  Crissa got up. “I’ll leave you to it. Let me just get some things out of the bedroom.”

  “Give us a gun,” Marta said.

  Crissa looked at her. “What?”

  “When you go tomorrow, to see whoever you have to see, leave us a gun.”

  “I don’t think so.” Crissa looked at Benny, then back at her. “A gun can get you into more trouble than it gets you out of.”

  “You’ve got one,” she said.

  “That’s right.”

  “We should have one, too.”

  “You don’t need one.”

  “Are you so sure of that? After tonight?”

  Crissa didn’t answer. There was nothing to say to that.

  * * *

  The clouds were gone, the morning bright. Crissa pushed Jimmy’s wheelchair along the boardwalk. The ocean was flat and calm, sunlight flashing off the surface. Gulls circled overhead.

  “Let’s stop here,” he said. “Take a rest.”

  She parked the chair beside a bench, locked the wheels. She’d told him what Benny had said, about the Scalise woman, the house. How Taliferro had tracked him down again.

  He took a Portofino tube from his coat pocket, unscrewed the cap. “Thanks again for these.”

  He slid the cigar out, got a silver lighter from another pocket, opened it, thumbed the wheel. Wind blew out the flame.

  “Let me,” she said. She took the lighter, cupped it with her other hand, got it going.

  He lit the cigar, puffed. “Thank you.” She closed the lighter, slid it back in his pocket, sat on the bench. He drew on the cigar.

  “It’s good to get out like this,” he said. “I get tir
ed of being around all those old people. It’s depressing.”

  A jogger was coming along from their right, sneakered feet thumping against the boards. He wore a headband, earbuds, an iPod strapped to his upper arm. He nodded at them as he went by.

  When he was gone, Jimmy said, “So what are you thinking?”

  “I’m not sure. I guess it’s worth looking into. But there are other factors.”

  He tapped ash from the cigar. “That Taliferro. He’s a son of a bitch, excuse my language. Always was. The worst of the worst.”

  “You know him?”

  “Met him once or twice. He had a reputation, even way back then. I never understood guys like him though. I mean, this is supposed to be a business. Where’s the percentage in whacking some poor slob, cutting up his body? All that does is bring heat. If somebody has to go, he has to go. But you do it right. You do it clean. And that’s only if there’s no other way around it.”

  “I braced him. He knows me now, by sight at least.”

  “That’s too bad. But Benny’s right, Taliferro’s on his own. Not connected the way he used to be. He’s got some half-assed crew around him, but that’s about it. He might not have much in the way of resources.”

  “Good. Because the last thing I need right now is to get into the middle of some wiseguy shit I need a scorecard to figure out. I had enough of that last time.”

  “I understand.”

  “And I’m not sure how much I trust our mutual friend.”

  “Benny and I go back a long way, that’s all I can tell you. Made some money together. He was a good earner. Those people he was with, though, they didn’t respect that. They were animals.”

  “That justify what he did? He was a rat. He testified against his friends, went into witness protection.”

  Jimmy pulled on his cigar, took it from his mouth, rolled it in his fingers. “He did.”

  “I’m surprised you’d even talk to him now.”

  “Who knows?” he said. “If the circumstances were different, it might have been me.”

  “I can’t believe that.”

  “The man had a target on him.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “He was right.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I had the contract.” He let smoke out, looked out over the water.