Criminal Gold

by Ann Aptaker

  “It’s like this,” I say. “I’d get dizzy trying to figure what’s real in you and what’s an act. Truth and lies change hands with you, Celeste, as easily as a card sharp dealing from the bottom. But even if I could handle that, even if I could let your lies roll off me, I’d go nuts wondering if every bad boy with a sweet smile who comes along is a lick of sugar you can’t resist, either because you’d get tired of us not being welcome in places you really want to go, or tired of ducking the Law, or just because you like the male brand of sugar. I’m not good at being sidelined, honey. Makes me cranky. But what would really turn me inside out, what I couldn’t live with, was knowing that I ran out on Rosie when she needed me. I can’t do that, Celeste. Not even for you.”

  The way she’s stroking my neck makes it tough for me to drive. Her hand on my thigh makes it tough for me to think, until she finally unwraps from me, moves away from me to the other end of the seat. I miss her hands on me. I wish I didn’t.

  She says, “We’re even, then.”

  “Where do you get that?”

  Celeste shrugs, says, “You’d be right to wonder about the bad boys. And I guess I’d always wonder about the dame you ran out on. Your Rosie.”

  “Look, I told you. She’s not my Rosie.”

  “That’s your opinion. I bet it’s not hers. And I bet she’s not the first woman to fall in love with you even though you don’t have the heart to love anyone back. What’s the matter, Cantor? You look like you just got arrested.”

  I don’t give her anything back. Not a sneer, not a sigh, nothing. I just keep driving, keep my eyes straight ahead, but for the first time in my life I feel like I might suffocate in the long white tube of the Holland Tunnel.

  We finally cross the line of wall tiles that marks the underwater border of New York and New Jersey. Celeste leans back, turns up the collar of my overcoat, and rests her head against the car seat. Closing her eyes with a sigh, she says, “So who knew that all this time Paradise was waiting for me in New Jersey?”

  *

  We come out of the tunnel, out into the darkest time of night, that thick black darkness that pushes back against dawn.

  Celeste hasn’t said anything since she came dangerously close to seeing into my soul, seeing all the way to the empty place Sophie left behind. I welcome the lull in conversation. It gives me a chance to run through my moves to nab Rosie, that is, if I’m right about where Sig’s stashed her, because if I’m wrong I’ve wasted precious time. If Mom Sheinbaum made the phone call I think she made, time is something Rosie’s running out of fast.

  I make it quick through the alleys behind the Jersey City waterfront. Across the river Manhattan glows like Wonderland. Back here, though, it’s black and deserted, with ships quietly at anchor, the docks emptied of their freight.

  It’s not a good idea to look too deep into the shadows around here. Celeste is right about gangland’s Jersey death squads, but she doesn’t know the half of it. The Jersey waterfront is as tough as the piers in New York. The grafters and labor-racket thugs do plenty of rough business around these docks long after the local longshoremen have gone home to their women and their whiskey.

  Celeste says, “Doesn’t look much like Paradise.”

  “We’re not there yet. Soon.”

  A light slices through the darkness up ahead on my left. It’s the headlight of a slowly moving train. The train’s coming close enough now for us to hear it, that grinding metal sound of steel wheels rolling slowly along steel rails. The grind gets louder and its headlight gets bigger and brighter as the train gets nearer. The glare floods the car, almost blinds me.

  Celeste sits up fast, her eyes wide with panic. She’s wondering if I’m suicidal, if my idea of Paradise is a smashup death for us both on a railroad track.

  “Cantor!” My name’s a whisper, a gag, a scream she can’t scream as the train heads right for my car. Celeste’s mouth is open, but nothing else comes out until she shrieks a laugh as loud and shrill as the locomotive’s whistle when the train veers off and crosses a trestle over the narrow channel in front of us, a deep cut of lapping water separating us from the Hoboken Rail Terminal.

  “Welcome to Paradise Pier,” I say.

  Celeste’s still laughing, but she slows it down. The terror’s gone from it. It’s a laugh of relief.

  Paradise Pier gets its name from the painted sign on the brick face of the warehouse at the head of the long pier: Paradise Storage and Freight Company. It’s one of Loreale’s oldest front operations, a legit business to clean up the cash from his underworld deals. The warehouse sits in front of the railroad track and next to the channel. Anyone inside the warehouse would hear a train grind slowly by as it crosses the channel and pulls into the Hoboken rail yard.

  Someone’s inside, all right. A line of light is visible under a loading-bay door. It doesn’t mean that this is where Sig’s stashed Rosie. It only means people are inside. For all I know, it could be the night crew stacking crates of tomatoes.

  Finding out will have to wait, even though my nerves are standing up and scratching at me. First I have to get Celeste to safety, get her to Drogan’s tugboat at the foot of the pier. Celeste can’t be with me when I make my move on the warehouse. There could be gunplay, and I might not be able to defend her if I have to fight my way to Rosie. A choice like that, to protect Celeste or rescue Rosie, could jam me up, leave me with sleepless nights for the rest of my life.

  I drive down the pier toward the river. “Drogan should be here by now,” I say. “He’ll be in his tug, waiting for us at the end of the pier. He’ll know what to do to get you away, so follow his orders and you’ll be all right. And you’ll start your new life with a nice little cushion, too,” I say, flashing her an encouraging smile. “I’ve got ten grand on me. Two and a half will go to Drogan for his trouble. You can have the rest, a seventy-five-hundred dollar cushion. You can set yourself up in style.”

  All she says is, “So this is it,” then goes quiet. Not the nervous quiet of someone about to take a trip all alone to God knows where; she’s just quiet. From all I’ve been through with Celeste tonight, I figured she’d angle for the whole ten grand, or maybe even try to convince me to be her plaything on some tropical isle, but I didn’t expect this empty silence or what she finally says at the end of it. “Your Rosie’s in that warehouse back there, right? You should be going after her instead of wasting time with me.”

  I start to tell her she could never be a waste of my time, that if we’d met over drinks instead of over Opal’s death, we might even be heading for that fantasy cruise for two, but a light suddenly glances off my side-view mirror, catches my eye, and shows me something that yanks my attention away from Celeste. Through the mirror, I see a loading-bay door of the warehouse is now open and a guy is climbing up behind the wheel of a truck, one of those square-backed short-haul jobs, the kind that delivers produce to mom-and-pop grocery stores and luncheonettes. But it’s what’s sticking out from behind the truck that grabs me: the front of Rosie’s cab, parked inside the warehouse. I bet the cab’s radio is still on. Judson’s probably getting an earful. Well, after I get Celeste on her way, Judson’s gonna hear one helluva drama, good as anything on the Lux Radio Theater.

  Before I can figure if the trucker’s just making a tomato run or if he’s one of Rosie’s jailers, a guy in a black coat and a gray fedora walks toward the truck.

  Now I know what I’m dealing with. This second guy is pulling Rosie by the arm, her hands tied behind her back. I’m pretty sure he’s the guy who was in the backseat of Rosie’s cab and put a gun to her head, forced her to drive away from Sig’s building.

  Rosie’s looking straight at him. Her head is up, her cabbie’s cap at a cocky angle. She’s not giving the guy an inch even when he forces her into the back of the truck. She’s a gutsy dame all the way. “That’s my girl,” I say under my breath. The guy follows Rosie into the back of the truck. Any strategy I’d had for nabbing Rosie has just gone down the drain.
>
  My arms take control of the situation with a will of their own. They spin the Buick’s steering wheel, make a screeching U-turn on the pier. I head back to the warehouse, to Rosie, my loyal, beautiful soldier.

  I tell Celeste, “Get down. Stay outta sight.” She gives a yelp of terror, folds up, and hunkers down, her arms over her head like in wartime.

  The truck pulls out onto the pier.

  These guys are making a break, which means they were expecting me, and the only way they’d be expecting me is if Mom Sheinbaum called Sig and told him I’d figured where he’s stashed Rosie. Sig must’ve made arrangements to move her.

  The trucker’s in my headlights. He sees me head straight for him and tries to swerve around me, but my arms are like motorized machines now, turning my steering wheel in unison with every move the trucker makes. His truck and my Buick lurch from side to side, swerving all over the pier as the guy tries to drive past me and I keep blocking him. I can’t let him get to the pier’s access road and drive away with Rosie.

  I’d ram his engine if Celeste wasn’t crouched so deep in the seat she’s halfway to the floor. She’ll be smashed flat if I ram the truck, so it’s parry and thrust with the trucker, back and forth across the pier, both of us trying not to careen into the channel. My lungs have had enough of harbor water tonight.

  I’m back and forth with the truck for I don’t know how long. My arms ache, my muscles feel like they’re tearing apart, and I’m losing all sense of time, but I don’t let up, can’t let the truck get by me. I grunt ’til my throat’s dry, every grunt a sound as raw as the screeching tires of the Buick and the truck. Celeste’s shrieks add to the racket.

  “Stop!” she screams. “Cantor, stop! Stop this!”

  She’s right. This has to stop. I have to stop that truck.

  My hands are clamped so tight around the steering wheel, I have to force the fingers of my left hand to unfold. Every muscle from my fingertips to my neck is on fire as I pull Pep’s .45 from my waistband. With the gun in my left hand, I steer the Buick one-handed with my right. My right arm feels like white-hot gears are grinding through my joints.

  Celeste must be sick and tired of all the banging around because she’s trying to climb up into the seat. She tries to steady herself and pull herself up while the car lurches across the pier.

  The choice I dreaded is suddenly right next to me. “Get down, dammit!” explodes out of me.

  But she doesn’t get down. She just keeps struggling to get back onto the seat, screaming with every lurch of the car, her body slamming against the dashboard and the door. “I can’t stand all this bouncing around anymore!” Her words get tangled up with the screech of the Buick’s tires as I spin the steering wheel back and forth, blocking the truck.

  I yell, “I told you to get down!” but in all the tumult I don’t think Celeste hears me. I stow the gun in my lap, switch to my left hand to steer the car, and use my right hand to push Celeste down hard, press her face against the seat and out of sight of the trucker. “Don’t you get it? I have to keep both of you alive. You and Rosie both have to stay alive! Now get down.”

  My insides are spinning, every part spinning on its own, fast, too fast for me to think about it as I put my right hand back on the steering wheel. I use my left hand to roll down the window, then pop the door latch and grab the gun again. My door swings open. The truck and my car are still dancing all over the pier. Celeste is screaming again.

  I lean out of the car, let the open door cover me in case the trucker or the guy in the back with Rosie decides it’s time for a shootout, though I bet the guy in back is getting thrown around so much he’d never make it to the door. I’m barely able to hold on to the steering wheel or keep from falling out of the car, but I manage to prop the gun on the Buick’s door, raise my head up just enough to see over the top, and take my best shot at the truck’s front tire.

  The gun’s blast and the exploding tire are almost as loud as Celeste’s screams and the grind of the truck’s wheel rim as it makes sparks on the wooden pier. The trucker’s slowing the rig down, but I blast away at the other front tire to force him to stop. With the explosion of the second tire the guy can’t hold the truck, and I’m scared to death that I screwed up with that second bullet and the guy’s gonna go over the side and take Rosie with him. The truck’s heading for the edge of the pier, my heart’s beating like fists against my chest, until the truck rams into a stanchion, stops cold. The force of the collision bursts the truck’s radiator. Steam and water shoot up in the air. The driver’s head must’ve slammed against the steering wheel at the impact. The guy’s slumped against the wheel.

  I run out of the car, run to the back of the truck, shouting, “Rosie!” The door swings open, her jailer is standing in the doorway, though not too steady on his feet. His fedora falls off his head. He must’ve taken a pounding while the truck was lurching all over the pier. Must have rattled his brains, too, because he goes for his gun before he realizes mine’s already out and pointing at him. I blast his gun out of his hand. His hand’s a bloody mess as he crumples to the pier, whimpering. I kick his gun into the channel.

  “Rosie!” I scramble into the truck.

  “Cantor…” She sounds woozy, beat-up.

  I kneel down next her, cut the rope from her wrists with my penknife, then brush her hair from her eyes. “Are you hurt? Did that guy hurt you?”

  “Nah, nothing like that. We were rattling around back here like dishes falling off a shelf. What the hell was going on out there?” Stray light from the warehouse touches Rosie’s face and the silvery blond mist of her hair, wild now and without her cabbie’s cap. It’s next to her on the floor.

  “My Buick got into a bullfight with the truck,” I say.

  “Still taking crazy chances. I worry about you, Cantor.”

  “I don’t deserve it.”

  “Yeah, you do,” she says, leaning into me and laying her head on my shoulder, reassuring me as much as herself. “You came to get me, didn’t you? Figured where I was from hearing the trains through my radio? I managed to switch it on before those two galoots dragged me out of the cab and into the warehouse office.”

  “The radio trick was a good play. You’re a smart soldier, my girl. C’mon, let’s go home.” I take Rosie’s cap from the floor, help her up, and give her back her cap. Standing, getting her balance back, Rosie gets her attitude back, too, that inner snap that’s tough and tender at the same time, and all of it real. I feel easy in my skin for the first time all night. I always feel easy in my skin when I’m around Rosie.

  Just one more errand down the pier to meet Drogan and get Celeste on her way, then Rosie and I can get back home to New York where we can finally relax with a bottle of scotch. Then maybe later, after we’ve gotten some rest, she can help me forget all about Celeste Copley and her mystery. Rosie Bliss is very good at helping me forget things I want to forget.

  She puts her cap on. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” she says. “I’ll follow you in the cab.”

  “You okay to drive?”

  “I’m alive, I can drive.” She tilts her cap at an angle, and with that million-dollar smile of hers, the one that challenges and promises in the same breath, she reaches up and tilts my cap at an angle, too.

  We climb down out of the truck. The guy with the bleeding hand isn’t on the ground. He’s gone. I pull the .45 in case he’s planning a surprise. “Stay behind me,” I tell Rosie as we walk carefully along the side of the truck. When I get to the front, I see the guy pulling the driver from the rig and helping him stand up. The driver’s pretty shaky. The other guy’s hand is bleeding all over him.

  Behind me, Rosie says, “Who the hell is that?” Her arm comes up next to me. She’s pointing toward my Buick.

  Celeste is out of the car and coming toward us, my overcoat blowing around her, but Rosie’s still pointing, and what she’s pointing at is behind the Buick: a big dark-blue Lincoln arriving on the pier from the access road. The car sto
ps and a tall guy in a dark coat and hat gets out of the driver’s seat, steps into a shaft of light from the warehouse that gives his face the hard pallor of fresh cement. He must be one of Sig’s boys, maybe come to check on Rosie’s transfer to another holding tank.

  I don’t like what I’m seeing and like even less what I’m thinking: there could be more shooting, maybe even another death, his death if he tries to take Rosie. I keep a good grip on the .45.

  Celeste is still coming at me, running. She’s close now, close enough for me to see the fear and exhaustion in those big brown eyes. Her eyes suddenly open wide, grow wild and white when a loud crack splits the air. Blood sprays from the back of Celeste’s head.

  She falls right in front of me. The back of her head is spurting blood. I can’t take my eyes off her.

  I can hear my heart beat, but I don’t feel it. I can’t feel it through the ice that’s suddenly clogging my veins, working its way down to my stomach and up to my throat. If I don’t break up the ice, I’ll suffocate.

  My gun arm, like the rest of me, is stiff and nearly numb. I force it to move, raise it and aim the .45 at the thug who killed Celeste. But he’s not standing there now. He’s back in the driver’s seat of the Lincoln, closing the door, as another guy in a dark coat and homburg gets out of the opposite side of the car from the back seat. He looks straight at me, the thick features of his face catching light from the warehouse. Sig.

  He says nothing. He doesn’t have to. His being here explains it all. Mom Sheinbaum didn’t just tell Sig that I’d figured where he’d stashed Rosie, she also told him about Celeste, that Opal is dead because of Celeste. The old lady didn’t buy Celeste’s story of an accident. Or maybe she did, but it didn’t matter. Celeste killed Opal and Mom was going to do something about it. All it took was one phone call to Loreale, who doesn’t care if Opal’s death was an accident, either.

  A life for a life. A life that mattered to Sig Loreale and Mom Sheinbaum and all those gossip columnists avenged with a life that mattered to no one. Except me.