The city was alive with youth and booze, and Bailino’s lungs inflated with New York’s palpable atmosphere. He had missed the hurrying, the having to be somewhere, the anonymity that came with being in a crowd. He turned left on Eighth Avenue toward the post office, whose lobby, it turned out, even at that late hour, was crowded. As he navigated through the large space, he reached into his duffel bag and pulled out a key ring, flipping to a key adorned with a crescent moon. He stuck it into a post office box, pulled out a large brown envelope, shoved it into his bag, and locked the box again.
Outside, young people were sitting on the concrete steps in pairs. He sidestepped them, checking his watch, and returned to Eighth Avenue, walking uptown with the tourists toward the theater district. At Fortieth Street, he turned east until he got to Sixth Avenue, Bryant Park stretching out before him.
It was the first time Bailino had been back at the park since he first saw Jamie Carter wandering around for a place to eat her lunch. It was quieter, more at peace, without the weekday lunch crowd. He adjusted his duffel bag and kept walking until he got toward the middle of the block and made a left toward a tiny eatery that was closed; a few young people lingered at the nearby tables. He leaned his back against a large potted plant, pretending to look at the buildings, until a group of kids stood in front of him to take a selfie. Quickly, he dug his fingers into the dirt of the plant, sticking close to the sides, and fished around until he found a small plastic bag. He pulled it out and continued walking. When he exited on Forty-Second Street, he made a left and then a right to continue down Sixth Avenue. About a block away, he looked inside the bag. It was sealed, but empty.
Fuck, he thought. Well, someone got a nice windfall. He had never been a fan of the dead-drop system in Manhattan—too many prying eyes and prying fingers, unlike upstate New York—but Gino had done things the way he wanted to.
He made a few more stops in midtown, having a bit more luck this time, and continued walking until he reached the southeast corner of Central Park, which was filled mostly with couples in fancy dresses and suits and a few young families. He kept walking along the park’s curvy paths until he reached the statue of Balto, which had been one of his favorites ever since his father told him about the famous sled dog delivering medicine to sick kids in Alaska in the 1920s. He thought of Lucky.
A little boy and girl were climbing on Balto’s back, which was glowing bronze from all those tiny hands caressing it over the years. Bailino sat on a nearby bench pretending to be busy with his phone until the children’s parents called to them and they ran off. Then he got up and moved closer to the dog, kneeling down to read the statue’s inscription while placing his right hand into a hidden crack in the rocky base. The plastic baggie he retrieved was damp but intact, and he stuck it in his duffel bag with the other hauls of cash and IDs.
That should do it, he thought. For now.
He left the park, crossed Fifth Avenue, and descended into the subway station. He purchased a MetroCard from one of the machines and took the W train downtown to the last stop, Whitehall Street, for the Staten Island Ferry.
When he arrived, the crowds were already walking toward the boat, which was set to leave in a few minutes. Bailino followed along, keeping his distance from two law enforcement officials holding police dogs. On the ferry, he took the stairs to the bridge deck and stood outside as more and more people gathered. He was surprised how many passengers were aboard. Most of them appeared to be tourists—the ferry was free, after all, and provided an excellent view of downtown Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. Most of them probably had no intention of staying on Staten Island and would take the next ferry back. He didn’t blame them.
As the boat crossed New York Harbor, he spotted Ellis Island, the place his grandfather had first arrived in America to make a better life for his family. Bailino wondered what his grandfather, whom he had met only when he was a baby, would think about all his hopes and dreams resting on the shoulders of tiny Faith Carter. A gambling man, or so Bailino was told, he probably would have liked the odds.
Staten Island neared, and most of the tourists left their posts along the railing, since there was little to see out on the water now, and gathered near the front of the ferry in order to exit. Bailino stood with them, keeping his eye on a pair of Department of Transportation workers, who were busy talking sports. Once the ferry docked, the crowd surged forward onto the island borough of New York City, with more than half of them making an immediate U-turn to leave.
As Bailino walked through the familiar neighborhoods, new construction seemed to be everywhere—tall, unfinished structures lining up like dominos. He imagined few of the people who would inhabit these buildings, living on top of one another, would ever know that there was a place in this country where a man could live alone on acres of land and never see another soul for months.
He kept walking, zigzagging along, until he reached the front gate of an old Victorian. He stood before it and looked directly into the lens of the security camera that he had helped to install. He was only there for a few seconds when the intercom clicked and a tinny voice exclaimed, “Holy fucking shit!”
As the metal gates swung inward, Bailino stepped onto the property and walked toward the house as the plump, petite figure of ToniAnne Cataldi came rushing toward him.
CHAPTER 25
ToniAnne would have recognized that walk anywhere. She ran barefoot, the deep red of her toenails catching the glare of the streetlights, across the paving stones and jumped right into Bailino’s arms, wrapping him in a four-limbed hug.
“Hi, Ton,” Bailino said flatly.
She plastered his face with kisses, leaving the final kiss for his lips. “You fuckin’ maniac,” she said, squeezing the back of his neck. “I knew you were alive all this time. I said it, didn’t I, Lorenzo?”
Lorenzo emerged onto the porch and placed his hands on the railing. “Yeah,” he said with obvious contempt. “Right again.”
“Oh, don’t be such a poop.” She grabbed Bailino’s hand and pulled him toward the house. “Come inside.”
“Listen, I can’t stay long,” Bailino said.
“Don’t be silly.” ToniAnne pulled him into the kitchen and unwrapped his duffel bag from his body, placing it on the floor. “Stay as long as you like.”
“If the Feds haven’t been here already, they’ll probably be here soon.”
“Here?” She laughed. “They haven’t been here in years. Plus, the world thinks you might be in Wyoming, or Washington, or fuckin’ Timbuktu. And I wouldn’t worry about any of my neighbors getting a glimpse of you …” She waved her hands dismissively. “They stopped looking to see what went on in this house years ago, and for their own good. But enough about that. Let me look at you …” She unbuttoned his overcoat and stared. “Man, that country air agrees with you.” She felt his abs.
“Knock it off, Ton,” Bailino said and pushed her hands away.
“Since when are you so shy? Take off your coat. Stay a while.” She pulled his overcoat off and held up his left arm, eyeing the charred skin at the end of his forearm. “Holy shit. This is the fuckin’ sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Lorenzo, who had moseyed into the kitchen behind them, peeked over ToniAnne’s shoulder. “It’s fuckin’ disgusting,” he said before leaving down a hallway.
ToniAnne leered at him. “Don’t you have some chest hair to shave?” She pushed Bailino into a chair. “You want something to eat? I’ll make you something.”
“You don’t have to go to any trouble.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” she said. “I have leftover eggplant parm in the fridge. I’ll heat it up.” She unwrapped a pan of food, carved out a large portion, plopped it onto a plate, and shoved it into the microwave oven, adjusting her hair in the reflection of the microwave oven door.
“How’s Anna?” Bailino asked.
“Good, good, busy.” ToniAnne grabbed utensils and a napkin and made a place setting in front of him. “He
r husband’s a pig, but you know that …” She pulled a piece of paper held by magnets off the fridge and held it up. “Gina got Student of the Month in her class last month.”
“Very nice,” he said.
The microwave oven beeped, and ToniAnne placed the warmed dish in front of him, mixed it quickly with a fork, and grabbed a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. “I’m outta scotch, Donny, but will this do?” she asked.
“It’s fine, whatever,” he said and took a bite of the parm. “Thanks, Ton. It’s as good as I remember.”
“Anything for you, baby.” She got two wine glasses from the cabinet, poured the wine, and placed his glass on the table. She sat across from him and raised her glass. “Salute.”
“Salute,” Bailino replied and drank a mouthful. “I need to talk to you,” he said, putting his glass down. “Alone, without Mr. Big Ears listening.”
“Lorenzo,” ToniAnne called, “make yourself scarce.”
“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” Lorenzo said from somewhere out of sight. He started muttering, but then a few doors slammed, and it was quiet again.
“Okay,” ToniAnne said, pulling her chair closer to Bailino. “Where were we?”
“That putz treating you nice?”
“Nice enough,” ToniAnne said. “Not all men are gentlemen, like you, Donny boy, you know that.” She rested her hand on his arm, and its familiarity shot through her like an electric current. “So what brings you to my humble abode? What do you need to talk about?”
“You need to call this off, Ton.”
“Call what off?”
“Don’t be cute with me. You know what I’m talking about.”
ToniAnne walked her fingers up his arm. “What’s with all this talking? You never used to talk so much.” She pulled his handless arm toward her mouth and slowly sucked on the end of it. “I’d love to see what you can do with this thing.”
“Enough, already.” He pulled his arm away. “I need you to be serious.”
ToniAnne took a deep breath. “All right. What do you want to know? How I’m going to fuck up that goddamn Phillip Grand?”
“What does Anna have to say about it?”
“You know Anna—she never had the stomach for this stuff,” ToniAnne said.
“Yes, I know, she was always the smart one.”
“Very funny.”
Bailino took another bite of food. She could watch him eat all day. “Seriously,” he said, “what do you need to stir up trouble for? Grand isn’t a problem.”
ToniAnne’s cheeks got hot. She jumped out of her seat and grabbed a picture frame from the wall next to the back door, and held it in front of Bailino’s face. “Have you forgotten? Has all that damn fresh air made you forget what happened to our baby?”
Bailino gently pulled Joey’s high school graduation photo from her and placed it on the table. “I think about him every day, Ton. Every fucking day. So, no, I didn’t forget, but Grand isn’t the problem.”
“Oh, no? Are you fucking kidding me? The next thing you’re going to tell me is he didn’t kill my father.” She chugged her glass of wine and poured another.
“Gino was on death row, Ton. What did you expect?”
“I expected him to get out.” She gave him a hard look.
“Don’t give me this shit now.” Bailino pushed the plate away. “You’re changing the subject, which is your specialty.”
She ran her fingers through his hair. “You, for one, should know I have many more specialties than that.”
“Listen, what happened to Joey is because of your father, not Phillip Grand.”
She rubbed the tops of his ears. “We’re going to have to agree to disagree on that, my friend,” ToniAnne said, reaching for another sip of wine. “And, frankly, I don’t see how this is any of your concern. Why is Phillip Grand always such a sore subject with you?”
“Not my concern?” Bailino rubbed at his five o’clock shadow. He looked tired—sexy as hell, but tired. “Do you know how they found your explosive device?”
“My hope is it was while the president was sucking the First Lady’s cock.”
“My kid found it.”
ToniAnne studied him. “So it’s true? I would have bet money that skank was pregnant already and was just saying it was your kid to try and cash in on the publicity.”
The creases in Bailino’s forehead became rigid, and, for a minute, she thought she saw the burnt skin at the end of his left arm tighten. She put her arm around him. “You sure it’s yours, Donny? It’s stupid to get all worked up for someone else’s kid.”
“She’s mine,” he said flatly.
ToniAnne dropped the subject. She knew him well enough to know when he didn’t want to talk about something. She bent down in front of him. “I don’t want to fight … I tried to visit you in the hospital, you know. Fuckin’ Feds wouldn’t let me near you.”
He shook his head. “It’s no big deal.”
Something was different about him, and she couldn’t place what it was. She peeled back the neck of his T-shirt, revealing the ragged scar along his clavicle, and ran her fingers across it. “You can hardly see it.”
He pulled her hand away and held it. “End this now, Ton.”
She sighed. “All right. For you, I’ll think about it.” She lifted her right leg and sat on his lap, straddling him.
“How did you get to O’Connell?” he asked.
“How did you know it was me?”
“Yeah, an eye for an eye—O’Connell’s for Paolo’s. Next time, why don’t you just draw the Feds a diagram?”
“The Feds didn’t figure out nuthin’. You did. You know me too well …” She threw her head back and laughed. “It was too easy. Started talking to the kid online after he uploaded the video of Grand three years ago—telling him what a great cameraman he was, yadda yadda. You know how stupid boys are—he probably thought immediately that I was some lonely housewife looking for attention. As if …” ToniAnne waved a dismissive hand. “I wanted to feel him out, see if he had anything else, so I started blasting Grand, saying I didn’t trust the guy, yadda yadda. The kid totally took the bait, told me he had something on Grand that he was holding onto, said it was something ‘big,’ and I said, ‘Bullshit,’ and he said there was more to the video, and I said, ‘I’d do anything for that.’” She smiled thinking of how she reeled him in. “For, like, two years, the kid held out on me … I practically had to blow him over the phone until finally he invited me over, thinking that I was going to fuck him, I’m sure. I was thinking more along the lines of a bullet in the eye.” She shrugged. “You know what they say, men are from Mars …”
She put her hands to his face, but he pushed them down with his left arm. “Is there anything that can tie you to that device or to Samuel O’Connell?” he asked.
“You know me better than that, Donny.” She ran her hands through the gray hair at his temple. “But, shit, I wasn’t kidding when I said I want to release that video. Getting Grand impeached or watching him resign would be the highlight of my life.”
Bailino shook his head. “Listen to me … The only reason I’m here right now talking to you, Ton, is because of Phillip Grand. Fuckin’ Paolo went off the deep end.”
“He was mourning my father.”
“Please …” Bailino leaned back. He wiped his mouth with the napkin and threw it into his plate. “That sick fuck wasn’t mourning anything but his own miserable life. He was going to slice up a little girl.”
“Your kid, right?”
“That’s right.” The skin around his eyes tightened again.
“You’re getting all hot and bothered again.” She put her arms around his neck. “Why don’t we just go upstairs, and I’ll help you get out of these clothes and relax.”
“What will make me relax is if you quit this shit.”
ToniAnne sighed loudly. “I’ll tell you what … If I release the video, I promise to quit with the pyrotechnics. How’s that for a compromise?” She lea
ned in to whisper in his ear. “How about a quickie?”
“Nah.”
“Why, you tired?” She inched closer to him. “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll do all the work. Lorenzo’s got me in spinning classes four times a week. My thighs are rock solid.” She squeezed her inner thighs on his legs. “You can just lay there and look handsome.”
He grabbed her chin and looked her in the eye. “I gotta go.”
“What’s with you?” she said, starting to get angry. “It’s not like you to turn down a good fuck. And, frankly, it’s the least you can do for me not getting rid of that no-good Phillip Grand.”
Bailino leaned back and let out a long exhale. “So if I go upstairs, you’ll end it now? I can’t be worried about this shit.”
“I’ll release the video, but no more bombies. You’ve got yourself a deal, big guy.”
“And Lorenzo?”
“Lorenzo?” ToniAnne laughed. “Please … I’ll send him out for some cigarettes. He’s fucking the girl who works at Walmart, so he won’t give a shit anyway.”
“Nothing’s changed, I see.” Bailino reached down and looped his left arm through the straps of his duffel bag. ToniAnne hopped off him and put the plate and utensils into the sink. She grabbed the two glasses of wine from the table and hurried up the stairs past Bailino and put the glasses on her bedroom dresser. When he got to the door, she lunged at him.
“Still like it rough?” ToniAnne asked, running her long nails down Bailino’s arms.
“You have no idea,” he said.
“I knew you missed me,” she whispered and closed the bedroom door.
*****
ToniAnne pulled the sheet off her and rolled out of bed. She walked toward the window where the setting moon was peeking out behind two buildings across the street and leaned her naked body against the cool glass of the window. “I’ll say it again … That West Coast air did you wonders, Donny.”
By the time she turned around, Bailino was up and getting dressed.
Baby Carter (Baby Grand Trilogy, Book 3) Page 18
