by Linda Sands
Sailor smiled. “Yeah it is.”
Jeremy twisted open the drinks, handed her half a sandwich on a napkin. In other places, at other times, Strong’s ham-like hands maimed and killed. But here with her, they served with grace and tenderness. She wondered if Jeremy would still like her when she started asking questions about Deluca.
Maria Chetta sat in her kitchen with a cup of tea. She told herself that waiting for her chef to return wasn’t odd, nor was the fact that she was concerned for his welfare. Stephan would find it endearing. They would laugh about this when he came in. He’d tease her for months that she mothered him. And maybe she did. But he should have been back hours ago. If he’d run into friends or had car trouble, he would have called. Maria wouldn’t have been this worried before Lou Gallo reappeared in her life. But once he was in the picture, everything changed.
CHAPTER 15
Cause and Effect
IT’S a matter of supply and demand. You supply whatever I demand.”
The walking billboard for Gold’s gym laughed. “That’s good, Tone, supply and demand.”
The man behind the desk didn’t look so hot. After a couple of slaps, his toupee had gone west, hanging off his head at a queer angle. His shirt buttons littered his desk, and his pants had acquired a mysterious stain in the crotch area.
If Vince Gable had known he was having company this morning, he would have been prepared. He would have locked the door to the tin house on the docks.
With the Union talking strike and Immigration hanging around, he’d been camped in the trailer for three days. And now this.
“Look, Mister Cigars. I told you, I was going right out there. I just had to make some calls, grab a coffee. These guys never get here on time, they have their own plans. You really didn’t need to bother yourself with this. See?’ He tapped a sheet of paper on his desk. “I got the numbers and the locations right here. I’m pretty sure you’ll be pleased, not like the last time.”
“Jesus! Shut him up, will ya?’ Tony Cigars rubbed his jaw and twisted his head around until his neck cracked.
Billboard moved in. “What you want me to do, Tone?”
“Just shut him the fuck up!”
The guy behind the desk blinked his watery Pekinese eyes, shrinking back into his chair. The toupee completed its slide revealing a red swollen ear and a ring of hair like a Trappist monk.
“I told you, Vince.” Tony reached for his lighter. “You know the trip. Out to the yard and back, then put the dogs up.” He paused to light a half-chewed cigar, “And turn off the video monitors. There’s no one else here, nothing for you to do but whack off. What the fuck you been doing all morning? I got three pissed-off guys out there running a truck and wasting gas. Now you’re cutting into my delivery time. You want me to call in your marker, Vince? That it?”
“No. No, I told you, it wasn’t my fault.”
Billboard took another step. Vince raised his pale, nail-bitten hands. “Please Mr. Cigars. Don’t let him hit me again. Here.” He held the paper over his head like it was raining. “The gate’s open, just pull that plug over there.”
“Plug? What plug? This plug, Vince?’ Tony Cigars reached down and yanked the cord of a large black plug. The trailer shook, monitors went dark.
“Good one, Tone.”
The two men stepped down from the trailer, headed across the terminal yard toward a stack of containers and a forklift. The rumble of the idling tractor-trailer became a whine as the big vehicle shifted gears and pulled into view.
Vince Gable adjusted his hair then looked out the window. “Fucking guys. What am I going to tell Marie? This shirt was a gift from her sister. I swear to God,” he said as he raised his right hand to the ceiling, “I will never bet on the ponies again.”
Reilly had been dreaming the Sailor dream. She leaned into him saying, “There’s something I need to tell you.” But then he woke up. It took him a second to realize he wasn’t in that garden. And he wasn’t with Sailor. He was naked in someone else’s bed. He traced his finger down a beautiful curved spine, cupped the warm buttocks in his hands. Gina shivered, then rolled over to face him, whispering, “Morning.”
Parked in his car across the street, Hiram Berger sipped cold coffee from a Styrofoam cup. There was just enough left to wash down the greasy egg sandwich. He yawned and scooted down in the seat, folded his arms and tipped his head back for a quick nap. He’d been sitting out here since midnight and hadn’t seen a thing. Maybe he’d misread her. Maybe it had only sounded like she was making up the whole thing about girl’s night out. But he’d driven over anyway, and now it was six a.m., and time was beginning to wear on him.
The screen door slammed. Berger jerked awake. Shit. A cab idled at the curb. The man Gina kissed goodbye was young and handsome and somehow familiar, like the guy you see on a game show and swear you’ve seen him in the produce section of Genuardi’s. Berger watched her wave from the porch, holding her red robe closed. The robe he’d given her last Christmas. Then he remembered where he’d seen the guy. His retirement party. Fuckin’ Gallo. Can’t take no for an answer, so now he’s got his boy shtupping my lady. We’ll just see about that.
Hiram Berger’s sleep-deprived, pill-addled brain, wrapped itself around an idea. Gina was his and he would not lose her. She was just mad at him, like before. He’d buy her something nice, show her how he’d changed. He’d win her back. Whatever it took. Berger followed the cab downtown to a fancy condo complex. He took a container of pills from the glove box and watched the guy enter the building. Berger swallowed the pills. He could give Gina whatever she wanted, didn’t she know that? He pulled into traffic without looking, a screech of brakes behind him.
The self-storage facility was located at the rear of a run-down industrial park. Faded names of fly-by-night businesses appeared as shadows on the park’s signboard. Berger passed empty warehouses and forgotten offices partially hidden by unkempt landscaping. He pulled up to the entry gate and entered the code. Moments later he parked in front of J19 and turned off the Impala’s engine.
The resident manager, Bob Murphy, caught a glimpse of Berger as he drove to his unit. He trained one of the mobile cameras mounted to Building J on the new arrival and checked the time. He watched his customer work the keypad then pull up the overhead door.
Eight minutes later, Berger was back on the screen. He stormed from the unit, pulling the door down behind him so abruptly it hit bottom and bounced back up again. There was no sound on the monitor, but Bob could tell the guy was pissed from the way the car sped off.
“Oh shit.” Bob winced. The pissed-off dude was headed his way.
Berger crashed through the front door, stood there in the lobby, yelling to the walls, “I need to see the manager, and I need to see him now!”
Bob zoomed in with the ceiling-mounted camera. It didn’t look like the guy was packing. Still, Bob really didn’t want to deal with a looney. He pulled the file for J19, keyed the intercom.
“What seems to be the matter, Sir?”
“What seems to be the matter? I’ve been ripped off! That’s what seems to be the matter. Now I want to see the manager, and I want to see him now.”
Bob decided being the manager wasn’t a good thing today, so he said, “He’s not here right now. Come back after two.”
“Listen asshole, I need to know who’s been in my space, and when, and I know you can do that!” Berger stepped up to the camera, making his point with what looked like a very large hand.
“Okay, okay. Hang on, man.” Bob flipped through the log for unit J19. The computerized tracking system enabled facility operators to track activity inside each unit. It showed dates and times of each unit’s entry and departure, and from the looks of it, J19 was a pretty lonely place.
Bob keyed the intercom, “Sir, I don’t see any recent activity.” He flipped a page. “Just the one visit last week, and today.”
Berger stared slack-faced into the camera. “What?”
Bob s
poke up, “Other than today’s visit, and ten p.m. Sunday, there hasn’t been any activity at your unit in over three months.”
Berger was still staring into the camera when he said, “That motherfucker.” Then he wrenched the door open and stomped to his car, muttering the whole way.
Bob watched the Impala speed away and hoped that whoever J19 was headed for would be well warned the dude was coming.
Banning hung up the phone, made a note in the file, then buzzed Helen.
“Yes?”
“Could you check with Paris, and see if she still has any contacts over at the courthouse?”
“Sure. What do you need?”
“I need Judge Shanahan’s schedule. I want to talk to him about the Bentley case. He’s our best chance.”
“Okay. Let me track her down.”
Helen was already on the other line, paging Paris Kendrick when Banning clicked off. She hoped there was still someone over at Shanahan’s that Paris could sleep with.
Who else knew about the money in the storage unit? Berger didn’t remember telling anyone and that was the problem. When he combined booze with the pills, he was hard pressed to remember the last time he ate, much less what he said. He went over the possibilities, holding them in his mouth like marbles or whipped cream. The more he moved the ideas around the more he wanted to spit out, “Gallo.”
Gallo had threatened him during their meeting at the docks. He’d said, “You do this for me, Detective, and I’ll let you keep your retirement plan.” At the time, Berger figured he was talking about the cop severance pay, and their old deal—the one where Berger quietly disappears to his house in the mountains with Gina. Now he was thinking that Gallo had a very different plan in mind, and it was just a hop across that mental terrain to conclude that it was Lou Gallo, who had taken his million in cash.
Deluca read the front page of the newspaper. Insiders say Strike is Imminent-Two Sides at Odds Over Benefits. A union strike, even a slowdown like the one they had planned would disrupt the regular scheduling of thousands of ships loading and offloading at The Port of Philadelphia. According to economists, it would cost a billion dollars a day with dire consequences for the entire North American economy.
Deluca dropped the paper.
It had taken Berger almost an hour to buy the supplies. By the time he pulled into the garage, he knew there was no way he was going to let Gallo, or anyone else, get the best of him. Whoever said revenge was sweet had gotten that fucking right. I’m going to hit you where it hurts, Lou. Right in the wallet.
Berger tossed the book in the fireplace and watched it burn. Part of the cover curled back; the seal of The United States Government was barely visible as the flames rose higher.
Berger talked to the flames, “Think you can get me to do your dirty work? What the hell am I protecting? The reputation of a dead man? Fuck it. My family? What family? That dumb bitch won’t let me see my kid, and now that I’ve lost Gina, nothing matters. Nothing.”
He moaned, swiping his arm across the coffee table and sending empty beer cans and plastic pill containers flying. Then Hiram Berger tipped his head back and howled.
Twenty minutes later, he steered the Impala toward the pier. Heavy duffle bags shifted in the trunk, something clunked against the tire well. Berger didn’t blink.
Ray sat in the recreation room reading his book. Some men cheered for the transvestite on The Jerry Springer Show. Others played chess in the corner. A few hunched over pads of paper with stubs of pencils—drawing, writing, or just dreaming.
He opened his book.
“What you got there, Ray? Life Behind Bars?” The skinny black man laughed, his mouth a red cave with stumps of rotten teeth. He alternated between scratching at his arms and flapping them.
Ray scrunched his nose. “Shit, Amos. You stink. What the hell have you been doing?”
“Working in the kitchen. We’re having French Onion Soup for dinner, Ray. And that be some good shit, too.” A line of blood dripped from his arm. “They was talking about you. You and your boy, Stash.”
“Who was talking?”
“Some of the regulars on the line. Seems like somebody got a problem with Stash Neely. You best tell him to fly low.” Moses flapped his arms some more, then leaned closer to Ray. “You want some of Cook’s hooch? I can get you a deal, brother.”
Ray smiled. “You know I don’t do that stuff any more, Amos. Here.” Ray palmed him a few bills. “Go on and get some for yourself—and take care of that arm.” Amos looked down, seeing the blood and doing nothing about it. He pocketed the bills and wandered off, looking to hit up somebody else. Ray made a note to steer clear of the soup and tried to go back to his book. But he kept thinking about Stash.
Sailor kicked off her running shoes and stepped out of her sweats. She tore her t-shirt pulling it over her head. “Damn it!” She wasn’t used to the honking cars or the smell of exhaust or stopping at every street corner in Philadelphia. She missed the long winding trails of campus, the path around the tennis courts of the family estate, grass and dirt beneath her feet. That’s how you should run. Not on a treadmill. Not on a dirty city sidewalk.
Thinking a long shower would make her feel better, she was headed to the bathroom when the house phone rang. She wrapped herself in a towel and flopped across the bed, reaching the extension on the nightstand.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“Well, hello me. How are you?”
Sailor tugged the towel tighter and smiled into the receiver. The day was already looking up.
Ray passed by the yard on the way to the laundry room, where he hoped he’d find Stash. He stepped into the bright sunlight, instinctively shielding his eyes.
Ace and his white brothers were counting out the push-ups of an overweight newcomer.
“Six? That all you got?”
“Six? I think that was five, Ace. You ain’t counting that first one, are you?”
The fat prisoner’s arms began to shake. He looked up, pleading. Bad move. The metal toe of a highly polished boot cracked the fat man’s lower teeth away from the jawbone in a swift shot.
“Stay out of the weight room, fat man!”
Another kick, another stream of blood and a high-pitched scream. The fat man rocked and moaned in the dirt, his hands clamped over his bloody mouth.
Ray almost offered to help the poor guy, but Ace was watching, and a second later, the CO was there to give the fat man an infirmary pass and a soft bed for the afternoon.
Ray changed course, taking the long way to the Laundry. No pass for him today, not with a white fat fish as a roommate.
He pushed through the double doors of the laundry area, smelled the bleach, felt the heat of the dryers. The place was usually busy, but he saw no one. A whining sound came from the back of the room. Ray walked past tables of laundry—stacks of neatly folded sheets, piles of stained jumpsuit, threadbare blankets. Where was everyone?
The closer he got to the machine, the louder the whining. Like a jammed gear. Like something that needed fixing.
Ray turned the corner, expecting to see five guys with tools and ideas, and a CO standing over them, pointing. Instead, he saw a pool of blood and Stash Neely’s tattooed left arm dangling from the jaws of the Milnor press.
Sailor knocked on Reilly’s door, then walked in.
“You ready?” she called.
Dressed and looking handsome in his pinstriped suit and blue shirt, with mismatched socks, he sat on the couch tying his shoes.
She said, “Hey, I was looking for you last night, at the office.”
Reilly froze. “Really?’ He didn’t look up, just paused, then went back to tying and said, “Why, what’s up?’
“I wanted to show you something. I found something interesting in Deluca’s files.”
Reilly stood and began stuffing gadgets in his pockets. He barely looked at her as she spoke.
“I found some documents that had nothing to do with his prosecutions
in the seventies, but a lot to do with Berger.”
Reilly grabbed his briefcase. “Why would Deluca keep files on Berger?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Berger was going to hire him at some point.”
They left the apartment. Reilly locked the door and said, “But don’t cops have private representation? And what was Berger accused of?”
“Besides being a crooked cop?”
“Yeah, besides that.”
Reilly’s cell phone rang with the tune of La Cucaracha. Sailor shook her head and pushed the elevator button as Reilly glanced at the incoming call display and smiled, putting the phone to his ear.
“What? Wait a minute, slow down.” Reilly closed his eyes. “Where is she? You’re sure she’s breathing?’
Sailor knew that tone, having grown up in a doctor’s house. She could hear the high-pitched voice on the other end.
Reilly said, “No, you’re doing the right thing. Turn her head to the side, she’s going to be okay. Just don’t leave her. Do you understand?” The elevator doors opened. “I don’t care, listen—I’m on my way.”
Reilly looked at Sailor. “I need to borrow your car.”
She said, “I’m coming with you.”
“No.”
Sailor touched his arm. “Reilly, I’m coming with you.”
He looked in her eyes, saw a fight. “Okay. But, I’m driving.”
They pulled up in front of a brick walk-up. Reilly ran through the small lobby and took the stairs two at a time with Sailor close behind. The hall carpet on the second floor was new. The smell of glue and synthetic fiber hung in the air. At number seventeen, Reilly didn’t bother to knock. He went right in. Sailor followed.
A bushy-haired blonde in white leather knelt beside her friend passed out on the floor. Her face was streaked with tears. “What the fuck! Right, Reilly? I mean what the fuck is this? She was fine. She was fine!”
Reilly ignored the blonde and spoke to the girl on the floor. He placed his fingers on her carotid and put his face next to hers. “Shelly, come on now. Wake up.” He lifted her eyelids, then her arms. “That’s a good girl. Come on, now.”
