by Lee Lamothe
Chapter 24
Across from Gratelli’s and thirty yards up the street, Ray Tate waited in a doorway for Djuna Brown to come out.
They’d spent the day going from place to place, looking for somebody to drill into. But there was nobody around. They couldn’t go back to the Green Squad’s offices. The Cashman would wonder what they were doing to move the case forward. Mid-afternoon they got tired of the city traffic and drove to the Whistler where they were known and were given a key card to a suite.
Sipping gin-and-tap water cocktails, their favourite beverage, they sprawled in the bathtub and wondered what to do next. Paris was looking shaky.
“This is pretty bad, Ray. We’re getting nothing. Paris, fini.”
“We’re going to have to get the boss to pull in more people. He’s not going to like that. Not this soon. If he goes to heavy resources, the white shirts at the Jank are going to take notice, think maybe there’s something to it. They’ll big-foot us out of business.”
“Well, think of something, Bongo. They like us here, we can probably arm some room service and dirty movies, but eventually we’re going to have to go out. Do some cop work.”
“Only thing I can think of is if they’re in town they have to eat. They have to eat and they have to meet.”
“Unless they’re out there, moving the money right now.”
“Then we’re fucked.”
“Gratelli’s,” she said. “Markowitz eats there. Gurr eats there. Jerry Kelly’s been in there.”
“Grat’s it is.”
They worked out a schedule to drill into the place, him in for a while, then her. Then both out. Then in as a couple, late dinner.
He was sitting at the rail when Markowitz, looking like a white cloud, came in, followed by Jerry Kelly and they sat in the dining area. He heard Jerry Kelly’s gravelly voice, heard him snap his fingers, heard Markowitz say, “Get the fuck outta here.” He felt Jerry Kelly looking him over, and in the back bar mirror he saw him say something to Markowitz and Markowitz looked.
He waited a few minutes, then punched in Djuna Brown’s number on the cellphone and let it ring once, finished his drink, then got up and left, passing her in the entrance.
Set up in his doorway, he thought about getting the boss to get some ISS teams down there, put some stationary posts around the town. Maybe put out an alert for Gary Dorset’s vehicles. The trouble was, as soon as the boss asked for something, someone else said why, and if they really liked the answer they’d co-opt the thing themselves.
But before he could call in, Jerry Kelly came out of Gratelli’s, bursting through the front door like a flash of light, walking like he was paying six legs overtime, not looking left nor right, rapidly covering distance. He vanished into the maze of side streets to the east, then came back out almost right away, did a one-eighty in midstride, settled his aim, and was gone, west.
Aloud, Ray Tate said, “Holy fuck, Groucho Marx,” and started laughing.
He waited as long he could, but Djuna Brown was clearly up on Markowitz. He ran to the 500 and plucked the ignition key off the rear wheel, fired it up, and deduced: Jerry Kelly wouldn’t drive back in the direction he’d come from. He didn’t care about surveillance. He had the Road Runner technique down: don’t try to identify surveillance. If you see it, it was because you were supposed to, so that the real guys could take you around town. Just go. Beep beep.
Ray Tate deduced the silver Saab was to the west, in the opposite direction Jerry Kelly last went. It was fifty-fifty which way he’d pop out. Ray Tate flipped a mental coin. South. That would put him on Barstow, a one-way west. Ray Tate positioned himself at the bottom of the side street. He drove slowly until he found a parking space that allowed him to determine which way Jerry Kelly would go.
The Saab came boiling out of the side street in a blur and with barely a pause made a fast right, westbound. It moved far too quickly for Ray Tate to take him by the nose, so he memorized the light configuration on the Saab as it blew by and pulled out, casually playing it loose, hoping for the best.
Near the interstate, Jerry Kelly swung without signalling into a Walmart. Ray Tate waited, wondering if he was getting dumped out again. But five minutes later Jerry Kelly was out again, clutching a bag, trotting to the Saab. He came out of the parking lot in a screech of rubber, heading to the ramp and onto the interstate.
Up ahead there was a slowdown near where the interstate ran across the bottom of the river toward Buffalo. Ray Tate took the outside lane slowly, letting vehicles bunch up around him for cover. Jerry Kelly’s Saab was about fifteen cars up in the inside lane. Traffic cones narrowed Ray Tate’s outside lane where construction vehicles, alit and insect like, worked noisily, men in orange vests idling around. Ray Tate activated his left-hand signal and waited for someone to let him into the centre lane. He watched the construction gear being moved around and he looked up as the Saab bolted into a screech and raced up the shoulder around the jam, a yellow cone flying. Jerry Fucking Kelly, a man on the move, Ray Tate thought as he took the centre lane, then the far left lane, slightly over the white line to watch the Saab’s light configuration vanish where the highway briefly dipped south.
While he drove, Ray Tate took glances at the odometer and the gas gauge and thought about mileage. He computed that if Jerry Kelly was going all the way to Buffalo he’d have to pull off to tank up. He pulled into the first gas station he came to. It glowed like a spaceship dropped from some dark galaxy. He made sure there was no silver Saab, then rolled up to a pump.
When he approached the booth to prepay he saw the East Indian attendant watch him approach, putting both hands under the counter. He was looking at Ray Tate’s ankle where his jeans had rode up and the pant cuff was jammed up and his holster and the gun butt were visible.
“Okay, it’s okay. I’m a cop.” When he badged the guy, the man took his hands out from underneath the counter and Ray Tate pushed a credit card into the rotating tray. He fixed his pants cuff. “Thirty bucks. You get a guy in a silver Saab through here, the last while?”
The man shook his head, processed the card, and pushed it back with a chocolate bar.
Ray Tate continued along the bottom of the lake, gnawing on the chocolate bar. He kept the 500 at a steady eighty. Driving time was thinking time. He thought about Djuna Brown and wondered how she was making out on Marko.
Just before Buffalo there was a blast of motion on his right and the Saab blistered past him. He didn’t see the driver’s face but recognized Jerry Kelly’s posture, arms out straight like a race-car driver, head back against the headrest. Fuck whatever’s behind me, forward motion, chop chop. The Saab was quickly gone; Ray Tate increased his speed until he could just make out the configuration ahead in the taillights of the thickening traffic.
At the last minute the silver Saab did a three lane drift and hooked into the exit to Buffalo airport, under a sign with the silhouette of an airplane.
Ray Tate hit Djuna Brown’s number of his cellphone and it went straight to message. He didn’t like that much and hoped she was working. He left a message telling her he was up on Jerry Kelly, heading to the Buffalo airport.
Zoe Preston came through arrivals at the airport clutching a white plastic airport gift shop bag containing her stained peasant blouse, two uneaten chocolate bars, and her daybook. There were young troops with all manner of military equipment encircling their waists. All clutched complicated guns that she recognized as being able to unleash a chain of bullets at frightening speed. She’d been in places that were states of war but never were the troops so young and American.
She was trudging when she walked past a pleasant-looking man in a suit who was talking on a payphone.
Jerry Kelly was lining up his convoy, constantly repeating the instructions in a circular way until the moron he was speaking to understood where to be and what to bring. He watched Zoe Preston come through arrivals clutching her pathetic plastic migrant luggage. The moron on the phone finally said he
got it and that he’d be ready.
Jerry Kelly would have known she had the Presto’s blood in her even if he hadn’t recognized her from a funeral he’d attended with Marko. She wore a T-shirt with Don’t Mess With Texas printed on it over a longhorn steer. He waited until she passed through the automatic doors, then scanned the crowd behind her. He strolled out to find her on the walkway, looking left and right.
He made a pleasant Clown Jerry face and approached her. “Zo’? Hey, Zo’? Jeez, I thought I missed you. We met before, at a funeral Marko took me to. I’m Jerry, a pal of your dad’s.” He took her plastic bag and steered her toward the parking lot. “Good flight, I hope? You eat?”
She said: “I’m okay. Do you know where my dad is? Is he all right?”
Jerry Kelly nodded companionably. “He’s okay, he’s good. He’s just in the middle of a problem right now, nothing to do with you. He asked Marko to ask me to get you back safe and sound.”
She nodded. “Do you know what happened … to me?”
He aimed his key ring at the silver Saab and made the lights flash. “Yeah, Marko thinks somebody framed you up with dope, got you pinched. Some hustle by some Mexican cops. Marko had me pull some strings to get you out of custody, then he decided to get you out of the country, fast. The guy whose place you were at was acting funny. Favour for your dad.”
She boarded. “Did you send those men to get me?”
He closed her door and rounded the car and got behind the wheel. “Yes. I heard it was pretty bad.” He shook his head and made sure she’d fastened her seatbelt, then reached over and tugged at it in a dad-like fashion. “You know how things are, right? The things your dad and Marko are into? They’re not, ah …” he searched for neutral words, but ended up wagging his hand, “… you know?”
“A boy died.”
Jerry Kelly nodded, his face a mask of manifest sympathy. “I heard. But they had plans, Zo’, devious plans, and it would’ve been worse for you, much worse, if Marko hadn’t straightened it out. Your uncle loves you. He was beside himself. ‘Get her out, Jerry,’ he said. ‘Whatever it costs, whatever it takes, bring my Zoe home.’ He was frantic, in tears almost. A prince, that guy, you’re a lucky girl.” Jerry Kelly looked near tears, himself, and she wanted to comfort him.
Driving slowly, he followed the signs off the airport. He swung west when he hit the interstate. “So, we have to keep you safe. Marko asked me to take you to a place where you’ll be safe, where your dad can come and get you. We’re going to rendezvous with some people and go up north of the city a little. A couple of days and it’ll all be hunky dory.”
“How come my dad and Uncle Marko are doing something together? They’ve been …”
Jerry Kelly laughed. “That old stuff? They’ve patched it up. It’s been tough to see those two apart, it broke my heart to see years of friendship go out the window. But, and I’m proud to take credit here, I couldn’t take it anymore and I brought them together. Just like the old days. ‘You knuckleheads love each other, get over it,’ I said. Life goes on, eh, kiddo?” He suggested she get some sleep. “We got a long drive, take you up to a friend’s place in the country. You’ll like her. She’s a cool chick.
Exhaustion was finally upon Zoe and she felt safe and secure at the thought of her dad and Uncle Marko and her mom once again sitting together and laughing, the three people she loved most in the world.
She slept.
Ray Tate drove home-bound and into the last gas station west of Buffalo and watched the traffic. If Jerry Kelly was taking a flight someplace, there was nothing he could do about it. At least he wasn’t carrying Markowitz’s millions. And the airport was so large he wouldn’t know where to set up, to look for him.
He dialed Djuna Brown’s cellphone but it again went to message. He saw he had a missed message and he dialed in the code.
“Hey, it’s me,” she said. “I’m going to be late. I’m having drinks with a friend …” Away from the phone she said, “I got to leave your name and stuff, my roommate’s paranoid, it’s a thing we do for each other because of creeps … okay.” She came back. “His name’s Mark, he’s a business guy in like his forties. Good-looking guy … Just hit on me, out of the blue. A white guy with balls.” Behind her a man’s voice said something and she giggled. “A white guy on the outside, but his heart is black. He swears he’s not a creep. They all know him, here. Mark. Anyway, we’re at Gratelli’s but we’re going someplace else, I dunno, to talk. I’ll call you, okay?”
He pulled out onto the interstate thinking of all the things that might be going on, that could go wrong for her. Undercover, rubbing up against someone, that required a certain training, a certain attitude, a betrayal heart. She didn’t have that kind of heart.
A silver Saab suddenly blew up on his right side, close, rocking the 500. He waited a moment, then put his foot in and the 500 just went like a bastard. Alongside the Saab he got a quick glimpse. A blond young woman in the passenger seat, her head against the window, mostly facing out. In profile she looked in her early twenties, peaceful in sleep. At first he thought it was Julia Gurr, but much younger. She looked vaguely familiar. Jerry Kelly was in kiss-my-ass mode: arms straight ahead, head back on the rest. Ray Tate let the 500 decelerate back. He tagged the Saab to the top of the city, tightening up as the traffic crawled through the two exits.
Ahead Jerry Kelly signalled left to ramp-on to the Eight that would take him downtown. Ray Tate made his move early, letting a screen of cars get between them.
Then the Saab, with the indicator still winking left, did a sudden three lane drift to the right and was across the zebra stripes and up the highway toward the Badlands and Indian Country and was gone.
The drive seemed long, endless but pleasant. Zoe Preston awoke a couple of times very briefly, but each time felt no less exhausted. The car radio was playing soft jazz; a suit jacket had been loosely placed over her body. A cool wind came through the cracked-down driver’s side window, looped through the car, and stirred at her hair. Once, as she dozed, the car stopped and she smelled gasoline being pumped. She heard men’s voices, then the buzzer of the car door opening and softly clicking shut. She heard a coffee cup lid being ripped; glaring halogen lights flared on the inside of her eyelids. She smelled a cigarette and heard Jerry Kelly take an audible cautious sip of coffee.
She said, “Huh?” and started to stretch, her balled fists up against the headliner of the car.
“S’okay, Zo’, go back to sleep. We got a long drive, make you safe.”
She sat up. The Saab was on a dark highway. Cut rock shapes rose on either side of the road and they flared as the Saab’s headlights washed over them, then they were gone and the Saab was chasing a tunnel cut by its own headlights.
Ahead she made out the taillights of another vehicle. Jerry Kelly seemed to be keeping pace with it. Very occasionally a car heading the other way appeared, then vanished in a zip of sound and light. When this happened she glanced at Jerry Kelly’s relaxed face, slightly upturned as he drove with his head back against the headrest, his arms almost straight out like a child imitating a racing car driver. She marvelled at how his face was suddenly made naked and flat by blistering oncoming headlights, crowded with impenetrable shadows. For a moment she was frightened by this Hitchcockian dramatic blanc et noir light. A couple of times she saw him pop something into his mouth and crunch it audibly, wash it down with coffee.
Briefly she thought of how poetic his voice had been on the telephone in Houston, how surprising it was to find not a cool-looking operator like her dad, but an average guy with the manner of a manager of a small, moderately successful business.
He felt her examination and a smile came to his face, the lights of the dash making deep pools of shadow under his forehead, above his cheekbones, beneath his chin. “What?”
“Nothing, I was just thinking it seems like a few minutes ago I was in Mexico and now I’m …” she looked around through the windshield “… here.”
&
nbsp; “Funny,” he said, taking a loose cigarette out of his pocket. “You mind?” He lit it, wreathing his head in a cloud of smoke that came equally from his mouth and his nostrils. “Me too, Zo’. I was just thinking about that same thing. Weird. Kindred.”
She made a weak joke. “You mean you were in Mexico this morning, too? I didn’t see you there.”
He laughed out of proportion. “No, hah, good one. No, I was thinking that every morning the sun comes up and we’re there, standing in a glorious light; the day is ahead and who of us knows where we’ll be when the sun goes down behind us. Where it has witnessed us going, what it has seen us doing. We trek our way toward our own happiness and if we don’t make it that day, well, that’s okay. The sun will be there for us the next day, showing us the way, guiding.” He leaned forward and glanced up. “But up there. See the moon? Moon’s a different kind of cat. The moon is definitely spooky and somewhat sinister. Good or bad things can happen when the sun’s out, but when the moon’s out keeping an eye on you it can’t see that much, you can get away with a lot of stuff you maybe shouldn’t be getting away with. Under the moon things can get … well, lunar.” He leaned again and glanced up, trying to angle a view around a rock cut. “And that’s no joke, Zo’, let me tell you. Jeepers. Lunar doings.”
He seemed to lapse into deep reflection, nodding to himself. Zoe looked around a little, felt an unaccountable chill, then snuggled herself back under his suit jacket and, just before she went into a light sleep, thought she heard a grinding of teeth and a faraway giggle.
PART THREE
Chapter 25
Marko Markowitz smiled, thinking of the recently fled Jerry Kelly. Gone so fucking fast, he thought, his breath’s still in the air and his shadow’s still on the wall. A whirling criminal dervish, a spinning target unaffected by gravity or any polar pull. Plan nothing, Jerry always told him, just make your move even before you make it; if you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, how can they?
