by Lee Lamothe
The upstairs rooms were all bare and doorless but one had a single framed bed with a striped mattress on it. The window’s pane was cracked. Against the fading outside light she saw the shape of a wine bottle on the outside ledge of the window, cooling. The mattress was thin and sagging in the middle. He was speaking urgently and pressing and pulling at the same time and they made a hard landing, she on the bottom, the springs jangling. Fear fled for her. She was amazed he had so many hands, that she had so many places. His hands were here, then there, still for a moment, then moving again.
It was brief and loud. Afterward they undressed and he slipped up the window and retrieved the bottle of wine, a corkscrew already inserted into the cork. He got onto the bed beside her; they both lay on their sides, her leg hooked over his hip, shivering as they cooled down, facing each other, and drank directly from the bottle, sloppy and spilling. “Wow,” she said. “The stress fuck. We haven’t done that in a while.”
“It was a last minute thing, this. It was stupid, I guess, and a risk.”
She nuzzled under his neck. “How much more time do we have?”
“Well, not long, anyway. There’s still stuff to be done. I just had to … see you, make sure at the end of this, when we have Zoe, we’ll be okay. The dead-end telephone variation is okay for business, but it’s very hard to maintain and … I needed this. I didn’t want Truong’s grandson to say anything. I wasn’t sure I’d still be here or if I’d change my mind. Or if he’d spot something behind you.”
“The telephone thing, that was brilliant. Marko’s going nuts, not being in control.”
“Marko. I think I’m going to have to do something about Marko, when this is over. When Zoe’s safe.”
“Don’t, Bobby. You’re not that way.” She got up on her elbow. “Seriously. Marko’s fucked things up, but I think it isn’t Marko, I think it’s Jerry. Don’t do him, really. Marko fucked up, okay, but …”
He understood her misunderstanding. “No, no. Not that.” He gave her a sip of wine. “I’ll talk to him. We went off sideways someplace; he made a mistake, a lot of them. So did I. I forgot who we were, what we were. I forgot the blood. If I’d been there for him years ago, he wouldn’t be out there alone with Pavo on his back. No matter what he did, he’s still … I don’t know. If this works out with getting Zoe back, me’n Marko, maybe we’ll talk a little.”
They lay looking at the pale light smeared on the ceiling, their hands idling over each other. She relaxed back against him, relieved, half on top of him, her fingers tracing some intricate design on his skin.
Reluctantly, he said, “You should go. It’ll be dark soon.”
“I’m cool, staying a while.” She surprised herself. The night terror was fading. She wanted to stay, to have more time together. If the night caught her out, she’d deal with it. Just like she was dealing with her terror of Jerry Kelly.
Sitting up and dressed they sat side by side on the cot, stretching time. Preston thought: less than twenty-four hours and there’ll be endless days like this. Planning and creating and projecting the shape of a new life. Reflecting in his new good thoughts of Marko, he believed Marko wouldn’t under any circumstances allow Zoe to be in real danger.
She said, “Bobby, what’s the plan? The variation?”
“You can’t know that.” He stretched. “It’s a good one, though.”
“A hint, just a hint, c’mon.” She got playful. “A truck? Hide the boxes in something else?”
“Nope,” he said, “something better.” He held her to him. “Don’t worry. It’ll go fine. Only problem is going to be letting go of the dough and taking Zoe back.” He held the wine bottle up against the window. “A sip left.” He watched her drink. “Did Marko say anything about Zoe? Is she back here, stashed someplace?”
“He just said he’s getting her back, that she’s on her way back here and she’ll be ready.”
“Because, Jools, that’s the key, right? That she’s back. You have to convince Marko that there’s no fucking way this is going to fly well for him unless she’s there.” He tilted his watch to the light from the lamp post outside. “I’ve got to move. But I need to know some stuff. Where’s the dough now? How many guys have Marko and Jerry got around for security?”
She told him about Gherzanian’s place and said she’d seen three of Jerry’s boys around, so far. “He might get more, I don’t know. Depends on how paranoid he gets. One of them has a gun he flashes sometimes. Probably the others have got them too.”
“Soon as you leave here, call Marko and tell him I called. I want the money out of the boxes and into knapsacks. Tell him not to cheap out. We need good strong bags, heavy canvas, black or dark blue. A dinghy and a compressor. The dough crosses, I’m out of this thing. We walk away. You, me, and Zoe.”
“So, it’s the water. That fucking river.”
“That’s what they’ll think.”
“Wherever it is, where you gonna put Jerry and Marko?”
“As far from Zoe and you as possible. If they follow the instructions, everybody should be okay. We should be okay.”
She told him how Marko had finessed any chance of Jerry going Crazy Jerry. “No matter how funny Jerry gets, or how tough he is, there’s no way he’s going to try to beat Pavo out of the dough. There’s no end in it for him now, so I think he’ll be good.”
“That’s a load off, anyway. Sneaky Marko.” He steered her down the narrow stairs. “I’ll give you a call around noon. You be with Marko then and have Zoe and the dough ready to move. I’ll be setting a tight deadline and you’ll have to insist that he follows everything though.”
“We’ll be done by tomorrow night, though, right? This’ll be over and we can all take a vacation or something? Find new friends?”
They let themselves out of the house.
“Are you okay to go in the dark? I can get someone from Truong’s to drive you.”
“I’m okay. Better than okay.”
Tiger Truong’s grandson sat on the steps in his coveralls, keeping an eye on the street. The two knapsacks were gone. He stood up in one fluid motion, leaned to lock the door, and said, “Yes?”
After Bobby Preston left Julia Gurr and the Asian kid standing in front of the house, May, the Chinese ISS woman, was nested behind a picket fence five houses down, trapped. She watched Julia Gurr drive off and watched the Asian kid slowly make his way along the block. She waited until he passed, then scooted up to the walkway beside the house where Bobby Preston had gone. She stood still and listened and heard dogs barking a couple of blocks away.
She spoke into a microphone in her blouse and told Joey Jeff Watson Preston’s direction of travel, that he was at least two blocks west. Watson, in the Cutlass with Djuna Brown three blocks away, called Ray Tate and told him the target was away on foot, west. Ray Tate said he was on his way to the area.
“We should be necking, or something,” Watson told Djuna Brown. “Cover, in case they look in.”
“That the best you got, man?” Djuna Brown laughed. “I got me a white pervert already. I’m cool.”
“Yeah. Not too smooth, eh?”
“Just work her, Joey. I saw her. She’s got the look on for you. Just don’t be a … just don’t be a fucking cop all the time. Show her something else. What else you got?”
“Modern, ah, poetry, you know, at the university, night school?”
“There you are. That’s who you show her.”
“You think?”
“Joey, cops are a dime a dozen. Poets? Sometime I’ll tell you about the last cops me and Ray worked with. They showed their hearts and now they’re living the sweet life in Spain.”
She patted his hand and got out of the Cutlass.
She walked down to a lit-up block and oriented herself, then headed west. She saw an all-nighter lit up a block ahead and called Ray Tate on the freddy. “There’s a bucket of blood, four blocks east of Truong’s. Meet you there.”
“Twenty minutes.”
S
he was exhausted, but feeling pretty good. The schoolboy romance of Joey Jeff Watson and the mysterious May amused her. She was wondering about them, about their possibilities, when she came up on the bucket of blood and saw Bobby Preston sitting in the window, his nose in a cup of coffee, examining passing vehicles and the sparse pedestrian traffic.
Djuna Brown went by and stepped into a doorway, unbuttoned her blouse partway and put a stone into her shoe. She hit Ray Tate on the freddy. “I got him, Ray. At the all-nighter. Hurry, mon ami.”
With a stagger and her hair mussed, she limped like a tire biter into the joint and collapsed herself at the vacant counter, her back to Bobby Preston.
Ray Tate did door-to-doors with two borrowed Intelligence guys the boss had scared up, calling in favours. The less the white shirts at the Jank knew, the better.
The Intelligence guys knew who he was, were respectful. He’d gone the distance, three times. He showed them the surveillance photographs from his briefcase, identifying Marko, Kelly, Gurr, and Preston, and gave them his cell number. “If you see them bringing stuff out, tag ’em and hit me right away.” Before he drove away, he said, “At least one of them is armed. Handgun, under his coat, right side, so heads up.”
He made it downtown in record time, figuring he and Djuna Brown could get a couple of hours alone before things heated up. Three blocks from the bucket of blood traffic stopped while two young skinheads had a fist fight in the middle of the street. He looked around and saw in the car beside him a couple who’d clearly had a tough night. The driver was in his late teens and he leaned into the windshield, blinking his eyes rapidly and rotating his neck. In the passenger seat he saw a blond young woman, her makeup in disarray and her cheek pressed against the window, sleeping.
There was no real resemblance between this woman sleeping in the car beside him and the blond girl he’d seen framed the other night in the window of Jerry Kelly’s silver Saab, but it closed a circle for him. The girl being squired by Jerry Fucking Kelly was the same girl standing with Bobby Preston in the funeral surveillance photos in Markowitz’s file.
He stopped short of the all-nighter and hid the 500 behind a gas station. From his briefcase he took a wad of surveillance photographs and riffled through them, confirming that the girl in Jerry Kelly’s Saab was the same girl with Bobby Preston at the funeral.
He rearranged his clothing into a mess. He pulled the zipper of his pants down and pulled a piece of his shirttail through it; he mussed his hair, took off one of his boots. He put the boot into the back seat of the car and made sure the other, with his ankle holster riding in the top, was covered by his pant leg. He made his way to the entrance of the all-nighter, guiding himself by feeling along the window of the place as though disoriented.
Djuna Brown was hunched at the counter, watching the street in the back mirror. She glanced around as Ray Tate spent several seconds trying to operate the front door, his face confused before he understood the dynamics of Pull and Push. Behind the counter a fat man wearing a sleeveless T-shirt said, “Oh, Christ,” as he watched Ray Tate finally complete his entrance and look around proudly, as if he’d solved a global crisis. Four young black men crowded into a rear booth made comments to each other and laughed; an old couple sat side-by-side in a booth closer to the door, too engrossed in conversation to notice much. There were two men having an argument at the far end of the counter, taking turns stabbing their fingers at a day-old newspaper. Bobby Preston was in the first booth, backward to the restaurant, facing the door.
“Fuck,” Ray Tate said to no one, laughing. “Jeez, tough place to get into.”
“Get another boot,” the man in the T-shirt said, “and you can stay. Dress code. No boot, no brains, no service.” But he reached for the coffee cup and held it up. “Don’t bother the customers, okay, or you drink it outside.
“No problem, my brother. I come in peace.” He sat two stools away from Djuna Brown and made a show of checking her out. “‘Scuse me, no offence, miss, but are you related to Eartha Kitt? You sing the blues? You got those cat’s eyes, drive a man to the blues.”
“Hey, leave the lady alone. I told you.”
Djuna Brown told the counterman it was okay. He went down the counter and took a bottle wrapped in a dirty white towel from under the end of the counter. Partially blocking himself, he poured something into two coffee cups, topped them off with black coffee and took them to the guys arguing over the newspaper.
Djuna Brown said, “Your pants are messed up, you know? Your zipper.”
Ray Tate looked down at his lap in regal dignity. “I know. I wear them that way. It’s a … ah … fashion statement. Big in Paris right now. Hip.” He gave her a sly look. “So nice of you, you know, to notice.”
She patted the stool beside her. “C’mon, sit with me. Night folks, we’re all friends here. We are the people.”
He slid over and gave her a wide smile. He leaned in intimately and whispered, “Nice one, my little beatnikette. How’d you find him?”
“Police work. Just walk around until you find a bandit, then … Pow. How we gonna play it?”
“Remember the girl I saw in Jerry Kelly’s car from Buffalo?” He was whispering with intimacy. “It’s the blond girl with him in the surveillance pictures at a funeral. I think it’s his kid.”
The counterman dumped the blind bottle back under the counter. He came down the room quickly. “No, no. No working here, honey. Both of you, out. Pay and go.”
“Fuck this,” Ray Tate said, standing and straightening himself out, his balance suffering from the lack of one boot, using his hands to comb his hair back. He lifted his badge from his shirt pocket. “Go back to pouring shots, nothing to worry about.” He picked up his coffee mug and turned. “Hey, Bobby, mind if we join you? We been following dootchbags around all day and, well, maybe we should talk.”
Bobby Preston looked up. His face was calm but tired and he stared back and forth between them. He made a fast connection to the couple across from the cafe patio, to the black chick and the jazzy guy. “Fuck.” He drained off his coffee and went to get up.
Djuna Brown said, “You can leave, if you want. But I’ll tell you, there’s about six hundred cops on you, now that Marko’s money’s in town. We’re at the warehouse out past the airport. We’re on Markowitz and Jerry Kelly. We’re on all the places Julia Gurr visited today. We’re on the chop shop down the street and we just tucked everybody in for the night. Don’t cost you nothing to listen at least, right? We’ll buy the coffee and shots and we can all join hands in a circle, watch the sun come up. C’mon, be a pal. We’re lonely folks.”
“I’m gone.”
“Not for long, though, right?” Ray Tate said, and decided to play one. It couldn’t hurt. He knew his own weak spot was his daughter. It had been a weapon his ex-wife used to cut him with. It always worked. He bled. “Next time you see us, we’ll be doing warrants for all of you. You, Marko, Jerry, Gurr. Various thugs and mugs. Your kid.”
“What do you know about my kid?” Preston froze and waited. “My kid’s square.”
“Nobody with Jerry Kelly’s square. Jerry’s unborn children have already got warrants out on them.”
“Bullshit, Jerry Kelly. She’s in … She’s out of town.”
“Suit yourself. But you should know, I saw her last night, heading into the Badlands in a silver Saab, driven by your pal Jerry. Pale, blond hair, back like yours?”
Preston sat down. Djuna Brown and Ray Tate sat opposite him.
Ray Tate read his anxiety and played off it by ignoring it. He called to the counterman, “Yo, three coffee, make them heavy.”
Djuna Brown stalled. “You’re a legendary guy. You’re Mr. Presto! Cool. Great to meet you face to face at last. We’ve been looking at you through a long lens for a long time. Anybody ever tell you: you’re a good-looking guy, in a beatnik kind of way? I mean, if you dig that look? Not that I do.”
The counterman put down the mugs. The aroma of rye lifted in th
e steam. “No trouble? We’re jake, right? I got some nice pie, apple, fresh this morning.”
She was feeling pretty good. She had no idea where Ray Tate was going to go, but she was content to ride along, speaking but saying nothing substantive. “Jake we be, bud. Maybe later for that pie action.”
Preston stared at Ray Tate. “Zoe.”
She sipped at her coffee and made a face. “Yuck.”
Preston said, “Tell me about Zoe, or I’m outta here.”
Ray Tate shrugged. “The deal is this. You answer one of ours, we answer one of yours. How’s that?”
“What? Ask your one.”
“That place out by the airport where Gurr’s been playing with Marko and the boys. The dough’s in there, right? Marko’s dough? That’s what Gurr’s been taking away all day?”
Preston ground his palms into his eyes. He picked up the mug and drained it. Ray Tate thought he’d just boiled his tongue.
Preston nodded. “The money’s there.” He looked from one to the other; they seemed friendly enough, but pretty crazy, between them. “Zoe. Where’d you see Zoe? When?”
Ray Tate said, “Okay. I had her in a silver Saab driven by Jerry Kelly. You know him right? Jerry Fucking Kelly. Friend of Markowitz’s. Psycho, and all round menace?”
“Bullshit. When?”
“My turn, Presto. How much dough is there, out by the airport?”
“About ten. Ten ems.” He asked, “When?”
“Last night.” He looked at his watch. “Actually, the night before last. I took him around and lost him for a while, then I saw him on the interstate. Last seen boiling north into the Badlands. With your kid in the car.”
“Why didn’t you stop them?”
“For what? I didn’t even know it was her at the time. She was sleeping on the door.” He decided to ramp up Bobby Preston’s stress. “At least I thought she was sleeping, but who knows, with Jerry?”
