Dead Irish

by John Lescroart

  She was four floors up and it wouldn’t take him long, so she ran into her bedroom, dropped her robe on the floor and pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. No time for underwear. Then a quick brush through the hair—barefoot was okay. In the bathroom the water was cold but felt good on her face. No makeup, but at least she’d be clean. A last look. Not bad.

  The place wasn’t exactly a mess. Certainly it had been much worse. A couple of pillows out of place, some dishes on the drain. On the way to the door she dropped the pizza delivery box into the garbage, then kicked the coffee mug and the box of Ritz and the empty Coke cans under the couch.

  “Hey,” Alphonse said, sauntering in past her. “What’s happenin’?” He wore a red tank top under unbuttoned Army fatigues. His face seemed to shine in the room’s light.

  “How’d you know where I lived?”

  He smiled, looking his real age for a minute. “I looked it up, man.”

  He bopped over to the window and looked out. His body became very still, hands at his side. He stared without a word at the Bay and Alcatraz beyond, as though something was on his mind. Well, she could give him time.

  She didn’t know him very well yet. This was kind of how he’d been on Friday, though at work he had always seemed more energetic, jumpy almost. Especially that last week when they’d done the toot—then he’d really been fun, laughing and cutting up. He could do Eddie Murphy better than anybody.

  He turned around, motioned with his head. “Righteous,” he said, “the view.”

  He seemed to notice her for the first time. His eyes rested for a second on her breasts, traveled down her body.

  “I’m glad you came by. I wasn’t doing anything.” She made what she thought was a cute shrugging gesture. “You want a beer or something, help yourself in the fridge. I’m not done making up yet.”

  She went back into the bathroom, heard the refrigerator door open. A second later he was leaning against the doorway, looking at her in the mirror as she brushed on some powder.

  “Hey,”—she made it sound light—“I’ll be out in a minute, okay?”

  He just stayed there, sipping at his beer. “Come on, Alphonse, you’re making me nervous.”

  He shrugged. “Nothing to be nervous about. It’s just me.” He put the beer down on the back of the toilet, just reaching over casually. She felt his hand on her waist, then move down across her backside. “What are you doing?”

  Moving a step sideways, away from his hand, but turning around toward him, giggling. “Come on, give me a minute.”

  “I don’t got a minute,” he said. His eyes weren’t laughing. She caught a look at them in the mirror, then turned completely to face him. “What’s the . . . ? Hey,” she said.

  “Tha’s right.”

  He still wasn’t smiling. His penis was jutting out from the front of his fatigues, his eyes locked onto her face.

  “Alphonse.”

  He held it in his right hand and pulled her toward him with the other. “You want some of this.”

  It wasn’t a question. He took her hand and put it on him.

  It was going pretty fast. Now his other hand went behind her neck, and she was kissing him, still gripping him hard as though holding for her life on a thick piece of wood. It felt hard as wood.

  She pushed him back. He wasn’t fighting her anymore—they were in it together. She let go of him for a minute and undid her jeans, pulling them half down, getting herself up on the countertop.

  “God, Alphonse.” Throwing her arms around his neck.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah.”

  “I got this situation.”

  They sat at the glass-topped kitchen table, each drinking some Mickey’s Big Mouth from the six-pack that Alphonse had gone down and bought on the corner about a half hour earlier. He was finally getting around to what he’d come for. Or getting around to something else he’d come for.

  They weren’t exactly doing lines as a thing, where they’d just keep going through the day and into the night, but they’d had a few toots from the small pile of blow on the tabletop. Alphonse was wearing his red tank top and his camouflage pants. Linda had some hip-cut bikini briefs that, with the T-shirt hanging a little low, made it look like she was wearing nothing when you looked from the side.

  Say what you want about the face, Alphonse thought, the girl has got legs that go all the way up. But that part was over for the time being, and he had some business to conduct.

  She looked at him with a cocked head, loose now and feeling pretty good. “Talk to me.”

  “It’s like this,” he began, and ran down to her the scam he’d developed on the way over, borrowing heavily from his experiences in the past two weeks. He had this situation—he liked that word, the mysterious authority behind it—where he knew two guys. One of them had formed the impression that he, Alphonse, was a dealer. Another dude he knew was, in fact, a dealer. Anyway, the first guy had a couple of grand to lay out for some good blow, but his source had dried up, where the second guy had a good stash and was always looking for buyers.

  “So, I figger, put ’em together and what’s for Alphonse?” He sucked on his index finger and picked up some powder, running it around his gums. Then a little wash with Mickey’s. “Get me?”

  Linda nodded solemnly.

  “But”—Alphonse smiled a big smile—“I lay my hands on some green, I buy the stash, cut it, sell it, keep a pile for you and me to party a bit, and”—he held up his still-damp index finger—“and have some pocket money left over, maybe do the whole thing again.”

  “It’s hard to get money,” Linda said.

  “Getting started, that’s always the thing.” He sipped at the beer again, taking his time, then reached a hand across the table and patted her face. “You a bad woman,” he said gently. He ran his finger over the table again, pressing into the pile of coke to get a lot on it, and put it at Linda’s lips. She opened her mouth and he put the finger down under her tongue and left it there a second.

  “Umm,” she said.

  “Bad.”

  She held his hand there, his finger in her mouth, with both of her hands. They stared at each other. When all the cocaine was surely long off the finger, she took it out, and giggled. “Wow,” she said. She looked down at the last of the pile. “Getting low.”

  “Thing is,” Alphonse said, “if we could just score a loan.”

  “They don’t loan for that.”

  “But think. Maybe two hours the whole thing takes. That’s all we need is some bread for two hours.” Alphonse sipped beer again, then brought the bottle down in middrink. “Hey!” As though he’d just thought of it. “Your old man.”

  Linda shook her head. “He’s not into stuff like that.” With the rush and all, feeling pretty good, it was hard for Alphonse not to laugh. “Maybe he wouldn’t have to know. He could front it and never know it.”

  “Like think it was something else?”

  “Maybe you ask him for a down on a car, like that?”

  “Six months ago, maybe. Not now.”

  Alphonse looked down, disappointed. Now play this one cool, man, here is the punch line. “You think he got anything at the office?”

  “The office?”

  “Yeah, you know, petty cash, like that.” Linda shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Sometimes, but . . .”

  “Worth lookin’?”

  “I don’t know. It’s . . .”

  “Hey, it’s gone two hours, if it’s there. Who’ll know?”

  “Like where, though?”

  “He got a safe or something, or what?”

  “Yeah, sure, in the back behind his desk.”

  “We check it out, what do we lose?”

  “What if he’s there?”

  Alphonse looked at her. “He been there all week?” He reached over and touched her face again, like a reminder. He tapped her cheek. “We look, huh? Nothing there, no big deal.”

  “We’d have it back . . .”

 
“Hey, like tonight even. He’d never even know.”

  Linda, still unsure. “He just wouldn’t have that much in the safe.”

  “Hey, but if he does . . .”

  “Why would he, the way the business is going?”

  “Shit, girl, I don’t know. Maybe he’s saving to buy his cute piece o’ honey something—don’t want her to find out.”

  Linda stopped arguing, looked down at the table, ran her own finger through the last of the pile and rubbed it in against her gums. “You’re right,” she said, her voice suddenly gone husky. “It can’t hurt to check, can it?”

  “You know the combination?”

  “I know it’s under the blotter on the desk.”

  But it wasn’t.

  So they spent about forty minutes looking for it, until Alphonse got on the floor and pulled out the elbow rest or writing pad or whatever it was that was stuck in the desk with a little groove on the bottom that you could put your finger in and then pull out.

  “He always kept it under the blotter.”

  “Hey, baby, it’s cool. The main thing is we got it now.” He whistled. Five numbers, up to eighty. “You ever open the thing?”

  She nodded, sliding off the desk where she’d been sitting, sulking, coming down very hard. “You got any more blow?” she asked.

  Alphonse had a few lines, as always, and he hadn’t poured them out back at Linda’s on the general rule that you don’t tap out. But, he figured, now was tap city or bust.

  This be the table, jacks. He felt it, and as he’d earlier proved, he was on a roll. “Maybe a line, two.” He smiled his bright smile. “And the man be dealin’.”

  He was careful, pouring the cocaine onto the wooden desk, cutting it cleanly into four lines with his pocket knife, the one he’d used on Sam. It was a sharp knife.

  They made a game out of it. “Right two,” Alphonse said, and Linda, on her knees with her ass sticking out—was she doing that on purpose?—and her tits—and Alphonse loved tits—big and firm-looking held up under the T-shirt, just turned that little dial. “Left, eighteen.”

  “Daddy’s gonna shit we don’t get this back.”

  “We’ll get it back. Right seventy-seven.”

  “Sunset strip.”

  “You wanna?”

  She giggled.

  “Right nine,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “Left—don’t go past it—sixty-three.” He expected they’d go at it nine, eleven, forty times, but goddamn if the thing didn’t open just like a refrigerator.

  Linda, wordless, reached in and pulled out one of the packets of hundred-dollar bills, tied with a banker’s ribbon on which was written, in red felt-tip pen, “$10,000.”

  Alphonse eased his ass off the desk and made himself go slow the fifteen feet across to her. She just held it out, like, “What is this?”

  He took it, riffled it, realizing deep in his heart that it was the real thing, that this was the number-one end of the line roll to end all rolls.

  He crossed back to the desk. The packet of money fit easily into the front pocket of the camouflage pants. “Goddamn,” he said, surprised at the high end to his voice. He turned to look at Linda, still kneeling by the safe. “Goddamn! You hear me? God . . . goddamn.”

  He felt like he had to go to the bathroom. “How much is there?” Linda asked, her voice small now behind the cavernous roaring rush in Alphonse’s ears.

  He didn’t even hear her. Over at the desk now he saw the knife and maybe a quarter line of powder and, knowing he’d just busted the house, he leaned down and scraped it into a small pile, licked his finger, ran it over the wood and then popped it into his mouth.

  “How much is there? Enough for your deal?”

  He turned around. What was she talking about? She was still kneeling by the open safe, which seemed to be filled with packets like the one in his pocket. And she was crying.

  “Is that enough?” she repeated.

  It was like he couldn’t understand what she was saying. He crossed over to her, took her face in both his hands.

  “Hey.” Going to kiss her, but she turned away. Again, “Hey.”

  Her eyes came up to him. “It’s all for her, isn’t it?” she asked. “He saved all this for Nika.”

  What?

  “What are we gonna do, then?” she asked. Alphonse didn’t know what she was talking about, but he understood the literal question. “We gonna walk outta here,” he said, pointing inside at the stack of money, “with that shit.”

  “No,” she said.

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “I mean no. It’s not ours. Just to borrow.” She went to close the safe door. He remembered the lesson then, the slap that had made her somebody he could control, and he slashed out.

  What he forgot, just for that second, was that he still held the knife, razor sharp, open in his right hand. And the next thing he knew there was blood all over him, the floor, everywhere.

  Linda just opened her eyes wider, as if wondering what was going on. She opened her mouth, but no words came out, just more of that blood.

  Alphonse looked down at the knife in his hand, remembering. He dropped it, grabbed at his shirt, couldn’t rip it, and so pressed Linda’s shirt up against her neck as she collapsed into him.

  “Hey, girl, it’s all right. It’s all right now,” he said. He patted her head on his lap, but the blood was getting out everywhere, spreading in a stain across the floor. He backed himself out from under her, cradling her head in his hands, then laying it gently in the pool that had formed under it.

  He leaned back on his heels. “Shi . . .”

  But the blood was spreading over to where he kneeled, and he thought he already had enough on him, so he slid back, then forced himself up. “What’d you go do that for?” he said. He didn’t know, though, who he’d asked.

  The pockets in the pants were big, but they wouldn’t hold twelve of the packets of money, and that’s how many there were all together—eleven more. He took them out of the safe and stacked them on the desk.

  Outside Sam’s office, past Linda’s secretary spot, and down the hall, across the parking lot back to the warehouse, he walked to where they wrapped newspapers when it was wet, which was most days. The machine there spit out wrapping plastic and had a bar that heated it and cut it off clean. He flipped the switch on.

  It took him only two trips, trying not to look at Linda. He could hold three of the packs in each hand—three and two the second trip. He put two of the packets of three end to end, then next to them put the last packet of three and the one of two. The ten grand in his bloodstained pocket never entered his mind. What he’d put together wasn’t exactly symmetrical like a newspaper, but the machine worked perfectly, sealing the whole thing together so it would seem like one long package—a loaf of bread maybe.

  Alphonse, breathing hard now and not high in the least, found one of the brown paper bags they used for Sunday papers and slipped the plastic-wrapped bundle of money into it.

  Out in the parking lot Linda’s car sat alone in the overcast and windy midafternoon. Alphonse walked by it, carrying the bag, on his way to the street.

  He had the money. He didn’t need to drive. If he walked tall and fast, he’d be home by dark. He never even thought about the knife, lying on the floor in a thickening pool of blood, about midway between the open safe and Linda Polk’s head.

  Nika always slept after they made love, and normally so did Sam, but he couldn’t get his mind off the money. He could get down to Army, check it out, and be back within an hour, and after that he’d get some rest tonight. It had been a long weekend, and it still wasn’t even Sunday night.

  He got the call that morning. Same time, same station, okay? No, it wasn’t, he’d said. The Cruz parking lot was just too stupid. Why run up flags? How about the Coyote Point Marina, the old cement dock nobody used anymore? Monday at eight-thirty?

  So that was settled, but the money still kept his stomach churnin
g. He’d just check the office safe and make sure it was okay, then tomorrow would be the delivery and it would be all over.

  He’d tried to reach Alphonse, but nobody was home. That was all right. Alphonse would be in at work in the morning. They’d lay out the details of the transfer then—but after Friday’s display, Sam would bring his gun. Couldn’t be too careful, he thought.

  Nika slept soundly, breathing heavily, uncovered above her waist, one leg out wrapped over the blanket, on her side. Sam ran a hand along her flank as he took a last look at her before heading up to the city, perhaps checking if she was worth all this. He decided she was.

  He made it from Hillsborough to the Army Street exit in twelve minutes, then in another three he was at his lot. And there was Linda’s car.

  Overtime? It was possible, though he knew that they had been having their troubles lately. With her there, he knew the money would be safe. He almost turned to drive back home, not wanting to deal with her, to hassle with her jealousy.

  But he softened. Look at her, she’s okay, working in here on a Sunday, trying to keep it alive.

  Maybe with the new money I’ll take another run at it, he thought. Patch up things with the kid.

  He pulled into the lot.

  19

  HARDY WAS WALKING a shark.

  Wearing one of the wet suits that hung on the back of the door behind Pico’s office, he trudged around and around in the circular pool in the basement of the Steinhart Aquarium, his gloved hands trying to hold on to the great white shark that some fisherman had delivered in the hope that it would be the one that somehow would survive the trauma and become the centerpiece of Pico’s shark tank.

  But Hardy wasn’t walking for fame, for the feather it would be in the cap of Pico Morales, who happened to be the Steinhart’s curator. Hardy wasn’t walking the shark to make Pico’s career. He walked it to save its life. When Pico had called him this morning, suddenly it had occurred to him that though this shark madness had always been futile, that didn’t necessarily make it any less worthwhile. He’d surprised himself this time by saying he’d do it.