"Yes, sir, boss," she said, tongue in cheek. She brought her knee up and examined the healed-over skin where she'd scraped it on the roof of St. Patrick's. She tilted her head, glanced up at Springer, and when she saw that he wasn't aware that her eyes were on him, she used the chance to steal some from him and thought how much, how marvelously much, she loved him and always would, and that never would she let anything come before him, no matter what it cost her. Life without him would be for her like floating along without feet, like reaching out without hands. He was the love of her life, this life and the next and the next, just as surely as he had been her love before and before and before. She wanted him. She wanted him now. She felt herself go wet with her want of him.
She got up and put a Maureen McGovem on the stereo. Maureen started with "The Very Thought of You."
Springer sat in the chair kitty-comer from the foot of the bed. Instead of taking off his socks he put on his shoes.
"Going somewhere?" Audrey asked calmly.
"I have to meet a guy."
"Who?"
"Just a guy. Business."
"Before pleasure."
"I shouldn't be long."
She suspended time with a couple of long silent beats. Even her stance was candid. "You know, of course, I fully intend to have my way with you as soon as you get back."
Springer didn't get up and go over and kiss her because he knew if he did he wouldn't be able to leave. He smiled his I-too-want-you smile at her with his mouth and eyes and went into the dressing room. He put on his Audemars Piguet watch. Counted out and put to pocket five one-hundred-dollar bills. In the front left corner of the top drawer of his dresser was the precious Czar Nicholas II Faberge box that Libby had given him. It contained stone 588. He decided against the box, took only the stone. For extra measure he went into the Mark Cross leather box in which Audrey kept her current everyday jewelry. He hastily chose a pair of plain gold ear clips and a casual gold bracelet set with pale various-colored Ceylon sapphires.
When he passed through the bedroom to go downstairs, Audrey, among her pillows again, was reading her Blavatsky and taking the first bite of a Heath Bar. To not see Springer go, she didn't look up.
As soon as Luis spotted the guy he was for doing him.
Not Frankie. Frankie thought the guy looked too easy, the way he was walking along like nothing could happen. No one walks along like that at night in New York. It was almost like the guy was asking for it. Could be a setup, Frankie believed, a cop who'd put the clamp on them when they made the move. Last thing Frankie wanted was to do a cop. Luis was still a juve. All Luis would get was another lecture from a judge. Frankie had turned eighteen. His next time he'd do time.
They were on Lexington Avenue between 81st and 82nd on the west side of the street. About mid-block, so they looked enough like they were waiting for a bus rather than a score. It was a good area for them, only a block over from Park. Rich people were always walking their dogs, were braver with their dogs. Luis and Frankie had made moves and scored okay around there a few times.
Frankie gazed down Lex. It didn't matter either way about the guy any more. The guy was gone. Frankie was sorry now that they hadn't done him. It would have been a good thing, he felt.
Luis made Frankie feel worse about it by bringing up the watch, the flash watch they'd both noticed the guy was wearing.
Frankie said it was probably a fugaze. Lots of people were going for shit watches, rip-offs of Rolexes and Cartiers, all kinds.
Luis said he didn't think it looked like a fugaze. What if it wasn't?
So fucking what, man? Frankie flared.
About the time they got the guy out of their minds here he came again. Around the corner of 82nd and on down Lex. Right past them.
The thing that convinced Frankie to do him was the cane the guy was walking with. Cane with a carved ivory handle. Frankie got a good look at it when the guy went by. Also a better look at the watch. No cop would be out with a cane like that, Frankie told himself.
The guy, walking slow, crossed over at the comer and went east on 81st Street. Eighty-first along there was darker, just brownstones, no storefronts or anything. Cars parked on both sides.
Frankie ran full out down 82nd to Third Avenue and around so he'd be coming at the guy in the opposite direction on 81st Street. Luis went down 81st Street, walked faster than the guy. He timed it so he caught up, came up behind the guy exactly when Frankie blocked the guy's way.
From behind Luis told the guy to give it up. He flicked a knife in front of the guy's face.
Frankie stared mean into the guy.
The guy was like standing up dead. That scared, Frankie thought. He didn't even peep while Frankie unloaded him, every pocket. Then Luis gave the guy a shove and the guy went down in the gutter between the bumpers of parked cars.
Frankie and Luis walked away fast, didn't run. They didn't even look back at the guy. He was done. As far as they were concerned, what guy? It was one of the easiest moves Frankie and Luis had ever made.
At 77th Street they went back over to Lex and caught the subway downtown. Got off at 8th Street. They were sure Benny would be at his place. He was there every night all night. At a tenement on 6th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A. The top floor rear of a seven-story walkup. Benny didn't live there. It was just where he did business.
Parked on the street across from Benny's was a beige 1980 Chrysler Le Baron. Behind the wheel was Ralph Ciccone. Luis and Frankie were what Ralph had been waiting for. Not specifically, but the sort. Ralph worked his right-turn signal light to get their attention. He rolled down the electric window.
Luis and Frankie came over.
Ralph asked them what they had.
Frankie didn't say, just patted the pocket of his jeans. Luis and Frankie knew Ralph as one of the fences who hung around outside Benny's wanting to get to guys and their swag before they went up. Benny didn't like it.
Frankie said they were going up to see Benny.
Ralph persuaded them to let him have a first look. Luis and Frankie got into the rear seat of the Chrysler. Frankie passed the swag to Ralph, who used a flashlight to look at it. The watch, the sapphire bracelet, the ear clips and something else. How much did they want for the package?
Luis said two large.
Ralph said Benny would offer them one large tops.
Frankie said they'd take eighteen hundred.
Ralph said he'd go for twelve.
Fuck, man.
The deal was made at fourteen.
Ralph counted it out and Luis and Frankie split it and felt good about it. They'd already split the five hundred they'd taken from the guy. They took off down the street, headed for spending.
Ralph was left with a choice: Wait around to buy more swag or go out to Staten Island and get laid.
He drove downtown, took the Manhattan Bridge across to Brooklyn, got onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and then the Gowanus Expressway to the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.
Ralph always felt good when he was going across this bridge. Like he was really going somewhere. He lowered all the windows and turned on the radio and tried to dial in some Sinatra or at least something with words he could understand. He settled for Greek music.
He'd done all right tonight, he thought, reaching down into the brown paper bag on the floor below his seat. He felt for and took out the watch. An Audemars Piguet with an 18-karat band. He had a private who would, in a breath, give him twenty-five hundred for it. The same private might also go for the sapphire bracelet. He'd ask four large for the bracelet. Take three. The ear clips were worth at least a couple of hundred in melt.
What the fuck was this other piece?
He held up the stone.
It didn't look like anything valuable that he'd ever seen. Just a rock, maybe even just a piece of glass. Nothing anyone would want, nothing anyone would pay anything for. He was used to thieves trying to fatten their packages with all kinds of worthless shit.
; Ralph flung the stone out the window.
It sailed over the rail of the bridge.
It fell through the damp night air and made an insignificant disturbance when it landed on the surface of the water of the Narrows. Slowly, its descent on determined by its meager weight, it sank to the bottom. Came to rest on a bed of silt and sand.
The currents would gradually carry it from lower New York Bay. Out past Sandy Hook and even farther out into the Atlantic.
On some distant day on some distant shore it would be found again.
By a boy perhaps.
Or by a sick old man.
Stone 588 Page 47
