by S. J. Rozan
“Allie—” Jimmy said.
She shook her head, didn’t turn around.
Jimmy looked at me, helplessly. “I come up here sometimes. To think. You know. Nobody comes here, except in summer. When Allie . . .” His eyes shifted to her; she didn’t move. “Where was I gonna go? I didn’t want to crash with nobody. No way I was going back to Tony’s. So I came here. I mean, just for a while. Just, you know, to get it together.”
I said nothing, tasted the cool taste of menthol, wished for a Kent. Jimmy went on, “I was on my way to work yesterday, in the van. Had the police scanner on just to listen to the cop talk. Heard about Wally. Heard Brinkman was looking for me. Well, no shit, Sherlock!” He grinned, but the grin seemed strained.
“What did you do?”
“Turned the hell around and came back here. What’d you think?”
“Did you talk to anybody?”
“What do you mean, talk?”
“You have a CB in the van, don’t you?”
“Oh, yeah, and I said, ‘Breaker, breaker, this is Jimmy Antonelli, tell Brinkman I’m up at the quarry.’ What’re you, fucking nuts?”
“How did Alice know you were here?”
“He called me,” Alice said, without turning around. Her voice was strong, but waiting to crack, like spring ice. “In the middle of the night, from someplace closed. He asked me to come after dark, and bring him some things.”
I looked around the shack, at the leaning walls, at the cardboard jammed over the missing windowpane, at the sleeping bag spread on the floor, at the dirt and the darkness in the corners.
“How long you figure to be here?” I asked. “A couple of months? A few years, maybe, until everyone forgets?”
“Years? What the hell are you talking about?” Above the grin Jimmy’s eyes were confused. “A few days, that’s all. Just till the heat lets up a little.”
“Then what?”
“Then I’ll take off. Time I left this dead-end place anyhow.” He crumpled his empty beer can one-handed, flipped it into the Stewart’s bag, popped the top on another.
“And go where?”
“What’s the difference?” He slurped beer off the top of the can. “New York, Chicago. Hell, L.A.! I hear it’s nice out there. You been there?” I didn’t answer. “Anywhere. I got a million choices, man. I’m gonna disappear. Change my name. You know.” He laughed. “I’m gonna grow a big fuckin’ mustache, be a real dago wop, like my grandaddy! Hey, whadda-you a-think?” He looked from Alice’s back, which didn’t move, to me. His grin was desperate for company.
I dropped my cigarette butt in my empty beer can, listened to the hiss it made. “All right,” I said, looking up at Jimmy. “Now listen to me, and hear every goddamn word.” The grin wavered a little. “You don’t know shit about life on the run. You’ll never get out of the county. If you do you won’t last six months. You’ll be spotted in Asshole, Texas, by some pork-faced sheriff who sits around reading wanted posters because he’s got nothing else to do. And you’re a cowboy, aren’t you, Jimmy? You’ll pull out that Winchester when they come for you in the hole you’re hiding in, which’ll be just like this one except instead of cold and filthy it’ll be hot and filthy and the water’ll taste bad. And they’ll blow your head off. And that’ll be it, Jimmy. That’ll be all of it.”
He stared at me for a long moment; then he pushed sharply away from the table. He turned away, ran a hand over his hair, turned back. He stood looking at me, his empty hands opening and closing.
“What the fuck you want me to do, man?” For the first time the fear stood out in his eyes. “Brinkman’s after my ass, you know he is. He’s gonna hang this on me if he can. What am I supposed to do, just let him?”
Alice turned from the window then. Her lip trembled as she looked from him to me and back again.
“Did you kill Wally Gould?” I asked him.
Color drained from his face. He sank down slowly onto the chair.
“You think so, Mr. S.?” he asked quietly. “That what you think?”
I lit two cigarettes, passed one to him. He took it, hunching forward in the chair. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“Listen,” I said, in a voice gentler than the one I’d been using. “Listen, Jimmy. That’s not my only question. I’ve got a lot of questions, and you’re going to have to answer them all. Jimmy?” I waited; he looked up at me. “You’ll have all of me, either way. Either way, Jimmy. But I want to hear it from you.”
He took in smoke, exhaled. He stood, walked around aimlessly, sat down again.
“Wally. That stupid little fuck,” he said in a half-whisper. “He was real into making trouble for me. With Frank, with Brinkman, with anyone he could think of. And now check it out: he’s fucking wasted and he can’t stop!” He laughed shortly, looked up at the ceiling, back at me. “Ain’t that a kick in the ass?” He did what I’d done, pushed his cigarette into his beer can, watched it disappear.
He lifted his eyes to mine. “I didn’t kill him, Mr. S.”
By the window, Alice’s hand moved slowly to her mouth, and she started to cry.
Jimmy jumped from the chair, moved to Alice’s side. He folded an arm around her shoulders, spoke her name softly, but she pulled away. She wiped her eyes, leaving her face streaked with grime.
“I want to go home,” she said, voice quavering. She pulled together her mittens, hat, car keys. “You don’t need me now. I can go.”
“Baby—” Jimmy reached out a hand; she shrugged it off.
“Alice, wait,” I said.
“Why?” she asked unhappily. “Jimmy has you now. You’ll know what to do. I just want to go home.”
“It’s not him I’m thinking about. It’s you.”
She pulled on her mittens, stood thin-lipped, waiting.
“Remember I said I wasn’t the only person looking for Jimmy? One of the other people is Frank Grice. He offered me a thousand dollars.”
Jimmy’s eyebrows shot up. “What the hell for?”
“You.”
They were both silent, digesting that.
I went on, “If I found you, Alice, Grice can too. He’s not a nice man.”
She threw Jimmy a confused look, then back to me. “I don’t understand. What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t want you out there in that house by yourself. Is there someone you can stay with?”
“That’s ridiculous!” she snapped. “It’s my home. I’ve always lived there. I’m not afraid of those people.”
“That’s a mistake,” I said. “I am.”
That stopped her. “Well . . .” She frowned. “Laura and her husband live in Schoharie.”
“Good,” I said. “Go there tonight. And I don’t want you alone during the day. You know Grice by sight?”
She nodded.
“You even think you see his shadow, call the state troopers.” I described Arnold to her, and Otis and Ted. “And if anyone does ask you anything, do you think you can lie better than you did to me?”
She flushed crimson, and for the first time she smiled. “I think so.”
“Good,” I said again. “You haven’t seen Jimmy since he started cheating on you and you threw him out.” Jimmy started to protest; I ignored him. “You don’t know where he is, and you hope he rots in hell. Right? Tell them to go ask his new girlfriend. And tell them if they find him not to bother to tell you about it because you really couldn’t care. Can you do that?”
“Yes.” Her voice was clear again.
We looked at each other, the three of us, in the cold, dingy room. The kerosene lamp sputtered.
“If you need me,” I said, “you have the number; or try Antonelli’s.”
Alice opened the door, shut it silently, and was gone.
Jimmy watched at the window as the yellow Plymouth backed into position, headed down the stony road.
He sat down, nodded toward the door, gave me a shamefaced smile. “I messed that up, huh?”
�
��Big time,” I said. “Was it worth it?”
He shook his head.
I lit another Salem, tried to taste the tobacco through the mouth-numbing menthol. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s get to work.”
He grinned his old grin. “You’re the boss. What do we do now?”
“I ask, you answer. Who killed Wally Gould?”
“Oh, man, I told you, I wasn’t there!”
“No, you didn’t. You only said you didn’t kill him.”
“Well, I wasn’t. Happier?”
“Lose the attitude, Jimmy. This isn’t a game.”
His grin spread, and he reached for a cigarette. “Sure it is, Mr. S. It’s a big fucking game, and you’re my ace in the hole. You’re gonna pull it out for me, just like before.”
I pushed to my feet so fast the box I’d been sitting on fell over, clattered on the floor. I took two steps across the room, grabbed Jimmy’s parka, slammed him up against the wall. His cigarette dropped and his fists clenched but all he did was stare at me through eyes suddenly grown huge.
“What the fuck—!”
“Shut up, you stupid bastard!” I felt the blood rush hot to my face. “Now listen to me! There’s no game. A man’s dead: the game’s over. I don’t know if I can pull it out for you, but I know this: there’s only one way now. My way! You got that, Jimmy?”
He didn’t answer, didn’t move.
Our eyes locked in silence. In his eyes I saw the kid who, years ago, had skated out onto a frozen pond on a dare, triumphantly clowning at first, then hearing the ice crack.
I didn’t know what he saw in mine.
I spoke slowly, controlling my voice. “You’re going to give me everything you know.”
I released him ungently, took a step back, drew in a long breath. My Salem had scorched the table where I’d left it. I set the box on end again, sat down.
Jimmy still hadn’t moved.
“You never knocked me around before,” he said, angry and accusing but with a note of wonder. “My dad did, and Tony, but you never did.”
“Maybe I never thought it would do any good before.”
He pushed off from the wall, yanked his parka back on straight. He turned the chair around, straddled the seat, arms crossed along the back. I took another drag of the Salem, dropped it and crushed it.
“My way?” I asked.
Jimmy nodded.
I began: “Who killed Wally Gould?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”
“You don’t have any ideas?”
He shrugged.
“Why was he killed at the bar?”
“I don’t know, unless to make me look bad.”
“Who’d want to do that?”
He smiled a little. “Mostly, Wally.”
“All right, try this. Frank Grice tried to soften Tony up the other night. Why?”
Surprise stiffened his body. “Frank? Tony? What happened? Is Tony okay?”
I told him about the fight, Gould, and the gun. “Grice told Tony he had something on you, and it would cost him to keep it quiet. What does he have?”
“Oh, shit, Mr. S.! What the hell could he have? I’ve been clean, man, months now. You know, working. Allie could tell you . . .” He gestured toward the door, left his sentence unfinished.
“She did tell me.” I opened another beer; my mouth was as dry as the rock dust that coated everything in the shack. “She also told me that a couple of weeks ago you started fooling around with Ginny Sanderson.”
“Yeah” was all he gave me, and that reluctantly.
“Where’d you meet her?”
“At the Creekside.”
“Grice’s place?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I thought you told Alice you were through with those people.”
“I just stopped by for a beer, man. Just a beer, with the guys. They were all starting to say stuff. You know, about how I wasn’t hanging out no more . . .”
“Yeah, Jimmy. Okay. Where’s Ginny now?”
“Where’s Ginny? How the hell do I know? Who cares?”
“She dropped you for another guy. Who?”
He pulled out a cigarette, tapped it on the pack. “I don’t know.”
“She didn’t tell you who it was?”
“Uh-uh. She only said he was tougher than me. That’s what she likes, tough. She thinks she’s tough, too.” He lit the cigarette, licked his thumb and forefinger, squeezed out the match. It made a sizzling sound. A smudge of smoke rose, broke up, and vanished. “She told me to get lost. She said . . .” He trailed off.
“What?”
He glared, but he answered. “She said she was tired of little boys.”
“Jimmy,” I said, “she hasn’t been home for two days. Her father’s worried.”
He laughed. “Worried? That jerk? He’s lucky she didn’t split a long time ago.”
“Why should she have?”
“He’s on her case all the time. Won’t leave her alone. He’s the king of don’t, like she was a kid or something. Don’t do that, don’t go there, don’t hang out, don’t be late. He’s a tightass with money, too. She hates him.”
“She told you that?”
“Uh-huh.”
A gust of wind shook the window in its frame. A storm was coming up. There were scratching sounds as pebbly dust was flung against the shack.
“You know Eve Colgate, Jimmy?” I asked. “She lives along Ten outside of Central Bridge.”
“Sure. Tony used to work for her, long time ago. Sometimes he took me over there with him. She used to give me, like, cookies and stuff. I mean, I was a kid.” He flushed self-consciously.
“Last Friday she was robbed,” I said. “She lost some pretty valuable stuff, but it’s not stuff just anybody could unload. I want to know who did that job, Jimmy. Was it you?”
His face was the face of a kid who’d been smacked even though, for the first time in his life, he’d been nowhere near the cookie jar.
“Oh, man!” he said. “No, it fucking wasn’t! What do I got to do for you, man, draw you a picture? I’m clean! Ask Allie. Ask Tony. Ask fucking Frank!”
“Okay, Jimmy,” I said, “Okay. It wasn’t you. Who was it? Frank?”
“No way. Even if it was his idea, it wouldn’t’ve been him. He keeps his hands clean. Only he’ll find where to fence your shit for you later, for the right price. What the hell’s the difference, anyway? I got a murder rap hanging over my ass and you’re asking about a robbery I never even heard of! What do you want from me?” He stood abruptly. “You keep asking me all this shit I can’t answer. What do you want?”
“I’m trying,” I said evenly, “to dig your ass out of a hole so deep it hasn’t got a bottom. Your keys to the bar were found next to Gould’s body.”
His face went white, stranding his eyes, big and dark and frightened. “What?” he almost whispered.
“Your keys to the bar, on a ring with some other keys. Door keys, car keys. Where’s your truck?”
“My what?” He looked blank; then the color rose in his face again.
“Oh, come on, Jimmy. Ellie Warren says you bought a four-by-four. It’s not up here. Where is it?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“You don’t know? What the hell does that mean, you don’t know?”
“I don’t fucking know! One of the guys must have borrowed it. They do sometimes, you know, like when I’m working and shit.”
“How long is it that you don’t know?”
He paced the small room. “Couple of days, maybe. How the hell’d my keys get in the bar?”
“You tell me.”
“Oh, man! I wasn’t there. I wasn’t! I didn’t know nothing about it, until I heard it over the goddamn scanner.” He stopped pacing, turned to me hopefully. “They were left there on purpose. Like Wally was killed there: to make me look bad.”
“Planted? Maybe. Who had the truck?”
“Oh, shit, Mr. S.! I don’t know! One of the guys t
ook it, Andy or Rich, somebody. I leave the keys in it sometimes when I’m at work. Bad habit, huh?” He tried to grin.
“Same keys? The ones on the silver ring?”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
I pushed to my feet, stood facing him. “This is a load of crap. You don’t just lose track of a new four-by-four. I don’t know how that truck figures into Gould’s murder, but your keys say it does. I want to know who had it. Was it Frank?”
“Frank? I wouldn’t lend Frank a nickel, forget about my truck!”
“But you did lend it to someone. Andy and Rich didn’t just come and take it, did they?”
“No, man, I told you.”
“You told me bullshit.”
“Hey! Hey, you don’t like it, go to hell!” he exploded. “No one asked you to come up here, man! You don’t owe me nothing. I don’t need you. I was doing great before you came!”
“Were you?” I asked quietly.
He turned away with a curse, pounded a fist on the wall. Wood groaned, glass shivered. He stared out the window at the bleak plain. The shaky flame of the kerosene lamp was mirrored in the glass.
I put a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t turn around but he didn’t shrug me off, either.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m leaving. I’ll do what I can. I’ll be back when I can. Jimmy?” I waited for an answer. I got a grunt. It was enough. “If they find you, give up. Let them take you. Don’t shoot it out, Jimmy. You’ll lose. I don’t want that.”
He didn’t answer again. I zipped my jacket, stepped out the door into the moonless, starless night.
11
THERE WERE MORE cars than usual in the lot at Antonelli’s. I parked up by the road, watched the tin sign swing in the wind, blowing stronger now, out of the north. As I left the car two guys I’d seen around over the years came out the bar’s front door, talking, smoking. One poked the other’s ribs, said something low as I passed. I felt their eyes on me as I crossed the gravel, pulled the door open.
Inside was crowded, for Antonelli’s, for a Wednesday in late winter. There were new faces and faces only half familiar. The winter regulars were sitting at tables along the walls as if they’d been stranded there by a flood.
