by S. J. Rozan
“God, you’re impossible. If you didn’t look so pathetic I’d slug you.”
“That’s why I practice looking like this. Actually I feel great.”
Eve came back, asked me to call her in the morning. I promised I would. I watched through the glass doors as they crossed the parking lot together, saw Eve incline her head to catch Lydia’s words, saw Lydia’s smile flash as she unlocked her car.
After they’d driven away I sat back down, thought about what Lydia had said. My mind chased ideas around like a greyhound after a whole pack of mechanical rabbits, until I finally gave up and got up to talk to the nurse.
Tony didn’t wake that night. Because it was a country hospital, the nurses found a cot for me—“From Pediatrics,” they confided—and pillows and blankets and even a toothbrush in a cellophane wrapper. Because it was a hospital, I didn’t sleep well anyway. Nurses came and went all night, checking Tony’s tubes and bandages, his temperature and his breathing. I woke each time, and then lay awake, breathing the bitter, antiseptic air, watching the moon, tired but dutiful, move across the sky. It finally gave up and set, discouraged.
A long time after the moon had set, the sky began to show streaks of red and iron blue, like a slow-to-develop bruise. Sometime after that I heard the jingle of glass and metal that tells you the doctors are making rounds, accompanied by nurses with trays of syringes and pills and other things patients need. By then the sky was a sullen gray, as bright as it probably meant to get. I got up, washed and dressed, zipped my jacket over my bare chest because I didn’t want anyone’s sympathy.
I stood watching Tony, who with the aid of a complex network of machines and tubes and drugs was able to successfully complete each breath he started. His face was pallid, yellow-tinged, his eyelids dark and sunken. He already looked like a man who’d been sick a long time, a man who’d be a long time getting well.
The attending physician, a younger, colder man than the surgeon, asked me to wait outside while he did his work. When he came out he was noticeably friendlier. He told me Tony was doing well. I recognized that thaw, that softening of the armor in which he wrapped himself in case he had to deliver bad news. Relax, I wanted to tell him. You get used to it. Eventually the armor turns to stone around you. Then it doesn’t soften anymore; but then you’re never caught without it, either.
I didn’t go back into Tony’s room when the doctor was gone. Tony was not likely to wake until later. The cop MacGregor had sent was sitting patiently in the hall— had, it turned out, been sitting there most of the night, while I was tossing on the cot. Let him wait to hear from Tony. I had to move. I had to do something, while the ideas slugged it out in my head until a winner was declared.
The hospital cafeteria wasn’t open yet, so I drove to Friendly’s, just before the state highway entrance—E-Z-Off, E-Z-On. I had fried eggs because I knew they couldn’t make fried eggs from powder, and I had bacon and potatoes and toast and coffee and orange juice and more coffee, but before any of that I called Eve Colgate.
She answered on the second ring.
“It’s Bill,” I said.
“Are you all right?” Eve asked. “I just called the hospital. They’ve upgraded Tony’s condition to ‘stable.’ They said you’d gone.”
“He’s doing all right, but the doctor says it’ll be a slow recovery.”
“Did he wake up? Did you speak to him?”
“No.”
“So he doesn’t know you were there.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“If you’re not staying with him, maybe I’ll come down. He should have a friend there when he wakes.”
“He’ll tell you he’d rather be left alone.”
“When he tells me that, I’ll leave,” she said easily. “Bill, how are you?”
“I’m okay. How are you two doing?”
“We’re fine. We’re having breakfast.” A note of amusement crept into Eve’s voice. “We just got back from doing the morning chores.”
“What’s funny?”
“Lydia did quite well,” Eve said gravely.
“Oh, God,” I said.
“She wants to talk to you.”
A pause, and then Lydia. “Bill? Do you know how big cows are?”
I chuckled.
“Don’t laugh!” she demanded. “The closest I ever was to a live chicken before is the Grand Street kosher market. Did you know chickens get annoyed when you take the eggs away?”
“Only if your hands are cold.”
“Oh, you’re so smart. Did you ever milk a cow?”
“Did you?” I asked, impressed.
“Well, sort of. Eve showed me. I wasn’t real good at it. I mean, they do it all by machines anyway. We just got enough for breakfast.” She stopped for breath, then asked, “How’s Tony?”
I repeated what I’d told Eve.
“It sounds as though he’ll be all right,” she said. “I’m so glad.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Me, too.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going over to Frank Grice’s place, on the other side of Cobleskill. If I can’t find him I’m going to try that other dump.”
“Be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
“Uh-huh. I’d feel better if I were with you.”
“I’d feel better if you were with me, too. But I want you to stay with Eve. And think of all you’re learning. This will be good, for when we buy our little rose-covered cottage. You can milk the cows and collect the eggs and bake cherry pies while I split firewood and shoot things for food for the winter.”
“If this were my phone I’d hang up on you.”
“If this were your phone your mother would already have hung up on me. I’ll call again later. ’Bye.”
I drank the coffee and worked my way through all that food. I wondered if the gun in Jimmy’s truck actually was the one that killed Wally Gould. I wondered why Wally Gould was killed. I wondered if Lydia’s hands had been cold. I wondered who had shot Tony, and whom they’d meant to shoot, and why.
A half mile from Friendly’s there was a Valu-Center, a supermarket as big as a New York City block. They sold everything there: food, lawn furniture, hardware, clothing. I bought a T-shirt, a sweater, and a carton of Kents, and I bought gloves. Back in the car I pulled the clothes on, lit a Kent, and headed across Cobleskill, to the place Jimmy had said Grice lived. I went past once-elegant frame houses, a couple of public buildings built out of gray stone from the quarries, and a municipal park that looked tired and old in the dull morning light. As I crossed the bridge over the state highway I caught a glimpse of the Appleseed plant, enormous painted trucks coming and going, pale smoke pouring into the sky from a stainless-steel chimney. On a day like this even the stainless steel didn’t shine.
The complex of three-story buildings Grice lived in was the only one like it in Cobleskill, maybe in the county. Luxury Condos, a sign announced. Balconies, Euro-style kitchens, 1 ½ baths. Pool. The buildings were tan-colored stucco. The pool was empty, except for a small congealed lump of winter leaves. The paint on the sign was peeling.
The first building, Jimmy’d said, on the third floor. I found the bell labeled Capone. I pushed it; nothing happened. I started, methodically, to push all the second-floor bells. I was halfway through them when the intercom barked, “Who’s there?” I put my mouth very close to the speaker, growled something loud and unintelligible. The question came again and I growled again. I was buzzed in.
I found the first-floor garbage room and waited there, gave my benefactor a chance to give up and stick his head back in his door. After a few minutes I slipped out, continued along the corridor to the fire stair and up to the third floor.
Grice’s apartment wasn’t hard to find and it wasn’t hard to break into. That was disappointing. What I really wanted was to talk to Grice; this little excursion was just an irresistible side trip. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, and it seemed likely
that a man who made it so simple to get into his place wouldn’t have left anything to find.
That turned out to be true. The apartment didn’t have quite the ambience of the green house near Franklinton, but there was nothing about it to make me want to spend my retirement there. A thick gold carpet lay prostrate under a large brown leather sofa and matching La-Z-Boy recliner. In a smoked-glass wall unit there was an enormous projection TV and VCR. There were three used high-ball glasses on the glass coffee table, and a full ashtray. I examined the butts. Marlboro Lights, mostly; but among them, two Camels. Without filters.
In the bedroom the bed was unmade, but it would be hard to say how many people had slept in it, or when. There were dirty dishes in the Euro-style kitchen sink.
The whole place had an air of grease and uncaring that made me want to open a window, open all the windows. I resisted because I didn’t want any movement up here to be seen from outside.
Wearing my new gloves, I worked fast. I opened everything that was closed, pawed through drawers, rifled through piles. I found both cocaine and marijuana in a kitchen cabinet, but in small amounts, like what a host might keep on hand for guests. There was change and a pile of bills in a bowl by the bed, and in the same bowl a pair of jeweled and tinkling earrings, which I pocketed, but no large amounts of cash. No phone bills, which I would’ve been interested in. No credit card receipts, no datebook.
No lists, no ledgers, no maps to the pirate gold.
Okay, the hell with it. What had I expected, a signed confession? “I killed Wally Gould and I’ve been trying to frame Jimmy Antonelli for it. I did it because he was an ugly little creep and he got on my nerves. I’m writing this because the guilt is too much to bear. Yours truly, Frank Grice.”
I was wasting time.
I left. Down the way I’d come, out the rear door this time, around the side of the building. Out of habit, I surveyed the parking lot before heading across it to my car. It was almost empty, and I didn’t see any bad guys.
The only thing I saw that I wasn’t expecting was Lydia.
18
SHE WAS SITTING in her rented car, parked next to mine in the condo lot. As I stepped from the shadow of the building she flashed me a smile, opened the door, got out. The smile turned down the voltage on the jolt that had gone through me when I saw she was alone, but I still covered the lot in fast strides and I still called, “What’s wrong? Where’s Eve?”
“No, she’s all right,” Lydia answered as I reached her. “She’s at the hospital, with Tony. There’s a cop there and everything. She won’t leave until I come back. It’s just that I called Velez right after we talked to you, and he gave me something Eve and I thought you should have right away.”
Velez. I’d forgotten about Velez; but that had been a grudge match anyway, what I’d hired him for.
“Eve and you thought, huh?” I said to Lydia.
“Uh-huh. I told Eve where Grice lived and she told me how to get here after I dropped her at the hospital. I was afraid I’d miss you, but I found your car. I figured I’d give you time to toss the place if that’s what you were doing. If you’d been much longer I’d have come up to see if you were okay.”
“I appreciate that, I really do. As it turns out, it was what I was doing. No one’s home, and I didn’t find a thing. Well, almost not a thing.” I lit a cigarette, leaned next to her on the car.
“What did you find?”
“You first. What’s Velez’s big news?”
“He says to tell you first it’s not dirt,” she said. “He hasn’t found anything illegal, which is what he thinks you wanted.”
“That was what I wanted, but I’m flexible.”
“Good. Now, you know for a couple of years Appleseed’s been buying farms all over the county?”
I nodded.
“Well, one thing is, Velez says they’ve been consistently paying more than the land is appraised at.”
“How much more?” I interrupted.
“Not a fortune. Ten or fifteen percent.”
“Hmm. Not enough to ring any alarms, but enough to make a seller grab it before Appleseed comes to its senses.”
“I guess,” she said. “The other thing is, it’s not really Appleseed.”
“Oh?” I said. “Do tell.”
“Velez says he needs more time to work on it, but it looks as though it’s Appleseed’s money that’s making the purchases, but the title to the land is actually put in the name of a thing called Appleseed Holdings, not Appleseed Baby Foods. It’s a whole different company, a partnership with two partners.”
“And the partners are . . .?”
“That’s the good part,” Lydia said. “Mark Sanderson owns forty percent. The other sixty is in the name of Frank Grice.”
Lydia looked at me for a moment, then laughed. “Boy,” she said, “that’s an expression I don’t see on you very often. I’ll have to tell Velez.”
“Son of a bitch,” I said. I dropped the cigarette, crushed it underfoot. “Are you real busy right now?”
“I could probably make some time. What did you have in mind?”
“How about we go see Mark Sanderson?”
“Sounds lovely.”
We left her car in the condo lot, rode to Appleseed in mine. In the car, Lydia went on. “Velez says to tell you Sanderson’s wife disappeared about four years ago.”
“I knew that. Did Velez find her?”
“No, and he looked. Her credit cards haven’t been used since the day she left. Her social security number hasn’t either. There were no unusual withdrawals from their joint bank accounts in the couple of months before she left. Since then all the activity has been Sanderson’s.” She added, “She supposedly ran away with some guy, but Velez couldn’t find anyone.”
I nodded. “MacGregor said she had a reputation. He said everyone but Sanderson knew it.” We passed the state college campus, turned onto the spur road to the Appleseed plant. “Were her credit cards canceled?”
“Lena Sanderson’s? They weren’t renewed when they expired, but they weren’t canceled. She could have gone on using them for a couple of months.”
“Except that would have made her easier to find.”
“She must have really wanted to stay lost.”
“You don’t know Sanderson. It’s a natural reaction.”
Mark Sanderson didn’t keep us waiting long this time. We didn’t even have time to sit and enjoy the vegetables. As soon as the secretary’s beautiful voice announced us, the door to Sanderson’s office flew wide and Sanderson filled the opening.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“Ask your partner,” I said, pushing past him into the corner office, where the windows offered two different views of the same sullen sky. Lydia followed me, looked Sanderson over. He shot her one glance and then ignored her.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he barked. “Where’s Ginny? That Antonelli punk, his brother was shot last night. What the hell is going on? Where’s my daughter?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were still doing business with Frank Grice?”
He stopped dead, his eyes fixed on me as though I’d suddenly mutated into a form of life he’d never seen before. He looked at Lydia again. “Who the hell is this?”
“Lydia Chin,” I said. “Lydia, this is Mark Sanderson.” Lydia put out her hand. Sanderson didn’t move. Lydia shrugged. “Lydia and I are business associates,” I told him. “Like you and Grice.”
“Smith,” he pushed through his teeth, “it’s none of your fucking business, but if you mean Appleseed Holdings, that’s a completely legitimate operation.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Seems to be, so far. What I really want to know is why you didn’t tell me about it.”
“Because it was none of your fucking business!” he said again. “It has nothing to do with my daughter, who is the only reason I let a man like you into my office at all!”
“How about a man like Grice?”
Sanderson forced the muscles in his jaw to relax. He walked around behind his desk, sat down. “Appleseed Holdings is a profit-making venture. Sometimes business decisions get you involved with people you’d otherwise rather not be involved with.”
“Profit-making for whom? The money that goes into it is Appleseed’s. Yours. But Grice owns a bigger share than you do.”
Sanderson smiled a hard, cold smile. “For us both.”
“But not yet?”
“No,” his smile widened, then flicked off. “Not yet.”
“Uh-huh. That’s what I thought.”
Lydia lifted her eyebrows, waited to be enlightened.
“The gas pipeline,” I said to her, but with my eyes on Sanderson. “I’ll bet I could map the properties he’s bought. North to south down the county, mostly in the valley. When NYSEG starts buying up land for the pipeline, they’ll have to come to him. What if it doesn’t happen, Sanderson?”
Sanderson practically laughed at me. “It’ll happen. You forget,” he said. “I have friends who tell me things.”
“But I thought they condemned land for things like that,” Lydia said. “So you couldn’t speculate that way.”
Sanderson looked at her as he might at a retarded child with whom he was forced to deal. “They do. But they have to pay a fair market price. And this is very, very productive land. We lease it to Appleseed Baby Foods at very good terms. Appleseed—Appleseed Baby Foods—is making huge profits on the crops we grow on this land.”
“Because you pay chickenshit to the people who grow them, the people who used to own that land,” I said.
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter why. Profit is profit.”
“And what about Grice?”
“What about him?”
“I could understand if there were strong-arm work involved. But I haven’t heard that. People are falling all over themselves to sell their farms to you. So how come you’re willing to invest in Grice’s future?”
“Smith, let me tell you again: this is none of your business. My daughter’s safety should be concerning you. It should be keeping you up nights. Because if anything’s happened to Ginny—” He stopped as the earrings from my pocket skidded, jingling, across his desk. He looked up. “What’s this?”
