“You were there?” Dave said.
“As a voyeur. Swede extended some professional courtesy.”
Dave pushed the newspapers aside. “So, we get to hear what went down straight from the horse’s mouth. Good.”
I took my time and gave them all the gory details. This was one story I didn’t mind telling.
When I’d finished and sat back, Dave said, “By the way, the cops never found the set of books Torricelli claims he had stashed in his house.”
I didn’t even bother to ask where he got his information.
“Is that a fact?”
“Yep. You know who you remind me of, Jake?”
“Who?”
“That guy who spends eternity rolling a boulder uphill.”
“Sisyphus.”
“Yeah, that’s the one. I told you, Jake, no one’s gonna do any time. Oh, maybe a few lower-level guys get busted, but the bosses? No. And Terry? Without the books, he’s the aggrieved party. You’ve turned him into the poster boy for malicious prosecution by political opponents bent on his destruction. All the cops have is Torricelli’s word, and who’s gonna believe a confessed murderer?”
I had a sudden sinking feeling.
“Pretty slick,” I said.
“It gets even slicker. He’s got the top PR firm in the city sprucing up his image. Wouldn’t surprise me if he wins the Humanitarian of the Year Award.”
“He’s collecting on all his IOUs.”
“Not all, but most. You watch a lot of television, Jake?“
“Some.”
“Me, I like sitcoms. You know why?”
I shook my head.
“I figured them out,” Dave said. “There’s a formula, y’know.”
“Really.”
“No shit. Every week is the same as the week before. Everybody’s happy, just like you left them, and then something happens and everything goes topsy-turvy. But by the end of every show, things settle back to normal. Nothing really changes.”
“Your point?”
“By next week this will all be forgotten, and where will you be?”
“Sleeping better.”
“Wise up, Jake. It’s the way of the world.”
“Have you talked to Terry?”
“Sure.”
“Is he pissed?”
“You bet.”
“Then I’ve done my job.”
“You’re a lost cause. The boulder is just gonna get heavier, and the slope steeper.”
Suddenly, Dave’s eyes went to the door. He stiffened. So did his gun dogs.
Barak was in the house. Alone. He carried what looked like a reddish orange, earthenware box. A couple of yards of duct tape secured the top to the container.
He walked up to us and set it on the table. Dave reached inside his jacket.
“I’m not armed,” Barak said, lifting his arms. “Feel free to check.”
Dave’s hand came out of his jacket empty, but his men held their guns against their thighs.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Dave said.
Barak smiled. “Bearding the lion in his den. I came to say good-bye. Your brother was very persuasive. There is nothing to be gained from our conflict.”
Dave looked at me. “What’s he talking about?” he said.
“I met him. We talked. Said you were both assholes who had severe penis problems. And then I forgot about it.”
“Is that right, Barak?”
“Essentially.”
“You’re a regular Dale Carnegie, Jake.”
“Your brother is an honest man.”
“Funny. We’ve just been talking about that.”
“I leave you this as a gift, a sign of my intentions. It is very old, and quite precious. Be very careful with it.”
“Where’s Danny Reno?” I said.
“I would like to discuss that with you, outside.”
I followed him out to his car.
“Reno,” I said.
“The gift I left with your brother is a museum piece. Dates from the time of Christ, perhaps earlier. It’s called an ossuary.”
The word sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite put my fin-ger on it.
“Where’s Danny?”
“He’s already here.”
I looked in the car. No Reno.
“Stop screwing with—”
I finally made the connection. An ossuary is a bone box.
And then I heard the roar.
CHAPTER
55
I woke up on a gurney in Bellevue’s emergency room. Turns out, I was far enough from the blast to avoid serious injury but close enough to screw up my lung even more. There was nothing the docs could do, but they kept me overnight for observation. I was one of the lucky ones. Two of Dave’s men wound up in the morgue. Nick was OK — he’d been in the storeroom, out of harm’s way. Dave was in intensive care.
The next morning, the docs discharged me. I went to see Dave. Franny and Anthony were at his bedside. Nick stood at the doorway.
“How is he?”
“You don’t know?” Nick said.
“Only what the nurse said. His condition is critical.”
“He lost his left hand. Blew it clean off.”
“Sweet Jesus!”
“He nearly lost an eye, but they were able to save it. The way I heard it, Dave was bragging about Barak blinking first. Y’know, he figured he beat the bastard. Then he tried to open the box but there was so much duct tape, Dave went looking for a knife.”
“Then he opens the lid,” I muttered.
“Yeah. And the first thing he sees is—”
“Reno’s head.”
“Right. Dave slams the lid down and the bomb goes off. Must have used a time-delay fuse. And that’s all she wrote. You OK?”
“In the pink. How badly was Feeney’s damaged?”
“Pretty bad. But we’re like Timex. Take a licking, but we keep on ticking. We’ll be back.”
“I’ve got to see my brother.”
Franny and Anthony were at his bedside. Franny’s eyes were swollen. Anthony, gritting his teeth, never took his eyes off his father. The stump where Dave’s hand used to be was swathed in bandages.
“How is he?” I said.
“Not so good. He’s all doped up. Sometimes he’s awake, most often he’s not. How are you?”
“I’m fine. What did the doc say?”
“He’ll make it, but it’s going to take time.”
“I’m so sorry, Franny.”
“I’m not surprised. His whole life was leading to this. You don’t know how many times I begged him to quit. In a way, he’s lucky it’s just his hand.”
“That fucking heeb is going to pay for this,” Anthony muttered.
Suddenly, Franny wheeled and smacked him in the face. It was the first time I had ever seen her hit any of her children.
The skin around her eyes tightened. Her voice was cold and flat. “It ends here,” she said.
For an instant, Anthony glared at her, then lowered his eyes. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw the hint of a smile.
“Jake!”
Dave’s voice was hoarse, and barely above a whisper. He motioned me over.
I put my hand on his forehead. It was clammy. His breathing was rapid.
“How’re you doing, Dave?”
“Something to . . . tell . . . you.”
I brought my ear to his mouth.
“Sins of . . . the . . . fathers . . .”
And then his eyes closed. He was breathing easier now that he had handed down his myth to his son.
“What did he say?” Franny asked.
“That he’s sorry . . . sorry for everything.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Stories may spring from a writer’s head, but books are always the result of a collaboration. Old Flame is no exception. I would like to thank my agent, David Larabell of the David Black Agency, for never allowing me to veer off track when off track is exactly where I wanted to go; Julia
n Pavia, my editor at Crown/Random House, for making this book better than the manuscript he saw originally; Roberta Silman for her valuable insights and support. Lastly, and with great gratitude, my wife, Phyllis, my first and last reader and the reason I’m a writer.
Turn the page for a preview of Sinner’s Ball, Ira Berkowitz’s next novel featuring Jackson Steeg.
PROLOGUE
Her name was Angela. She was a tiny fifteen-year-old runaway with flyaway hair, a face that was all hollows dense with shadows, and minutes left to live.
She had been in the city just shy of two months. Her older sister Wanda had run a year earlier, leaving Angela alone in their father’s house.
You’ve got to get out, Wanda had said. I know what it’s like. Know what he’s like. Ma won’t admit it. Probably glad he don’t mess with her. It ain’t gonna stop, Angie. Quit being a fraidy cat. Come to New York and live with me. It’s cool. The people. The scene. All cool. There’s work. I’ll hook you up. Pays more money than you ever seen.
But Angela was a fraidy cat and stayed, kidding herself into believing it would stop.
Until the last time. He’d made her do things. Hurt her.
While he slept, Angela had crept into the garage, lifted all the cash from his secret hiding place, and headed for the Greyhound bus station in Davenport. Twenty-two stops and a little more than a day later she pulled into the Port Authority bus depot. Wanda met her and took her back to an apartment she shared with three other girls and a man they called Daddy. He told Angela she was part of the family now, and in his family everyone worked. Then he told her what work meant.
Angela ran. Again.
Until the streets caught her.
Now it was Christmas Eve. The temperature had dipped into the low teens and the wind blew the snow sideways. The sidewalk Santas were long gone, the carolers had packed it in, and all across the city, families, all warm and cozy, tossed the last piece of tinsel on the tree and settled in for the night.
In Hell’s Kitchen, Angela and two brain-fried junkies she had met outside a warehouse hatched their own plan to celebrate the Savior’s birth.
The guys—one with rat eyes and the other with sores on his face—had dug deep into their pockets and come up with enough for a dime bag of rock and the best bottle of wine three dollars could buy. Even though the thought of it made her feel as if spiders were crawling all over her skin, Angela chipped in her body for a couple of hits and a few hours of warmth. Then they jimmied a window and climbed into the warehouse.
Christmas Eve was for families, and it had been a long time since Angela had seen her sister. The zombies were all for it. Rat Eyes handed her a cell phone he had boosted a few days earlier. Wanda didn’t answer, but Angela left the address.
And then it was party time.
Surrounded by stacks of cartons stuffed with counterfeit designer goods, they made short work of the rock and polished off the bottle with lying stories of Christmas Eves past. Now with eyes closed and heads propped against the cartons, they slept and dreamed Thunderbird dreams.
They never heard the whisper of flame smoldering deep within the walls or the frantic rustling of rats scurrying to the safety of the river. Never smelled the acrid odor of smoke as the flames crept up toward the dead space right under the roof.
And even if they had, it would have been too late.
Wanda sat in a musty bar thick with smoke, nursing a two-buck draft in a dirty pint glass, listening to Angela’s message and weighing her options. Outside the streets were empty, shrouded in the muted glow of light filtered through giant flakes of whipping snow. She wasn’t even close to making her three-hundred-dollar nut, and didn’t have a prayer. But there was one thing she knew for a certainty, Daddy had to get paid. Didn’t want to hear shit about blizzards or Christmas or any other stuff. You live in Daddy’s house, you pay the rent. Every day. No ifs, ands, or buts.
Wanda reached into her bra and pulled out a thin wad of bills, adding them up one more time, thinking maybe she had made a mistake. Nope. Three twenties and a ten.
Fuck it! she thought, downing the beer and dropping her cigarette into the thin soup at the bottom of the glass. If I’m gonna get a beating, it’s gonna be for a good reason. Besides, the warehouse wasn’t too far away.
The flames were streaming through the windows on the lower floors when Wanda came up the street. Splashes of glass glittered like diamonds in the snow. She stood stock-still, her body unwilling to move. A man, standing across the street with his face framed in firelight, turned to look at her. The expression on his face made her guts shrivel, and she looked away. When she looked back, he was gone.
At the distant whine of sirens Wanda glanced back at the building and swiped a sleeve across her eyes.
There was nothing to be done.
The Red Devil had begun to feed.
CHAPTER
1
I need you to meet me at Feeney’s. Noon tomorrow. It’s important.
My brother, Dave, had finally made an appearance.
It had been a Job-like year for my brother. He had always been pretty good at dodging whatever it was that outrageous fortune threw at him. But in a short few months he had hit the cosmic trifecta. A rival mobster’s bomb blew off his left hand. His son, Anthony, blew off Dartmouth for a spot in the family business. Soon after, his wife, Franny, blew up their marriage. Three stunning body blows he never saw coming, and that discomfiting knowledge had turned him into a recluse.
It had been a long time since I’d heard from him. Then his message showed up on my answering machine.
It got my attention. Words like “need” had never been part of Dave’s vocabulary.
A couple of hours before my meeting with Dave I awoke to a day that brought new meaning to the word “bleak.” Sometime during the night, the boiler in my apartment house had finally gone belly-up, and my three rooms were as comfy as a meat locker. Outside, the banked mounds of the most recent snowstorm were stained black with soot. A stiff west wind drove a blanket of clouds the color of sewage over the city, promising more of the same.
When I arrived at Feeney’s, a young, wiry-looking guy with shoulder-length blond hair stood out front smoking a cigarette and eyeing me with a psycho piranha grin. A Closed sign hung on the front door. The usual deal when my brother wanted complete privacy.
I reached for the doorknob and Ponytail sidled up real close.
“Can’t you read, rummy?” he said. “The sign says you’re gonna have to find another slop chute to drink your breakfast in.”
This had all the makings of an adventure.
The snakes in my head awakened from their slumber and began to uncoil. It had been a while since they had graced me with their presence. Truth be told, I’d missed them, especially at times like this.
“And you are?” I said.
He placed the flat of his hand on my chest, his grin toying and eyes glistening with razor wire.
“Me? I’m the guy who tells you where you can or can’t go.”
Maybe it was the stupid grin, or the hand on my chest, or that the boiler in my apartment building had committed suicide. Nah, it was the “rummy” crack.
My left hand shot out and grabbed his hair, tugging his head toward me. The move kind of shortened the distance between my right hand and a spot just above the bridge of his nose. He went down as if he had been hit with a cattle prod.
I reached down and dragged him into Feeney’s, leaving his body just inside the door.
Nick D’Amico, the proprietor, and one of Dave’s deceptively jolly killers, was deep in conversation at the bar with Kenny Apple, another of Dave’s gunmen. They both stared at me.
“Who’s the new guy?” I said.
Nick looked over at Ponytail. “What the hell happened?”
“Your new doorman has an attitude problem.”
“Fuck!” Nick said. “He ain’t one of mine. Name’s Tommy Cisco. He’s with Anthony’s crew.”
“Anthony has a crew?
You’ve got to be kidding.”
“He thinks he does. What can I tell you?” He reached down, grabbed a handful of Cisco’s hair and dragged him back outside. “Be right back, I gotta take the garbage out.”
“Nice work,” Kenny said.
“He pissed me off. So what’s so important that I had to come out on a day like this?”
“You got anything better to do?”
“Actually, no.”
Ever since the NYPD and I parted company, my plate has been pretty much half empty. Sometimes more. There’s not much call for an ex–Homicide detective with one lung and a disability pension. Every now and then something comes along and, if it interests me, I handle it. The pay is usually crap, but I don’t need much. The rest of the time I spend trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. At least, that’s what I tell people. The truth is, I did figure it out, and I just didn’t like the answer.
“How about a heads-up about what I’m walking into here?” I said.
Nick jerked his thumb toward the back of the room. “Dave’ll tell you.”
“He has another problem?”
“You might say. You better get over there, his blood’s really up.”
Nick had done a nice job putting Feeney’s back together after the bomb that took Dave’s hand had gutted the joint. The mahogany bar, the Wurlitzer, the tin ceiling with a fleur-de-lis hammered into every panel, everything looked as good as new. The same couldn’t be said for my brother.
Feeney’s was where Dave did business, and as usual, he was dressed for it. Navy blue pinstriped suit. Crisp white shirt. Soft gray tie. But that’s where the resemblance to the old Dave ended. His eyes were listless recesses set in a face that had lost its certainty. The stump of his left hand was encased in a sheath of black leather, which he rubbed furiously against the pebbled remainder of a port wine stain on his cheek, an endlessly humiliating blotch of congenital graffiti that even laser surgery couldn’t completely erase.
When Dave rubbed his cheek, bad things were in the offing.
He and his son, Anthony, sat in a back booth across from a heavyset, cherubic-looking guy who appeared to be doing all the talking, punctuating each sentence with a twitch of his brush mustache.
After the bombing, in some truly convoluted act of loyalty, Anthony decided he wanted in. And in some truly screwed-up act of parenting, Dave agreed. It won’t last, he had said. The kid’s too soft for the life. Doesn’t have the stomach for it. He’ll be back in Hanover carving ice sculptures at the Winter Festival in under a month.
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