Sam stepped over Mike and took Greg by the arm. "This is an old story. Come on. Let's you and me go for a walk."
Greg grudgingly agreed while Carter banged open the icebox.
I sat down on the floor next to Mike and took his left hand. He yanked it away. I grabbed it again. He let me hold it the second time.
I heard the front door open and slam close as Carter sat down on the other side of Mike and handed him a bottle of Hamm's beer. "Have some of this, son."
Mike took a long swig and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "That fuckin' hurt, Carter."
"I'm glad it did. If you say something like that to Nick again, you'll get double and that's a promise."
I put Mike's arm around my shoulder and snuggled up against him. He pulled me in tight and sighed. "I'm sorry, Nick. This case has had me worried from the beginning. I didn't tell you because at first I thought it would just be me and Sam keeping track of the Kid."
"What was your plan?"
"To find him and turn him over to Rostenkowski. They can never seem to find him after he makes a hit. He gave me the slip after he left the Shaw Barber Shop in the Western Addition around 8 tonight. I think he knows we've been following him. I had no idea he was Ricky."
"Greg has a brother?"
"Had a brother. Half-brother. They have the same father. Seems like Greg's old man was married before he met his mother. Only no one knew. Claude, that's the brother, showed up about two weeks ago. Had photos, birth certificate, the whole thing. Was also in the life."
Carter muttered, "Of course."
"What happened?" I asked.
"Claude was in way over his head with the mob. Had borrowed money from Abati and then couldn't pay it back. I was trying to convince Greg to just ask you for it when the Kid rubbed out Claude."
I nodded. Now it all made sense. "So, you're angry at yourself for not asking me sooner and even more so for not recognizing Ricky."
Mike sighed and pulled me in more tightly. "Yeah."
I turned and kissed him on the cheek.
Mike smiled a little. "Sorry about all that, Nick."
"It's fine."
Carter leaned in and kissed Mike on the other cheek. "I'm not gonna apologize for slugging you because you deserved it, but I thought I'd try the kissing thing because it seems to work wonders when Nick does it."
Mike laughed. "It's not the same. But you're right. I did deserve it."
I got up on my haunches and looked Mike in the eyes. "And you ask me for anything you want anytime. You have to know, Mike Robertson, that I would be Ricky right now if it hadn't been for you."
Carter nodded and said, "Yeah."
Mike looked a little sheepish. "Sometimes I worry about asking you for too much."
"If I have it, it's yours. You know that."
Carter piped up. "Half of its mine and the same goes for me. We both owe you more than any amount of money could ever cover."
Mike put his arms around both of us and pulled us in close. "I love you two so much." With that, he started crying which meant that the storm had passed and the clouds were finally parting.
. . .
Once Mike had finished, we all stood and made our way into the living room. I asked, "How does Ricky know what goes on in our house?"
Mike ran the back of his hand across his face and sniffed. "It's not bugged."
Carter and I both turned to him. "What do you mean?" I asked.
"Andy, Dawson, and me go through there fairly often looking for bugs. We've been doing that since you moved in." Andy was one Beauregard "Andy" Anderson, a former F.B.I. agent and childhood friend of Carter's. Dawson Runson was a former police lieutenant for the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police. He and Andy worked for Mike and were lovers.
Carter was incredulous. "You've been checking for bugs? Were you ever planning on telling us?"
Mike smiled tightly and shook his head. Looking at me, he said, "You put me in charge, remember?"
I nodded and replied, "You're right. I did. And don't do anything like that again."
Mike shrugged. "You can fire me, Nick, if you want." My head was spinning. "But I'm gonna do what I feel is right to protect you and Carter, both. The name is Consolidated Security, after all. You two are our most important clients."
I sat on the sofa. I hadn't taken that fact into consideration, but it made sense. We were in just as much danger as anyone else.
Mike sat down next to me. "The cops are always on your back. The courts couldn't give a good goddam. The Bureau is letting rogue agents roam freely. There's a lot to watch."
I nodded. "And now the Kid is looking over my shoulder."
Carter crossed his arms and looked down at both of us. "But how?"
Mike looked around the room. "It could be one of those kids. Or the two old ladies. But they're loyal to the two of you as the day is long."
Carter huffed. "Tried to bribe them, have you?"
Mike nodded but didn't reply.
"It could've been O'Reilly," I offered.
Mike shook his head. "No. The part I haven't told you, in all that's happened, is that we've been watching the Kid watching you."
I crossed my arms and shook my head. "For fuck sake, Mike."
He put his hand on my arm. "That's why I sent Walter in to tell you about how Reynolds had made the connection between you and the Kid. That had grabbed my attention a couple of weeks ago. Then when Greg's brother was murdered, I put the team on full alert."
Carter huffed again. "Jesus, Mike. What's next? Live-in bodyguards?"
Mike shook his head. "Have you ever noticed you live in a goddam fortress? These days the only way in and out is through that front door. I don't know if the old man was planning that or not but I think he must have been up to something. You probably don't know, but the street-facing windows on the ground floor were replaced at some point after your sister died. They're all made of Lucite."
"What's that?" asked Carter.
I answered. I knew about it from the war. "It's a kind of plastic glass. Harder to break into."
Mike nodded.
We all sat in silence for a moment.
"Do you think Murphy figured out Ricky was watching him?"
Mike shrugged. "Might have. Or it could just have been dumb luck."
"How did he know that Murphy had hit Nick?"
Mike looked up. "That wouldn't have been hard. The guy was drunk all the time. If he thought the Kid didn't like Nick. They get to talking. Think about it."
I nodded. "OK." I looked up at Carter and then back at Mike. "You're not fired." I grinned. "Not tonight."
Carter leaned over and got in Mike's face. "But you better be more forthcoming about your cop moves in the future." He put his hand on Mike's shoulder. "Or you'll have me to deal with. Understood?"
. . .
We finally made it to bed around 1 in the morning. Carter made love to me tenderly and gently and fell asleep not long after.
I couldn't sleep, however. Eventually, I rolled away from Carter's loving arms and made my way over to the Chesterfield. The fire was still roaring and the windows were open. I pulled a thick quilt over my body as I stretched out. I sat up with my back to the stiff end of the sofa and gazed into the fire.
As I did, I let my mind wander.
. . .
We were standing behind a grocery store, right at the back door. It was one of the places South of the Slot where we would meet when we were playing hooky from St. Ignatius.
"What's your old man gonna do?" asked Ricky.
I kicked an empty bottle down the alley and listened to it as it rolled over the bricks and came to a stop. "Dunno. Probably blow a gasket."
"You can stay with us. Ma told me to tell you. She'll put you up in the extra bedroom."
I turned and slugged Ricky in the shoulder.
He grimaced and rubbed that spot. "What's that for?"
"Dunno. Just felt like doing it."
He grinned and punched me in th
e stomach. "How's that feel?"
I swung for his arm again, but he ducked and hit me in the gut with his head. Before long, we were rolling on the sidewalk, punching and laughing.
"You kids!" That was old man Gratelli. He owned the store. "Stop actin' like a buncha hooligans! Ricardo! You disrespect the family. And you, Nicholas, get yourself back up to Nob Hill where you belong." He took his broom and began to hit us with it.
We both stood up, grinned at him, and then started running down the alley towards...
. . .
I couldn't remember where that store had been. It might have been off Mission. Or maybe it was Howard. Gratelli was probably long dead. He'd been old back in '39.
As I looked into the fire, I had the sudden realization that our wrestling was nothing less than foreplay. I knew why I'd slugged Ricky in the arm. What I'd wanted to do was to kiss him because I'd felt so happy when he'd offered to let me stay at his house.
I tried to remember what particular thing I'd done that was going to upset my father. There was a whole litany of possibilities, but I couldn't place any specific one to that day. The only thing I could remember about that day was that it had been cold, which meant nothing. I'd lived my life being cold until I'd sailed to the South Pacific in '43 with the Navy.
Carter made a noise as he slept. I tried to imagine what his life had been like at about that same time. He would have been 18, going on 19, and was having a hard time with his own father. He was working two or three jobs, living at home with his parents and his older brother, and socking away all the cash he could to buy a car. By that time, he and Henry had already come up with their plan to get out of Albany, Georgia. And as fast as they could.
When June came along, Carter had saved enough to buy an old Ford coupe. They'd left in the dead of the night. Only Henry's grandmother knew where they'd gone: San Francisco.
I tried to imagine Carter as a gangling teenager without much meat on his bones. Henry had once told me that Carter's chest used to cave in, he was so skinny. That was before he'd discovered the magic of physical culture and had begun to develop his physique.
I stood and folded the quilt, leaving it on the Chesterfield. I slowly crept over to Carter's side of the bed. Thinking of his magnificent physique made me want to take a look at it by firelight.
I very gently pulled away the bedspread, the two blankets, and the sheet that were blocking Carter's body from my view.
It really was something to see. He was on his belly in an almost perfect spread-eagle. His back always surprised me in how broad it was. His thick arms were spread across the bed while his big feet at the end of his long, muscled legs were pointing at the fireplace. I gazed up and down and back again for several moments.
I was about to replace the covers when I heard him say, "Are you done yet, son? I'm cold."
Chapter 10
Offices of Consolidated Security, Inc.
Wednesday, February 9, 1955
Half past 10 in the morning
We slept in and were late getting to the office. I left Carter at the elevator with a long kiss that got a couple of whistles. As I walked towards Marnie's desk, I could see that there was a bit of a crowd milling around.
Lettie, my stepmother, was talking with Marnie. Bobby Cheung was slouching against the wall. Two of the pilots who worked for us, Captains John Morris and Manuel Obregon, were standing and talking with Robert. Since he managed all our properties, he was their boss. My father was watching me walk down the hall and shaking his head with a twinkle in his eye.
"Must be nice to be the owner of the outfit and just waltz in whenever you want, Nicholas."
Impulsively, I walked up and pulled the old man into an embrace. Everyone else stopped talking as I did so. He patted me on the back and said, "And I'm glad to see you, too, Nicholas. Is there anything wrong?"
Without looking at Marnie or anyone else, I took him by the arm and pulled him into the empty office next to mine and closed the door.
"What is this?" he asked as he looked at me.
"This is a long-overdue apology."
"For what?"
"For the hell I put you through in '38 and '39. I'm really, truly sorry."
He blinked several times and then took out his pipe. He spent a moment looking at it, turning it over in his left hand. Finally, he looked at me. His eyes were damp as he said, "You've left me quite speechless."
"There were four other kids from St. Ignatius that I ran around with that year. Three of them died in Italy during the war. And I saw the fourth one last night."
By that time, he'd filled his pipe and was lighting it. I watched as he did that. "How long had it been?"
"Since the day I moved in with Mike."
He nodded silently and puffed on his pipe. "Whatever became of that boy?"
"I'll tell you, but you have to keep it to yourself."
"That's fine."
"Have you heard of a mobster they call the Kid?"
"Yes. From the papers, of course."
"That's him."
He stopped and looked at me for a long moment. Taking out his lighter, he re-lit the tobacco in his pipe. "Have I ever mentioned Rags Mulroney?"
I laughed. "Rags? I don't think so."
My father smiled. "Yes, Rags. It was a nickname for Richard. Rags was born fatherless to a mother who, for many years, worked on the Barbary Coast. She came to work at the house for a short while for your grandmother in the summer of 1907. Besides her other many talents, she was an excellent seamstress. That green room on the third floor was where she worked and where the two of them lived while they worked for us."
I nodded. "I remember that room being used for something like that."
He waved away my memory with his pipe. "Yes, but this was a different time. The best-dressed ladies in the City had their own seamstresses, Irish or Chinese preferably. It was a bit of a fad, as I remember it. Mrs. Mulroney was very good at it and your grandmother put her quite to work. In any event, Rags and I became good chums and spent many long days running through the rubble of the City."
I nodded. I always forgot that my father had been 10 years old when the earthquake of '06 hit the City.
"It was quite an adventure. So much to explore and to discover. We truly had no idea how dangerous it all was, but that's childhood." He puffed on his pipe for a moment. "Well, the point of this story is that, many years later, I had the misfortune to encounter Rags."
"How so?" I asked.
"I was asked to give a character reference for him in his murder trial. You see, not long after you were born, there were a string of unusual murders in the Tenderloin. I'll spare you the details, but in each case the victim was a woman and her throat would be cut in a very particular fashion. When the police finally caught up with Rags, he quite willingly confessed. I was called in to testify to his childhood and upbringing in an effort to spare him from hanging. I was forced to testify against my will." He paused and tried to take a draw on his pipe without much success. "In any event, he was hanged at San Quentin not long after."
He walked over to the office's empty desk and banged his pipe into the glass ashtray that sat next to the phone. "It's quite an awful thing to run into someone you remember fondly from the past and to see the divergent roads that you each have traveled. I suppose upbringing might have something to do with the difference in our paths." He looked up at me for a long moment. "But I no longer believe that as I did. Leticia has quite opened my eyes as to some of my outdated beliefs about the goodness of men. Or lack thereof."
"Thank you, Father."
"For what, Nicholas?"
"For telling me that story."
He walked towards the door and opened it. Turning, he smiled at me and said, "You're quite welcome. Now, where is that Lieutenant Robertson? I have something I want to say to him."
I said, "His office is down here to the left. Follow me."
As we walked down the hallway, I wondered what my father was going to say. I was hope
ful, but was ready for whatever it might be.
Mike's door was closed. I knocked on it and heard, "Come in."
I opened the door and stepped back to let my father walk in ahead. He said, "Good morning, Lieutenant Robertson. How are you?"
Mike stood up, slightly bewildered. "I'm fine, Mr. Williams. And, please, call me Mike."
"Thank you, Mike, and I'm Dr. Williams, if you don't mind."
I grinned at Mike from behind my father's back.
"Have a seat, Dr. Williams."
"No, thank you, Mike. I'd like to shake your hand." My father walked around Mike's desk and offered his hand which Mike shook.
"I was just having an interesting conversation with Nicholas about the bad old days and I realized I've never truly thanked you for taking my son into your home and taking care of him." I could feel my eyes getting wet as I saw Mike's mouth drop open.
"Well, sir, I, um—"
My father waved his pipe in the air. "Please, there's no need. Just know that I am deeply in your debt. And," he looked down at the pipe for a moment, "I'm also quite sorry for what I said to you at our first meeting in 1940. And, of course..." He paused and then cleared his throat. "Since Janet's death—"
Mike reached over, pulled my father into a hug for a long moment, and then let him go. The old man looked so small in Mike's big arms. "Apology accepted. That's very kind of you, sir."
"Yes, well, I guess I'd better take Nicholas back to his office. There's quite a crowd assembled. Come along, Nicholas. Don't want to keep everyone waiting, particularly Leticia."
As he walked past me and through the door, I looked at Mike and smiled. He said, "Love you, Nick."
"Love you, too, Mike."
. . .
My father and Lettie moved into my office to wait while I talked to Bobby.
"What's up?" I asked.
"I need to talk to Sam. Is he around?"
I looked over at Marnie who said, "I think he's at the Federal courthouse, with Ike."
"Something I can help you with?" I asked.
Bobby looked down at the floor. "I'm in a jam. My uncle kicked me out."
"What happened?"
"I told him about our meeting."
The Sodden Sailor (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 11) Page 9
