Dead Cat Bounce

by Norman Green

  Stoney picked up the tail on his way back down to the city. He was trying to learn to drive like a civilized human being and having a tough time with it. I’ll only go ten over the limit, he told himself, but his resolve would melt after a few minutes and he’d start asking himself what he was doing over in the right lane with the grandmothers, and the next thing he knew, he’d be doing eighty or ninety, dueling with the rest of the maniacs, at which point he’d remember his earlier resolution and slow back down again. A blue Volvo 850 station wagon kept pace with him, speeding up and slowing down when he did. You gotta be kidding me, he thought, looking at the thing sitting three cars back. A Volvo? He got off at Central Avenue in Yonkers. Sure enough, the Volvo did, too, it followed him as he drove west through the town. Stoney wasn’t particularly hungry, but he stopped at a Wendy’s. The Volvo drove on past and pulled into a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot about a hundred yards farther on.

  No way, he told himself. No way anybody works for Prior is driving a goddamn Volvo station wagon. Fucking thing looks like a shoe box on wheels, for chrissake. Hard to imagine a cop driving it, either, but you never knew with cops, sometimes they did things that were hard to figure. Maybe they seized the thing from some old lady for dealing cocaine out of her co-op in Fort Lee. Stranger things had happened. And if it was the police, they might be listening in on his phone calls, too, he didn’t doubt that they could do it, and would if they were taken by the notion. He got in line, bought a burger and a cup of coffee, and went and sat down at a table. He ate half the burger, then stuffed the napkin in his mouth, took his coffee, and went over to the pay phone by the door. He made his call, listened to Fat Tommy’s prerecorded voice, waited for his beep.

  “Thisa Roberto,” he said, spitting the words out through the soggy napkin. “Veddy seek. I don’ coming to work tomorrow. But don’ tell nobody, hogay? Isa nobody’s goddamn bidness.” A short black kid holding a skateboard that was almost as big as he was watched, openmouthed, from a few feet away. Stoney winked at the kid, fished the napkin out and threw it away, and went back out to the car.

  He got back out on Central, drove straight across to where it connected with the Deegan, and took the Deegan southbound. The Volvo did, too, hanging a bit farther back than before. Suspicious, maybe. Stoney wondered if he ought to try to take it easy. But you alter your pattern too much, he told himself, the guy will know something’s up. It didn’t matter anyway, he held his speed down for a mile or two, but then he wound up doing what he always did, hammering down the left lane like his ass was on fire.

  He found a parking spot on his block. The only reason he got the spot, typical Manhattan bullshit, there were four signs on one pole, you had to sort through all of them to figure out if the spot was legal or not, and what it boiled down to was you had to move the car before seven the next morning, and no way you were finding a legal spot at that hour. The Volvo parked by a hydrant at the far end of the block.

  Stoney went into his building, went upstairs long enough to turn a light on, then went back down and exited by the back door of the building. There was an alley that led you out to Thirteenth Street. He stuck his head out, didn’t see anything too strange. He went down Thirteenth, turned at the end of the block, and went to have a quick look at the Volvo driver.

  White guy, blond hair in a buzz cut, motherfucker was looking through a pair of binoculars. He had a newspaper and a cup of coffee on the dashboard. Wasn’t a Dunkin’ Donuts cup, either, he’d stopped at a 7–Eleven. The man came prepared, Stoney thought.

  Jersey plates on the Volvo.

  Night was falling on Alphabet City. I could wait an hour or two, Stoney thought, come back, yank that guy out of the car, dance him up and down Twelfth Street until he tells me what’s going on…

  I really needed this, he thought. What a pain in the dick.

  Roberto’s Deli was across the street from Fat Tommy’s loft. There was a joint next to Roberto’s, down in the cellar, they had live jazz six nights a week, five if you didn’t count open mike night. They also had a lot of other things, the bartender could hook you up with almost any poison you preferred. Stoney bought a ginger ale, found a booth in a dark corner, and waited.

  Tommy came in about an hour later, made a slow circuit around the room before he sat down across the table from Stoney. A six-piece band was playing, three white guys on brass, brothers on bass and piano, and a sister behind the drums. She used a brush and a stick, she and the bass player worked together like they were joined at the hip. The piano tinkled softly in the background while the horns carried on a hushed conversation of their own. Stoney and Tommy sat and listened. Forty-five minutes later, the band took a break.

  “You wasa have a lilla problem?” Tommy asked.

  “I’m burned,” Stoney said, and he told Fat Tommy about the Volvo.

  “Damn,” Fat Tommy said. “Bad timing.”

  “I know. You didn’t say anything?”

  “No. Didn’t tell nobody.” Tommy leaned on the table. “So now you wanna pulla the plug?”

  “We’re too close, Tommy. Besides, I want Prior. I been through too much on this one.”

  “I know whatta you mean. Still…”

  “You don’t have to tell me. If somebody’s onto us, we could all be up shit creek. Son of a bitch.”

  Tommy shrugged. “Maybe Prior don’ gonna call.”

  Stoney shook his head. “He’s on the hook. Five gets you ten he calls Jack before noon tomorrow.”

  “Make him wait,” Tommy suggested. “Jerk him around a couple day.”

  “I don’t like it,” Stoney said. “It’s the wrong way to play this guy. What I’m wondering is how much they’ve got. If they’ve got me, do they have the rest of you? Do they have our phones, too? If Prior calls Jack tomorrow, what will Jack say when he calls you?”

  “Don’ worry,” Tommy said. “Smart boy. He don’ gonna say much onna phone. ‘Hey, Uncle Tommy, you wanna buy me lunch?’ Something like that.”

  “Goddammit,” Stoney said. “I know the smart play is to close up shop and walk away, Tommy, but I want this guy bad. I gotta do this.”

  Tommy leaned back in the booth, sipped at his drink while he looked out across the dimly lit room. The band members were drifting slowly back to their places. “My call,” Tommy said, and he stood up. “Don’ do a thing. Wait until you hear from me.”

  NINETEEN

  Marisa had paid for early delivery, next day air, so it came before her mother had left for work. “Something for Dad,” Marisa told her, and she tore the cardboard carton open. It had cost her four bucks from an online used-book dealer, who charged another ten for shipping. It was a four-year-old copy of Hemmings Motor News. Stoney had not, initially, told her why he wanted it, but she had gotten it out of him. Marisa had never met Tina Finbury; neither the name nor Stoney’s description of her rang any bells. When Stoney told her he was sure the woman had been murdered by Prior, and why, Marisa made up her mind that Prior was going to pay. She’d never thought of herself as a vindictive person, but she became one that moment, she could feel it.

  She sat down with the book and began leafing idly through it. She found a picture of a fat, middle-aged guy standing in front of something identified as a Delahaye, an ugly little half-century-old car that looked like it might have been drawn for some cartoon character to drive. As a matter of fact, the guy standing so proudly in the picture did bear more than a passing resemblance to Elmer Fudd. Guys are so weird, she thought, they get all wrapped up in the strangest things. She had once dated a boy whose father owned a Corvette from the early sixties. The guy had kept the car closed up in a garage that looked like a museum. The floor was tiled, the walls were painted white, and the tool cabinets against the wall were new, undented, and clean. The car was parked on four little square pieces of carpet so that the tires did not even touch the floor, and it was draped with some special kind of soft-cloth cover. It took the guy fifteen minutes of fussing just to give you a look at it. And God forbi
d you should ask a question, if you got him started you had to stand there for an hour while he told you stories about the stupid thing. He kept promising her a ride in it, which she’d never gotten because she broke up with his son while the weather was still cold and the guy never took his baby out unless the day was perfect. Amazing, she thought, that some people had nothing worthwhile to bother themselves about.

  Focus, she told herself. Try to pay attention to what you’re doing, for chrissake.

  She didn’t know what anything in the book could possibly have to do with Prior. The man didn’t even drive, the only cars he had were limos, and he always rode in the back. Do it anyhow, she told herself, just go through the book and see what jumps out at you. If it had a connection to Prior, this Finbury lady must have found it, and if she can do it, you can, too.

  She got lost in the book. God, didn’t anybody ever throw anything away? Maybe the Delahaye was ugly, but there were plenty of cars listed that weren’t, everything from old MGs and Triumphs to World War II jeeps, and how cool would it be to drive up to your prom in this guy’s ‘61 T-bird convertible, only twenty-two grand, she couldn’t remember ever seeing a car that beautiful. Or that little Cobra, oh yeah, a hundred and forty-five grand the guy wanted. In your dreams, buddy…It took a couple of hours to get to the end of the book, and she saw nothing in that time that said “Prior” to her.

  Stoney’s phone rang early in the morning. It was Fat Tommy. “Come on down to my place,” he said. “I gonna buy you breakfast. Take the train.”

  “Okay,” Stoney said, and Fat Tommy, for once in his life, apparently had nothing else to say, and he hung up. Stoney stood in his apartment, a coffee cup in one hand and the phone in the other. Take the train? Why the hell would Bagadonuts want him to ride the subway? And that’s what he wanted, Stoney had no doubt of it, otherwise Tommy would never have mentioned it. He shrugged, cradled the phone. Whatever you say, he thought.

  The Volvo guy was still there, although he was no longer parked by the hydrant. Someone must have moved a car during the night, and the guy had grabbed the spot. He had another guy with him now, sitting shotgun in the car. Stoney ignored them both and walked up to Fourteenth to catch the L. He wasn’t sure if they followed him or not, the platform was too crowded with morning commuters, and Stoney didn’t want to appear too curious. The train rattled into the station and he shouldered his way on with everyone else.

  Fat Tommy wound up cooking breakfast, and of course he made a production out of it: poached eggs, cob-smoked bacon that he mail-ordered from Georgia, Italian-roast coffee, toast made with bread he drove all the way out to Staten Island to buy, and so on. Stoney held in his questions and watched. Tommy’s joy in the ordinary things of his life was something that Stoney could see but did not understand. He tried to remember a time when he was as fully present in the moment….

  Tommy set his table for three. “I wasa call Jack Harman last night,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “Don’ worry,” Tommy said. “In case this thing falls apart, we still find a way to take care of your friend Prior.”

  Harman rang Tommy’s doorbell a short time later. Stoney hardly recognized him when he stepped through the door. He was wearing ancient sneakers with no laces, ragged pants, a long, stained woolen overcoat, and a stocking cap pulled low across his forehead.

  “Well,” Stoney said, watching as Harman stripped off the hat and coat, “nobody’s gonna pick you out in that getup.”

  “I sincerely hope not,” Harman said, grinning. “You didn’t.”

  “What?”

  “I was camped out on the stoop on Twelfth Street, right next door to your place. You came out this morning, walked right past me, didn’t say hello or anything. I was going to ask you for a quarter.”

  “Jesus. You were there? I didn’t notice you at all.”

  “Well, that’s the idea. I was just another East Village train wreck, just one more lost dog. No reason to notice. Those two goobers shadowing you didn’t notice me, either.”

  “Okay,” Stoney said, nodding. “So? What did they do?”

  “They had an argument. The one guy is over here in his wife’s car, and it sounded like she was pretty pissed off about it.”

  “You’re kidding me. The Volvo guy?”

  “Yep. The two of them got out and tailed you from your place to the subway station, but then the Volvo guy got all nervous and jerky about the car, he was afraid to leave it parked there. They argued for a while. The other guy was steamed, ‘How the fuck am I supposed to do this all by myself, I gotta get back to Jersey in time for my shift,’ and on and on. He finally went down into the subway station, but he didn’t have a Metrocard, and by the time he figured out how to use the machine, he missed the train and you were gone. He went back over to Twelfth Street and the two of them yelled at each other some more. I left right after that, so I don’t know where they are now, or what they’re doing.”

  “Sound like Tweedledum and Tweedledope,” Tommy said.

  “They do,” Harman said. “Definitely not varsity. But they did kind of look like cops.”

  “I guess that’s a relief,” Stoney said. “Either one of you two guys notice anyone watching you?”

  “Not a soul,” Harman said.

  Tommy shook his head. “Nope.”

  “All right,” Stoney said. “Well, keep your eyes open. Unless we pick up someone else, let’s assume those two are only targeting me. From now on, be careful what you say when you call me, and if I have something important to talk about, I’ll find a pay phone.”

  “Forget that,” Harman said. “I’ll pick up one of those prepaid jobs for you.”

  “All right,” Stoney said.

  “Tell me one more time what they look like,” Tommy said.

  “They looked like cops to me,” Harman said. “You know, short hair, white faces, you can tell they’ve hoisted some iron, you know, Young Republicans of America.”

  “From Jersey,” Tommy said.

  “Their car was, anyhow. Why?”

  “I’ma no like this,” Tommy said. “I think I know what to do.”

  “Whatever,” Stoney said. “In the meantime, we’re still on. At least until the next bump in the road.”

  “So we’re still waiting for Prior to call,” Harman said. “There an over-under on him?”

  “Before noon,” Stoney said.

  Tommy thought about it. “By two o’clock.”

  “I’ll be the pessimist,” Harman said. “I’ll take four-thirty this afternoon. Make it five, give him a while to think it over after the market closes. If it’s a down day, we got him.”

  She went back at it after Tuco showed up. He watched for a while, then asked what she was doing. She wasn’t sure how much he knew, or how much she was supposed to say, but in the end she decided that if he didn’t know what was going on, he ought to, and she told him what she knew about Tina Finbury and Prior. Tuco sat and listened without showing much emotion.

  “Okay,” he said when she was done. “So I guess you didn’t find a picture of Prior in that book anywhere.”

  “If it’s there, I didn’t see it,” she said. “Besides, it’s mostly cars. There’s only a few pictures of people.”

  “Oh. And he isn’t into cars, that what you said, right? You sure he ain’t got an old Jag under a tarp in the corner of his garage?”

  “No,” she said. “He has a couple of limousines and a van, that’s all.”

  “Well, there has to be a connection. Does he sell insurance? Like on antique cars?”

  “No, Eddie,” she said. “The guy’s rich, he doesn’t do anything.”

  “You’re sure he’s not, like, partners with someone in the old-car business? Some guy doing restorations, maybe, or some other rich guy with a car museum, something like that?”

  She was shaking her head. “I never once heard him even mention a car, his or anyone else’s. I never got the impression that he cared about them at all. To him, they wer
e just transportation appliances.”

  “No kidding. Well, nobody’s gonna buy Hemmings if they’re not into old iron in a big way. Look through again, sometimes they take pictures of a car parked in front of someone’s house. Look at the backgrounds, not the cars, see if anything looks familiar.”

  “All right.” She did it, she did it until she was sick to death of everything automotive. “Nothing,” she told him.

  “There’s gotta be something,” he said. “Okay, let’s try something else. Talk to me about this guy Prior.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “I think so.”

  She closed her eyes. She didn’t like thinking about Prior, didn’t like remembering what she had felt like when she was inside his house, and she sure as hell didn’t want to talk about it in front of Tuco. She heard him get up and walk over, felt his hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right, Mar,” he said. “Just talk about the guy. Talk about what you know.”

  “Okay.” She didn’t want to look at Tuco while she talked, so she stared out the window. “He loves women. I mean, all of us, but he’s crazy about young girls. When he wants something from you, he talks to you, and he, he like, looks at you as if there’s nobody else in the world, just you and him. Once he gets what he wants, he doesn’t want to see you or hear you, he just wants you to go away. I think he’s got a lot of money, but I never saw him throw it around or try to impress anybody with it. I don’t think he cares at all what other people think. He, ahh, he thinks he’s smarter than he really is, but I don’t suppose that makes him any different. He plays golf, he’s got a lot of golf magazines laying around, and he has this big net thing in his backyard that he hits golf balls into. And he has these other things, they’re a cross between golf balls and Wiffle balls, and he hits them from one side of his yard to the other. He hates the dogs. The dogs are afraid of him. I don’t know if he has any friends. He works out a lot, he has a punching bag hanging in the room where his pool table is. Ahh, I don’t know. What else?”