“You’ll have scalding hot water in about twenty minutes,” he said. “It’s a good heater, so you can more or less take a nonstop hot bath all night long if you want. Just lie there and watch the skyline.”
He wanted to hear that she was at least, if not pleased by the safe room, then impressed by the view. He didn’t get either.
“Your father left you this place?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“And you can afford to keep it empty like this?”
“He owned the building next door, too.”
“The one with the pharmacy?”
“Yeah. The rent from it and the two apartments above is enough to pay the property tax and keep the electricity running.”
“No mortgage or anything.”
“No. My father bought them both with cash back when I was a kid. I didn’t even know about them till after he died.”
“What did he use this place for?”
“I don’t know,” Bechet lied. It had been obvious to him from the moment he first entered what it was his father had done there. What else would a man like him use a place like this for? Thick brick walls, no first-floor windows, a large drain in the floor of the loading dock. Bechet had felt it in the air, a chill that didn’t go away, not completely, even with the heaters on. He had felt that chill, too, the year he stayed there, taking bath after bath, looking out the window at the lights on the water, forgetting what he had done.
He would do that again, once he got there. But he wouldn’t be alone this time.
“How long will you be?” Gabrielle said.
“It won’t be as soon as I had hoped. Probably later on today, or tonight.”
“Is anything wrong?”
“No, it’s just taking longer, that’s all.”
“I thought we weren’t going to keep secrets from each other anymore.”
“I just don’t want you to worry, Elle.”
“How can I not? What else is there for me to do?”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. I promise.”
“Can I call you? I have a feeling I might get lonely.”
“Of course. If I don’t answer, I’ll call you right back. Get some sleep, okay? There are clean sheets and blankets in plastic bags in a trunk at the foot of the bed. I’ll be there soon.”
“Before that, if you can. Okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
They hung up. Bechet looked around his motel room for a moment, then took a breath and stood, putting himself and his plan in motion. It was time now. From his shoulder pack he removed a Ziploc bag, stuffed the cell phones and batteries and notebook into it, then zipped the bag closed. With the duct tape he had taken from the dance club storage room he sealed the bag tight, then taped it securely to the bottom of the overturned toilet tank lid. Finally, he replaced the lid, then turned off the ringer of his second cell phone, the phone to which only Gabrielle had the number, and placed it into the pocket of his mechanic’s jacket, zippered it closed. His other cell phone, his everyday phone, he shut off entirely as he left the room, then stashed it into the console in his Jeep. He drove the long way around the village, followed Sunrise Highway west for several miles, turning finally onto the north end of Peconic Road and making his way up the hill to its peak. Crossing first the bridge that spanned Sunrise Highway and then the train tracks, he saw that LeCur’s car was still where he had left it. The police had yet to find it, but with the sun coming up it wouldn’t be long till they did. Even then, with no identification on the man and no registration in the car’s glove compartment, it would take a while—several hours, at least—before they identified the body via its fingertips. LeCur, Bechet knew, had a police record, but even so, with his arrest report long out-of-date and no cell phone on his person to guide them, the detectives would have no idea how to contact his next of kin. There were significant disadvantages to living outside the law, and this was one of them.
But it was a disadvantage that Bechet knew he could make use of. Castello and LeCur had no way of knowing if LeCur, Sr., was alive or dead. If not sentiment then commerce would make it in Castello’s best interest that the man remain alive; training a man, maintaining a man as seasoned as LeCur, represented a significant investment of time and money. The man’s son clearly wasn’t there yet, wasn’t at the point where he could keep his emotions in check for the good of his employer, might not even ever get to that point, so the safe return of the more mature LeCur would be something Castello should be interested in.
With this in mind, Bechet continued on, following Peconic Road to its southern end, then turning left onto Montauk Highway, heading back toward Southampton. At a motel across from the college, standing on the edge of its driveway, was something that was a rare sight these days—an actual phone booth. Bechet pulled into the motel’s lot, grabbed a roll of quarters from his shoulder pack, and walked toward the booth. Inside, he pulled the paper from his back pocket, dropped two quarters into the coin slot, and dialed Castello’s number. He waited for the man to answer. It was strange for Bechet, after a year of living as close as he had yet come to an average man’s life, to be not only so far away from it now but to have his hopes of returning to it, or to something even remotely like it, hinge on the outcome of a single phone call. He remembered the night he had informed Castello’s father that he was leaving, and that it would be in their best interest not to come looking for him, ever. He remembered the way his hands had shaken as he’d held that phone. That was the only time in his life that his hands had ever trembled from fear. Never once before a fight, always a strange kind of calmness then, a deep relaxation that verged on sleepiness, and not even in the moments before he killed for Castello’s father, or when he forced an ice pick into the heart of a man who had posed, or so Bechet had been told, some kind of threat to the prosperity of the precious family.
Bechet’s hands weren’t shaking now, either. This was different, this wasn’t like the other call he’d made. Castello, Sr., had been like a father to Bechet, for better and for worse, but Castello, Jr., well, it was clear that he wasn’t like his father, just as Bechet wasn’t like his. Bechet and Castello, Jr., had been like brothers once, maybe, but that was a long time ago, and anyway, what Castello had tried to do, had threatened to do, that wasn’t exactly the act of a loving brother.
Bechet told himself that in a matter of hours he’d be back in Brooklyn, but with Gabrielle this time, and that they would talk as he took a long bath, soaked his naked body till he began to feel clean again, just as he had done before. From there, then what? He didn’t know, but he also didn’t care. His desire for all this to be done with was like a craving, drove him like a primal instinct. It was all he knew, and all he wanted to know till all this was finally behind him.
The ringing ceased. A pause, then, from the other end of the static-rich line, Castello’s voice. Cautious, uncertain.
“Hello.”
“We need to talk,” Bechet said.
Another pause, a longer one, and then: “Gabrielle Olivo, twenty-six, from Boston originally.” Any hint of caution and uncertainty was gone now. “I’ll have more later on today, if you’d like to call back then.”
That was fast, Bechet thought. Castello had resources, yes, but it had been only hours since he had learned Gabrielle’s name—learned it, obviously, from the younger LeCur. Not only had it been hours ago, but it had been during the dark hours of the morning, when most of the people in this part of the world were sound asleep, when institutions that kept such records were closed. But Bechet didn’t let his mind get stuck on that, needed his thoughts clear. Nor did he let his surprise at the power and swiftness of the Castello machine show; to do so would have given Castello exactly what he wanted, what he was so used to getting.
“If you thought for a minute that I’d do anything other than what I did,” Bechet said, “you were fooling yourself.”
“My family is all that matters to me, you know that,” Castello said. There wasn’t even the sl
ightest hint of apology in his voice.
“And she’s all that matters to me.”
“So where does this leave us?”
“In the position to make a deal.”
“I see.” Castello sighed. Bechet wondered then if he had awakened him. “Tell me, is our friend alive or dead?”
“He’s alive. We’re having a grand old time, actually. Catching up, playing cards. It’s almost like the old days.”
“What kind of deal, exactly, are you looking for?”
“Gabrielle and I get to disappear.”
“And why would I agree to that? There have to be consequences to betrayal, you know this. We cannot afford to be flexible on the matter.”
“I’d think self-interest would come before tradition.”
“You seem to believe you have something that would be of interest to me.”
“LeCur carried a notebook. In it is enough evidence to guarantee the FBI would want to take a good long look at your family for last night’s double murder. Frankly, I don’t care who killed who or why. But it seems to me a federal investigation would be a detriment to your business.”
Bechet waited for a response, got none, then continued.
“Add to that all the numbers in LeCur’s cell phone. And the numbers in his son’s. You wouldn’t want the FBI having access to these numbers, following them to where they lead, would you? I’m sure the last thing any of your business associates would want is to have to explain their connections to you.”
“We seem to have taught you well.”
“It’s the same deal I had with your father, Jorge. If anything happens to me, everything I have goes to the FBI, including the evidence from before. It’s a few years old but it’s still damaging, still enough to bring your business to a halt. Are we clear on this?”
“Yes, very.”
“Our deal of course extends to her. And I’m talking anything, Jorge. If suddenly her credit rating gets trashed, or her best friend from high school dies in a car crash—anything—then the deal is off. You have way too much to lose, I can’t imagine you just throwing it all away for something as petty as revenge. Your father was smarter than that. The question is, I guess, are you?”
“And what about our friend?”
“Once I’m out of town, I’ll let you know where to find him. In the meantime, if I see his son anywhere—if I even think I see his son—our friend is dead.”
“You seem to have covered everything.”
“So we have a deal?”
“No, not exactly. This deal would leave me still needing to know what I need to know.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. It all depends, I suppose, on if you give a shit about that friend of yours or not.”
“What friend?”
Bechet heard the sound of shuffling paper in the background. Castello drifted away from the phone for a moment, then returned.
“Robert Andrew Falcetti,” he said. “We’ve got his hack license number, so it won’t be so hard to find him when he comes out of hiding. And how long can the guy hide, right? He’s got to work, has to make money. From what I understand he has his share of debts around town.”
“You can go after him if you want,” Bechet said, “but that only means the FBI comes after you.”
“You’re placing an awful lot on one little notebook, Pay Day. You really expect to get this much from it?”
“You think I’m bluffing?”
“Yes,” Castello said flatly. “You expect me to believe that our friend is still alive? You expect me to care either way. He is of a certain value to me, yes, but what’s at stake is much more valuable, a hundred times more valuable.”
“It’s my deal, Jorge. Take it or leave it, it’s up to you.”
“And what about that business partner of yours? Eddie. I hear he left some enemies when he left Jamaica. It would be terrible for him to wake up and find himself packed in a crate, on his way back to his homeland, don’t you think? Don’t worry, though, we’d make sure he has company, that his wife packed in there with him.”
“Eddie’s got friends, Jorge. You don’t really want to mess with him.”
“Yeah, we know all about his friends. We’re not all that worried about them.”
Bechet said nothing. The phone booth felt suddenly like a trap. He wanted to flee it but couldn’t, had to stay and hear what was next.
“You can’t possibly expect me to be held responsible for the fates of a half dozen lives,” Castello said. “Shit happens, people get hurt, they die, in accidents, of natural causes even. I mean, that’s life, right? The hand you’re holding now is, at best, one you can cash in only once. And even then, FBI or not, our business brought to a halt or not, I can still hurt you if I want to, as often as I want to. I can hurt you through everyone you’ve ever known. Hell, when I’m done with them, I can just find some person at random, some young woman with her whole life ahead of her, and have her killed, let you live the rest of your life knowing that an innocent young woman died a horrible death because of you. You’ve got heart, Pay Day, but that’s the thing about the heart, isn’t it? It makes such a vital target.”
Bechet muttered, “Yeah, so you’ve said.”
“I’m smarter than my father, Pay Day. And I’m a thousand times smarter than you. I always have been. I’ve made millions of dollars for my family. I have a country with no extradition treaty to escape to, and more than enough passports to get me there. I have friends all over the world who will do whatever they can to assist me. If I have to flee this country, it only means I get to return to my beloved home, live there like a king for the rest of my life, till I die an old man, just like my father. So the FBI doesn’t scare me, never has. Nothing you can do scares me. So what do you say you and I put our heads together and come up with another deal, one that’s maybe a little closer to reality.”
Bechet waited for what was next, though he didn’t need to, knew exactly what was coming.
“You do what I want you to do, when I want you to do it,” Castello said, “and no one suffers. More importantly, you do what I want you to do and your girlfriend gets to live a nice long life. With you, without you, that’s up to you. Since you won’t be working for us officially, it doesn’t matter to me what you do with your personal life. What you do for us will be strictly a favor from you to me. Do you understand?”
Bechet stared through the scratched Plexiglas of the telephone booth at nothing. All this time, all this way, only to end up back where he had been once before.
Castello said, “I’ll take your silence as a yes. You should know that things have changed somewhat since we last spoke. It’s my belief now that we have a traitor in our organization. Or worse, in our family. I want to know who that person is. And I want what was stolen from us, too. I want all of it.”
Bechet said nothing, just continued to stare at the world beyond the booth. The two-lane road, the college across it, everything that he could see little more than parts of a ghost town to his tired eyes.
“You there?” Castello said. There was a degree of compassion in his voice, a brotherly softness.
Bechet nodded, then said, “Yeah.”
“We’d find her sooner or later, Pay Day, you know that. Slumming it with you might have been fun for a while, but at some point a woman like her will want to reenter the world. Certainly she couldn’t live the way she’s been living without you. If you did the noble thing and let her go, sent her away for her own good, we’d still find her, do what we had to do. But you know all this, Pay Day. You know it.”
Bechet thought then of the contents of LeCur’s trunk: heavy-duty garbage bags, a hacksaw. The idea of Gabrielle falling into their “machine” filled him with both sickness and rage. But so did the idea of a life spent without her, of his going back to the kind of women he’d known before her, the kind of life he’d known before the life they had made together.
The heart, indeed.
&nbs
p; “Don’t make this harder on yourself than it has to be,” Castello said. “You were a good student, you learned fast, but I’ve been doing this all my life. There’s no shame in losing to the better man. But you don’t need me to tell you that, right? What was it they used to write about you back when you fought? You were known more for the punches you took than the punches you threw. Something like that.”
Bechet took a breath, let it out. He closed his eyes, didn’t like what he saw, reopened them. “Something like that,” he said.
“You’ve wasted crucial time, so you’d better get going. Once you find the traitor we’ll know then what needs to be done.”
“What has changed to make you think there is a traitor? You didn’t say anything about this last night.”
“My father always said, the problem with having a lot of people in your pocket is that they all at some point might start talking to each other. In the past few hours we’ve been receiving some interesting information from one of our men in the department.”
“One?”
“It pays to have friends in the right places, and as many as possible. They tend to keep each other honest.” Castello paused, then said, “It seems the investigation into last night’s murders is a bit . . . single-minded.”
“You think a cop is behind this.”
“I need evidence, independent confirmation. Being told something is one thing, being shown proof of it is something else. I’d prefer not to take anyone at his word.”
Bechet said nothing to that.
“Find the traitor, Pay Day. Provide us with solid evidence and you will have gone a long way toward earning our forgiveness. Do that, get back what was stolen, and you just might begin to earn our gratitude. You remember what that’s like, don’t you? Our gratitude? A good salary for just sitting around and playing cards, indulging in whatever distractions you desire, whenever you desire them. That girl you used to request all the time, what was her name? Colette? Unfortunately, she’s not around anymore, but I’m sure we can find someone to replace her. Someone to help you forget all about your precious Gabrielle.”
The Water's Edge Page 23
