Charlie didn’t know what the bookie looked like, but she knew the two men loitering in the back of the bar. Her father’s unwanted visitors. The squat, piston-built man with the scar along his jaw looked her way and elbow nudged his buddy. The other man, tall and lumpy and vulture eyed, stared her down as she strode toward them.
They were standing guard over the last booth on the end, a seat with one occupant. He was massive, almost as wide as he was tall, poured into the padded vinyl booth and filling it out like his gut was made of liquid. He had a bib tucked into the neck of his tailored shirt, diamond links glimmering in his folded french cuffs, and a twenty-four-ounce slab of porterhouse steak laid out in front of him.
“Jimmy Lassiter?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said, his Boston accent tinged with more than a trace of native Ireland. He looked her up and down. “Who’s askin’?”
“Charlie McCabe. I’m Harry McCabe’s daughter.”
Jimmy’s eyes gleamed. He wagged his steak knife at her and smiled.
“Huh, didn’t know he had a kid. You here to make good on what he owes me?”
“I’m here with a question.”
She turned to his two thugs and glanced between them.
“I want to know who blacked up my dad’s eye.”
The tall one stepped up, getting into her space. He had over a foot of height on her, and at least forty pounds. He flashed a broken-toothed smirk.
“Maybe it was me,” he said.
She nodded, took a step back, and pulled in her body language. Showing him she knew she was out of her league. His smile got bigger, hungrier.
Then she threw a hard right hook, twisting her hips as she put her entire body into the punch, and smashed her fist into his eye. She grabbed his wrist with one hand and his shoulder with the other, spinning him around, and kicked the back of his knee. He buckled and went down. The side of his face smashed against the table, and she yanked on his arm, wrenching it behind his back. His buddy got behind her. She heard a pistol’s hammer cock and felt the kiss of cold metal against the back of her head.
“Whoa, whoa.” Jimmy laughed, holding up his open hands. “Grillo, do not shoot this bird. We don’t shit where we eat, right? C’mon. No need for the steel. Let’s be gentlemen.”
The man with the scar—Grillo, she assumed—pressed the muzzle of his gun harder against her skull. “Let him go,” he seethed through gritted teeth.
Charlie gave the other thug’s arm one last good yank—not breaking it, just showing him how easy it would have been—and unclenched her grip. She stepped back. So did Grillo, but he kept the pistol, a cheap, janky revolver with walnut grips, loose in his hand. The bartender gave them an uneasy look, but he didn’t pick up the phone. Jimmy might not have been the owner, but it was clear who ran this place. The tall man glowered at her as he stood up straight. He clamped a hand to his eye and sulked.
“Goddamn, Reyburn.” Jimmy snickered and sawed off a hunk of steak, popping it between his wormy lips. He talked while he chewed. “You just got jacked, son. What hurts more, your face or your pride?”
Reyburn stared at the floor and grumbled something Charlie couldn’t quite make out. Jimmy looked her way, seeing her with fresh eyes.
“And you. Feisty, I’ll give you that.”
“I’ll give her more than that,” Grillo muttered. He glared daggers at her, his gun hand twitching.
“Leave her be,” Jimmy said. “She’s defending her old man. I respect that. Reminds me of when I was back in short pants. This kid on the playground, Fergus Brogan, biggest kid in the whole damn school, he called my old man a faggot. Now, I knew I was gonna get my ass kicked, but I still had to make him answer for it. It’s what you do. That’s what family is.”
Reyburn looked thankful for any chance to change the subject. “Did he? Kick your ass?”
“Sure.” Jimmy chewed on another hunk of steak. “He put me in the infirmary. Course, once I got out, I waited for him on the way to school with a bike chain in my fist and jumped him in an alley. I took one of his eyes out, broke his spine, and put him in a wheelchair for life. I still send him a card every year on the day it happened, to commemorate the anniversary, just so he doesn’t forget who did it to him. And in every card, I write the same thing: This didn’t have to happen to you. You chose this fate.”
He looked back to Charlie, thoughtful now.
“We all choose our fates. Now, you traded a shiner for a shiner. That seems fair to me. Like you’ve done your familial duty. No more could be expected of you by any reasonable person. So now would be a real good time for a smart-looking lass like you to walk away.”
Adrenaline surged through Charlie’s veins, and her heart pounded a jackhammer beat against her rib cage. That old familiar rush of sudden violence and the aftermath. She kept her breathing as slow and steady as she could manage and pressed her hands to her sides to keep them from trembling. He was right. She’d just had a gun to the back of her head, and her situation could swing from bad to terminal in the blink of an eye if Jimmy’s patience ran out.
Still, she held her ground.
“Nobody touches my father,” she said. “I want that understood.”
Jimmy reached for a bottle of A.1. He spanked the bottom of the bottle, drowning the rest of his porterhouse in a torrent of glistening sauce.
“Your father owes me a lot of money.”
“And he’ll pay it,” Charlie said. “Every cent he owes you. Fair is fair. But nobody lays a hand on him. And you don’t take any more bets from him either.”
Jimmy shook his head at the steak. “The latter is not an issue. Man owes me twenty g’s; he’s cut off until such time as I see the money.”
“And after,” Charlie said. “He’s done placing bets with you. For good. If he calls, you don’t pick up the phone.”
“I don’t think you understand just how patient I’ve been with him up until now. Plus, you need to appreciate the greater issues in play. The dynamics of this little cottage industry I’m proud to represent.”
“Do tell,” Charlie said.
Jimmy speared a chunk of steak with his fork. He waved it like a conductor’s baton while he spoke. Driblets of sauce rained down on the plate like blood spatter.
“My professional reputation is in question,” he told her. “People watch; people hear things. Now, I let a guy skate forever on a twenty-grand debt? I look weak. And when I look weak, that’s when the wolves start circling, looking for their shot at taking me down. Hell, you think your old man is my only customer? I got two hundred names in my little black book, and half of ’em owe me. Now, they hear about me going soft on a fellow gambler, they’re all gonna stop paying me, and then where would I be?”
“Looking for an honest job?” she said.
Jimmy snorted. He leaned over and poked Reyburn in the side.
“You believe the mouth on this lass? Honest job.”
“Regular fuckin’ comedian,” Reyburn said, still cupping a hand over his eye. “Oughta try doing stand-up.”
Jimmy’s smile vanished as he locked eyes with Charlie.
“It’s not about your old man. I’m protecting my name and my livelihood here. I feel for you; I really do. This isn’t personal. But the best I can do for him is ten days. Ten days from today. And if I don’t have twenty thousand dollars in my hand, cash, at the end of those ten days, he pays the interest with a kneecap. If I don’t have it at the end of the next week, he pays with his other kneecap. And then we have to start getting creative.”
SIX
Charlie felt her father’s burden weighing her down, like Jimmy Lassiter had just strapped a giant hourglass made of lead to her shoulders. Ten days of sand, slipping away grain by grain.
“Ten days,” she echoed, as if making sure she’d heard him right.
“Best I can do,” Jimmy said. “And that, you’re only getting because I like you. Now, far be it from me to tell anyone how to live their life, but may I be so bold as to offer
a suggestion?”
“I’m listening.”
“Don’t help him. Don’t save him from himself. All you’re doing is delaying the inevitable.” He poked his fork at her. “You don’t want to hear this, but you need to face the facts. Your father is a bum.”
“He has a problem,” Charlie said. “An addiction. But he can get better. He used to be better—”
“Uh-huh. Until he wasn’t anymore.” Jimmy pointed at his face. “You got eyes like mine. See, my dad, his love was the bottle. Same beast wearing a different mask. I bet you missed a few meals as a kid because your old man gambled away the grocery cash. Ever find yourself out of doors because he pissed away the rent one too many times?”
She didn’t answer. He nodded, gave her a smug smile, and sawed at his steak.
“Sure you did. Don’t even have to say it: I’ve walked the same road as you, my new friend. You need to learn what I learned. People don’t change. And when you’ve got someone in your life who’s bound and determined to drag themself down and take you with them, all you can do is walk away. Blood or no, don’t be any man’s collateral damage, and never fight another man’s war for him. That’s no way to live.”
“People can change,” she said. The words came out more vehemently than she wanted. For a moment, she wasn’t sure whom she was trying harder to convince.
“People,” Jimmy said, “act according to their natures, and nothing changes the nature of a man. I’m sure you know that old story, the frog and the scorpion?”
“Frog and the what?” Grillo asked. He still stared at Charlie like he was imagining her head on a spike, but the gun in his hand stayed pointed at the dirty linoleum. Jimmy rolled his eyes.
“Frog and the scorpion, ya ignoramus. Scorpion asks the frog, ‘Hey, can you take me across this river? I promise I won’t sting you.’ They get halfway across, an’ he stings him.”
Grillo frowned. “What’d he do that for?”
“See, that’s what the frog said. And as they’re both going down, drowning in the river, the scorpion tells him, ‘Mate, I’m a scorpion. The fuck did you expect me to do?’” Jimmy turned back to Charlie. “Your old man is determined to drown. He’s aching for it. And it don’t matter if you find the money and pay his debt this time around. It don’t matter if I never cover his action again. Because this town is full of scorpions, and he’ll go knocking on doors until he finds one. You seem like you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Do yourself a mighty big favor and use it. Don’t drown with him and don’t drown for him.”
“I’ll get the money,” Charlie said.
She knew, even as she said it, that she might as well have promised to walk on water. The odds were about equal.
“We all have to follow our nature.” Jimmy held her gaze for a moment. “I think we’re done here, don’t you?”
Jimmy watched her leave. She looked like she had something else to say, and she was smart enough not to say it. Not respectful, not scared either. Smart.
“You shoulda let me pop her,” Reyburn said.
Jimmy studied the hunk of steak on his fork.
“And by now you should know better than to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do.” He popped the steak between his glistening lips and talked between chews. “Got no reason to end the lass. Not yet.”
“I got a reason,” he said, cupping his hand over his eye.
“You got a life lesson,” Jimmy said. “Leave it at that.”
Grillo hovered behind his partner. “Why are we wasting our time? She can’t get that kind of money, not in ten days. You know she can’t do it.”
Jimmy swallowed his bite. He dabbed a sauce-stained napkin at the corners of his mouth, set it down, and folded his hands.
“Life lessons all around, then.”
SEVEN
The moon was up by the time Charlie came home, gleaming and gritty in the azure midsummer sky. She slapped a mosquito off her arm as her key jangled in the lock. The television was silent, and her father’s bedroom door was closed. She wasn’t sure if he’d gone to bed early because he was tired or because he didn’t want to face her when she came back from talking to his bookie. Empty cans of Bud lined the kitchen counter; he’d been plowing through the case she’d bought the day before, pounding them down like it was his full-time job.
She went to bed too.
Sleep was a losing battle. She tossed and turned, flipping her pillow to find the cool side once her cheek had warmed it up, tossing off her top blanket, then pulling it back on again. Everything was too hot or too cold, too scratchy, too stiff. Normally, none of that would even register with her; she’d spent nearly a decade roughing it.
Seething in silent frustration, she realized it wasn’t the bed keeping her awake. It was the quiet. The soft chorus of crickets trilling outside her moonlit window had no power to lull her off to dreamland. She needed engines and boot steps . . . the buzz of a world in constant movement.
She needed to tire herself out. Charlie tossed the sheets aside, rolled out of bed, and tugged on clean sweats and her running shoes. She let herself out as quietly as she could. Then she stretched for a minute, bending deep and feeling her calves burn as her fingertips brushed her toes. She hit the open road.
She jogged along desolate country lanes, no particular place to go, just a gray smudge under the shadowed canopy of leaves. Up ahead, amber eyes flashed in the dark. A doe, touching one timid hoof to the dusty road, turned and sprinted into the underbrush. Charlie slowed down to catch her breath. She watched the leaves rustle in the doe’s panicked wake.
For all the weight on her mind, she ran without thinking much at all. Her father’s debt, her new job, all the challenges ahead of her—all swallowed by the cool night wind and the mingled pain and pleasure of the run. Charlie didn’t have any particular destination in mind, but she wasn’t surprised when she ended her one-woman race at the darkened facade of the Crab Walk. It was just past closing time, and Dutch had shepherded the last lonely drunk from the desolate gravel parking lot. She burst across an imaginary finish line and slowed to a stumbling, achy walk.
Charlie heard cans rattling around back. The wind turned her sweat-soaked clothes to ice. Breathing deep, she rounded the side of the bar. Dutch was taking out the trash, tossing overstuffed Hefty bags into a dumpster. He glanced her way.
“Heard you pounding the pavement from a quarter mile away. What, your old man’s truck finally die for good?”
“Fresh air and exercise,” Charlie panted.
“Overrated and highly overrated.”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Too quiet,” Dutch said.
He studied the angles of her face like he was looking in a mirror. Behind him, mosquitoes buzzed around a hard white light, set in a cage above the bar’s back door. Dutch jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
“C’mon in,” he said. “Keep me company while I clean up.”
She gazed across the dark, lonely taproom and bellied up to the empty bar. Dutch slid a bottle of beer along the lacquered wood, grabbed one for himself, and tossed back a swig.
“When I came back,” he said, “I ended up in New York City. This was old New York, back before Times Square went Disney. I was squatting in this one-room shit box right next to a train line. The noise from the tracks helped. If I’d landed here first, out in the sticks, I’d have gone crazier than I did.”
“Do you ever get used to it?”
“You ought to be in Boston,” he said. “Get some city around you. Living out here is like being a turtle without a shell.”
Charlie contemplated her beer.
“Can’t leave yet.”
“Jake called me. Said you aced the job interview. He says you’ve got moxie, whatever the hell that is.”
“My tryout is tomorrow,” she said. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Its short, stubby hand pushed past three a.m. “Well, later today.”
“You got this.” Dutch wiped the bar down, swirling the smudges aro
und with a faded blue terry cloth. “Most of their jobs are in town. Make sense for you to live closer.”
She looked away from the clock. Their eyes met.
“Can’t leave yet.”
Dutch’s weathered brow furrowed, just a little.
“How bad?” he asked.
“Twenty thousand.”
He let out a long, low whistle.
“Don’t suppose he has it,” Dutch said.
“Don’t suppose he does.”
“Who’s got his marker?”
“Jimmy Lassiter,” Charlie said.
Dutch went back to wiping down the bar.
“Auribus teneo lupum,” he said.
Charlie stared at him over the mouth of her bottle. “Meaning?”
“It’s Latin. It means ‘holding a wolf by its ears.’” He set the cloth down and curled his hands in front of him, pantomiming. “You hold on, you’re screwed. You let go, you’re screwed.”
“Damned if I do, damned if I don’t?”
“Pretty much wolf chow all around. Lassiter’s nobody to mess with. He’s connected up to the eyeballs.”
“Not looking to mess with him,” she said. “Not looking for anybody to mess with my dad either.”
“Might not be your decision. And Harry made his choices.”
Charlie drank her beer.
“I couldn’t deal with it, you know?” she said.
“At least you’re not lying to yourself about it.”
He left the anymore unspoken, but she heard it clear as a bell.
“I don’t know how many times Mom almost left, when I was a kid. Bags packed, car warming up in the driveway. Christmas morning, I was eight or nine—that’s the one I remember most. She’d given him some money to buy me presents the week before.”
The Loot (Charlie McCabe Thriller) Page 4
