B009XDDVN8 EBOK (29 page)

“We were high, that’s all it was.”

“So when the money disappeared and everyone was looking for it behind every damn door, to understand what was really behind those smiles of yours didn’t take a genius.”

“Which meant you were perfect for the job.”

“It was the unfairness of it more than anything that got to me. I was Tony’s pal, I was in that house all the time, but it was you guys who ended up with the cash. All I ever wanted was my share.”

“What are you complaining about? You won, Richie, you got Madeline.”

“Oh yeah? Don’t get me started on Maddie. There’s a reason I’m here every night, let me tell you. But see, I was never the type
to just sit back and get pissed on. I see angles a pool shark would miss. Like when those motorcycle freaks were buzzing the neighborhood after the money disappeared.”

I turned and looked at his ugly face. “What about it?”

“I pulled one of the freaks over and made an offer.”

“You made an offer?”

“I had my sights on Maddie, and on a piece of the money you assholes heisted, and so I took a combination shot.”

Just then the bartender brought our drinks over.

“Cheers,” said Richie, lifting his drink in a mock gesture of friendship and gratitude. I closed my eyes and took a sip and let the burn slip down my throat and mix with the something ugly and sick within me. It had been there from my visit to Madeline, had risen when I recognized his twisted front teeth, and it felt just then that it would explode in my chest, as if the vodka was mixing with nitroglycerine.

“It didn’t work out quite like I thought,” said Richie. “They didn’t find the money on you, so I only pocketed one ball, on the rebound, you could say. I thought that maybe I had been wrong about you after all.”

“You were wrong.”

“That maybe it was the cops that actually scored the cash.”

“It probably was.”

“So I let it go, but it nagged at me. I had been so sure. And then, all these years later, that guy Holmes with the tattoo appears at the house and suddenly I knew I was right from the first. I mean, why else would a hard case like that be looking for a winkle like you? He put a price on your head, too, did you know that?”

“Dead or alive?” I said.

“Alive, unfortunately. After that I was just praying you’d show up, and I must be doing something right in the Big Guy’s eyes because here you are.”

“So how much am I worth to you, Richie?”

“See, that’s the thing. I figure you can beat his price to keep me quiet. That’s my new angle. What with all the cash you took all those years ago, and with the stock market climbing like it did in that time, I bet you got yourself a seven-figure bundle by now. I only want six.”

“Six dollars?”

“Six figures.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

“Cash.”

“You’re dreaming.”

“Sure I am, I’m dreaming big. But whatever I get, it will be less than that guy with the tattoo will take off you. By the look of your face, he already started the job. You can bet that next time he’ll finish it.”

“So it’s a bargain is what you’re saying.”

“Absolutely.”

“One I can’t afford not to take advantage of.”

“You’re smarter than I remember.”

“You have me in a vise.”

“That’s right.”

“A hundred thousand dollars in cash, just like that. As if I had it sitting there in the trunk of my car.”

“A hundred thousand is just the starting point. We’ll negotiate the details later.” He took out his phone. “I already called the number, said I might have you spotted. The guy on the other end, a guy named Clevenger, said he could have someone on-site in ten minutes if I give him a location. Do I make the call or do we have a deal?”

“What’s my alternative?”

“Exactly.”

“Other than putting a gun to your head.”

Something ugly slipped out of his eyes just then, his unwarranted arrogance fell away, replaced by uncertainty. He looked at me and took a long gulp of his drink and then, as if the rum and
Coke had suddenly increased the size of his balls, tried to smile his way out of the threat. “Don’t pretend to be something you’re not, J.J. I’ve known you too long.”

“See, that’s the thing, Richie, you’ve never known me at all. Normally I’d just ignore you, like I’d ignore a piece of dog shit in the street. But it turns out you’re the one who gave me the scar on my neck, making you a piece of dog shit on my shoe, which is a lot harder to ignore. And then there’s Madeline.”

“What about her?”

“Do you only hit her on special occasions, Richie, or is it an everyday thing?”

“Why, what did that bitch say?”

“How does it make you feel when you hit her? Like you’re finally getting your share?”

“Whatever she said, she’s lying.”

“She chose you, you son of a bitch. Of all the people in this world, Madeline Worshack chose you. You showed up when she was down and she allowed you into her life, and you should be worshipping her every day for that one act of grace. Instead you haunt a dump like this and complain about the things she won’t do. And you hit her to make yourself feel like someone other than the piece of dog shit you are.”

“Forget it,” he said, looking down at his phone as he started pressing buttons. “I’ll take what Clevenger is giving. It comes without the bullshit. Enjoy your death, asshole.”

“I’ll surely enjoy yours,” I said as I calmly pulled Holmes’s gun out of the holster clipped onto my belt and jammed the tip of the barrel hard into Richie Diffendale’s temple.

“Ow,” he said when the metal banged into his head. And when he realized exactly what it was I was pressing into his head, his eyes widened nicely. I took his phone, dropped it into his drink. Beneath the grinding music, I could hear a silence descend in the bar. Even in a strip club, with breasts bobbing all about, you pull out a gun and it will be noticed.

“What do you want?” he said.

“I want to kill you.”

“I won’t call, I swear.”

“See, the problem is, I can’t trust you further than I could spatter your brain. Which is only as far as that wall. So really, what choice do I have? You’ve got me in a vise, all right.”

“You’ll be in jail the rest of your life.”

“No, I won’t. I’m two names beyond J.J. Moretti already. For twenty-five years I was a ghost in Pitchford. Once I kill you, I’ll walk out of here and become a ghost again.”

“You’re crazy. You can’t just walk out.”

“Who do you think will stop me?” I slapped his cheek with the barrel so his head jerked toward the bartender, who was standing stock-still not five feet from us, staring at the gun. “Him?”

“Help me,” said Diffendale in a voice as gratifyingly high as a castrato’s.

The bartender slowly, carefully, ducked down until he disappeared.

“Her?” I said as I slapped his other cheek so he turned toward a girl in a bikini who had been not three feet from us but was now backing away.

“Oh God, no.”

“Him?” I said, slapping his face again so his head swiveled toward a man in a black leather jacket who was suddenly standing by the door.

“He’s going to kill me,” said Diffendale.

“No, he’s not,” said the tall man in a hushed gravel road of a voice.

I took a longer look at the man, who had now taken two steps toward us. He wasn’t the bouncer who had been here when I arrived. This man was taller and broader, with a hard face, long blond hair, a blond goatee. And there was something familiar in the squint of his eye.

I suddenly swiveled the gun to the huge man’s gut. “Do you have next ups, Tony?” I said. “Do I have to kill you after I kill him?”

“You won’t have time for both of us,” said Tony Grubbins. “You’ll only get one shot before Sid behind the bar blows your head off.”

I looked to my left. The bartender, who had ducked down, was up again with a shotgun trained at my head. Now I was in a vise for sure. My mind clicked like a baseball card in the spokes of a bicycle wheel through all the James Bond moves that could get me out of this. Maybe, if I dropped down below the bar, I could pop Tony and Richie both, before rolling like an acrobatic monkey out of the club, evading Sid’s buckshot. It almost seemed reasonable, excepting the small detail that in a million years I couldn’t pull it off.

“Then I guess it’s you, Tony,” I said. “For what you did to Augie.”

“What’d I do to Augie?”

“Don’t even try pretending you don’t know.”

“Alls I know, Moretti, is after a couple decades of never thinking of your ugly face, I come into the Stoneway and here you are with a gun at Diffendale’s head. Not that he doesn’t deserve it every now and then.”

I considered it all for a moment, considered the calm behind Tony Grubbins’s hushed voice, considered the way it turned out that Richie and not Tony had sent those Devil Rams assholes into my bedroom the night I got my scar, and then, without saying a word, I turned the gun back on Richie Diffendale.

“Shit,” said Richie Diffendale.

“I have an idea,” said Tony Grubbins. “Instead of dying today and really messing up the decor of the club, why don’t we all just calm down, act like human beings, and have ourselves a couple of beers?”

I
T WAS A
move born of fear and hysteria, my pulling a gun on Richie Diffendale. I didn’t intend to kill him, but I sure as hell meant to scare the crap out of the twists of his bowel. And it felt surprisingly good, like I was pulling a gun on the bastards who had killed Augie and were chasing me now, like I was pulling a gun on all my fears and frustrations, like I was pulling a gun on my past. But even as I pulled that gun on Tony Grubbins’s pilot fish, I knew it was as if I were dumping a bucket of chum into the ocean. And like the shark he had been, Grubbins wheeled around and came for the blood.

Now Tony and Richie and I sat in a ratty back office of the club, a room lined with old file cabinets and piled with empty liquor boxes, a tragic fire just waiting to happen. Being in the same metropolitan area as Tony Grubbins gave me the sweats; being in the same room as Tony Grubbins was appallingly terrifying. He could have been wearing a priest’s collar and I’d still be shaking. It was something deep and primitive, this fear, and I desperately missed the security of a gun in my hand, but Tony had insisted I hand the piece off to the bartender before we did any talking and, like my fourteen-year-old self, I had done what Tony ordered. So there I was, facing off against the monster beneath my bed with fear in my heart and only a beer bottle in my hand.

Grubbins leaned back and stared at me from behind an old metal desk, lit a cigarette, tossed the smoldering match into one of the empty cartons. A curl of smoke rose out of the box.

“Okay, this is good,” said Tony, his voice a crushed pack of Marlboros. “The guns are put away and we’re almost acting civilized.”

“He took it,” said Richie Diffendale.

“Took what, Richie?”

“The money, man. From your house. The money that the Devil Rams stashed with all them drugs.”

“You think little J.J. Moretti here took that money?”

“I know it.”

“And that’s why he came back to Pitchford and put a gun to your head?”

“So I wouldn’t tell.”

“Tell who?” said Tony.

“You.”

“Me?” Tony stared blankly at Richie. “It wasn’t my money. Why the hell would I care?”

I cocked my head at that. Nothing in the last few days had surprised me more. Why wouldn’t he care? Why wouldn’t everyone care?

“And there’s someone looking for him, Tony. Someone looking hard.”

Tony took a draw from his cigarette and exhaled slowly, like he was trying to figure something out. “You said Augie Iannucci was murdered, is that right, Moretti?”

“That’s right.”

“Richie, is this guy you were going to tell about seeing Moretti the same guy who killed Augie?”

“I don’t know anything about what happened to Augie,” said Richie.

“Don’t you think you ought to find out before jumping into the deep water?”

“Right after the police found the drugs,” I said, “the Devil Rams stormed into my house, looking for the missing money. They gave me this scar.”

“What did they find?” said Tony.

“They found nothing, because there was nothing there. But I always assumed it was you who did the ratting.”

“Pretty fair assumption,” he said.

“But tonight I found out it was Richie.”

“And that’s why you pulled the gun.”

“Wasn’t I justified?”

“They came for me, too,” said Tony. “This was after I was sent to that group home for rejects. Two of my brother’s old gang pals, Corky and the Fat Dog. They wanted the money, which I didn’t have. And then they wanted a name.”

“Who did you give them?” I said.

“I wanted to give them you, Moretti. Not because I thought you had the money, just for spite. That’s the kind of kid I was. We had that thing between us.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”

“I’m not. I had a lot of hate in me and it was a pleasure dishing it out to you because you had hate in you, too.”

“Me?”

He let the smoke rise in front of his face. “But I sure as hell wasn’t going to let those bastards beat it out of me.”