Close to the Bone (14 page)

He didn’t smile. “It ain’t that easy, Mr. Coyne.”

“I don’t want to hear this,” I said. “You should go find yourself a lawyer who can help you.”

“There’s only one lawyer I trust. I gotta have Mr. Cizek. So you gotta find him for me. You find him and tell him I need him.”

“As far as I know,” I said, “Paul Cizek went overboard Friday night. They haven’t found his body, but—”

“He’s alive,” said Vaccaro.

“What makes you think so?”

He shrugged. “He’s gotta be alive. I need him.”

“Well, I tell you what,” I said. “If I see him, I’ll give him your message. How’s that?”

“Don’t fuck with me, Mr. Coyne,” he said softly. “I give you respect. You shouldn’t disrespect me.”

“Frankly, Mr. Vaccaro,” I said, “I don’t see any reason why I should respect you, and I don’t think there’s anything left for us to discuss.”

“You kicking me out?” he said.

“I think you said what you had to say. Your appointment is over.”

He stared at me for a moment, then shrugged. He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a roll of bills. He removed several of them one at a time and made a stack on my desk.

I pushed it away. “I don’t want your money.”

“You better take it.”

“I’m not your lawyer. I don’t want you for a client.”

“You don’t get it,” he said. “You gotta be my lawyer.”

“No, I don’t. My clients are all people who I want to help. People I like and care about. I’m the one who decides who my clients are.”

He smiled. “Yeah, that’s pretty good, Mr. Coyne. I like that.” His smile abruptly vanished. He leaned forward and peered at me with his hard little black eyes. “I know how it works, and so do you. I told you all this. I told you I was ready to give Uncle Vinny to the feds. That’s important information. If it got out, it’d be bad for me. I can’t have that happen. If you’re my lawyer, you can’t tell anyone else. If you’re my lawyer, I can trust you. So you better take the money, Mr. Coyne, see?”

“Are you threatening me, Mr. Vaccaro?” I said quietly.

He waved his hand. “I’m just trying to hire a lawyer.”

“And if I refuse to be hired?”

He leaned back, spread his hands, and smiled. “Please,” he said. “Take the money.”

I picked up the stack of bills from my desk. I counted them. There were twenty fifties. I took three of them and pushed the rest away. “Okay,” I said. “That covers the time you’ve been here. So you can trust me. Now your appointment is over.”

“Now you can’t tell anybody what I told you.”

“That’s right.”

He pushed the money back toward me. “Take more than that,” he said.

“This is my regular fee.”

“Go ahead. I’ve got plenty of money.”

“So do I,” I said.

He shrugged, picked up the stack of bills, and shoved it into his jacket pocket. “You tell Mr. Cizek I need him.”

“I don’t expect to see Paul Cizek.”

“But if you do?”

“I’ll tell him,” I said.

“Good,” he said. He stood up and held out his hand to me.

I did not shake it.

J
ULIE STARED AT ME.
“He’s a what?”

“A hit man,” I said. “A murderer. An assassin for hire.”

“But he seemed—”

“Like a nice, quiet man.”

“Well, he did.”

“Desperate, I think you said.”

Julie nodded.

“He’s desperate, all right. And quiet. But he’s not nice.”

She dropped into the armchair in my office and began hugging herself and shaking her head. “You mean he really—”

“Eddie Vaccaro makes his living by shooting people he doesn’t even know,” I said. “He does it without emotion. It’s his profession. He uses a twenty-two automatic pistol. He usually puts the first one in their eye and another behind their ear.”

“And I made you see him,” she said.

I shrugged. “It’s okay. I won’t see him again.”

“I’m sorry, Brady.”

I patted her arm. “Don’t worry about it.” I decided not to tell her that
I
was worried about it. I didn’t like having killers share their life-and-death secrets with me.

“So what did he want?” she said.

“He wants Paul Cizek. He said he’s in trouble and needs a lawyer. Apparently Paul is the only one he trusts.”

“Why come to you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He thinks I’m looking for Paul.”

“Why would he think that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t even know if Vaccaro was telling me the truth.”

Julie frowned. “If he was lying—”

“Let’s not think about it,” I said quickly. “It’s time to go home.”

Of course, I did think about it. I thought about it while I walked home from the office, and I thought about it while I sat on my balcony sipping Rebel Yell on the rocks, and I thought about it while I stared up into the darkness with Alex sleeping beside me that night.

If Vaccaro had been lying about the reason he wanted to find Paul Cizek, it meant he wanted him for something else.

If he’d been lying about the fact that he didn’t know where Paul was, it meant he
did
know what had happened to him.

I decided I might as well assume Vaccaro had been telling me the truth. I figured being lied to by a Mafia hit man was bad news by definition.

And if Eddie Vaccaro had been telling me the truth, of course, it meant that he hadn’t killed Paul.

And I fell asleep hoping that I’d done the right thing, accepting his money. I don’t think I’d have fallen asleep at all if I had refused it. Anybody who killed people for money wouldn’t hesitate to kill them for their silence.

Olivia called shortly after I arrived at the office on Friday morning. “I wonder if you can give me a hand,” she said.

“I’ll try,” I said. “What’s up?”

“The Coast Guard called. They want Paul’s boat moved. I told them I’d arrange to come get it.”

“When?”

“It’s got to be this weekend. They said they’d have to dispose of it if it wasn’t gone by Sunday.”

“Can you get off this afternoon?”

“Let me check.” A moment later she said, “I could meet you at that Friendly’s ice cream place at four. Can you do that?”

“That’ll work,” I said. “We’ll have to get Paul’s car, because we need the trailer. Do you have a key?”

“To his car? No, I don’t.”

“There’s probably a spare one at his cottage. We’ll have to check there.” I thought we could look around, and if we didn’t find Paul’s spare ignition key, Maddy Wilkins might help. I decided not to mention Maddy to Olivia unless it was necessary. “Okay,” I said. “Friendly’s at four. I’ll be there.”

“Brady,” said Olivia, “you haven’t heard anything, have you?”

I thought of my visit from Eddie Vaccaro. “No. We agreed not to keep calling each other unless we knew something. I’ve heard nothing.”

“Me neither,” she said.

Olivia was leaning against her red Saab with her face tilted up to the sun when I pulled into the lot at Friendly’s. She was wearing sneakers and tight-fitting jeans and a plaid cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and she was sipping through a straw from a Friendly’s cardboard drinking container, and for an instant I could picture her as a young, carefree college kid with nothing better to do than sip a soda and enjoy the sunshine. When she saw me, she waved, came over, and climbed in beside me.

“Another beautiful June afternoon,” I said lamely.

“Yes, it is,” she said. “Perfect.”

I pulled out of the lot and headed into Newburyport. “How have you been?”

She laughed quickly. “I guess I’ve been numb. I have these—these moments. When it hits me. It’s worst at night, when I’m home alone. I’ve been watching a lot of television. But mostly I just live my life. It’s been a week. It seems like forever since I got that call. It was a week ago tonight.”

I drove down High Street, onto Water Street, and out past the Coast Guard station, heading for Plum Island.

“How are we going to get into his place?” said Olivia.

“I know where the key’s hidden.”

She didn’t ask how I knew, so I didn’t have to mention Maddy.

And since Maddy’s old yellow Volkswagen was not parked in Paul’s yard when we got there, I still didn’t have to mention her to Olivia. The newly planted petunias looked pink and perky in their little flower bed in the front yard. The key was still under the flower pot on the deck, and I used it to let us in.

Olivia looked around and smiled. “He wasn’t much for picking up after himself,” she said, and I didn’t miss her use of the past tense. I figured that somewhere in her unconscious she’d already accepted the likelihood that Paul was dead.

There was a kitchen/dining room/living room area with a single picture window that overlooked the marsh. Beyond the living room were two closed doors—bedrooms, I assumed—and one open one, a bathroom. The decor was neo—K Mart—spindly chairs, a round pine table, matching pseudo-colonial sofa and armchair. Magazines and newspapers and shoes and socks littered the floor and furniture. Unopened mail was scattered across the top of the table. The kitchen sink was piled with pots and dishes.

“Where do we start?” said Olivia.

I shrugged. “We’re all creatures of habit. Where did Paul usually keep his spare keys?”

“In his desk drawer.” She looked around. “I don’t see a desk in this place.”

“There’s probably a chest of drawers in his bedroom. Or maybe the spare bedroom has a desk in it.” I gestured toward the closed doors. “Why don’t you look around in there. I’ll check out here.”

Olivia headed for the bedrooms. I rummaged through the two drawers that bracketed the sink. One held a jumble of forks and knives and spoons and spatulas and can openers. There were screwdrivers and pliers and a hammer and an assortment of other junk in the other one. No keys. Nothing on the windowsill or on top of the refrigerator.

I sat at the kitchen table. A bunch of limp daisies drooped in a water glass. From Maddy, I guessed. I picked up a stack of mail and glanced through it. Mostly junk stuff addressed to “Occupant.” I figured Paul hadn’t gotten around to having his address permanently changed.

There were a few bills—electricity, water, telephone—a bank statement, some catalogs, a couple of
Newsweek
magazines.

No mysterious letters. Nothing to indicate what might’ve happened to him.

From one of the bedrooms, Olivia called, “Got it.” She came out holding up a key. “This has to be it,” she said.

“Good,” I said. “Let’s go do it.”

She stood in the living room and nudged a balled-up sweatshirt with her toe. “This is spooky,” she said.

“Being here?”

She nodded. “I mean, I
know
these clothes.” She waved her hand at the shoes and T-shirts and socks scattered on the floor. “I’ve picked them up a hundred times. I’ve picked up his pants and shirts, washed them, folded them, hung them up…”

I went to her and touched her arm. “Olivia.”

She looked up at me and smiled quickly. “I’m okay, Brady.” She took a long look around the inside of the cottage, shook her head, and went outside.

We drove to the boat ramp. Paul’s car was still parked there, and the key opened the door and fit into the ignition. Olivia got in and followed me to the Coast Guard station. We drove directly down to the dock, and by the time we had climbed out of the cars, a young guy had hurried down to join us.

“Something I can help you with, sir?” he said to me.

“We came to get the Whaler,” I said, pointing at Paul’s boat.

“Why don’t you just hang on for a second.” He turned and jogged back to the brick building, and a few minutes later the officer whom I’d seen on my previous visit strode down to us.

“Mr. Coyne,” he said. “You’ve come for the boat.”

I nodded. “This is Mrs. Cizek. The Whaler belongs to her husband.”

He nodded to her and mumbled, “Ma’am.” He turned to me. “No news, huh?”

I shook my head.

“Well, the Newburyport police tell us they’re done with the boat, and we don’t have any space for it, so I’m glad you can take it.”

“Want me to back down?” said Olivia.

I laughed. “I’d be relieved. I’m not very good at backing trailers down boat ramps. I tend to bump into things.”

“I’ve done it plenty of times,” she said, and she proceeded to do it expertly.

A half hour later we had parked boat, trailer, and car in the side yard of Paul’s cottage. Olivia insisted on returning the car key to where she had found it. Then we drove back to the Friendly’s lot in my car.

Olivia suggested we have coffee, but I declined. It was Alex’s turn to cook dinner, and I didn’t want to be late, even if it turned out to be lentil soup.

A
LEX WAS ON
the balcony when I got home. She was wearing a pair of my boxer shorts and her own “Walk for Hunger” T-shirt. She was tilted back in one of the aluminum chairs with her legs up on the railing and her eyes closed.

I eased up her T-shirt to expose some smooth skin and kissed her belly. Her fingers moved in my hair. “Mmm,” she said. “Nice. What was that for?”

“Does it have to be
for
something?”

“It’s better if it isn’t,” she said.

“It’s because I don’t smell lentil soup.”

She grabbed a handful of my hair, pulled my head up, and clamped both arms around my neck. She put her mouth on my ear and whispered, “Hungry?”

“How do you mean that?”

She kissed my mouth, then sat up. “For now, I’m talking about dinner. Go grab yourself a beer and then stay out of my kitchen. I’ll call you to the table.”

“You’re awfully sexy when you’re bossy,” I said. “And you’re particularly sexy in my boxer shorts.” I snapped her a salute. “I will obey, sir.”

I changed into my jeans and took a beer onto the balcony, where I watched the setting sun splash colors on the cloud bank that was building on the horizon. Thoughts of Eddie Vaccaro and Paul Cizek flitted in and out of my consciousness. I willed myself not to focus on them, and had good success at it.

An hour or so later Alex called, “Come and get it.” I went to the table.

Grilled lamb chops, boiled potatoes doused with melted butter and sprinkled with parsley, stir-fried snow peas, avocado on beds of Bibb lettuce, a sweet German wine. “You’re an amazing woman,” I said to Alex. “Do you make your own clothes, too?”