The Barbed-Wire Kiss (6 page)

He dropped his left knee into Wiley’s stomach, drove the breath out of him. Wiley clawed at the holster and Harry slapped his hand away, got the gun out. It was a small, silver automatic with rubber grips. He pushed the muzzle into Wiley’s throat, his finger on the trigger.

Wiley froze. The room was silent except for the distant sound of the tennis game.

“Easy,” the bartender said.

Harry tried to slow his breathing. The room seemed to swim in and out of focus around him. He felt a drop of sweat roll down the side of his face.

“Lie there,” he said. “Don’t move.”

He moved the gun away, used his free hand to pat Wiley down for another weapon, didn’t find one. With his knee still in Wiley’s stomach, he looked at the gun. It was a Star 9, made in Spain, a street gun. He ejected the clip, worked the slide. A shiny brass shell sprang from the breech, clattered on the floor, and rolled away beneath a table.

Wiley looked up at him, not moving. Harry got to his feet, stuck the clip in the back pocket of his jeans. The bartender was watching him.

“Sorry about all this,” Harry said to him. The stool had fallen over during their struggle. He righted it, his breathing under control now. He looked down at Wiley.

“Stay there,” he said. “Don’t follow me, or I’ll put you down again.”

He went back out onto the porch. Fallon was still on the phone. He watched as Harry approached.

Harry set the gun on the tabletop.

“Listen,” Fallon said into the phone, “we’ll go over this later. I’ve got a situation here.” Harry could hear a tinny voice protest on the other end of the line. “I said later. I’ll call you back.” He folded the phone shut.

“Where’s Lester?”

“In there. He fell.”

“He pull that on you?”

“He tried to.”

Fallon shook his head.

“That fucking guy. Come on. Let’s take a walk.”

As Fallon got up, he glanced toward the bar entrance. Harry turned to see Wiley limp out onto the porch, still breathing heavily, his face red. Harry gripped the back of the wrought-iron chair, got ready to lift it.

Fallon looked at Wiley, shook his head.

“Go back inside,” he said. “Wait for me there.”

“But Eddie—”

“Go back inside.”

Wiley looked at Harry, the anger bright in his eyes. He turned and went back into the bar.

“Let’s go,” Fallon said.

Harry pushed the gun into a pocket. He followed Fallon down the steps and toward the pasture.

“I got your message this morning,” Fallon said. “I told them at the restaurant to go ahead and let you know where I was. I wouldn’t normally do that.”

“I know that. I appreciate this.”

“Good.” Fallon went to the rail, put his elbows up. “So let’s hear it.”

“Bobby Fox.” Harry waited for a reaction, got none. “He’s a friend of mine. He had some bad luck and he wants to straighten things out.”

Fallon nodded, looked off toward the barn. “Keep talking.”

“Bobby’s sorry things worked out the way they did. It was beyond his control.”

“So what’s that got to do with you?”

“I’m doing him a favor. He doesn’t know I’m here.”

“You a cop?”

“No.”

“You look like one.”

“I used to be with the state police. I’m not anymore.”

Fallon looked at him. “Trooper?”

“For a while. Then I was with the Major Crimes Unit.”

“That why he sent you? Because you used to be with the state police? That supposed to have some sort of effect on me?”

“He didn’t send me. I came on my own.”

“Why’d you quit, young guy like you?”

“Does that matter?”

“I’m curious. I like to know something about the people I’m dealing with, their motivations.”

“Like I said, we’re friends. I’m just trying to help him out.”

“That’s noble.”

“He owes you something. He accepts that. He’s going to pay it back, he just needs more time.”

“Don’t we all. So you here to vouch for this guy, pay his debts?”

“Not at all. He’s putting something together for you right now, but he needs a little time. You put more pressure on him or send your friend Wiley”—he nodded back toward the porch—“back to his house and you’re in a blood-from-a-stone proposition. There’s no need for it. Serves no purpose.”

Fallon turned away again.

“So, you say you’re a go-between. So far I haven’t heard many specifics.”

“He’ll have some money for you within the week. It won’t be a lot, but it’ll be something.”

“You wired?”

“What?”

“Are you getting all of this? Should I speak closer to the microphone?”

“There’s no wire.”

“Whether there is or not, here’s the deal: If you have something for me, something owed to me, then fine. Give it to me. If not, then don’t waste my time.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?”

Fallon turned to face him. “Let’s not make a mistake here. Like you said, you’re not a cop anymore. You’re not anything. You came out here, I liked the way you looked, I liked the way you acted. Maybe we can work something out. But if you think you can threaten me or bullshit me, then you’re just another stupid person who thought he was smart.”

“Nobody’s bullshitting you. Or threatening you.”

“Good.” He turned away. “Now, my wife’s waiting for me. So if you’ve got anything else to say, say it.”

“Just a time and a place. Let us know where to bring it and we’ll get this started.”

A golf cart with a canvas roof trundled out of the open barn, whirred slowly up the dirt path toward the tennis court area.

“There she is,” Fallon said. “Call the restaurant. Leave a message. They’ll get in touch with me. If we have some business to conduct at that time, we’ll do it.”

“You’ll hear from me this week.”

He took the automatic out, offered it to him butt first.

“Leave it on the table when you go,” Fallon said.

Harry stuck it back in his pocket.

“I’ll be in touch.”

He put his hand out. Fallon looked at it.

“You know something, Rane?” There was a half smile on his face.

“What?”

“You’re out of your league. It’s all over your face. Go on, get out of here. Call me when you’re ready to talk business.”

Fallon turned back to the rail, and Harry felt the flush in his cheeks. He stood there for a moment, looking at the back of Fallon’s head, then turned and started toward the porch. When he reached the steps, he dropped the gun into one of the ponds. The clip went into the other.

As he went up the steps, he heard the golf cart shut off, then boot heels on flagstones. The woman was coming up the path behind him. He turned, curious.

For an instant, he felt a strange sensation in his feet, as if the floor of the porch had shifted slightly. He blinked, frozen. She reached the middle step, looked up at him.

The hair was brighter, the color of freshly sheared copper, shorter now. The face was thinner, lined. But the eyes were the same. If he moved closer he would see the fleck of gold in her left iris, the island in a sea of green.

She stepped back, almost lost her balance, put a hand on the railing. He inhaled, opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“Harry?” she said low.

He took a step toward her, her name forming on his lips.

“Cristina!” Fallon yelled. Harry turned, saw him coming across the grass toward them.

He looked back at her, knowing now there was no mistake, could never be any mistake.

“Cristina!” Fallon called again. “I want to talk to you.”

She looked at Harry for a long moment, then cut around him, pulled open the door to the dining room. He found himself reaching for her arm, wanting to slow her, stop her, but she was past him and gone.

He turned, disoriented, saw Fallon come up onto the porch. He stopped, put his hands on his hips, looked at Harry.

“What’s the problem?”

Harry shook his head.

“Then what are you still doing here?”

He didn’t trust himself to speak. Fallon gave him a last glance, then went past him, into the dining room. Harry stood there, watched the door swing shut.

“You look lost.”

He turned to see the bartender standing in the lounge doorway, cigarette in hand.

“I wouldn’t come back in this way,” he said.

“Why not?”

“That big boyo’s out in the lobby. Might be he’s waiting for you. No reason to force the issue.”

Harry looked at the dining room door, but the smoked glass was too dark to see through. He turned back to the bartender.

“Thanks,” he said. He went back down the porch steps and started around the side of the building, walking in a daze until he reached the Mustang.

Cristina
.

He got behind the wheel and started the engine. In the rearview mirror he could see the front entrance, the valet sitting beside the door.

He backed away from the tree, K-turned in the parking circle, raising dust. He shifted into first, gave it gas, and drove away from there.

•  •  •

When he got home, he sat in the driveway for a long time, the Mustang cooling and ticking.

Eighteen years fallen away in a turn of the head, a glance from green eyes. Cristina.

Did you know?” Harry said. Bobby leaned back against the transom, popped the pull top on a can of Budweiser.

“Know?” he said. “Hell, how would I? I never met his wife.”

They were on Bobby’s boat, an old eighteen-foot wooden cabin cruiser he’d rechristened the
Bitter End
. They were anchored about a mile off the beach in Sea Bright, a stiff wind blowing occasionally from the east, raising slow waves that rocked the boat and made them reach for support.

They had two lines out, the poles in plastic rod holders mounted on the gunwales. Two fluke lay gray and unmoving inside the red-and-white plastic cooler at Bobby’s feet, beer cans shoved into the ice around them like headstones. It was all they had to show for their day.

Harry looked out across the water toward the tip of Sandy Hook, watched seagulls follow a party boat as it rounded the headland and started back into the bay. Dusk was still two hours away, but the wind was kicking up stronger now, the threat of it driving some of the smaller boats in.

“So what did she say to you?”

“Nothing. There was no time. She just looked at me, went past.”

“And you’re sure it was her?”

“Positive.”

Bobby sipped beer. He was naked to the waist, his skin burned a deep red-brown.

“Who would have thought?” he said. “With that guy, no less. When was the last time you saw her?”

“That summer after high school. She left in September.”

“She ever call? Write?”

“One letter early on. After that, no.”

“So you haven’t heard from her in, what, eighteen years?”

“About that.”

Bobby drank beer.

“You know,” he started. “I never pried …”

Harry gestured at the cooler. Bobby opened the lid, took out a beer. Harry caught it in midair.

“I knew something was going on, and I knew it fucked you up, but I never asked for details. I figured if you’d wanted me to know, you’d tell me.”

Harry opened the beer and foam spilled over the lip of the can. He sipped it off.

“You probably know a lot of it already.”

“Only that you met her senior year. And I took it for granted you were nailing her, though I didn’t know that for sure. She was a transfer, wasn’t she?”

“They’d moved out from Ohio. Just her, her mother and her stepfather. He was a corrections officer, worked county lockups. First Monmouth, then Middlesex.”

The boat moved beneath Harry’s feet, and he caught the edge of the cockpit to steady himself. He heard something fall inside the small, windowless cabin.

“And?” Bobby said.

“She was seventeen when we met, a junior, but her stepfather still wasn’t letting her date. She had a friend who covered for us, so we snuck around, got together anywhere we could. After my mother started working again, we’d meet at my house. At that age, you feel like you’ve found the answer to all the questions, you know? We thought this was it. True love.”

“She was nuts for you, I remember that much. So you saw this girl for what? Six months total?”

“More like eight. Then all hell broke loose.”

“That’s the part you never told me.”

Harry took a pull of the thin, cold beer. There was a gray line out on the horizon, moving toward them. The boat dipped and rose.

“We were talking about getting married, heading down south. We knew there was no way her parents would let her, so we were planning to just take off, hole up somewhere until she was eighteen, and then get married. At least that was the plan.”

“Must have been a pretty big secret if I didn’t know about it.”

“She was worried about what her old man would do if he found out. So we didn’t tell anyone. I’d been putting my money away. I think I had about twelve hundred dollars saved up. I thought that was going to get us clear. I was nineteen and stupid.”

“So what happened?”

“There was a complication.”

“She got pregnant.”

Harry nodded.

“I’m kind of surprised at you, slick,” Bobby said. “You were always the careful type. How did that happen?”

“We were at my house one day. My mother was at work. I tried to pull out, she wouldn’t let me. She told me she didn’t care.”

“She wanted it.”

“Maybe.”

“She wanted
you,
” Bobby said.

“She wanted to get away from her parents. I guess she thought that would make sure it happened.”

“Hard to believe all this went down without my knowing it.”

“I was lying a lot in those days. To myself as well. Once we knew for sure she was pregnant, I started thinking it wasn’t such a bad thing. Get out of Jersey, start a new life. Build a family.”

Harry looked toward the horizon.

“It’s kicking up,” he said. “We should probably start heading back in.”

“We got time. You made me wait eighteen years to hear all this, you’re not getting off that easy. Did she tell her parents?”

“We were planning to do that together. But she got into it with them one night when I wasn’t there, told them everything. She thought we were free, you know? That nothing could stop us.