A Long Walk Up the Water Slide

by Don Winslow

  Theresa had an arm around each child’s shoulder as she whispered to them and pushed them forward to shake their guest’s hand.

  Ed squatted to greet them. He made small talk with Theresa for a few minutes before she excused herself and the children to return to the kitchen, where they were busy baking a cake.

  “Do you want to come in the library?” Marc asked. “And can I make you a cappuccino? It’s my Saturday-morning indulgence.”

  “Sounds great. Thanks.”

  Marc opened the library door, just off the hallway, and gestured to a Danish-modern chair.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Ed took a walk around the large room. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases held collections of the classics and an assortment of reference books. Several music stands, their surfaces laid flat, held oversized, open photography books, most of them of Italian country scenes. The walls were decorated with opera posters, mementos, and framed photographs of Marc and Theresa, their family, and their friends.

  As Ed surveyed the pictures, music came piping softly from speakers in the bookcases. Opera, Ed thought with a smile. A typical Marc Merolla gesture, because Marc and Ed had first met at the opera. It was a charity event that Kitteredge had been desperate to dodge, so he’d sent Ed instead. To his own great surprise, Ed had enjoyed the music and also the Merollas.

  Marc came in juggling two large cups of cappuccino. He set them both on his desk, handed one to Ed, then sat down. Ed sat down across from him.

  Marc said, “You look awful.”

  It wasn’t an insult, but an opening.

  “I wouldn’t bother you with this, Marc,” Ed said. “But it’s a real crisis.”

  “We’re Friends of the Family, right?”

  Marc had several large accounts at the bank.

  “It’s nice of you to think of it that way.”

  “What do you need?”

  Ed sighed and then spit it out.

  “I need to talk with your grandfather.”

  “Don’t look so embarrassed,” Marc said. “I talk with him all the time. I just don’t work with him.”

  Ed heard the slight stress on the word work.

  “This is business,” Ed said.

  “I don’t know anything about his business,” Marc said. “Every three or four years, I seem to have to convince the FBI of that, but I didn’t think I’d have to convince you.”

  “You don’t,” Ed asserted. He knew that Marc Merolla had never been involved in the family business. He also knew how hard it was for Italian-Americans to shake the mob label, especially in a wholly owned Mafia subsidiary like Rhode Island. “I know who you are, Marc.”

  “Then why are you asking me this?”

  “One of my people is in trouble. I need help. I was hoping maybe your grandfather could open a door for me.”

  Marc chuckled softly. “He’s in prison, Ed. If he could open doors …”

  It was no secret that Dominic Merolla ran New England from a suite at the Adult Correctional Institution.

  “If I could just talk with him,” Ed said.

  Marc was quiet while he seemed to be listening to the aria and sipping cappuccino. He was thinking it through.

  After a long while, he said, “We go to see him every other week, Theresa and the boys and I. The boys ask me if Poppy is a bad man and I tell them that he’s not a bad man but that he has old ways that get him into trouble.

  “He’s seventy-eight years old and he’s sick. Do you know why the state prosecuted?”

  “No.”

  “To beat the feds to the punch so he could be near his family instead of at Leavenworth,” Marc answered. “He’s my grandfather, Ed, and I love him, but I don’t get involved with his business. Sorry.”

  Ed drank some coffee to be polite. He didn’t really want any. His stomach was raw from the battery acid he’d consumed on Amtrak.

  “This really isn’t anything to do with his business,” Ed said. “I guess what I really need is an introduction.”

  “To …”

  “You don’t want to know, do you?”

  “But someone of his standing.”

  “Yeah.” Ed set his cup and saucer back on the desk. He bent forward so far, his head was almost touching his knees. He felt very tired. “Marc, I’m afraid. I’m afraid one of my people is going to get killed. I need to reach out, but my arms aren’t long enough.

  “Shit.”

  “I know.”

  Ed looked up and saw Marc’s smile.

  “I’ll make a couple of calls,” Marc said. “No promises. He hates you Waspy types.”

  “I’m Jewish.”

  “I meant the bank.”

  “I know,” Ed answered. “Thanks, Marc.”

  “Would you like to stay for lunch?”

  Lunch was three hours away. Even third-generation Yuppie Italians will always press you to stay for the next meal, Ed thought. They still cook in big pots.

  “I have to get back to the office,” Ed said as he stood up. “Rain check?”

  “You’ll be in town?”

  “Right by the phone.”

  “I’ll call. Come say good-bye to Theresa and the boys, or I’ll be in trouble all day.”

  Ed went into the kitchen, where Johnny and Peter were wearing the ingredients of a big chocolate cake, and said his good-byes. He licked some frosting off the beater, kissed Theresa on the cheek, and made his way out without eating anything else. Marc shook his hand and gave him a little hug at the door.

  Ed decided to walk down the hill to the office. As he walked, he thought it might be nice to get into another line of work, something that didn’t make you so paranoid. Something that didn’t set off internal alarm bells just because you saw a fraternity photograph of Marc Merolla arm in arm with Peter Hathaway.

  Walter Withers woke up rough.

  A Saharan thirst parched his throat, his head was full of cotton wadding, and he was shaking. Also, he didn’t know where he was. He rolled out of bed, shuffled to the bathroom, and threw up. He poured three glasses of water down his throat and threw up again.

  I have to cut back on the sauce, he thought.

  He went back into the bedroom and edged a corner of the drape open. Even the pale morning sunlight hurt his eyes as he looked out onto a deserted Route 50 and remembered where he was.

  Austin, Nevada.

  His mouth tasted like a mop that had just cleaned a subway rest room—or what he imagined that must taste like—and he desperately wanted to brush his teeth. The problem was that he couldn’t seem to locate his bag.

  Deciding that he must have left it in his car, he opened the motel-room door, didn’t see any cars at all, and tried to remember the last time he had seen his.

  Outside that grubby saloon.

  He looked out the window again and didn’t see his car.

  He found his shoes under the bed, pried his feet into them, went outside, looked up and down, and didn’t see the red Sunbird.

  This has the potential of making things very awkward at the return counter, he thought.

  Then he remembered a dispute over car keys, which led to a recollection of Neal Carey’s disgraceful behavior and the alcoholic marathon back from the far reaches of the tundra. The door to the saloon was unlocked, so he went in.

  Deserted: Neither the smelly old man nor the smelly old dog were to be seen. Withers vaguely recalled an episode of an old television show—back when people actually bothered to write them—where a man woke up in an uninhabited world and found out that he was in hell.

  Withers walked behind the bar, poured himself a bourbon, and considered the possibility that he was dead. Or asleep, dreaming that he was dead … or dreaming that he was awake, sitting at a bar considering the possibility that he was dead or asleep, or …

  This was getting him nowhere.

  Get thee behind me, Satan, Withers thought as he pushed the bottle away. There is work to be done—Neal Careys to be dealt with, automobiles to be recovered, young
ladies to be located and bribed—

  The briefcase.

  Oh Lord, the briefcase.

  Surely it was in the room and he had overlooked it.

  He rushed out of the bar, across the street, and into the room. It wasn’t on the chair or the bed; it wasn’t on the floor under the luggage rack; it wasn’t under the bed. He considered the awful possibility that the briefcase was with the automobile—gone—and went back into the bathroom for another bout of expurgation.

  Then he saw the note on the bed.

  There was no phone in the room, so he had to go to the booth on the street. His hand shook as he dialed the number. He let it ring about twenty times before he concluded that no one was going to answer, then he leaned against the glass, feeling sick for five minutes before he dialed again.

  Never send to ask for whom the bell tolls, Withers thought. It tolls for thee.

  After thirty-five rings, he decided that this earthly existence was a dark endless cycle of meaningless despair.

  In something like eighteen hours, he thought, I have misplaced the subject, a car, $20,000—give or take—and my toothbrush. Whoever said that God takes care of fools and drunks was wrong on both counts.

  He checked his wallet and saw that God had taken care of him to the tune of a couple of hundred bucks.

  A two-dime stake, Walter thought. There was only one place in the world where he could build that back up. Now if only the Deity will make a bus run from here to Las Vegas.

  Overtime had overslept.

  The sun was up well before he was and that made him mad at himself. He’d wanted a few more hours of darkness to drive in but had been too exhausted.

  Last night was too close, he thought. He’d barely reached the car ahead of the snapping dog and then had switched vehicles again in such a hurry that he hadn’t had time to change clothes until he’d pulled the car off a dirt road east of town.

  The car was clean; that was not the problem. The problem was his distinctive wounds. If he was stopped for any reason, the dog bites would clearly mark him as the attempted killer. Attempted murder, Overtime thought. Hardly a charge for a professional. He’d be laughed at.

  The thought hurt almost as much as his wounds, and he couldn’t decide which of those hurt most. His back felt as if someone had laced it with a baseball bat. The bitch. The Amazonian bull dyke bitch. As he arched his back to try to stretch the muscles, he regretted not killing her.

  He unwrapped the gauze bandage he’d hastily applied last night. The dried blood stuck to the bandage and he could still feel the stinging pain as he’d poured hydrogen peroxide onto the raw flesh and into the puncture wounds. It always surprised him how many professionals didn’t carry a basic first-aid kit as a standard part of their equipment. It was a serious oversight, because once you went to a doctor or an ER you were entered into the information network, and that could be extremely disadvantageous.

  He opened his kit and removed a small pair of scissors. It was difficult with his left hand, but he carefully snipped away the shreds of loose flesh and neatened the wounds. Then he daubed them with a cotton swab soaked in peroxide and applied a topical antibacterial ointment. He threaded surgical filament into a needle and slowly stitched the cuts that needed closure. The pain made sweat pop out on his forehead, but he controlled his breathing, relaxed, and concentrated on the task.

  Pain is ephemeral, he told himself. Infection can be permanent.

  When he was done, he wrapped the wrist in fresh gauze, tore the edge in half with his teeth, and tied it off.

  He treated the puncture wounds on his shoulder as best he could, but by using the rearview mirror, he could see that one was especially deep and would need attention soon.

  He popped a couple of codeine tablets and pulled out on the road. He didn’t dare take a pass back through town. The risk didn’t justify the gain.

  No, he thought, the bird saw the dog, the bird flew, and the dog got me.

  Now he would have to contact the client, inform him that the target had escaped before he’d had a good chance to execute, and start again. Bad for the reputation.

  A reputation is like glass, he thought. Once it’s chipped, it shatters easily.

  If the real story ever gets out, I’m finished. No one paid Overtime’s kind of fee for anything less than success. The legendary Overtime, “Sudden Death” himself, trashed by a dog and a woman.

  Problem: damaged reputation reduces marketability.

  Analysis: Revenge, although a personal indulgence, will restore said reputation. As will a spectacular two-for-one execution.

  Solution: Locate targets and dispatch both. Polly Paget and the woman with the baseball bat.

  But now he needed to reorganize. Find a good crooked doctor and a safe place to sleep. He pulled the car onto Highway 376 and headed south for the one place that could provide what he needed: Vegas.

  15

  Breakfast didn’t taste good to Jack Landis, even though it was the breakfast that Candice would never let him eat. He had taken advantage of her absence to order Pedro to fix him his “Early Retirement Heart Attack Special”—three fried eggs, bacon and sausage, rye toast dripping with real butter, a pot of strong coffee, a cinnamon roll, and a big old cigar.

  Pedro balked at first, whining something about “Mrs. Landis wouldn’t want me to,” but Jack reminded him that Mrs. Landis wasn’t there to rescue his wetback ass if Jack started feeling vengeful about the Alamo, so he’d better shut his mouth and fix breakfast or he’d be frying tortillas in Nuevo Laredo by lunchtime.

  That seemed to do it. Jack got his artery clogger, but somehow he couldn’t enjoy it. He ate it all right, but it didn’t taste as good as it usually did. Pedro said that maybe he was tense.

  Well shit, Jack thought, I don’t know what I have to be tense about. My former girlfriend is accusing me of rape, that prick Hathaway is about to take my network from me, I’m neck-deep into an amusement park more labor-intensive than the Great Wall of China, a lunatic mobster is hitting me up for money, I got about three days of canned shows left before 50 million members of the viewing public start wondering where my loving wife is, and that same lady is about to cut off my balls, stuff them in my mouth, and parade me bare-assed down Broadway as an object lesson to any other husband who might be thinking about unleashing his hound outside the sacred confines of the old home place. Tense? Why, I’m as tranquil as one of them crazy monks when they pour gas all over themselves and strike a match.

  Jack lighted the cigar and walked all over the big mansion, puffing as much smoke as he could into every room. He paid particular attention to Candy’s personal bathroom, on the odd chance that if the ice sculpture did come home, it would really piss her off. She’d probably get the house anyway, the cars, half the restaurants, and half of what was left of the TV stations after Hathaway was finished sucking the meat off the bones.

  The worst thing, the absolutely worst thing, was that the old ball and chain was gone and yet Jack couldn’t do the one thing he really wanted to do. The breakfast was okay, so were the whiskey and cigars and boxing matches on cable, the ones where two skinny Mexicans you couldn’t tell apart beat the guacamole out of each other. All just fine. But, thanks to the recent publicity, he couldn’t do the one thing he really wanted to do.

  Jack Landis couldn’t get laid.

  Nope, Jack thought. Here I am with more money than brains, my hound dog straining at the leash, and I absolutely, positively cannot let it hunt.

  For the first time in a lifetime spent in the relenting pursuit of the dollar, Jack Landis asked himself what all that money was worth, anyway. He was rich, but he was a lot less free than he was back in the days when he went door-to-door selling vacuum cleaners and giving away hoses.

  He had a shitload of money stowed away in the Cayman Islands, anyway …oh, peanuts compared to his aboveboard net worth in the old U.S. of A., but more than enough to live out a long retirement in the Caribbean. He didn’t know if they made chicken-
fried steak down there, but given enough long green, they could probably learn. And he could probably learn to like rum, and the women … well, he had heard that the women down there hadn’t even heard of Gloria Germaine Greer Steinem or whatever the hell that uppity broad’s name was.

  “Pedro!” he yelled.

  Jorge’s name wasn’t Pedro, but it was easier just to answer.

  “Yes, Mr. Landis?”

  “This was a better country before the women started getting hyphens in their names like those inbred British chromosome cases!”

  Jorge didn’t think it was worth making the point that neither Mrs. Landis nor Polly Paget had hyphens in their names, so he said, “Yes, Mr. Landis!”

  Jack thought he heard a little cheek in his voice anyway, so he hollered, “Pedro! You ever hear of the Goliad massacre?”

  “No, Mr. Landis!” Jorge answered, wondering why the boss’s husband was bringing up an unfortunate incident 150 years ago in which Santa Anna’s troops had executed some Texas rebels.

  “Well, I’m still mad about it!”

  “Yes, Mr. Landis!”

  “So watch yourself!”

  “Yes, Mr. Landis!” Jorge agreed. Then he decided he had to do a little something to preserve his self-respect. “Mr. Landis, when is Mrs. Landis coming home?”

  Jack pretended not to hear and stormed out the front door.

  Actually, that’s a good question, he thought. He went to find Joey Foglio and ask him how things were going up in Nevada.

  Driving gave Neal some time to think, an activity he hadn’t exactly been overdoing up to that point.

  He knew that even if he’d cut himself off from Friends of the Family, Friends hadn’t cut him off from them. Graham would be doggedly finding out whether this Joey Beans had put a contract out on Polly Paget and Levine would be working the paper trail. Kitteredge would be politely blowing a gasket because he didn’t like to get mixed up with mob business.

  Neither did Neal, of course, but he knew that he had to let go of his irritation at Friends and concentrate on keeping the three women in the car safe. What he had to do now was focus on what he had in front of him. The first step in that process was to look back.