Fifty-to-One hcc-104

by Charles Ardai

  After letting them stew a while, Barrone lowered his gun, released the hammer. “You’d have made a good salesman, Borden. If you do things half as well as you talk about them, maybe you’ve got a chance.” He shook his head. “Maybe. But never forget you’re one wrong step away from a bullet in the back.”

  “Trust me,” Charley said, “that’s not the sort of thing I’m likely to forget.”

  In the seat beside him, Tricia started breathing again.

  Barrone sat back, slipped his gun inside his jacket. “Marked cards,” he said. “You little sneak.” He waved the deck at Charley. “Want to see how you would’ve done with a straight deck?”

  Charley said, “Not really.”

  “Come on,” Barrone said. “Just for a lark.”

  “Fine,” Charley said, staring at the back of the topmost card. “Six of diamonds.”

  Barrone thumbed the card in Charley’s direction. “Let’s see.”

  Charley reached out, turned the card over. Two of spades.

  “You’re a lucky man,” Barrone said.

  “Sometimes,” Charley said. “Just not at cards.”

  29.

  Robbie’s Wife

  The car pulled to a stop at Fulton Street, near where the Fish Market would be opening for business in just a few hours. Already there were trucks pulling in and offloading crates that stank of fresh catches and seawater. The driver came around and opened the door. Barrone gestured for them to get out first. He followed, wincing as he got to his feet. He was not a young man and was carrying a lot of weight on those not-young knees.

  “Come upstairs,” he said.

  “If it’s all the same to you,” Charley said, “we’d just as soon be on our way—”

  “I said come upstairs,” Barrone said.

  “Why?”

  “You want your guns back, for one thing, and I’m not handing them to you loaded. Apart from that—have you gotten a look at yourself?” He grabbed hold of the back of Charley’s neck, steered him over to one of the limo’s side-view mirrors. Tricia followed. Charley fingered the stubble on his chin as though surprised to discover it there. “You can’t go after Sal looking like a bum and smelling worse—not if you want to have a serious chance to get close to him. You need a bath, you need a shave. And you need some sleep—look at your eyes. I’ve seen smaller bags on a Pullman car.” He snapped his fingers at the driver, a young man who looked like he’d grow up to be Barrone’s shape if he lived long enough. “Eddie, clear out the room on the top floor.” The driver nodded, headed off.

  “Mr. Barrone,” Tricia said, “it isn’t that I’m not grateful—I’d dearly love a good night’s sleep. But my sister’s in trouble now. We can’t just leave her in Nicolazzo’s hands while we lie down and take a nap. We’ve lost enough time as it is.”

  “All due respect—Trixie, is it?” Barrone said. “If Sal wanted Colleen dead, she’s dead already. If she’s alive now, she’ll still be alive in five, six hours.”

  “You sure it’s not that you’d prefer her dead,” Tricia said, “because she’s been squeezing you?”

  “What, for a few bucks and a car? I don’t like it, but I don’t want her dead for it.” Barrone waved an arm at her. “Anyway, look at you. You’d be no use to her the way you are now. You can barely stand up.”

  It was true enough. She was listing like a tree in loose soil.

  “Now for the last time,” Barrone said. “Come upstairs. Or would you rather do it at gunpoint?”

  “No, no,” Charley said. “We’ll come.”

  Inside, the building was spare, obviously less a home than a headquarters. There was a kitchen on the first floor, but it was full of burly men with empty shoulder holsters, some downing beers as they read the newspaper, some running oil-stained cloths through the pulled-apart mechanisms of their guns. The rooms Tricia and Charley passed as they climbed the stairs were under-furnished—a sectional sofa in one corner, a bare table in another. There was, Tricia thought, no woman’s touch; which made sense, since as far as she could see, there were no women.

  Barrone stopped climbing after two floors. He leaned on the banister and watched as they continued without him. “Go ahead,” he said. “There’s a bathroom on the top floor. Eddie should’ve put out a razor for you. We’ll talk strategy in the morning.”

  When he’d dropped out of sight at last, Tricia leaned in close to Charley and whispered. “What the hell are we doing? We’re working for him now?”

  “We’re breathing,” Charley said. “One thing at a time.”

  “But he expects us to kill Nicolazzo for him. We can’t do that!”

  “You don’t know what you can do till you try,” Charley said.

  Tricia’s feet felt like stones and her head felt even heavier. Just keeping her eyelids open was an effort. “We’re not killers, Charley,” she said. “I’m not, anyway.”

  “The police think you are.”

  “So I might as well be? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m too tired to think.”

  They turned the last corner and made their way up the final half-flight of stairs. The floor they came out on was a little better decorated than downstairs, with floral wallpaper and moldings up by the stamped-tin ceiling. An open door at one end of the short corridor led to a bathroom and Tricia could hear water running into a tub. Through the door at the other end she saw the corner of a bed. Halfway between two bales of hay and unable to choose, the donkey starved to death. That wouldn’t be her fate. Let Charley take the bath; she’d sleep first.

  She staggered into the bedroom. Eddie was there, loaded down with an armful of blankets and stripped-off bed linens, and there was a woman in there, too, loading another few pieces onto the pile. She was tall and thin and looked to be in her middle thirties, with the close-set eyes and narrow axe-blade of a nose that stamped her as one of the Barrone clan. She gave Eddie a little shove toward the door and he headed out with a glance back at her; he seemed a little moony-eyed, Tricia thought.

  “Go on,” the woman said, and a few seconds later they heard him tromping down the stairs.

  Charley came in quietly beside Tricia. The woman, who’d paid Tricia no attention whatsoever, eyed him up and down with considerably more interest.

  “Scruffy, aintcha?” She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “You’re papa’s new pet? Eddie told me he’d picked up some strays.”

  “You’re Mr. Barrone’s daughter?” Tricia said.

  “Among other things,” she said, not taking her eyes off Charley.

  Tricia scoured her memory for the daughter’s name, the surviving daughter—the dead one was Adelaide, she remembered that. “Renata,” she said. “Right?”

  “Points to the little lady,” Renata said—to Charley. “She might win herself a kewpie doll yet.”

  “And you’re married to—” Tricia caught herself.

  “Robbie Monge, that’s right,” Renata said, brightening. “The famous bandleader. Read about us in Hedda’s column, did you?”

  “Among other places,” Tricia said. She didn’t like this woman, she decided. Didn’t like her at all, and wouldn’t have liked her even if she hadn’t been sizing Charley up like a dressmaker eyeing a bolt of satin.

  “Why no ring?” Charley said, nodding toward her hand.

  She lifted the hand, stared at it as though noticing for the first time the absence of a wedding band. “I wore one for a while,” she said. “It made my finger itch.”

  And she tilted her face down to give him an up-from-under stare straight off the cover of Real Confessions.

  “Awful nice to have met you,” Tricia said, emphasizing the awful more than the nice. “But we’re pretty tired and we’ve got an early day. Maybe you could let us get some sleep?”

  Renata didn’t take her eyes off Charley. “What is she,” Renata asked, “your kid sister? Or just your kid?”

  Tricia’s mouth dropped open, but Charley put a h
and on her arm before she could say anything. “Mrs. Monge, Trixie’s right, we really do need to get some sleep. If you wouldn’t mind...?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t mind,” Renata said. “I wouldn’t mind at all.” On her way out the door she patted Tricia’s forehead. “Pleasant dreams, honey.”

  The door clicked shut behind her.

  “What a hussy!” Tricia fumed. “She’s a married woman!”

  “Didn’t you tell me she’s a widow?” Charley said.

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t know that,” Tricia said.

  “How do you know she doesn’t?” Charley said.

  “If she does, that’s even worse,” Tricia said. “Her husband’s not even buried yet—”

  “Robbie didn’t sound like a prize himself,” Charley said. “Anyway, that’s not the point.”

  “Oh? What’s the point, then?”

  “The point is she’s Barrone’s daughter, and we might need her help. We certainly don’t need to get into a fight with her.”

  “I wouldn’t say a fight’s what she wants to get into with you,” Tricia said. “You might want to check the tub before you climb in.”

  Charley wearily slid his suspenders off his shoulders, began undoing his cuffs. “Her cozying up to us isn’t the worst thing that could happen, Tricia.”

  “Us? She’s not cozying up to us.”

  “So?” Charley said. “One of us is better than neither. We need every advantage we can get.”

  He was right, of course—she knew he was right. Still. “Go take your bath,” she said. She pulled off her shoes one by one, threw them at the armchair in the corner. She slung herself backwards across the bed, let her eyes close. “And don’t wake me when you come back.”

  “Then move over,” Charley said, “so I won’t have to.”

  “I think maybe you should take the chair this time,” she said.

  “Swell,” Charley muttered and headed toward the sound of pouring water.

  30.

  The Vengeful Virgin

  When the first rays of sunlight through the blinds prodded her awake, Charley wasn’t in the bed; he wasn’t in the chair either. His shoes were on the floor, next to hers—he’d left the four of them lined up, side by side. She saw his pants draped over the arm of the chair. Her dress, which she’d stripped off and left in a heap on the floor with her underwear, was missing, and in its place was a folded robe. It was too large for her, but she put it on and managed to walk down the hall to the bathroom in it without tripping.

  The hallway lights were off and the house was silent. She rapped gently on the bathroom door and prepared to whisper his name, but it swung open under the impact of her knuckles. There was no one inside—but there were her dress and her intimates, hanging from the shower rod and almost dry. Charley’s shirt and undershirt were hanging beside them. She looked at the seat of the dress. The stain from where she’d landed on Jerry’s roof hadn’t come out, not completely, but it was faint enough now that you wouldn’t notice if you didn’t know to look for it; and the smell, at least, was gone.

  She got washed at the sink like she’d done for years on cold mornings in Aberdeen: a splash of water, a streak of soap, some more water, vigorous toweling. She brushed her hair back, briefly inspecting the dark roots that had started to show at her scalp. Would she dye it again? If she got out of this mess, would she stay blonde? Or would she go back to the old brown of Aberdeen, quiet and unexciting but safe? It was tempting—to not be Trixie any longer, just Patricia Heverstadt once again, attracting glances as she walked down the street but not bullets. Yet she wondered whether this temptation was like the bargains she’d found herself making while climbing down the rain gutter, the sort you might contemplate in a dire moment but that you’d never go through with in the end.

  She pushed the question out of her mind. First things first. Finding Charley (maybe he was in the kitchen, grabbing some breakfast?), finding the guns (would Barrone really let them have them back?), and then finding Nicolazzo and Erin and Coral (the corner of Van Dam and Greenpoint, wasn’t that what Charley had said?).

  She pulled the dress on over her head, buttoned it up as far as the missing buttons would permit, drew on her stockings, then padded back toward the bedroom for her shoes. There was one other room on the floor—one other door anyway, halfway down the hall—and she went slowly as she passed it, trying to make as little noise as possible.

  She needn’t have bothered. She heard a throaty chuckle from within, a creaking of springs. Then a woman’s voice, coaxing: “C’mon, beautiful. Ain’t you slept enough?” More creaking followed. The people inside weren’t listening to anything going on in the hall.

  Tricia moved on. Then stopped dead when she heard a voice, muffled by the door, say, “I really need to go.” It was Charley’s voice.

  “What’s the hurry?” Renata asked. “It’s early still.”

  “We’ve got a long day coming up,” Charley said.

  “That’s not all you’ve got coming up,” she said.

  “Renata, let go. Please. Stop that.”

  “Oh, but you like it,” she said. “I can tell.”

  “I like it fine,” Charley said, “but I need to go.”

  “I’ll show you what you need,” Renata said, and whatever response Charley had been about to give was stifled under a barrage of laughter and kisses.

  There was a keyhole in the door, but Tricia didn’t stoop to looking through it. She continued on to the bedroom, grabbed her shoes, hesitated, then dug a handful of money out of the pocket of Charley’s pants, transferred it to her own.

  You need every advantage you can get? Well, Charley, so do I.

  Holding her shoes in one hand, she slipped silently down the stairs. She put the shoes on when she reached the ground floor.

  Love ‘em and leave ‘em, that’s me. Every one I can. You certainly couldn’t say the man hadn’t been up front; he told you right out what a creep he was. The problem was, even when he made it clear he was lying you couldn’t believe him.

  She remembered Barrone denying it, saying, She’s not just ‘some girl’ to you.

  Yeah, well.

  She entered the kitchen, empty now except for Eddie, who either was the earliest riser in the house or had stayed up all night. He sat at a circular table with a cardboard cereal box and an empty bowl, plus the pair of guns Barrone had taken from them, the Luger and Heaven’s smaller gun, the one Tricia had been carrying. Two piles of bullets were lying on the tabletop between them.

  “Miss,” he said.

  “It’s Trixie, Eddie. You can call me Trixie. We’re going to be working together, after all.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Trixie.”

  “Listen,” she said, thinking, all right, I’ve found Charley, I’ve found the guns, now it’s time to get on with it. She had a brief twinge of remorse, but she stifled it. Coral wasn’t going to have to wait till mister love ’em and leave ’em got around to leaving this one.

  “Listen,” she said again. “Renata was asking for you just now.”

  “Really?” The poor boy’s eyes lit up.

  “Mm-hm. She said to ask you to come up. Just go quietly. And,” Tricia said, “don’t knock. Just let yourself in.”

  “Really?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  He was halfway out of his seat before he looked back at the table. “I don’t know...I don’t think Mr. Barrone would want me to leave you here with the guns, Trixie.”

  “Well, I don’t think Renata would want me coming up to the room with you. It sounded like she was looking forward to having some privacy with you.”

  “Privacy,” he said.

  “Look, the guns are empty, right?” He nodded. “Fine. Then here—” Tricia swept the bullets up in her hands and held them out to Eddie, who cupped his palms to receive them. “Now I can’t do anything. And you can go enjoy yourself.”

  Eddie jammed the bullets in his pockets and hastened to the door. “Thanks, Trixie. You’re a pa
l.”

  “Have fun, Eddie,” she said.

  When she heard his step on the stairs, Tricia picked up the Luger. She tried loading it with the one bullet she’d managed to hold out, clamped between her palm and the base of her thumb. It didn’t fit, so she grabbed the other gun, tried loading it into that one. It clicked neatly into place.

  One bullet wasn’t much. But it would have to be enough.

  From upstairs she heard a commotion. Someone was shouting. Doors were opening on other floors. It was time to go.

  She hustled to the front door and down the five stone steps to the street.

  Subway...subway...she looked around hastily to orient herself then headed off to the west.

  I’m coming, Cory, she thought.

  And Charley? She thought of him, too, as she went, thought with a little regret of what he’d be facing now at Eddie’s hands, and Renata’s, and Mr. Barrone’s, if he wasn’t able to talk his way out of it. But hell, he’d be able to talk his way out of it. Maybe not before picking up a few bruises, but—

  You made your bed, Charley, Tricia thought. I hope she was worth it.

  31.

  The Wounded and the Slain

  She rode the train, rattling and shaking and nearly empty, out to Queens Plaza, where she begged a map from the token booth clerk in the station. She unfolded it and took a minute to find Van Dam Street. It looked like half a mile to get there, another mile or so before it crossed Greenpoint Avenue. She thought about splurging and blowing some of Charley’s money on a taxi, but on a Sunday morning in Queens you were as likely to see a circus caravan pass as an empty cab. She didn’t see either and started walking.

  She did pass a small grocery store whose owner was letting down the awning with a long metal hand-crank. She stopped inside and picked up a couple of buttered rolls and a coke—not much of a breakfast, but she wolfed it down and kept going.

  In the pocket of her dress, the gun—lighter now, with just the one bullet—felt like a brick, weighing her down. She wondered if she’d actually have the guts to use it. To stand in front of a man, the way Heaven had, the way Nicolazzo had, and end his life with a movement of her hand, a flick of a finger.