A Long Walk Up the Waterslide nc-4

by Don Winslow

  We’re getting sloppy, Graham thought. We have some success and start to think we’re better than we are.

  He leaned back and let the morning sun hit his face. He glanced over to his right at a footbridge to see whether the goon was still there. He was. Graham wondered what the hell was keeping Joey Beans.

  The room-service guy must have fingered me, Graham thought, because Joey’s goon picked me up at the hotel and followed me down here. Maybe the waiter was getting back at me for taking silverware. And I’ve been sitting here like a signpost for an hour and a half. If Joey Beans wants me, he’s taking his sweet time. Maybe he’s too smart. I hope not.

  Graham opened his newspaper to the sports section and was disappointed to find that there was very little interest in the New York Giants in San Antonio. This was to be expected, however, from a city where the food squirts at you.

  Foglio’s head goon, Harold, walked onto the bridge.

  Don’t go away, Graham thought. It’s time to play. He set his newspaper down, signed the credit-card slip, got up, and walked south toward the bridge. He looked up, pretended to see them for the first time, then tentatively kept walking.

  Let’s see what you want me to do, Graham thought. If you want me to walk south, you’ll let me pass the base of the bridge and fall in behind me. If you want me to head north, you’ll block my path and let me turn around. If you want my ugly Irish butt now, you’ll meet me at the base of the bridge.

  Graham watched as Harold slipped down to the base of the bridge and let himself be seen in the middle of the sidewalk. So he “spotted” Harold, turned around, and started to walk north.

  This means that Joey Beans is in front of me somewhere, thought Graham. If they just wanted to give me a beating, both of them would be coming. But they’re taking this seriously, and Harold is herding me toward his boss, because mob guys never do anything alone, so it’s going to be Harold and Joey. And it’s going to be a beating, not a killing, because even Joey Beans isn’t crazy enough to do a hit in downtown San Antonio on a Sunday morning. So this is good.

  Joe Graham had assigned himself the task of cooling out Joey Beans.

  He’d made a point of scouting the River Walk a few dozen times, so he was getting to know it pretty well. About three blocks north, the river made a big bend under the Convent Street Bridge. So the north side of Convent would be the place to do it. Graham figured he had nothing to worry about until Convent Street.

  Graham looked back over his shoulder at Harold, then picked up his pace to let the bodyguard think he was doing the chasing. Harold matched his pace, which made Graham think he was right about Joey being up ahead somewhere, because Harold wasn’t trying to shorten the gap, just stay even.

  Graham tested the theory by stopping suddenly. Harold hit the brakes.

  Graham started out again and wondered when Harold would start to close in. It would have to be pretty soon if the shit was going to hit the fan at Convent, because Harold shouldn’t leave him too much room to maneuver after he’d spotted Joey.

  Sure enough, Harold picked up his pace and lengthened his stride. Graham made a token effort to walk a little faster just to keep up the show.

  It’s refreshing to work against a professional, Graham thought. That made him remember Walter Withers in his heyday-the smoothest street man on the slickest streets. He pushed the memory from his mind because it was too painful and because he spotted Joey Beans, grinning and waving at him from the top of the Convent Street Bridge.

  “Hello, Stumpy the Clown!” Joey yelled.

  This is where Harold moves in and I make the frantic effort to escape, Graham thought as he felt Harold’s hand on his shoulder. He tried to go under the arm, but predictably, Harold spun him and pushed him up against the arc of the bridge.

  They picked a good spot, Joe thought. The bridge was a wide concrete job, and the curve of the river put the underside out of view.

  “Do yourself a favor and hop in the water,” Harold muttered. “I’m supposed to hit vou a few shots, but I don’t feel right about hitting a guy with one arm.”

  “Then hit me with both arms,” answered Graham, who didn’t know the word syntax but recognized a straight line when he heard one.

  “What’s your story?” Harold asked, then moaned as he saw Joey come down the staircase.

  “Yeah, what’s your story?” Joey asked.

  “Get back on the bridge,” said Harold.

  “You giving the orders now?” Joey said. “Turn the monkey around where I can get a look at his ugly face.”

  “Speaking of ugly,” Graham said as he was spun around, “you look like it’s Roy Rogers night at a wise guy costume party, with your snakeskin boots, Stetson hat, and big fat gut hanging over your longhorn belt buckle. You guys should stick to the open shirt, gold chain, black ankle boot thing. It still looks stupid, but not this stupid.”

  “You’re still in a funny mood,” Joey said.

  “Something about you brings the chuckles out in me. I don’t know,” Graham said. “Maybe it’s the image of Don Annunzio making you eat all that garbage. That’s funny stuff.”

  Graham didn’t wait for the punch he knew was coming. Harold had him by the shoulders-too high-so it gave him plenty of room to swing his heavy artificial arm down in an arc, which had an effect similar to a croquet mallet whacking a ball. Graham’s fist whacked both Harold’s balls, though, driving them up somewhere near his chin.

  This inspired Harold to release him immediately and bend deeply at the waist. Foglio went right for Graham’s throat but stopped suddenly when the serrated edge of the steak knife pressed against his scrotum.

  “Did you ever want to sing in the Vienna Boys’ Choir?” Graham asked as he pressed the knife and stepped forward, forcing Joey to take baby steps back toward the edge of the water. “Or wait on the nice ladies in a Turkish harem? Or change your name to Joey No Balls? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, or if you never want your compass to point north again, just get stupid now, Joey Beans.”

  “What do you want?” Joey croaked.

  “You know about famiglia, right, Joey?”

  “I know about family.”

  “Well, you’ve been fucking around in Nevada,” Graham said, “And you almost hurt one of my famiglia. Capisce?”

  “I don’t know what-”

  A little pressure of the blade stopped him.

  “Don’t bother,” Graham hissed. “Just listen. There’s been a misunderstanding of some kind. We’re going to get it straightened out. That might take a few days. In the meantime, you call off your dogs. You got that?”

  “You don’t know what you’re messing with.”

  “Right now, I’m messing with you, Joey,” Graham said. He saw Harold start to straighten up and noticed that Joey saw it, too. “You want me to mess you up permanently, Joey, you have Harold make a move.”

  Joey looked at Harold and shook his head.

  Graham continued: “You’re right, though. I don’t know what I’m messing with, but I’m going to get it all straightened out. And nothing better happen to any of my family.”

  Graham pressed the knife just enough to close the deal.

  “Okay,” Foglio said. “You through now?”

  Graham heard a tourist barge heading toward them from upstream.

  “Not quite,” he said. “There’s still that ‘Stumpy’ business.”

  He brought his rubber forearm up and smacked Foglio in the chest. Foglio waved his arms to try to keep balance, then crashed into the muddy water. It was shallow, only chest-high, and Foglio was on his feet quickly, but the tourists on the barge were amused.

  Graham saw Harold reach inside his jacket and said, “Yeah, dummy, shoot. Unless you don’t think there are enough witnesses.”

  He pushed past Harold and trotted up to the Convent Street Bridge. He paused only long enough to enjoy the sight of Harold fishing the soaked, muddy Joey Beans out of the river and the sound of laughter. Then he picked up hi
s bag at the hotel and caught a taxi to the airport.

  21

  Ed Levine took a cab up College Hill. He could have walked, but he wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

  Marc must have been waiting at the door, because he opened it before Ed could ring the bell. He took one look at Ed’s serious face and said, “You know, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Ed answered. “But I don’t know why.”

  “Come on in.”

  Marc led him into the den this time and sat next to him on the sofa. He turned the volume off on a late game from the West Coast but left the television on.

  “Theresa and the boys are at her mother’s,” he said.

  “Sorry I missed them.”

  “Being Peter Hathaway’s partner isn’t a crime, Ed.”

  “Then why keep it a secret?” Ed asked.

  Marc’s smile was bitter.

  “Because I’m Dominic Merolla’s grandson and Salvatore Merolla’s son.”

  “What does that mean?” Ed asked, annoyed. He had come for answers from a friend.

  “It means, among other things, that the FCC would never grant me a license,” Marc said. “It means that I have to be a silent partner. It means I need a front man like Peter if I want to pursue certain opportunities.”

  “You’re a successful businessman, Marc!” Ed yelled. “A lot more successful than I realized. You own almost half of the Family Cable Network.”

  “Peter has quite a piece,” Marc said quietly.

  “Is it mob money?” Ed asked. “Do you do your grandfather’s laundry?”

  Marc shrugged.

  “You’re asking two questions,” he said. “I have a trust fund, various monies from my grandfather and father, which I’ve invested. Most of the money I put in the network comes from good investments I’ve made. So, is Dominic’s money in FCN? To the extent that he gave it to me, yes. Do I launder his business profits? Of course not, and I’m offended by the question.”

  “Are you telling me Dominic’s not involved?” Ed asked.

  “See, that’s what I mean,” Marc said. “I have to answer that question. Every Italian businessman in this country has to live with the assumption, at least the suspicion, that his success is due to his underworld contacts-myself more than most.

  “You say I’m richer than you thought. I’m richer than you know. We live modestly. If I built a big mansion, everybody would say, there’s Don Merolla’s grandson, living on mob money. If I owned racehorses, boats, fancy cars, same thing. If I tried to buy a television network, I’d have the FCC, FBI, IRS, the whole alphabet on my neck. Not that they don’t come around, anyway. I can’t have a birthday party for one of my boys without the DEA trying to bug the ice cream cake.

  “I’ll tell you this one time, Ed, because we’re friends: I’m not involved with the wise guys. I’m a businessman. I’m clean.”

  Ed looked at the anger in Marc’s eyes and knew they weren’t going to be friends anymore.

  “You took his money,” Ed said.

  “He’s my grandfather.”

  Their eyes were drawn by a burst of activity on the television screen. A home-team player caught a bomb and tossed the ball to the crowd.

  “He did us a favor,” Ed said.

  “You do business with him; I don’t.”

  “Why did he give you our marker?”

  “This is the first I’ve heard of it. Ask him.”

  “Marc…”

  “He’s my grandfather,” Marc said. “He wants to look out for me.”

  “And that’s it.”

  Marc stood up.

  “I’m through being interrogated by you,” he said. “You want to blow us up with the FCC, do it. And keep your damn marker; I don’t need you.”

  Ed stayed seated. The television replayed the touchdown while an invisible hand drew squiggly white lines all over the screen.

  “That’s the funny thing,” he said. “I think you do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve heard of Carmine Bascaglia?”

  “I read the papers.”

  “One of his captains has a hook into Jack Landis. He’s bleeding you dry.”

  On the screen, two buxom women mocked orgasm over a light beer.

  Marc said, “I’m calling the cops.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  A truck bounced up a muddy road to the summit of a mountain. A man and a woman got out and embraced as they shared the stunning panorama below.

  Ed answered, “People will get hurt and you’ll lose your money.”

  There was a long silence. The afternoon sun was falling and the den was getting dark. Marc turned on a lamp, sat down, and raised the volume on the football game.

  San Diego was down by three points to Pittsburgh.

  They watched the game for a few minutes, then Marc said, “You’re going to make a deal, aren’t you?”

  “We’re going to try.”

  “And it’ll leave Bascaglia’s people with a piece of the business,” Marc said. “Otherwise, you couldn’t make the deal.”

  “That’s right.”

  “That stinks.”

  “I agree.”

  Ed watched the game for a few minutes, then he got up and left. Marc didn’t see him to the door.

  “What do you want to drink, sweetie?” Gloria asked.

  “I don’t drink,” her guest said.

  She leaned forward to give him a preview of coming attractions and asked, “Do you have any vices, I hope?”

  And what is it with hands this weekend? First she brings home a guy with one hand; now she picks up a stray with a bandaged paw.

  “Well,” the guy answered, ‘just last night I got fucked at the Bluebird Motel.”

  He had the pistol on her before she could scream.

  “Now go ahead and have your drink,” he said.

  Will they ever come out of there? Walter Withers wondered as he lay on the floor next to the door of his hotel room. He had been listening for over twenty-four hours, which far exceeded the timetable in his plan.

  It was such a good plan, too. The indomitable Ms. Haber had bribed the ever-tumescent young Bobby-who now had dates with several months’ worth of young ladies with strong exhibitionist tendencies-to arrange a room directly across the hall from that young snake Neal and the valuable Polly Paget.

  Then Withers had been spirited up the room in the bottom of a delivery cart-an uncomfortable journey; however, not without a certain whimsical quality-where the plan had called for him to listen vigilantly for the opening of doors and watch the hallway through the peephole until opportunity arose-opportunity for access to Ms. Paget.

  A fine plan, Withers thought as he lay on the floor by the door, save for the target’s unreasonable stubbornness in holding to their fortress and the treacherous presence of a cabinet stuffed to bursting with spirits.

  The courtesy bar was calling to Withers.

  It’s the damn boredom, he thought, the bane of surveillance. The brain-killing, spirit-stifling, buttocks-numbing tedium of interminable waiting. A condition that could be ameliorated by the contents of the courtesy bar. Yes, its contents could soften the suffering, take the edge off boredom’s sharp blade, surround one in the comfort of an old friend’s embrace.

  Think of the money, he told himself. You are no longer a young sprite, and it is high time to think of building a retirement fund, a fund that could be well started on the photographic reproduction of Ms. Paget’s nubile body, which lies just across the hall as the object of your vigilance.

  Spurn the sweet, soft song of the liquor cabinet for the cold, hard logic of cash.

  Still, there must be a better way.

  If only Gloria would return his calls, perhaps she could persuade Polly to come across the hall.

  If I can just make the pitch, he thought.

  He dialed Gloria’s number again. Again, the damnably cheerful message warbled through the phone.

&
nbsp; “Gloria, it’s me again, Walter,” he said. “I really do wish you would return my call. I have located Polly-small thanks to you, I might add-and am, in fact, just across the hallway from her. Please call. I am in room twelve-forty, The Last Days of Pompeii Resort and Casino Hotel, oh two-five five five-four six six three.”

  I have such a headache, Withers thought. Perhaps one little drink.

  He found the key and opened the courtesy bar.

  Gloria never heard the phone.

  She was lying in a tubful of hot water and her own blood.

  She had told him everything, of course, while he was forcing her to gulp the scotch down. She told him about the one-armed man and the phone call long before he told her to swallow the pills.

  Overtime heard Withers’s message, though. He had just finished wiping the knife handle and pressing her fingerprints onto the handle.

  Poor drunken slut, he thought. Prey to the sad but banal combination of booze, drugs, and guilt.

  He erased the message tape and left for the airport.

  22

  At about the time Gloria died, a black limousine pulled up to an iron-gated courtyard off St. Claude Street in New Orleans’s French Quarter. The driver’s window rolled down; the uniformed guard checked out the driver and the three passengers and waved the limousine in.

  The driver parked at the top of an oval driveway next to a three-story Spanish neoclassical building, replete with terracotta-tiled roof, wrought-iron balconies, and creeping ivy. Two bodyguards walked Joe Graham up the stone steps and into the building.

  The floors were highly polished octagonal black-and-white tiles. The walls were painted chalk white and held large gilt-framed oil paintings of New Orleans street scenes. A marble staircase, flanked by a wrought-iron railing, curved up to the right, and the bodyguards led Graham up these stairs. Video cameras were recessed on swivels in the plaster ceiling.

  A guard sat at an antique table at the top of the stairs, the bulge of a pistol prominent under his jacket. He nodded to the two guards, pressed the button on the intercom, and said that Mr. Bascaglia’s two o’clock appointment had arrived. A feminine voice replied that he should be sent right in.