Gin Palace 02 - The Bone Orchard

by Judson, Daniel

  I turned to look at him. The light was barely enough to make out the shape of his face. His right arm hung at his side, his gun aimed at the floor. “I thought you might need some help. I had a visitor, too.”

  He shook his head from side to side a few times. “They didn’t waste much time, did they?”

  I looked at his forehead and saw a small bump just under his hairline. A faint trickle of blood like a stray thread ran from it to his eyebrow.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “There were two of them. They jumped me at the front door and tried to push their way in. One hit me with a blackjack. I kicked the other one back into the front yard. He went for his gun. I went for mine. I plugged him. The other one, the one who sapped me, took off when I started shooting. I could have nailed him as he ran, but I wasn’t about to shoot an unarmed man in the back, so I let him go.”

  “You okay?”

  “It’s just a scrape.”

  He knew what I was about to say, that he should get it checked out anyway, considering all that he’d been through, but I didn’t see the point in wasting our time. Sooner or later the cops would come here and I had to go.

  “There’s a shit storm coming straight at me, Mac.”

  “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  “I’d be able to deal with it a hell of a lot easier if I knew Tina was safe and sound.”

  I didn’t say anything to that at first. Then I nodded and told him that I’d take care of it.

  “I owe you.”

  “You should call the cops.”

  “If somebody already hasn’t. Either way, you should get going. It’s cut-and-dried self-defense, that’s clear, but things are a little fucked now, so maybe they’re going to make it a little rough on me. I think for your sake I shouldn’t tell them that you were here tonight.”

  “I think for your sake, too.”

  “You look like you’ve got some blood on you from the guy on my front lawn. It’s probably on your boots, too. I’ll have to think of a way to explain all these size nine boot prints all over my house. Then again, fuck it, let them explain it. Just remember, no matter what, you weren’t here. We don’t change the story for any reason, no matter what happens. Understand?”

  I knew he was telling me to stay out of this, to not come forward on his behalf no matter how bad it got. I nodded, studying the side of his face.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I can. Don’t let Tina worry too much.”

  “You should call your lawyer, Aug. Just to be safe.”

  “I’ll see how it goes first. I’ll know pretty much right off what’s on their minds by how they treat me.”

  “There’s got to be an easier way to test the winds.”

  “We’ll take what we can get.” He patted my right shoulder with his left hand. “You’d better go, Mac. If you don’t get out before they get here, then our story’s pretty much worthless, isn’t it, and you’re in deep shit. One of us at a time, okay?”

  I felt the need to speak but I had to leave, and it was as simple as that. It seemed now that everything I did to keep out of their path only served to put me right there in the middle of it. There was no avoiding it, no avoiding having to pay for what I had done.

  I walked quickly through the cold air to my car, cutting around the body on the grass. I took an old blanket from my back seat and lay it on the front seat to keep from leaving a bloodstain. I untied my boots and took them off and lay them on the other half of the blanket on the passenger seat, then cranked the ignition, shifted into gear, and made a U-turn, heading back down Little Neck Road, toward Montauk Highway.

  Augie’s house was on a peninsula that jutted briefly out into the Shinnecock Bay. There was only one way in and out of his neighborhood. When I was near the end of Little Neck Road I heard the first siren in the distance. It was closing fast. I killed my lights and swung my LeMans into the nearest driveway. A patrol car swerved around the corner onto Little Neck Road and sped past me. Less than a minute later another followed. There was a third siren lagging behind. I knew by the sound of it that it was the ambulance. I waited till it made the corner before I shifted in reverse and backed fast out of the driveway.

  When I paused on the street to shift into drive I took a quick look at the house in whose driveway I had parked and saw someone watching me from between the curtains of the front bay window. I could see no face, just the shape of head framed by dim back light. I started my car forward and flipped on my headlights. The head remained there, turning to follow me as I rode through the stop sign and turned right onto Montauk.

  In town I stopped at a pay phone on Job’s Lane and called Lizzie’s house yet again. It was past four in the morning but she sounded awake when she answered her extension. I told her I needed to speak to Tina and she put her on.

  “Meet me out front in two minutes,” I said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just meet me.”

  I hung up and got back into my car and drove to where Lizzie lived. Tina was waiting by the curb when I pulled up. She was wearing her pea coat and wool hat, her hands deep in her jeans pockets. I had her sit in the back to keep her from the blood and drove her to the Hansom House. I parked in the spot I had vacated not a half hour ago and killed the motor and lights. I took a good look around but saw no one. The house was still, the street empty.

  Inside I turned on the living room light -- it was a weak bulb -- and Tina saw all the blood on me and started asking me what had happened. I told her as I took a duffel bag from my closet and removed Augie’s field jacket and stuffed it inside that someone had tried to break into their house and that Augie had shot a man.

  She stood there in the middle of the room and stared at me without moving. Her hands hung past the middle of her thigh. I assured her that Augie was okay, that I was just with him and that he seemed fine. Then I told her there were some precautions that I had to take for both Augie’s sake and mine and that she couldn’t ask any more questions.

  I took off my shirt and socks and stuffed them into the bag, then went into the bathroom and scrubbed the blood from my hands, digging out with the tip of a scissors blade the residue that had gotten caught under my nails. I dried my hands on a ratty hand towel I kept under the sink and threw that into the duffel bag. From there I went into the bedroom and removed my jeans and stuffed them in.

  Tina was standing just outside my door, watching me. I don’t think she realized what she was doing. She was still in shock. But there was nothing I could do about that now. I put on a clean pair of jeans, a wool sweater and socks, then pulled a pair of old sneakers out from under my bed and put them on. I moved past Tina and through the living room to the kitchen, got a spray bottle full of window cleaner and some paper towels from under the sink, then grabbed my denim jacket and put it on.

  I looked at Tina. She was still standing outside my bedroom doorway, but she had turned and was facing me. I was at one end of the living room and she was at the other, just like before.

  “You stay here,” I told her. “Don’t answer the door or phone. If I need to call, I’ll let it ring twice, then hang up and call back. Got it?”

  “What if it’s my father?”

  “I’ll be back before he calls, don’t worry.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to get rid of all this. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  I drove west on Sunrise Highway because there’d be fewer cops on that road this time of night. Along the way I cleaned the steering wheel with the window cleaner and put the dirty paper towels into the bag. I stopped at the side of the highway and grabbed two rocks twice the size of my fist and put them in the duffel bag. Then I stuffed in my boots and finally the blanket and tied the bag closed. I continued west, till I came to bridge over the Shinnecock Canal, then pulled over to the side of the road and took a screwdriver from my glove compartment and poked a half dozen air holes through the heavy cotton of the bag. After that I got out and
walked to the rail and flung the bag out into the night air. I heard it land in the rushing water and then got back into my LeMans.

  I thought of what I could have done differently to keep from ending up where I was. But I didn’t see anything that would have kept out of all this. I was where I was supposed to be, which was as disconcerting as it was comforting. If there was a debt to pay here, I wanted to pay it and get it over with and move on.

  I was telling myself that the night was over, that things had come to a natural pause and would resume again on their own sometime tomorrow, when those involved had time to consider what had occurred and plan their next move. But when I entered my apartment I found Tina standing in the living room beside my couch with the phone to her ear and a look of wild fear in her eyes, and I knew then there would be no such pause at all, that this night would bleed gradually into the morning and all I could do was stand there and watch it.

  “What’s going on?”

  She extended her long arm, as if to push the receiver off on me. I could hear the sound of a male voice coming through the earpiece, tinny, talking fast. I stepped toward her and reached out for the phone, and just as I was bringing it to my ear, she muttered, “They’ve arrested my father.”

  We looked at each other for a moment, and then I said into the phone, “Augie, what’s going on?”

  The line cracked twice, and there was a heavy hissing in the background. It was obviously a pay phone line, but the voice came through clear enough.

  “I thought you had more sense than this, MacManus.” It wasn’t Augie on the other end, it was Frank Gannon. “Just don’t tell me it’s true love. I’ve got a weak stomach.”

  I ignored that and said, “Why’s Augie been arrested?”

  “No, not over the phone. Be at my office in the morning, around nine. I’ll fill you in then.”

  “But is he okay?” I glanced at Tina.

  “All I know is he’s under arrest. I’ll find out more in the morning.”

  “I have to be at work by eight.”

  “Seven-thirty, then. I’ll send Eddie.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll get there.”

  “You’re going to have to do something with that little plaything of yours. I don’t know exactly what it is she does for you, but stick her for now in a motel, ship her off to someone, anything. And whatever you do, MacManus, don’t let her answer your fucking phone. You can self-destruct on your own time, not when you’re working for me.”

  He hung up before I could say anything to that. For a moment I thought of calling him back and reminding him that I wasn’t working for him, but then I remembered he was at a pay phone and, anyway, what would it bring except maybe a moment’s pleasure. I hung up and checked my watch. It was already after five. I looked toward my windows and knew sunrise was now underway somewhere behind the shredded phantoms that moved past the fingery tops of the bare trees lining my street. I tried to think of what lay ahead. All I could do was sense the effort to come, the long nights and inevitable fear. We’d all been here before. I felt locked into something and didn’t like it, but then I thought of Augie. I felt responsible, if not for him being where he was then for getting him out.

  Tina spoke then, pulling me from my anticipations.

  “It just kept ringing,” she said.

  I had been looking at her but not seeing her. I refocused my eyes. “What?”

  “It just kept on ringing and I couldn’t stand there and listen to it anymore. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Was he rude to you?”

  She shook her head, then paused before asking, “Is my father in trouble?”

  I nodded. There was no point in trying to hide it. “I’ll find out more what’s going on tomorrow. I don’t know much now. Listen, you should get some sleep. We can’t do anything till morning. Take my bed, I’ll take the couch. We’ll be able to think better after we’ve gotten some rest.”

  I waited for her to move toward the bedroom then, but she didn’t.

  “It’s just like last May, isn’t it?” she said.

  I looked away from her, through the center of my three front windows, out at the gray and muffled dawn that was rising up around us and enclosing us like a great cave of ice.

  Chapter Two

  I drifted in and out of consciousness for an hour but never really fell asleep. Finally I gave up on the whole thing around six-thirty and sat up in the dim light and thought about what I knew of Frank Gannon.

  He was married to a beautiful woman I had once glimpsed but never met. I had seen her through a car windshield on a bright autumn day two years ago, through the stark reflection of the tree branches spread across the glass. Her thick hair was black and shoulder length, framing a broad and complex face. Her mouth was set in what looked to me like a serenely satisfied smile. I could not see her eyes through the expensive sunglasses she wore, but by the way her head moved as I walked past the front of her gold-colored Deville I could tell she was watching me. For a moment I did not know which to covet, her beauty or her wealth. It seemed to me then that I should want one or the other. In the end I chose to desire both. It took me a few days to forget about her completely. She was beauty and wealth, everything my life wasn’t, everything anyone would want. The memory of her remains in my mind, always willing to return under the right conditions and do a little dance through my head.

  She and Frank had two daughters, both in college, and the house on the north side of Hill Street. Frank did well for a small-town private investigator, though just how well no one, not even Augie, knew. I didn’t really care. His work brought him in continual contact with the powerful and influential, not just of the East End but of New York City, too, people who paid well to have their problems taken care of and their secrets kept. Frank knew the world well enough to make most situations work for him, one way or another. He kept the right people in his pocket -- local cops, town committee members, businessmen, a town justice or two, anyone with money. He could pull in a half-dozen favors on a given day and still have clout to spare.

  Years ago he had run for mayor and lost badly. The man who had beat Frank for the mayor’s seat had upon taking office tried to get Frank’s license pulled. He sicked the Chief on Frank but nothing ever came of it.

  I stayed out of things, or tried to. But when Frank wanted something from you he had a way of getting it.

  The only lighted window in town belonged to Frank’s office, and for most of my walk along Main Street my movement was the only activity I could sense. Every now and then a car would pass, and as it did I would keep my eyes on the sidewalk but listen carefully for the sudden seizing of brakes and quick swinging open of doors. Last night’s bout with my stun-gun friend was still fresh in my mind. My right kidney wasn’t likely to let me forget for a while. But none of the cars that passed stopped or even slowed down. I followed the sound of their tires as they continued on behind me or ahead of me till I could hear nothing more but the sound of my own walking through the solemn morning.

  The sound of the leaves crunching stiffly beneath the soles of my work boots never left me once. They announced my presence and direction with each step. I passed the Village Hall and wondered about Augie, where he was and if he was okay. I kept my head down and my eyes on my noisy feet as I crossed the alleyway that separated the Village Hall from the clothing store above which Frank kept his office.

  The cold was pretty much well inside me when I opened the street door and started up the narrow stairs to his office. I knocked on his office door, then waited for his low voice before I entered. When I did I found him sitting behind his desk, under a single reading lamp, the phone pinned between his ear and shoulder. In his thick hands was an open file, and behind him one of the filing cabinet drawers was open, pulled out a little past halfway. I remembered again the night I got drunk and turned Frank’s office upside down, pulling each drawer from their cabinets and scattering the contents across the room. It was after that night that I deci
ded not to drink for a while. I made it a habit and kept with it till Tina came and stayed with me and all that nonsense between us started.

  Frank looked up at me and gestured me in with a quick wave of his hand. His eyes stayed on me for only a second. I closed the door behind me and leaned on the wall near it, my hands in the pocket of my denim jacket. I let the warmth touch me and looked down the length of his office, toward the narrow window at the back that overlooked the parking lot behind the police station. Then I heard the sound of a car door closing coming up from the street outside the large front window. I went to it and looked down at Main. One of the patrol cars parked outside the Village Hall was backing out into the street. It paused for a moment, the reverse lights went out, and then it headed north, into the direction from which I had come. I didn’t know which place was more unsafe for me, the street below or this office above it.

  I half-listened to Frank’s side of his phone conversation while I waited.

  “I don’t care,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. Do what you have to do. Yeah. Just let me know. As soon as you can.” He turned his hand and glanced at his watch. “Yeah, that’s fine. Okay. Okay. Let me know.”

  He hung up the phone with his left hand and laid down the file with his right and looked at me.

  “You look like shit, MacManus.”

  I ignored that. “What’s going on, Frank?” I didn’t look at him, but from the corner of my eye I could see him close the file and stand and return it to the open cabinet drawer. He slid the heavy drawer shut, locked it and pocketed the key, then picked up a paper to-go cup of coffee from his desk top and took a sip.

  “I don’t know what you know,” Frank began, “so if what I’m telling you is old news, bear with me.” He paused a moment. “From what I understand two men tried to sack Augie at his house a few hours ago. He shot one of them in the chest twice. He’s dead. The other took off. Right now there’s a lab crew at his house, gathering evidence. All I know is they took Augie in for questioning, after which they booked him on the charge of manslaughter.”