by Ed Dee
"That's subtle," Boland said.
"Viktor," Eddie said, looking down the end of the bar. "Viktor, Lexy says Borodenko is a faggot. You agree? By the way, I was telling my FBI friend about your im-ported-drug business. Lexy explained to me how it works. Incidentally, your girlfriend, outside there, needs a new backpack. Little pills are falling out."
"Let me pay for these drinks, and then we'll hit the bricks," Boland said.
Eddie snatched Boland's money off the bar and shoved it in his shirt pocket.
"We are among friends, Desmond," Eddie said. "We do not pay for anything in here, right, Ludmilla?"
"You're being an asshole," the waitress said. "No wonder someone punched you in the eye."
"Pretty, Ludmilla. Worried about my eye. Ludmilla means 'loved by all,' and she lives up to that name. Lexy told me she is the queen of the bait and switch. Ludmilla puts on her worst clothes and heaviest accent, then goes around to little independent jewelers and tries to get them to buy a necklace she claims was in her family for generations. I don't know where the hell she got it, but it is valuable. She tells them some story about it belonging to Anastasia-remember that movie with Ingrid Bergman? But the jewelers can see that the necklace is valuable, and poor Ludmilla doesn't know its value. She says that she desperately needs the money to get back to Russia. The jewelers are greedy; Ludmilla always laughs about that later. Greedy bastards, serves them right, trying to screw her with their lowball deal. Poor Ludmilla accepts the deal; she has no choice. Always for cash. Then she screws them with an imitation. My friend Lexy Petrov told me all about it."
"Why don't you get the fuck out of here," Lexy said.
"Why don't you throw me out?" Eddie snapped.
"Easy, easy," Boland whispered.
"How's the vodka?" Eddie saidl
"I could have used a triple," Boland said.
"Lexy," Eddie yelled. "Another vodka for Desmond. Another vodka I won't pay for. Hey, speaking of vodka, what's the name of that fat guy who comes in here? You know, you told me he buys grain alcohol from some dis-tiUery in Missouri, then smuggles it into Russia in bottles labeled as witch hazel, and then he relabels it and sells it as vodka. What a great scheme. I'll think of his name later. So many fine entrepreneurs drink in this fine bar."
The fine bar was emptying out quickly. More stools were empty than occupied now. People in the dining area began putting their coats on. Plates of thin potato pancakes, others with Russian herring, and bowls of cold borscht were abandoned. Someone turned the sound system way up.
Eddie put his arm around the man on the stool next to him, a balding young man with a Fu Manchu mustache. "I always forget your name, my friend," Eddie said. "I'm sorry for that. But I would vote you as the top new scam artist on the scene." The young man drained his glass quickly and stood up. "He's being shy, Desmond. Lexy told me all about this young man. He smuggles Russians across the Canadian border into Maine. When someone contacts him, wanting to be brought to this country, he and his pals go into Canada through the woods of Maine. They meet the family, then lead them across the border, through the same woods. But here's the funny part: When they bring the family in, they are armed to the teeth, automatic weapons, extra ammunition, grenades, gas masks. Why such heavy weapons, you ask, when one could sneak across that border armed with nothing more dangerous than a pirogi? That's the point. It's all showbiz. All an act, so they can charge their fellow countryman the high rate-ten thousand dollars apiece-for a stroll through the woods."
The restaurant door opened and closed at a faster rate. Eddie had succeeded in clearing the place out. He turned around and saw the table in the corner had suddenly been abandoned.
"Come over here, Desmond," Eddie said. "Let me show you this beautiful hand-painted mural of Saint Petersburg. Hand-painted when Evesi Volshin owned this restaurant. But see these dark spots here? If you look closely, you'll see they're not windows; they're bullet holes. Bullets that went through Evesi's body when he sat right in this chair. Isn't that right, Lexy?"
"No one cries for Evesi," Lexy said.
"That's right," Eddie said. "Evesi deserved to die. Evesi was a scumbag kidnapper. In fact, the night of the shooting, shell casings were everywhere. People eating their dinner moved their chairs so the shooters could pick them up. Evesi was scum, like Borodenko. Isn't that right, Lexy? You were here that night, Lexy. Or couldn't you see through your mask?"
"Plenty more bullets in the store," Lexy said.
"Is that a threat? Right in front of Desmond Shanahan of the FBI?"
"It is whatever you see in your nightmares."
"What is that, Lexy, an example of Russian mystery? Some inscrutable phrase supposed to strike fear into my heart? Oooh, I see the smoke of the cossack fire."
Eddie walked toward the bar. Lexy stepped back. Eddie stood on the rail, reached over, and pulled a metal club from underneath.
"Eddie," Boland said.
"You're good at telling stories, Lexy. Deliver this message for me. Tell whoever it is to be a man, let my daughter go, and come after me."
Eddie looked carefully at the metal bar. One end was wrapped in black electrical tape. He reached over and smashed the mirror. Shards of glass fell onto the shelves of bottles and on the floor behind the bar.
"I'm taking this with me," Eddie said. "If anything happens to my daughter, our next meeting will be your nightmare."
Chapter 15
Wednesday
8:00 P.M.
"Why did the man attackle you?" Grace asked, gently daubing Eddie's eye with a damp washcloth. "Because you were looking for Mommy?"
He wasn't sure where Grace had found her mother's first-aid kit. He watched her carefully, not entirely sure what chemical she was doctoring him with. Kate could reel off the names of drugs Eddie had never heard of.
"He attackled me because he's crazy," Eddie said. "The police took him away to jail so he can't hurt anyone else."
They were sitting around the kitchen table, finishing the "angel foot cake." Kevin had brought franks and beans, Grace's favorite, from the restaurant. The house was quieter than it had been. The Yonkers Police Department had moved the plant location to their Fourth Precinct, two miles away, on Shonnard Place. The phone would still be tapped, and the FBI still involved. Eddie guessed they must have figured that since he wasn't sitting there, they shouldn't have to, either. Uniformed officers would still maintain a presence in the neighborhood, checking his house at least once an hour.
"Not all mentally ill people deserve to be in jail, honey," Martha said. "Some people are sick and should be in hospitals."
"When I see him again," Eddie said, "I will make sure he goes to a hospital."
"So much for turning the other cheek," Martha said.
"Martha," Kevin said sternly.
When Eddie got home, Grace had told him that Babsie Panko'd helped her fix up an old pink dollhouse of Kate's. Grace had dragged it out of the attic and onto the front lawn. He remembered the dollhouse; he and Eileen had put it together one Christmas Eve.
"God came into our class today," Grace said.
"His spirit is always with you, sweetie," Martha said. "It's with you now."
"I asked Him to help Mommy."
"I pray to Him every day, too," Martha said.
"I see Him every day," Grace said
"You don't really see God," Martha said. "But you feel His presence and know He's always there for you."
"I see Him every day," Grace said, her voice getting louder. "Today, He said, 'Good morning, class.'"
"Oh, honey, I don't think so," Martha said.
"What does God look like?" Kevin asked.
"He's bald and he wears a black suit."
"That's Father Qualters," Kevin said. "He only thinks he's God. You ought to play golf with him sometime."
Eddie winced from laughing. Grace thought she'd hurt him, and her eyes welled up. Eddie pulled her to him and kissed her neck until she giggled.
"Well, Uncle Kevin
has a whoopee cushion," Grace said, trying to retaliate. "He puts it under the chair cushion, and when you sit down, it sounds like a fart."
"Don't say that word, Grade," Martha said.
Eddie looked up at the clock and wondered where Babsie had gone. He wanted to fill her in on Misha and find out what progress she had made. But it was more than that. He liked the fact she was there, looking out for Grace. Babsie had a calmness about her. And an openness that made her comfortable to be around. He had no doubt that Babsie Panko could handle anything.
"Listen, Eddie," Kevin said. "Next time you go into one of those Russian places, call me. Promise me that. Call me before you do something like this again."
"Eddie doesn't need your help," Martha said.
"You'll be the first guy I call, Kev."
"Do the police have anything promising?" Martha asked. "Any kind of leads at all? I ask Babsie Panko, and God knows I love her, but she doesn't exactly inspire confidence. That may be my opinion, but…"
"She's funny, like Granpop," Grace said.
"And that's good enough for me," Eddie said. "Us jokesters have to stick together."
Eddie still wondered how his former son-in-law had found out about Kate so quickly, before it even appeared in the paper. He didn't want to think Martha had called him. He needed Martha now to look after Grace when he was gone. Kevin would be around, too. But Kevin, God bless him, thought Martha was the greatest thing ever created.
"I have some good news," Kevin said.
"Please, honey, it's not the time."
"We need something good to talk about, right, Eddie?" Kevin said, sipping gingerly from a steaming cup of coffee Martha had pushed into his hands. The look on his face said it all; he had news that couldn't wait. "I heard something yesterday. McGrath, the electrician. You know who I mean?"
McGrath's Electric Shop had been next door to the North End Tavern for over thirty years.
"Everybody here knows the McGraths," Martha said, gesturing for him to pick up the pace.
"Yeah, but I bet you didn't know this: He's retiring."
"He says that every year," Martha said.
"He's already got a buyer for his house on Douglas Avenue," Kevin said. "I was in Food Mart and heard about it, so I went right over to him and asked him point-blank. He's moving to Naples, Florida. He bought a condo there last winter. He says he's had it with working his ass off eleven months a year."
"What is he doing with the shop?" Eddie asked.
"That's part of my idea," Kevin said. "You're going to love it, Eddie."
Kevin always had an idea, some big wacky idea. Invariably, too big for Martha's tastes. She apparently knew what was coming next. The look on her face predicted she didn't like Kevin's latest brainstorm.
"He's not in Florida yet," Martha said.
"I was thinking," Kevin said, his eyes wide, his waving hands drawing the floor plans of his big idea. "We should rent the space for Kate."
"Don't mind him, Eddie. He means well."
"C'mon. It would make a perfect little restaurant for her," Kevin said. "She's been looking and looking. This place is perfect. We could knock out the wall between us. Put a small service bar in her place that connects to our bar. We could join the kitchens. She could do all the food, the fancy dinners. We'd handle the drinks, the burger crowd."
"It sounds perfect," Eddie said.
"Let's not be getting our hopes too high," Martha said.
"Let's do it," Grace yelled.
Kevin Dunne never had a plan that couldn't work. The caption under his picture in his high school yearbook read "No prob-lemo."
"It's all settled then," Kevin said. "I'll put a deposit down tomorrow."
Later that night, Eddie Dunne sat alone in his kitchen, wondering when the other shoe would drop. Unlike his brother, Eddie did not believe that everything always works out. He knew the more time that passed, Kate's chances diminished. If the worst happened to Kate, he'd lose Grace, as well. Scott had not sent his sister into enemy territory just to check the condition of a woman he claimed to hate; he had another motive.
Eddie needed a lawyer to get the proper documents drawn up, legal guardian, whatever he needed on paper to protect Grace. Not that he was putting his trust in the system. Not by a long shot. He knew the system well enough to know it never did anything for guys like him. Rolling around in the back of his brain was the start of plan B. Guys like Eddie needed to have a plan B.
He sipped a cup of tea as he looked into his granddaughter's bedroom. The old radiator clanked as steam rose. He'd planned for years to modernize but had never gotten around to it. In those bad old days, so many things had called him away. Things that Eileen, who'd called him the Hell-Raiser of the Western World, had listed under one simple heading: "Nightlife."
When he was honest with himself, Eddie could admit he'd been wrong. Maybe Eileen would have been different if he had grown up sooner. For too many years, he'd wasted his quality time in bars, being the last guy to go home after a night out carousing. His was a lifetime of booze and recklessness, which had provoked his forced resignation from the NYPD, and culminated in the death of Eileen. The doctors said cancer, but that ugly word didn't even begin to touch his guilt. He had no doubt that the stress of living with him had triggered her disease. Now, because he'd tried to make it up, because he'd grabbed his last chance to be a father, and a priceless shot at being a grandfather, they were going to take it all away.
Grace stirred, kicking the pink bedspread farther down the bed. Her bedroom, the one nearest to the kitchen, had been Kate's when she was a child. He felt sick when he thought about all the arguments Kate had heard, all the sad scenes playing out just a few feet down the hall. In the amber glow of a Hello Kitty night-light, he stood there watching the little girl, who, for no reason he could understand, loved him so much. He was constantly amazed that Grace thought he was so hilarious, so much fun. The one thing in life he was sure of was that no one would ever love him this much again. He couldn't lose her.
A full moon illuminated the quiet street. Eddie noticed a small red sticker on the bedroom window. Eileen had put it there when Kate was a baby. It was meant to alert firemen that a child slept there. Unfortunately, it alerted everyone that a child slept there. He began to peel it off, wondering if he'd blown this surprising and priceless gift just when he'd come to understand it.
Headlights flashed across the bedroom wall as a big vehicle turned into their street. Eddie squinted, trying to see if he recognized the car. He wondered if it was the YPD making its hourly drive-by. A dark SUV, one of the king-size models, towered over his neighbors' Hondas and Tauruses. Brake lights painted the street with a red glow. The bass thump of music reverberated. A little too loud for police work.
Maybe it was a wrong address, some yo-yo looking for his bimbette. Nothing to do with him. Kids, probably. Kids with a case of beer iced down in a cooler on the floor behind them. Probably just driving around, looking for a girl who lived on the hill. She won't do it, but her sister will. But then the big tires bounced softly up onto the curb, bright lights pointed at the house. Eddie put his big silhouette in the center of the window, hoping it would scare them off. On the lawn, near the edge of the driveway, Eddie noticed the small pink doll-house Grace had dragged out there earlier. He still remembered the argument that Christmas Eve when he and Eileen had put it together. The SUV stopped halfway up the driveway.
Please back off, he whispered. Eddie's nature begged him to run outside, but he knew he couldn't abandon Grace. Disappearing had been his old act. He looked back at Grace, who was sound asleep, zonked-out. Maybe she'd sleep through this.
The engine growled as the driver seemed to search for the right gear-reverse, Eddie hoped. He had a bad feeling; the guy was too ballsy. Either drunk or crazy. He prayed for drunk as the music got louder, thumping in his chest. Grace moaned something, half-asleep. Call the cops, he thought. That's what a good citizen would do. The SUV made a sudden hard left onto the lawn, th
en went right across it, tire tracks cutting deep in the soft grass and aiming directly at the pink dollhouse. The cracking of plastic echoed in the quiet neighborhood as the big tires crushed it.
Eddie raced down the hall and grabbed the Smith & Wesson from his bedroom closet. He didn't care who the hell it was, or how many. He could feel his arms reaching into the SUV, yanking whoever it was out of that car. His hand was on the doorknob when Grace cried out from the bedroom.
"I'll be right back, babe," he yelled. "Everything is okay."
She called him again.
"Just a second, honey," he yelled.
Something hit the front of the house, slamming off the ancient door. Grace cried, "Granpop."
So he ran to her and held her and watched from the pink bedroom as the SUV backed down the driveway. The driver peeled out, tires screeching. Bits of mud and stones pinged off the sides of parked cars. Grace, her voice thick with sleep, asked what was happening, unsure whether or not she was in a bad dream. He held her and said it was just a dumb driver who got lost and that she'd always be safe with him.
Three marked patrol cars from the Yonkers Fourth Precinct responded. In the swirl of light on the lawn, Eddie let Martha snatch Grace from his arms and take her to her house. He told the cops he didn't get a plate number but that even if he had, he was sure the vehicle had been stolen. He led them to the other evidence, a gray canvas bag that had been thrown against the door-the door that no friend ever used. Detectives examined tire marks and photographed the bag. He asked the detectives to contact Babsie Panko and tell her about the canvas bag and its contents. Stenciled on the side was u.s. mail. Inside was a human head.
Chapter 16
Thursday, April 9
1:00 A.M.
For the second time in four days, a yellow crime-scene tape stretched across Eddie Dunne's driveway. Bits of pink plastic dollhouse were scattered across the lawn. Tiny dresses and miniature chairs and tables clung to clumps of grass around deep, swirling wheel ruts. CSU techs dug up chunks of turf for tire-tread comparison. Standard operating procedure, but a waste of time in this case. It might reassure the victim when you went through the evidence-collection motions, but both the techies and Eddie knew the SUV had already been transformed into a metal block and stacked with other metal blocks in some junkyard in the borough of Brooklyn or Queens.