by Thomas Pluck
“Boy’s con-wise,” Drake said. “Won’t say shit. Want me to sweep the car?”
Billy nodded. “What we gonna find, Jay-Jay?”
“Your balls, maybe. Might’ve rolled under the seat,” Jay said, and rested his head against the fender.
Drake popped the trunk, swept under the rotten liner and tossed the spare. Opened the passenger’s side, dumped the papers from the glove box, searched under the seats and beneath the dash, flung out the worn floor mats. He tugged hard at the rear seat cushions.
“Nothing,” Drake said. “Better if we had a dog. This old heap is solid. We taking him in?”
“Fuck ’im,” Billy said. He tossed the car keys into the woods, jerked his head toward the squad car. Drake got into the cruiser and closed the door.
“What you got is the best you’re gonna get,” Billy said. “You got a job, a car, a roof over your head. The American Dream. Let shit go.”
“Ain’t gonna happen,” Jay said. “Your old man shafted me, sent my folks on the run. Which might’ve got them killed. His partner blew his brains out. Now it’s his turn.”
Billy raised a fist, gritted his teeth. He fought himself still. “Next time we’ll find something, you know that, right? Don’t make me do this. I don’t want to.”
“I ain’t making you do shit.”
“Mayor Bello’s gonna come after you, then all this shit gets dragged up again. Wake up. Matty already destroyed everyone. He’s even got Bello shitting his pants.” Billy laughed. “Who you think owns the street construction company that’s got the whole town ripped to shit? You should partner with him, maybe he’ll let you have a three-way with Big Tits.”
“He send you?” Jay kicked at him.
“No, this is family business. I told rich boy he’s on his own, after you pissed on my fucking floor mats.”
“His rent-a-cops dragged me into a van, brought me to his toy garage. In case you want to arrest him for kidnapping.”
“I told you,” Billy said. “Sniffing after that high-class tail. You think you were gonna marry her, coming from some trailer park with your redneck white-trash family? You were lucky you got into her skeevy panties.”
“You sound like our old friend Joey,” Jay said, and flopped back against the car.
“Fuck you,” Billy said. “You act like we abandoned you. Ask Tony, sometime. He biked his fat ass to the station, thinking he’d tell the truth about Joey Bello, be the big hero. He didn’t know my father was the one covering it up.” Billy rubbed at the torn skin on his knuckles. “They hung Tony out the window until he pissed himself. That’s what you’re up against.”
“I don’t scare that easy,” Jay said.
Billy shook his head. “You wanna kill yourself, do it somewhere else.” He walked to the cruiser and drove away.
Jay pushed himself to his feet. He bent over and held his numb wrists high as he could. He slammed his forearms into the back of his thighs, like he’d learned. Six tries and the zip-tie snapped. He rubbed the deep welts on his wrists as he stepped through the brush, searching for his keys.
Chapter 28
Jay watched the angry hornet of Matt’s Lamborghini disappear up the road before he eased the Challenger in the private drive and parked by the stable. The horse was unsaddled, chasing a fat little goat around the paddock.
Erin the au pair sat on the fence smoking a cigarette. She regarded him with a smirk on her lips and narrowed eyes, a showgirl who’d caught a young boy at a peephole to her dressing room. She wore a tweed skirt and a smart blouse. Crossed her legs as he joined her on the fence.
“You missed the lord of the manor,” Erin said, letting her brogue out. “He was in fine form.”
“What about the lady?”
“She’s inside with her daughter,” she said. “I wish you’d leave them be.”
“Then they should’ve left me to rot in there,” Jay said. “I didn’t ask to be her cat’s paw.”
Erin rolled her eyes. “Look at you, thinking you’re Johnny Depp. They’ve been at it long before you came around, but you’re certainly no help.” She tapped the ash off her cigarette. “It’s Saoirse I worry about.”
“Smoke?”
Erin handed him her half-smoked Marlboro and lit herself another. Jay pretended to smoke it, like he used to in the yard.
“She a good mother?”
“That’s not why you’re sniffing around, is it?”
“Hey now. I walked away.”
“But you know she’d pad after you. She told me all about your star-crossed romance,” she said. “Sad, it was. But you’ve had your fun, the both of you.”
“I came to say goodbye.”
She perked an eyebrow. “Really now.”
“An old friend once told me to never butter another man’s biscuit.”
“That’s what makes the world spin,” she said. “We all want what the other one’s got.”
“Can she leave?”
“Of course she can,” Erin said, and clucked her tongue. “But she’d lose everything. Our lady knows the law, as you’d expect. And she’d rather not put little Sair through all that. Mr. Matthew was living in New York until you came along. Maybe once you’re gone he’ll move back.”
“Starting to feel like a marital aid.”
Erin tutted. “What did Mick Jagger say? We can’t always get what we want. You got more than most do.”
Jay watched the riderless horse play with its goat companion. “What do you want?”
“I’ve got what I want,” Erin said. “But not to myself.”
Jay thought on it, and looked at the ember of his smoke.
“My family, we lost everything in the famine. The Cranes took us in,” Erin said. “But there’s a price for everything, you know. I graduated from Trinity College, but here I am, like my ma before me, my gran before her. Squiring the Cranes. Common people like you and me, we should get our happiness where we can, and pray to God our betters don’t envy us.”
“I had everything I wanted for one summer, but I threw it away. Because I couldn’t let something bad be.”
Erin blew smoke, which hung in the dead July heat. “Was it worth it?”
“Hell no.”
She gave him the same sideward look Herschel the cabbie had given him when he learned who he was. “Why, then?”
“Reckon the kind of person we hate most is the one we worry about becoming.”
She tilted her head and shrugged.
Jay stubbed the cigarette out on his boot. “Tell her I came by,” he said, and hopped off the fence.
Erin gave him a noncommittal nod. “Gimme your fag end.” When he squinted, she added. “The butt. Can’t have the goat eating them. This one don’t eat cans, she eats good as the bloody queen.”
Jay looked over his shoulder. “Where did you say his lordship was headed?”
Jay straightened his tie and walked the winding drive to the Balthus Field Club’s ivy-strangled brownstone. A turquoise Ferrari parked at the club entrance, and a young valet sweating in a brass-buttoned jacket parked it among the neat rows. Jay spied the parking spaces. Matt’s Lamborghini flickered yellow among the silver and black high-end sedans.
Inside the clubhouse, the air was ice cold and the dark wood decor signified wealth with discretion. Between two urns, a stiff young man behind a lectern with an open journal.
“And who are you visiting, sir?”
Jay didn’t like his smirk or his shit-brown eyes, but smiled anyway. “I’m here to meet Mr. Strick, but I’m running late,” he said, and tapped his watchless wrist. “Can you tell me what hole he’s playing?”
“I’ll call the caddymaster, but you won’t be able to play in a suit, sir. If you are without, we rent shorts and rubber cleats in the pro shop.”
“That’ll be fine.”
“May I tell him who’s here to see him?”
“Mr. Duke.”
The man picked up a white phone, pressed a button. Jay plucked a membership pamphl
et from beside the guest book.
“He’s on the upper course, end of the twelfth. Will you please sign the guestbook, Mr. Duke?”
Jay studied the map of the course until the valet plucked a key from the numbered board and left to retrieve a car.
“Know what, they’re almost done,” Jay said. “Tell him I’ll catch him next time.”
The man’s bullshit goodbyes slid off Jay’s back as he hit the doors.
Jay plucked the three bull-emblazoned Lamborghini key fobs off the board and keyed the buttons until Matt’s Gallardo Spyder flashed its tail lights. He keyed the ignition and the drop-top’s engine whirred to life. The valet jogged over. Jay chirped the tires in reverse and left him skipping aside. He honked the horn and scraped through a row of pines onto the teeing ground.
Jay smiled wider than when he’d caught his first catfish. The top folded back, and he goosed the clutch and let the engine spool, a Pelé kick to the hornet’s nest beneath the hood. Players in white shorts and caps stared as he roared by spraying grass. He fishtailed past a pair of greensmen who dropped their tools and gave chase. He sprayed them with divots and gunned over the hill, slaloming around the sand traps.
He pulled behind a threesome of gray-haired old men wearing huge sunglasses. “You fellas seen Mr. Strick?”
A man with a bullfrog chest and Groucho eyebrows pointed across the water hazard, where four men in a cart hugged the silver pond.
“What in hell are you doing?”
“Playing through.” Jay laughed, and buzzed down the fairway.
He revved the engine as he got close. Matt gophered up and stared.
Jay cut the wheel and stomped the pedal, circling the golf cart in screaming donuts. Matt, Greg, and their two older, puzzled passengers covered their heads as the tires hosed them with clods of grass and soil. The cart wobbled to a halt near the water hazard.
Matt mouthed “Motherfucker,” and calmly retrieved his phone.
Jay let off the pedal and babied the yellow demon out of the dirt ruts. He waved at Matt and let the Lamborghini roll toward the water.
Matt shoved Greg from the wheel and veered the cart to intercept his car, eyes wide.
The Lambo bumped the cart and the passengers grabbed the roof poles. The engine drowned out Matt’s curses as Jay nosed the cart down the embankment into the water.
Matt and his passengers splashed out, slipping in the muck.
Jay smiled and flipped them the finger. He spun the car around to give Matt one last shower of mud, then roared back the way he came, dodging angry picadors waving seven-irons.
Sirens echoed through the trees as Jay flew out the club entrance onto the street. He straddled the county road’s double yellow line, dodging traffic on both sides. He dropped the hammer on the interstate and howled out the window with the wind buffeting his face.
At the shop, Tony stood beneath a green GTO. Jay rolled into the service bay and let the Lamborghini’s engine scream. Tony dropped his wrench and swore.
Jay grinned behind a pair of Matt’s shades with carbon fiber frames.
Tony blinked. “The fuck did you do?”
Jay told him as they raced down the Parkway toward the airport. Tony worked the paddle shifters, laughing as Jay regaled him with the story of his Blues Brothers-style raid on the country club. The wind rushing past reminded Jay of how they used to coast down suicide hills on their Huffy bikes.
“Feels good to stick it to that prick,” Tony shouted over the stereo. He’d brought his iPod, and put “Don’t Change” on repeat. Jay pointed him toward the looming hangars of the Newark airport cargo area. They pulled into a storage lot rowed with identical Nissans half-sheathed in white transport wrap. Empty shipping containers lined the other side, shielding them from view.
Vito stood by the open doors of a red “K” Line forty-foot-high cube box. He held out a hand, and Tony braked. Vito knelt by the front bumper with a cordless drill and whizzed off the license plate bolts.
Tony frowned at the container’s cargo. A Mercedes sedan with the license plates removed.
“Time to ditch this ride,” Jay said. “Unless you wanna take the slow boat to China.”
Dante stepped out of his Cadillac, nodding appreciatively.
“This makes us even,” Jay said.
“I’ll let you know what the bosses say,” Dante said. He nodded toward Tony. “Who’s the jooch?”
Jay slapped Tony on the back. “This is my cumpari, Big Tony. Performance specialist. Y’all ought to let him tune that Caddy of yours.”
Tony flicked his eyes from Jay to Dante. “That a CTS-V?”
“Does the Pope shit in the woods?” Dante popped the hood. “It’s got balls, but this prick on my cul de sac’s got a Benz AMG.” He grinned and cocked his head toward the container. “Well he used to, but I’m betting he buys the same damn thing with the insurance money. When he does, I want to leave his ass in the dust.”
Tony peered at the sleek beast’s heart. “I’ve worked on ’Vettes with the same engine. The right supercharger, a new chip. Shift right, you can beat him no problem. Come by the shop sometime.”
Dante waved Vito away. “You fellas go ahead.” He turned back to Tony. “Get in, I want you to hear how it bogs down sometimes.”
Jay hitched a ride in Vito’s black ’89 Roadmaster. The old bruiser had a suicide knob bolted to the wheel and drove the land yacht in slow, sweeping curves. His arms were mottled with sunspots like a caramel granite countertop.
“Relax, cheech,” Vito said. “You can take your hand off the pigsticker.”
Jay hadn’t noticed his fingers drifting to his boot, where he’d stuck Andre’s combat knife. He set his fists on his knees.
“You been out what, a month? I did a ten spot up in Ossining, back when you were a little Cajun tadpole. Takes a while to adjust, but not everyone out here’s gunning to stick a spoon handle in your throat.”
“Reckon Frankie’s people would.”
“Randal’s making noise, but not getting any traction.” Vito spun the wheel like an old salt. “Frankie stepped on a lot of backs to get where he was, and only paid back his own blood. Most of them are limp dicks at do-nothing jobs.”
A cabbie using a phone cut them off to make a red light. Vito stomped the brake. “Your sister’s ass,” he yelled out the window, and shook his head. “You see that prick?”
“Driving here’s been an education.”
“People don’t give a shit,” Vito said. “That fucker dinged my Buick, I’d kick that phone down his throat. Other day, I saw some mamaluke using an electric razor on the turnpike. Broads putting on makeup, like it’s the powder room. They do that shit where you come from?”
“Maybe.” Jay said. “Left when I was a kid.” The Witch years were a plain of broken glass in the geography of his past. He recalled toddling on a porch between his folks before the Witch stole him from their Jeep, but little else.
“You’re a good kid. I was you, I’d get my ass back to the land of cotton.”
Chapter 29
Jay was beneath a Honda changing the oil when Tony hollered that he had a phone call. He let the oil drain, wiped his hands on a shop rag, and took the call in Tony’s office.
“Hello,” the woman said. “We’ve never met, but I saw you on television the other day.”
“Who is this?”
“That was heroic. It reminded me of my…” she paused as her voice caught. “My Stanley,” she said. “My name is Margie Carnahan.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Jay said, flat.
“Yes, it’s terrible. He was too good to be a cop,” she said. “He had a lot of guilt, and I know he’d want me to do this. I have something to tell you.”
She said she’d meet him at her condo and gave him the address.
Jay threw Tony a wave, and Tony swiped his hand from his chin in return, Italian sign language for see if I care.
Carnahan’s funeral had been a week prior, and there’d been a big s
plash in the paper about the fallen hero. Retold the fairy tale of the young officer marrying the maiden he’d rescued, and mentioned his role as arresting officer in the case of the horrific axe murder that rocked the town twenty-five years before.
A sidebar rehashed Jay’s trial and questioned his quiet release from prison. A blurry photo of Jay drenched at the lakeside, from the internet video. “Axe murderer dives for redemption.”
He wondered what she had for him. On the day of his arrest, Jay had been carrying the jack knife Andre gave him on his tenth birthday, a Case redbone trapper. He sure did want it back.
Her condo was on River Road. He slowed as the approached the parking lot.
A black Ford pickup swerved in front of him, tail lights flaring red. Jay swore and slammed the brakes, nosedived inches from the bumper. He gripped the wheel and bit back his breaths to keep from jumping out to pound the driver’s face in. He punched the horn.
The Ford’s backup lamps flashed white. Jay blinked as the bumper crunched the Challenger’s nose. Glass tinkled on the pavement.
Jay threw the shifter in park and stomped toward the truck.
Officer Bobby Algieri stepped out in uniform, grinning above the muzzle of his service pistol. “Put your fucking hands on the hood, asswipe.”
Jay curled his lip, hands bent into claws. Blood thumped in his temples. The hatchet and knife were in the seat compartment. His hands ached for them.
A clunk from behind. Leo boxed in the Challenger with his Denali.
“Make a move,” Algieri said. “I wanna shoot you so fucking bad.”
Jay slapped his hands on the hood.
“We fooled you,” Algieri said. “That was my wife, retard.”
“Shut up, Bobby.” Leo marched, his manner stiff, face taciturn. He snapped his elbow and extended a collapsible baton, and whipped it across the back of Jay’s legs.
Jay cracked his chin on the fender as his legs turned to water. A wallop across the shoulders emptied his lungs. They heaved him to the pavement in front of the truck.