Mad Crow led the way across the room. At the far-left table against the wall sat an old woman. She wore a long-sleeved black dress and a close-fitting black hat that sat squarely atop her head with a veil wrapped around it. She sat hunched over a bowl of soup and seemed oblivious to all around her, including the waiter who stood stiffly behind her. As she lifted the spoon to her mouth, she made small slurping sounds that carried faintly across the large room.
Four men watched them approach. Two sat at a table off somewhat to the right, smoking and looking bored. They were in their twenties or early thirties. Neither one was Falco, but Horn had known their type up at Cold Creek. Of the two men at the table directly ahead, one was very young, barely out of his teens, with an unfinished face. He looked not entirely comfortable in his suit. The other man, who sat squarely facing them, was in his sixties, Horn guessed, and heavy. Although he wore a well-cut summer-weight suit in a light gray, everything else about him was dark—black hair only slightly tinged with gray, olive skin, heavy brows over hooded brown eyes. Under a coat of talcum powder, his freshly shaved face showed a hint of heavy beard waiting to sprout again.
Horn tried not to stare. Ever since he had first heard his father thunder in the pulpit, he had been fascinated with evil and wondered where he would encounter it in this world. He had expected to meet it in the war, in the faces of the enemy framed in his gunsights. But he saw only young Germans a little like him, men who got hungry and cold and who carried snapshots of wives and sweethearts. The only evil he’d ever met thus far, he reflected, was in the villains of his movies, those cardboard characters who existed only to confront goodness, in the form of Sierra Lane, and be defeated by it. So, how about this one? he wondered as he stood before Vincent Bonsigniore. What’s he made of?
“Mr. Bonsigniore, this is my friend John Ray Horn,” the Indian said. “I told you about him.”
“Have a seat.” Bonsigniore waved the two of them to chairs. “Excuse me if I get back to this.” He dipped a spoon in the bowl of consommé in front of him. He won’t invite us to lunch, Mad Crow had said earlier. Vinnie likes to be the emperor in his court.
“My nephew Dominic,” Bonsigniore said, gesturing toward the young man. “My sister’s boy. She wanted him to go into dry goods, follow her two-bit husband. He wants to work for me a while. Smart kid.” His voice was surprisingly light for such a man, thin and reedy, the kind of voice a small-town businessman might use to interest you in his wares. Horn decided not to be misled by it.
“Been coming here for years,” Bonsigniore went on to no one in particular, his attention on his soup. “This used to be the class hotel downtown. Charlie Chaplin’s favorite, you know that? Then the Biltmore opened up, and it took away some of the fancy business. But I’m not a particularly fancy guy. This place feels comfortable to me. Mama likes it too,” he added, inclining his head toward the table where the old woman sat. He smelled of Old Spice too liberally applied.
The man turned to Horn. “When Joe and me start to talk business, we’ll need some privacy,” he said. “You can take a seat over there, get some coffee.”
“I don’t mind,” Horn said lightly. “You mind if I have one of these?” He pulled out his Bull Durham and rolling papers.
“Go right ahead,” Bonsigniore said, pushing his soup bowl aside and signaling to a waiter. “Saving your pennies, huh? I never had the patience to do that. Plus, I got the habit of smoking these.” He pulled out a Dutch Master and lit it. His fingers were short and thick, and each of his two little fingers bore a sturdy ring. On the left, Horn could make out the letter B in what looked like garnets and rhinestones—or rubies and diamonds. The ring on the right hand was solid gold. “I hear you were a real cowboy once, before you got into the movies.”
“Something like that,” Horn said. “I did some rodeo riding after I left home. But the last bull I rode messed me up so bad, I decided to find an easier way to earn a living.”
“Riding bulls,” the other man said almost dreamily. “Crazy fucking job, if you ask me.”
So why don’t we talk about your work? Horn thought. Your hobbies, maybe?
“I’m ready,” Bonsigniore called out to the waiter, and a minute later the man brought over a sandwich on a plate. It was a gigantic pastrami on rye bread, with a small pot of mustard next to it.
“Want to hear something funny? I have this brought over from Langer’s every time I eat here. Food here ain’t bad, you understand, but it’s hotel food. You know Langer’s? Out by MacArthur Park?”
“I been there,” Horn said.
“Best deli in town. Good as New York. Guy asked me once how come you grow up in Little Italy and eat at a Jewish place? I told him because most Italian places in this town are crap, you know what I mean? The Jews are good cooks. They just need a little help with the spices sometimes.” He slathered mustard on the bread. “So, you know Betty Grable?”
“Afraid not. She’s over at Fox. I worked for a small studio out in the Valley.”
“She’s too good for that guy Harry James,” Bonsigniore’s nephew piped up in a wise-guy voice. “Too much for him.”
“Shut up, Dominic,” the older man said without malice. “Go sit with Mama.”
The younger man got up and went to the old woman’s table, walking in an exaggerated, loose-limbed gait that suggested he was not quite used to his adult frame. When he sat, she did not acknowledge him, her attention now focused on a sandwich the waiter had just placed before her, as massive as the one now being devoured by her son.
“I know where you worked,” Bonsigniore went on, his mouth full of pastrami. “Horse operas. They’re crap, mostly. No offense. I like George Raft. There’s an actor.”
“Everybody’s got a favorite,” Horn said. “I met a guy the other day said he liked Bob Steele.”
“Who the hell is that?”
“Just a cowboy actor.”
Bonsigniore shook his head. “Never heard of him. But I heard how you beat up that little prick you worked for—”
“He was the son of the man who ran the studio. I didn’t really work for him.”
“You must have worked him over good. You did some time for it.”
Horn nodded.
“Hard time?”
“Not really.”
“Make any friends?”
“A few.”
The other man stared at him for a moment. Horn didn’t like the look. How much does he really know? he wondered.
“You ever need a job,” Bonsigniore said casually, “maybe you’ll look me up sometime.”
“Hey,” Mad Crow broke in.
“I know, I know,” Bonsigniore said. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not stealing your guy. Just want him to know.” He took a giant bite of the sandwich and chewed without taking his eyes off Horn.
“Everybody’s offering me jobs,” Horn said.
“Mickey Cohen, he offered you one,” Bonsigniore said, still chewing. “The other night. Joe here told me.” Horn glanced at the Indian. “You’d be a sap to throw in with him. Crazy little Hebe. He thinks he’s independent. It’s the independent guys like him who don’t last. You watch.”
“I’m not looking for work right now, thanks,” Horn said.
Bonsigniore appeared to lose interest. “Fair enough,” he said with a shrug, then turned to Mad Crow. “Joe, you got it?”
“Yessiree,” Mad Crow replied. He pulled a fat envelope from his jacket and laid it on the table.
Still staring at Horn, Bonsigniore said, “You excuse us now, okay? Joe and me. . . .”
“Sure,” Horn said. He got up and moved to a table about twenty feet away. When a waiter came over, he ordered coffee. Then he sat facing Bonsigniore, trying to study him without being obvious.
So what have I learned? he asked himself. Not much I can use. He likes pa
strami and Betty Grable and George Raft. He doesn’t like people eating around him. He likes to take little girls away to the mountains with his friends. The man who found the girls—his procurer—is dead. Maybe that’s the job he’s thinking of offering me.
And now, most important of all, I know for sure he’s one of the three men in the photos. His two big, fancy rings nail it down for me. The beefy man with the rings: That’s Vincent Bonsigniore.
As for him, he knows a lot about me, except for the most important thing: That I know he molests little girls. And that he had my friend killed.
And now, what can I do about it?
A shadow fell over the table, and Horn looked up to see Gabriel Falco sitting down across from him.
“Well,” Falco said. “It’s the tough guy from the alley.” His face wore an almost imperceptible grin, as if he’d just heard a joke that only he could appreciate.
Horn put his coffee cup down carefully. “How’s it going?” he asked.
Falco shrugged. He waved over a waiter and said, “Coffee and a piece of pie. Apple if you got it.” His voice had the metallic sound of the New York streets.
Horn took his first good look at him. Falco was average height and weight, with a thin Clark Gable mustache, but he gave off hints of speed and strength. Above the corded neck was a face of angles, including a strong jaw and cheekbones that would not have been out of place in Mad Crow’s family tree. The brows, like Bonsigniore’s, were heavy and dark, and the surprisingly pale eyes reminded Horn of those of a predator bird—wide and absolutely without depth. He seemed to carry no extra weight on his frame. It was as if something had consumed the excess flesh, burned it off to lighten the man for the things he needed to do.
Remembering the darkness of the alley and the ache in his kidney, Horn felt something stir and begin to grow in him, and he knew it was fear. The same thing that had taken over and immobilized him in the mountains of Italy. The thing that gets to you if you think too much, open the door to it. The man sitting across from him had killed someone in prison and could have killed him that night behind the Dixie Belle, might have killed him if the struggle had gone a little differently. And one more thing: This could be the man who ended Scotty’s life. Sure, I’m afraid of him, Horn thought. But. . . I don’t have to let him know it.
“Waiting for your boss to finish up?” Horn asked.
Falco was working on his slice of pie. It was apple and looked good, but he attacked it the way a fire would consume a dry stick you threw into it. Although he didn’t look up at Horn’s question, Horn knew the man was reflecting on it, wondering how much Horn knew about even simple things like who he worked for. Horn half-regretted the question, told himself he shouldn’t appear to know too much. Maybe you should let him be the smart one, he thought. You’re the dumb-ass out-of-work cowboy, he’s the city slicker. But in the next breath, he told himself: I’ll never find out anything that way.
Falco seemed amused by the question. “Sure. Waiting for the boss,” he said. “He barks, I jump.”
“But you stay busy with other jobs too, don’t you?” Horn asked.
“That’s right.” Falco finished the pie, pushed the plate aside, and sat there with the half-smile on his face. “You know a few things about me?”
“Sure. Got real interested in you after you and your friend ganged up on me the other night. I asked around. Not long after that I was watching you hanging from an airplane out at the Medallion Ranch. What’s the matter, Vinnie not paying you enough?”
Falco didn’t seem offended. “Vinnie pays me good, but he only needs me for things every now and then. Rest of the time. . . well, if you’re the best stunt man in the business, you’re going to work steady.”
Horn gave a low whistle. “And modest, too.”
“I leave that to other people,” Falco said. “You, for instance. What I hear, you got lots to be modest about. One day you’re a hot-shot movie star, with guys like me doing your stunts so you won’t get your hair mussed. Next day you’re a caretaker for some rundown piece of property, cutting weeds.”
“I do all right,” Horn said. Strangely, the sarcasm stung him. Maybe because it was true. Stop defending yourself. Go after him.
“I’ve got more going on than just weed-pulling,” he went. “Lately, I’ve been busy looking for my daughter. She’s not exactly my daughter, but I think of her that way. I promised her folks I’d find her, and I mean to.”
“Good for you,” Falco said. “You do that.”
“For a while, I thought she was with a man named Anthony Del Vitti—you know, that friend of yours, the one who liked to use a knife—”
“He wasn’t very good with a knife,” Falco broke in. “I’m a lot better. Maybe you’ll get a chance to see some day.”
“Maybe. But then somebody killed Del Vitti, and it turned out she wasn’t with him. So I’m still looking.” He knew he was saying too much. He’d promised Mad Crow not to say anything that might get him in trouble with his partner. But, sitting across from this man whose very looks had the power to chill him, he knew he couldn’t just sit silently. He had to talk, to probe, to see what Falco was made of, to see what he knew. Horn felt as if he’d been riding in a field and a gate had swung open onto a new piece of land, unexplored and a little dangerous, but full of possibility. He wondered what would happen if he rode through.
Falco helped him decide. “It’s like Tony told you: Be careful where you look,” the man said, elbows on the arms of his chair, fingers templed. Horn could see old scar tissue on the back of one hand. “You should’ve listened to old Tony. Now he won’t be giving out any more advice. Somebody put a bullet through his eye, messed up his nice bathrobe.”
For a few seconds, Falco’s words, and the arrogance behind them, shocked Horn into silence. A new and disturbing thought crowded its way into his head. Could he have killed Del Vitti?
“You know a lot about it, don’t you?” Horn asked him.
“Just what I read in the papers,” Falco said. “I try to keep up on all the crime news.” Horn realized that Falco was regarding the cut near his eyebrow. It was healing but still noticeable. “So, you learned to stay out of fights?” the other man asked casually.
Smug son of a bitch, Horn thought, aware that he and Falco were behaving like two boys in a schoolyard contest, the kind that starts with words and ends in shoves and blows. Push him right back. “You bet,” he said with exaggerated casualness. “I like peace and quiet. And my daddy taught me to never go up against two guys at once. You’ll lose every time, he’d tell me. But then he’d say you don’t have to be ashamed of that, ‘cause anybody who’d gang up on another man is basically low and yellow. Yes, sir, that’s what he’d tell me. What do you think?”
“I think the next time I see you, you won’t walk out of the alley.” The smile stayed in place. Horn couldn’t hear any bluster in Falco’s words. Just promise.
“Oh, my goodness,” Horn said, wanting to see how far this would go. “Guess I’ll have to stay out of alleys now. But tell me something: Since you lost your partner, the pretty boy with the little knife, who you going to get to help you out?”
Falco lolled back in his chair. “Do you a favor,” he said. “I’ll be alone this time.”
“Great. Do I need to look over my shoulder, or do you come at a man from the front?”
“Why don’t you ask your friend?”
“Huh?”
“Your friend. You know, the guy who went out the window.”
A blood-red film descended over Horn’s eyes. He didn’t feel himself kick back the chair, didn’t feel himself lurch around the table. Vaguely, he heard shouting. When his eyes could focus again, he was standing over Falco, his right hand knotted in the tablecloth, stomach muscles clenching until they hurt, ready to lunge for the man’s throat. But Mad Crow’s face was inches from h
is own, and Horn felt the Indian gripping him hard by the shoulders. He took a breath, ready to push his friend aside. But at that instant he saw Falco sweep aside his jacket with his left hand and rest his right lightly on the polished butt of a handgun nestled in some kind of holster under his left arm. Horn stopped himself, breathing heavily.
Although Falco’s eyes were narrowed, his expression hadn’t changed perceptibly. “Come on,” he said quietly. “Here or someplace else. I don’t care. If it’s here, I put one in both of you and walk out through the kitchen. Nobody saw me, ‘cause everybody in this place gets amnesia. That what you want?” His fingertips tapped the gun butt. “Right here, cowboy? Right here in the O.K Corral?”
Horn took a breath. He heard a voice and looked around. Bonsigniore’s three men were on their feet, hands in their jackets, as the waiters quickly exited. The old woman in black remained bent over her food, paying no more attention to them than she would to the voices of the actors in a radio drama heard faintly from the next room.
Mad Crow held him wordlessly, face twisted with the effort. Bonsigniore himself spoke again to his men: “I said sit down, all right?” He gestured imperiously, the overhead light glinting off the stones on his little finger. Then he turned to Falco: “Gabe, get out of here.”
Horn relaxed a little, and Mad Crow, watching him carefully, stepped aside. Falco stood and arranged his jacket. He and Horn stood within a foot of each other. Horn could smell the other man’s breath. He thought of two animals approaching each other in the wild, sniffing to determine which one would turn tail.
Falco leaned forward. “You’re a funny guy,” he said, almost in a whisper. “Difference between you and me, I just handle business, but you take everything personal. If you turn into a job for me, I’ll take care of you. If not. . . .” He spread his hands wide, palms up, brushing Horn’s coat. “We leave each other alone. Don’t make yourself my business.” He turned and left.
Horn saw that his hand, still clenched around the tablecloth, was shaking. Too late for that, Gabe, he thought.
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