In the Mood - [Millennium Quartet 02]
Page 19
* * * *
5
1
A
ri opened the door before Tony pounded it off the hinges, and backed away hastily when the larger man stomped into the living room.
“What?’’ he said anxiously, peering into the hall before closing the door and locking it. “We on fire? What?”
With a studied sigh, Tony lowered himself onto the couch and clamped his knees with his huge hands. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, nodding Ari to the easy chair by the window. “I’ve been thinking.”
Ari sat, staring at his friend for signs of stroke, drugs, liquor, dope, recent God forbid sex. It was barely noon, and the man was whatever it was the kids on the TV said these days. Stroked? Stoked? Hyper? Whatever. He didn’t care; it just made him nervous.
“So,” he said carefully, trying to read the man’s eyes, “what are you thinking about?”
Garza leaned back without releasing the grip on his knees, examining at the ceiling, licking his lips, pursing them, sucking them in.
Oh God, Ari thought, it’s Miriam again.
“I’ve been thinking about that guy,” Tony said at last, keeping his gaze on the plaster Ari had been meaning to fix for years, there were so many cracks it looked like a road map. “The one that got killed.”
Ari shrugged. “What about him? They won’t catch the guy, they never do. So ... what?”
Tony-sat up, the forefinger of each hand tapping his knee. “So I’m thinking it’s kind of too close to home, you know what I mean? Creepy.”
Ari agreed.
“So I’m thinking, maybe it’s time for another trip, you know? Get the hell out of the city for a while. Stretch my legs. Breathe different air. Meet new people.” He grinned and winked. “Get laid.”
Ari rolled his eyes. “You can’t go anywhere without you have to think about sex, right?”
“Of course not! It’s—”
“Enough already.” Ari looked to the window, reached out a hand, and straightened the curtains that didn’t need straightening. “I don’t want to hear it. You have a good time.”
Which Tony would. He always did. Packed up, left, came back a week, a month later, sometimes with a new wife, sometimes with just a woman, all the time with unbelievable stories that kept them up long after midnight, him laughing so hard he was afraid for his heart.
Just once, he wished, reaching for the curtains again; just once.
“Will you stop that?” Tony yelled with a laugh that rattled the panes.
Ari yanked his hand back and smiled sheepishly. “Habit.”
Tony pointed at him. “New habits, my friend. You need new habits.”
“Sure. Like what?”
Tony rocked forward, lowered his voice. “Like going with me this time.”
Ari started to laugh, had some of it out before he realized his friend wasn’t kidding. He shook his head before giving the idea a chance. “Can’t. You know I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Ari looked around his living room as if that was answer enough—does this look like the place of a man who has so much money he can pick up and leave without thinking about it?
But he said, “The game. Tomorrow’s Tuesday. I’ve got the game, Tony.”
“Screw the game.”
Ari rocked back in his chair, shocked, disbelieving. Screw the game? Screw the only thing in his life that he could count on, except for Tony? Screw his major supplemental source of income? Screw the fun and the bad jokes and the beer and the gossip and the stories and the excuses and the sound of living people right here in his own house?
“You are out of your mind,” he said calmly.
“Nope.” Tony shook his head. “It’s a perfect day, it’s a great life, it’s a lousy city, let’s get the hell out of here for a while before that son of a bitch decides to slice one of us open.”
“I can’t.”
“You won’t, you mean.”
Ari gestured. “Whatever. I’m not going.”
He lay a hand on his stomach, feeling the fluttering in there. Part of it was because it was almost tempting, part of it because Tony had never, seriously, asked him before.
“I’m paying,” Tony said.
“The hell you are.”
Tony rocked back, then forward again. “Listen to me, Ari. We know each other too long, okay, for this kind of game. I ask you on a trip I know you can’t afford, you think I’d do that without paying the expense?” He clapped a hand dramatically against his breast. “You insult me, you little fart. You cut me.”
“Tony—”
“I’m thinking of your health, you dope. You only go to New Jersey when that... when she remembers to invite you. Where else do you go? Florida once every three years? Bunch of old people wrinkling in the sun, waiting to die? What the hell kind of fun is that?”
“I like it,” he answered primly.
“Good. I’m glad for you. So come with me, there aren’t any old people, at least none that matter, and it’ll be great. We’ll drink, okay? Get drunk, get laid, get rested, come back and brag to the Korean that we ate better food than he’s ever had in that damn store of his.”
“The game,” he said again, weakly.
“Screw the game,” Tony said again, loudly. “The boys will still be here when we get back. They won’t hate you, they’ll envy you. You’ll be a hero, old dope. They’ll kiss your scrawny feet.”
Ari couldn’t help it; he giggled.
Garza nodded emphatically. “I’ll slip that idiot Pulero a few bucks to watch our places. He does it for me, hasn’t stolen anything yet.” He grinned. “We come back, you’ll have a month’s worth of cleaning to do to get rid of all the dust. You’ll be in heaven.”
Ari couldn’t resist a quick smile.
Maybe it would be fun.
Maybe it would be worth it.
“I’ll have to tell my daughter.”
“Why?”
“If she calls, she’ll worry if I don’t answer.”
Tony just looked at him, expressionless.
Ari didn’t like the look, didn’t like the feeling, and shifted his gaze to the window, to the buildings across the street. Not dirty, pretty nice all in all, but still, it was the same view. Always the same view. He never had a view in Jersey; she never let him stay long enough to have one.
Maybe it’d do her what do you call it, her karma, some good to worry a little.
“I’m not saying I’m going.”
“Of course not.”
“But if I did, where would we go?”
Garza shrugged elaborately. “California. Arizona. Paris. London. Athens. What difference does it make?”
“I don’t have a passport.”
“Jesus.” Tony shook his head in mock despair. “So we forget London, let them suffer without us.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on, his thighs. “You know, for a man who can deal himself a full house without blinking, you act like an old woman sometimes.”
“Cheat?” Ari’s voice rose. “You call me a cheater?”
Garza just grinned.
“He called me a cheat,” he said to the window. “A card shark. A thief. Then he wants me to go off on some trip I don’t even know where the hell it is.”
Tony grinned. “So...you going?”
Ari shrugged, but the smile felt good. “When?”
Garza shrugged back. “Tomorrow.”
“What?”
“First thing.”
“You want me dead, don’t you,” he said. “You’re trying to kill me.”
“No,” Tony said. “Believe me, no.”
* * * *
2
Dory set the receiver on its cradle and stared at the kitchen wall for a very long time.
Thinking nothing.
Seeing nothing.
Focusing finally on her hand still gripping the receiver. A few lines across the knuckles, no color on the nails. Then the wall phone. Then the wall.
The call had bee
n unexpected. Absolutely. But not unpleasant. Far from it.
Very far from it.
She nodded, smiled briefly, and decided to go treat herself to a dinner out. When she got back, she would pack. When she woke up, she would call the office and give her best imitation of someone dying of whatever they used to call it in the old days. Consumption. Something like that. Take another couple of days off, they would say, solicitous on the phone while in the office they would look for ways to booby-trap her career. Again.
It might be fun.
Stay away, come back, watch their faces as she hauled their corporate asses over the coals.
She returned to the piano and tried a little New Orleans blues. Smoky rooms and ceiling fans and people slumped over their drinks, listening to the confirmation that all their dreams were dead, no chance in hell they were ever coming back, this, my friend, was as good as it gets.
It made her smile.
Dory “Slick Mama” Castro they would call her.
It made her laugh so hard tears soon fell on the keys.
Maybe ...damn, maybe she would call Jerry. She hadn’t seen him in a long time, and the way he kept leaving messages on her machine, he sounded just like what the doctor ordered. Take him to dinner. Flirt a little. Promise him everything, give him...whatever.
No.
She smiled.
No dinner.
Something better.
A lot better.
* * * *
3
“The problem is,” Garza said, “I’m a little worried about Ida.”
“Ida Lefcowitz?” Ari frowned from his chair. “What’s to worry?”
“I saw her today. She seemed ...hell, she was upset. Just burst into tears when I said hello.”
“Her son, I’ll bet. Damn kid. You know, the last time I saw him was when? Last spring?”
“She looked sick.”
“She is sick, Tony. Got a heart wouldn’t keep a bird alive.”
“Maybe I’ll look in on her before we go.”
* * * *
4
The best thing about Jerome Nash was his willingness to try pretty much anything once, as long as she asked him in what he called her special way—a little pout, a little chest thrust, a little hint of reward she never failed to deliver. That she didn’t see him all that often kept the requests from getting stale, kept him from thinking that maybe he ought to just stay away, kept him wondering what she’d come up with next that would warrant the Reward.
So when she suggested they combine a little fun with an old-fashioned Amish family restaurant meal out in Lancaster County, he was slightly puzzled. The Amish weren’t exactly high on her list of fun people; and tossing apples down on trains passing under the trestle wasn’t exactly the kind of half-baked excitement she usually devised in preparation for the Reward. Still, the pout and the chest thrust was sufficient to keep him grinning like a jackass during the ride out, and climbing the girder trestle was tricky enough for him to show off a little, play the macho stud, help her up, while lugging a full sack of apples she’d brought with her.
There was wind, too, with a bite, and stars that slowly faded as the leading edge of a forecast storm made its way across the state. There was darkness as well, as the surrounding farmland provided little illumination save for an infrequent island of house light too distant to be a threat.
The walkway on top was narrow, barely wide enough for two, with rough wood planking that creaked, and a rusted iron railing on both sides only a couple of inches wide; the trestle itself trembled slightly in the wind, the tracks below visible only as an occasional glint in the fading moonlight.
He giggled a lot and warmed up his arm by tossing a couple of apples into the dark, then listening for their landing.
She kissed him hungrily.
He kept his hands to himself.
He knew the routine, and even though she could tell he was freezing up here, she also could tell he was getting into it big time. The train thundering beneath them, shaking the trestle, a zillion tons of power rising through his soles. She had a feeling he would want her, right then, right here.
It was tempting.
A zillion tons of power rising through her back.
She had checked the timetable, and when she saw it, saw the light diamond hard in the west, she swallowed hard and told him to get ready, handed him an apple and said the one who made the loudest splat would be the winner.
He told her she was nuts.
She shrugged the truth of it and watched the train’s approach. Freight train. No great speed. Just unstoppable power.
Half a mile, and the whistle sounded for a crossing, and Jerry began to mime pulling the pin from a grenade, looking to her for approval even though he could barely see her face, worrying suddenly that the engineer might see them when the headlamp’s glow reached them.
She kissed him hungrily.
He kept his hands to himself.
She had an idea, she told him, and asked him to sit on the railing. He laughed, told her she was nuts, he wasn’t about to do something like that, until she brushed a palm across his groin and wondered aloud what it would be like, him on the railing, without his pants, she on the walkway, kneeling at his feet, all that power beneath them.
All that power.
Her back was to the train when the glow reached them, he saw just enough, and he laughed, and he nodded, and he unbuckled his belt and pulled down his zipper and unbuttoned his pants and hoisted himself onto the railing, hands on her shoulders for balance, giggling nervously as the trestle began to vibrate and the engine passed beneath them and she stroked his thighs and lowered her head and promised him loudly he’d never feel a thing.
She lied, of course.
Bend over, straighten up, and he was gone with a startled yell, and she leaned over and shook her head. Not like the movies. He hit the top of a boxcar, and rolled helplessly toward her while the train kept moving.
He disappeared between two cars.
And the train kept moving.
Whatever was left wouldn’t be found for hours, maybe days.
Interesting, she thought as she made her way toward the trestle ladder; interesting.
Not two minutes gone, and she couldn’t remember his face, couldn’t remember his voice.
Except for the scream, of course.
Except for the scream.
* * * *
5
How much luck left for the dance, Garza wondered; how many steps would it take to get it done.
A few more than four this time; definitely a few more than four.
He passed a knuckle over his eye, took a breath, and stepped outside. Past midnight, and the street was deserted, not much traffic anywhere as far as he could tell. Monday nights, not Wednesdays, were the quietest of the week.
He hurried down to the sidewalk, then strolled up the sidewalk. Anyone watching would see an old man too old to sleep, needing night air, nothing more, and probably thinking he was out of his mind.
The light over Ida’s building’s entrance was out, the vestibule lit only by a bulb burning in the hall on the other side.
A sign.
No sense walking up and down, checking for witnesses. Either they were there, or they weren’t. Nothing he could do about it.
What the hell.
He climbed the steps heavily, pulling at the iron railing, pushing in the door, pausing in the vestibule. No intercoms here. Just scarred and tarnished mailboxes set into the wall.
The inner door was unlocked.
Another sign.
Her apartment was first on the left, and he stood there for a moment, wondering. Knock, and that damn excuse for a dog would bark its head off. Ring the bell, he’d get the same. She wouldn’t open it, anyway. As soon as she saw his face, she’d start screaming or something.
What the hell.
He knocked softly, and sure enough, that dog-thing began to bark, high and muffled.
He knocked again, and lean
ed against the door, his left palm braced over the peephole.
Waiting.