The Vig

by John Lescroart

“So let a jury decide that. Or Abe.”

  “Juries can be wrong, and Abe’s not interested in his current mood.” Hardy flipped some pages in Abe’s file, leaning over the coffee table. “There’s another thing,” he said.

  She sat forward, a hand on his back. “What’s that?”

  “One way or the other I’m deeply involved in all this, right? So let’s, for argument, let’s say Baker didn’t kill Rusty. Let’s even, just for fun, say Rusty isn’t dead. If either or both of those are true, then why am I, Dismas Hardy, part of this at all … unless I’m being set up.”

  “But set up for what?”

  Hardy closed the file and leaned back against the couch. “Exactly.”

  Hardy was thinking that maybe Frannie’s infatuation had ended, since she was already pissed off at him for going to see Louis Baker in the hospital. He should just leave it alone, she said. But he still felt some danger. If he was being set up … Or maybe he wanted to stay at Frannie’s a little longer and needed an excuse. Or maybe he felt less than a paragon and wanted to soothe his conscience now that his life wasn’t, so far as he knew, directly threatened. It was all jumbled, but also somehow connected. He and Frannie had had their first fight. She said that compulsive need to find out, to do the right thing, had killed her husband. She wasn’t about to have it happen to Hardy too.

  But Hardy knew that idealism hadn’t killed Eddie Cochran four months ago. A bullet in the brain had killed him, and Eddie had had no more control over who had put it there than he did over the wind. Eddie had been going along, living his life, trying to make it a good one, and someone had ended it—abruptly, senselessly. If something in Frannie needed to believe that Eddie’s idealism had gotten him involved in things that had led to that lonely parking lot in the middle of the night, Hardy could accept that. He knew it had been someone else’s agenda, not Eddie’s, that had ended his life.

  He put it out of his mind as the guard let him into the hospital room. He had called Abe from Frannie’s and Abe had cleared an interview with Baker, even if he didn’t approve of it. He had made Hardy promise not to take his gun.

  Even with tubes in his arms and a hose running into his nose, Baker looked intimidating. Hardy backed away from the bed and glanced at the door to the room, making sure the guard was still just outside.

  He couldn’t place him. Hardy had no distinctive memory of what Baker had looked like nine years before. A big black man. He’d sent away a lot of them.

  “Yo, Louis,” he said.

  Baker opened his eyes. He was still heavy-lidded, perhaps sedated, but there was recognition there. Baker’s eyes had a yellowish tint, both the white and the brown iris. “Well, if the mountain ain’t come …” After the one phrase he closed his eyes again.

  Hardy pulled up a chair so he could be close to Baker’s face. “I hope you got a better lawyer than last time,” he said. He watched Baker for a reaction but there wasn’t any. He might have gone back to sleep.

  “’Cause when you get better from this tragic accident that’s put you in the hospital, then you’re going to go sit in a small green room and breathe some real bad air. But, you know, the good part is you won’t breathe it for too long.”

  Baker opened his eyes. “Talk about bad air.”

  “They say the gas is painless, but you hear stories. Guys who get the first whiff and their heads jerk back and eyes bug out, like they’re gagging on fire. It’s gotta be agony, don’t you think? But again, I guess it doesn’t last too long.”

  “I ain’t going to no gas chamber on a B and E.”

  “Fuck the B and E. I’m talking the murders.”

  “I didn’t do no murders.”

  “You didn’t do Rusty Ingraham? You better have a good lawyer.”

  “I didn’t even see no Rusty Ingraham. I tole the cop that.”

  “And you know, he wanted to believe you, but finding your prints over at Rusty’s place made him skeptical. You know that word, Louis, skeptical? It means he thinks you’re full of shit.”

  Baker closed his eyes again.

  “You sleepy, Louis? You want me to go away? ‘Cause we got you on Rusty’s barge, we got you in the cut. We got three dead people with your name all over ‘em.” Hardy saw movement under Baker’s eyelids—he was thinking about things. Hardy hadn’t formally interrogated anyone since he’d left the D.A.’s office, but you didn’t lose the knack. It was kind of fun, in fact, realizing that Louis probably thought he was still a prosecutor.

  “Three?” Baker opened his eyes, pulled himself up. “What three? You trying to tag me for every murder in the county last week? What’s a matter, you got nobody else on parole?”

  The effort of talking cost Louis, and he had to lie back down, breathing out through his mouth.

  “I ain’t do a thing, you all decide I’m going back down.”

  “How’d you get a gun, Louis? Shooting at cops. Breaking and entering. You call that not doing a thing?”

  Louis picked up his hand, waving all of that off. “It ain’t killing.”

  Hardy sat back in his chair. It was not rare for a killer to deny killing anybody. But he had Louis arguing, talking. You had to use what you had and keep ‘em talking.

  “No, killing was Rusty Ingraham, killing was the woman at his place, killing was the homeboy in the cut.”

  “What woman at Ingraham’s?”

  “Her name was Maxine Weir.”

  “There wasn’t no woman—” Louis stopped abruptly, retreating again behind his closed eyes, lying back.

  Hardy leaned forward, smiling now. “Oops,” he said.

  “I want my lawyer here.”

  Hardy leaned over closer and whispered in Baker’s ear. “Fuck you, Louis. Fuck your lawyer. This is me and you.”

  “I’ll get a mistrial.”

  “I’ll deny it, and who’s going to believe you?”

  Louis tried to lift himself on the bed, which brought on a coughing fit. The oxygen hose came out of his nose. Hardy stood and pulled his chair back while the guard came over and pushed a button by the bed. In another minute a nurse was there. The coughing fit had passed and Louis lay still, looking dead.

  The nurse replaced the oxygen tubes and checked the bandages on Baker’s chest and thigh. Hardy could see the blood through the gauze—a line of blood and drool had run from Baker’s mouth. There was a low gurgling sound, and Hardy realized it was Baker’s breathing.

  The nurse turned. “He shouldn’t really talk.”

  Hardy decided to keep pretending to be official until someone called him on it. “I’ll only be another five minutes. This is a murder suspect.”

  “Do you want him alive to go to trial?”

  Hardy glanced at Baker, then back at the nurse. “Not particularly, but I’ll keep it short anyway.”

  Hardy pulled his chair back up and noticed the nurse saying something to the guard at the door.

  “Now where were we?” Hardy said. “Oh yeah. You were on Ingraham’s barge.”

  Baker was still struggling with his breath, as though he’d been running. “There wasn’t no woman there,” he said.

  “You told Sergeant Glitsky you weren’t there.”

  “He puts me there, he thinks I did the man.”

  “Correct.”

  “The man brung me there.”

  “Who did?”

  “Ingraham.”

  “Ingraham brought you where he lives? You want me to believe that?”

  “You believe what you want anyway. I’m telling you what happen.”

  “Okay. What happened?”

  “I get off the bus an’ the man is there waitin’. He goes, ‘Come take a ride with me,’ and I pass on it. But he’s packing.”

  “You’re telling me Rusty Ingraham pulled a gun on you?”

  Baker nodded. “I told you. He shows me a piece and we go to his car. I figure he’s going to shoot me, but we drive about two mile and next I know we’re on this boat.

  “He says he hears I’m
tryin’ to be a citizen now, good behavior up the House, like that. We sit drinking water on his couch and he say he hope all that’s true, but in case it isn’t, he wants me to know where he lives so by mistake I don’t ever come near the place, which if I do he’s gonna shoot first, self-defense, do I get the message?”

  The gurgling sound came again deep in his throat, and Baker swallowed a couple of times, making a face.

  “Then what?” Hardy asked.

  “Then I up and leave. I walk around, getting away from there. I’m a free man.”

  The guard came walking up. “The nurse said two minutes.”

  Hardy stood, looking down at Baker. He was still swallowing, a light sheen of sweat across his brow. He opened his eyes. “I didn’t kill nobody,” he said.

  The guard rolled his eyes at Hardy. “They never do, do they?” he said.

  14

  A cane in one hand, Angelo Tortoni walked out of Saints Peter and Paul church at Washington Square. His wife, Carmen, held him in the crook of her elbow on the other side, and their two sons, Matteo and Franco, walked in front of and behind him as he turned left off the steps.

  He walked slowly, enjoying the beautiful morning, enjoying his wife’s chatter. Carmen was nearly twice the size of Angelo, but was not at all fat. He liked to think of her as sturdy—good solid legs, a hard round culo, a wide waist and melon breasts. She was twenty years younger than he was, originally from Italy and, because of that, well-trained but with a passionate nature and a seemingly innate knowledge of what kept your husband happy, even after a couple of decades.

  Several times the Angel had thought his wife would kill him with her energy, but he was beginning now to realize that her enthusiasm was probably keeping him young. She could be tireless in the pursuit of his pleasure, as she had been last night, and then demanding that she got hers, too. Tortoni thought that was fair—he didn’t think there were many woman who could bring him to life so often as Carmen did. Even when he thought he didn’t want it.

  The little procession crossed the square, then turned up Powell at the Fior D’Italia. Sunday was God’s day. Carmen was happy. Angelo wouldn’t leave the house after lunch—a few neighbors would stop by to pay their respects, perhaps ask a favor or two. Today they would find Angelo Tortoni a soft touch. He turned his head and nodded, smiling, at something his wife said. She looked down almost shyly, squeezing his arm. They slowed even more, turning uphill off Grant.

  Angelo’s legs were as good as any man’s, but he enjoyed putting out the message that he was somehow getting frail. It might keep Ms enemies off guard should he ever need that. But he had found it also served to slow down all his rhythms—to give his words a weight, his judgments a finality that they had lacked when he was young and fast. A quiet voice, whispering, helped, too. When you didn’t raise your voice, people had to come to you, to concentrate on every syllable. It was power.

  Franco ran ahead and opened the gate in the white wall in front of his house. They turned into the small front yard, waiting on the walk for Franco to bound up the nine steps and open the front door.

  It pleased Angelo that his boys took care of this security, without any supervision, to the steady hum of Carmen’s voice. She was not a gossip, a scold or a shrew, but she liked to take her after-Mass Sunday walk and feel she was catching up on all the news with her husband, who didn’t respond much except to nod or pat her hand. Yet it made her feel they were sharing things in their daily life, although Tortoni knew that nothing could be further from the truth. Carmen knew almost nothing about his daily life, other than that he was a counselor to troubled people, a philanthropist to those in need, an elder in the Knights of Columbus.

  The foyer basked in sunlight colored by the stained glass above the doorway. Angelo breathed in the smell of lamb roasting in the kitchen. Garlic and rosemary. He helped Carmen with her coat, kissing the back of her neck before he handed the coat to one of the men. Only then did he notice Pia, the maid, standing by the entrance to the living room, wringing her hands. Carmen patted Angelo’s arm and crossed over to talk to her quietly in Italian. It was probably something about lunch, something they’d burned or forgotten to buy. Well, it was all right, whatever it was.

  “There is a woman to see you,” Carmen said, “in the study.”

  Tortoni made a face. “Now?” He turned a hard glance on Pia. He didn’t know any women, certainly none who would dare come to his own house on a Sunday before noon. “Do we know her?”

  Carmen spoke in Italian. “Pia could not send her away. Don’t be angry with her. The woman looks as though she’s been beaten. She begged for your help.”

  Tortoni told Pia she had done the right thing. He would see the woman, find out what this was about.

  He nodded to Matteo. He would go into the study and see that the woman was not carrying a gun or a knife in her purse or anywhere else. Tortoni asked Pia if she would bring him his bottle and two glasses of Lachryma Christi, the sweet yellow wine he drank after Mass every Sunday. He took off his coat, placed his cane in the umbrella stand by the door, turned around and gave Carmen a kiss on both cheeks. “Ti amo,” he said. Then, back to English, “I won’t be long.”

  The study was dark, but even in the dimness he could tell at a glance that this was a stunning woman. Makeup had tried to cover the welt on her cheek, but an eye was swollen and her full red lips looked bruised. They made you want to kiss them and make them better.

  She wore a light tan skirt that now, as she was sitting, came to just over her knees. Her hair was pulled back, held to one side with a mother-of-pearl comb. She reminded Angelo Tortoni of his wife on the day he married her. He dismissed Matteo and the door closed on the two of them.

  He walked in his regular gait to the couch. He had planned to sit behind his desk, but after seeing her, he did not want any artificial separation between himself and this woman.

  The room was kept dark by slatted wooden shades over all the windows. He reached up and opened one column of slats, and horizontal shafts of light painted the rug on the floor like some luminous ladder. Motes of dust twinkled through the rays. He raised his hand and motioned for the woman to approach.

  She got up and knelt on one knee before him, picking up his hand and kissing the back of it. She had clearly been well brought up.

  They spoke in Italian.

  “What is your name?”

  “Doreen Biaggi.”

  He patted the couch next to him and she sat and arranged herself, half-turned to him. The light missed her, slicing the air between them. Tortoni reached up a hand and ran a finger along her face from her chin to her eyebrow.

  “Who did this to you?”

  There was a knock on the study door. Angelo sat back. “Vieni.”

  Pia entered with a bottle and two glasses. He let her set the bottle onto a silver-ridged coaster on his desk. She, correctly, poured only one glass, offering it to him, but he gestured with his left hand and she handed the glass to Doreen. After pouring his, she was gone, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Angelo held his glass out between them, and she raised hers to touch his. Prisms from the cut crystal danced around the room. They each took a small sip. He noticed the way she held the glass on her lap, one hand on the stem, the other on the bowl. She did not look down at it.

  “I ask you to forgive me for bothering you on the Lord’s day.”

  Angelo waved that away. “How can I help you?”

  “I owe you money, and I owe you my gratitude.”

  He nodded. It Was a good start. She wasn’t just coming here to whine about her vig.

  “I am also very afraid.”

  Angelo sipped his wine. He saw her lower lip begin to tremble, but she got control of herself quickly, taking a deep breath.

  “There is nothing to be afraid of here,” he said.

  She looked down at her lap. As though surprised to find the wineglass there, she raised it to her lips. “I want to pay you”—she hesitated—“but I must
ask for, for arrangements to be different.”

  Angelo was confused. After he had spoken to Johnny he had been confident things would get straightened out. “The vig is too much?”

  She shook her head, sitting now in silence. A tear formed in her swollen eye. “It is not the vig. I could pay a hundred a week for a few weeks. After that”—she paused, collecting herself—“I haven’t paid any vig. Johnny LaGuardia”—she looked up, her large brown eyes now liquid—“Johnny …” She broke, crying aloud.

  Angelo took a spotless white cotton handkerchief from his shirt pocket and touched it to her face. As he watched her try to collect herself, he was putting it together, feeling his rage. Johnny had been scamming other clients to cover Doreen’s short. When she couldn’t make the hundred he upped somebody else on his own—maybe the mysteriously disappeared Rusty Ingraham—and started taking Doreen’s vig out of her ass.

  Doreen was sniffling now, wiping away the tears. “Mi scusa, Don Tortoni.”

  Worst of all, Johnny had been keeping Doreen Biaggi a secret. A woman like this, in her situation, she could be priceless to Angelo. Not directly, perhaps, she might be too classy for that. But certainly a woman of her grace and breeding, her looks and substance, could be used somewhere—to bind an alliance, to weaken an enemy, to blind a competitor in legitimate business. Perhaps even to marry a son.

  Angelo moved closer to her on the couch. He knew the sunlight was now falling across his face. Doreen, embarrassed, looked down into her lap, his handkerchief clutched around the stem of the wineglass. Closer, he inspected the face, which now, even bruised, could, he thought, make the angels sing. The loyalty and love of a woman such as this was a gift from God. And he knew he could get it for nothing. Johnny had already paid enough of her vig to cover her principal—he would hardly even lose any money.

  He lifted her chin and drew her face to his. He kissed both sides of her bruised lips, then both cheeks. Gently, with his thumb, he rubbed a trace of a tear away from under her eye.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  She raised her eyes. Johnny had nearly broken her. Angelo smiled. “Will you eat with my family today?” He moved his hand down over her neck, her shoulder, coming to rest under her arm, feeling the full curve of the side of her breast as he moved her back away from him as though trying to get her into focus. “As of this moment,” he said, “you owe me nothing except a smile from your beautiful face.”