He walked into a noisy, crowded dining room as a gaggle of wait-staff sang Happy Birthday to a little black-haired girl of seven or eight wearing a princess crown and gleefully grasping a half-dozen balloons. Its discordance with his grim task at hand causing him annoyance, he scanned the floor but didn’t see Eddie. As he walked toward the ersatz caboose in the middle of the floor, he saw Eddie’s face grinning and waving through a window for him to come in. When he stepped on the caboose’s lower step, a loud train whistle tooted. Everybody in the place clapped and cheered. He stepped into the dimly lit, fake railroad car, looked down the aisle of booths and saw Eddie waving. He had to squint to be sure of what else he saw, but was that Louise sitting to Eddie’s left? He stopped in his tracks, jaw set, wondering what kind of trick this was.
She wore oversized sunglasses, a scarf around her neck, and a white beret-style hat pulled low over one side of her face. She didn’t smile or acknowledge him. One arm was looped through Eddie’s. This was an act of some kind, a show for his benefit, one of Eddie’s perverse ploys. He walked up the aisle to their booth and took a seat across from them. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. The swelling of her lips had gone down, but even islands of heavy pancake makeup couldn’t hide her bruises. Her shades, completely unnecessary in the dim lighting, undoubtedly covered puffy eyes. He looked over at Eddie’s malevolent smirk.
“What’s this about?” Bill said.
“We were supposed to talk, you didn’t pick up.”
“I had to take care of something.”
He looked at Louise. “Why is she here?” he said through teeth clamped shut.
“Tell him, honey,” Eddie said.
“I’m with Eddie now. You can stay at my house until you find another place. I want my car back, too.”
Was she drugged? Bill needed time to make sense of this.
“Sure,” he said to her. He looked at Eddie. “Does she know what this is all about?”
“You can talk,” Eddie said. “Don’t forget, she’s wit me.”
“I met with the ServMark guy,” Bill said. “I laid a demand on him. Five million. He didn’t bite.”
“That’s way too high,” Eddie said, “It’ll scare him away.”
“What’ll you take?” Bill asked.
“You mean what’ll I take or what should our next demand be?”
“Both.”
“Next demand should be two million. I’ll take half that.”
“He’s worried that he won’t get all your documents, that you’ll copy them and keep going back at him.”
“No way to guarantee that, is there? Tell him that’s why I’ll settle so cheap.”
“Maybe you should think cheaper yet. He says even if you take it to the press he can stonewall you—and them—into the next century.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I have to.”
Bill looked at Louise. She wasn’t paying attention. Her forehead was wrinkled. She stared into her coffee cup. Her spoon clinked as she stirred. What the hell was going on with her? Was this a survival thing? Could Eddie have actually flipped her?
“Are you okay?” he said to Louise.
“I’m fine.”
Her perky energy was gone, charisma, disappeared. He looked over at Eddie who met his eyes, unblinking, domineering. The killer Eddie Matthews now had Louise under his control.
Fuck it. Bill decided to rescue her whether she chose Eddie or not. He’d believe it when he saw her choose Eddie out of her own free will. Yet Bill hadn’t forgotten that she intended to leave him even before Eddie got a hold of her and did…did…whatever he did to her.
Bill’s plan stayed firm in his mind, but he wondered if expressing so much concern for her exposed her to deeper threats from that sick fuck. He wondered if he was shooting himself in the foot with a bullet better placed between Eddie’s eyes. He wondered if her apparent attachment to Eddie was real. The real test would come once Eddie was gone.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Sam Lanza couldn’t let it go, couldn’t ignore Conlon’s connection to all that had gone down. And now the polygraph lie about evidence in Deadly Eddie’s apartment. Lanza didn’t have enough for a warrant, but career criminals always found a way to be assholes. Surveillance would uncover something. Fuck what Jericho thought. Jericho must be in la-la land to think that Sam could let go of the Conlon lead.
He parked the unmarked LTD at the corner of Girard and Day. Day was one-way, so Conlon would have to come onto Girard. The first two nights, nothing. The Mustang hadn’t moved. Nor had it moved the third night, but something interesting happened.
A stretch limousine with the vanity tag SM Ind-1 kept circling the block. Sam got out of his car and stood on the corner to better see. A tall, dapper man came out of Conlon’s house, ducked into the limousine, and left. Sam called in the tag for a check. It was registered to ServMark. Here was yet another nexus between Conlon and some other bullshit something. There still wasn’t enough to arrest him, maybe enough for a phone-tap warrant.
He walked up Day and knocked. Conlon immediately answered. Sam walked right past him and sat on the sofa. He drew in a deep breath. He looked up at Bill and said, “You’re a centimeter from being arrested.”
“For what?”
“I’ll think of something,” Sam said.
“Why are you dogging me like a bitch in heat?”
“Because you’re a one-man crime wave. Why did you lie on the polygraph?”
“I didn’t.”
“About finding evidence in Eddie Matthews’ apartment.”
“Evidence of what?”
“You tell me,” Lanza said.
Bill paused. He looked like he was mulling what to say. Lanza let the silence play out.
Finally, Bill said, “I was looking for signs of my girlfriend. I thought she might have been with Eddie. There were no signs of her but I found a few press-on fingernails. I shook them out of a rug.”
“Were they hers?”
“They belonged to Thunder Woman.”
“Do you still have them?”
“Yes.” Bill went to a marble mortar on the kitchen counter where he kept parking meter change. He fished around and pulled out the press-ons. He gave them to Lanza who held one up to the lamp.
“How do you know that’s what these are? How do you know they were hers?”
“I saw them on her. They are colored the same as her costume.”
“This is useless, especially now. You could have gotten these anywhere.”
“Detective, we’re in my living room, not a courtroom. Can’t you treat it as information only?”
Lanza put the nails in his shirt pocket. The morgue photos would show Thunder Woman’s hands and nails. At least two should be missing.
“Who was in the limo just now?” Sam asked.
Again, Bill paused. He got up and walked back toward the kitchen. “Pour you a drink?” he asked.
He’s trying to think of what to come up with, Lanza mused. Let him. Lanza squeezed a million punks like this guy. “No.”
The silence got awkward as Bill took a seat, slowly pulled a coaster from a little stack, and set his drink down as if it was a Fabergé egg.
Finally, he said, “His name is Bigelow, Gary Bigelow. He wanted to know if I knew Jericho’s wife, Crystal. She works at his company. I told him I had met her but didn’t know her. He wouldn’t tell me why he asked.”
Lanza thought Bill was good at using forthrightness as a cover for lies. It’s what the fingernail thing was all about, and now this visit from the ServMark guy.
“Think it has something to do with the fact that she works in accounting and that company is facing a huge lawsuit?” Lanza asked.
“Your guess is better than mine,” Bill said. “Maybe Jericho would know something about it. Ask him, or why don’t you ask her?”
“Look, Conlon, you telling me that the grand high poobah of a multinational company comes in his limo to Fishtown, USA, in the middle of the night to c
hat you up? Is that what you’re saying, cowboy?”
Bill sat silent. His eyes were shifting.
“Have your Missing Persons people found anything out about Louise Bearden?” Bill asked.
“Why? Should we be dragging the river?” Sam asked. This sonofabitch probably did away with her and is trying to find out what the cops know. This Conlon wasn’t dumb.
Lanza got up and walked to the door. “You got two choices,” he said looking back at Bill. “You can let me know everything and maybe not get arrested, or I can arrest you for violating the city’s peanut ordinance or whatever. But decide fast. I don’t know what Jericho told you about me, but I’m nobody you want to fuck with.”
“I told you what I know,” Bill said.
“We’ll see soon enough,” Sam said, and closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Bill had no idea how extensive Lanza’s surveillance was, but Lanza knew more than he was saying. Search warrants would be next. Lanza might even shake him down in the street, so Bill had to abandon going anywhere strapped. He was a fish in a barrel and Lanza held the spear.
How was he going to get Eddie? With bare hands? Forget asking Jericho for help, he was still a Boy Scout at heart. But there was time to think. Eddie’s next call for negotiations status wasn’t until the following night. No rush. As long as negotiations were active, Eddie would keep Louise alive. Then again, no telling what that crazy fuck might do.
When the call came, Bill was ready.
“So how many sweet dollars have you brought to Eddie?” Eddie asked.
“I got Bigelow up to fifty grand,” Bill said. “But there’s more where that came from.”
“Finally. Now we’re cookin’. What’s our next move?”
“I got to lay low for now. A homicide detective is following me around. He thinks I had something to do with the Thunder Woman killing. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you Eddie?”
“Me? Why would I know anything about that?”
“Because one of her friends says you left with her the night she disappeared.”
“Bullshit. You ain’t gonna pin that on me.”
“This detective, he said he has press-on fingernails that are hers,” Bill said.
“Oh yeah? Where’d he get them?”
“Your old apartment. But you know what? I think he believes you and I were in on it together.”
“What bullshit!”
“And you know what else?” Bill said, “He wonders if Louise is dead and not just missing.”
“Good, if I have to kill her I have cover, don’t I?”
“Cover?”
“Yeah. You. You musta killed her in a rage. Maybe she was shrieking at you for fucking Thunder Woman. Or maybe she found out you killed Thunder Woman before that dizzy broad ratted you out.”
“Are you drugging Louise?”
“Why, ya think it’s the only way she could be attracted to me? Sorry, pal, she’s mine now.”
“Then I don’t have much to lose, do I?”
“You ain’t smart `enough to mess with my mind. Go throw some holy water on that guy from ServMark and get me more money.”
He hung up.
Logic didn’t work with Eddie. What worked with Eddie was force. It would be hard to get him with Lanza casting such a long shadow, and hard to know where or when Lanza would show up.
Bill was on thin ice. The best he could do was place a toe forward and listen for the sound of cracking. He decided to call Luca Cunnio, bring him in on locating Eddie. Luca probably had a claim on ServMark money. For certain, he had some kind of dealings with Bigelow. Luca may even have been behind Mikey getting whacked. No matter Luca’s involvement, as long as there was money to be had, he would assert a proprietary interest. He’d want to know that Eddie was trying to hog it all.
It crossed Bill’s mind: money made for strange bedfellows.
When Bill called Spaciad, Paulie answered. Bill recognized his voice.
“Tell Luca that Conlon wants to meet with him at noon tomorrow in front of the Union League.”
“Who’s Conlon?” Paulie asked.
“The priest. Tell him the priest.”
He hung up.
The heart of the financial district was a safe location. Luca having unsuccessfully dispatched goons to mug him on two occasions, Bill concluded he was in demand to be mugged again.
He stood in front of the Land Title building looking for Luca’s red Cadillac. The noon-time downtown streets were filled with self-important looking men carrying luggage-sized briefcases and wearing blue pinstripes along with oxblood wing-tips. Big-haired young women on lunch break scurried in three-inch heels, tight skirts, and out-of-control shoulder pads. Many carried sandwiches in front of them in little bags as they hurried between deli or drugstore and the art deco lobbies of the city’s financial behemoths.
Watching the office workers strummed a rueful chord for Bill. They had professions, employment, spouses, families and homes. His life had gotten defined by feet and yards and boundaries dictated by hostile gangs and shot-callers whose mere indignation could result in a lost eye or death, rather than civilized reprimand or even a lawsuit for trespass. Being among the bustling pedestrians re-opened a door, long ago slammed, of what could have been. Instead Bill endured the concrete walls of self-incrimination, knowing that everything he did was of his own free will. It was his penance for guilt. Yet, not penance enough.
He saw the red Cadillac creep slowly by and continue to Walnut Street where it made a right. Minutes later, it pulled to the curb in front of the ornate Union League. Bill walked toward it and waved his arm and whistled. An arm emerged from the Caddy’s driver-side window and acknowledged.
Bill approached slowly. Only one man in the Caddy. Bill got in the passenger side, his finger under his shirt as if it was a gun.
“Go to Walnut Street and Eighteenth and pull over,” he said to Luca.
Luca complied and parked next to Rittenhouse Square, busy with shuffling blue-haired ladies with tiny dogs scooting along like over-wound toys, and couples strolling under the canopy of elm and oak and spruce.
“Get out,” Bill said. “Take the first empty bench.”
As they traversed past people on benches with novels in front of their noses and nannies pushing buggies, an elderly man feeding squirrels vacated a bench. Bill and Luca sat.
“We’re in this together,” Bill said.
“What the fuck are you talking about? Why are we here? I’m a busy man. And if you hold a piece on me one more time I’ll…
“You know Eddie Matthews. He knows your men shot the twink outside Dirty Frank’s. And you know Gary Bigelow.”
“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. You still haven’t answered, what’s this about?”
“Eddie is squeezing ServMark for serious money. If Bigelow doesn’t pay, Eddie will bring you down. He’s threatening to go to the press. I need to find him for my own reasons. I’m asking you to help me.”
“And if I do?”
“You can have all the money that Eddie would get. I’m not interested in any of it.”
Luca looked at Bill for a long ten seconds and said, “I never trust a man who doesn’t care about money,”
“He’s got my girl hostage. She’s all I want.”
“What is Bigelow being squeezed about?”
Was Luca playing dumb? Bill explained about Eddie’s documents.
“Then I not only want to find him, I’d want those docs too,” Luca said.
“Right,” Bill said. “You’d have to get him to talk.”
Luca laughed straight from his belly. He wiped away a faux tear from laughing so hard. “Oh, he said, I can get him to talk all right.”
“Then where do we begin?” Bill asked.
“You tell me. I been looking for him ever since that kid got shot outside the bar. Eddie did it, you know.”
Bill knew otherwise, but said, “He may have.”
From Rittenhou
se Square, Bill walked to INA Global at Sixteenth and Arch. He couldn’t help but smile as he looked out the window onto the Parkway and JFK Plaza from Jericho’s new office. Only a couple of months ago, Bill had suggested that Jericho call insurance companies just to give him cover with Crystal. Now here he was with a high-powered job and fancy office. He had told Bill that he preferred a job in corrections, but the Pennsylvania prison food scandal got splashed all over the industry trades, and his forced resignation became gossip on the street.
“What do you do here?” Bill asked, grinning.
Jericho explained: Investigate and prosecute insurance fraud.
“What, like crooked body shops?” Bill said.
“Not only, but employees on the take, defalcation, ambulance chasers—that kind of stuff.”
Bill was delighted for his friend whose office was decorated with model ships and fire engines symbolizing the company’s roots back to Ben Franklin. More importantly, Jericho was wired into police departments and private investigators throughout the country, with whom he had to coordinate investigations and prosecutions.
“You know, I thought I was locked into corrections work for the rest of my life. My altruistic parts blinded me to the hazards of being submerged in the dregs of society and what it does to the spirit. Here, I’ll be expected to help put guys in prison, but then can walk away from them. I get to use my legal training, too. You were right, sometimes God gives us what we need, not what we ask for.”
“And judging by these fancy digs, you’re finally making serious money,” Bill said.
Jericho responded with a smile wide enough to slide a pie through.
“If I gave you a name,” Bill asked, “could you locate a person?”
“Sure. Who?”
“Deadly Eddie Matthews.”
“I already looked into it. Wherever he is, he’s not using his real name. I can’t get access to his social either. Everybody in the DOC is hiding under a shell.”
Bill was deflated. It must have shown. Jericho got up from his two-acre desk, came around to the chair next to Bill’s, and rested his hand on Bill’s shoulder.
Bill tried to put on a happy face. He changed the subject. “Are you and Crystal finalized?”
I Detest All My Sins Page 17