One-Way Ticket

by William G. Tapply

  Nickie parked him at our table. “Want something, Uncle Vin?”

  Russo twisted his neck and looked back at Nickie. “Chianti,” he rasped in a voice that sounded like slabs of concrete grinding against each other. Then he turned and blinked at Evie as if he were surprised to see her sitting there. “Miss Banyon,” he said. “You are sunshine in the gloom of my poor establishment. Thank you for coming.”

  Evie gave him her best smile. Evie’s best smile is utterly dazzling, and only I would notice the effort behind this one. “The food was wonderful,” she said. “Thank you for the liqueur. It’s so nice to see you again.”

  He turned to me, lifted his left hand off the arm of his wheelchair, and held it out to me. I noticed that his right hand lay motionless in his lap. It was twisted into a claw. “Mr. Coyne,” said Russo. “You honor us. You and your beautiful lady.”

  I gripped his hand awkwardly in both of mine. It felt like a pigskin glove full of matchsticks. “How are you doing, Mr. Russo?” I said. “I heard…”

  He took his hand back and wobbled it in the air. “Getting old is a sonofabitch, excuse me, Miss Banyon. If it ain’t one thing it’s something else, huh?” He tapped his head, still using his left hand. “Nothin’ wrong up here. They tell me that’s what counts. And you, Mr. Coyne? You are well?”

  I shrugged. “My health is fine.”

  Russo looked at me from the depths of his black, hooded eyes. “I hear a but in your voice. Your business? Your family? I hope your family is well. Your two boys.”

  “My boys are excellent,” I said, cringing at the idea that Vincent Russo even knew I had two sons, “and business is okay. I’m a little concerned about a friend of mine. It preoccupies me. I’m sorry that it shows.” I waved it away with the back of my hand. “I don’t want to bother you with my insignificant worries.”

  “Perhaps I know your friend?”

  “Come to think of it,” I said, “perhaps you do. Like you, he’s in the restaurant business. His name is Dalton Lancaster. He manages the Boston Scrod.”

  “The Boston Scrod, eh?” Russo blinked, then shook his head. “No, I guess not. Your friend Lancaster, he has troubles, huh?”

  “Three men jumped him in a parking lot last night,” I said. “They kicked him in the face.”

  “They robbed him?”

  “No,” I said. “It was apparently a warning.”

  “A warning,” said Russo.

  “They didn’t quite say it,” I said, “but it probably had something to do with a debt.”

  “And he was badly hurt?”

  I shook my head. “Not this time.”

  Russo shook his head. “Uncivilized,” he said, “kicking a man in the face. But on the other hand, failing to pay a debt is also dishonorable. What a world, huh?”

  “The thing is,” I said, “my friend Lancaster swears he doesn’t owe anybody any money.” I waved my hand. “Well, it’s no concern of yours. It weighs on my heart, that’s all. I’m worried for my friend. He cannot pay off a debt he doesn’t owe, and then what will happen to him?”

  “I see your point,” said Russo. “Please convey my best wishes to your friend, as one restaurant man to another. It’s a hard business. You might suggest to him that it would be wise to take taxis, avoid parking lots for a while, eh?” He tried to smile, but only half of his face participated.

  “Yes,” I said, “I told him exactly the same thing. Coming from both his lawyer and a fellow restaurateur, perhaps the advice will make sense to him.”

  Russo chuckled. He reached over and gripped my arm with his left hand. Then he tilted his head toward Evie. “Come back soon, Miss Banyon. We will always have a table by the window for you.”

  She smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Russo.”

  He lifted his hand, then let it fall back on the arm of his wheelchair. “Mr. Coyne. Don’t be a stranger, huh?”

  I nodded. “I won’t.”

  Russo half turned his head, and Nickie was there at his wheelchair in an instant. He smiled at us with those ridiculously white teeth, then pushed his uncle toward the rear of the restaurant.

  When I looked at Evie, she was frowning at me. “Dalton Lancaster got mugged? That’s what last night was all about?”

  “Not mugged, exactly,” I said. “They didn’t take anything. It was a warning.”

  “They think he owes money and he doesn’t?”

  “So it seems.”

  “Does that make any sense?”

  “Not much,” I said.

  “So,” said Evie, “that’s what this—this charade was all about. You and Russo not quite saying what you mean, all this polite concern for each other. You assume it’s his thugs who beat up your client. You’re asking him to lay off Dalton Lancaster.”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “Russo doesn’t do favors like that for people like me. Not favors that involve a debt. Debts are supposed to be matters of honor for both parties. If Dalt really is into him, there’s nothing I can do about it. I was just asking Russo to be sure he had the right man before he decided to fracture his skull or rupture his spleen or shoot him in the ear.”

  “Jesus,” she muttered. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Four

  AT FOUR ON FRIDAY afternoon I rinsed out the office coffee urn while Julie shut down the computers for the weekend. Megan, Julie’s eleven-year-old daughter, had a soccer game that Mommy wanted to see, and I was eager to get home, change out of my office pinstripe and into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and have a pitcher of gin-and-tonics waiting for Evie. I’d grill some burgers out on the patio, with bacon and cheddar cheese and Bermuda onion. Evie loved them. Called them Cholesterol Sandwiches. The hated Yankees were in town, and even Evie seemed excited about watching the game. We’d bring out the battery-powered TV, and she’d sit on my lap, and who knew what might happen between innings.

  I said good-bye to Julie on the sidewalk, then crossed the street and ducked into the parking garage. I was walking down the rows of cars to where I’d left mine when somebody grabbed me by my right biceps and said, “Just take it easy, Mr. Coyne. You’re gonna come with us, okay? Don’t yell or nothing, please.”

  He was a couple of inches shorter than me and about twice as wide. Black hair, black eyebrows, black mustache. He had a shiny round mole beside his nose. It was pink, about the size of a mothball. When you looked at his face, it was hard not to stare at the mole.

  Dalt had said that one of the thugs who beat him up sported a mole on his face.

  Then another hand grabbed my left arm, and I felt something ramming against my kidneys. This guy barely came up to my shoulder. He was half-bald, even though he didn’t look much over thirty. His scalp was as deeply tanned as his face.

  “If that’s a gun you’re poking at me,” I told him, “you can put it away. I won’t yell. What do you want?”

  “We’re gonna go for a ride, Mr. Coyne. Nothin’ to worry about.” The gun stayed there.

  “I’m not worried,” I said. “I’m annoyed. There’s no need for this bullshit. You guys aren’t planning to kick me in the face the way you did Dalton Lancaster, are you?”

  They didn’t answer.

  They were hauling me along between them, one on each arm, as if I were a big sack of trash. I was tempted to go limp and let my feet drag, but I thought it would be undignified.

  “If Vincent Russo wants to talk to me,” I said, “all he has to do is ask.”

  My two escorts said nothing. I tried to twist my arms out of their grips, but they just held tighter.

  They walked me over to a dark sedan that was parked a few slots past mine. It was puffing gray exhaust into the dim yellow light of the concrete parking garage. They opened the back door and shoved me in. The guy with the mole got in beside me, and the bald guy went around and climbed in the other side, so that I was sandwiched tight between two bulky thugs in shiny suits. The one behind the wheel made three.

  It was useful, if not comforting, to know what they wer
e capable of.

  They might have been hoodlums who believed they were above the law, but they couldn’t do anything about the bumper-to-bumper Friday-afternoon traffic on Boylston Street, and it took more than half an hour for them to stop-and-go a couple of miles through the city to the North End.

  They continued past Hanover Street, where Vincent Russo had his office in the back of his restaurant, and took a right onto Salem Street. It was a winding one-way street barely wide enough for a vehicle to maneuver past the parked cars at the curb. After a minute, we took a left onto an even narrower street, then another left into an alley that paralleled Salem, and pulled up beside a Dumpster.

  They steered me up onto a loading platform and through the back door, which opened into a storeroom lined with shelves of cardboard boxes and wooden crates and industrial-sized jars and cans.

  A door opened to a steep stairway. We climbed to the second floor and stopped outside another door. The bald thug knocked, and a minute later somebody inside cracked it open. They exchanged a few grumbled words, and then the guy with the mole shoved me into the room.

  Seated behind a desk was a bulky fortyish man. His scalp was tanned mahogany under his thinning black hair, and his eyes were close-set and piggy.

  This was Paulie Russo, Vincent’s son and, according to the rumors, his heir apparent, the godfather-in-waiting. He’d been working his way up the family career ladder since middle school. He started out collecting payoffs, got promoted to kicking people in the face, and graduated to capping them with a .22 automatic pistol.

  A younger man leaned against the wall behind Paulie Russo’s left shoulder. The bulge of a shoulder holster spoiled the drape of his suit.

  My two escorts, the guy with the mole and the short bald guy, half-dragged me up to Russo’s desk, still gripping me hard above my elbows.

  Russo waved the back of his hand at them. “You can leggo of him.”

  They released their grip on me, moved away, and stood on opposite sides of the room with their backs against the wall. The third man, the one who’d been driving the car, had also come in, and he was standing with his back to the door we’d just come through. That made one lawyer, four thugs, and one godfather-in-training.

  “Get Mr. Coyne a chair,” said Paulie Russo.

  Almost instantly a wooden chair without arms was shoved against the back of my legs, and hands pushed down on my shoulders.

  I sat. “Where’s Vincent?” I said.

  “He’s not here,” said Russo. “I’m here. This ain’t about him. We gotta talk.”

  “Paulie,” I said, “your goons here, they treated me disrespectfully, and it pisses me off. Your father would never allow me to be treated this way.”

  He lifted his hand and let it fall. “Well,” he said, “tough shit, okay? You want some wine?”

  “No,” I said, “I don’t want to drink with you. I don’t want to make conversation with you. I don’t care how your family’s doing, and I don’t intend to tell you how mine is. Just tell me whatever you’ve got to tell me so I can get the hell out of here.”

  “There’s no reason to be hostile, Mr. Coyne. It’s just business. Come on. Let’s have a drink, be civilized.” There was an open wine bottle by his elbow on the desk. He filled two glasses and. pushed one toward me. “Take a sip, Mr. Coyne. It’s a nice Chianti.”

  I made no move to pick up the glass.

  Paulie Russo stared at me.

  I stared back at him.

  After a minute he shrugged, picked up his wineglass, held it up to me, said, “Salute,” and took a gulp. Then he set the glass down on his desk. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “Refusing to drink a little wine with me,” he said. “That’s not respectful. You would not disrespect my old man that way.”

  “Your old man,” I said, “never sent goons to accost me in a parking garage.”

  “I don’t disrespect you,” he said. “If my associates treated you with disrespect, I’m sorry, okay?”

  “They’re your associates,” I said. “They represent you. How they treat me is how you treat me.”

  He bowed his head. “I apologize for them.” He touched my wineglass with his forefinger and inched it closer to me. “Come on, Mr. Coyne. Have a drink.”

  “No,” I said. “Just say what you want to say.”

  He inhaled and exhaled deeply, as if he were struggling to keep his patience. “Okay,” he said. “Fine. So listen. Your friend, there. Your client, huh? Lancaster. He’s in some deep shit.”

  “I know,” I said, “that these associates of yours”—I waved my hand to include the shiny-suited men in the room—“they followed Dalton Lancaster into a parking lot the other night. They knocked him down, and they kicked him, and they threatened to kill him. So, yes, that, by my definition, would be considered deep shit.”

  “I don’t know nothing about anybody kicking somebody,” said Paulie. “But that Lancaster has got an obligation, and if he was a man of honor he’d admit it, don’tcha think?”

  “Lancaster says he doesn’t owe you money,” I said. “You or anybody else.”

  Russo shrugged. “I don’t want to argue with you. Your friend, or client, or whatever the fuck he is, whatever he wants to tell you, nothing I can do about it.” He shook his head as if it were all too confusing to comprehend. Then he narrowed his eyes at me. “But listen. Do you think I’m the kind of man who’d send three of my most important associates to escort you here so I could lie to you? That make any sense to you?”

  “I’m not sure what kind of man you are, Paulie.”

  “I’m a man of honor. Like you.”

  “So you’re trying to tell me that I should trust you and not my client?”

  He put his forearms on his desk and leaned toward me. “He’s got a fuckin’ obligation, Mr. Coyne, and if he don’t like it, maybe he should take it up with the judge.” He straightened up, took a sip of wine, and narrowed his eyes at me.

  “The judge?” I said.

  Paulie raised his head and looked over my shoulder to where the guy with the mole was standing. “You explained to him about the judge the other night, right?”

  I turned around.

  Mole-face was nodding and shrugging at the same time. “Sure, Paulie. ’Course we did.”

  I turned back to Paulie. “You mean Dalt? When these goons beat him up?”

  “Ask him, for Chrissake.” He flipped his hand. “I don’t know nothing about anybody getting beat up.”

  “So tell me,” I said. “How did Dalton Lancaster incur this, um, obligation?”

  Paulie Russo grinned. “Incur, huh?” He looked around at the four men who were holding up the walls. “You hear that? Incur? Smart fuckin’ lawyer, huh?”

  The four stooges all remained stone-faced.

  When Russo looked back at me, he was no longer grinning. “Incur. Fuck.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “When an apple falls off a tree, it goes straight down. You understand what I’m saying, Mr. Coyne?”

  “I believe you intended a metaphor, Paulie. I’m impressed.”

  He grinned. “Good. Now it’s up to you.”

  “Up to me? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  He flapped his hands. “You’re a smart lawyer. You can figure it out.” He pointed his finger at me. “You got a week.” He lifted his chin and looked over my shoulder. “Take Mr. Coyne wherever he wants to go. Be polite and treat him with respect, for Chrissake.” Then he stood up and walked out of the room.

  The thug who’d been holding up the wall behind Paulie glared at me for a minute, then followed him.

  Once again the bald thug and the mole-faced thug gripped my upper arms. The thug who’d been driving opened the door and held it for us. They urged me out of the chair and steered me out of Paulie Russo’s office, through the storeroom, and out the back door into the alley, where they shoved me into the backseat of the sedan.

  It took about half an hour through the thinning late-afternoon Boston traffic t
o drive from Paulie Russo’s office in the North End to the parking garage outside my office in Copley Square. From one world to another.

  No one said a word the whole time.

  They pulled over at the curb. The mole-faced thug slid out and stood there holding the door.

  I got out, and Mole-face got back in, and the sedan pulled away and disappeared in the traffic.

  I looked at my watch. It was ten after six. The whole event had taken about two hours, most of which was spent getting there and back.

  I sat on a bench in the plaza by the public library, watched the secretaries and professional women in their high heels and short skirts stroll past, and waited for my blood pressure to return to normal. Then I pulled out my cell phone and called the Boston Scrod.

  I asked to speak to Mr. Lancaster, and a minute later Dalt said, “This is Dalton Lancaster.”

  “It’s Brady,” I said. “How’re you feeling today?”

  “A little better, actually. My ribs are sore as hell, hurts to breathe, and my face is turning purple. It scares people, ruins their appetites. I’m mostly hanging out in my office. Hiding, you might say. You got some news for me? You talk to Vincent Russo?”

  “Evie and I ate at his restaurant the other night,” I said. “Didn’t learn anything. This afternoon I had a sit-down with Paulie Russo, Vincent’s son and heir. Paulie’s the one with the three goons, including the guy with the mole on his face. Paulie says you have an obligation, by which I assume he means money.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Dalt. “I never even met Paulie Russo.”

  “I’m just wondering if you want to tell me anything that you didn’t tell me the other night.”

  “You still think I’m lying to you, Brady? You think I’d lie to my lawyer?”

  “People lie to their lawyers all the time.”

  “I’m not lying,” he said. “I told you. I’m not gambling anymore, and I don’t owe anybody any money, and I don’t know what the hell this is all about. I don’t know why you won’t believe me.”