by Norman Green
“Come on, Ant, don’t be so dramatic. It’s not gonna be a war.”
“What would you call it, then?”
“The achievement of political ends by nonpolitical means.”
“You’ve been reading. I’m impressed.”
“I know I got a lot of gaps, Ant. I’m doing the best I can.”
“So how bad is it going to be? This, this, political campaign of yours?”
She shrugged. “Hasn’t been a lotta fun so far. Listen, as long as they don’t know where to find me, the odds are on my side.”
“Are they? How many men did they use at your apartment?”
“Five,” she said, “but—”
“And how many the other night, when you went back there?”
“I don’t know, Ant, how did you—”
“You may think I was born yesterday,” he told her, “but I wasn’t. You’re going up against organized criminals, and you’re only one woman. And regardless of how capable you may or may not be, you’re still one person, alone. And besides, you have responsibilities.”
“What are you talking about? Who am I responsible to?”
He swallowed. “Al, you’re my last link.”
“Ah, Jesus, Ant . . .”
“It’s true,” he said. “When Roberto’s gone . . .” It was the first time he’d spoken those words, and they stung, even though it seemed he’d thought of little else for weeks. “You know, it’s funny,” he told her. “You know how I feel about Roberto. But all these years, a tiny bit of me always wondered what it would be like to be free, completely free. I always discounted that, wrote it off as a harmless fantasy, more or less along the lines of ‘what if I won the lottery,’ or something like that. I never really wanted it. Roberto completed me, somehow. He made me a real person. Without him, I don’t know what I would have been. But now that ‘harmless fantasy’ is going to be my reality. I’ll be a free man.”
“You make it sound like a prison sentence.”
He swallowed again. “Al, as funny as it sounds, pretty soon you’ll be all the family I have left. I don’t want freedom. I want to be part of something. I want to belong to someone. It’s bad enough I’m losing Roberto . . . Bad enough we’re both losing him. But if something happened to you, too, I honestly don’t think I could take it.” He’d gotten to her, he could feel it, he could tell by the way she stood there looking at him. Guilt is dependable, he thought, guilt works every time.
God, I sound just like my mother.
“I have to do this, Ant.”
“I understand,” he said, keeping his voice low and disappointed. Anthony, he thought, is there no depth to which you won’t stoop?
“Listen, I’ll be careful,” she told him. “Nothing is going to happen to me.”
“Come home when it’s over,” he told her. “Come back.”
“I’m supposed to be a big girl, Ant. I can’t crash with you forever.”
“This house is as much yours as mine.”
She laughed at that. “Probably gonna belong to Magdalena soon enough,” she said.
“You can help me fight her off,” Anthony said. “Won’t that be fun?”
She laughed again. He thought he heard something like relief in it. “Yeah,” she said. “It’ll be a gas. I’ll call you, okay?”
“I’ll stay up all night worrying if you don’t.”
She was on to him. “All right, Mom.”
Laurie Villereal, from Gemini Records, lived in a building on the corner of Vernon Boulevard and 47th Road in Queens. Alessandra had never been in that neighborhood before. She stood on Vernon, uncertain of which direction she should go. It wasn’t a bad street; she wondered what the rents were like, how tough the commute into Manhattan would be. You’re always ready to move on, she thought. You’re always ready to fade away.
She found the right building, rang the bell next to Laurie’s name. A moment later, she heard a voice. It was Laurie. She was four floors up, leaning out of the window next to the fire escape. “The buzzer’s broke,” she yelled. “Catch!” A key tied to a purple yarn tail sailed down, and Al caught it out of the air, used it to let herself into the brick apartment building.
Laurie had her apartment painted brighter than a Caribbean whore house. There were no lights on in the place, though, and that made it a little easier to take. Al stepped through the front door and into the main room, which smelled like a mixture of patchouli and herb. Mary Jane maintenance program, Al thought. She gave another inward shrug. None of my business, she thought. “Thanks for agreeing to see me.”
Laurie bounced down on the couch. “No prob,” she said. “I thought you forgot about me. Have a seat.” Laurie was wearing a Led Zep T-shirt, no bra, and a ratty pair of cutoffs.
Alessandra sat down in a big soft chair opposite the couch. “I didn’t forget you,” she said. “I been busy.”
“Yeah?” Laurie had a big grin on her face. “Taking boxing lessons?”
Al wanted to be irritated, but it was a good line. She remembered how funny everything is when you’re messed up. “Maybe I should,” she said.
“You’re so butch,” Laurie told her. “Don’t you worry ’bout scaring all the guys away?”
Damn, Al thought. Laurie is really a different person when she’s stoned. She’s direct, she looks right at you, breaks your chops. I think I prefer her this way. “Hey, you know what, they’re scared off, they don’t have what it takes anyhow.”
“Lotta work though, bein’ butch,” Laurie said. “Gotta get up that attitude alla time. Fun just being a little more girlie once in a while. Know what I’m saying? Every time I seen you, you got the same outfit on. Jeans, T-shirt, sneakers. You got great hair, but you always got it tied back. It’s like, I don’t know, you got yourself strapped in or something. Christ, you wear a dress once, nobody will reckanize you.”
Al looked down at herself. It was true. “Maybe I should change up a little bit,” she said. Don’t be taking “dress for success” tips from Laurie Villereal, she told herself. “So tell me, Laurie, how long you been working for Gemini Records?”
“I dunno. Couple years, I guess. Sandy got me the gig.”
“Sandy Ellison. You’re, what, his personal assistant?”
“Slave to the slob, that’s me.”
“What’s he like to work for?”
“Are you gonna, like, put this in an article or something?”
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
“Not,” Laurie said, nodding. “He’s a spoiled thirteen-year-old baby. I practically gotta tie his shoes for him every morning. But it beats dog walking, which is where I was at when I met Sandy.”
“How’d you get from dogs to Ellison?”
“I dunno. We hooked up, I guess. I mean, normally I’m not into men, but Sandy has this thing, you know what I’m saying? I mean, he’s like this little boy, and I guess I dug that. But then, you know how it is, somehow the thing you like the most about someone turns into the thing you can’t stand about them, and we split up. But he was crashing here for a while, and he got used to the way I, like, took care of him. I was kicking myself for doing it, you know, but it got me into Gemini, and, like, a whole different pay scale, so I guess it turned out all right.”
“You’ve been in on BandX since the beginning, then, am I right?”
“Yeah. Since Sandy scouted them.”
“So what do you think?”
“I dunno. I mean, I can never tell who’s gonna make it and who isn’t. It never makes any sense to me. Sandy had this girl band for a while, they were so hot you couldn’t believe it, I mean, I would pay money to see them, right? So maybe I’m biased or whatever, but they went nowhere, and then they split up. I woulda bet my last nickel on them, and I was way off. So, I mean, I don’t know. TJ is the real thing, and Cliff’s got a great voice, but I don’t know how much that counts for. Know what I’m saying? Sandy seems pretty sure they’re gonna pop, though.”
“Did you know Willy Caughlan?�
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“Yeah.” Laurie broke eye contact, started playing with her hair. “Yeah, I did.” Her voice got quiet.
“What did you think of Willy?”
Laurie twisted her brown hair between two fingers. “He had that same thing that Sandy had, that, like, little boy thing, it made you want to watch out for him. Like, I needed to make sure he was gonna be okay.”
“What did you think when you heard he was dead? Did you believe he OD’d?”
“I don’t know. I mean . . .” She looked back up at Alessandra. “He didn’t use, for one thing. You get guys like that sometimes, even in the industry. But, like, if it wasn’t an overdose, that would mean someone killed him, and he was so sweet. I couldn’t think of why anybody would want to hurt him or anything. I mean, he, like, got along with everybody. Cliff and Trent and the rest didn’t fight as much when he was around, cause he would just, like, joke them out of it and stuff. So it was hard to think that someone did that to him on purpose.”
“So you thought about this, right? You wondered if it was a drug thing, or if maybe someone got him.”
She scowled. “Yeah. I did. I thought I was just being paranoid.”
“How did he get along with TJ?”
“I dunno. I mean, Willy thought TJ was the second coming, you know what I mean? But TJ wasn’t around much back then, so I don’t know.”
“What do you think would have happened if he had lived? Would BandX have kept him, or would they have taken TJ back?”
“No, they needed TJ. Trent would have fought, but I’m sure Sandy would have made them take TJ back. But I mean, there’s no law you can’t have three guitars. I don’t think it would have been a big deal.”
“Did you ever have a theory on who might have killed Willy? Is there someone you suspected?”
Laurie looked away again. “Well, you know . . . I kept calling the coroner’s office. I got to know one of the doctors there. Over the phone, I mean. She told me that Willy didn’t have any needle marks on him. She said he had ingested some strange form of opiate, and because it wasn’t, like, processed or whatever, it took a shitload of it to kill him. So I wondered who would have something like that, you know, and all I could think of was that TJ had just gotten nailed for possession.”
“Wasn’t he supposedly in rehab when it happened?”
“Please,” Laurie said, scorn heavy in her voice. “I know he was in-patient, and everything, but that guy could talk his way out of anything. Or anywhere.”
“What about Willy? Did he have drug connections? You think he could have been dealing?”
“Nah, he was funny like that. I mean, a musician who doesn’t do coke, get real, am I right? But not Willy. No way. If you even used around him, he’d give you this face, you know?”
“You had a thing for him, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. I mean, like I said, I’m not usually into guys, and he and I weren’t in love or anything, but we, like, got into each other for a while, yeah.”
“He ever stay out here with you?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, a few times. But he was a musician, you know what I’m saying? They’re all the same.”
“So he never moved in with you, did he? Didn’t leave his stuff here.” Like a guitar, or a laptop, or a pile of floppy discs . . .
“No. It wasn’t like that.”
“Did you want it to be?”
Laurie stopped fiddling with her hair and stared at Alessandra. “Let me tell you something,” she said. “When you’re balling a musician, you will never come first. Never. Do you hear what I’m saying? No matter how much you love them, no matter how much they say they love you, okay, you always come after the band, and after the gig, and after the coke, and even after some kink bitch they met after a show somewhere. So, like, go ahead and do what you wanna do, but don’t kid yourself that it’s ever anything more than fucking. ’Cause it’s not.”
It seemed to Al that she had run out of questions. She looked around at the brightly painted walls. There’s nothing you can do for this girl, she thought. And besides, who are you, anyhow? Laurie is going to make her own mistakes, not yours.
“Listen,” Laurie said. “Sorry if I bummed you out or anything. I’m just gonna tune up a little, okay, and then I’m gonna go get lunch. You feel like Mexican?”
“I got something I gotta do this afternoon,” Al said. “Out in Jersey. Maybe next time.” Besides, she thought, you might wind up bringing home some of the mariachi players, or a waitress or two, and I would just be in the way . . . “Thanks, Laurie. You’ve been a great help.”
She felt the twinge in her ribs as she twisted in the driver’s seat to look into the back of the van. Still looked pretty weird, she had to admit, but at least it was clean. Her new toy was rolled up in a black bath towel and stashed safely out of sight underneath the couch. It was a Valtro PM5, a pistol-grip pump shotgun with a magazine that hung out of the bottom of the barrel just ahead of the trigger guard. Seven rounds in the magazine and one more in the pipe, and she had four extra magazines. It was made in Italy, but it was no thing of beauty, its design was brutally straightforward. Drive carefully, she told herself. Don’t give anyone a reason to pull you over and see what you’ve got in here . . .
She’d gotten directions to the warehouse Marty had told her about off MapQuest. Norwood, New Jersey, was a quiet, prosperous little town in the woods about half an hour north of the George Washington Bridge. The place was a plain brown concrete-block building, thirty feet high, two hundred feet square, a glass atrium appended to the front in an attempt to give the place some office space and a little class. You couldn’t see through the smoked glass, but Alessandra knew nobody was home, there were no cars in the parking lot. An empty green Dumpster stood lonely in the far corner of the lot, its black plastic lid hanging open.
She parked the Astro across the street and settled in to wait. Maybe they’re out to lunch, she thought, maybe you got here too early. Bad guys don’t work through lunch. Maybe they’ll show up at one.
They didn’t show up at one. She got out of the van and stretched carefully, feeling out the mending tissues of her rib cage. Almost healed, she thought. Another day or so, you’ll be all better. The bruises on her face were already nearly gone. She got back into the van and slumped in the driver’s seat.
She came to about an hour later when she saw a small panel truck pull into the lot and back up to one of the three large roll-up doors. Two guys got out of the truck and went inside the building, one black guy and one who looked Korean. She pulled on a vest that held the four extra magazines. She could feel the weight at the tops of her shoulders. She fished around in the boxes she had stashed under the sofa, added two sets of handcuffs to a vest pocket. One plastic foam plug for each ear, a thin pair of gloves, a pair of shades, and she was ready. She pulled the twelve-gauge, towel and all, out of its hiding place, tucked it under her arm, and walked across the street.
The panel truck’s suspension groaned; Al could hear a forklift drive onto the truck bed, deposit its load, and back off again. There was a personnel door off to one side, the two men hadn’t bothered to lock it behind them. Not that it matters, she thought, hefting the Valtro in her arms. I’ve got a master key . . . She dropped the towel, chambered the first round, yanked the door open, and stepped inside. It banged shut behind her.
The Korean was standing by the rear of the truck, a clipboard in his hand. The black guy was out of sight. Al could hear the moan of the forklift’s hydraulics somewhere in the stacks. She pointed the shotgun at the Korean’s chest, held a finger to her lips. He looked at the gun, not at her, swallowed once, nodded.
Large cardboard boxes on pallets, stacked in metal racks that reached all the way to the ceiling. Stark white walls, unpainted concrete floors, harsh, bright mercury-vapor lights, white security camera high in a corner. She took a step away from the Korean, shifted her focus, fired twice. The shotgun jerked in her hands, making a satisfying roar right through the earplug
s. The ejected shells bounced across the floor as pieces of camera rained down from the ceiling. Damn, she thought, that feels good. All of a sudden I got the biggest dick in the room. The Korean’s eyes were wide, his face white as she pointed the gun back at his gut.
The black guy came running from the interior of the place. “Jesus Christ, Henry, what the fuck was . . .” He skidded to a stop when he saw her, the business end of the gun now pointed in his direction. “Holy shit, lady, do you have any idea . . .”
She peered over her sunglasses at him. “I tell you to talk?”
He shook his head, clamped his lips shut.
“Good.” She reached into a vest pocket, fished out a pair of handcuffs, and tossed them to him. “Put these on,” she said. “Around that column, over there. Just so you don’t get lost.” He wrapped his hands around the vertical steel I-beam, fastened himself in. Alessandra pointed the shotgun back at the Korean. “Step this way, Henry,” she said, and she backed toward the black guy. “Okay, that’s far enough. Stand right there.” She checked the cuffs. “You wait right here,” she said to the black guy. “Okay?”
He didn’t reply.
“Show me the rest of the security cameras, Henry.”
“Three more,” the Korean said. “In the corners.”
She pointed the gun at his head. “You wouldn’t want to hold out on me, Henry. It’s probably not worth it.”
He swallowed again. “Plus two more,” he said. “In the middle.”
“Show me.” He led her around, watched as she took them out one at a time. No wonder we love guns, she thought. So much power in such a compact machine, hold one in your hands and you’re Wonder Woman . . . They might get a few frames of her on tape somewhere, but she didn’t mind that. “All right, Henry,” she said, and she tossed him another pair of handcuffs. “Just like your friend, over there, but down this end. Over here.” She relaxed a bit once he was secured, let the gun hang from one hand as she wandered around the warehouse.
She hadn’t had time to look too carefully before. She examined the boxes as she walked past. Most of them held giant plasma television sets, surround-sound systems, and other audio and video equipment. The boxes, stacked on pallets, were parked in orange metal racks that took up about three-quarters of the floor space. Rows of plastic fifty-five-gallon drums occupied the rest of the space. The barrels wore colored paper tags bearing the word GLYCERIN.