Bloodroot

by Bill Loehfelm

  Al shot up in his seat then tilted a bit, looking for the first time like he might be really drunk.

  “All right, fuck both you bitches. So Cheri fills this fat cop’s head full of lies about me, she’s probably bobbin’ his knob like she was everyone else in the fuckin’ neighborhood, cokehead whore that she is, which, might I add, is why she was the problem to begin with, not me, and gives him my name, tag number, all kinds a shit. He’s got nothin’ else to do, the no-life-havin’ motherfucker, so late one night he pulls me over on the South Shore Expressway. He makes me spread ’em on the trunk and then suckers me with his flashlight when I ain’t lookin’. So I’m already all dizzy and when I turn around to even the score he shines that fuckin’ light right in my eyes, blindin’ me, and so I trip and twist up my ankle real bad and hit the pavement. Then, the pussy-whipped dicklicker that he is, Waters works out on me while I’m down, talking like a tough guy the whole time, when he’s really just a no-account sneaker.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s some story.”

  “The beauty is in the telling,” Danny said. “Some of it’s even true.”

  “In case I forgot to say so,” Al said, “fuck you bitches.”

  “Anyway,” Danny said, “the point is, Al, that this cop knows you.”

  “Fuck him. I don’t even drive the same car anymore.”

  “Is that what I should tell Bavasi,” Danny said, “when I gotta tell him you’ve been arrested?” He snapped his fingers in Al’s face. “Look at me, fool. When Kevin goes to see his girl, you leave them be. In fact, leave Kevin be at all times.”

  “It ain’t up to us,” Al said. “Fuck, Kevin here is about the most boring-ass motherfucker I ever met. You think I like following around after Mr. Excitement here? But Bavasi wants Kevin babysat until this is over.” Al shrugged. “It ain’t our call, D.”

  “Long as Al leaves Kelsey alone, I’m cool,” I said.

  “Well, thank fucking Christ,” Al said. “That’s a load off my fucking mind.”

  “I want them left alone,” Danny said. “Permanent. Let me worry about Bavasi. I got you covered.”

  Al threw up his hands. “Fine, fine. Just don’t fuck me, Danny. I don’t want Bavasi asking me for information that I oughta have and don’t got. You can’t lie to that guy, you know that.”

  “Trust me,” Danny said.

  Al scoffed and slid out of his seat. “Trust you? You’re a fucking junkie. I’m fuckin’ outta here.” He staggered away from the table. “Seems you two got everything figured out.”

  “Hey! Come back here!” I shouted. I tried to push past Danny. He wouldn’t budge.

  “Forget it,” Danny said. “It’s not like it ain’t true.”

  “What’s gotten into him?”

  Danny sighed. “He’s already in the doghouse over that shit with the bodies. Now he thinks he’s blown another assignment. I know what he’s thinking, that the minute you showed up his life hit the shitter.”

  “Me? All I’m doing is what you asked. Getting me involved was your idea, remember?”

  “Hey, forget it,” Danny said. “Al’s been on borrowed time for a while.”

  My brother seemed pretty nonchalant about Al’s situation. It didn’t seem to me that people got demoted in Santoro’s organization; they burned up at the dump. Danny plucked his cocktail straw from his drink and stuck it in his mouth.

  “What happens when Bavasi asks Al about me,” I said, “and Al’s got nothing to tell him?”

  “Relax. It’s not like Al’s gotta file a daily report,” Danny said. “He says nothing, Bavasi assumes nothing’s happening, at least for a while.” He sighed, rubbing his hands on his thighs. “Still, it’s probably best if we get things moving along. I did tell Bavasi that we’re making progress. Am I gonna go back to him with my dick in my hands?”

  I swallowed a huge mouthful of Jack and Coke. “Word around the office is that Friends of Bloodroot is nothing serious. Whitestone’s fucking with his bosses. There’s a position he wanted that he didn’t get. He’s getting his jollies being a thorn.”

  “Good news, I guess,” Danny said. He stared into his drink. He’d hardly touched it. “If this guy Whitestone was a real crusader, he could be a problem. How do we get him to back off?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But, listen, I’m gonna tell Whitestone I’m designing a class on Bloodroot, get on his good side for a change. I’ll learn more that way. I know the faculty in the group. I’ll get in touch with each of them and see what they know. In a couple of weeks I’ll have details. We can go from there.”

  Danny shook his head. “Santoro’s losing his patience.” He tossed his straw on the floor. “This bullshit’s already held him up almost a year. The longer Whitestone’s stupid vanity project hangs around, the more churches and charities and little old ladies start kicking in. We need an angle on the man. Somewhere to squeeze him. You need to work that meeting with him. If you can’t get something professional, get something personal.”

  “Jesus, Danny,” I said, raising my hands. “What do you want from me? I don’t like where this is going.”

  “Where’d you think it was gonna go?”

  I crossed my arms, sank deeper into the booth. I thought about Ida Horace. “I think the money keeps him going. He got a donation the other day worth at least ten grand. Why not just buy him off?”

  “Bribes mean establishing contact,” Danny said. “Starting a relationship. We don’t know Whitestone from Adam, if he’s greedy, if he scares easy. Can Whitestone be trusted to take his slice like a good soldier and keep his mouth shut? Is he smart enough to fool the IRS? You find these things out for us, maybe we can make that move.”

  While Danny talked, I watched the bartender flip channels on the TV. I didn’t need a meeting to know bribing Whitestone would never work. I’d just wanted an easy answer. You couldn’t take bribes in front of a camera, at least not the kind of camera that Whitestone liked. And once the payoffs started, he’d never let go. He’d be worse than that guy with the bad hairpiece in Goodfellas, always nagging after his money. Which meant Whitestone would come to the same bad end, as well. And it wouldn’t be Joe Pesci doing the job; it might be Danny.

  All our lives would be a lot easier, though, if Whitestone turned up dead. It was a horrible thought, but I couldn’t let it go. “How come no one’s just shot him?”

  “This ain’t the fucking movies, Kev,” Danny said. “Bodies are like bribes, they create a connection and lots of opportunities for mistakes. Our buddy Al Bruno’s a case in point. Execution is only for the most extreme circumstances. They’re never good business.” He reached across the table, grabbed my forearm. “And another thing. If I thought this gig involved killing, I’d never have brought you near it. What’s gotten into you?”

  I set my elbows on the table, put my face in my hands. I couldn’t believe I’d asked that question about killing Whitestone. Sure I didn’t like him, but Whitestone was a regular guy, with a job and a family and a life. Maybe a dog. I couldn’t believe I’d even for a moment wished him dead out loud and maybe just for a second meant it.

  Danny flicked his finger against the back of my hands. I swatted him away. “Get off.”

  “Don’t get twisted over this,” Danny said. “Have your meeting. Talk to these other people. Just do it soon and come back to me with—” He stopped, concern bunching the skin of his forehead. “I gotta ask you, who’s your source for this ‘word around the office’?”

  I waited too long to lie. “Nobody. It’s just an expression. You know, like ‘word on the street.’ ” I felt my pulse pounding under my ears, a headache coming on. I wanted to be home in my apartment, alone with all the lights out. “I talked to Kelsey.”

  “Bad, bad, bad,” Danny said, dropping his hands hard on the table. That swirl of menace bent the air again. “Tell me what she knows. Everything. This is very, very important.”

  “She doesn’t know anything,” I said. “I told her the same story
I told you, about the class.”

  “She bought it?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  Danny put his hand on my shoulder. “You can’t think. You have to know.”

  “She wants to help me plan the class.” I stared into Danny’s eyes until my own quivered in my skull. “That’s all this is to her. A new class I’m going to teach.”

  Danny squeezed my shoulder. “Let’s bail,” he said, standing. “I need a cigarette.”

  OUTSIDE, THE OCTOBER WIND kicked up baby twisters of pavement grit, candy wrappers, and dead leaves. Ducking our heads, pulling our jackets tighter across our chests, we lit up. Small clusters of smokers, all guys, gathered in front of the other bars, scratching at the concrete with their shoes like pigeons in a park as they checked us out. Everyone held their shoulders bunched high against the wind, some standing with their beers concealed up their sleeves. They were all strangers with no interest in my brother and me, but I felt watched anyway, like they’d been waiting for us and weren’t speaking because they wanted to hear what Danny and I would say. They looked to me like a silent jury.

  An old, grungy city bus, insides bright as an operating room, dropped two stooped, waddling passengers at the Shell station across the street. I’d be riding a bus just like it into work the next morning. The thought depressed me. I waited till the bus trundled away before I spoke.

  “Look, Danny. I just wanna—”

  “Not here,” Danny said, tossing a glance at the other smokers.

  We made a right off Forest, climbing a hilly street lined with tall old oaks, their roots bursting through the sidewalk, their twisted, leafless branches ashen in the streetlights. Above us, thick black power lines stretched from the light posts to peak-roofed brick houses like the cords of a busted net. Aged sedans slumbered in driveways, abandoned to the elements outside garages stuffed with bad paintings, beaten-down lawn mowers, one-wheeled bikes, and busted bowling trophies. Rusty, padlocked chain-link fences framed every scraggly yard, a BEWARE OF DOG sign hung beside every lock. I didn’t hear any barking as we passed house after house. I didn’t hear anything but the wind in the trees and the occasional burble of a television. Danny stopped us at a dark corner where the streetlight had burned out.

  “You got nothing to worry about,” I said.

  “Cut Kelsey out of it,” Danny said. “This bullshit about the class. Cut her out completely. Tell her you gave up on the idea.”

  “She’ll have no trouble believing me,” I said, looking back down the hill, running my fingers through my hair. Man, how was I going to tell her that? Her believing in me, even under false pretenses, had felt so good. I didn’t want to go back to the same old Kevin. “I’m not dumping her. I won’t.”

  “Damn right you’re not,” Danny said. “In fact, you better keep her happy. Last thing we need is some pissed-off woman riding your shit. I could tell by looking at her, that woman gets scary mean. When’re you gonna tell her about the fake class going to hell?”

  “Shit, I don’t know.”

  “Tomorrow,” Danny said. “Tonight.”

  “Is she really in that much danger?” I asked.

  “Again with her,” Danny said, rolling his eyes. “I’m talking about us. You and me, Kev. The family.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s just . . .” I spread my arms, dropped them to my sides. “She’s where my brain goes first these days.”

  “Not just your brain,” Danny said.

  “Gimme a break here. You know what I mean.”

  “Sorry, sorry,” Danny said, shaking his palms at me. “Let’s talk serious a minute. How much do you like this girl?”

  I didn’t want to lie to myself or to Danny. Now did not seem like the time. “A lot. More than I thought I would. More than I should, considering the circumstances.”

  “How well do you know her?” Danny asked.

  I knew where he was heading. “Not as well as I should, considering the circumstances.”

  “Exactly,” Danny said. “So here’s what you’re facing.” He held out one hand. “Either you keep spinning lies about what you’re doing, each time increasing both the guilt and the chances she catches you, and I know you, you’ll fold under questioning.” He opened his other hand. “Or you come clean and tell her the truth, which puts her, me, and you in danger.”

  Dry leaves crunched under Danny’s feet as he moved closer to me, setting his hands on my shoulders. My lungs felt a lot like those leaves, parched and frail. Danny’s eyes glittered in the fractured light coming through the trees.

  “This isn’t a game we’re playing, Kev. We’re not working on our extortion merit badges here. The construction contracts for those dorms are worth fifty million. Santoro’s got those contracts and more. Clearing the land, a ten-year maintenance contract for the dorms. All he needs to chow down is that fat little fly Whitestone plucked from the grease so the state’ll release the money. We get to be the fingers, hardly even get dirty. For that we get five percent. Two-fifty large to start, split three ways.” He shrugged. “Two if Al doesn’t make the finish line. That’s life-changing money, Kev.” He raised a forefinger. “But here’s the punch line. If we fuck it up, Santoro will eat us alive. Us and everyone around us that might’ve played a part. But . . . but if we do right, we’ll be set. And free to spread the wealth.”

  “I thought this was about destroying Bloodroot,” I said. “About you burying the past. Now you tell me it’s about money.”

  “Let me ask you this,” Danny said. “If it was just about the money, and it’s not, but if it was, would you be in or out?”

  “In,” I said. I wanted to believe different, but that wasn’t the truth. I fumbled through my pockets, searching for my smokes. “God, what does that make me?”

  “Not some kind of monster, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Danny said. “It makes you smart. A red-blooded American.”

  He leaned aside, peering over my shoulder. I turned in time to see curtains fall across a window. “That’s the third time,” Danny said. “Let’s get moving before one of these sinister old biddies calls the cops on us.”

  I turned back toward Forest Avenue but Danny walked the other way. He pulled keys from his pocket and the parking lights on a black, two-door Saturn flashed at us.

  “I’ll give you a ride home,” Danny said.

  “When did you get this?”

  “Today,” Danny said. He pulled open the driver-side door. “I promise you, no way Kelsey makes this car.” He shook his head. “Fuckin’ Al. He refuses to learn the finer points of our business. Like that it’s bad when the whole world knows you’re a criminal. One day it’s gonna cost him.”

  I climbed in the passenger seat. “It’s got that new-car smell. I love that smell. Not that I’ve ever had a new car.”

  “That could change real soon.” Danny lit a cigarette. “That smell everyone loves? Fucking formaldehyde.”

  DANNY EASED THE SATURN to the curb outside my apartment. He reached across the car for my arm when I opened the door. I closed it and turned to him, waiting.

  “I have an idea,” Danny said, tapping his temple. “Something that might speed things up.”

  “I’m all ears,” I said. I lit a cigarette and hung my elbow out the window.

  “Can you get me into Whitestone’s office?”

  “I don’t like this idea already,” I said. “I thought you said no contact with anyone but me.”

  “Relax,” Danny said. “We can bend the rules a wee bit this one time. You can just say yes or no and I’ll take it from there.”

  Cigarette dangling from my lips, I rubbed my hands up and down my thighs. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  Danny turned in his seat, framing an imaginary box with his hands. “Okay, listen to this. You get me in. I slip some equipment into his office, his computer, simple shit I’ve already got at the apartment, and then we kick back and wait. Why hunt him down when we can set a trap? I’ll know in a week or two if he’s stealing t
he money and we can confront him with that. He’ll fold. Bang, we’re paid and done.” He brought his hands together, as if in prayer. “Just me and you on this. No Al. No Kelsey. Everyone stays safe and clean.”

  “Everyone except you and me,” I said. “Shit, Danny, you’re talking about breaking and entering, just to start with. On city property, no less. I know this is Staten Island but after nine-eleven everything’s locked down tight.”

  “Not everything,” Danny said. “That’s simply impossible. Besides we’re not breaking, we’re just entering. You work there. You have a key. You have perfectly legal twenty-four-hour access to the building.”

  I was about to answer when a blinding light hit my eyes. I shaded my face with my hands and watched the patrol car glide up beside us, coming to rest with its driver and Danny inches apart. Danny already had his hands at ten and two on the wheel.

  “Passenger,” the driver cop said, “put your hands on the dash.”

  I did as I was told, my cigarette warm on my knuckles as it burned down to the filter.

  My eyes sideways, I watched the other cop lean forward. “Everything okay here, gentlemen?”

  “It’s all good, Officers,” Danny said. “I’m dropping my brother off at his apartment.”

  “That true?” driver cop asked me.

  “Absolutely,” I said, tilting my head toward my building. “Mine’s the one with the balcony.”

  “Face me, passenger,” the cop said. He pursed his lips, nodding. “Right, I know you. I’ve seen you up there. You’re the guy who sits outside all night and never sees anything. What’s your name again?”

  “Kevin. Kevin Curran.”

  “It ain’t the safest move, Misters Curran,” passenger cop said, “to be sitting out here in a new car. Maybe you wanna finish your conversation indoors?”

  “You’re right,” Danny said. “Will do.”

  The patrol car eased away, both officers staring straight ahead.