Hard Aground

by Brendan DuBois

  “Right. Negotiations. Yeah, we went there, wanted to talk, and we started dealing … and it didn’t end well.” He laughed. “Man, that old broad, she might have known the prices and shit for old pots and pans, but she didn’t know anything about our business. That’s for sure. Silly old lady wanted a senior discount. Hey, Ramon, remember that?”

  He quickly spoke Spanish to Ramon, who grinned and nodded, and spoke back. “Yeah,” Pepe said. “Gotta give her a lot of credit for that. Senior discount. Tough one.”

  “She was born tough.”

  “Huh?”

  “Her family, they’ve been here since 1638, when the first settlers came here. A long line of tough men and women. So, you sure you didn’t kill her?”

  Pepe shook his head. “Christ, why the hell would we do that? She got pissed at us, told us that if we didn’t get out in thirty seconds, she’d call the cops. At first we thought she was joking, but she picked up her phone, so we got the hell out. Quick.”

  “But no hard feelings?”

  “No hard feelings, shit, no. I mean, that was the negotiations, you know? Opening salvo, everybody talks shit, and then you go back. Why would we want to hurt her? A nice piece of change, us doing business with an old lady like that. Who would ever suspect she’d be part of our business?”

  “I see, but—”

  He held up both hands. “Okay. Shut up, okay? Christ, I’m the one who came here, I’m the one wanting to ask questions, and I’ve been answering yours the past few minutes. Asshole.”

  I kept quiet. He stared at me. I still kept quiet.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re not talking.”

  “You haven’t asked me anything.”

  There was a bit of noise from Ramon, as though he heard what I said and understood I was giving some grief to his boss. “Okay,” Pepe said. “Back to the beginning. This Felix guy, he’s after us ’cause he thinks we stole his silver, that’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “But … none of my guys took it.”

  “Felix thinks otherwise,” I said. “Are you sure one of your guys didn’t slip it under a coat while you were running out?”

  He didn’t like that. “We wasn’t running away from nothing. We were just moving quick. And no, I don’t think my guys took it. Why does he have such a hard-on about it?”

  “It belonged to his great-grandfather. From Sicily.”

  “So? If it was so important, why was he trying to sell it to that antiques lady?”

  “It was cluttering up his house.”

  “Okay,” Pepe said. “Was it worth a lot of money? Is that it?”

  I shook my head. “I’m no antiques dealer. It could be worth money, it could be worth nothing. I don’t know.”

  He grinned. “Nah, it’s gotta be worth lots of money, with Felix wanting it back so much. Lots of money.”

  “No.”

  “Huh? You said earlier you didn’t know how much it was worth.”

  “I don’t,” I said. “But don’t assume that Felix is after you because that silver is worth money. It could be a cardboard plate and he’d still be after you. Because it’s his, and because he thinks you stole it.”

  That seemed to get his attention. “Too bad.”

  “No, too bad for you,” I said.

  “From what I heard, he’s old-fashioned. Boston North End, all that crap. Those tough guys, those made guys, they’re either dead or in jail. Why should we be scared of him?”

  “Because he’s not dead, and he’s not in jail.”

  “Can you tell him to back off?”

  “I can suggest it, but don’t think it’ll mean anything.”

  “You’re his friend.”

  “I’m his friend as much as one can be, but that doesn’t mean I can tell him to do something he doesn’t want to. You want a suggestion? You visit all your companions, and make sure nobody took that platter. If somebody has, you can contact me and I’ll work with Felix to set up a nice, peaceful exchange. And if nobody has it, well, come up with a way to convince him otherwise.”

  He nodded and rubbed at his chin. “I got another idea. Maybe Ramon beats the shit out of you, sends a message to Felix not to fuck with us. Or maybe Ramon goes the distance, you know? Settle things once and for all. Really get Felix’s attention, so this damn thing is over.”

  The air was cold and crisp in the living room, with an electric edge to it. I had no illusions of what was happening, or might happen.

  “Beyond purely personal reasons, I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Pepe grinned. “Why’s that, bro?”

  “You keep on calling me bro,” I said, “but we’re not related.”

  “Like I care.”

  “Then care about this,” I said. “If you’re going to come at me, you better finish it. Otherwise the cops will be coming after you even harder.”

  “That sounds like an invite.”

  “Then tell me how this sounds. You finish it, the cops are going to check out the surveillance cameras over at the Lafayette House, keeping an eye on their parking lot and whoever comes down my driveway. Then they’ll go through my house—maybe politely stepping over my body—and they’re going to get your prints off the beer bottles, the kitchen, the furniture, the front door, and a host of other places. Now, I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure you boys have records somewhere in the law enforcement community.”

  “Cops don’t bother me.”

  “But I’m not done.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” I said. “Earlier you said Felix is my friend. Pretty close to the truth. After he oversees my funeral and gets my affairs in order, he’s coming after you.”

  “He’s already coming after us.”

  “No, he’s merely trying to get something back that he thinks you clowns took. That’s not coming after you. If I’m dead or severely injured, he’s going after every one of you, your friends, your family, your first-grade teacher. That’s coming after you. Got that?”

  Pepe stared at me and I stared right back at him.

  The staring went on.

  He got up and said, “You tell that Felix guy, you tell him to lighten up, okay? We’ll be in touch.”

  “I’m sure he’ll look forward to it.”

  Pepe spoke to Ramon, he spoke back, and the two of them left my house.

  But not before Pepe stopped at a bookcase, slipped out a book, and held it up.

  “This looks cool,” he said. “And see? No misunderstandings. I’m taking it.”

  It was a copy of John Keegan’s The Face of Battle, autographed to me personally by the now-deceased author.

  The two left and shut the door behind them.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I stared at the closed door, feeling like a sixth-grader who just got beat up for his lunch money by a couple of playground bullies.

  Those two galoots had taken one of my prized possessions, and I had sat here and watched them do it. Damn.

  I got up from the couch, went over to the kitchen, opened up a drawer, and took out my .32 Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol. I checked the magazine and action, put it on safe, and then tucked it into my left pajama pocket. My pajamas sagged but I didn’t care.

  I called Felix and there was no answer, but I left a message. I wandered around until Diane called. “Gotta make this quick,” she said. “You up for dinner tomorrow?”

  “That would be great, thanks.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “Never better,” I said.

  “I think you’re lying, but I don’t have the time to figure it out. Later.”

  “You got it.”

  Then the night was all mine.

  I spent a few minutes rearranging some of my books so it didn’t look like I was living in the middle of a paint sample emporium, and then I made some toast and scrambled eggs for a late-night snack. All the adrenaline burning through my system after mee
ting Pepe and his big friend had made me hungry. I even placed the eggs on a plate, instead of eating from the frying pan, which seemed like another sign of progress.

  After cleaning up, I went upstairs and measured my blood and fluid output, which was holding stable. Good to know that it wasn’t increasing, but it wasn’t declining either, meaning the drains weren’t coming out soon. Damn. I was tired of feeling half-man, half-machine.

  I stretched out on the bed and watched some more Band of Brothers, and as I was dozing off, the phone rang. It was Paula.

  “How are you doing?” she asked.

  “Doing all right,” I said. “You got a good room over there in the Hub of the Universe?”

  “Pretty good,” she said, “since the paper’s owners are paying for it. I’m considering doing some room service later.”

  “You wild woman, you,” I said, and her laughter warmed me right through.

  “Actually, some of us survivors of the newspaper age are gathering in the bar later to reminisce and plan our survival techniques.”

  “Boy, it makes changing out my little sacks of blood twice a day look like fun in comparison, right?”

  Paula said something about waiting to be with my healthy body again, which warmed me even more. “You know, it looks like there might be a future in newspapers after all,” she said. “If we can just get our bearings back … and not worry so much about making owners halfway across the country rich.”

  “You’ll figure it out, young lady. If anybody can do it, you can.”

  “Thanks. I’ll call you in the morning, okay?”

  “Please do.”

  I was awake now and decided to make one more round of the house, in case Pepe and his man-mountain decided to pay me a late-night visit. I got out of bed, tickled that I could actually move without hurting anything, and then went downstairs with cane in hand. I found enough energy to reshelf one more bookcase and then, exhausted, I switched off the lights.

  Just in time to see someone peeking in one of my living room windows.

  I moved over to the entryway, flipped on the outside lights, opened the door, and leaned out.

  A shadow, flickering its way up my driveway, and soon out of sight.

  “Hey!” I called out.

  No answer, not that I expected one.

  It was nice to know that my trespasser was aware that I was awake. But who was it?

  I flipped off the lights, moved back in, and shut and locked the door. In the darkness I said, “For an old house way off the road, we’re sure as hell getting a lot of visitors.”

  Suddenly quite tired, I put my .32 Smith & Wesson back in the kitchen drawer and went to bed, making sure my Beretta was within easy reach. I stretched out, switched off the nightstand light, and stared up at the darkness. Nothing was happening, which should have comforted me, but it did the opposite.

  I called Felix in the morning and didn’t get him at home, but I did get him on his cell phone. He said he was busy, but when I told him who visited me the night before he said he’d be right over and hung up the phone.

  Less than an hour later we were having crepes and bacon in my kitchen. When I started to say something to Felix, he had shook his head and kept on eating.

  “Later,” he said. “The older I’ve gotten, the more I want to enjoy my meals without any negative energy.”

  I nearly spat out a bite of crepe. “Negative energy? For real? What’s next, healing crystals? Pyramid models? Feng shui for your gun collection?”

  He just smiled and we continued eating.

  When he had washed and I had dried, we sat on opposite sides of the kitchen counter, coffee mugs in hand. “All right,” Felix said. “Go ahead. Tell me about your misadventures with the bluebirds of happiness.”

  I talked and talked. Felix just sat there, listening, and only asked a couple of questions. One was right at the beginning—“He nailed you in the chin?”—and the second question was at the end.

  “Which book did he take?”

  “The Face of Battle by John Keegan.”

  “Valuable?”

  “To me,” I said. “It’s a signed first edition, made out to me. And he’s been dead for a couple of years.”

  “Damn,” Felix said. “All right, I’ll make sure I get that back.”

  “Felix …”

  “What, did I say something wrong?”

  I smiled. “Come on, Felix. With all that’s going on, you’re going to get my book back?”

  “What, you don’t think I can multitask?”

  “I have no doubt of any of your talents.”

  “All right, then,” he said, and then he stared out my sliding glass doors to my first-floor deck. “Funny story Pepe told you.”

  “Didn’t seem funny at the time.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t mean funny in the hah-hah sense, but funny in the peculiar sense. He and his gang of drug dealers show up at Maggie’s home … ready to be her dealer. Things go badly, and away they go. But at some point, Maggie is visited again by a killer who tears the place apart, and blows her head off.”

  “That’s about what they said. You believe them?”

  With a sharpness in his voice, Felix said, “Many, many years ago, probably about the time you were trying to save America from the godless communists, I learned something important. Never, ever, trust drug dealers or drug users. Never. No matter how sincere they sound, no matter how proper and smooth and good-looking or educated, never trust anybody involved with drugs.”

  “You want to tell me more?”

  “No,” he said.

  A moment passed, and I caught a glimpse of something in Felix’s past that he didn’t want to share. A rare experience, but not one to be savored.

  “So you can see why I doubt Pepe’s sincerity.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Still, he made a strong case that they didn’t have anything to do with your silver.”

  “Maybe,” he said, and Felix rotated his wrist so I could see the bandage there. “Now he wants to talk. His folks didn’t want to talk earlier.”

  “Everybody makes mistakes now and then.”

  “Sure,” Felix said. “Still … then who killed Maggie?”

  “Maybe it was another visitor, right after Pepe left. Maybe one of Pepe’s crew came back and things got out of hand. Or …”

  I hesitated, but Felix wouldn’t let me hesitate for long.

  “Go on.”

  “You know there was one other person in the vicinity, somebody with a criminal record.”

  “I do?”

  “Felix. The man you had conducting a surveillance in the neighborhood. What, was he a Boy Scout leader? A church deacon? He was working for you.”

  “But—”

  His eyes narrowed. I could tell Felix wasn’t happy, and I sensed it was for two reasons: one, I had pointed out something he had missed, and two, the idea that someone under his hire might have been the one who had killed Maggie Branch.

  When I thought it was safe, I said, “Who is he?”

  “Rudy Gennaro.”

  “What’s his background?”

  “From my old haunts, until he went south to Providence. A dumb move. The North End gets all the news while Providence keeps its head down and focuses on business. Rudy thought that because he had the North End heritage, that gave him some weight and muscle when he went to Rhode Island. It didn’t.”

  “You rescue him?”

  “As a favor.”

  “For whom?”

  Felix’s face relaxed a bit, like he was recalling a fond memory. “An old girlfriend,” he said. “Evie. She begged me. So I said yes. And now the knucklehead stays on the North Shore, does some errands and jobs for me.”

  “What’s his criminal background?”

  “This and that. Burglary. Loansharking. Passing on TVs and computer equipment that fell off someone’s truck.”

  “But anything violent?”

  That caused another pause from Felix, and I could sense he was w
orking behind those cold brown eyes.

  “Once,” he admitted. “He was set to go on an armored car heist, set up by a crew from Charlestown. In Charlestown, that’s pretty much a local business, like a town that has a coal mine or paper mill. That and robbing banks. Their proud community heritage. Thing was, Rudy wasn’t part of the crew. He was an add-on, because one of the other crew members got his skull beaten in at some tavern.”

  “Occupational hazard,” I observed.

  “Always,” he said. “Anyway, they did this job in Connecticut. Went well for all concerned. Guards were tied up, weren’t even shoved around much. Nice little chunk of change. But when it came time to divvy up the loot, Rudy ended up with the short end of the stick. There were three others in the crew. Ten percent was sliced off the top to pay tribute to whoever was in charge that month, before the Feds snagged him. Rudy was expecting the rest of the haul to be split four ways. But in the end, he only got ten grand.”

  “And ten thousand dollars wasn’t a quarter of what was left?”

  “Not even close. Rudy tried to sweet talk his way into getting a bigger cut, and the head of the crew basically told him that he should be happy with the ten grand. That Rudy was hired as a one-off, that he wasn’t part of the regular crew, and that he should be grateful he was getting money instead of two in the back of the head.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think Rudy should have negotiated the payoff before the show commenced, but anyway, things escalated real quick. There was some fighting, some gunshots in the air, and it was only by the slimmest of all margins that Rudy and the other three walked away with most of their blood supply intact. And he told me something later.”

  “Like what? To ask you to help with the negotiating next time?”

  “No,” Felix said. “Rudy told me, ‘Felix, the next time I’m next to a major score and I’m in a position to take it, I’m gonna take it. Period.’”

  Outside, the sky was slowly becoming overcast, and a fog bank was slowly obscuring the Isles of Shoals.

  “How long did he do that surveillance for you?”

  “A week.”

  “Long enough to case out the rest of the neighborhood.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Long enough to see an old farmhouse there filled up with antiques, including gold coins, jewelry, some antique silver.”