by Tod Goldberg
This was going to be on the news. Probably nationally.
What I didn’t see was a gold Lincoln. Lyle Connors was behind a desk somewhere following all this on his BlackBerry while sitting in a management course. A good leader has plausible deniability. A great leader has actual deniability.
I also didn’t see a white van. Where was Sam?
“You can get up now,” I said.
“How do you know?” Nate said.
“If you ever see more blue lights in your house than blood, you’re safe.”
Nate checked himself. No wounds. My mother stood up, walked into the kitchen, pulled open a drawer and a pack of cigarettes and immediately lit up. “If I’m going to die,” she said, “it will be on my terms.”
Maria just sat dazed next to Nate, absently petting her dog. This had not been a particularly good week in Maria’s life.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Pretty far from that,” she said. “Can I go home?”
“Soon,” I said.
I looked back outside. Still no Sam, but also no Bruce. I knew Sam could take care of himself and I knew, if given a rope, Bruce had the capacity to tie his own noose. That he-or his body-wasn’t outside was good. If they’d already managed to kill him, it’s likely the Ghouls wouldn’t have bothered with the possible slaughterhouse of an entire household in a quiet Miami neighborhood.
“Maria,” I said, “do you have somewhere safe you can go if need be? A place where your family won’t be under any duress?”
“I have a cousin in Ohio,” she said.
“Ohio is nice this time of year,” I said.
There was a knock on the back door and then it began to open with the same perceptible creak it has had since 1981.
“Get the boiling water!” Zadie shouted.
“Easy there, Toots,” came a voice, followed by the welcome vision of Sam Axe, a Stella in one hand, a gun in the other.
“Where have you been?” I asked.
“Setting the van on fire,” he said.
“I thought that was a rental,” I said.
“Technically, yes, it belonged to a rental company.” Sam kicked off his shoes and plopped down on the sofa. “You know what I like?” he said.
“Being alive?”
“That the Banshees and Ghouls fight Civil War style. One on one side, one on the other. And then everyone goes bang-bang. John Wayne would be proud.”
“Any sighting of Bruce?” I said quietly, lest Zadie start to worry.
“Nope,” Sam said. “Mikey, I don’t have a great feeling about this.”
“No,” I said. I called Fiona to tell her we, at least, were all alive.
“I know,” she said.
“Where are you?”
“I ditched the car a few blocks away and am now standing at the end of the street surrounded by senior citizens in tears. Seems they never knew their neighborhood was a hotbed for criminal activity, or at least it hasn’t been since those Westen boys moved away.”
“Yeah,” I said, “listen. There’s still no sign of Bruce.”
“He’s a cagey one, Michael. He’s probably fine.”
“Keep an eye out,” I said and hung up.
I checked my watch. We didn’t have much time before the police would begin canvassing the neighborhood for information, which meant a bunch of people with a cache of guns and dubious backstories was not going to be good news for anyone.
“Listen up,” I said. “In about ten minutes a cop is going to come to the door. Ma, I need you to collect all of the guns and put them in the laundry room. Inside the dryer and the washing machine will be fine. Put the shotgun in a closet. Maria, for the next hour, you and Nate are a couple and you’ve come over for lunch to meet Nate’s mother. Okay?”
Maria nodded once. Nate seemed happier about this than was reasonable for the circumstances.
“Zadie, you’re…” I paused. “Zadie, you just be yourself.”
“What about me, Mike?” Sam asked.
“You’re Sam Axe, friend to the helpless and downtrodden,” I said.
“Got it.”
I sat down next to Sam on the sofa and took a sip of his beer.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I have no idea anymore,” I said.
It took two hours, but the police eventually came by my mother’s house.
“Everyone okay here?” the cop asked. He was looking at his notebook and didn’t even bother to make eye contact with me.
“Fine, fine,” I said. “Just ruined a nice afternoon for us is all.”
“Seems like there was an explosion here a few months ago?”
“Yes,” I said. By my count, there’d probably been five or six in the last two years. “Faulty wiring. You know how these old houses are.”
“There a good reason there’s razor wire in the bushes out front?”
“My mother’s house has been egged repeatedly by neighbor kids,” I said.
The cop finally looked up at me now with something close to sympathy in his eyes. “Kids can make you crazy.”
“Indeed,” I said.
The cop asked a couple of questions: Had we seen anything prior to the shoot-out? Did we know of any gang members who lived on the street? Had any of us seen a white van in the area? — and after we lied sufficiently, he asked if I had any questions before he left.
“Any idea why they chose here to fight?” I asked.
He turned his palms over. “Who knows, right? Stupid people do stupid things.”
The cop was right, of course, but that didn’t explain where Bruce Grossman was.
After the police allowed us to leave, Sam and I took Maria back to her house but told her now was the time to see what life in Ohio looked like, but to stay in contact as we still didn’t know if we’d need her. The scene outside my mother’s house was grisly, enough so that it seemed likely all the players involved would have much larger concerns than the fact that one guy ripped them off for money, and information, and pride.
Still, I wasn’t convinced Bruce was alive. Fiona may have been correct about his cageyness, but I was more concerned with finding something concrete, so Sam and I drove back to Zadie’s house to see if there was any sign of him. The house looked from the outside precisely the way we’d left it-which is to say, the glass front door was broken and inside the house, tire tracks and cat heads were everywhere.
“I’m gonna guess Zadie will want this cleaned up before she moves back in,” Sam said.
“That sounds like a good way for Nate to apologize,” I said.
We moved room to room, guns out, just in case someone else was there who maybe wasn’t so friendly. When we stepped into Bruce’s bedroom, it was empty except for a single envelope on the floor with my name on the front.
“You think it’s Dolphins season tickets?” Sam said.
I opened it up and Sam and I read the letter inside: I wanted to say thank you for all of your help. I spoke with Barry and he’s going to set up care for my mother in that place you guys talked about, too, I guess. I’ve spent the last 12 years in prison and I’m not about to go back to prison again, even if it’s a whole state.
Have you ever been to that place? It’s a sweet idea, but
I’m 65. I’ll get the rest of my money to Barry shortly and then I’ll send more when my mother needs it. I’ve got a couple of places I want to check out first, if you know what I mean. Thanks again and thank Fiona for making me feel alive again. Oh-one other thing: I re- turned all of the Ghouls’ paperwork to them while they were busy plotting my death this evening. I’m good to my word, Michael, as you were to yours.
Bruce
I folded the letter in half and in half again and then ripped it into tiny pieces.
“Barry told him the truth,” I said.
“Mike,” Sam said, “they’re friends. What did you expect?”
“This was a chance for Bruce to go completely straight,” I said.
“Just lik
e you?” Sam said. “You maybe thinking about taking a job as a security guard at a bank now? Wasn’t that someone’s bright idea once?”
We walked outside and stood for a moment on the front porch and just looked at the empty street. It was late and the air had turned cool. There were only a few more nights like this left before summer would make even the latest hour feel like noon.
A gold Lincoln pulled down the street then and stopped right in front of the house. The back window rolled down and Lyle Connors stared out at us. He blinked once and then stepped out of his car and walked toward us.
“Hello, Lyle,” I said.
“Jasper,” he said. “If that’s your name.”
“It isn’t,” I said.
Lyle ran his tongue over his lips, but he couldn’t stop himself from smiling. “Fed?”
“If I were a fed,” I said, “you’d be in prison. But it’s early yet, so you never know.”
“I could have you killed,” he said.
“No, you couldn’t,” I said.
“Well, regardless, my offer to you stands. I like how you work.”
“You’re a criminal, Lyle,” I said. “And by tomorrow at this time, I can promise you that your world will be crashing down around you.”
“I’m Teflon, like Gotti.”
“Gotti’s dead,” Sam said, which caused Lyle to take a step back from us. “And just like you, he was surrounded by guys who snitched him out.”
“Who are you?” Lyle said to me. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t even sad, though he should have been, since news reports said at least twenty-five men were dead between the two gangs. He actually sounded genuinely curious. Maybe he just wanted to know who was going to be behind his eventual perp walk.
“My name is Michael Westen,” I said. “I’m a spy.”
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