Dead Cat Bounce

by Norman Green

  “And that is…”

  Stoney grimaced. “He defuses situations, when that seems possible. He discourages, ahh, the more impulsive among Gregory’s business associates. And he keeps Gregory out of trouble and Gregory’s name out of the newspaper. And he is very well compensated for his services.”

  “He’s the designated adult, then.”

  Stoney managed a brief, painful smile. “It does seem that way at times.”

  Prior stared at Stoney. “Please forgive the inquisition,” he said. “I like to know something about the people I do business with, and intel on Gregory Ahn is remarkably sparse.”

  “That’s not an accident, Mr. Prior.”

  “I understand. Well, when I last spoke to Martin, I mentioned that I would need to get more liquid if I were to decide to invest with Ahn. In my case, for reasons we do not need to go into, that involves selling some diamonds.”

  “Martin told me that,” Stoney said.

  “Martin said not to do it,” Prior said. “He seemed to think that Gregory Ahn would be interested in buying my diamonds himself. Would you care to tell me why that is? Because I have to tell you, from what little I know about him, it seems a safe bet that I would come out on the losing end of any transaction I might conduct with Mr. Ahn.”

  “That is a consideration,” Stoney said. “Martin mentioned the sum of five million.”

  Prior nodded. “I thought I would start small, and see how things progressed.”

  “Understandable,” Stoney said. “All right. Here’s my suggestion: take your merchandise and have it appraised by someone you trust. Separate out the five million dollars’ worth you were thinking of selling. Mr. Ahn, Martin, and myself will meet you in a diamond broker’s office in Manhattan, who, acting in Mr. Ahn’s interest, will appraise them as well. Once you and Mr. Ahn have mutually agreed on a value, you can choose whether to proceed or withdraw. Does that sound fair to you?”

  Prior stared at him for a minute. “I have certain security procedures,” he said.

  “Whatever,” Stoney said. “Do what you need to do to make yourself comfortable. There’s just one other thing.”

  “And that is?”

  “This is more in the way of a suggestion. Mr. Ahn is going to be fascinated with your story. If I were you, I would resist the impulse to tell it. I would allow Mr. Ahn’s imagination to fill in the blanks, that way he’ll be less tempted to initiate a pissing contest. Dealing with Mr. Ahn can sometimes be problematic, and the more mysterious you are, the more pliable he is likely to remain.”

  Prior leaned on the table. “I’ve seen his type before,” he said. “It’s a sickness. Has nothing to do with how brilliant Ahn may or may not be, the fact is, his predatory instinct is so overpowering, he can’t control it. If there’s another living thing in his sights, he can’t rest until he’s killed it.”

  Stoney nodded. “Killed it or fucked it.”

  “And the more time you spend with him, the more he tears at you.”

  Harman was right, Stoney thought. This guy already hates Cho so much, he can’t keep from engaging. Why is it, he thought, that the moth always winds up with his wings on fire…? “You could look at it that way,” he said.

  “How do you stand working for him? Is the money he’s paying you worth the damage he does?”

  Stoney closed his eyes, pretending that his head was throbbing, then he opened them and looked at Prior. “It’s just a job, Mr. Prior. When it ends, and however it ends, I’m sure I’ll find another one.”

  “Lawyers,” Prior said. He stood up, looked at Stoney with a half smile on his face. “I could never understand the way you people think. All right. I can have five million in diamonds ready to go tomorrow.”

  “That soon?” Stoney massaged his forehead. “I’ll try to get the meeting set up for tomorrow afternoon.”

  Bernard Finbury stared at Stoney, a sour expression on his thin face. “Took you long enough,” he said, after a minute.

  “Yeah, well, you ain’t the only blip on the screen, Bern. I been busy. But you know, you got shit locks on your doors.”

  “You went inside?” There was a hint of outrage in Finbury’s voice. Stoney was sitting in a white plastic chair on the front porch of Finbury’s house in the exclusive East Hill section of Demarest, New Jersey. “That’s breaking and entering! I got you for unlawful entry, I got—”

  “You got en gatz en a culo,” Stoney said calmly, and the end of his cigarette glowed orange in the gathering dark. “That’s what you got. Why don’t you sit down?” He shoved one of the other plastic chairs in Finbury’s direction. Finbury looked at it for a minute, then climbed up on the porch, pushed the chair around so it faced Stoney, and sat down in it.

  “What does that mean, anyhow?” he said. “I always wondered.”

  “A dick in the ass,” Stoney told him. “Listen, I don’t know if I said it before or not, but I’m sorry about your mother.”

  Finbury thought about that for a while. “Thank you,” he said finally. “Your parents alive?”

  “No.” Stoney sucked on his cigarette. “I was a great disappointment to my mother,” he said.

  “So was I,” Finbury said.

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “No. She never understood why I wanted to work with my hands. She wanted what all Jewish mothers want, she wanted me to be a doctor. So I build houses, and I make more money than most doctors, but she could never get it. She only saw the work clothes instead of the suit. She tried not to show it, though.”

  “You build this house?” Stoney had taken a quick tour of the place after he disabled the alarm. It was big, new, and it had all the modern conveniences, but it had the soul of a Holiday Inn.

  “Yeah. After the divorce.” Finbury shook his head. “Just had to have a bigger place than the ex. Stupid. You come here about those two guys I had shadowing you?”

  “Yeah. I’m guessing they were unofficial, right? Friends of yours.”

  Finbury shrugged. “They’re from the Tenafly PD. I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I gave them a few bucks to watch you,” he said. “I’m not sure how good those guys in Westwood are. You’re all I got.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “She didn’t deserve to die that way.”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “I’ll pull those guys off,” Finbury said. “They were getting pretty sick of you, anyhow.”

  “You’ll probably have to go bail on them, first,” Stoney said.

  “What? What happened?”

  “New York’s finest showed up while your guys were out front and carted their asses away. I would guess weapons charges. Something like that.”

  “Oh, fuck. How did you pull that off?”

  “My partner knows this guy on the Job in Midtown. The guy’s brother got bagged at a DUI checkpoint in Fort Lee a couple of weeks ago. He seemed to think all Jersey cops are a bunch of hard-ons.”

  “Shit. Am I gonna have to try and do something about the DUI?”

  “Probably.”

  Finbury sighed. “What are those things you’re smoking?”

  “Kools.”

  “Gimme one.”

  Stoney passed one over, along with his lighter. Finbury stuck the cigarette in his mouth, lit it up, then inhaled, eyes closed. “God,” he said, exhaling. “God, I missed these things.” He inhaled again. “You know who did it, don’t you?”

  It was Stoney’s turn to think for a minute. “Yeah,” he finally said. “I got a pretty good idea.”

  “You gonna give him up to me? Look, maybe you look at me and you see ‘carpenter,’ okay, but I got connections. You don’t get to be a successful contractor in Jersey without knowing how to solve problems, if you get my drift.”

  “You’ll never find anybody good enough to take him down,” Stoney said. “You’ll only get your guy killed. This dude is a pro.” He told Finbury a little about Prior’s background, but without giving him a name. “Matter of fact
,” he said, “you get the cops to investigate the guy, the feds will come in and shut you down. Then they’ll move our boy, and neither one of us will be able to get him.”

  “Why you after this guy?” Finbury said. “And don’t tell me it’s because you were such great friends with my mother.”

  Stoney contemplated the dwindling end of his cigarette. “Let’s just say I owe him. Okay? And I hired your mother to look into the guy. And for that, I am truly sorry. But I needed to know what I was up against.”

  The veins stood out on Finbury’s neck, the man clenched his jaw and stared at Stoney, and for a moment Stoney thought coming to this place might have been a mistake, but then Finbury swallowed whatever he’d been feeling. “What on earth could my mother have done that would justify him killing her?” he said.

  Stoney shrugged. “Invaded his privacy, maybe.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Not to you. Not to me, either. But it’s hard to figure how this guy’s mind works.”

  “You sound like you feel sorry for the son of a bitch.”

  “What can I tell you,” Stoney said. “I don’t always trust my instincts. You know what I’m saying? My first thought was like, just whack the guy, but then I started to wonder. You tell me, Bern. I mean, no offense, but you look like a regular guy. You got this house in the burbs, you got your business, and you build things for a living.” He glanced over his shoulder at the darkened house. “I’m guessing, some guy hires you to build him a house, you try to do the right thing by the guy. Am I right?”

  Finbury exhaled as he examined his fingernails. “Pretty boring life.”

  “You know what I’m saying. Suppose you know for a fact this guy did your mother, but he walks. Okay? Now you’re out driving, you see the guy, he’s walking down the side of the road, there’s nobody else around, just you and him. What do you do?”

  Finbury leaned forward and stared at Stoney. “He cut off her goddamned ear,” he said, his voice cracking. “He cut off her fingers! You wanna know what I’d fucking do? I’d run over the cocksucker, that’s what I’d fucking do, and then I’d back up and do it again just to make sure. And you know what? If she was your mother, you’d do it, too.”

  “Maybe I would.”

  “Look. You give me this bastard’s name, I don’t care who the fuck he is, and I promise you he will never give you any trouble again. Word of honor.”

  Stoney looked at Bernard Finbury. You never knew, just because a guy was on the small side, didn’t mean the guy couldn’t cut it. “I tell you what, Bern,” he said, wondering how far he could trust the man. “I got a better idea….”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Stoney decided to show up at the house early that morning. Tuco had beaten him there, clearly, because the Beemer was already parked at the curb. Unless the little bastard stayed the night…The hood was still warm, though, when he felt it on his way past. What are you worrying about? he asked himself. Donna is way tougher with the kids than you, anyhow.

  He knocked on the front door. Donna didn’t look surprised when she opened it and saw him standing there. “Morning,” she said. “Have your coffee yet?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you may as well come in.” She stood back out of the way and let him pass. “Go on in the kitchen, I’ll get your coffee. Marisa’s not ready yet.”

  He preceded her into the kitchen and sat at the counter. “Where’s Tuco?”

  “He’s upstairs,” she said, “playing Nintendo hockey with Dennis.”

  “That right?” Stoney glanced upward, as though he ought to be able to see through the wood and plaster to confirm that Tuco was, indeed, sitting in Dennis’s room, and not Marisa’s. Donna saw him do it, and she smiled.

  “Your turn to worry,” she said.

  “You’re not worrying? You sure there’s nothing going on with those two?”

  “Oh, there’s something going on, all right,” she said. “You want to know what I think, Marisa’s in awe. Whether it turns into something else, your guess is as good as mine, but I don’t think anything’s happened yet.”

  “I see.” Stoney hoped his relief didn’t show too much. “What do you think of him?”

  She handed him a coffee cup. “Tuco? Well, he’s an uneducated inner-city kid with issues, his English is not great, his Spanish is worse, he has no sense of humor, and he doesn’t have a job. What’s not to like?” She snorted. “Actually, he’s a nice kid. He’s polite, he’s been good to Dennis, plus he gets along fine with Marisa, and you know what a trial she can be. Why do you ask? I thought he was your friend.”

  “He is my friend. And he does have a job. It’s just, you know, at his age, with the hormones and all that, I was just wondering.”

  “Is that so.”

  “Yeah. But Tuco’s not like most kids. And he’s got a few bucks salted away, how rare is that for someone his age?”

  “How much?”

  “Couple hundred thou,” Stoney told her. “I think Tommy helped him put it into some condos in Brooklyn.”

  “Whatever,” she said. “The question with Tuco is, what is he going to do with himself? What kind of life is he going to put together?”

  “I don’t know,” Stoney said. “But this will all be over soon. Maybe today, I don’t know for sure. Then Tuco can go back to Brooklyn, and you can have Marisa fitted for a chastity belt.”

  Donna laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said.

  “No?”

  “Of course not. She’s too smart, for one thing. If she really wants Tuco, I question how much you or I could do to dissuade her. Marisa is the oldest seventeen-year-old I know. I’m afraid she’s already past the point of letting her parents make her decisions for her.”

  “Maybe,” Stoney said. “Man, I’ll be glad to get this thing wrapped up, I’ll tell you that.”

  “Today, you said.”

  “Yeah. If things break right.”

  “Come home, after,” she said.

  His mind reeled. He struggled for words “Do you, ahh, are you sure that you, ahh, you want me back here?”

  “I don’t want to think about it,” she said, her voice husky. “I don’t know what I mean. I can’t believe I’m just making up my mind about this right now, or that I’m talking to you about it already, but I want you home. That’s all I know for sure.”

  “That’s good enough for me.” He stood up, took an uncertain step toward her. She crossed the kitchen floor and hugged him, squeezed him until he thought he would crack.

  The voice on the phone filled him with dread. “I know who you really are.” Harman felt as though he was going to throw up, and he rolled over to the edge of the hotel bed and hung his head over the side. It was Prior, and Harman could hear him gloating. “That hospital your sister is in has the worst security I’ve ever seen.”

  Harman’s head swam. “My sister has nothing to do with anything,” he said.

  “For my purposes, it hardly makes any difference.”

  Harman fought to regain control. He looked at his shaking hand. “I suppose not.”

  “All right, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to call in sick today. There’s a diner on Lemoine Avenue in Fort Lee. There will be a car in front of the place in an hour. Be there.”

  “And if I’m not?”

  “If you’re not concerned about your own safety, you should at least be worried about your sister. The one who hasn’t done anything.”

  “Okay. Okay. I’ll be waiting.”

  “Great. And if you’re smart, Martin, or should I call you Nathan? If you’re smart, you won’t make any phone calls about this. If you keep this between you and I, you can still come out of this with a whole skin.” He was chuckling as he ended the call. Harman thought about calling Fat Tommy, but Prior’s last statement kept ringing in his head, and he decided against it. You can always call him later, he told himself. What would I say to him, anyhow?

  Harman looked at the approaching
car and debated the wisdom of getting in. He was standing on the sidewalk in front of the diner on the main drag in Fort Lee, New Jersey, just as Prior had instructed him. I should have called Fat Tommy, he thought, I should have told someone what was going on…. You left it too late, he told himself, but then he shoved his hand into his pocket, feeling for the cell phone. Green button, he thought, all by itself, on the left side. He pushed the button twice, which would tell the thing to redial whoever he had talked with last. Too bad he couldn’t remember who that had been.

  Prior’s car pulled up at the curb, and one of Prior’s guards held the rear door open for him. Harman looked at the guy. “Hey, what’s happening,” he said, thinking that he had to make enough noise to keep his phone call going. Got someone’s voice mail, he thought, because he didn’t hear any noises coming from his pocket. “You Prior’s guy?” I could never handle him, he thought, let alone him and the driver, too. Not that it mattered. I should have never listened to Bagadonuts, he thought, I should never have gotten involved in this. I should have stuck to the plan and taken the next plane back to Toronto. Should have caught the red-eye, should have flown out last night.

  He got in.

  The guard closed him in, walked around the rear of the car and got in on the other side. The man looked over at him and smiled. Yeah, up yours, too, Harman thought. “You enjoying this?”

  “Not yet,” the man said.

  “Well, you might as well take me to see Prior. Let’s find out what’s on his mind.” Harman wondered if the voice mail had cut him off yet, and then he wondered who it was he had called, and what they would make of his message, if anything. You gave it your best shot, he told himself. Put it out of your mind.

  They drove him a short distance away, to a motel in Fort Lee that lay right in the shadow of the George Washington Bridge, not thirty feet from the roar of traffic. The place was called the Toll Gate Motel. Big neon signs on the side of the building proclaimed AIR CONDITIONED! and CABLE TV! The place was two stories high, cut into the hillside. It had a second-floor veranda that served as an exterior hallway, which looked like it was threatening to fall off. There was a row of filled garbage cans between the end of the building and the ripped chain-link fence that delineated the end of the property, and stacks of used two-by-fours and sheets of plywood were turning gray in the sun in the corner of the parking lot. The windows of the office on the first floor were boarded up, but the white door was open. The whole thing was a bilious yellow orange, something akin to the color of vodka sauce, with the trim painted a nice contrast of baby-shit brown. Amazing, Harman thought, the place was overshadowed by new office buildings, yet no one had torn this shithole down to build another one…. Always a market for a hot-sheet house. It was the kind of motel where most of the patrons generally got their business taken care of and got gone within a half hour of their arrival. From the parking lot Harman could see Prior leaning on the railing of the second-floor balcony. There were three other cars and a step-van parked in the lot. Prior’s driver parked next to the step-van, then came around and opened the door for him. The man had a sick half smile on his face. “Right upstairs,” he said.