“Sorry about that, Bryce,” said Marge in a contrite voice. “We certainly want you to feel at home. I’ve spent time in some places where the only shoulders around were cold ones. I guarantee you, Lovely Laners are the friendliest people you’ll ever meet.”
They walked on up to the building, where the women headed for the restroom. Bryce wandered into the cluttered lobby, which had the feel of a shopworn country store overrun by a horde of scavenging city dwellers. A large map of the state hung on one wall. Tourist brochures were displayed nearby, along with a variety of other information. He was looking over the map when a nasal voice spoke up beside him.
“How far do we have to go?”
He turned to see a rail-thin woman with straight hair the shade of dried corn shucks. She looked at him with wide gray eyes beneath a forehead that appeared permanently creased. He got a glimpse of the badge that identified her as Clara Holly.
Bryce gestured toward the map. “I’d have to check the scale to be sure, but I would guess in the range of fifty miles or so.”
She moved closer to him, glanced at the map, then stared at his badge. “Reynolds. Used to be a company by that name that made aluminum.”
“I believe they still do.”
“Oh, that’s right. They make that foil stuff you cook things in, don’t they? You any kin to the aluminum Reynolds?”
“Don’t I wish. If that were the case, I’d probably be rich.”
“Are you from Dalewood?”
That was another Methodist church in a nearby section of Nashville. He had heard some Dalewood members were on the bus. “No. I don’t live too far from Lovely Lane. I walk on the track. That’s where I heard about this trip.”
She stood quite close to him, her right hand gripping her left, her feet spread wide apart like someone staking claim to a spot of turf. She gave him a thoughtful frown. “You remind me of a banker I used to know. What did you do before you retired?”
Bryce narrowed his eyes. “Who said I had retired?”
“Most everybody on this bus has retired. That’s what folks do at our age. Where’d you come from?”
He hated encounters like this. He didn’t want to be rude, but with the possibility of stalkers lurking in wait for him, he had no desire to be quizzed about his past life. “I came from out West,” he said. “I like lots of space. Maybe that’s why I like to walk so much.” He took a half-step backward to emphasize his point.
That seemed to shift her focus into chatterbox mode. “You must walk in the mornings,” she said. “I come over afternoons. I keep telling Horace–that’s my husband–I tell Horace all the time he ought to come with me. He needs it more than I do. Heavens to Betsy, that man has more excuses than a ninth grade dropout. He’s got to have the car worked on or he needs to go by his brother’s place to pick up something. Don’t ask me what something is. Or he’s got a cramp in his leg, or more likely a cramp in his head. I was telling my brother, John–he lives in Columbia...”
At this point, Bryce threw a switch in his brain that diverted his hearing mechanism, allowing her words to dribble out into space. He continued to focus his eyes on her and nodded now and then, but his thoughts wandered back to that “I came from out West” statement and the blunder he had made in leaving it.
A few years after developing his foreign currency gambit, Pat Pagano had a visit from a well-dressed attorney from New York who had heard of his success through Vince Pagano, a justifiably proud father. Pat had been investing relatively small amounts, but this fellow wanted him to put a quarter of a million dollars into the Swiss bank scheme. In a few short months, a currency shift took place and Pat presented Frank Salerno with a profit of $395,000–a 158 percent return, more than 300 percent on an annua1ized basis, since the money had been at work for less than six months.
Around the same age as Pat, Salerno cut a dapper figure. He was a handsome, smooth-talking lawyer whose gestures seemed designed to flash the large rings that adorned most of his manicured fingers. After tucking the check into the pocket of his tailored Italian jacket, Salerno smiled across the desk at Pat.
“I want you to come to work for the Alcamo Corporation,” he said. “I’m chief counsel. We’ll pay you double what you’re currently making to handle our investments.”
Pat stared in disbelief. “Come to New York?”
“Right. We will make all the arrangements. Find you a house, handle your move.”
The offer had come so suddenly that Pat’s head was swimming. “But I don’t know anything about your company,” he said, shaking his head.
“We’re an international conglomerate, involved in such diverse fields as construction, transportation, and textiles.” He didn’t specify how they were involved in those fields.
Pat was intrigued. The money was fabulous, but even more exciting was the challenge, which would be hard to resist. And before the day was out, he had accepted.
Alcamo moved rapidly. In less than two weeks, the Pagano family had been relocated to a large home in a fashionable section of Long Island. But once in place, Pat quickly made a startling discovery. His new employer was really a front for one of the most influential Mafia families in New York, headed by an old Don named Tony Vicario. Although Alcamo sounded like a shortened version of some meaningful words, it was actually the name of the town in Sicily near where Vicario was born not long after the start of the Twentieth Century.
Fred jerked Bryce back to the present when he interrupted Clara’s prattling. “Sorry, Clara,” he said, “but Betty Lou is looking for Bryce here. She needs to ask him something.”
Bryce directed a grim smile at Clara. “Nice meeting you.” Then he hurried off with Fred. When they got to the front door, he swiped a hand across his brow and exhaled noisily. “Phew! Thanks, pal. I believe she could have gone on until midnight.”
Fred gave a big laugh and laid a hand on his shoulder. “You have now been officially initiated into the Lovely Lane Silver Shadows. Congratulations. Oh, that part about Betty Lou was true. She wanted me to tell you she’d like to visit a little while with her sister.”
“Sarah Anne?”
“Right. Something to do with their ornery brother, I think. Anyway, Troy and I are still trying to iron out a problem with the church building. I hate to keep bouncing you around, but would you mind sitting with Marge Hunter till we get to Natchez?”
Troy had warned him that Tillie Ellis was a matchmaker. Bryce wondered if Betty Lou Scott might not be the culprit instead. Apparently she was satisfied that he posed no threat to her friend.
“Be happy to,” he said.
Actually, he had mixed emotions. He felt a natural attraction for the woman, but what had happened a few hours ago drastically altered the landscape. Could he afford the distraction, and would he be putting her at risk?
The rain had turned serious, pooling into small ponds along the sidewalk as they jogged out to the bus. Back inside, Bryce dropped into the seat on the left next to Marge.
She looked mildly amused. “Sorry you got stuck with me. They’ve had you playing musical chairs, haven’t they?”
“My pleasure, really. Isn’t this what Tillie told us to do, move around and make more acquaintances?”
“I noticed you just made one inside there.”
Recalling the encounter with Clara, he grimaced. “Oh, boy. Did I.”
“That must have been quite a conversation.” There was a hint of mischief in her eyes.
“Actually, it wasn’t much of a conversation at all. More of a monologue.”
“I can imagine. She’s really a good-hearted soul, though.”
“That’s nice to know.”
Marge leaned down to get a tissue out of her bag, and Bryce watched every graceful move. He had to admit, for early seventies, she was quite a stunning woman.
“Troy told me about his brother,” he said. He leaned back and folded his hands to hide his nervousness.
“Keith Walden was one of a kind.” She spoke with a m
arked tenderness in her voice.
Bryce found that a neat way of leaving unsaid that her second husband couldn’t hold a candle to him. She had class.
As the bus pulled out onto the interstate, the rain beat a steady patter against the window beside Marge while Bryce puzzled over the odd contrast in his feelings toward her. She radiated a warmth and concern that made him as comfortable as he had been with anyone in a long while, yet at the same time she stirred a sense of awkwardness in him. The realization triggered a momentary flashback to that night in the casino when he had dropped the glass on meeting Ellen Davidson.
Drawing in a deep breath to calm himself, Bryce turned to Marge. “Troy told me Keith had a real estate firm. Did you sell houses, too?”
“Oh, no. I just helped out in the office. I’m no salesperson.”
“Neither am I,” he said. Then, inexplicably, he proceeded again to break the vow of silence about his past. “When I worked in a brokerage firm, it was a bit of a handicap. The real salesmen were always on the phone to their clients, touting some great stock issue, or plugging a bond they thought was sure to go places. I mostly waited until a client called me, ready to invest his money. Then I would suggest what I saw as the best move. Fortunately, most of them made money.”
“Sounds like you didn’t need to be a great salesperson. Giving people what they came to you for was the main thing, wasn’t it?”
“I suppose you’re right. Success is usually measured by results.”
She twisted the tissue in her hands, looking a bit forlorn. “I’ve had some experience with that, too...on the negative side.”
No doubt she was referring to her life with Captain Herbert Hunter, he thought. Seeing the pain in her face saddened him. He decided to shift the focus to something more pleasant. “I’ve really been looking forward to this trip. It’s a long time since I was in New Orleans.”
She spoke with a faraway look in her eyes. “The last time I was there was for a Sugar Bowl game. I don’t remember what year it was. Once when the Vols were playing down there. Keith and I both graduated from the University of Tennessee.”
“My last trip down, I did a sightseeing ride on the St. Charles trolley line. Saw a lot of interesting houses. I wondered if we might cover some of that area on the bus?”
“I think so. When we were over at church one day, Tillie discussed the itinerary in some detail with Betty Lou and me. Seems like she mentioned St. Charles Avenue. After the bus problem and now the rain, I just hope things take a turn for the better. I’d hate to think we might run into something like that Hurricane Nora that was in the news.”
The possibility of a hurricane showing up was not what concerned Bryce, but something far more potentially threatening. He had an active imagination, and the longer he had to think about the possibilities, the more alarming they became. Sitting beside Marge, he wondered if his own latent troubles could not easily become a serious problem for her, as well as the rest of the tour group. What if somebody should try to take him out with a long-range rifle shot? Anyone standing near him would be at risk.
But was that a likely scenario? No, he decided. From all he had read and heard, Mafia executions were normally carried out at close range. Nobody at Alcamo had confided in him, but he had picked up some whispers that gave him a good idea of what went on. There had been some notable cases of mob leaders murdered face-to-face in restaurants and hotels, even barbershops. Still, there were other cases where someone they were after simply disappeared, like Jimmy Hoffa. Bryce did not think they would harm innocent people just to get at him. If that were true, his best defense would be to stay in a group, avoid getting in a position to be isolated.
13
The interior of the bus was almost dark. Bryce gazed out the window where the oncoming traffic appeared as yellow spots of light flitting through the rain, like trails of fleeting fireflies.
Tillie’s voice blared over the loudspeaker. “We’re on the outskirts of Natchez. I just talked to Day’s Inn on my cellular phone. They’ll have a room list and keys ready when we get there. I’ll go in and pick them up, then pass them out before you get off the bus. But since I’ve heard rumblings about people starving to death, Chick will let us out at Shoney’s first.”
Chick Townes eased the bus up to the restaurant. Among the first off were Marge and Bryce, who dashed just inside to wait for Betty Lou and her sister. The two women hurried in a few minutes later, Sarah Anne toting a large floral-printed fabric handbag.
Marge pointed to it. “I don’t know if you ought to carry that thing down here, Sarah Anne. Remember, this is Mississippi. They might think you’re a carpetbagger.”
“Oh, I am,” she said, working to moderate her Southern accent. “I’m one of those damn Yankees from Illinois.”
“You are not,” Betty Lou said. “You can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t–”
“Madison doesn’t strike me as particularly country,” Bryce said.
Betty Lou shifted her eyes. “You know what I mean. Come on, let’s go find a table for six. That’ll leave room for Fred and Troy.”
Marge looked around. “Maybe Bryce has someone else he’d rather sit with.”
He wasn’t sure if that was a subtle suggestion that he sit elsewhere or if she merely sought to keep from imposing on him. “You folks are about the only ones I’ve met. Well, that’s not really true. I guess I could eat with Clara Holly, couldn’t I?”
Betty Lou grabbed his arm. “Don’t be silly. Come on.”
The restaurant had few other customers and the Silver Shadows were given carte blanche to find tables anywhere in the dining room. Although the temperature had dropped outside, Shoney’s enjoyed a warm, cozy feel. Several of the group piled their jackets on one table. Polly Pitts brought in her red “trip kit” but left the folder on the table with her jacket.
Bryce helped the waitress push two tables together, then sat between Fred and Troy. The three women took the other side. They looked over the menus, then ordered, most of them choosing to take the simple way out, opting for the salad bar. After they had settled down to eat, Betty Lou looked across at Bryce.
“Well, disregarding ailing buses and drenching rain, how have you liked the trip so far?”
“So far, so good. The conversation has been lively.”
“Sarah Anne and I are the only ones you didn’t get to sit with,” Fred said. “Maybe we’ll get a crack at you later.”
Bryce grinned. “If I keep moving every time the bus stops, people will start calling me Reynolds the Restless.”
Sarah Anne chuckled and gave a knowing nod. “That reminds me of something Fred threatened to do last time I was down here.”
Her brother-in-law frowned. “What’s that?”
“Remember when Betty Lou and I were watching that soap opera The Young and the Restless? You said you were going to write one called The Old and the Shiftless.”
As they all laughed, Bryce fixed his gaze on three new customers who had just entered the restaurant. Dressed in dark suits, they looked like businessmen who had come in after work. Not an unexpected sight for an eating place on a main thoroughfare, but something about their manner left him wondering. As the waitress seated them at a table adjacent to the one piled with jackets, he realized what had caught his attention. The trio had an obvious swagger in the way they walked. A darkly handsome younger man, apparently the leader, arrogantly dismissed the hostess, then spoke to the waitress with a sneer and a broad wave of his arms.
He had seen more than his share of such characters around the Alcamo Corporation in New York. They were Mafia hoods, following old Tony Vicario’s dress code. Since Vicario always contended that his people were just businessmen, he insisted they dress like businessmen.
Careful to avoid eye contact, Bryce stole surreptitious glances in their direction. There was something vaguely familiar about the younger one. Several years had passed, and he was ready to acknowledge a faulty memory, but he felt almost certain h
e had seen this man with Boots. The name escaped him, if he had ever known it.
The important question was how likely these men were to recognize him? He noticed all three kept shifting their glances from table to table.
He tried to keep up with the conversation among his companions while training a wary eye on the likely trio of Mafiosi. But when a peal of laughter erupted suddenly around him, he realized he had missed a chunk of the conversation. Sensing the glances of the apparent mobsters targeting him, he shrank into his chair.
Holding a cracker toward his mouth to partially obscure his face, he turned to Fred. “I missed that one. I was straining to read a sign across the way.”
Fred continued to chuckle. “Troy was telling about a survey they were doing in the mall the other day. About senior citizens. When the lady asked what did he think about sex for seniors, he told her, ‘Well, I think about it quite a bit. Don’t do much about it, though.”
Bryce joined in the laughter, though not nearly so heartily as he would have if that ominous trio had not been watching from across the room. Finally the men got up and headed for the cashier. As they walked out of the restaurant, Bryce tried to relax, but the tension remained.
They were gone. But he knew if they were who he thought they were, one way or the other, they would be back. And likely soon.
14
Bryce was the last one back to the bus. As he sank into his seat beside Troy, he heard Tillie give her usual call for vacant seats. Assured that there were no missing persons, she opened her mouth to give Chick the signal to go when Polly Pitts jumped up and squeezed into the aisle. “I forgot my trip kit!”
Tillie frowned. “You what?”
“I took my trip kit in with me and left it on the table with my jacket. I didn’t notice it when I picked up the jacket, so it must be still in the restaurant.” She pushed toward the door. “I’ll run get it and be right back.”
Tillie signaled to Chick, who opened the door. After watching Polly stumble out, Tillie turned to the driver and shook her head.
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