A Walk Among the Tombstones

by Lawrence Block

Page 7

 

  "Yes. "

  "Sit still a minute, I want to show you something. " He went into another room and came back with a picture, a five-by-seven color shot in a silver frame. "Thats at our wedding," he said. "Thats two years ago, not quite two years, be two years in May. "

  He was in a tuxedo and she was all in white. He was smiling hugely, while she was not smiling, as I think I mentioned earlier. She was beaming, though, and you could see that she was radiant with happiness.

  I didnt know what to say.

  "I dont know what they did to her," he said. "Thats one of the things I wont let myself think about. But they killed her and they butchered her, they made some kind of dirty joke out of her, and I have to do something about it because Ill die if I dont. Id do it all myself if I could. In fact we tried, me and Petey, but we dont know what to do, we dont have the knowledge, we dont know the moves. The questions you asked before, the approach you took, if nothing else it showed me that this is an area where I dont know what Im doing. So I want your help and I can pay you whatever I have to, moneys not a problem, Ive got plenty of money and Ill spend whatever I have to. And if you say no Ill either find someone else or try to do it myself because what the hell else am I gonna do?" He reached across the table and took the picture away from me and looked at it. "Jesus, what a perfect day that was," he said, "and all the days since, and then it all turned to shit. " He looked at me. He said, "Yes, Im a trafficker, a dope dealer, whatever you want to call it, and yes, its my intention to kill these fucks. So thats all out on the table. What do you say? Are you in or out?"

  My best friend, the man Id planned to join in Ireland, was a career criminal. According to legend, he had one night walked the streets of Hells Kitchen carrying a bowlers bag from which he displayed the severed head of an enemy. I couldnt swear it happened, but more recently Id been at his side in a cellar in Maspeth when he severed a mans hand with one blow of a cleaver. Id had a gun in my hand that night, and Id used it.

  So if I was still very much a cop in some respects, in other ways I had undergone considerable change. Id long since swallowed the camel; why strain at the gnat?

  "Im in," I said.

  Chapter 3

  I got back to my hotel a little after nine. Id had a long session with Kenan Khoury, filling pages of my notebook with names of friends and associates and family members. Id gone to the garage to inspect the Toyota, and found the Beethoven cassette still in the tape deck. If there were any other clues in Francines car, I couldnt spot them.

  The other car, the gray Tempo used to deliver her segmented remains, was not available for inspection. The kidnappers had parked it illegally, and sometime in the course of the weekend a tow truck from Traffic had showed up to haul it away. I could have attempted to track it down, but what was the point? It had surely been stolen for the occasion, and had probably been previously abandoned, given the condition of it. A police lab crew might have turned up something in the trunk or interior, stains or fibers or markings of some sort, that would point out a profitable line of investigation. But I didnt have the resources for that kind of inspection. Id be running all over Brooklyn to look at a car that wouldnt tell me a thing.

  In the Buick the three of us traced a long, circuitous course, past the DAgostinos and the Arabian market on Atlantic Avenue, then south to the first pay phone at Ocean and Farragut, then south on Flatbush and east on N to the second booth on Veterans Avenue. I didnt really have to see these sights, theres not a tremendous amount of information you can glean by staring at a public telephone, but Ive always found it worthwhile to put in time on the scene, to walk the pavements and climb the stairs and see it all firsthand. It helps make it real.

  It also gave me a way to take the Khourys through it again. In a police investigation, witnesses almost always complain about having to relate the same story over and over to a host of different people. It seems pointless to them, but theres a point to it. If you tell it enough times to enough different people, maybe youll come up with something youve previously left out, or maybe one person will hear something that sailed past everybody else.

  Somewhere in the course of things we stopped at the Apollo, a coffee shop on Flatbush. We all ordered the souv-laki. It was good, but Kenan hardly touched his. In the car afterward he said, "I should have ordered eggs or something. Ever since the other night I got no taste for meat. I cant eat it, it turns my stomach. Im sure Ill get over it, but for the time being Ive got to remember to order something else. It makes no sense, ordering something and then you cant bring yourself to eat it. "

  PETER drove me home in the Camry. He was staying at Colonial Road, hed been there since the kidnapping, sleeping on the couch in the living room, and he needed to stop by his room to pick up clothes.

  Otherwise Id have called a livery service and taken a taxi. Im comfortable enough on the subway, I rarely feel unsafe on it, but it seemed a false economy to stint on cab fare with ten thousand dollars in my pocket. Id have felt pretty silly if I ran into a mugger.

  That was my retainer, two banded stacks of hundreds with fifty bills in each, two packets of bills indistinguishable from the eighty packets paid to ransom Francine Khoury. Ive always had trouble putting a price on my services, but in this case Id been spared the decision. Kenan had dropped the two stacks on the table and asked if that was enough to start with. I told him it was on the high side.

  "I can afford it," he said. "Ive got plenty of money. They didnt tap me out, they didnt come close. "

  "Could you have paid the million?"

  "Not without leaving the country. Ive got an account in the Caymans with half a mil in it. I had just under seven hundred large in the safe here. Actually I probably could have raised the other three here in town, if I made a few phone calls. I wonder. "

  "What?"

  "Oh, crazy thinking. Like suppose I paid the mil, would they have returned her alive? Suppose I never pressed on the phone, suppose I was polite, kissed their asses and all. "

  "Theyd have killed her anyway. "

  "Thats what I tell myself, but how do I know? I cant keep myself from wondering if there was something I could have done. Suppose I played hardball all the way, not a penny paid unless they showed me proof she was alive. "

  "She was probably already dead when they called you. "

  "I pray youre right," he said, "but I dont know. I keep thinking there must have been some way I could have saved her. I keep figuring it was my fault. "

  * * *

  WE took expressways back to Manhattan, the Shore Parkway and the Gowanus into the tunnel. Traffic was light at that hour but Pete took it slow, rarely pushing the Camry past forty miles an hour. We didnt talk much at first, and the silences tended to stretch.

  "Its been some couple of days," he said finally. I asked him how he was holding up. "Oh, Im all right," he said.

  "Have you been getting to meetings?"

  "Im pretty regular. " After a moment he said, "I havent had a chance to get to a meeting since this shit started. Ive been, you know, pretty busy. "

  "Youre no good to your brother unless you stay sober. "

  "I know that. "

  "There are meetings in Bay Ridge. You wouldnt have to come into the city. "

  "I know. I was gonna go to one last night, but I didnt get to it. " His fingers drummed the steering wheel. "I thought maybe wed get back in time to get over to St. Pauls tonight, but we missed it. Its gonna be way past nine by the time we get there. "

  "Theres a ten oclock meeting on Houston Street. "

  "Oh, I dont know," he said. "By the time I get to my room, pick up what I need-"

  "If you miss the ten theres a midnight meeting. Same place, Houston between Sixth and Varick. "

  "I know where it is. "

  Something in his tone did not invite further suggestion. After a moment he said, "I know I shouldnt let my meetings slide. Ill try to make the ten oclock. The midnight, I dont know about that. I dont want to
leave Kenan alone for that long. "

  "Maybe youll catch a Brooklyn meeting tomorrow during the day. "

  "Maybe. "

  "What about your job? Youre letting that slide?"

  "For the time being. I called in sick Friday and today, but if they wind up letting me go its no big deal. Job like thats not hard to come by. "

  "What is it, messenger work?"

  "Delivering lunches, actually. For the deli on Fifty-seventh and Ninth. "

  "It must be hard, working a get-well job like that while your brothers raking it in. "

  He was silent for a moment. Then he said, "I have to keep all that separate, you know? Kenan wanted me to work for him, with him, whatever you want to call it. I cant be in that business and stay sober. Its not that youre around drugs all the time, because actually youre not, theres not that much physical contact with the product. Its the whole attitude, the mind-set, you know what I mean?"

  "Sure. "

  "You were right, what you said about meetings. Ive been wanting to drink ever since I found out about Francey. I mean about her being kidnapped, before they did what they did. I havent come close or anything but its hard keeping the thought out of my mind. I push it away and it comes right back. "

  "Have you been in touch with your sponsor?"

  "I dont exactly have one. They gave me an interim sponsor when I first got sober, and I called him fairly regularly at first but we more or less drifted apart. Hes hard to get on the phone, anyway. I should find a regular sponsor, but for some reason I never got around to it. "

  "One of these days-"

  "I know. Do you have a sponsor?"

  I nodded. "We got together just last night. We generally have dinner Sunday, go over the week together. "

  "Does he give you advice?"

  "Sometimes," I said. "And then I go ahead and do what I want. "

  WHEN I got back to my hotel room, the first call I made was to Jim Faber. "I was just talking about you," I told him. "A fellow asked if my sponsor gives advice, and I told him how I always do exactly what you suggest. "

  "Youre lucky God didnt strike you dead on the spot. "

  "I know. But Ive decided not to go to Ireland. "

  "Oh? You seemed determined last night. Did it look different to you after a nights sleep?"

  "No," I admitted. "It looked about the same, and this morning I went to a travel agent and managed to get a cheap seat on a flight leaving Friday evening. "

  "Oh?"

  "And then this afternoon somebody offered me a job and I said yes. You want to go to Ireland for three weeks? I dont think I can get my money back for the ticket. "

  "Are you sure? Its a shame to lose the money. "

  "Well, they told me it was nonrefundable, and I already paid for it. Its all right, Im making enough on the job so that I can write off a couple hundred. But I did want to let you know that I wasnt on my way to the land of Sodom and Begorrah. "

  "It sounded like you were setting yourself up," he said. "Thats why I was concerned. Youve managed to hang out with your friend in his saloon and still stay sober-"