The Water's Edge

by Daniel Judson

  He turned and faced the two men, defying them again in the only way he could. On the outside he wanted—needed—to appear bold, fearless. On the inside, though, feelings he hadn’t known in a long time were beginning to stir, the feelings of an animal trapped in a corner. Scared, desperate, ready to fight, if necessary, and do so with brutality.

  It was not a good place at all for a man like Bechet to be.

  “What do you want?” Bechet demanded. He still wasn’t certain whom he was facing. The only thing he knew was that he was, in some way or another, facing a thread that threatened to reconnect him with his past. This was more of a concern to him than the gun in the Algerian’s hand.

  “Did I tell you to stand up?” the Algerian said.

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “You’re going to do what I tell you to do, do you understand this?”

  “Where are my friend’s clothes?”

  “I don’t think you should be worrying about your friend right now.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what you think. Get my friend’s clothes.”

  Bechet turned, intending to untie the last remaining rope around Falcetti’s ankle. He stopped short when the slighter man finally spoke.

  “You’re going to want to take what my friend here says seriously,” the man warned. “He’s a vicious little bastard. Almost as vicious, in fact, as you used to be, Pay Day.”

  The slighter man’s South American accent and clear, educated English were immediately recognizable to Bechet. There was no possible way to mistake what was going on now.

  Bechet turned to face the shadow of the slighter man again. Just as he had done back in Gabrielle’s dark bedroom, he saw this man’s face clearly in his mind. It took a moment for Bechet to speak.

  “Long time, no see, Jorge,” he said.

  Castello nodded. “Long time, no see, my brother.” He reached out, found the light switch on the wall, flipped it up. The only light in the storage room was a bare bulb mounted on the ceiling at the far end. Its light was both dull and glaring. Bechet turned away from the sudden light, giving his eyes, so used to the darkness, a chance to adjust. As he was turned away, he looked down at Falcetti, saw that he was struggling against the light as well, his eyes blinking rapidly, as if he were afraid to let them close for longer than a second. There was fear in everything about him—in his expression, in the way he sat on the chair, holding Bechet’s jacket over his lap with two trembling hands.

  Finally, Bechet turned and looked once more toward the doorway and the faces—clearly visible now, not just imagined—of the two men standing squarely in it.

  Castello was dressed in an overcoat, wool slacks, and a dark fisherman’s sweater. Expensive, as always. His thick, dark hair was combed back, his face recently shaved, his skin taut, healthy, pampered. He was only a year younger than Bechet, but he was aging in that way the wealthy often age. No gray hair, no softness under the eyes. Tooth and nail all the way. The Algerian at Castello’s side, out of Bechet’s reach at the moment, was in his late twenties at the most. He was dressed in a black field jacket, black cargo pants, black boots, and his hair, light brown, was a military buzz cut. Everything about him said military. Not a wanna-be, though, Bechet could tell that. The real thing. It was obvious by the way the Algerian was holding his Desert Eagle .50 caliber semiautomatic. With two hands, muzzle aimed at the floor between his legs, elbows cocked so that the butt of the handle was level with his belt buckle. Bechet thought of Castello’s warning: vicious as you used to be. Almost. Castello had the money to hire the best—and the worst—there was, and the Algerian seemed made to fill that order. Built like a wrestler, low and compact, thick. Designed for knocking things over. Bechet studied the man’s—the kid’s—face: square, with a low hairline, eyes that were narrow, giving him the appearance more that he was taking aim at Bechet than looking at him. The contempt Bechet had heard in the kid’s voice was just as visible in his face. He was thick, from top to bottom, but his neck was particularly thick, held up a head, in keeping with the proportions of his body, that was the size of a crash helmet. Bechet had never seen this kid before, yet he was nonetheless, somehow, familiar. It wasn’t simply the type of man he was that Bechet recognized now—a type Bechet had encountered many times in his past. It was something more than that.

  The look of half-recognition was visible on Bechet’s face.

  “The resemblance is amazing, isn’t it?” Castello said.

  Bechet immediately looked back at Castello, said nothing.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t see it, Pay Day. His father is a little taller, yes, but other than that, he’s a mirror image, don’t you think?”

  Bechet glanced at the Algerian again. He was staring at Bechet with hard eyes, standing rigidly, as if his spine and shoulders were iron bars that formed a cross. Even though the man was wearing a field jacket and loose-fitting pants, Bechet sensed powerful limbs. He sensed, too, an eagerness to use them. This was obvious, maybe too obvious. It was an indication of confidence and a desire to get to work, or else a need to prove himself, to dominate. Either way, this kid clearly relied on the power his frame promised, counted on it to get him through everything life put in front of him. Bechet could tell that much just by looking at him. The kid was more than likely, then, someone who, when he fought, fought to win, expected to do so quickly, decisively, was therefore the kind of man who went all out, balls to the walls, from the start. The question, though, was did he have the heart and lungs required to last in a fight that went on for longer than seconds? Bechet had fought men like that before, in the ring but also out of it. The fights outside the ring were, of course, the ones that mattered. As for the Algerian, as for this moment, right now, there were, Bechet knew, certain weaknesses that came with the kind of strength this kid so proudly possessed. Bechet focused his mind on the ways to disassemble—when it came to it, which it likely would, was just a matter now of when—the machine that was this particular opponent.

  All machines can be taken apart.

  “He’s LeCur’s kid,” Bechet said flatly. He didn’t need to look at the Algerian a second time.

  Castello nodded. “Good to know all those punches you took to the head haven’t taken their toll yet.”

  One LeCur—a younger, more powerful LeCur—was bad enough, but two LeCurs would have been very bad news indeed for Bechet. He needed to know if the father, too, was here, or even just nearby. What Bechet would do next depended on that.

  “Where’s his old man these days?” he said.

  “Oh, he’s still around. He was looking forward to seeing you again, actually. But he had something else he had to do tonight.”

  “Whatever it is you’re up to, Jorge, it doesn’t have anything to do with my friend. Let him go. Okay?”

  “Well, we don’t really want him running to the police, do we? Something like that wouldn’t be good news for any of us. He stays here for now.”

  “Then at least give him his clothes.”

  Castello waited a moment, then looked at LeCur. “Go get his things while Pay Day and I have a talk.”

  LeCur hesitated, glanced at Bechet, sizing him up.

  “We’ll be fine alone,” Castello assured him. “Pay Day wants to know what’s going on, so he’ll behave himself just fine till he finds out.”

  “I should check him for weapons.”

  “It’s obvious he isn’t carrying a firearm. And if he had a knife, he wouldn’t have wasted time untying the ropes. Anyway, like I said, he wants to know what’s going on, so he won’t do anything foolish. Will you, Pay Day?”

  Bechet didn’t answer. LeCur studied Bechet once more, then holstered the Desert Eagle under his field jacket and disappeared from view. Bechet listened as he crossed the dance floor, waiting till he heard the door open and close before kneeling down and starting to untie the last rope around Falcetti’s ankle.

  Despite Castello’s lingering shadow, Bechet could see that Falcetti was looking in the direction of the
doorway. It was as if he was unwilling to take his eyes off Castello. Bechet could see, too, that there was shame in Falcetti’s eyes. And fear. As dangerous as he might have thought his life was, there simply was no way that he was prepared for this kind of violence.

  Once Falcetti was free, Bechet stood, dropping the rope to the floor. Falcetti remained seated, though; standing would only have exposed him even more. Not long after that LeCur returned with Falcetti’s clothes, all bundled together in a clump. He entered the narrow storage room, but Bechet kept himself between him and Falcetti. It was partly because of the design of the room, but mostly on purpose, an act of protecting the weak and defying the strong. This was, after all, the true man, the real Bechet. He wasn’t what Castello and his father and the older LeCur had once tried to make of him, had for a time made of him.

  “C’mon out of there, Pay Day,” Castello said. “LeCur will get him dressed.”

  Bechet looked down at Falcetti. “You all right, Bobby?”

  Falcetti nodded. His eyes, though, were wild with uncertainty. He looked almost bewildered.

  Bechet said to Castello, “He can dress himself.”

  Castello nodded. “LeCur, give him his clothes.”

  The Algerian threw the bundle at Falcetti. There was contempt in the way he did that, of course. There would be contempt, Bechet knew, in everything he did. Falcetti caught the clothes, clutching them to his chest and almost losing Bechet’s jacket in the process. LeCur backed out of the doorway, making way for Bechet. He kept his eyes fixed on the onetime boxer, sizing him up. Bechet placed his hand on Falcetti’s shoulder, felt skin that was cold and slick with sweat.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” Bechet told him. “I’ll be right outside the door. We’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”

  Falcetti, still clutching his clothes and Bechet’s jacket, was unable to look Bechet in the eyes. He nodded once, quickly. Clearly all he wanted at this moment was privacy in which to get himself dressed.

  Bechet stepped out of the storage room. Castello was standing by the bar along the left side of the room. Bechet looked at LeCur, then walked to meet Castello. LeCur didn’t follow him, remaining by the storage-room door to keep an eye on both the washed-up boxer and the pathetic cabbie. He thought of them only in that way: a man past his prime and a scrawny and easily scared punk. They weren’t men to him, weren’t people, couldn’t be even if he wanted to think of them as that. They were simply a collection of weaknesses, things to be exploited for the gain of the man for whom he worked.

  Castello gestured toward the bar, like a host. “A drink?” He’d been educated at Oxford before coming to America to learn his family’s business. He was articulate, never anything less than polite, though this had always seemed only to add to the sense of menace he carried with him like a well-worn affectation. Bechet shook his head, refusing the drink. He knew Castello well, knew his way of doing things, his tricks, his need to make a person feel at ease while at the same time keeping him or her just a little uncertain as to what may happen next.

  But Bechet wasn’t going to play that game.

  “How did you know Bobby worked for me?” he said. His partnership with Eddie was a secret—well, as secret as a legitimate business could be. There was a paper trail: tax forms, insurance forms, registrations. Still, only a handful of people at the most knew about it. As Bechet waited for Castello to answer, he made a point of finding LeCur in his peripheral vision and keeping him there.

  “There isn’t much in this town we don’t know about,” Castello said. He nearly always referred to himself and his family as one. He’d once told Bechet he did that for the same reason a president was referred to as Mr. President and not by name. It took the individual out of the equation, made things that needed to be done easier to do. On behalf of the office, part of the job. Not that, as far as Bechet had ever seen, Castello had any difficulties, family or no family to hide himself behind, when it came to doing what needed to be done.

  Bechet waited for Castello to offer more, knew when Castello didn’t that this was as much of an answer as he was going to get. And really, for now, it didn’t matter how Castello had found him. What mattered was exactly how much more Castello knew, how badly Bechet—and Gabrielle—were exposed.

  “It looks like you’re getting some gray hairs there,” Castello said. “We’re not kids anymore, are we?”

  Bechet ignored that. “Your father and I had a deal,” he said.

  Castello nodded. “We know. It hurt him that you could turn on him the way you did. You know that, right?”

  “I did what I had to do to get out.”

  “What you’re saying is we gave you no choice in the matter.”

  “Something like that.”

  Castello nodded again, glanced at the tattoo of a dark star on the inside of Bechet’s left forearm. He looked at it for a moment, then said, “He loved you like a son, Pay Day. And to me you were a brother. You were a part of the family. I always thought we made that clear.”

  “Nothing has changed, Jorge. Not as far as I’m concerned. The deal still stands. If anything happens to me, the evidence I have gets turned over to the FBI. It’s all in place, nothing can stop that from happening.”

  “Actually, Pay Day, everything has changed, you just don’t know it yet.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My father is dead.”

  Bechet thought about that for a moment, about what it meant, could possibly mean. His brain scrambled to imagine and understand all the variations. But there were just too many, they kept coming, radiating out like endless ripples on the surface of a quiet lake. Finally, Bechet said, “How did he die?”

  “Natural causes. He became ill, knew he was going to die, wanted to do so at his home, wanted his family around him.”

  “He died in Argentina?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “It was kept quiet.”

  “When?”

  “About a year ago.”

  Bechet thought to ask why Castello had waited so long to come after him but didn’t. There was something he needed to make clear.

  “The evidence is just as damaging to you as it would have been to him,” he said.

  “Do you really think we didn’t come after you because we were afraid of the FBI?”

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “Like I said, my father loved you like a son. He let you walk away. It was an act of compassion—one, I warned him, that would probably come back to haunt him. Plus we had invested money in you—in training you, feeding you. But he didn’t care about that.”

  “I don’t believe that you’re not afraid of the FBI, Jorge, not for a second.”

  “Any evidence you have against us also implicates you. The problem with a détente based on the threat of mutual destruction is that the destruction is mutual. Anyway, if we wanted to, we could have gotten our hands on the evidence.”

  “How?” It was as much of a dare as it was a question.

  “Everyone has his weakness, my brother. Your particular weakness would have made things especially easy.”

  “And what’s my weakness?”

  Castello smiled. “It has always amazed me how vital a target the heart is. In every way possible.”

  Bechet waited, saying nothing.

  “A pretty woman, everything you’ve ever wanted, would have made her way into your life,” Castello explained. “Taken you places a woman has never taken you before. All your dreams come true. It may have taken a while, but sooner or later she would have asked the right questions, found out all your secrets, shared them with us. We taught you everything you know, Pay Day, but not everything we know. Not by a long shot.”

  All around Bechet now precautions—the very things that defined his life—were being rendered pointless. He felt foolish, wildly vulnerable. More than that, though, he sensed the pressure he felt whenever he was in a corner, felt it starting to build within him.
<
br />   Like a fuse being lit.

  This was the time to stay calm and swing smart, not wild.

  “You would have had to find me first,” Bechet said.

  “You spent the year after you left us in hiding. Maybe you started running low on money, or maybe you were feeling a little confident in your ability to make yourself invisible, but whatever the reason, you began working as housepainter, did that for two years, then started your own business. There were women here and there, nothing too serious, nothing a beautiful woman couldn’t have lured you away from. You sold your business a year and a half ago, disappeared for a little while again, then showed up again when you bought into your friend’s cab company. No woman after that, not that we knew of anyway, though, of course, there was always the chance that actually meant there was someone special, someone you were taking care to keep hidden. We weren’t able to ascertain where you lived, or what you drove. I suspect you changed vehicles a lot. Every, what, six months? Smart, in a place like this, where everyone is known by the car they drive. It’s amazing the wealth of personal information you can get with just a license plate number and the right connection, but of course you know all about that, don’t you? For the past year it was like you had disappeared again. We knew you were out here still, somewhere, but of course we weren’t really trying all that hard to find out exactly where. We didn’t need to know that because we knew we could draw you out through that buddy of yours if the need ever arose, which it did tonight.”

  “The two bodies at the canal,” Bechet said.

  Castello nodded. “I think you know us well enough to know that we wouldn’t dispose of a problem in such a way. We certainly wouldn’t string up two bodies in our own backyard, as it were, for everyone to see.”

  “You had nothing to do with that.”

  “No. The victims, however, did work for us. Did some . . . courier work. Not long ago we discovered that they were, in fact, stealing from us, something we allowed to continue in hopes that we would find out who they were working for.”