The Water's Edge

by Daniel Judson

  “You think he’s just going to tell you where she is?”

  “If he gave her the camera, taught her what she knows, then he was trying to help her. I’m trying to help her, too.”

  “Yeah, but that’s my point. Who the hell are you? Unless he knows you and Abby used to live together and that you’re still in love with her, why should he tell you anything?”

  “I’m not still in love with her,” Miller said.

  “Whatever.” Barton shrugged. “That’s not the point.”

  “What is the point?”

  “The last time we saw Abby she was leaving her apartment with a suitcase full of something.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “A lot of people have been killed tonight, Tommy. By someone who knows what he’s doing. Maybe what they’re being killed for is inside that case. Maybe this Bechet guy is the one doing the killing.”

  “He’s partners with Eddie,” Miller said. “Eddie wouldn’t get mixed up with someone like that. Not in a million years.”

  “Maybe Bechet tried going straight, but it didn’t take. That happens, you know. People turn over a new leaf, then find themselves falling back into old behavior for some reason.”

  Miller chose to ignore the comparison Barton was obviously trying to make.

  “I mean, think about it, Tommy. Bechet could be working for Castello again. Or worse, he and Abby could be up to something. He could have killed all those people so the two of them could end up with whatever is in that suitcase. Even worse than that, he could want it all for himself, which would mean he’s probably looking for Abby right now, if he hasn’t already found her.”

  “So there’s only one way to know for sure if he has.”

  “Tommy, don’t be foolish. Please. Let’s just take off, go somewhere, and let this run its course. Let’s just go somewhere and never come back.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t.”

  “That’s a little boy’s answer.”

  Miller shrugged. “Then I’m a little boy.”

  “She’s gone, Tommy. She left you a long time ago.”

  “Do we have to do this, Kay?”

  “I just don’t want you to get hurt. Or killed.”

  “I’m sorry, but whatever the hell is going on, Abby’s the common denominator. She was dating Michaels, gave him my business card; she once worked for Bechet, learned a thing or two from him; and Roffman knocked on her door two nights ago. She’s the key to all this, Kay, whatever this is. I know it.”

  Neither said anything more for a long moment, just stared at each other and thought and listened to the rain. Finally Miller turned his head and glanced out the window at the train station. No cab there yet.

  “I think there might be more than one common denominator here, Tommy,” Barton said.

  Miller looked at her.

  “Abby was dating Michaels, yeah,” she said, “but Michaels was also working for Castello. She knew Bechet, is maybe even still in touch with him, but Bechet apparently has his own history with Castello, too. And like I said yesterday, Roffman made his own deal with the devil a long time ago. He’s been in Castello’s pocket pretty much since the day he took over as chief. You had to have noticed that you weren’t the only one looking the other way when it came to that family.”

  Miller said nothing.

  “Anyway, Tommy, every link to Abby that you see, I see as a link to Castello and Roffman. So if you really want to help her, I think you’re going to have to get yourself to a place where you’re able to forget about that promise of yours. I just don’t think there’s going to be any way around that. Everything seems to be leading you there. I know you think it’s to the benefit of us all that you keep it, and I love you for that, but I have a feeling we’re past that now. I have a feeling the war you’ve been trying to prevent has already begun. And it looks to me like maybe it’s time for you to pick a side and fight. Before the wrong side has a chance to pick you.”

  Barton’s words were still in Miller’s ears when he looked out the window and saw the cab parked at the train station. He told her he’d be right back, to take the second tape out of the VCR and get the third one started, grabbed his overcoat and put it on as he went down the stairs. He’d almost forgotten about the Colt in the pocket, was caught a little off-guard at first by its presence there. Though his PI license had lapsed, he still had a carry permit, so he was legal, but that knowledge didn’t seem to ease the sensation in his gut, the feeling, eerie and quietly startling, that he was stepping out into the middle of something—some greater conflict—that, despite all his efforts so far, he wasn’t even close to understanding. Was he a pawn? Was he a target? One of several targets? Was his apartment being watched now, was he being watched? Once he stepped outside, would he be walking into someone’s sights, his life’s end just seconds away? The gun hanging heavy in his pocket somehow stripped him of the neutrality that had been for years now his best line of defense against who he used to be and what he used to do, the thing inside him that had once driven him. By carrying the weapon it was as if he had accepted an invitation to become once again part of what the man who had taught him the trade called the “mischief and misery of others,” a world that was nothing less than violence and destruction. People at their most vulnerable, and people at their worst—that had always seemed to be how these things were cast. There was now, it felt to Miller suddenly, nothing he could do but push forward, make his way somehow through the maze that surrounded him, and hope for some kind of victory that didn’t cost too much, didn’t leave the world as he knew it a smoking wasteland.

  Stepping through his street door, Miller walked toward the station with his head down, eyeing his surroundings. Nothing, but it was only a quick look, and anyway, if it came, when it came, he wouldn’t see it coming, knew that much at least. His father, a man with more experience than Miller could ever hope to have, had been murdered by a team of hired killers, a team he hadn’t seen coming. Half-expecting to hear at any moment a shot—something—and not hearing it, hearing only his footsteps and the rain, Miller reached the station, passing the parked cab without looking inside it and stepped up onto the platform. He walked to its edge, standing as if waiting for the train even though none was due. A man confused about the time, or early but with nowhere else to go in the rain. After a moment of standing there, his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat, looking up and down the tracks, Miller heard from behind him the sound of the cab door opening and then swinging shut. The sound echoed, muffled a little by the rain. Miller glanced over his shoulder, saw Eddie walking toward the steps, his unlit but half-smoked cigar clamped in the corner of his mouth.

  Eddie was close to sixty, a small scrap of a man with a clubfoot and hobbled legs, who walked these days with a cane. Miller had known Eddie for years before ever seeing him outside of his cab, hadn’t known till that moment that the man had a deformity at all. Eddie’s skin was dark and cut with deep creases, mostly around his eyes, the whites of which were the color of milk. He wore baggy cargo pants and a work shirt, over it a tank driver’s jacket, Second World War surplus. Nylon with a wool lining, lightweight but water-repellent and warm. Despite his decidedly scruffy appearance, Eddie was now something of a well-to-do man; after decades of eking out a living as a cabbie, he had partnered up with Miller’s former boss, a man who went by the name of Gregor. Gregor had helped build up Eddie’s cab business while at the same time buying his way into several local businesses—key, profitable businesses since 9/11. When Gregor took off with his wife Liv to a small gentleman’s farm in Vermont, he had handed many of his businesses over to Eddie. The PI firm went to Miller, under the condition that Miller never pursue the Castello family. More than that, though, that he cut them a wide berth. As with all businesses, a new owner took possession of the assets as well as the debts. Miller understood this, that Castello had once done Gregor a favor. The Castellos weren’t all that easy to ignore, but Miller
kept the promise he had made to the man who had made him who he was. Running the business for as long as he could bear it, Miller finally sold out to a private security firm from New York eager to cash in on the newfound fears of the wealthy. The promise to his former boss had somewhat remained, though. Things such as these were important to him—too important, yes, but he was who he was.

  Miller, still looking over his shoulder, watched Eddie make his way up the steps. He felt bad making his friend leave his cab and walk, but now wasn’t the time for recklessness. If Barton was right, if Roffman and Castello were at war, or on the verge of it, then danger was no longer an abstract thing. Protecting himself and others from it was no longer a ritual, like meditation or prayer, a daily practice followed to give him peace of mind. It was, now, a matter of nothing less than life or death.

  Once on the platform, Eddie paused to light his cigar, then wandered toward the edge, a cabbie stretching his troubled legs and taking a moment to have a smoke. He came to a stop eight feet from Miller, close enough for them to speak without looking like they were anything more than two strangers chatting. Eddie was as familiar with all this as Miller was, had always helped Miller out when he could, and helped Gregor before him, seeking out the two of them, respectively, whenever he knew of something he thought either of them might do well to know. After a second attempt at lighting his cigar, Eddie spoke finally, his voice, as usual, deep for a man his size, his Jamaican accent carrying with it the ring of music.

  “What’s up, my friend?” he said.

  Miller looked up and down the tracks, wanted to look like a man waiting for the train, nothing more than that. “I need to talk to you about your partner.”

  Eddie drew on his cigar, or tried to, removed it from between his teeth and checked its end, then returned it to his mouth, lit it a third time. “What do you need to know?”

  “I need to know for certain if his real name is Jonah. If Jake Bechet and Jonah Bechet are the same man.”

  “Can you tell me why?”

  “If they are, then he’s linked to the murder victims they found at the canal last night.”

  “Linked how?”

  “Through a woman. She was dating one of the victims. The other victim’s girlfriend was found dead a little while ago.”

  “You back at work?”

  Miller shook his head. “No.”

  “Then this trouble you mentioned on the phone is personal.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bad?”

  “It’s looking that way, yeah.”

  Eddie waited a moment, then said, “Jake Bechet and Jonah Bechet are the same man. But no one I know of calls him by either name. To everyone he’s Pay Day.”

  “Why Pay Day?”

  “It was the name he fought under when he was a boxer. How is he linked to this woman?”

  “She used to work for him, back when he was painting houses. And last night I found a surveillance camera outside her apartment that had been purchased by him. She had installed it two weeks ago.”

  Eddie nodded. “What else do you know about him?”

  “That he probably worked for Castello a while back. Can you tell me what he did exactly?”

  “Everyone makes mistakes, Tommy. In our youth, out of desperation, we’ve all done things we shouldn’t have done. I’ve always thought anyone asking for a second chance deserves it.”

  “I need to know exactly what he did, Eddie.”

  “I don’t know exactly. I do know, though, that he’d never go back to working for Castello.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  “Would you go back to the person you were before you started working for Gregor, back when your father was still alive? When you and your friends had your little club and you used to hurt women?”

  Miller shook his head.

  “Some things just can’t ever happen,” Eddie said. “Pay Day going back to work for Castello is one of those things.”

  “Still, he’s connected to Abby. I’d like to talk to him, ask him a few questions. Could you arrange it?”

  “I could if I knew where he was.”

  “He’s missing?”

  “When my driver didn’t show, I tried to call Pay Day to cover the shift, but his phone was shut off. I swung by the place he was living at but no one was there.”

  “Has he ever disappeared like that before?”

  “Not in the time I’ve known him. He doesn’t stray all that far from home these days. He’s like you that way. And he’s always been reachable by phone, has to be in case a driver calls out, that’s part of our deal.”

  “I’d really like to speak to him, Eddie.”

  “The last I heard from him was yesterday evening. He was looking for Bobby.”

  “Who’s Bobby?”

  “My missing driver. Bobby Falcetti. He was watching the cops process the scene at the canal. A friend of his owned that restaurant right across from where the bodies were found.”

  “Tide Runner’s,” Miller said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Falcetti knew the owner?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “The owner’s dead, Eddie. He was killed a few hours after the two bodies were found. He’d been strangled.”

  Eddie looked directly at Miller then. “You think maybe Bobby and Pay Day are in trouble?”

  “If they saw something they shouldn’t have, yeah, they could be. They’ve both disappeared on you.”

  “Pay Day I’m not worried about, he can take care of himself. But Bobby, that guy’s just walking bad luck. And he’s got a serious gambling problem.”

  “If Bechet were in trouble, is there anyone he’d call?”

  “Not likely.”

  “Are you sure? Somebody, anybody.”

  Eddie thought for a moment, then shrugged. “He might call Scarcella.”

  “Who?”

  “Paul Scarcella.”

  “The salvage yard? That Scarcella?”

  “Yeah. He’s how Pay Day and I met. If you ask me, they’re two of a kind.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s just say you wouldn’t want to mess with either of them.”

  Miller thought about that. “How do you know Scarcella?”

  “We have a contract with his wrecker company. And his auto shop services and repairs our cabs.”

  “He’s the one Bechet gets all his vehicles from,” Miller said.

  “Yeah.” Eddie paused again, then asked, “How’d you know about that?”

  Miller shrugged the question off. “Do you think you could give him a call, Eddie? Scarcella, see if he’s heard from Bechet at all?”

  “Who’s this woman anyway? The one you’re looking for.”

  “Abby.”

  “Your Abby?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit.”

  “Exactly.”

  Eddie glanced back at his cab, then looked forward again, down at the tracks. “What time is it?”

  “It’s just a little after six.”

  “Scarcella opens up the yard around now. I can try him there, see what he knows. My phone’s in my cab.”

  “I can get it for you,” Miller offered. He was in a hurry now, tried not to let it show.

  “No, I’m okay. Doctor says I need to walk more.”

  Eddie turned, crossed to the stairs. Back at the driver’s door of his cab he reached into his pocket and removed something. A piece of aluminum foil, folded flat. He unfolded it, held it in his palm and used it like an ashtray to put his cigar out. He returned the dead cigar to his mouth, refolded the foil and slid it into his pocket. Back inside his cab he made the call. Miller watched him through the windshield as he started to speak, then looked toward his apartment. He could see Barton standing in one of his front windows, the last one in the row, watching over him as he had watched over her. He stared at her for a moment, at the shape of her, then took a look around again, studying his surroundings.

  Nothing that shouldn’
t be there, no car that didn’t belong to a neighbor, hadn’t been there at this time every other morning. The only variant visible was Barton’s Volvo, parked directly across from his place. Not that any of this really meant anything. Still, for now Miller felt safe, moved, he believed, unseen. But he didn’t expect that feeling to last for very much longer, not if Eddie got him what he wanted, and not if he was to going to do what needed to be done, whatever needed to be done to save the woman he had once so foolishly abandoned.

  Barton watched as Miller waited for Eddie to finish his call. From the window she could see Eddie behind the wheel of his cab, talking on his cell phone, could see, too, Miller’s impatience in the way he stood. Could anyone have seen that or was it just her? A good two minutes went by, Miller on the edge of the platform, his hands in the deep pockets of his overcoat, glancing up the tracks expectantly but also glancing now and then at the cab. When he saw that Eddie was off the phone, Miller crossed the platform, stepped down to the street, went to the cab’s passenger door. Eddie lowered the window, and Miller leaned in, held up what looked to Barton to be money. It didn’t take long for her to realize that Miller was pretending to ask Eddie for change. They chatted as Eddie broke the bill and handed Miller change. Eddie then picked up his phone in a way that made Barton think it must have been ringing. He spoke briefly, then hung up, nodded to Miller. Miller leaned back, watched as the cab drove away, then started back toward his building. Barton could see the slight limp that plagued him whenever it rained or was humid. Even from the second-floor window she could see, too, his effort at trying to conceal it. A habit of his, one that she knew well.

  Once he reached the street door and started up the stairs, Barton walked into the kitchen, ran some water into a glass, then stepped over to the table on which lay the VCR and DVR. She opened her overnight bag, dug out her prescription bottle, and downed a single pill. The sight of Miller’s wound had reminded her of her own. Seven o’clock was earlier than she usually took her pill, and she was supposed to take it at the same time every day, but a few hours’ difference couldn’t matter that much, and anyway, with everything going on, she didn’t want to forget. Blessed Lexapro did to the brain what love did, caused the same cascade of chemicals and kept them flowing steadily throughout the day and night. The nights were what were important. Barton was placing the empty glass in the sink when Miller walked through the door.