The Water's Edge

by Daniel Judson

  “I’m sorry, I just don’t believe Ricky could do that. He’s a friend of mine, he helped me out when I was in trouble, when no one else would. And Roffman’s an asshole, no argument from me, but I can’t see him doing that, either. Say what you want about them, they aren’t cold-blooded killers.”

  She stopped herself there. Neither of them said anything for a moment. Then, finally, Bechet said, “Yeah, well, like I said, sometimes people do things they wouldn’t normally do.”

  Barton said nothing. Bechet could sense her frustration. He could sense, too, her anguish at the thought that her friend was maybe not who she thought he was. She returned to her place on the edge of the couch, looked at Miller, then reached out and laid her hand over his again. This gesture was, Bechet thought, more of an attempt to get assurance than to offer it. Or maybe it was a half-plea for Miller to wake up.

  “I don’t really see the point in Tommy meeting with Roffman anymore,” Bechet said.

  “Roffman showed up at Abby’s door,” Barton said. “You don’t want to know why?”

  “I just don’t think he’d tell us. I wasn’t sure what his involvement in all this was before, if he wasn’t maybe being set up or something. But everything just keeps bringing us back to him. Everything points to him being the one behind all this.”

  “Behind what, exactly?”

  Bechet took a breath, let it out. “Someone coerced or convinced two of Castello’s couriers to steal from him. That someone had to have had some kind of influence. Michaels had a record, Roffman is the chief of police. Roffman could have threatened him somehow—or better yet, promised him protection. People who work for Castello know what will happen if they betray him.”

  “If that’s the case, then stealing from Castello, even with Roffman’s promise of protection, is a pretty big risk for someone to take. What they were stealing had to have been valuable to make it worth the risk.”

  “It was.”

  “How do you know?”

  Bechet shrugged. “I just do.”

  “So what were they stealing?”

  “Drugs.”

  “What kind of drugs?”

  “I don’t know for sure. My guess would be Ecstasy.”

  “Why?”

  “Castello’s couriers run the drugs from here into the city, then bring raw materials back. That means the drugs are being made out here, by someone in Castello’s organization.”

  “He has a lab somewhere.”

  “Yeah. Which might explain why he keeps a property like the Water’s Edge vacant.”

  “So Roffman somehow convinces these two couriers to steal a shipment?”

  “Probably small portions of several shipments, spread out over a period of time.”

  “But that would be suicide. I mean, whoever the couriers hand these pills to in the city must count them, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So Castello would know that shipments were arriving short, which means he’d have a motive to kill his couriers.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So then maybe Castello did.”

  “Right next to a building he owns, with a profitable Ecstasy lab running in the basement?”

  “How profitable? What are we talking about here?”

  “The materials are easy enough to get, if you know where to look. And unlike crystal meth, Ecstasy can be mass-produced. I’m talking millions of pills. Tens of millions. It takes about a dollar to make one hit of Ecstasy. Five years ago a single hit was going for twenty-five bucks. Nowadays, in places like the city, it’s closer to fifty. So an investment of a million dollars can return fifty million.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How much was stolen from Castello?”

  “About twenty thousand pills, over a period of about a month.”

  Barton’s eyes looked away as she quickly did the math. “That’s a street value of a million dollars,” she said.

  “Right.”

  “And Castello let the stealing continue?”

  “He knew someone in his organization was behind it, someone other than his two couriers. He wanted to know who, was getting close to finding out when the couriers were killed.”

  “In a way that would make people think Castello ordered it.”

  “Right. But someone witnessed the murders—a fact, at the time, only a cop could know. Not long after he made his report to Roffman, the witness was killed.”

  “And you think Romano’s girlfriend was murdered because of that South American ethic, that ‘screw with me and I’ll kill you and your whole family’ thing. To maintain the illusion that Castello is doing what Castello does.”

  “I think that’s what it’s supposed to look like, yeah. But I also think there’s more to it than that.”

  “More to it, how? What do you mean?”

  “I think the stolen pills went astray. I think Roffman wanted them, that his getting them was part of their deal, and instead of handing them over, Michaels kept them for himself, put them in Abby’s apartment for safekeeping. Abby gets a panicked call from Romano’s girlfriend telling her that their boyfriends are in trouble, so she loads up her suitcase with the goods and takes off. And ever since Roffman has been scrambling to get his hands on that suitcase. That’s probably why he tried to get Tommy involved, so he’d have someone who could go places he couldn’t, someone who wasn’t in any way connected to him. That way no one would ever suspect he was working on Roffman’s behalf. Think about it. Setting up your enemy to take a fall for murder is one thing, but making a nice little profit from it, fuck, that’s just icing on the cake.”

  “I can’t imagine Roffman selling Ecstasy on the street. Or Ricky, for that matter.”

  “They wouldn’t have to. All they’d need to do was find someone who’d take the whole lot off their hands. Say, twenty-five bucks a pill. That’s a cool half million for their troubles. Being cops, I’d imagine they’d know how to find someone who might be interested in a deal like that.”

  Barton was nodding, thinking about everything she’d just heard. It didn’t take her long to come back again to the one problem she had with all this.

  “The killers were two men,” she said. “On the bridge, that’s what the witness reported. That means Roffman and Spadaro—” She couldn’t even finish the sentence.

  Bechet watched her struggle with that, saying nothing. For a moment it looked as though she were about to speak, that she wanted to speak, to say something. In the end, though, she remained silent, her face dulled by, to Bechet’s surprise, sadness.

  “This tape gives me an idea of how to make what I need to happen actually happen,” Bechet said. “But once everything is in motion, things are probably going to turn bad pretty fast.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “If Roffman wants Castello so bad, he can have him. Enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that. Listen, you might want to convince Tommy to lay low for a while. You guys should probably even get out of town. I’m going to tell Eddie the same thing.”

  “I don’t think I could get him to leave even if I tried. I assume he’s built up a pretty high tolerance to his medication, so I don’t imagine he’ll be out for long. When he comes to, he’ll want to go looking for Abby again, even if he has to crawl.”

  “What if I told you there’s a chance you might be able to find Abby? Find her right now. Or at least confirm that she’s gone, which would mean there’s no point in Tommy looking for her, no point in either of you getting any more involved in this. Would you be interested in that?”

  “Yeah, I probably would,” Barton said. “What do you know?”

  “When Castello tried to convince me to find Abby, he told me that she didn’t have a car registered in her name. It didn’t click at the time, but a little while ago it finally did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When she bolted with the suitcase, after she got the call from the cottage, how did she get away without a car? If
she was leaving the island, she would probably have walked down the street to the train station, caught the next one to the city. If she did that, then she’s long gone, out of reach—for now, at least.”

  “But if she wasn’t leaving the island?”

  “Then she either had to call a friend for a ride or a cab. If she called a friend, that leaves us with nothing. But if she called a cab, there should be a record of the pick-up and drop-off.”

  “But if she knows that, if she was so clever about not leaving a trail, why would she do that?”

  “If she had no one to call, how else would she have gotten wherever it was she was going? She probably would have taken precautions, though.”

  “What kind of precautions?”

  “She would have had the cab pick her up somewhere in town, somewhere just far enough away from her place to be safe. You know by the surveillance camera what time she left her place, and you know the pickup would have been somewhere in East Hampton. If we’re lucky, you can use that information to find out where she went. If we’re really lucky, the person she spoke to was Eddie.”

  “Call him right now,” Barton said, “and find out.”

  “It’s better if you do it.”

  “Why?”

  “It just is,” Bechet said. He left it at that. “If there was no pick-up in East Hampton, she might have taken the train to Bridgehampton or even Montauk. Check the schedules and figure out the right times, then see if there are any records of a woman matching her description being picked up at either of those stations.”

  “And if there are none?”

  “Then she called a friend, someone we don’t know about. If that’s the case, all we can do is hope she’s safe. Tommy said he wanted to know that wherever she was, she wasn’t alone. If she called a friend, then she isn’t and he can rest easy. Or at least easier.”

  “Tell me something, though. Do you want Abby found so you know where she is, in case you need her?”

  “No. I don’t even want to know where you take her, if you find her. I just want to know she’s somewhere safe.”

  Barton squinted. “Why?”

  “Let’s just say it would be better for me if she was out of reach.”

  “You mean out of Castello’s reach.”

  “If things go the way I want them to, he won’t be able to make good on any of his threats. But just in case, I want her safe.”

  “I should give you my cell number.”

  “It’s better if you don’t.”

  “Why?”

  Bechet didn’t answer.

  Barton looked at him, then said, “How will I let you know if I found her or not?”

  “Hang a blanket over this window if you found her,” he said. “No blanket, and I’ll know you haven’t.”

  “And if I don’t find her, then what?”

  “Like I said, by then maybe it won’t matter either way.” Bechet took a breath, let it out, then said, “You eavesdropped on our conversation back at the salvage yard. Did you by any chance record it, too?”

  “No.”

  “Take any photos?”

  She paused. “No.”

  Bechet watched her for a moment, couldn’t tell if she was lying, knew it didn’t matter. He looked out the window, made a quick survey of the area. No train was due for more than an hour, so the station was empty. Living in Gabrielle’s cottage by the tracks for the past year, he’d come to know the schedule by heart.

  “Listen,” Bechet said, “thanks for before. For the help.”

  “Yeah. Just so you know, I called your friends at the salvage yard the minute we got back here. They were able to tow your Jeep and my car to their lot, so as far as the police are concerned, the accident never happened.”

  “Jesus,” Bechet said. He was more than impressed. He looked at her, then nodded. “Good thinking.”

  “I assumed they wouldn’t have a problem with it, despite the fact that it’s as illegal as hell.”

  “They’re good friends.”

  “Good men to know, at least.” Barton said. “You know, you should maybe get looked at. Your chest, I mean. It looked pretty bad to me. It must hurt like hell.”

  “It does.”

  “Do you have a doctor?”

  “Not exactly,” Bechet said.

  Barton half-smiled. “What does that mean?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” Bechet crossed the long room to the kitchen. He removed his jacket from the back of the chair and walked to the door. His head was still throbbing; motion didn’t help matters, was easily, in fact, making them worse, but what could he do about that? There were places to go, things that needed to be done.

  He stopped at the door, looked over his shoulder. “I hope you find her,” he said.

  “Everyone calls you Pay Day, right?” Barton asked.

  Bechet nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”

  “Good luck, Pay Day,” she said.

  “You, too, Kay.”

  At the empty train station Bechet deposited two of Miller’s quarters in the pay phone, punched in Scarcella’s number. The short walk from Miller’s apartment to the platform may as well have been a long one as far as Bechet was concerned. He had to move slowly, like an old man; a single too-quick step jarred his insides, sent a whole new burst of pain crashing through him. No fight in his professional career had left him quite like this—close, maybe, but not like this, not this broken, not this spent. But that didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. Bechet told himself this, thought it with each careful step. Too far to turn back now, too much to lose. If anybody knew how to ignore pain, how to push through it, it was Jake “Pay Day” Bechet. He wasn’t that far past his prime, that far from the man he used to be, for better and for worse.

  Scarcella, Sr., answered on the second ring.

  “It’s me,” Bechet said.

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What the hell is going on? I’ve got your Jeep here, and the Volvo.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Bechet looked down at the plastic bag in his hand. “Listen, I’m going to need my things from your safe. As soon as possible.”

  “No problem.”

  “You think Junior could come get me?”

  “He went out on a call. Actually, he should have been back by now. I just tried him on the radio, but he didn’t answer.”

  “Did you try his cell?”

  “Yeah. It’s shut off.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “Pennies Landing, out at the end of Ox Pasture Road. Someone stuck in the mud.”

  Bechet knew the spot. It was a boat launch, fed into an inlet called Heady Creek, at the dead end of a road lined with tall hedges beyond which, on wide lawns, stood giant estates. Directly across the inlet from Pennies Landing was the Indian reservation, acres of unused, still wild land. If not a desolate spot, then at least a private one.

  “I was about to go looking for him,” Scarcella said. “He’s got some married woman in town I’m not supposed to know about, probably swung by to see her. He’s done this before, will probably come back and try to tell me it took this long to pull some idiot out of the mud.”

  “I’ll go,” Bechet offered.

  “You sure?” Scarcella said.

  “Yeah. Keep working on the sedan.”

  “I appreciate it, Pay Day. His lady friend lives out there somewhere, rents the gatehouse on one of those estates. He took the big wrecker, so he shouldn’t be too hard to spot.”

  “I’ll call you when I find him.”

  “I’ll try to have the sedan ready by the time you get back.”

  Bechet hung up, stared down at his feet for a moment. If he didn’t have the pay phone to lean against, he just might have slumped down to a heap on the cement platform. The pain was only getting worse—not just his chest but in his head and hand as well, both of them throbbing as if they, too, contained their own small but hardworking hearts. Not one of these throbs was in sync, though, had th
e effect then of an endless series of explosions being followed by endless after-echoes. A war within, all his own. Bechet wondered if the prescription bag Barton was holding when she returned to Miller’s apartment contained a fresh batch of painkillers. The idea of going back and asking for one or two was tempting. But Bechet knew he needed to think clearly, needed every bit of his smarts now, more than ever. He was down, after all, to just one good hand. And anyway, he doubted he would have been able to make it back across the hundred or so feet to Miller’s street door, let alone up the narrow stairs to his apartment.

  He dug into his jeans pocket for two more quarters, the last two he had, deposited them into the phone and dialed another number. This call was answered at the very end of the fourth ring.

  “It’s me,” Bechet said. It was more of a single grunt than two words articulated. Making an effort to speak more clearly, he said, “I need you to come get me. I need you to take me somewhere.”

  “Yeah, man, sure. Where are you?”

  “The train station.”

  “I’m not that far away. I’ll be right there.”

  Bechet hung up and waited. He thought of calling Gabrielle from his emergency cell phone, wanted now to hear her voice, wanted that very much, but that meant she would have heard his, and there was no way he would have be able to hide his condition from her, not that they were supposed to hide things from each other anymore. But she was worried enough as it was, that much was certain, and anyway Bechet was maybe only an hour from leaving. Maybe even less. He decided to wait till then to call, let her know that he was on his way to her when he was actually on his way to her.

  Less than five minutes later a familiar car turned onto Railroad Plaza from North Main. It was a ten-year-old Camaro, beat to shit. Bechet was glad to see it, if only because he would have a place to sit down for a few minutes. The Camaro pulled up to the platform, and as he stepped down and got in, Bechet did his best to conceal his injuries; no one, not even his friend, needed to know of his sudden frailty, the extent of the limits that his own damaged tissue and battered bones now imposed upon him.

  “Shit, man,” Falcetti said, “you look like how I feel.”

  Bechet looked over at his friend. Falcetti’s face still bore the marks of the beating LeCur had given him the night before.