The Water's Edge

by Daniel Judson

  “You’re pushing it,” Castello said when he answered. “I was beginning to think you took off, left all your friends high and dry.”

  “I’ve been a little busy,” Bechet said.

  “I hope so.”

  “I have the information you want.”

  “Good work. How shall I get it?”

  “Have your driver drop you off at the Southampton station. Get on the nine ten westbound. A car will pick you up in Hampton Bays. The driver will give you what I have and take you back to the station.”

  “Why the runaround?”

  “Because you taught me well. And because I don’t trust you. It’s this way or it’s nothing.”

  “All right, Pay Day, whatever you need. I’d like to talk to you, though.”

  “I’ll be on the train. We’ll talk on the way to Hampton Bays.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  Bechet hung up, walked the two blocks down Hampton Road to his storage unit. Inside, the lights low, he removed the garbage bag from his Alice pack and tore it open. It contained another bag, this one a clear, heavy plastic, the same kind of material Bechet had used to wrap up Falcetti’s body. It was sealed tight with duct tape, and though he could already see what was inside, Bechet opened it anyway, doing so carefully and spilling its contents onto the workbench.

  Twenties and fifties and hundreds, not neat bills wrapped with paper bands, not bank money but used money, dirty bills folded together into wads and secured by thick rubber bands. Laundered money, then, untraceable. LeCur’s share, no doubt, of the cash-out from the Ecstasy the couriers had stolen. Bechet made a quick count of the wads, keeping his mind focused even as the amount grew and grew. When he was done he had to take a step back; he simply couldn’t believe what was there.

  Just over three hundred thousand dollars.

  He stood there, shaking his head. What else could he do? Then he counted the money a second time, getting the same figure. Just over three hundred thousand dollars. He set aside two wads, one worth ten thousand, the other worth twenty, then packed the rest back into the plastic pouch, sealing it tight again. From a storage container in the back of his unit he removed three large manila envelopes, put one wad in one and the second in another. In the third envelope he stashed the flash drive containing Falcetti’s confession and the cassette tapes and photographs from his days with Castello, along with the notebook he had taken from LeCur and the cell phones he had collected. From a drawer beneath his workbench Bechet removed a watch, checked the time as he put it on, then stuffed the plastic pouch containing the wads of bills into his Alice pack. He put the three manila envelopes in after that, then closed it tight and turned off the light. Locking up, he left.

  He walked down Hampton Road, past Red Bar on his right and then the motel in which he had stayed briefly last night on the left. At the diner where Hampton Road became Montauk Highway, Bechet spotted Eddie waiting in the parking lot, just as planned.

  Nothing left to chance.

  On the way to the Bridgehampton train station, Bechet dropped the envelops one at a time over the seat. Eddie watched him in the rearview mirror, saying nothing.

  The first one contained the ten grand. “This is for Scarcella,” Bechet said. The next envelope contained the evidence against Castello. “This is for Miller.” And the third contained the twenty grand. “And this one’s for you.”

  Eddie glanced down at it. “What is it?”

  “Just open it later, okay.” Bechet leaned back, took a long breath. There was just one thing left to do now.

  “Is everything okay?” Eddie said.

  “It’s about to be. We probably aren’t going to see each other for a while.”

  Bechet removed a notebook and pen from one of the outer pockets of his Alice pack, tore out a piece of paper and wrote down the number to his emergency cell phone, handed the paper to Eddie.

  “If you need me, call me from a Southampton pay phone. Otherwise I won’t pick up. If anyone asks, I didn’t tell you where I was going.”

  Eddie read the number, then folded the paper and put it into the pocket of his shirt. He looked back at Bechet, chewing on his unlit cigar, his yellow teeth, in the dashboard light, as dull as old bones.

  “Bobby’s dead,” Bechet said finally.

  “How?”

  Bechet looked out the window. They were passing through Water Mill. “He got mixed up with the wrong guys.”

  “Was he murdered?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He wasn’t long for this world, was he?” Eddie said. “I’ll have Angel pray for him.”

  Bechet nodded. “That’d be nice.”

  They didn’t speak again till the cab was pulling up to the Bridge-hampton train station. Bechet was so close he was beginning to feel tired, beginning almost to relax. Not yet, not yet. When the cab stopped in front of the station, Bechet grabbed his Alice pack and got out, stood by the driver’s door. Eddie lowered the window, and he and Bechet shook hands.

  “You’ve got my number,” Eddie said.

  “Take care of yourself. Angel, too.”

  “Be good, my friend.”

  The cab drove away, and when it was out of sight, Bechet walked to the edge of the tracks, waited there for the train. It didn’t take long, though; everything was planned pretty much down to the minute now.

  When the train came, Bechet boarded it, easily found an empty car, just as he knew he would, took a seat. Sitting back, closing his eyes for now, he felt the tug in his gut as the train began to move and this final journey of his was, at last, in motion.

  The black town car with the broken taillight was visible in the station parking lot as the train pulled into Southampton. Bechet saw four people waiting on the platform—Castello and his driver, and a young couple standing face-to-face. Castello and the couple boarded the same car, two ahead from where Bechet was seated. As the train pulled away, Bechet glanced out the window at Miller’s building. His windows were dark, but Bechet thought he saw the shape of someone standing in one.

  When he looked forward again, Castello was entering the empty car. He made his way toward the middle of it, where Bechet was seated on the aisle. Bechet stood, and, without speaking, he and Castello embraced, not out of fondness, though, simply so they could search each other for weapons and wires. When they were done, Castello sat across the aisle from Bechet. He crossed his legs and settled back in his seat, leaning his right elbow just a little on the armrest.

  Two old friends—family, once—about to have a friendly chat.

  “You don’t look too worse for the wear,” Castello said.

  “No thanks to you.”

  “Not that I owe you an explanation or anything, but I didn’t want the Scarcella kid hurt.”

  “No, but you sent a killer to kidnap him. You didn’t order his death, but you still caused it.”

  Castello shrugged. “A technicality.”

  “He was a friend of mine.”

  “It looks to me like you’ve made new friends, though. Miller, that friend of his.”

  “Why?” Bechet said. “Why drag Scarcella into this?”

  “You did that.”

  “How?”

  “I suspected that he was the one holding your precious evidence. Of your friends, he’d be the one I’d go to for something like that. I couldn’t be sure, though. But you went straight to him after our conversation this morning, and that confirmed it.”

  “I thought you weren’t afraid of the FBI.”

  “I’m not, but business is just too good to be interrupted by such nonsense. It is as if we struck a gold mine.”

  “How did you know I went to Scarcella’s after we talked?”

  “LeCur told me.”

  Bechet nodded. “He was the traitor, by the way. LeCur, Jr. He and some partner.”

  “Who?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  Castello thought for a moment, then said, “What about Roffman?”

  “It looks like he
had nothing to do with this.”

  “He was being set up?”

  “It looks that way.”

  “You will provide me with the proof of that, right?”

  “It’s all in an envelope,” Bechet said. He looked out the window, at the wilderness rushing by.

  “The police found LeCur’s father early this morning,” Castello said. “Dead, in the trunk of his car. It seems they found his son a few hours later. Dead, too, but in the middle of a road.”

  “Bad day for your workforce, I guess.”

  “Did you kill them both?”

  Bechet didn’t answer.

  Castello shrugged again. “It does not matter, I suppose. Anyway, I still have you.”

  “I did what you wanted, Jorge.”

  “There’s still the matter of LeCur’s unknown partner.”

  “Find him yourself.”

  “I seem to be a little shorthanded at the moment. And there’s also the matter of what was stolen from me. I must get that back, you know that.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Bechet said. “It’s long gone.”

  “That is bad news.”

  “Maybe you should imagine it going to some good cause. School for some orphans or something.”

  “Your Gabrielle, she is an orphan, is she not?”

  Bechet looked at him.

  “I thought I made myself understood, Pay Day. You work for me, do what I want you to do when I want you to do it, no questions asked. That was the deal.”

  “Things have changed.”

  “Not as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Well, it’s not about you and me anymore, now, is it?”

  “What does that mean?”

  The train sped past the Peconic Road crossing then, where Bechet had left LeCur, Sr.’s vehicle, his body in the trunk. Seconds later, on the other side of the train, in the dark woods just feet from the tracks, they passed Gabrielle’s cottage, too fast to even try to find it in the dark. Ahead of them, seconds down the line, was the Shinnecock Canal.

  “What does that mean, it’s not about you and me anymore?” Castello said.

  “You brought Scarcella into this.”

  “That was unavoidable.”

  The blur of woods outside the windows gave way then to open sky. They had crossed onto the canal bridge. Visible through intricate trestles, a dark hulk in the bright, watery lights, stood the Water’s Edge. Bechet’s glimpse of the place lasted less than five seconds, and then it was gone, the view once again a blur of scrub pines and broken patches of night sky.

  “Scarcella isn’t a man to take lightly,” Bechet said.

  “Maybe, but I’m not all that worried.”

  “Why not?”

  “A man like that is easy to see coming,” Castello said. “He’s a brute. He’s not smart, not like us.”

  Bechet looked ahead. “You shouldn’t have threatened Gabrielle,” he said after a moment. “This might have gone better for a lot of people if you had done things differently.”

  “I only know the one way of doing things, Pay Day. But as long as you work for me, she’s safe. Everyone you know is safe. I promise you that. And, for that matter, as long as you work for me, your new friend never finds out that . . . uncomfortable connection you two share. How long would the peace you two have made last if he knew the truth?”

  “We’re not our fathers,” Bechet said.

  “Maybe not. Still, if I were you, I’d rather a guy like Miller didn’t know something like that.”

  “Well, you’re not me,” Bechet said.

  The Hampton Bays station was only a minute or so away now. Close, so very close. Bechet took a breath, let it out.

  “It was a good life you had, Pay Day, wasn’t it? Your life with us, I mean. Good money, whatever distraction you needed, women when you wanted them. You could do a lot worse.”

  The train began to slow for the station. Bechet sat still, saying nothing. He would rather die than go back to that life, that utterly meaningless existence of pleasure and violence, of things he would give anything to forget.

  “We’ll set you up good,” Castello said. “We’re a lot bigger than we were six years ago. International. We’ll bring in some men for you to train. If you do well, I probably won’t ever need you to do a ‘job.’ I know how difficult that was for you. I am not without feeling.”

  “Feeling is not compassion,” Bechet said. “Animals feel.”

  The train came to a stop, the doors opened. Castello and Bechet stood, paused to see who’d go first. Castello, as if it were an act of grace, led the way. Bechet followed him up the aisle. Castello stepped down to the door and onto the platform. Bechet, however, remained aboard.

  Turning, Castello looked up at him. “Well?” he said.

  Bechet didn’t move. Castello realized that something was up but too late. A man was standing beside him.

  It was Scarcella. He put one hand on Castello’s shoulder, the gesture, seemingly, of an old friend. With his other hand he pressed the muzzle of a .45 into Castello’s right kidney. Scarcella standing so close to Castello made the gun all but invisible.

  Castello glanced back at Scarcella, stared at him for a moment, at the face of man whose only son had been murdered hours ago. Then Castello looked up at Bechet.

  “So much for seeing him coming,” Bechet said.

  Castello smiled, an awkward smile meant to conceal his fear but not accomplishing that. Before he could say anything, the doors closed and the train began to move. Bechet stepped to the first seat, sat by the window, watched, as the train pulled away, Scarcella leading Castello toward a black van and the man, not unlike Scarcella—not unlike Scarcella’s son, not unlike Bechet, even—waiting by the open door. Scarcella’s brother, there in his brother’s time of need.

  In the empty car, the Alice pack on his lap, Bechet opened his emergency cell phone and hit redial.

  Gabrielle answered at the end of the second ring.

  “Hey, Elle,” Bechet said, “it’s me.”

  She told him what hotel she was at, then asked if whatever was going on was finally over. Bechet said it was, and that he’d be there in two hours, then hung up.

  The train brought him to Penn Station, and then he ran the five blocks to the hotel. Her room was on the top floor. He knocked, just a little out of breath, and waited for her to open the door.

  At midnight Miller awoke to the sound of a dog barking in the distance. A neighbor’s dog, he heard it once in a while. He had been pulled from a dream but could not remember what the dream was about, only that in it he was happier than he had ever been. He would, he knew almost right away, be unable to get back to sleep, so he got up, careful not to disturb Barton, and grabbed his cane hanging on the headboard, then walked to his bedroom window. Old habit, and nothing else, really, for him to do at this time of night. His view was of the well-lit train station, and looking down at it, he didn’t at first understand what he was seeing. Finally, though, it became obvious to him that what he was looking at was, in fact, what was there and not just some memory or fragment of a vague dream.

  Just as she had the night she left him, Abby was standing on the platform, waiting alone for the last train, her grandfather’s suitcase standing beside her.

  Miller hurried on his cane to his front room, found his boots and pulled them on, made his way to his door and then down the stairs. It was slow-going because of his knee, because of the cane, terribly slow, just one step and then another, and when he reached the landing and pulled open the street door, he saw that the last train to New York had pulled to a stop at the station. From where he stood, Miller could see Abby climbing on board. He crossed Elm Street at a diagonal—didn’t even looked for traffic when he stepped off the curb—then started across Railroad Plaza, half-walking, half-hopping, moving as fast as he possibly could. He reached the platform stairs and climbed to the top of them—one at a time, the knuckles of the hand grasping the cane bone-white—as Abby took her seat and the do
ors closed. She was looking down at her lap as the train began to pull away, looking intently, as if reading something, and Miller raised his hand to get her attention, but in the end he didn’t wave, didn’t bother, just let his hand linger in the air a moment before falling again to his side. There was no way she was going to see him, he sensed that, but as her window passed him, as he got a clear view of her profile, she lifted her head, doing so casually, it seemed, just by chance, then glanced out her window and caught sight of him. Surprised, she stared for an instant, then smiled once, the smile of an old friend, fond and intimate. Raising her right hand, still a little stunned, she offered Miller the peace sign, then opened her hand all the way and touched the glass with her palm. She said good-bye, or maybe she had simply mouthed the word, Miller didn’t know. Raising his hand again, Miller waved and mouthed, “Good-bye, Abby,” back to her.

  A few seconds later the train was gone, Miller left behind in the lingering silence. L’Orange Bleu was closed now, everyone long since headed home, so he was the only being in this part of town, would be till morning. Well, not the only being, he remembered. Barton was there with him now.

  Back in his apartment he took off his boots and wandered around his living room for a time. The table on which all the evidence he had collected had been laid out was empty again. Nothing now for him to do but reclaim his old life, the quiet existence of a landlord. Without the rain beating down on the roof and windows, the silence around him was nothing less than consuming. Not a bad thing, really, by which to be consumed.

  Later, he climbed into bed next to Barton. She had uncovered herself during her sleep, her breasts exposed to the cool air of his dark bedroom. He drew the blankets up to her shoulders, covering her, then lay beneath them himself, in the warmth she generated, got as close to her as he could and made himself as comfortable as his aching knee would allow.