Abel Baker Charley (10 page)

Read Abel Baker Charley Online

Authors: John R. Maxim

Tags: #Thriller

BOOK: Abel Baker Charley
7.01Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Bellafonte's face darkened. “Baker is mine” he said.
“The injury has been done to me.”
Stanley shrugged. “This is Mr. Tortora's message.”
Bellafonte was silent for a long moment. He turned in his
seat to face the blackness outside the window. “Did Mr. Tor
tora give instructions concerning the daughter of this man?”
Stanley was afraid that he knew what was coming. “All
other matters are left to my discretion
,
” he said.
“Then if the man who injured me is to be under the pro
tection of Domenic Tortora, he should at least know of my
suffering and my grief.”
Levy stifled a yawn. “For starters, judge,” he said,
scratching his thinning head, “the guy's wife is dead. I think
he knows from grief.”
“His daughter isn't dead.”
“Your kid isn't either.”
“My son has no face.” Bellafonte's voice tightened and
shook. “Baker's daughter has a face.”
Stanley Levy shut his eyes and shook his head. When he
opened them, he glanced back at Vinnie Cuneo and touched a finger to his temple. Vinnie sat up straight and locked his
eyes on the back of the judge's head.
“Judge Bellafonte,” Stanley asked quietly, “what is it that
you are asking of us?”
“Justice,” he said, spraying spittle with the word.
“You want us to carve up the kid's face?”
”I want justice.”
Stanley folded his hands on his lap and smiled. “That
nice little girl?” he asked. “Who never bothered anybody?
You want us to turn out her lights like that would be an even
payment for whatever happened to that little fucker of
yours?”
The older man stiffened and shook as if shocked by a bolt of current. He spun fully to face Levy, his expression twisted
between disbelief and fury. “You . . . you little kike,” he
blurted as his right hand flew up and his palm slashed down
toward Stanley's cheek. He saw the blur of Levy's hand ris
ing up to block it and he saw an object in the hand, but he
ignored it. His own hand stopped short of its mark against
something that was not flesh. He could not see in the dark.
It was a small object, the pressure against his palm told him.
What he felt was no bigger than a coin. But it stung him. It
pricked at his palm and it burned the back of his hand, and now the prickling was turning into a deeper ache that rolled across his wrist and sent currents of pain up his forearm. He
tried to pull his hand away, but a bolt shot to his shoulder.
His mind turned from Stanley Levy and the insult and tried
to focus through the darkness on what was hurting him, gripping his hand, paralyzing it, forcing it down and away
from Levy's face and pressing it flat against the dashboard.
Stanley reached for the dome light and turned it on. He
wanted the judge to see. He also wanted to see if the judge
was making a mess.
Bellafonte blinked his eyes in disbelief. He saw his own
convulsing hand pinned like a bug to the padded dashboard.
He saw single drops of blood as they fell away, and he saw the rest as it coursed over his wrist and began soaking his
white cuff. And he saw the ice pick that was doing this.
“This way you're behaving,” Stanley asked softly. “What
would your mother say about behaving this way?”
In the back seat, Vinnie tensed. There he goes with his
mother shit again. He felt a chill. It was the only time he was
afraid of Stanley Levy.
”I asked you a question.” Levy's eyes bored into the
judge, who could only stare in return, barely able to believe that this was happening. “Tell me,” Stanley persisted. “Tell me what your mother would say if she knew you wanted to hurt some little girl or that you were going to smack a small
person like me. Tell me if she would like you using words like
kike.
She wouldn't like that, would she? She'd tell you
to say you're sorry.”
Bellafonte was almost sober now. But he was half in
shock. “You did this,” he whispered, “to me?” This last part
was louder. He drew in a breath and Stanley knew that the
next sound would be a scream. He nodded to Cuneo and pointed to the judge's neck. Cuneo punched him there and
the scream became a squawk.
“Are you going to tell me you're sorry?” Levy asked him.
His eyes glazed, Bellafonte scanned the outside darkness for help. Forgetting his hand, he tugged at it, and the pain
made him shriek. “You're insane,” he gasped finally. ”Tor
tora will
…
”
Stanley brushed aside the irrelevancy. “Your mother's
passed on, hasn't she?” he asked gently. “That's too bad. I would have asked my mother to go see her and they would
have talked. That would have been good. It would have been
a way for you and me to understand each other better.”
Only a part of the judge's mind heard Stanley's words.
The rest was on his quivering hand and what was being
done
to him. This outrage. This incomprehensible assault upon his person . . . upon the person of Justice Lawrence Bella
fonte. First Baker had laid hands upon him and now this ...
thing. But he must humor him. He must humor this little ma
niac until he could get away from him. He would go to a
phone and he would tell Domenic Tortora what the crazy
Jew had done. No, he thought. He would not call Tortora.
Not yet. First,
he would call another number. And after the
daughter screamed like his son screamed, then he would call
Tortora. Tortora would understand. And then someday this
man too would scream.
Bellafonte's eyes betrayed him. Stanley knew that this
man would never be reasonable. Better he should be with his
mother.
Tina had been dreaming.
They weren't bad dreams, exactly. It was more that they
were confusing. A whole bunch of little bits and pieces with
good parts and not so good parts all mixed together. Most of
it was about her father. He was in the building someplace.
She knew that. And he was talking to Dr. Bruggerman about
her leg and about reconstruction and stainless steel screws
and therapy and cosmetic surgery. Part of it, the heel, would
always be numb. She didn't mind that so much as long as it
wasn't tingly. Tingly is much worse than numb. And her fa
ther seemed to feel okay about what Dr. Bruggerman was
saying except he thought the doctor was a little bit afraid of
him. And at the same time, like through another ear, she
could hear things being said about her father that weren't so
good. Tina knew that she was remembering the radio, mostly.
The radio was talking about what her father had done to that
man until the nurse came in and pretended to want to talk
about her daughter who Tina kind of knew at junior high, but
what she really wanted to do was turn off the radio.
The really confusing stuff, she thought, was not from one
ear or the other but from someplace in between. It wasn't like thinking and it wasn't like remembering. It was more
like seeing and hearing. For instance, she knew that a man
was talking about her father and the man was with that judge
she didn't like. Then all of a sudden, the man was talking about her. Like he liked her. But then the man talking be
came an old woman talking and then switched back again. It
was all dumb like that. Except she didn't have to be afraid
of that judge. She didn't have to be afraid of anything. Be
cause whenever she started to feel afraid, or to really start to miss Mom, all of a sudden there'd be her new grandpa smil
ing at her and spinning that little blue thing that made her feel yummy sleepy. She could almost see it. Ooops! Daddy's coming.
Tina rubbed her eyes awake. She pressed the button that
elevated the top of her bed and made her hospital smock as
neat as she could. She'd be glad to get rid of it as soon as
Daddy got here with her own stuff. Tina straightened her
hair with her fingers, then squeezed a bit of toothpaste into
her mouth and swished it around with water. She sat back
and watched the door.
“Hi, Daddy,” she called before she even saw him.
She got him to smile after a while. He'd come in smiling, of
course, but it was the kind of smile you put on right outside the door instead of just letting it happen. She told him the
joke about the world's greatest pass receiver who was walk
ing past this building and everyone recognized him and
yelled for him to catch this baby who was hanging from a
top-floor window. And he was afraid to try but everyone told
him he had to, being the world's greatest pass receiver and all, and how he finally ran and caught the baby and every
body cheered and he was all happy and he did a little dance
holding the baby up above his head and then he spiked it.
Her dad laughed out loud. It was really kind of a gross story,
but it was funny.
Then after a while they watched
a re-run of
M*A*S*
H
, and he was
laughing because Klinger had a nightgown that looked just like the one he brought for her. He brought three. He got all
embarrassed when she took off the hospital gown right in
front of him and he kept his head turned. For pete's sake. He
also brought more underwear and her own shampoo and
toothbrush. He brought some flowers that he picked from
the yard and put them on the windowsill with the flowers her
class sent and the ones from Mrs. Carey and the plant from
Mrs. Willis with the little rabbit family in it. And he brought
her schoolbooks and her C. S. Lewis stories, lots of writing
paper, and her scrapbook. From her wall, there was her cat
poster, her Miss Piggy poster, and especially her auto
graphed picture of Tanner Burke and the other one with
Tanner handing her her trophy. He didn't bring any pictures
of himself or Mom. He said he couldn't find them, she
thought, but he probably just left them behind so they
wouldn't make me cry. They wouldn't. Not now. It was nice
to have Tanner Burke, though.
“Daddy?” He was on the bed with her, one arm around her shoulder. Tina looked up at his face. “Daddy, will they
try to put you in jail?”
He squeezed her. “It'll work out, honey.”
“You think they'll try, don't you?”
He didn't answer, but she felt a thump inside him. They
would try. She knew that. And she knew that he would hurt
them if they tried. Tina knew that too but she didn't know how. And she knew that he wouldn't want to hurt them. He
just would. It would be much better if they didn't try. If they couldn't try.
“You could go away,” she said.
“No.” He squeezed her again.
“Just until I'm better. I really think you should go some
place and fix it up for when I can come. Even if it takes a
long time.” Tina's own words surprised her when they came.
Most of her hated that idea. Most of her didn't even want
him to go away until morning. But a part, the part in the in
between, thought that going away was the best and the
smartest and even the happiest idea of all. She thought of the
blue spinning thing.
Baker heard sirens halfway home. They snapped him out of
his thoughts. He'd been dwelling on his own sorrows and on
the lonely and frightening maze that was his future. Other
people had their troubles, the sirens reminded him. Sirens at
night always meant misery for somebody.
He turned off the Post Road. A police car passed him,
going his way.
Baker's right eye began to water.
He turned left across the tracks and onto Summit Road. Now he could see the flashing glow of strobe lights blinking
like fireflies across the night sky. They were on his street. He
knew they were at his house. Baker coasted past Spruce
Street. There were four police cars that he could see and sev
eral others that were unmarked. An ambulance had just ar
rived. In the brief flash of a photographer's bulb, he thought
he saw a man sitting in a chair in the middle of his lawn.
He turned right onto the next street and parked the car.
Then he walked to a dark connecting street at the end of which stood his house. Sam Willis's driveway was on his
right. Staying to the shadows, he ducked into it. He could see Sam and Peg on his front lawn talking to two policemen. Peg
seemed to be shivering, although the night was not cold.
Baker saw her say some words to the police, both of whom
nodded, and she moved away toward her front door. Now Baker saw the sitting man again. He seemed to be praying.
His palms were pressed together as if they'd been clamped
and his face was bent skyward. Baker could see only his
throat and the line of his chin. It occurred to him that no neck
could bend like that. He knew he was looking at a corpse.
Baker heard kitchen sounds. He backed away from the edge of the Willis house and turned the corner, quickly
mounting the two concrete steps to Peg Willis's kitchen
door. She jumped at his tap but turned and opened the door
without first looking through the curtains.
“Jared?” Backing away, she forced a smile. But Baker
had already seen the fear. “Jared, where have you been?”
“At the hospital,” he answered. “Peg, what's going on
over there?”
Now he saw surprise, then doubt, then a new rush of fear.
She glanced toward both doors but did not move. “Jared,” she said, keeping her voice level, ”I think you better go talk
to the police.”
“Damn it, Peg ...” He moved toward her but a hand shot
to her mouth. “Hey,” he asked, “what are you going to do?
Scream? What's the matter with you, Peg?”
“What's the matter with . . . Jared, did you kill that man
or didn't you?” Peg Willis was about to cry.
Baker waved both hands in a gesture of exasperation.
“What man? Who the hell are you talking about?”
“
That judge. The kid's father.” She waved a hand in the
general direction of his front yard.
“Bellafonte? The old man?” Baker wanted to run to a
front window and look again. But he knew it was true. And
he knew that Peg Willis would run from him if he gave her the room. Wait a minute. Peg. Peg couldn't possibly believe
that he would . . . “Peg.” His voice, he knew, was almost pleading. “Peg, I've been in the hospital since fifteen min
utes ago. And the hospital was the last place I saw that
judge.”
“Tell the police, Jared.” Peg Willis wiped her eyes and folded her arms tightly across her chest. She could not look
at him. “Please go out now and tell the police.”
He wanted to hold her. He wanted to take her by the arms
and make her look into his eyes and tell him why she was so
afraid. Instead he asked, “Can you really believe that I
would murder an old man and then sit him on my lawn, for Christ's sake?”

Other books

Rock of Ages by Walter Jon Williams
More Than Life by Garrett Leigh
The Prow Beast by Robert Low
We Were Brothers by Barry Moser
Walk of Shame by Gregory, O. L.
Sophia by D B Reynolds