Keeplock: A Novel of Crime (32 page)

“How’s it look back there?” he asked. “We rich, or what?”

“Some of this money has blood on it,” Parker replied.

“We’ll wash it, cuz. We got plenty of time.”

He turned the van into a short driveway and stopped in front of the garage. I got out, opened the garage door for the van, followed it inside, then closed the door. When I turned around, Avi was standing at the far end of the room.

I wasn’t surprised to see him there. I wasn’t surprised when Condon and Rico stepped out of the back room, either. What shocked me were the stockings the two cops had pulled down over their faces. And the military-style weapons they carried. I’d missed the street upscale from Saturday night specials to 9mm automatics and assault rifles. I didn’t know what Condon and Rico were pointing at us—Uzis, Ml6s, AK47s—but the long banana clips just in front of the trigger guards told the whole story.

“Who are you?” Parker asked.

“You sure you wanna know?” Condon asked. His lips curled into a grin beneath the sheer fabric of the stocking. Lacking a Tony Morasso, he was doing his best to fill the part. “Nobody has to get hurt. But that don’t mean nobody
will
get hurt. If we have to kill one of you, we might as well kill all of you. Now, I want you to drop them weapons. One at a time. You first, Eddie.”

Eddie’s head jerked when he heard Condon use his name, but he wasn’t stupid enough to try anything. He took the automatic out of his belt, handling it with two fingers, and dropped it on the concrete floor.

“Awright, you next, Tony.”

“I don’t got nothin’,” Tony said. “The shotgun ain’t loaded. I left it in the truck.”

“Pete, go pat him down. Then take all the weapons and put them in the trunk.”

Eddie’s eyes snapped over to meet mine. Avi’s followed an instant later. Now it made sense to everybody. Condon and Rico had been after the money from the beginning. They used me to set up the job and now they were setting me up to take the fall. Eddie and the boys would come after me, but they wouldn’t find me unless they happened to look in the East River. With me out of the picture, there’d be no way for Eddie to link Condon and Rico to the rip-off. They could look forever, grab and kill every ex-con I’d run with in Cortlandt, but they’d never find the two cops.

I suppose I should have felt something, anger or betrayal or fear, but I was functioning on a different level. The only emotion still operating was the will to survive. Simon Cooper’s face swam into what was left of my mind. Condon and Rico must have found a way to eliminate him as a factor in the equation. I didn’t know how and I didn’t care. That was for later, that was for after I survived.

Morasso began to shake as I approached him and my boyish smile only added to his agitation.

“What’s the matter, Tony. You cold or somethin’?”

I came up behind him and ran my hands over his ribs, then let them slide forward to gently pinch his nipples. “I ever tell you that you’re my kinda guy?” I let my hand slide down his belly to cup his balls. “Yeah, you are, Tony. You’re my kinda guy. That’s why I’m
fucking
you.”

“Cut the bullshit, Pete,” Condon ordered.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that he was staring into the barrel of Condon’s rifle, I think Tony would have gone off on the spot. Of course, I was staring into the barrel of the same rifle, so what I did was obey. I gathered Parker and Eddie’s weapons, carefully added my own, then dumped them in the rear of a 1991 Ford Crown Victoria. It was supposed to have been Eddie’s getaway car. The other cars were parked in the street.

“Real good, Pete. Now empty the van.”

I dragged the two full bags out of the van and heaved them into the Ford’s trunk. On the way, I grinned at Morasso. “Easy come, easy go. Right, cutie?”

“That’s it? That’s all you got?” Rico sounded like he was going to cry.

“Don’t worry, Rico, we combined the bags as we drove up here. There’s enough in there to keep you in pig feed for the rest of your life.”

Rico’s head jerked when I said his name. The barrel of his rifle swung around until it was pointed at my chest.

“Don’t do it,” Condon ordered. “And you, Pete, don’t fuck up again. Now let’s get out of here.”

“Take the keys first,” I said. “They’ve got four cars parked outside. Take the keys.”

Condon looked at me for a minute. He couldn’t have cared less about Eddie’s cars. They wouldn’t be pursuing him, because they had no idea who he was. They’d be coming after me. And they’d begin their search at my last known address: Ginny’s apartment on Cherry Avenue.

“Cough ’em up,” he ordered. “Throw ’em over to Pete.”

As I picked the keys off the floor, Condon and Rico walked over to the Ford, drew automatic pistols, then calmly tossed the rifles into the trunk.

“Whatta ya say we get the show on the road, Pete?” Rico opened the rear door and waved me inside.

I was close enough to see his features through the stocking as I stepped past him. He was so nervous, his eyeballs were shaking.

“You really oughta let the safety off,” I said. “If you plan to use that piece.”

His eyes snapped down involuntarily, then snapped back up to meet mine. If I’d had any doubt about his intentions, which I didn’t, that look would have erased them.

“Still the tough guy,” he muttered, jamming the gun barrel into my ribs.

“What could I say, Rico? I guess I’m just the kinda guy who likes his work.”

He wanted to kill me in the worst way, but didn’t. Lacking Tony Morasso’s spontaneous charm, he would follow through on whatever plan he and Condon had concocted. I suppose that his control gave him confidence, but it didn’t change the fact that he was a rank amateur at the art of kidnapping and murder. A pro would have killed the four of us as soon as the garage door was closed.

Rico pushed me across the backseat, then got in after me. That was his first mistake. He should have gotten in from the other side, where he could keep an eye on Eddie and the boys, especially Tony Morasso. I leaned forward, pressing my back against the front seat and waved at Tony. He was right on the edge.

Condon opened the garage door, then got into the Ford and put it in gear. I took the opportunity to blow Tony a kiss. Maybe that’s what set him off. Or maybe it was the thought of all that money rolling out the door. I’ll never know, because what Tony did was scream and charge the car. Rico turned at the sound and discovered Tony almost at the window. I would have loved to see Rico’s face at that moment, but I had to content myself with the back of his head. Rico fired three times and Tony Morasso flew backward, imitating the security guard he’d blown apart half an hour before.

Condon had no choice except to drive out of the garage. Despite the fact that I was on top of Rico. Despite the fact that I held Rico’s gun with my left hand while I smashed my right fist into his face. Again and again and again. I didn’t expect Rico to offer much resistance and he didn’t. He made a feeble attempt to grab me with his free hand, but my body was above his and I was forcing him against the door while keeping my own back wedged against the front seat.

When Condon finally slammed on the brakes, I didn’t miss a beat. I continued to pound Rico’s face until his eyes closed and his fingers relaxed on the gun. Condon was struggling to pull his own piece, but his fat gut was pressed against the steering wheel and he couldn’t manage to free the automatic and turn to face me at the same time.

“If you’re still holding that weapon two seconds from now, what I’m gonna do is surrender to my base instincts. You won’t like my base instincts.” I pressed the gun barrel into his temple.

“Whatta ya doin’, Pete? It’s yours, too. You’re in on it.” He dropped the pistol on the floor.

“You were planning to put a third in my coffin? How sweet.”

I wasn’t thinking about the money. I was thinking about Ginny and how fast I could get her out of her apartment. “Listen close,” I said, “because I only wanna say it once. First you’re gonna take off the mask. Then you’re gonna get out of the car, open the back door, and take Rico out. If you should see a cop, you’re not gonna wave hello or make any noise at all. Remember the money in the trunk. Remember the piece in my hand. You don’t wanna fuck up here. Not even a little bit.”

I
LEFT CONDON AND
Rico in the middle of East Tremont Avenue and drove away. Traffic was heavy, as usual, with cars and trucks double-parked on both sides of the street. I wanted to fly to Ginny’s, to shoot across the East River on a rocket, but I knew I was going to crawl. I was afraid for the first time, afraid that Eddie would somehow beat me to Ginny’s apartment, that even if I got there first, she’d be out, that she’d eventually walk into a trap.

Eddie wouldn’t expect to find her. He’d have to figure that I’d already taken care of that angle, but he’d go there anyway. There was no other place for him to begin. If he got his hands on her, death would be the least of Ginny’s problems.

By the time I got the big Ford through the toll gate on the White-stone Bridge, I was half crazy. I careened through the traffic at eighty miles an hour, snapping the Ford from lane to lane as if it was a Porsche. The last thing I needed was an accident or a ticket, but I couldn’t stop myself. I jumped off the highway at Linden Place and forced my way through downtown Flushing, running lights and stop signs. The horns went crazy, but nobody tried to stop me. I pulled the car next to a fire hydrant on Cherry Avenue, shoved the cops’ automatics under the seat, grabbed one of the canvas bags out of the trunk, and ran up the stairs to Ginny’s apartment.

When I heard Ginny’s voice and saw her face, I began to calm down. I shut the door and threw both locks.

“What happened?” It was Ginny’s turn to panic. I was too early, much too early, for things to have gone smoothly.

“You have to get out of here. Right now. I don’t have time to explain it. Grab your money and your credit cards and get out.”

I expected her to stall, to ask me about the canvas bag, to demand that I tell her what happened, to refuse to leave without an explanation. I got none of that. Ginny took a small gray bag out of the bedroom closet and began to throw underwear into it. She added a pair of jeans, a blouse, and a dress.

“I just have to get my purse,” she said, looking up at me. “Then I’ll go.”

She was crying and I wanted to take her in my arms, to protect her with the full force of my criminal macho bullshit, but all I could do was whisper.

“Do you want to tell me where you’re going? If you don’t want to, I understand.”

She answered by walking into the front room. “You think you’ll get out of this?”

“Maybe. Tony’s dead, one of the guards, too. The cops turned up in stocking masks instead of blue uniforms.” I took the canvas bag and emptied it onto the rug. “Eddie’s blaming me. That’s why you have to run.”

She was standing at the door, one hand already working the dead bolt, staring at the pile of cash. “What’s that for?”

“Tribute, motivation, a bribe. It doesn’t matter. You have to go.”

“Why don’t you come with me? How would Eddie find us?”

“Eddie wouldn’t; the cops would. They have the resources. But the cops don’t know you exist. The only way they could find out about you is if we go together.”

“I’m going to my sister’s,” Ginny said. “She lives in Tennessee. Can you remember the phone number?”

I walked to the window and looked out onto the street. A gang of kids were playing stoopball in front of the building. White, yellow, Spanish, black—a regular United Nations. They should have been on a poster. “You better write it down. My brain is doing cartwheels at the moment.”

She took a second to scribble a number on the back of a business card, then opened the door. “Call me,” she said.

I walked across the room and took the card. “I’ll try, Ginny.”

Her eyes narrowed. For a minute I thought she was going to hit me. “If I don’t get a phone call within a few days, I’m coming back to look for you.”

“It won’t help to come back. I’ll get to you if I can.” I tried to keep my voice calm, but she wasn’t buying it.

“I can’t stand not knowing. I
have
to know, one way or the other.” She stood there for a few seconds, looking up at me. “What I’ll do is call Simon.”

“You can try, but I don’t think it’ll help. They must have found a way of neutralizing Simon Cooper.”

“How? Simon would never betray you.”

“And cops don’t wear stocking masks. Let’s get going, Ginny. I’ll walk out with you.”

Elevators are traps. I took her down the stairs and out the side door. The kids on the street were arguing, something about a fair or foul ball. Ginny took my hand as we threaded our way between the two teams. We didn’t have time to say what was really on our minds and I didn’t have the heart for bullshit reassurances.

When we reached her car, I took her in my arms and kissed her. I wanted to memorize her, the smell of her hair, the feel of her skin, the taste of her lips. Something to take with me if I ended up doing twenty-five to life in Cortlandt.

“Try Simon,” she said.

“I plan to try everything.”

I watched her car turn the corner, then went back to my own car and drove down Parsons Boulevard to a bank at the intersection of Parsons and Roosevelt. I pulled the Ford into the parking lot, backed it into a slot in the rear, and shut the engine down.

I didn’t have long to wait. Half an hour later, a red Dodge Dynasty drove past. Eddie was behind the wheel, Parker alongside him, but Avi was nowhere to be found. I wondered what John and Eddie would think when they found Ginny’s door open, when they saw that pile of money on the rug. I wasn’t worried about what they’d do. There was only one thing they
could
do—take the money and run. Later on, when things settled down, Eddie would call his mob buddies and put out a contract on me. He wouldn’t have any choice. In his world, treachery can never be ignored. In my world, too, come to think of it.

That canvas bag had left a two-foot-tall mountain on the rug. The second bag, as it turned out, contained $480,000 dollars. I’d have to guess the first had about the same. You can go a long way on half a million dollars and a good set of bogus i.d. Maybe Annie would get to sample a few Rio beach boys in spite of everything.