Nick's Trip (36 page)

A forced, sickly smile spread across Billy’s face. “You’re way off,” he said.

“No,” I said. “I’m not. You didn’t hire me to find your wife. You hired me to shake down Crane for the money. You knew I wouldn’t give up on it. You knew it because we were friends, and our being friends meant something.” I looked him over. “You were really slick, Billy. Those photographs you sent me, of April. They weren’t pictures of April at all. It wasn’t much of a risk on your part—I wouldn’t have shown them to anyone who knew her, there wouldn’t have been any need. And April’s jewelry—you planted it in the bathroom of Crane’s cottage while I was with him in the sty. The bathroom was the one room of his house I had told you I’d be in. When I confronted Crane with the ring, he told me that it was a stupid trick. It didn’t hit me at the time, but that’s exactly what it was—a trick you used, with a duplicate ring, to get me back down to Crane’s. If it worked, fine. If it didn’t, and Crane took me out, then there was no loss there either, right, Billy? I’m willing to bet that when the cops dig April up, that ruby ring will still be on her finger.”

“This is bullshit,” Billy said. “You’ve got no proof of any of this. None.”

“I’ve got proof. April was killed on Tuesday night—I
confirmed it with Hendricks. The date and time of her death were displayed right on the videotape. And Crane was seen with April, earlier that night, at Polanski’s. Crane had two beers in front of him on the bar, and Tuesday’s two-for-one night. But you told me you went drinking with your wife on Tuesday night, at Bernardo O’Reilly’s.”

“You confirmed it yourself. You went there and—”

“Shut up, Billy. Shut up and let me finish. The bartender at Bernardo O’Reilly’s said you were with a woman that night who polished off nearly a fifth of rum, all by herself.”

“That’s right,” Billy said. “Rum was April’s drink. It’s all she could keep down.”

“April was grape-sensitive. That means she could only drink rum that was bottled in Jamaica. The woman you were with in O’Reilly’s was drinking Bacardi Dark.” I spoke slowly. “That’s Puerto Rican rum, Billy.”

Billy swung the shotgun in my direction. I reached into my jacket and drew the Browning from its holster, locking back the hammer. I pointed the gun at Billy’s chest.

“Break that Remington,” I said. “Break it and throw the shells to the right. Then toss the shotgun to the left.”

A watery redness had seeped into Billy’s azure eyes. “Nick, you don’t think—”

“Do it,” I said, my voice rising. Billy separated the shotgun from the shells and threw them onto the leafy earth. Behind him the crows lifted out of the clearing and flew over the trees.

“So,” Billy said. “This is how we end it.”

“That’s right.”

Billy dug his feet into the leaves and looked up at the tops of the trees, then back at me. “I would have been square with you from the beginning, Nick. That was my intention—to get your help in getting my money back from Crane, with a piece of it going back to you. But from the first minute I hooked up with you, I could see it wasn’t going to be like that.” He stared down at his boots. “The world isn’t all good or all bad, like you think.
It’s somewhere in between. The ones who come out of it all right are the ones who pull from both ways.”

“Skip the bullshit,” I said, my knuckles bloodless on the automatic’s grip. “Our friendship—any friendship—it’s the only thing that sticks. Everything rots, but that’s always supposed to be there. You used it, man. You ruined it.”

Billy looked me over and shook his head. “You better wake up,” he said. “You think anything I did when I was nineteen means anything to me? You talked about that time in the park when we tripped, when I gave you my shoes. You talked about it like it was important. Shit, Nick, I barely even remember it. That might as well have been two different people that day. It’s got nothing to do with this.”

“It’s got everything to do with this.”

Billy buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Then that brings us back to now.”

I straightened my gun arm. “I’m not letting you walk, Billy.”

Billy said, “I’m walkin’.”

“Don’t try it, Billy. I’ll shoot you in the back.”

“No, you won’t.” Billy smiled. “I’m walkin’, Greek. I’m walkin’ back to my car. You’re going to let me, and you’re going to give me some time to do it. After that, everything’s fair.”

“Don’t, Billy,” I said, my voice shaking.

“So long, Nick.”

He turned. I shouted his name once, keeping the gun pointed at his back. I held it there until his royal blue jacket faded in the thickness of the forest. Then I lowered the gun to my side. A few minutes later the crows returned to the clearing. I holstered the Browning, sat on the trunk of the oak, and pulled the Jim Beam from my jacket.

Billy was right—I couldn’t have squeezed that trigger on him, ever—but he was only half right. He wasn’t going to walk. I had called Hendricks earlier that day, from the pool hall on 301.

There are only two ways off the peninsula that ends at
Cobb Island—by highway or by water. Billy didn’t own a boat. Hendricks was waiting for him, the big cop-car engine idling out front of the hardware store, where 257 meets 301.

THE WOODS GREW DARKER
as I finished the pint. I rose off the trunk and walked toward the deep gray light, through another stretch of woods to the highway. A long-haired young man in a Chevy truck stopped as soon as my thumb went out, and he drove me onto the island, letting me out at the Pony Point.

For the next three hours Russel and I sat together, drinking with slow and steady intent. Hendricks showed at dusk and joined us at the bar until closing time. At the end of the night the three us made a wordless toast, and after that Hendricks drove me all the way back to my place in D.C.

I offered him my couch, but he declined. I said good-bye, moved across the yard, and walked around the side of the house. At the stoop, I reached down to stroke the ball of black fur that was lying on the cold concrete and felt the push of a tiny nose against my hand. I put the key to the lock and turned the knob. The two of us crossed the threshold and stepped into the darkness of my apartment.

I
TOOK ON
no new cases in the months that followed. At Billy’s trial, sometime in April, I was asked to testify as to the deceptions he had initiated relative to the cover-up of April Goodrich’s murder.

The state went for conspiracy to commit murder, hoping to ensure a conviction on a lesser charge, and I answered their questions. Billy wisely claimed that the money in question had been gotten through gambling, eliminating the involvement of the DiGeordano family in court. I went along with that part of it, allowing Billy to play that particular string out to the end.

On the final day of my testimony, I walked from the court-house and did not return. Hendricks phoned a few days later and told me that Billy had been given a two-year sentence for conspiracy after the fact. Billy and I had not made eye contact once during the hearing; he was gone from my life.

*   *   *

TWO DAYS LATER, ON
a Saturday afternoon, I was driving my Dart down the Dulles Access Road, the windows rolled down, the spring sun whitening the road. Jackie Kahn was beside me on the passenger seat, and Sherron was seated in the rear. Their luggage had been shoehorned into the trunk. The Smithereens’ “Behind a Wall of Sleep” played loudly from the radio, just covering the sputter of the engine beneath the hood. I lit a cigarette and watched Sherron’s face in the rearview.

She frowned. “You sure this piece of junk’s going to make it, Stefanos?”

“Mopar engine,” I said. “You can bet on it. What time’s your flight?”

“In about twenty minutes,” Jackie said.

I goosed the accelerator and swerved into the left lane.

We reached Dulles International Airport ten minutes later. I dropped Sherron and Jackie at the terminal and told Jackie to meet me at the gate.

I parked the Dart and walked across the lot, toward the main terminal’s great arced wall of glass. Inside, I checked the arrival/departure board, then made my way to the gate through a block of servicemen and European tourists. The steward had made the final call for boarding, and the line had dwindled to three. Jackie and Sherron were standing at the end of the line, the tickets in Jackie’s hand.

“Think we cut it close enough?” I asked as I reached them.

“Didn’t know that Dodge could break eighty,” Sherron said. She wore a double-breasted designer suit, and her lips were painted a lovely pale pink.

Jackie looked at Sherron and made a gentle nod toward the gate. “I’ll be right along. Here.” She handed Sherron her boarding pass.

Sherron put a hand to Jackie’s shoulder and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Take it easy, Stefanos. You come visit, okay?”

“I will.”

Sherron walked stylishly through the gate. She looked back once and smiled in my direction, and capped the smile with a wink. When she rounded the corner, I turned to Jackie.

Jackie wore a smock-and-pants arrangement that day, a colorful handbag draped over her shoulder. Her short black hair was combed forward at the sides, flapper style. Small gold coins hung from her ears, and her brown eyes seemed translucent in the light.

“I’d better go,” she said.

“You’d better.”

“Got a lot to do when I get there.”

“I’ll bet. You’ve got, what, two or three weeks before you start your new job?”

“Something like that. It’ll give me a chance to explore, get comfortable.”

“San Fran’s a nice town, what I hear.”

“I couldn’t turn down the offer,” she said. “And, with what’s coming up”—Jackie stopped to run a hand across her stomach—“I thought a new start was in order, all the way around.”

I dug my hands into my pockets. “You know I don’t want you to go.”

“Sherron wasn’t just being polite,” Jackie said. “We want you out there, Nick. You’re welcome anytime.”

“I plan on it,” I said. “In the meantime, write. And send pictures.”

The steward began to attach a rope at the gate. Jackie stood on her toes and kissed my mouth. She pulled away and touched a finger to my cheek.

“I trust you,” I said. “You know that?”

Jackie smiled. “You did good, soldier.”

She squeezed my hand and walked away.

Later I stood at the window and watched her plane lift off. It gained altitude, made a wide arc, and flew west. When the plane was only a dot of black entering the clouds, I walked back
through the main terminal, out into the parking lot. I found my car and sat in it for a while, watching the sunset, and the flow of foot traffic and cars. A chill cut the air. I started the Dart, pulled out of the lot, and headed back downtown.

MAI PLACED A COLD
bottle of Budweiser on the bar when I entered the Spot. I walked to the stool that was centered beneath the blue neon Schlitz logo. I bellied up and wrapped my hand around the bottle. The joint was empty.

Mai stocked beer in the cooler while Darnell washed the last of the night’s dishes. I could hear the clatter of china and see his long brown arms against his stained apron through the reach-through as he worked.

“Slow night?” I said to Mai.

“Yep,” she said, her plump little hand buried in the cooler, her blond hair pinned up in a pretzel-shaped bun. “A long night watching Happy stare at the cigarette burning in his fingers.”

“Sounds thrilling.”

“I did get a seventy-five-cent tip out of it, though.”

“Then it was worth it.” I saw some sweat roll down the back of her neck and felt the guilt. “You got plans tonight, Mai?”

Mai pulled her arm out of the cooler and faced me. She wound a twist of blond back behind her ear and showed me some teeth. “Got me a new soldier boy, Nicky.”

“Why don’t you take off, then, take a hot bath, get ready. I’ll close up.”

She smiled and straightened her posture. “You mean it?”

“Go on, get out of here.”

Mai untied her tip apron dexterously and tossed it behind the register. She kissed me on the cheek, yelled good-bye into the kitchen, and skipped out the front door. I followed her, locked up, and walked back in.

I slid an old wave mix—Squeeze, Graham Parker, and Costello—into the tape deck. I listened to that while I finished
restocking the cooler. When I was done I wiped down the bar, drained the sinks, and laid the green bar netting out in the service area to dry. I put most of the cash in a metal box and placed it underneath the floorboards, and left the register drawer open with a few ones and a five in the till. Then I grabbed an empty shot glass, the bottle of Grand-Dad off the call shelf, and a fresh Bud, and set them all up on the bar next to a clean ashtray. I placed the deck of Camels and a pack of matches beside the ashtray, had a seat, and settled in.

Darnell came out of the kitchen an hour later, tucking the tails of his beige shirt into his work pants as he walked. He stood next to me, leaned one foot on the rail, and unwound his long arms, resting them on the bar. I finished my fourth shot of bourbon and poured another to the lip of the glass.