Peril (10 page)

Gillman continued to adjust the camera. When he'd finished, he seemed surprised that Sara remained in place, glancing about, her arms stiffly at her sides. “I have to have a look,” he said. “At
you
, Samantha.”

She stepped back again and felt the wall behind her. She could see the door ahead and wanted to rush toward it, but couldn't. He would catch her, and she knew it. She drew her purse to her chest. “Stay away from me,” she said.

Gillman stared at her. “What's the matter with you?” He stepped forward, his hands raised slightly. “Look . . . I have—”

“Get back,” Sara commanded.

Gillman stopped dead. “I wasn't going to . . . do anything to you,” he told her earnestly.

“Get back,” she repeated sharply.

Gillman's eyes sparked with a sudden stunning realization. “Wait a second, you came for the receptionist's job.” He shook his head. “Oh, Jesus. Mildred's job. You're not an . . . actress.” He laughed nervously. “I'm sorry, Samantha. Believe me, I wasn't going to . . .” He glanced about the room, the grim partitions, the hanging metal lights, the cheap furniture and the plastic palms. “This place. You're scared. I'm sorry.” He stepped back, his hands now at his sides, and stood completely still. “Just go, okay? Just go, and we'll end it right here.”

Sara didn't move. If she moved, he would spring at her, she knew. If she turned her back, he would rush up behind her.

“I'll stay right here,” Gillman assured her. “Or I'll go all the way to the other side of the room if you want.”

Sara nodded stiffly.

“Okay,” Gillman said, walking backward one slow step at a time. “This far enough?” he said finally.

Sara gave no answer but turned and dashed toward the door, opened it, and rushed out, taking the stairs rather than the elevator, her feet thudding loudly against the concrete steps, until she burst into the lobby, then across it and out into the air, where, she saw to her relief, no one followed from behind.

TONY

He pulled into the driveway, but instead of moving down the walkway to his house, he turned and faced the cul-de-sac, his attention focused on the house across the way. He didn't know Mike well, and he didn't know Della at all. But he knew that Sara and Della were friends, and that Eddie had been right in thinking that Della might have some idea of where Sara was. He'd meant to ask her about it three days before, but embarrassment had frozen him, the terrible admission that Sara was gone, and he'd taken the chance that she might simply come back, make everything right again, so that no one would have to know that she'd actually left him.

But three days had gone by and now he had no choice but to act. Still, he didn't look forward to revealing anything intimate to Della. She was Sara's friend, after all, not his, and although he didn't know the actual depth of their friendship, he suspected that Sara had told Della at least a few private things.

The thought that Sara might have had this kind of intimate conversation with Della filled him with apprehension. Suppose he asked Della straight out,
What did Sara say?
Did he really want to know? If he asked her about another guy and learned that there was one, what would he ask next? The guy's name? Why would he want that? Would he ask how long it had been going on? What good would such information do him now? Or would he simply tell Della the truth,
I don't care about any of that. I just want the chance to get her back.

His father's face suddenly thrust itself into his mind and he knew with what contempt the old man now regarded him, his pussy-whipped son. On the shoulders of that thought, he headed across the cul-de-sac and knocked at his neighbor's door.

Della opened it. “Hey, Tony.”

“I was . . . I . . . You haven't heard anything, right? About Sara?”

Della shook her head.

“She's missing. I mean, she just sort of . . . left, I guess. . . . The thing is, I was wondering if she said anything to you. You and her being friends and all, I thought she might—”

“No, Tony,” Della said. “She didn't say anything to me about—”

“Yeah, okay,” Tony said hastily. “I just thought maybe . . . You know.” He stepped away from the door. “Sorry to bother you.”

“No, that's okay,” Della told him. “I mean, I wish I could help you.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Tony said. He turned to leave, faced the empty house across the cul-de-sac, its dark windows, and stopped. “I just—” He turned back. “I don't know what to do.” He started to say more, stopped briefly, then said, “Would you mind if I came in for a minute, Della?”

She looked at him in a way he'd never seen before, as if she were afraid of him.

“Just to . . . talk,” he added.

She nodded but he could tell that it was hesitantly.

“Of course, if you're busy . . .”

“No, that's okay,” Della said, her voice still oddly strained. “I'll make you a cup of coffee.”

In the kitchen, Tony sat at the square wooden table, his hands folded around a brown mug, sipping it occasionally, trying to find the right words but always failing. “I think my father's looking for her,” he said finally.

Della nodded stiffly and pressed her back firmly against the door of the refrigerator.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Della said.

Tony took a sip from the mug. “She didn't say anything to you, did she? I mean about leaving me?”

Della shook her head.

“You know if maybe there was some other friend she talked to?” Tony asked.

“No. I don't think she talked to anybody.”

“I guess not,” Tony said. An aching sigh broke from him. “She sure didn't talk to me. But then, I didn't talk to her either.” He tried to smile. “You and Mike talk?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Just the usual stuff. Every day. The kids.”

Tony's gaze roamed Della's kitchen. He envied Mike this simple, contented wife, so different from his own. But that was what had drawn him to Sara in the first place, wasn't it? The way she was so different from the girls in the neighborhood, the ones his friends had already married or were about to. “I liked her accent,” he said.

“What?”

“Her accent. Sara's. You know, southern. The thing is, I'd be good to her if she came back.”

Something in Della's face altered, and she suddenly unfastened herself from the door of the refrigerator and sat down at the table. “I'm really sorry about this, Tony.” She touchis hand. “Really.”

He drew his hand away, feeling like a worm now, the type of guy his father hated. Not like Donny, whose wife wouldn't have dared leave him. Or Angelo, who'd never stop busting his chops if he didn't get Sara back, make her keep her mouth shut, get back to the old routine and stay there.

“Yeah, thanks,” he said, and got to his feet. “I better be going.”

Della walked him to the door but stepped back quickly when he turned to say good-bye, her eyes fearful again.

“I'm sorry to bother you,” Tony said, though he didn't know in exactly what way he'd bothered her, and certainly could find no reason for her to fear him. Why would she? They had been neighbors for years, and he'd never done anything to cause her the slightest unease. He saw clammy dread in her eyes and knew that it was the same fear he'd seen in the cringing figures who stood before his father, men who'd crossed him in some way.

“Has anyone else talked to you about this?” he asked. “My father, I mean. Or somebody who works for him?”

Della shook her head. “No.”

“I have to find Sara before my father does,” he told her.

Della said nothing.

“So, if he talked to you—”

“He didn't talk to me,” Della blurted, then stepped back from the door. “Really, Tony.”

“Okay,” Tony said.

He walked back across the cul-de-sac. By the time he entered his house he'd come to believe that Della had lied to him. It was even possible that his father already knew where Sara was. Perhaps he was already headed to some motel on the Jersey Shore, Caruso behind the wheel of the big blue Lincoln, ready to do whatever the Old Man said he had to do to bring Sara home.

MORTIMER

He saw Caruso first, a thin, taut wire of a guy, the type who seemed always to be walking point. In the war, they were the ones who'd usually bought it first. Bought it so quickly, Mortimer had come to the conclusion that there was something about them, all that fidgeting perhaps, that God just didn't like.

“Mr. Labriola should be here in a few minutes,” Caruso said as he scurried up to him. He glanced out toward the swirling traffic. “Drives a Lincoln.”

“There's no place to park around here,” Mortimer said.

“Oh, he won't park,” Caruso said, “the car will drive up and you'll get in.” He glanced about nervously. “You better have your story straight. You don't, he could take you to some fucking car-crushing joint and nobody would ever see you again.”

“You got a hell of a boss,” Mortimer said.

Caruso's face turned threatening. “Speaking of which, Batman didn't change his mind, did he?”

Mortimer shook his head as a stinging pain swept across his abdomen, bending him forward slightly.

“What's the matter?” Caruso asked.

“Nothing,” Mortimer groaned.

“You're pretty out of shape there, Morty,” Caruso told him.

Mortimer lowered himself onto the steps at the entrance to the park. “Yeah.”

“You should get on the old treadmill. Get rid of that fucking paunch you got.”

“One fifty-four, that's what I weighed in the army,” Mortimer told him. He could not imagine how it had happened, the physical deterioration he'd undergone since then, not only the vanished hair, the spreading belly, and drooping, worthless dick, but the lethal forces that were consuming him now, his liver going south, dragging him into the grave.

“You was in the army?” Caruso asked. “When was this?”

“Sixty-seven.”

“ 'Nam?”

Mortimer gave no answer. “So, is Labriola gonna show up, or not?”

“He's always on the dot,” Caruso said. “Why, you got a fire to go to?”

“Time is money.”

“Well, you should think of this, Morty,” Caruso said. “If Mr. Labriola is a minute late, you wait for him. And if he's an hour late, you wait for him. You fucking stand here and starve to death, but you wait for him, Morty, because if you don't . . .” Caruso's eyes suddenly took on a look of animal fright. “There he is.” He nodded toward a Lincoln Town Car as it drew up to the curb. “Okay, go.”

Labriola was behind the wheel, and as Mortimer drew himself into the passenger seat, he felt something change in the quality of the light.

“So you're the sidecar,” Labriola said.

Mortimer looked at him quizzically.

“The gofer.”

Mortimer nodded as the car pulled away. “Mortimer Dodge,” he said.

“I know your fucking name,” Labriola snapped. “I also know you owe me fifteen grand. Fifteen fucking grand but don't want to do certain things I want you to do. For example, won't bring this guy who's working for me so I can get a look.”

“I would if I could,” Mortimer said.

“I like to look a guy in the eye,” Labriola muttered darkly. “I like him to know what he's fucking dealing with when he's dealing with me. You know why? 'Cause once he gets a look at me, he don't have no fucking doubts about where I stand.”

Mortimer remained mute. It seemed the only safe response to a man like Labriola. You didn't talk. You listened.

“So when I hear this guy won't show, I figure, okay, I'll take a look at the guy who's setting this thing up. Which is you. So, okay, now I'm having a look, and what I see is a guy in a cheap suit, with dirty shoes don't look like they been shined in ten years, and he's got a look on his face like he just poked the boss's wife. In other words, I don't like what I see. So, what you got to do is tell me what I'm seeing ain't quite right. So, go ahead, do that.”

Mortimer thought fast. “You remember Gotti? The way he liked being noticed? Fancy suits. Silk ties. Big talk. Shooting off fireworks when the mayor told him not to. Well, he got noticed. But me, I don't want to be noticed like that. And that's good for me. And it's good for my guy. And it's good for you too, Mr. Labriola. Because it means that when my guy finds this woman, she won't even know she's been found. No noise. No flash. He just sees her. He don't sit down. He don't chat. He don't take no notice. He just finds her, and then he tells me, and then I tell you.” He shrugged. “After that . . .”

“It's my business,” Labriola said.

Mortimer nodded.

Labriola stared at him for a moment, then a loud laugh broke from him, and he grabbed Mortimer's left knee and squeezed. “Okay,” he said, all boisterous good cheer now. “Okay, we'll do this thing.” He grabbed the wheel tightly and gave it a jerk to the right. “So, where you want I let you off?”

“Where you picked me up is fine.”

The car made an abrupt turn, cruised south on Twelfth Avenue, then swung east, Labriola silent, staring straight ahead, until the car came to a halt at Columbus Circle.

Labriola drew an envelope from his jacket pocket. “Here's that information your guy wanted.”

Mortimer took the envelope.

“Stay in touch,” Labriola said in a tone of grim authority.

Mortimer nodded, then opened the door and stepped out of the car. He could still feel the tremor in his fingers as it pulled away.

CARUSO

From behind the Columbus monument, he watched as Mortimer stepped out of Labriola's car, a manila envelope in his hand. The car pulled away, and for a time Mortimer remained in place, the envelope dangling from his hand, looking curiously lost, like a guy who'd suddenly found himself in a foreign city. Then he seemed to come back to himself, glanced about, pocketed the envelope, and began walking south down Broadway until he stopped abruptly as if he'd heard something coming toward him from behind.