Safe House (20 page)

“What about the guy I—?”

“Forget that. It’s gonna be covered, all right? The Man won’t be looking for you. Not for Hercules, not for the new guy, whoever that’s gonna be. You, I mean.”

“Burke, I dunno. . . .”

“Listen, Herk. This all started with . . . you know. Okay, let’s say you slide on that beef. So what? Where are you? Back where you was, right? Nowhere. This here is what you said you wanted. Another chance. What you got going here that’s so fucking great?”

“Nothing, I guess. But . . .”

“You’re going back to the joint,” I told him. “Sure as hell, that’s where you’re going. You got no job, no trade, a long record. What do you know how to do except fuck people up? And you don’t even like to do that. You go back to the street, the wiseguys are gonna use you until the Man takes you down. You pull this off, you can be a gardener, right? Find yourself a greenhouse somewhere out west maybe. Start fucking
over.
”

He paced the little room, listening to me. Then he finally snapped to what he was doing—practicing for his next bit, already boxed up in an eight-by-ten in his mind. When he looked over at me, I said: “It’s a dice-roll, partner. You throw a few naturals, you make your point and catch it, you’re golden. You’re crap out, and it’s over. One way or the other, you go into this, you don’t come out the same.”

“Those books you gave me? The last time you was here? I gotta, like, memorize all that?”

“No. Not word for word. But you heard it all before, right?”

“I guess. . . .”

“Sure you did,” I encouraged him. “Inside. Plenty of guys were into that.”

“And I gotta cut my hair?”

“Why?”

“Look like one of them skinhead motherfuckers, right?”

“Nah. You go in the way you are, Herk. You look like a fucking Viking anyway—it’ll be perfect.”

“You’d be like . . . around?”

“Not in there with you. But I’d be like your . . . coach, okay? There’s stuff we have to find out first, but we don’t have much time, Herk. If you don’t wanna do it, that’s okay. I got some cash here. Right with me. Say the word and you’re in the wind.”

“Burke . . .”

“What?”

“You’re right, bro. Fuck it, I ain’t goin’ back Inside. Let’s do it.”

I
parked Herk in Mama’s. The Prof was already there. He’d handle the first round of coaching. Pryce was going to call Crystal Beth around midnight, so I fired up the Plymouth and headed over there.

But I didn’t go straight to the Lower East Side. First I had to stop in the South Bronx. At the Mole’s bunker, where I said the magic words to him—the only words absolutely guaranteed to ring his bell.

Nazis in the house.

I
rapped on her back door at nine. She opened it immediately, like she’d been waiting.

“What happened?” she greeted me.

I just pointed to the staircase, then swept my arm like an usher to indicate she should go first.

She threw me a look over her shoulder, but she went up the stairs without another word.

Inside her room, she bent to light the candle. I stood there, watching, unzipped my jacket. She came over to where I was standing, put her arms around my neck. I reached behind her, grabbed her bottom through the loose cotton slacks and pinched with both hands, hard.

“Ow! What was that for?” she squeaked.

“I just wanted to see if you were sore,” I told her, leaving my hands where they were.

“I am
now,
” she said, pulling her hands down from my neck and trying to rub her bottom. My hands stayed in the way, keeping her from doing it. I pinched her again for emphasis.

“Burke, stop it!” she yelped, trying to wiggle free. “What are you talking about?”

“I thought that fat butt of yours might be a bit tender,” I said in her ear. “Riding a motorcycle over that rough terrain in the middle of the night and all.”

She stopped struggling. “I was just—”

“Spying,” I said. “Or playing some game I’m not in on. You tell me.”

“I didn’t think you saw me following you,” she said, no repentance in her voice. “I ran the whole way without lights.”

“What’s the deal, Crystal Beth? You weren’t close enough to listen.”

“I wasn’t trying to listen. I was just . . . afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Not
of
anything. I was afraid for you.”

“So you were gonna protect me?”

“Yes!” she said defiantly.

“With what?”

“I don’t
know,
” she almost moaned. “I just . . . He’s a very bad man. I thought, if he had other people there, I could ride up and . . .”

“What? Have me jump on the bike so we could make a getaway?”

“All right, I didn’t know. I didn’t have a plan. But I had a . . .”

“Purpose?”

“Yes. Go on, mock me. There wasn’t anything I could do . . . here. Just sitting and waiting. I got you into this and . . .”

“It’s okay,” I said, patting her where I’d pinched. “But why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have let me go?”

“No.”

“That’s why,” she said, flashing her smile. “I know what men are like.”

“You don’t have a clue,” I told her.

“I know what my father was like,” she said. “He never would have let my—”

“I’m not your father, little girl.”

“I know. I didn’t mean—”

“Never mind.”

“Burke, I’m sorry, okay? I’ll—”

“I thought we had a deal,” I told her. “You were going to do what I told you.”

“I
did.
”

“Not just in the damn restaurant, Crystal Beth. Until this is done. Until it’s over.”

“And then?”

“Then you can do what you want.”

“What
ever
I want?” She smiled.

“Don’t press your luck,” I said.

She put her nose in my chest and rubbed like she had before. It worked. I sat in the easy chair and she plopped herself in my lap. Then I told her a pretty close version of my conversation with Pryce. Everything but the money part.

“
A
re you really going to . . . put somebody in there? With Lothar?” she asked when I was done.

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“Pryce is going to call here tonight. He’s going to want another meet. I figure he’ll do it the same way. You know, he’ll already be in place. We’ll have to leave right away.”

“We? You mean you want me to—?”

“No. I mean me and the guy I’m putting in. He’s going be here later. Around eleven-thirty. And he’s got to stay here until we move him out.”

“Stay here? A man?”

“Yeah. Pryce won’t give me time to go and pick him up. And I already moved him out of where we had him staying. It’ll just be for a day or two.”

“I can’t let him. . . . There’s no men living here.”

“You got a basement, right?”

“Yes. But it’s not really set up for living. There’s no—”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s stayed in worse. We can fix it up easy enough. All right?”

She didn’t say anything, one fingernail idly scratching the back of my neck.

“All right?” I asked her again.

“All right,” she agreed.

She was quiet for a few minutes after that. Then she shifted her weight so her hips were resting on the arm of the easy chair. “I’ll bet I’m bruised,” she said on the wings of a soft breath. “From where you pinched me.”

“It wasn’t that hard,” I said.

“Yes it was,” she said. “There’s bruises. Big ones, I’m sure of it. You better take a look.”

W
e waited downstairs together. Eleven-thirty sharp, knuckles hit the outside door. I motioned Crystal Beth to one side and opened it. Herk and Clarence stood there. And the Mole, an indistinct blob in his dirt-colored jumpsuit, a toolbox in his right hand.

I waved them in. “This is Hercules,” I said to Crystal Beth.

“I’m glad to meet you,” she said, holding out her hand for him to shake.

“You’re goddamn gorgeous!” Herk said, staring. He can do that—say something like that to women without a trace of a leer or a sneer—I’ve seen him do it before.

Crystal Beth flushed, mumbled something under her breath.

“And this is Clarence,” I told her.

“I am honored to meet you,” the West Indian said in his formal voice.

“The honor is mine,” she replied, on safer ground now.

“That’s the basement?” I asked, pointing to my left.

“Yes.”

The Mole walked past us without a word and disappeared down the dark stairs, Clarence right behind him, trusting the Mole to see in the dark. Crystal Beth gave me a look. I ignored it. “Let’s talk upstairs,” I said.

She started up the steps. I elbowed Herk out of the way before he could tell her what a beautiful butt she had and fell in right behind her, leaving him to follow.

In her room, Crystal Beth hit a switch and three separate lamps snapped into light. The place looked different in artificial light. Colder, more efficient.

“It’s gonna be tonight,” I told Herk. “This guy, Pryce, he’ll call here. And we’ll go to the meet. You’ll stay here until he has it set up.”

“Here?” Herk asked, smiling at Crystal Beth.

“In the basement,” I told him. “We’re gonna rig something down there.”

“There’s a toilet,” Crystal Beth said helpfully. “I think it works. And there’s a sink, and a—”

“Whatever,” I cut her off. “We’ll make it work. It won’t be for more than a couple of days, max.” Then I turned to Hercules. “You can’t come upstairs,” I told him. “Not for nothing, period. This is supposed to be an all-women’s joint, understand? Nobody else can see you. Got it?”

“I got it,” he replied, not bitching.

“We’ll take my car to the meet. Pryce has already seen it. And I’ll bring you back. By then, the guys will have it set up downstairs, okay?”

“Sure, Burke. Like you said.”

“You’ve been reading that stuff I left with you?”

“Yeah. It ain’t all that complicated. Just . . . stupid, like.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Jews run everything, right? That’s what the books said. They run the government, the newspapers, the TV, everything, okay?”

“Okay . . .”

“And these guys, they fucking
hate
the Jews, and . . . Ah, excuse me, miss. I didn’t mean to . . . curse, like. I’m an ignorant asshole sometimes.”

Crystal Beth’s laugh was a merry sound in the room. “That’s all right,” she said.

Goddamn Hercules. He probably could have been the world’s greatest pimp if he didn’t love women so much.

“Go ahead,” I prompted him.

“Okay, so I’m the Jews, right? And I got all this power, right? And these Nazis or whatever, they wanna wipe me out, right? So how come I don’t just wipe
them
out?”

“Good question,” I told him. “But not a question you want to ask these guys you’ll be with.”

“Oh yeah, I know. I was just—”

“Herk, this is no game. Don’t be wondering
anything.
No talking, all listening, got it?”

“I got it.”

The phone rang. Crystal Beth walked over to pick it up. Hercules watched her like a kid in an ice-cream forest.

“Hello.”

There was a long pause as she listened, brushing away her hair to get the receiver right against her ear.

After a minute or so, she said: “I understand. Nine-E as in ‘Edward,’ right? I’ll tell him.”

She hung up. Gave me an address on the East Side in the Seventies. “He said to ask for Mr. White,” she said.

“When?”

“Right now, if you want. Or anytime between now and four in the morning, that’s what he said.”

So Pryce didn’t know I had Herk with me, was giving me time to pick him up. Good.

I turned to Crystal Beth. “If I so much as
hear
a motorcycle . . .”

“I got enough bruises for one night,” she said softly, stepping close to me, sticking her nose into my chest. “Anyway, you have to bring . . . Hercules back, don’t you?”

“Stay put,” I told her, the warning still in my voice.

W
e all came downstairs together, walking silently past the closed doors on the second and third floors. Lights were on in the basement. We went down the stairs and saw an army cot with a full bedroll all set up. A folding table and matching chair were in place, plus a small TV set, a radio with a cassette player, a little cube of a refrigerator, a hot plate and a bunch of books . . . race-hate literature to comics. Herk’s duffel bag was standing next to the cot. Looked like my place.

“It’s great!” Hercules said.

I held out my hand to the Mole, palmed what he had in his. We all walked upstairs together, then out the back door. Crystal Beth closed it behind us.

“You got those keys made fast, Mole,” I told him in the street, slipping them into my pocket.

“Where are the Nazis?” was all he wanted to know.

T
he apartment building had a circular driveway in front with a drop-off area protected by a canopy. I cruised past it twice, just checking. Then I found a parking place about a block away and we walked back together.

The uniformed doorman wasn’t asleep. A bad sign, made me edgy. I told him we were there to see Mr. White in 9-E. He raised an eyebrow. I didn’t respond.

“Two gentlemen to see you, sir,” he said into the house phone, eyes never leaving my face. He was a tallish man in his fifties, built blocky, like an ex-athlete who hadn’t kept up the training regimen. His hair was buzz-cut, gone mostly gray. His eyes were small, porno-movie blue. They didn’t blink.

He listened, no expression on his face. “Go on up,” he said. “Last elevator on your left.”

The walls of the elevator car were mirrored, with rows of tiny lights inset into the ceiling. A bell in the control panel pinged a greeting when the car reached the ninth floor.

The door to 9-E was right across from the elevator. It opened before I could knock.

“Come on in,” Pryce said, stepping to one side so we could.

Just past the foyer, there was an oversized living room with a broad expanse of glass facing east. Might have been a river view behind it but I couldn’t tell from where I was standing. The main furniture was one of those sectional leather sofa-chair combos, muted ecru, extending in a J-curve toward the window. A pair of complicated-looking chairs were positioned right across from it, strips of tan leather pulled taut over black wrought iron. A free-form glass coffee table sat between them, all set off nicely by the thick wine-colored carpet. The walls were bare except for some old movie posters from the Forties, framed in chrome.