Sweetheart (23 page)

“Don’t jump all over me,” she protested in a girlish tone and let go of his arm. “Jane and I get along fine. We always have. Though today … well, I don’t know. What’s the matter with her, Tony?”

He stopped in his tracks, annoyed. “Nothing’s the matter with her. Don’t start imagining things.”

“All right, I’ll shut up,” she said and, hiking her sundress above her large white knees, ventured into the water. She let the tide lick her toes and swell against her shins. She looked back at him and said, “It’s cold, too cold, but good.”

“Rita, come here,” he said, and she returned with short, splashing steps and heavy footprints. “Why didn’t Ty come?”

“He didn’t want to, and I didn’t care. This is for Sara.”

“What does she say about you taking the kid?”

“She doesn’t talk about it, and I can understand why. In her heart she knows I can do more for it. Ty and me and the baby, that’s the way it’s going to be.”

“Where does that leave Alvaro?”

“Back to handing out towels in Key Biscayne. I look at him, all I see is a leech.”

“It’s about time,” Gardella said with a heavy sigh. “Now I’ve got something to tell you about the little prick.”

• • •

Christopher Wade was waiting for her when she came out of the room, which gave her a start. “Don’t do that,” she said and tried to brush by him. He reached for her arm.

“You’ve been smoking. I can smell it in your hair and clothes.”

“I’ll wash. I’ll change. Don’t worry about me.”

“I’m leaving,” he said.

“Good,” she said. “Have you told Tony?”

“He’s on the beach with his sister. Tell him I didn’t want to be in the way.” He still had her arm, a gentle grip. “May I kiss you?”

“Sure, why not?”

The kiss was light, chaste, dry. He could have prolonged it, for she did not seem to care. He stepped away and said, “Things are going to work out.”

“Sure,” she said. “Like in the movies.”

He wanted to get back to Boston fast but did not succeed. On Route 95, still in New Hampshire, the Camaro’s radiator boiled over from a loose fan belt. He coasted into the breakdown lane and tried to repair the damage but merely burned his fingers and dirtied his sleeves. He flashed his shield and waved an arm, but nobody stopped. Between the time he hiked to a phone and watched a garageman replace the belt, the sun had vanished. By the time he reached Boston, it was nearly ten o’clock.

He drove through Boston and into Chestnut Hill, wasting more time looking for an address and overshooting the one he wanted. When he finally brought the Camaro to a rest, he dropped his head back, closed his eyes, and spent several minutes running things through his mind. Then he climbed out and — hungry, tired, and soiled — walked toward the apartment building where Russell Thurston lived.

R
USSELL
T
HURSTON
ushered Christopher Wade into the room he used as an office, shut the door sharply behind them, and turned on Wade with an angry flush. “Don’t ever come here again, you hear! My privacy is sacrosanct.” Wade silently looked for the chair that offered the most comfort and then simply chose the closest. Thurston stayed on his feet, his eyes burning. He was in shirt sleeves. The breast pocket bore his monogram in a staid stitch. “So what the hell do you want?”

“Out,” Wade said. “Jane Gardella and I, we want out.”

“
We
, is it?” Thurston said with an instant sneer. “Sweetheart and Honey. A pretty pair.” He leaned a hip against the carved edge of his teak desk and crossed his arms. “The answer’s no. No way.”

“All right. I’ll stay in, but pull her out. If you don’t, she’ll get herself killed. She’ll let it happen, believe me.”

“Excuse me for being truthful, Wade, but suicidal people bore me. Apparently they fascinate you.”

“I’ll get her out myself.”

“You fool,” Thurston said with what nearly amounted to sympathy. “I know her better than you do. It’s Gardella she wants to save, not herself. I guessed that a long time ago.”

“Then why are you still using her? She can’t be giving you anything worthwhile.”

Thurston smiled. “She tells me stuff she thinks won’t hurt him that much. I use everything from everywhere, piece it all together. In the end it makes music. Beautiful music, Wade, lovely notes.”

“You’re proud of yourself, aren’t you?”

“I should be. Everything’s coming together, maybe even better than I expected. No, why be modest? I know my business.” He was speaking deliberately, as if his words were lapidary. Then he pushed himself away from the desk. “You want a drink, Wade? I think you could use one.”

Wade said nothing, and Thurston returned soon with a clear bottle of Arrow Peppermint Schnapps and tiny glasses. He poured with a smile, with contentment and satisfaction, and gave Wade a glass.

“Think about it,” he said. “We’ve got no quarrel, really. We’re professionals with jobs to do, and I do mine better than most.”

Wade, whose eyes gave back nothing, said, “You and Gardella aren’t much different in the way you do things, except I think I could trust him on some things and you on nothing.”

“Well put,” Thurston said with a laugh. “The wop has got to you, hasn’t he? No surprise. They’re a charming bunch, but let me tell you something.” Thurston gestured with his schnapps. “They’re a diminishing breed in what they do. They’re not the power they were and never the power people thought they were. The Jews always outclassed them. The wops drew the heat, and the Jews sat in the shade skimming profits. Was there ever a wop like Meyer Lansky, a guy who lived to be Methuselah and spent most of his life under palm trees, Hallandale and Miami, wops waiting on him? Something else. Wops do hard time. Count on your fingers how many Jews do. Why are you smiling?”

“Who are you kidding? You’re a hero-worshipper,” Wade said softly. “Meyer Lansky isn’t just a name to you. He’s a deity. He still lives — right? — somewhere up in the sky. And you don’t hate Italians. I think you’ve got a love affair with them, which is why you want Gardella so bad. You can taste him, can’t you?”

“You’ve got a vicious mouth,” Thurston said with a faint touch of respect, “but a small mind.” He finished off his schnapps and poured another. “How about you?”

“I’ll stay with this.”

“Don’t try to outmaneuver me, Wade. What I’ve got going for me is God-given.”

“You believe that?”

“Partly.” Thurston looked as if he were having fun. “Let me tell you who I’ve got so far. I’ve got Deputy Superintendent Scatamacchia. You know who he is. He’s mine now, I’ve got a ribbon around him. I’ve got that woman Laura. Now you know why I was asking. I’ve got the senator. Matchett. I’m turning that pervert into a crime-fighter, and afterward I might run him for governor. Imagine that, Wade, Commonwealth of Massachusetts could become mine.”

Wade looked at him askance. “You serious?”

“Half. No, let’s say three-quarters.” Thurston was truly enjoying himself. “There’s somebody else I’ve got. Didn’t ask for him and didn’t expect him. You ready?”

Wade made a lethargic movement. “I’m listening.”

“I’ve got Tyrone O’Dea. He gave me things on Gardella’s sister that go way back.”

Wade lifted himself higher in his chair. “You’re going to scoop up a lot of people, but will you get Gardella himself?”

“Come on,” said Thurston with a patronizing smile. “You must know it doesn’t matter. With Honey I’ve had him from the start. When he finds out the woman he married is a federal informer, a plant, I’ve destroyed him emotionally. And when the people in Providence hear about it, I’ve destroyed him professionally. What’s left for him?”

“No choices,” Wade said with a shudder.

“Exactly.”

“And where does it leave Honey?”

“Dead,” said Thurston.

• • •

In the dim of the room Anthony Gardella rolled over in bed and shook his wife’s shoulder. “Wake up,” he said, and she did so with a jolt, fighting to free her arms from the covers, grimacing as if someone were restraining her. She blinked at him.

“What was I doing?”

“Talking in your sleep.”

“What was I saying?”

“My name,” he said. “You were shouting it. That’s what woke me.”

“I must have been dreaming,” she said. “You were probably swimming out too far, and I was calling you back.”

“A guy I knew, Chili Trignani, used to keep a tape recorder going by the bed in case his old lady said something. He thought she was seeing somebody, which she was, a shrink. Chili was driving her crazy. He also used to lift her dress when he came home, make sure she was wearing underpants.”

Jane Gardella said, “I love you, Tony.”

He raised an arm and let it fall over her. “I know that. I’d know if you didn’t.” He stroked her. “Funny thing is, Chili’s wife was ugly as sin.”

“Do my back, Tony.”

He slid onto his side and kneaded the flesh between her shoulder blades. “How about your bum?”

“That too.” She lay flat, still, legs loose. “Is it enough, Tony? The way I feel about you?”

“Have I ever asked for more?”

A curtain floated forward as salt air breezed into the room, and the sound of a sea bird cut through the night. Gardella fell back to sleep, a hand resting between her legs. She stayed awake.

• • •

A single light burned in Rita O’Dea’s house in Hyde Park. The sole occupant was Ty O’Dea, who had been drinking heavily, which showed in his face, though he was not exactly drunk and not at all tired. Too much on edge to relax, he was sitting rigidly in a chair and watching television in what Rita O’Dea had recently started calling the family room. The solitude suited him but did not last. The sound of the front door opening jarred him. He heard lights being clicked on, the rough pitch of Alvaro’s voice, and the sudden laugh of a woman. When she spoke he knew she was both Hispanic and young. He heard Alvaro direct her up the stairs. When Alvaro looked in on him he said, “You’re crazy.”

Alvaro grinned. “Rita’s at the beach. What have I got to be worried about?”

“The chances you take, you’re lucky you’re alive.”

“The time comes, you die. Not your time, you live. That’s the way I figure things. I tried to explain that once to a guy I was going to snuff. He didn’t understand either.”

Ty O’Dea said, “Who’s the woman?”

“A kid, real cute, just came up from Puerto Rico. In the morning I’ll give her a hundred bucks, let her feel like a queen.”

The woman’s footsteps echoed across the ceiling. Ty O’Dea said quickly, “Not in Rita’s room.”

“Why not?” said Alvaro. “She knew, it would turn her on.”

“You don’t know Rita.”

“I’ve screwed her a hundred times, I guess I know her.”

His face full of heat, Ty O’Dea looked toward the television, an extravagant minidrama exalting mouthwash. Deep in his stomach he could feel a knot. Belching softly, he watched Alvaro advance into the room and draw near, a smirk growing, the collar of his open shirt spread over the collar of his colorful jacket.

“Got a bun on, huh?”

Ty O’Dea said nothing, his face scarlet, his soft hands twitching.

Alvaro said, “You’ve been acting funny lately. What’ve you been up to?”

“Get away from me.”

Alvaro eyed him prankishly. “Maybe I oughta beat the shit out of you, find out what it is.”

“You should’ve left when I first told you,” Ty O’Dea said, blinking, a part of him numb. “You oughta go now, tonight, while she’s away.”

“I play everything to the end, how many times I got to tell you?”

“You’re going to die,” Ty O’Dea said.

“You fucking creep,” said Alvaro. “Everybody dies.”

• • •

At the door Russell Thurston said, “Be tough. And remember something, you and I, we’re apart from other people. We keep society going. How we do it is our business. You got that?”

“Yes, I’ve got it.”

“Say it so I’m convinced.”

“I understand,” Christopher Wade said with the barest frown.

“Good,” Thurston said, “because I don’t want to destroy you too.”

T
HE HEAT WAVE
was relentless. The midmorning sun over the city was red. Victor Scandura had bought buttered rolls at the bakery and was having them with coffee at Anthony Gardella’s desk in the real estate office. The door to the room was closed to preserve the cool from the air conditioner, which was pumping to capacity. When the telephone rang he delicately wiped his fingers before answering it. The caller was Quimby from the Union Bank of Boston. “Anthony’s away,” Scandura said. “You want, I’ll have him call you in a coupla days.”

“You have him call me sooner,” Quimby said in a rush. “You tell him something’s going on. There are people nervous all over town. You tell him I have a federal agent breathing down my neck. You — ”

“Listen to me for a minute,” Scandura said stolidly. “Twice a month we have guys come in here, sweep the place electronically. But you can never be too careful. D’you know what I’m telling you?”

“Yes, I know what you’re telling me. Do you know what I’m telling
you?
”

“I’ll have Anthony call you.”

“You do that!”

Scandura cradled the phone and glanced at his watch. He did not want to bother Gardella too early. He finished what remained of the last roll and drained his coffee cup, craving a cigarette for the first time in years. He got up from the desk and went to the door when he heard somebody in the outer office. It was Deckler, the detective from New York.

“You got something?”

Deckler nodded. “I’ll tell you something, I’m torn. After all, I used to be on the opposite side.”

Scandura said, “I heard you were always on the fence, like you are now. What have you got?”

“I can’t tell you. It’s something Gardella’s got to hear personally.”

“Everything goes through me.”

“Not this, believe me,” said Deckler.

Scandura scrutinized the detective. “Can you tell me anything?”

“About Thurston? Yeah. The man’s not normal.”

• • •

Anthony Gardella was alone. His wife, his sister, and Sara Dillon were gone for the day, a cruise to the Isles of Shoals. He was sitting on the patio in his swim trunks, waiting. At the sound of a car in the drive, he went to the side of the house and beckoned to the man coming up the path. “Didn’t take you long,” he said.

“Scandura gives good directions,” Deckler said and extended his hand. “Long time, Tony. I guess we’ve changed, huh?”

“Not really,” said Gardella, “if you look hard.”

“Imagine if we’d stayed in, we’d’ve come out generals.”

“At least,” said Gardella, leading him to the patio. Deckler had a large bulky envelope with him, which he rested in his lap when he sat down. Gardella poured drinks from a chilled bottle. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” Deckler said and afterward smacked his lips. “Not bad. What is it?”

“An aperitif. Saint Raphael.”

There was a ringing inside the house. Deckler said, “That your phone?”

“Forget it.”

The envelope was offered up. “I wanted to give this to you personally. Didn’t think it should go through Scandura.”

“Victor’s my right arm, my brother.”

Deckler ignored that and said, “I also wanted to give you my bill. Look on the back of the envelope. It’s written little up in the corner.”

Gardella flipped the envelope over, read the pencil scratches, and lifted his hooded eyes. “I’m buying your services, not your agency.”

“I think you’ll pay it. You might hate me afterward, but you’ll pay.” Deckler gestured with his eyes. “There’re pictures in there. Pull out one. One’s enough.”

Gardella opened the envelope and slid out a glossy eight-by-ten, which he examined carefully. He recognized the features of Russell Thurston.

“You like?”

“Yes, I like,” Gardella said, pleased, “but this isn’t worth what you’re asking.”

“There’s a tape in there. Thurston had a special visitor last night. You’re going to want to hear the conversation. That tape alone is worth what I’m charging, but there’s more, which is the reason I didn’t want to go through Scandura. It’s too personal.”

Gardella waited.

Deckler said, “When I was a narc I did Thurston a favor. It involved your wife.”

• • •

Christopher Wade tried to reach Jane Gardella. He called the number in Rye with the intention of hanging up if her husband answered, but there was no answer at all. Later he tried again, with the same lack of results. He jammed the receiver down, looked around the office, and decided to leave. The place depressed him. Because he did not intend to return, he began gathering up things, his sleeping bag from the other room, his toilet gear from above the sink, his spare Beretta from the file cabinet. The thought of returning to his apartment also depressed him, but he could think of no other place to go.

The apartment was hot. The single air-conditioning unit failed to function, and he snapped on a little fan and sat in front of it, his shoes off, his shirt undone. He had had little sleep, which was the reason he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

His wife woke him.

Standing over him cool and neat in a crepe shirtdress, Susan Wade said, “I was going to ring, but everything was open, even the downstairs door.”

“They’re not careful here,” he said, surprised to see her, and rose from the chair, regretting he was not better dressed. She extracted what looked like a document from her white shoulder bag.

“The house goes on the market tomorrow,” she said, “but the broker needs your signature too.”

He looked at the paper, at the asking price. “That’s three times what we paid for it.”

“That was a million years ago, Chris.”

“Yes, it was. Do you have a pen?” She produced a ballpoint bearing the logotype of Rodino Travel. He snarled his signature on the dotted line. When she started to speak, he put a finger to his lips and said, “Not here.”

He led her into the bathroom.

With a confused smile, she said, “Thank you, Chris, but I don’t have to tinkle.”

“I’m nervous talking out there.” He turned on a tap. “The place is bugged.”

“I’m not surprised,” she said. “It’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve had dinner a couple of times with someone you know. A federal agent. Blue.”

He gave her a close look. “How did you meet him?”

“That’s not important. He told me what you’re doing, this thing you’re involved in. He told me to tell you to get out of it, right now. He said there’s nobody you can trust, not even him.” She touched his sleeve where it was rolled up. “I don’t ever want to live with you again, Chris, but wherever I am, I want to know you’re alive and well.”

He smiled. “Are you saying I have a special place in your heart?”

“Yes, you do.”

“Are you … involved with Blue?”

Now she smiled. “He’s a handsome man, younger than I, excitingly black, but no, I’m not involved with him. The first time we had dinner I paid, the second time he did. And each time his wife was there. By the way, they have no secrets. They share everything, including the frustrations of their jobs. I think their marriage will work.”

He watched her absently touch her hair and was moved. “You’re still very attractive, Susan. You’re going to find someone.”

“I think so too, Chris, but it doesn’t matter if I don’t.”

“Are you still planning to go to California?” he asked, and she nodded. “Taking your car?” Again she nodded. He opened the medicine cabinet. It was where he had stashed the spare Beretta. “Take this, please,” he said. “If you’re going to be driving alone across the country, you’ll need some kind of protection.”

“No,” she said, “I wouldn’t know how to use it.”

“But I taught you. Remember?”

“No, Chris. You were always planning to teach me, but I was never a priority.” She gently pushed his hand to one side and kissed him. “I’m on my own.”

• • •

The women were back from their day at the Isles of Shoals. Jane Gardella, restless, went for a walk on the beach. She had asked her husband to accompany her, but in a quiet way he had begged off. A little later his sister went to Philbrick’s to buy ice cream, which left him alone with Sara Dillon. Soundlessly he approached the door of her room and opened it. She had been in the sauna, and all she had on was a towel around her thick waist. Gardella stared at her bare back, which was marred by blemishes. Feeling his eyes, she looked over her shoulder.

“Don’t I have privacy?”

“You have five minutes to get out of here,” he said in a moderate tone of voice. “A taxi will be waiting. It’ll take you to the Eastern terminal at Logan, and from there you take the first flight to Florida.” He placed money on the dresser. “Don’t ever let me see you again, even down there.”

“What about Ty?” she asked, and Gardella looked at her icily.

“What about him?”

Jane Gardella came back from her walk in the diminishing sunlight and stepped onto the patio. Rita O’Dea, eating ice cream from a bowl, gave her a hard look. Her husband was standing motionless. When she started to drop into a chair, his hand shot out and gripped her for an instant.

“Let’s go inside,” he said. He had her lead the way. She went into the kitchen. When she turned around, he said, “Marriage, was it in the script?”

• • •

Victor Scandura had a late visitor at the real estate office. He dropped his hand from the telephone, where he had been resting it, as if waiting for a ring. Looking up slowly, he said, “Close the door. I’m trying to keep it cool in here.”

Russell Thurston said jauntily, “You don’t look surprised, just mad.”

Scandura’s spectacles were smudged. He took them off and wiped them. “I don’t figure I deserve this. I was about to go eat.”

“Must be a lot of things you can’t eat,” Thurston said and sat himself down. “I’ve got a medical report on you, and I’ll tell you, that’s some stomach you got. An ulcer like that can kill you.”

“You’ve got no medical report on me.”

“The hell I don’t. That Negro agent of mine, you must have seen him around, his wife works at Mass. General. She sees records. She’s seen yours.”

Scandura put his spectacles back on. “You come here just to pull my chain or say something?”

“I came here to tell you people are talking in my ear. If I told you the names, they’d chill you. What it means is your boss is going down the tubes.”

“Nice of you to tell me. I’ll let him know.”

“Scandura. Look at me, right in the eyes.
It’s true
.”

“Excuse me. I got to wash my hands before I go eat.” Scandura left his desk and went into the toilet. He bent over the sink and ran water. No paper towels were left. He blotted his hands on his pants. Thurston looked in on him with a big grin.

“You’ve never done hard time, Scandura. How long do you think you’ll last, you sick old thing? Do you want to deal?”

Scandura pushed the door shut.

• • •

Christopher Wade parked the Camaro on the boulevard. He turned off the motor and listened to it pulse down and spit heat. He had pushed it hard. The night sky over the ocean was thick with stars. There was not a single light showing from the house, which had a locked-up look. The only car in the drive was Jane Gardella’s, which looked abandoned.

He tried anyway.

He catapulted out of the Camaro, loped across the boulevard, and raced up the drive to the front door. He almost expected to find a note for him tacked to the door. All he found was his ghostly reflection in the glass panel.

On the patio he stumbled over a bowl, a spoon rattling in it. On the table was a half-consumed bottle, warm to the touch, of Saint Raphael.

The terrible thought that weighed on him as he drove back to Boston was that he had no plan, no strategy, only a headache, which worsened when he sped over Mystic Tobin Bridge, lights popping at him one after the other. In the traffic in Hyde Park his foot shuddered from gas pedal to brake as he outmaneuvered a taxi discharging smoke. At Gardella’s house he parked in front of the first stall of the lit garage. The loose face of Ralph Roselli loomed at him from the shadows.

“You don’t have to knock,” Roselli said. “Go right in.”