The Barbed-Wire Kiss (27 page)

“Did he hurt her?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know. She didn’t look it. Fuck, I don’t know what’s going on with him anymore. He doesn’t tell me anything.”

He took away the gun.

“That night at the Rip Tide. Who were the other two?”

“I don’t know their last names.”

“Tell me what you know.”

“The fat one, his name is Vince. The other one’s Tommy. They’ve been hanging around the restaurant for a couple of months, walk around like they own the fucking place.”

“Dunleavy know them?”

“Yeah, he knows them. He wanted to handle things differently.”

“What do you mean?”

“He told Eddie they should just clip you, then and there. He said it would be a mistake to fuck with you and leave you walking around.”

“He was right. What did Fallon say?”

“He wanted to teach you a lesson. He said you weren’t a cop anymore, you didn’t have any connections. There was nothing to worry about.”

“Tell me about Bobby Fox and Jimmy Cortez.”

“Eddie doesn’t tell me his business. I just go where he wants me to and do what he says. I watch his back when he needs it. That’s all.”

“I don’t believe you. You were around. You must have seen them, heard them being talked about. You must have known what this situation was all about in the first place.”

“It was about money. What else is there?”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know.”

“Lester, I’m trying to be patient. There’s enough shit in that knapsack to light up half the junkies in New Jersey for weeks. Don’t tell me you didn’t know what was going on.”

“That’s Eddie’s stuff. I was keeping it for him.”

“You’re a fucking liar. And I’m starting to feel like I’m wasting my time.”

He snicked the hammer back to full cock.

“Man, be careful with that thing.”

“Turn around.”

“What?”

“I said turn around.”

He stood, caught the handcuff chain with his left hand, pulled it so that Wiley was facing the tub again.

“Put your face down there.”

“Don’t do this.”

“You think I’m fucking with you? Put your face down there.”

He pressed the muzzle of the .38 behind Wiley’s left ear.

“Please,” Wiley said.

“Do it.”

He leaned forward so that the tip of his nose touched the water.

“Look at the water. Don’t turn around.”

Wiley was shaking now, softly. His lips were moving without sound, and tears dropped from his cheeks into the pink water.

“Talk to me,” Harry said.

“Please.” He tried to raise his head. Harry pushed it back down with the gun.

“It could all end just like this, Lester. Right now. It’s up to you.”

Wiley shut his eyes tight.

“Cortez,” he said. “Eddie knew him from around. He’d moved some stuff for him before.”

“Go on.”

“Eddie wanted him to take more, a whole key, but he said he couldn’t afford it.”

He eased up on the gun. “Where was he getting it from?”

“Man, I don’t know that.”

“Guess.”

“He was spending a lot of time with people up in North Jersey. Maybe he was getting it from them.”

“Mob guys?”

“What do you think?”

“Paulie Andelli’s crew?”

“I got nothing to do with that shit. That’s all Eddie.”

“What about Bobby Fox?”

“This Cortez told Eddie that if he could get a partner, he’d take him up on the deal. Then he brought this Fox guy around. They’d come up with the front money, but Eddie saw through him right away.”

“What do you mean?”

“Man, he had no fucking idea what he was getting into. He was in way over his head. You could spot it from a mile away.”

He took away the gun.

“How many people was Fallon dealing to?”

“Four, five. I don’t know. Cortez and that other guy just happened to be in the right place at the right time or Eddie wouldn’t have gone near them. But he had more shit than he knew what to do with. He needed help moving it.”

“When did Dunleavy get involved?”

“A few months back. You gotta understand, Eddie doesn’t tell me much anymore. After Mickey showed up, it was like I became the fucking delivery boy or something.”

“Who killed Jimmy Cortez?”

“I don’t know, man. I swear to Christ I don’t know.”

Harry sat back down.

“That knapsack in the wall,” he said.

“I never even wanted that shit here. Eddie gave it to me to move about three weeks ago. I sold a little of it, but it’s tough. There’s a glut now, or people are doing other things. I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do with it. I ain’t no fucking dealer. He was trying to make me one.”

Harry pointed the .38 at the floor, uncocked it, stood.

“Sit up,” he said.

Wiley turned away from the water, slipped back against the side of the tub.

“Okay,” Harry said. “Here’s the deal. You just retired from the bodyguard and surveillance business. Pack up your Jeep tonight and get the hell out of here. Get as far away from Fallon as you can and stay there.”

“Man, what are you talking about?”

“Just what I said. Things are going to hit the fan here, Lester. You want to catch your share of the shit? I’ll make sure it happens.”

“I can’t just take off, leave with that stuff here.”

“Don’t worry about the drugs, Lester, worry about your life. This is the last time we have this conversation. If I have to deal with you again, you won’t even see it coming. But if you want to guarantee yourself a federal trafficking beef, stick around. You’ll go down with Fallon as sure as shit. Either way, you’re fucked. Get used to it.”

“None of this was my idea, man.”

“This chance might not come again, Lester. There’s going to be so much trouble for Fallon in the next few days he’s not going to have the time or resources to send someone after your sorry ass. He’ll have other things on his mind.”

“That’s what you’re telling me, but you don’t know that. Eddie’s different now. He’s not like he used to be. He’d have me taken out in a second if he thought I ripped him off. Dunleavy would do it for him.”

“Then go somewhere he can’t find you. And forget about the package. I’m taking it.”

“What?”

“If I let you keep it, you’ll sell it or give it back to Fallon. You’ll do anything you have to do to square the books with him. I don’t want that. I want you far away and not even thinking about coming back. It’s a second chance, Lester. Not many people get one. Take it.”

“Nowhere’s far enough. If he finds me, he’ll kill me.”

“That’s the risk you’ll take. But any way you look at it, your life here is done. Accept that fact and you might get out of this alive.”

He tucked the .38 back into his pocket. Wiley watched him from the floor. “Stay there,” Harry said.

He took everything into the kitchen, rewrapped the package and resealed the tape ends. He put it back in the knapsack, zipped it closed, then got the handcuff key and went back to the bathroom.

“Part of you is going to want to get on that phone as soon as I leave,” he said. “Call Fallon and tell him what happened, plead for mercy. If that happens, I promise you you’ll be dead or in jail before the week’s out. I can’t afford to have you around. You’re a loose end. And I’ll do whatever I need to do to get you out of the picture. Do you understand?”

Wiley looked at the floor, nodded.

“Turn around.”

He swiveled slowly on his knees to face the tub. Harry unlocked the cuffs, took them off. They left deep red welts.

He tucked the cuffs into his back pocket. Wiley sat up, began to rub his wrists.

“It may not seem like much of a chance,” Harry said, “but it’s more than Jimmy Cortez got. Keep that in mind.”

“Just get out of here, man. Just leave me the fuck alone.”

“Like I said, Lester, it’s your choice. I’ll deal with it either way.”

He left him there, got the knapsack, and let himself out the side door. At the toolshed, he put the sling back on, slung the knapsack over his shoulder. His arm felt as if it were on fire.

The moonlit streets were silent as he walked back to the car. When he got close, he saw it was empty.

“Hey,” a voice said softly.

He turned. The girl stepped out from the shadows at the side of the building.

They faced each other for a moment, and then he raised his right hand. The key chain flashed in the moonlight. He caught it, opened the trunk, dropped the knapsack inside, shut it.

He unlocked the passenger side door for her. She got in, leaned over and popped the lock on his side. He took the .38 out of his pocket before climbing behind the wheel.

“Open the glove compartment,” he said.

She looked at the gun.

“Did you kill him?”

“No.”

He held the gun at an angle, showed her the empty chambers.

“It’s not loaded,” she said.

“That’s right.”

She opened the glove box. He put the gun inside, closed it, started the car.

“Why did you go in there with an unloaded gun?” she said.

“Because I was afraid I might kill him.”

“What if he had his own?”

“That was the chance I took. Where are we going?”

“I live in Toms River.”

“I don’t know that area too well. You’ll have to give me directions once we get down there.”

He turned on the lights and backed out into the street. For the first five minutes, they drove in silence.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For getting me out of there. And for not killing him.”

“Would it have bothered you if I had? After what happened?”

“If you had, it wouldn’t have been for me. It would have been for whatever was going on between the two of you.”

“That’s right.”

“But I would have blamed myself when I found out about it.”

“Maybe you blame yourself for too much.”

She was quiet until they got on to the highway, heading south.

“I would have done almost anything he wanted,” she said. “He didn’t have to treat me like that.”

She rolled the window down halfway, let in the warm night air.

“You never told me your name,” he said.

“Ally. My name’s Ally.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Ally. I wish it were under better circumstances.”

“What’s yours?”

“Harry.”

“Harry, nothing around here looks familiar.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure if I know how to get home from here.”

“Neither am I,” he said.

The next morning he got a pry bar from the barn, carried the knapsack out to the woods. He leapt the creek carefully, made his way through the willows. When he was about two hundred yards from the house, he found the blackberry tangle that was his landmark. He stood in one spot and turned slowly, watching the ground, until he spotted the cement well cap, half hidden in the undergrowth.

He dropped the knapsack and squatted. Using the pry bar, he tore away vines, then wedged the forked end below the lip of the cap. The concrete grated as he pushed on the bar. When the cap shifted slightly, he sat down in the dirt and used his boot heels to push it away from the opening.

The well had been dry for as long as he could remember. Much of it was caved in now and it was only ten feet at its deepest. Bricks from the shaft wall littered the dirt below.

He lay flat on the ground and reached in. When his fingers found the loose bricks in the wall, he began to pull them out one by one and stack them beside him. By the fourth brick, he’d exposed the hollow space he knew was there, a natural cubbyhole formed by a rock shelf. He lowered the knapsack in and pushed it through. When it was wedged tight, he replaced the bricks.

When he was finished, he stood and brushed himself off, then pushed and prodded the well cap back into place with his feet. He picked up the pry bar and headed back to the house.

“Talk to me,” Ray said. “Reconstruct.”

Harry sat back in the chair, adjusted his sling. Ray had his feet up on the desk, the window behind him open to the sounds of traffic. It felt like old times.

“Eddie Fallon sells drugs,” Harry said.

“Surprise.”

“More than we thought. He played around a little in the past, a deal here, a deal there. Then earlier this year he met Paulie Andelli and friends.”

“A real entrepreneur, this Fallon. Go on.”

“He makes a few small deals, moving stuff through the clubs, people he knows. Everybody makes out. Eventually Andelli starts putting pressure on him to stop fooling around, move into the big leagues. So he does, little by little.”

“You know all this for a fact?”

“Some of it. The rest isn’t hard to figure out. It all falls into place.”

“Okay, what then?”

“Fallon’s torn. Both the clubs and the restaurant are losing money, so what he’s bringing in on the side is a big help. But now suddenly he’s moving with a different class of people. He’s not a big fish in a small pond anymore. He has to keep watching his back. So Andelli introduces him to Dunleavy.”

“You’re losing me. Dunleavy was in with the Scarpettis?”

“Maybe. They had to at least know who he was, his background.”

“Wesniak would have an aneurysm if he heard all this. You think Dunleavy was with them when he was still a trooper?”

“Who knows? My guess is he knew a couple of them. After he got back from Florida, could be he offered them his services. Maybe he knew some wise guys down there, gave him an introduction. But there are a lot of crews that got burned in the past by an ex-cop who, it turned out, wasn’t so ex after all. So maybe they kept him around and steered him Fallon’s way, to see what happened.”

“I’m sure he passed the test with flying colors,” Ray said.

“Yeah, but for Dunleavy, working for Fallon is just another step on the ladder. He’s proving to Andelli and the rest of the Scarpettis that he’s fit for better things. He’s smarter than Fallon—and tougher—and they both know it.”

“So Fallon’s in bed with the Eye-Ties and he hires Dunleavy at their suggestion?”

“Looks like it.”

“That sounds like a foolish position to be in. For Fallon, I mean.”

“Thing of it is, now he’s connected. If he needs help, if he needs some muscle, all he has to do is make a phone call. Andelli sends a couple people down and at the same time they keep an eye on Paulie’s interests, let him know what their new friend is doing, who he’s talking to.”