THE INTERVIEW WITH Elizabeth Crane had been a lot more draining than Nicky had realized. Talking to people who have just lost a loved one was hard work. Especially a loved one who got hacked up in such a horrible fashion. How the hell did cops do it?
Nicky remembered his father coming home many nights, pouring an inch of bourbon into a jelly glass and sitting in front of the television, still in uniform, his thousand-yard stare in place. His dinner would sit on a TV tray most nights as the inch turned into inches and the five-year-old Nicky would cry as his mother would have to help Officer Vincent Stella to bed. Big, tough guinea cop being helped up the stairs by the five-two Nicolette Stella, the frail, iron-willed woman he had married after two dates, the woman he would lose to breast cancer before her fiftieth birthday. His father was not a drinker, far from it, but sometimes the craziness got to him, sometimes he had to numb himself to the madness. Now that his father had retired, though, the stories were coming more frequently, with greater ease. And with far less booze.
But what would Vincent Stella do now? Nicky wondered. Call the police? Did he really want to get involved to that extent? Was this some kind of conspiracy? Did he have some sort of moral obligation here?
He realized that he was not prepared to answer a single one of those questions as he turned off Lee Road onto Chagrin Boulevard, and headed for Normandy. He could barely keep his eyes open.
But as soon as he saw his house, he knew something was wrong. For some reason, his landlord had installed a giant lawn jockey on the front walk. Then he realized it wasn’t a mammoth landscape ornament at all.
It was Frank Corso, sitting on his front steps.
Fuck.
Frank looked even bigger than Nicky remembered. He had cut his hair into a spiky crew, and in the afternoon light, even from a block away, Nicky could see the ridges and valleys of a half dozen scars on his face. He also could see that Frank Corso now had a gym bag with him, sitting at his feet like a small, napping pit bull. What the hell was in there? Nicky wondered. Did he bring instruments of torture?
Nicky slowed down, looked up the street. There was a black Firebird parked across from his driveway. Nicky suspected that it was Frank Corso’s ride.
Four grand, Nicky thought. Four grand or my testicles.
He pulled into a driveway about a half dozen or so houses north of his own, backed out, and headed back toward Chagrin Boulevard, checking his rearview mirror, suddenly wide-awake. He saw Frank lighting a cigarette, oblivious. He hadn’t been spotted.
Nicky drove to Avalon Road, turned left. He parked, got out, locked the car, and made his way through the backyards. He stopped when he reached his yard. Frank Corso’s Pontiac was still parked on the street.
He selected the right key and dashed across his backyard in a dozen silent steps, leapfrogging a Big Wheel bicycle belonging to his downstairs neighbor’s son Aaron in the process. His leather soles on the wet grass left a lot to be desired as prime track and field equipment, but he managed to hold his balance and slip-slide to the door.
He quietly turned the key in the lock, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him in one liquid move. He removed his shoes and padded up the steps, put his ear to the door of his apartment, heard nothing, let himself in, did a quick perusal of his two rooms. Intact. He took one of his folding chairs and tiptoed back to his door. He checked the lock, the dead bolt, then wedged the chair under the knob.
That’s it, he thought. That’s the best I can do. Fort Knox is sealed. If you want me that bad, you fat fuck, come and get me. Give it your best shot.
Bed.
He removed his socks and crashed on the mattress, just asking for bad dreams. He was asleep within minutes.
The bad dreams obliged.
When the phone rang two hours later, a lipless, blood-drenched Benjamin Crane was chasing him through an opium den, right into the arms of Frank Corso, who was suddenly naked, Chinese, and holding a pair of sparking cattle prods.
And in the center of the room – while Cavalleria Rusticana played on – lay a cold Louie Stella, bright yellow daffodils growing from his eyes.