BECHET AWOKE IN A ROOM HE DIDN’T IMMEDIATELY RECOGnize, looked toward a shaded window beyond which glared a light that was to his straining eyes both somber and harsh.
His head hurt, a dull, throbbing ache that made every inch of his skull all but vibrate. After a moment he realized that his left hand hurt as well, this pain the sharp, pinching pain that meant damaged bone, though to what degree the damage was he didn’t know. He closed his left hand into a fist, or tried to anyway, had to stop just past halfway when he felt the pain increase suddenly from pinching to blinding. Broken, then, or maybe fractured or just splintered, but the exact nature of the injury didn’t matter, the fact that he couldn’t make a fist was all Bechet needed to know.
His first thought was that he should wrap the hand up—he was in a strange place, couldn’t remember how he had gotten there, didn’t know yet what he might need to do to get out, so an injured hand was a disadvantage he didn’t really need right now. He looked around the room for his Alice pack—there was duct tape in it, he was able to remember that. Duct tape would do, hold his fragile bones in place and prevent him from inadvertently closing his hand into a fist and triggering yet more blinding pain. But Bechet didn’t see the shoulder bag anywhere, nor did he see anything at all that was familiar. He looked at his watch—if not where he was, then he could at least know when he was—and saw in the gloomy light that it, like his left hand, was busted. The crystal was shattered, the cracks like frosted veins, the luminous hands beneath frozen at 7:32. What the hell had happened at 7:32, he wondered, to stop his watch and mess up his hand and cause such a steady pain to radiate against his aching skull like an echo that would not dissipate?
When he finally tried to sit up and felt a flash of yet more pain from deep inside his chest—a real pain that stopped him dead—Bechet suddenly remembered the cause of his injuries. He was shirtless, and as he lay back down he saw a sickly bruise across his broad chest, a shocking stain of purple and black and green—inhuman colors—where his sternum had struck the steering wheel as his Jeep had begun its roll into the woods. It took him several moments—he moved in stages, carefully—but Bechet finally managed to sit up and swing his legs off the bed and place his feet on the floor. Once there, once seated, on the verge of standing, he took another look around Tommy Miller’s bedroom.
The rest came to him, or much of it, he couldn’t be certain; it was all as elusive and fragmented as bits of a dream close to fading from memory. He remembered a woman helping him out of the overturned Jeep, and that at first he’d been barely been able to stand. Then he remembered the woman—in her thirties, pretty in a plain way, moving fast but not frantically, not panicked—telling him to help her drag Miller free of the wreckage. Bechet, his blood still surging with adrenaline, was more or less oblivious at that point to his injuries and did what he could. Though Miller was unconscious, the rain on his face, once they had gotten him clear of the vehicle, brought him around long enough for Bechet and the woman to get him to his feet and help him back to a pickup waiting on the side of road, behind the Volvo that had rammed them and then itself crashed. Miller was limping, significantly favoring one leg, the woman and Bechet propped beside him like crutches, his arms wrapped around their necks. Bechet remembered asking where the driver of the Volvo was and the woman telling him that he had taken off on foot. The next thing he knew after that the three of them were in the front seat of the truck—its only seat—Miller slumped over between them. The woman drove them straight to Miller’s apartment. Miller was unconscious again by then, and the woman had been unable to awaken him. He was too big and too heavy for even Bechet to carry—the injuries Bechet had sustained had finally begun then to register—so the woman got help from the restaurant below, a dishwasher and someone else. The owner, Bechet had gathered. These two men carried Miller up to the second floor and laid him out on a couch. Bechet remembered then being in a bed—Miller’s bed—and the woman leaning over him, tending to a cut on his head. She said something, but Bechet now couldn’t remember what. He looked down at the pillow upon which he had rested his head, saw a bloodied towel covering it. His blood, of course. His first thought upon seeing it was that he shouldn’t forget to take the towel with him when he left. His blood was proof, should anyone need it, that he had been there.
Despite what he had been through, he was at least thinking with some degree of clarity now. That, Bechet told himself, was something.
He stood then, in stages again. Boxers work to develop an instinct that is contrary to human nature, an instinct to remain standing no matter what, and Bechet was running on that contradiction now. In the bathroom he splashed his face with cold water, moving only as much as his injuries would allow. He leaned against the sink, bracing himself with his good hand, and looked in the mirror, first at his face and then at the cut on the side his head. His left side, so he had probably struck the window or the door frame above it during the crash, had more than likely brought his hand up to his head at some point, as if to cover himself against a right hook. Another boxer’s instinct, that particular motion. He’d been cut enough times to know that scalp wounds bleed like crazy, which was probably why he was without his sweatshirt now. Covered with his blood, someone—that woman?—had removed it so he could rest comfortably. He would need to find that, too, and take it with him. He would need to find his mechanic’s jacket as well; bloodied or not, there was part of his five grand in one of its pockets.
Bechet dried his face and hands, then returned to the bedroom. The clock on the table beside Miller’s bed said 9:16. It must have taken them twenty minutes or so to reach to the apartment and get Miller inside, and the accident had occurred at 7:32, so Bechet must have been unconscious on Miller’s bed for about an hour, maybe a little more. Not a lot of time, but still the clock was ticking, he had less than seven hours left till he was supposed to check in with Castello, tell him something, give him something, anything that would serve as a reason for Castello to believe that Bechet was in fact doing what he’d been ordered to do, what Castello needed him to do.
That something, Bechet realized now, was right here in this very apartment.
He found a T-shirt in Miller’s bureau, pulled it on. There wasn’t anything about the motions involved that didn’t cause pain. He found his socks and work boots, pulled them on as well, each task taking time, certainly longer than usual, though he got better at it toward the end, as he grew familiar with his various pains, recognized their specific patterns, which movement would hurt where. There were, he knew, ways around pain. When he was finally done, he stepped into Miller’s kitchen, beyond which was a large front room, rows of tall windows at its far end, a few support beams down its center. Bechet saw Miller stretched out on the couch, a garbage bag filled with ice draped over his knee. Motionless, Miller was either asleep or unconscious.
Bechet looked for the woman but didn’t see her anywhere. He listened, too, but heard only the rain. The exit—the only door that he could see in the entire place other than the bedroom door—was off the kitchen, opened to a set of steep stairs that led down to the street door. He remembered coming up them, someone helping him. Since there were no doors except these, there were no other rooms for that woman to be in, which meant she had left. Where she had gone and why, Bechet didn’t know, but he assumed she probably wouldn’t be gone for long. He needed to look around while he could.
Stepping into the kitchen, he first saw an amber-colored prescription bottle on the counter near the telephone. It was empty, the prescription, for painkillers, in Tommy Miller’s name. Bechet then caught sight of his sweatshirt, caked with dried blood, in the sink in the center of the counter. He saw his mechanic’s jacket, too, hanging on the back of a nearby chair, bloodstains on its collar and left shoulder. He could tell by the shape of its pocket that his money was still there.
Moving into the front room, Bechet spotted right away what he was looking for, on a table just inside the wide doorway. A DVR and VCR, coupled by RCA cables. He went to them, found his microcamera beside the DVR, fought the urge to grab it right then. He noticed that the power lights of both units were lit. He glanced at Miller, saw that he was still out, then pressed the eject button on the VCR with the knuckle of his index finger. First the whirring of gears, then out came a cassette tape. Bechet glanced again at Miller. When he was satisfied that Miller was still asleep, Bechet removed the tape, using the end of Miller’s T-shirt like a glove. Could this actually be the tape Miller had agreed to give to him? It had to be. Bechet laid it on the table beside the microcamera—easy grabbing for when it came time to leave—then noticed two photographs near the edge of the table, by a pile of change and a stack of clothing. Women’s clothing. Using the T-shirt again to prevent leaving fingerprints, Bechet picked up the photos by their corners. It took effort for his eyes to focus, but finally he was able to see the images clearly enough.
One photo showed an unknown man and woman, the next that same woman—dark, curly hair, an inviting smile—with another woman, the two of them sitting together on a couch. The other woman was, Bechet saw right away, Abby. He looked at her for a moment. White tank top, green cargo pants. He recalled the summer she had worked for him, remembered teaching her what he knew about guarding one’s identity in this age of information, and the way to escape this island without leaving so much as a trace. She listened casually yet closely, and he had quickly gotten the sense that this was more than just conversation to her, a means of passing the long hours of work. She was looking for nothing less than ways—any way, all ways—to feel safe. She had, he had gathered over the weeks—talking while painting was something akin to therapy, or confession—always sought men out for the sense of security being with one gave her. These were her words. She had always needed someone—a man, once she reached a certain age—near, particularly at night. So afraid of the dark, of being left alone in it. There were worse reasons to keep someone near, Bechet thought, but he understood her conflict. He understood, too, that she simply didn’t want to do that anymore, to be that, didn’t want to have to rely on a man for anything since, in her experience, they couldn’t be relied on for anything. A cynical joke, especially from one so young, but Bechet had learned a long time ago not to argue with someone about their own experience. Leaving Miller had obviously caused her anguish, so the drive to feel safe, to have someone nearby at night, was for her greater than the need for love. That was, at that point in his life, something Bechet could easily understand.
Still looking at her photo, he remembered the few Friday nights after work that he and Abby had gone to happy hour at Buckley’s, the Irish pub on Job’s Lane. Employer and employee at first, then finally close friends, but never anything more. They were that summer two people in flux, what would have been the point? She was beginning then to be drawn to men for what she believed they could teach her, that and nothing more than that, and he had always only seen women as temporary companions at best, so the temptation was there. But it was, that summer, for Bechet, time for more than just that, for something other than the less he had only known so far.
He recalled, finally, one specific night in late August when they had found themselves in what is known as a pub crawl: starting at Buckley’s, then moving across the street to LeChef, then up Job’s and around the corner to 75 Main, ending the night at Red Bar a few blocks east of the village. Bechet had known better than to drive home that night, instead made his way to his storage unit next door, sacked out alone on a foldout cot he kept there. Was that the night, he wondered now, that Abby had learned where he kept the gear he had told her about over the summer, the devices necessary to ensure one’s safety? Was it shortly after that night that she had let herself in and helped herself to what she needed? Or had she done that recently, as recently as two weeks ago, when the camera, according to Miller, had been installed? Bechet hadn’t touched his gear since putting it away at the start of that summer, when he went “legit,” confident in his arrangement with Castello, Sr., and his habit of always taking the long way home, his eyes on his rearview mirror. There was, then, no way of knowing how long the camera had been missing, no way of knowing now if more than just that had been taken.
Bechet looked at his microcamera and the videocassette, considered grabbing them both, grabbing, too, his sweatshirt and jacket and the bloodied towel back on Miller’s bed, then bolting from this place and calling Castello, arranging a hand-off. This tape might be enough to draw Castello out, drive him to some reckless action the result of which would be his own destruction. If that was too much to hope for, then maybe the tape would drive Castello to an action that would at least expose him, do so in a way that Bechet could take advantage of and put an end once and for all to this nightmare. A lot of mights and maybes, yes, but it was all Bechet had. With his Jeep wrecked, though, and more than likely at this moment in the custody of the police, secure in their holding pen in Scarcella’s salvage yard, then how was Bechet to get anywhere? The sedan he had arranged for was not yet ready—serial numbers needed to be filed down, he wasn’t messing around now, and newer tires had to be installed—and anyway the sedan, too, was back at Scarcella’s garage. Bechet knew he could call Eddie, have a cab sent, but his partner was involved enough as it was. He thought about calling another company, having them send one of their cabs, but then there’d be a record connecting Bechet to Scarcella—or at least a record of a fare from Elm Street to Scarcella’s Salvage. Someone, at some point, might piece that together, and Bechet couldn’t take that risk. Leave no trail. Now wasn’t the time to just forget everything he knew.
It was then, standing at that table, feeling just a little trapped, that Bechet realized something he should have realized when he had spoken to Castello hours ago, when he’d been told by Castello that there was, in fact, no record of a vehicle registered in Abby’s name. Bechet knew he might not have realized this, with all that was going on, if he weren’t himself facing the dilemma he was now facing—the need to leave but no means by which to do so, at least none within immediate and easy reach. If he was right, though, if what had just occurred to him was the case, then maybe there was a chance of finding Abby after all. Again, a maybe, but there it was. And not that he wanted to find her, not that he wanted it to come to that. But if Miller found her, put her somewhere safe, far beyond anyone’s reach, even Bechet’s . . .
He returned the photographs to the table, looked over at Miller, saw that he was still out. Moving past him to the kitchen, opening cupboards till he found a stash of empty supermarket bags, some paper, some plastic, Bechet grabbed two of the plastic ones, walked into the bedroom, stuffed the bloodied towel into one of the bags, then, back in the kitchen, stuffed his sweatshirt in as well. He went through the kitchen drawers till he found a roll of silver duct tape, grabbed it, then returned to the table and put the microcamera and videotape into the second bag, tying that bag closed and putting it in the bag that contained the bloodied sweatshirt and towel. From the pile of change he picked up all the quarters there were and stuffed them into the pocket of his jeans. Finally, with the duct tape, he wrapped up his left hand as quickly as he could. He was finishing that task when he heard a sound come up from the street, the muffled thump of a car door closing.
He went to one of the front windows, looked down and saw a pickup parked at the curb below. The sound of the street door opening and closing was followed by the sound of someone coming up the stairs. The woman, he thought, it had to be. Alone, by the sound of her footsteps. Bechet remained by the window; there wasn’t much else he could do. And anyway, there were things he wanted to know, needed to know, things that would determine exactly what his next move would be. Glancing toward the train station as he waited, he remembered standing there hours ago with Gabrielle, waiting for the last night-train west, holding her close and looking up at this very apartment for any sign that someone was watching.
Bechet turned toward the door as it opened, saw the woman who had saved Miller and him enter and go straight for the couch to check on her friend. She was carrying a small paper bag in one hand, the kind of bag prescriptions are put in, and an overnight duffel in the other. She had reached the couch when she realized Bechet was in the room. Startled, she stopped short, quickly looked down at Miller, then back at Bechet. Her eyes shifted briefly to the bag in his hand.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” Bechet said.
She didn’t say anything, just looked at him. Finally she walked around the couch, laid the pharmacy bag and small duffel on the coffee table in front of it. She sat on the edge of the couch. One of Miller’s hands was resting upon his chest. She laid her hand on his, looked at his face for any sign of consciousness.
“He’s out like a light,” Bechet said.
“I gave him two painkillers. He woke up just long enough to take them. He was out of it, otherwise I don’t think he would have let me give them to him.”
“How’s his knee?”
“I don’t know. I might have to take him to a doctor.”
The woman was wearing a black leather jacket. Bechet noted that one of its pockets hung heavy. By that, and the distinct shape the leather was taking, he knew the item was a gun.
“How long have you been up?” the woman asked.
“Not long.”
Still seated on the edge of the couch, she glanced at the plastic bag in his hand again.
“It’s just my sweatshirt,” Bechet said. “And the tape that was in that VCR over there. Your friend was going to give me a copy of what the surveillance camera caught. That’s why we were coming back here.”
“I know,” she said.
Bechet nodded, then found himself thinking about that. Something didn’t quite add up. It took him a moment—he was tired, his brain crowded with all the pain signals rushing to it from various parts in his body—but finally he said, “How do you know that?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said he only came to long enough for you to give him a pill, and even then he was out of it. How did you know what he and I had talked about?”
“I heard everything you two said.”
“How?”
“Tommy used to be a PI.”
Bechet remembered then what Miller had said about owning his own gear.
“You work for him?”
The woman shook her head. “No.”
“But you just happened to know how to operate surveillance equipment. And the way you handled yourself back there in the woods. A lot of people would have panicked, but you didn’t, you took charge.”
“I used to be a cop.”
Bechet nodded. “That explains it, then.” He waited a moment, then said, “Southampton cop?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re the friend he was talking about, the one helping him.”
The woman nodded.
“What’s your name?”
“Kay.”
“Kay what?”
“Barton.”
She seemed to Bechet to be waiting for his reaction, watching for it, as though her name was supposed to mean something to him. It didn’t mean anything at all, but then again it shouldn’t, really; he stayed away from all things having to do with the cops, kept to himself and the small life he and Gabrielle were, day by day, making for themselves.
“How long were you a cop?” he said.
“Almost ten years.”
“Why aren’t you one anymore?”
It became obvious very quickly to Bechet that Barton had no intention of answering that question. She looked at Miller instead, her hand still covering his. It was clear that she was looking to—needed to—comfort her friend in any way that she could, and that this caring gesture, as simple as it was, seemed for now all that she could do.
“Did he tell you to follow him?”
“His name is Tommy.” She said this without recrimination or hostility, was simply stating a fact, in case Bechet had forgotten.
“Did Tommy tell you to follow him?”
“No. He was told to come alone, so he said he was going alone.”
“But you followed him anyway.”
“I wasn’t going to just let him walk into what could have been a trap. Anyway, I couldn’t just sit around and do nothing. I’ve done enough of that lately to last me for a while.”
“If you heard everything we said, then you know what’s going on. With your former boss.”
Barton nodded.
“The thing is,” Bechet said, “the guy who ran us off the road, he drove like a cop. That quarter tap thing he did, that’s what cops are taught to do to end a chase. But you’d know that, wouldn’t you?”
“Cops aren’t the only ones who know how to run people off the road,” Barton said. “You aren’t a cop, but apparently you know about quarter tapping.”
She was right, of course, Bechet thought. He had been taught that technique by LeCur, Sr., back when Bechet was in Castello’s employ, when he was being made into what they needed him to be. Someone had taught LeCur. And certainly LeCur had taught his son. But that didn’t really add up, did it? If Bechet was doing what Castello wanted him to do—or at least appearing like he was—then why would LeCur have run him off the road? And how would LeCur have known to wait outside Miller’s apartment, unless he had been sent there knowing that Miller’s place was more than likely Bechet’s next stop. But, again, why? There was no reason for that, at least none that Bechet could think of. No, this had to be something else, someone else, someone who had both the skill necessary and something to gain, something important enough to risk an ambush in the light of day.
But who?
“You were behind us, right?” Bechet said.
“Yeah.”
“Would you mind telling me what you saw?”
Barton shrugged, looked at Bechet, her hand still on Miller’s chest. “He pulled in behind you guys when you left the salvage yard. I got into Tommy’s truck and followed. By the time I caught sight of you again, he was running you off the road.”
“Then what?”
“He crashed. Lost control, slid off the road and into a tree. When I pulled up, he was standing by the Jeep. It looked like he was aiming a gun inside.”
“Did you see a gun?”
“No.”
“Was he aiming it at me or Tommy?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, that’s what it looked like, but I can’t be sure. He turned and looked at me when I pulled up, then started running.”
“Into the woods. West, I guess.”
“Did you get a look at him?”
“He had a mask on.”
“What about his build, though?”
“He was too far away for me to see how tall he was. It all happened too fast.”
“Was he fat, thin, what?”
“Thin. Average. Athletic, maybe.” She thought for a moment. “He was young. I mean, he wasn’t old. He ran like a man in shape.”
“Could it have been Roffman?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I would have recognized him.”
“Even with a mask on, from a distance?”
“Yeah.”
“Why’s that?”
Again she didn’t answer, looked back at Miller, clutched his hand a little tighter. Was there more to her gesture than care? Bechet wondered then.
“Anyway, I imagine you’ll trace the car to its owner,” he said.
“No need to.”
“Why not?”
“Because it was my car,” Barton said flatly. She let out a breath, then looked at Bechet.
“Your car?”
She nodded. “I followed Tommy in his pickup. My car was parked out front here. Someone must have been watching Tommy’s place, stole my car after I left and followed me.”
Again, things didn’t quite add up to Bechet. It took a moment, though, before he could articulate exactly what it was that bothered him.
“But how is that possible?” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Your car was parked out front?”
“Yeah.”
“Was Tommy’s truck parked out front, too?”
“No, it was around the corner.”
“At the end of Powell.”
“Could someone see his truck from where your car was?”
“No.”
“How long did it take you to get to his truck?”
“Less than a minute. I ran to it.”
“So unless whoever stole your car was already sitting in it when you left here, waiting with the engine running, it’s doubtful he would have been able to follow you. He would have had to wait till you ran around the corner, then get to your car and break into it, get it started and somehow catch up to you. I don’t really see how anyone could have done that.”
“He had to have already known where I was going,” Barton said.
“That’s what I’m thinking. But how could he have known that?”
Barton looked at Miller then. It seemed to Bechet as if she thought doing so might help her find the answer.
“Did Tommy tell you where he was going?” Bechet said.
“Just that it was a junkyard in Noyac.”
“But you knew which one.”
“Not right away.”
“How’d you figure it out?”
Barton’s face went white.
“What?” Bechet said.
She closed her eyes, as if to prevent herself from seeing something she didn’t want to see.
“What?”
“I called a friend of mine in the department,” she said. “He told me about the salvage yard.”
“So this friend of yours knew where you were going.”
“Yeah.”
“And he’s a cop.”
“Yeah.”
“He knows your car, I assume.”
She nodded. Thunderstruck, she said nothing.
“What’s your friend’s name?”
“Ricky,” she said absently.
“Ricky what?”
“Spadaro.” She started shaking her head then, a gesture of desperate denial. Her body was suddenly very stiff, her shoulders tight. “It’s not possible,” she muttered.
“Why not?”
“I’ve known Ricky for a long time. He wouldn’t . . . use me like that.”
“Someone might not have given him any choice.”
She stood, took a few steps, stopped. She seemed now almost panicked.
“But he’s just a patrol cop,” she said. “There’s no way he could manipulate an investigation. You said yourself that there was something in the way the investigation was being handled that was suspicious. Ricky couldn’t do that, he couldn’t affect an investigation one way or the other, there’s just no way. Plus, Roffman hates him, and he hates Roffman. They’d never work together, not in a million years.”
Alliances, Bechet knew, were often not what they seemed.
“Could he have been the man you saw running away?”
Barton struggled with that, couldn’t easily find an answer—or, at least, speak the only answer there was.
“Is he fat?” Bechet said. “Is he not average or athletically built?”
Barton quickly grew flustered, pushed close to a breaking point. This was too much, too fast. She seemed almost angry now—at Bechet, for proposing such a terrible thing, yes, but also at the fact that his suspicions were, clearly, dead-right. There was no way around that, as much as she wanted one, scrambled in her mind to find one. Finally she took a breath, then let it out and, reluctantly, nodded.
“Have you called him for information before this morning?” Bechet said.
“Yeah, he’s been helping Tommy and me all along.”
“How, exactly?”
“With information, mainly. Things we needed to know, sometimes even which direction we should go. Also, Roffman sent him to pick up Tommy last night.”
Bechet remembered then that Castello had told him that Miller and Roffman had met the night before. He remembered, too, that Castello had an informant in the department.
“What for?”
“To bring him to the crime scene.”
“The canal?”
Barton nodded. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“One of the murder victims—Michaels, I think—had one of Tommy’s old business cards in his wallet. Roffman wanted to know how it got there.”
“How did it?”
“At first it looked like maybe Roffman had planted it. But then we started to think that Abby might have given it to Michaels.”
“And that was all Roffman wanted. To know how Tommy’s business card got into a dead guy’s wallet.”
“Not exactly. He offered Tommy amnesty if Tommy agreed to help.”
“Help how?”
“I don’t know.”
“Spadaro and Roffman may hate each other, but Spadaro is still a cop, right? He works for the chief, would have to do what the chief says if he wants to keep his job.”
“But I can’t imagine Ricky doing something like this. I just can’t.”
“Someone built like him ran Tommy and me off the road, did so by using a technique taught to cops. And that someone had to have already known that Tommy was going to Scarcella’s salvage yard. If not Spadaro, then who?”
“But why would he run you and Tommy off the road?”
“Maybe Roffman didn’t like the idea of Tommy and me talking.”
“So he had Ricky do that as, what, a warning?”
Bechet shrugged. “He might have done more than that if you hadn’t showed up like you did.”
“I’m sorry, I just don’t believe Ricky could do that. He’s a friend of mine, he helped me out when I was in trouble, when no one else would. And Roffman’s an asshole, no argument from me, but I can’t see him doing that, either. Say what you want about them, they aren’t cold-blooded killers.”
She stopped herself there. Neither of them said anything for a moment. Then, finally, Bechet said, “Yeah, well, like I said, sometimes people do things they wouldn’t normally do.”
Barton said nothing. Bechet could sense her frustration. He could sense, too, her anguish at the thought that her friend was maybe not who she thought he was. She returned to her place on the edge of the couch, looked at Miller, then reached out and laid her hand over his again. This gesture was, Bechet thought, more of an attempt to get assurance than to offer it. Or maybe it was a half-plea for Miller to wake up.
“I don’t really see the point in Tommy meeting with Roffman anymore,” Bechet said.
“Roffman showed up at Abby’s door,” Barton said. “You don’t want to know why?”
“I just don’t think he’d tell us. I wasn’t sure what his involvement in all this was before, if he wasn’t maybe being set up or something. But everything just keeps bringing us back to him. Everything points to him being the one behind all this.”
“Behind what, exactly?”
Bechet took a breath, let it out. “Someone coerced or convinced two of Castello’s couriers to steal from him. That someone had to have had some kind of influence. Michaels had a record, Roffman is the chief of police. Roffman could have threatened him somehow—or better yet, promised him protection. People who work for Castello know what will happen if they betray him.”
“If that’s the case, then stealing from Castello, even with Roffman’s promise of protection, is a pretty big risk for someone to take. What they were stealing had to have been valuable to make it worth the risk.”
“It was.”
“How do you know?”
Bechet shrugged. “I just do.”
“So what were they stealing?”
“Drugs.”
“What kind of drugs?”
“I don’t know for sure. My guess would be Ecstasy.”
“Why?”
“Castello’s couriers run the drugs from here into the city, then bring raw materials back. That means the drugs are being made out here, by someone in Castello’s organization.”
“Yeah. Which might explain why he keeps a property like the Water’s Edge vacant.”
“So Roffman somehow convinces these two couriers to steal a shipment?”
“Probably small portions of several shipments, spread out over a period of time.”
“But that would be suicide. I mean, whoever the couriers hand these pills to in the city must count them, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So Castello would know that shipments were arriving short, which means he’d have a motive to kill his couriers.”
“Exactly.”
“So then maybe Castello did.”
“Right next to a building he owns, with a profitable Ecstasy lab running in the basement?”
“How profitable? What are we talking about here?”
“The materials are easy enough to get, if you know where to look. And unlike crystal meth, Ecstasy can be mass-produced. I’m talking millions of pills. Tens of millions. It takes about a dollar to make one hit of Ecstasy. Five years ago a single hit was going for twenty-five bucks. Nowadays, in places like the city, it’s closer to fifty. So an investment of a million dollars can return fifty million.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.”
“How much was stolen from Castello?”
“About twenty thousand pills, over a period of about a month.”
Barton’s eyes looked away as she quickly did the math. “That’s a street value of a million dollars,” she said.
“Right.”
“And Castello let the stealing continue?”
“He knew someone in his organization was behind it, someone other than his two couriers. He wanted to know who, was getting close to finding out when the couriers were killed.”
“In a way that would make people think Castello ordered it.”
“Right. But someone witnessed the murders—a fact, at the time, only a cop could know. Not long after he made his report to Roffman, the witness was killed.”
“And you think Romano’s girlfriend was murdered because of that South American ethic, that ‘screw with me and I’ll kill you and your whole family’ thing. To maintain the illusion that Castello is doing what Castello does.”
“I think that’s what it’s supposed to look like, yeah. But I also think there’s more to it than that.”
“More to it, how? What do you mean?”
“I think the stolen pills went astray. I think Roffman wanted them, that his getting them was part of their deal, and instead of handing them over, Michaels kept them for himself, put them in Abby’s apartment for safekeeping. Abby gets a panicked call from Romano’s girlfriend telling her that their boyfriends are in trouble, so she loads up her suitcase with the goods and takes off. And ever since Roffman has been scrambling to get his hands on that suitcase. That’s probably why he tried to get Tommy involved, so he’d have someone who could go places he couldn’t, someone who wasn’t in any way connected to him. That way no one would ever suspect he was working on Roffman’s behalf. Think about it. Setting up your enemy to take a fall for murder is one thing, but making a nice little profit from it, fuck, that’s just icing on the cake.”
“I can’t imagine Roffman selling Ecstasy on the street. Or Ricky, for that matter.”
“They wouldn’t have to. All they’d need to do was find someone who’d take the whole lot off their hands. Say, twenty-five bucks a pill. That’s a cool half million for their troubles. Being cops, I’d imagine they’d know how to find someone who might be interested in a deal like that.”
Barton was nodding, thinking about everything she’d just heard. It didn’t take her long to come back again to the one problem she had with all this.
“The killers were two men,” she said. “On the bridge, that’s what the witness reported. That means Roffman and Spadaro—” She couldn’t even finish the sentence.
Bechet watched her struggle with that, saying nothing. For a moment it looked as though she were about to speak, that she wanted to speak, to say something. In the end, though, she remained silent, her face dulled by, to Bechet’s surprise, sadness.
“This tape gives me an idea of how to make what I need to happen actually happen,” Bechet said. “But once everything is in motion, things are probably going to turn bad pretty fast.”
“What are you going to do?”
“If Roffman wants Castello so bad, he can have him. Enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that. Listen, you might want to convince Tommy to lay low for a while. You guys should probably even get out of town. I’m going to tell Eddie the same thing.”
“I don’t think I could get him to leave even if I tried. I assume he’s built up a pretty high tolerance to his medication, so I don’t imagine he’ll be out for long. When he comes to, he’ll want to go looking for Abby again, even if he has to crawl.”
“What if I told you there’s a chance you might be able to find Abby? Find her right now. Or at least confirm that she’s gone, which would mean there’s no point in Tommy looking for her, no point in either of you getting any more involved in this. Would you be interested in that?”
“Yeah, I probably would,” Barton said. “What do you know?”
“When Castello tried to convince me to find Abby, he told me that she didn’t have a car registered in her name. It didn’t click at the time, but a little while ago it finally did.”
“What do you mean?”
“When she bolted with the suitcase, after she got the call from the cottage, how did she get away without a car? If she was leaving the island, she would probably have walked down the street to the train station, caught the next one to the city. If she did that, then she’s long gone, out of reach—for now, at least.”
“But if she wasn’t leaving the island?”
“Then she either had to call a friend for a ride or a cab. If she called a friend, that leaves us with nothing. But if she called a cab, there should be a record of the pick-up and drop-off.”
“But if she knows that, if she was so clever about not leaving a trail, why would she do that?”
“If she had no one to call, how else would she have gotten wherever it was she was going? She probably would have taken precautions, though.”
“She would have had the cab pick her up somewhere in town, somewhere just far enough away from her place to be safe. You know by the surveillance camera what time she left her place, and you know the pickup would have been somewhere in East Hampton. If we’re lucky, you can use that information to find out where she went. If we’re really lucky, the person she spoke to was Eddie.”
“Call him right now,” Barton said, “and find out.”
“It’s better if you do it.”
“Why?”
“It just is,” Bechet said. He left it at that. “If there was no pick-up in East Hampton, she might have taken the train to Bridgehampton or even Montauk. Check the schedules and figure out the right times, then see if there are any records of a woman matching her description being picked up at either of those stations.”
“And if there are none?”
“Then she called a friend, someone we don’t know about. If that’s the case, all we can do is hope she’s safe. Tommy said he wanted to know that wherever she was, she wasn’t alone. If she called a friend, then she isn’t and he can rest easy. Or at least easier.”
“Tell me something, though. Do you want Abby found so you know where she is, in case you need her?”
“No. I don’t even want to know where you take her, if you find her. I just want to know she’s somewhere safe.”
Barton squinted. “Why?”
“Let’s just say it would be better for me if she was out of reach.”
“You mean out of Castello’s reach.”
“If things go the way I want them to, he won’t be able to make good on any of his threats. But just in case, I want her safe.”
“I should give you my cell number.”
“It’s better if you don’t.”
“Why?”
Bechet didn’t answer.
Barton looked at him, then said, “How will I let you know if I found her or not?”
“Hang a blanket over this window if you found her,” he said. “No blanket, and I’ll know you haven’t.”
“And if I don’t find her, then what?”
“Like I said, by then maybe it won’t matter either way.” Bechet took a breath, let it out, then said, “You eavesdropped on our conversation back at the salvage yard. Did you by any chance record it, too?”
“No.”
“Take any photos?”
She paused. “No.”
Bechet watched her for a moment, couldn’t tell if she was lying, knew it didn’t matter. He looked out the window, made a quick survey of the area. No train was due for more than an hour, so the station was empty. Living in Gabrielle’s cottage by the tracks for the past year, he’d come to know the schedule by heart.
“Listen,” Bechet said, “thanks for before. For the help.”
“Yeah. Just so you know, I called your friends at the salvage yard the minute we got back here. They were able to tow your Jeep and my car to their lot, so as far as the police are concerned, the accident never happened.”
“Jesus,” Bechet said. He was more than impressed. He looked at her, then nodded. “Good thinking.”
“I assumed they wouldn’t have a problem with it, despite the fact that it’s as illegal as hell.”
“They’re good friends.”
“Good men to know, at least.” Barton said. “You know, you should maybe get looked at. Your chest, I mean. It looked pretty bad to me. It must hurt like hell.”
“It does.”
“Do you have a doctor?”
“Not exactly,” Bechet said.
Barton half-smiled. “What does that mean?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” Bechet crossed the long room to the kitchen. He removed his jacket from the back of the chair and walked to the door. His head was still throbbing; motion didn’t help matters, was easily, in fact, making them worse, but what could he do about that? There were places to go, things that needed to be done.
He stopped at the door, looked over his shoulder. “I hope you find her,” he said.
“Everyone calls you Pay Day, right?” Barton asked.
Bechet nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“Good luck, Pay Day,” she said.
“You, too, Kay.”
At the empty train station Bechet deposited two of Miller’s quarters in the pay phone, punched in Scarcella’s number. The short walk from Miller’s apartment to the platform may as well have been a long one as far as Bechet was concerned. He had to move slowly, like an old man; a single too-quick step jarred his insides, sent a whole new burst of pain crashing through him. No fight in his professional career had left him quite like this—close, maybe, but not like this, not this broken, not this spent. But that didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. Bechet told himself this, thought it with each careful step. Too far to turn back now, too much to lose. If anybody knew how to ignore pain, how to push through it, it was Jake “Pay Day” Bechet. He wasn’t that far past his prime, that far from the man he used to be, for better and for worse.
Scarcella, Sr., answered on the second ring.
“It’s me,” Bechet said.
“You all right?”
“Yeah.”
“What the hell is going on? I’ve got your Jeep here, and the Volvo.”
“Yeah, I know.” Bechet looked down at the plastic bag in his hand. “Listen, I’m going to need my things from your safe. As soon as possible.”
“No problem.”
“You think Junior could come get me?”
“He went out on a call. Actually, he should have been back by now. I just tried him on the radio, but he didn’t answer.”
“Did you try his cell?”
“Yeah. It’s shut off.”
“Where’d he go?”
“Pennies Landing, out at the end of Ox Pasture Road. Someone stuck in the mud.”
Bechet knew the spot. It was a boat launch, fed into an inlet called Heady Creek, at the dead end of a road lined with tall hedges beyond which, on wide lawns, stood giant estates. Directly across the inlet from Pennies Landing was the Indian reservation, acres of unused, still wild land. If not a desolate spot, then at least a private one.
“I was about to go looking for him,” Scarcella said. “He’s got some married woman in town I’m not supposed to know about, probably swung by to see her. He’s done this before, will probably come back and try to tell me it took this long to pull some idiot out of the mud.”
“I’ll go,” Bechet offered.
“You sure?” Scarcella said.
“Yeah. Keep working on the sedan.”
“I appreciate it, Pay Day. His lady friend lives out there somewhere, rents the gatehouse on one of those estates. He took the big wrecker, so he shouldn’t be too hard to spot.”
“I’ll call you when I find him.”
“I’ll try to have the sedan ready by the time you get back.”
Bechet hung up, stared down at his feet for a moment. If he didn’t have the pay phone to lean against, he just might have slumped down to a heap on the cement platform. The pain was only getting worse—not just his chest but in his head and hand as well, both of them throbbing as if they, too, contained their own small but hardworking hearts. Not one of these throbs was in sync, though, had the effect then of an endless series of explosions being followed by endless after-echoes. A war within, all his own. Bechet wondered if the prescription bag Barton was holding when she returned to Miller’s apartment contained a fresh batch of painkillers. The idea of going back and asking for one or two was tempting. But Bechet knew he needed to think clearly, needed every bit of his smarts now, more than ever. He was down, after all, to just one good hand. And anyway, he doubted he would have been able to make it back across the hundred or so feet to Miller’s street door, let alone up the narrow stairs to his apartment.
He dug into his jeans pocket for two more quarters, the last two he had, deposited them into the phone and dialed another number. This call was answered at the very end of the fourth ring.
“It’s me,” Bechet said. It was more of a single grunt than two words articulated. Making an effort to speak more clearly, he said, “I need you to come get me. I need you to take me somewhere.”
“Yeah, man, sure. Where are you?”
“I’m not that far away. I’ll be right there.”
Bechet hung up and waited. He thought of calling Gabrielle from his emergency cell phone, wanted now to hear her voice, wanted that very much, but that meant she would have heard his, and there was no way he would have be able to hide his condition from her, not that they were supposed to hide things from each other anymore. But she was worried enough as it was, that much was certain, and anyway Bechet was maybe only an hour from leaving. Maybe even less. He decided to wait till then to call, let her know that he was on his way to her when he was actually on his way to her.
Less than five minutes later a familiar car turned onto Railroad Plaza from North Main. It was a ten-year-old Camaro, beat to shit. Bechet was glad to see it, if only because he would have a place to sit down for a few minutes. The Camaro pulled up to the platform, and as he stepped down and got in, Bechet did his best to conceal his injuries; no one, not even his friend, needed to know of his sudden frailty, the extent of the limits that his own damaged tissue and battered bones now imposed upon him.
“Shit, man,” Falcetti said, “you look like how I feel.”
Bechet looked over at his friend. Falcetti’s face still bore the marks of the beating LeCur had given him the night before.
“Nice face,” Bechet said.
“What the hell happened?”
“It doesn’t matter. Just take me out to the end of Ox Pasture Road.”
Falcetti shook his head from side to side, as if to say what the hell for?
Bechet remembered then the gambling debt Falcetti owed to Scarcella, Sr., that this whole nightmare, really, had begun when Falcetti swerved to avoid some dog and crashed his cab but didn’t want to call Scarcella for a tow, didn’t want to have to face him. A long way to go, then, Bechet thought, to end up exactly where one didn’t want to be. Once they found Scarcella’s son, Bechet would need Falcetti to drive him to the salvage yard, but there was no way around that, no one else Bechet could call. And anyway, one could only, it seemed, expect to run from one’s debts for just so long, particularly out here.
“I just need to check something out,” Bechet said.
“What?” Falcetti asked. He didn’t get an answer, though. He waited a moment, watching his friend, his eyes on the cut on the left side of Bechet’s head. Finally, though, Falcetti shifted into gear and pulled away from the station.
Bechet felt gravity tugging at him as the Camaro made a U-turn, felt it pulling him deeper into the bucket seat as Falcetti drove just a little faster than the posted speed limit toward North Main Street. Once there, Falcetti turned left and headed toward the village, on the other side of which was Ox Pasture Road.
Inside the warmth of the Camaro, its dull wipers dragging noisily across the windshield, the two old friends began their last ride together.
A long, wide boulevard one block south of Hill Street and three blocks north of the ocean, running for a little more than a mile from Agawam Lake in the village to the edge of Heady Creek. A different world, this part of town, always has been, always would be. In the summertime Ox Pasture was usually lined from early morning to dusk with trucks and trailers—landscapers, roofers, painters, tradesmen of every kind. Driving down it meant having to weave from one side to the other. Now, though, the street was empty—only those who lived on it had any reason to use it—and the Camaro rode between the towering hedges and ancient trees. A shady road in the summertime, it was almost gloomy now within the valley of the tall hedges, the battleship clouds crowded above. This being Tuesday morning—a rainy one at that, and in the last days of winter—it was unlikely that there would be anyone around, either here at the end of Ox Pasture or across the inlet, in that unused stretch of Indian land. No one, then, to hear anything, no one to see anything.
Bechet suddenly wasn’t so sure if he liked this.
As they approached Lee Avenue, the last road off of Ox Pasture before it curved sharply and came to its abrupt end at Pennies Landing, they drove into a bank of ground fog, visibility instantly down to just several feet in any direction. Bechet told Falcetti to pull over, but even without the fog the landing wouldn’t have been visible from where they were, only the sharp turn itself and the water beyond it and the reservation beyond that. With the fog, though, they could barely see past the nose of the Camaro.
“So what the hell are we doing out here?” Falcetti said.
Bechet didn’t answer, just sat there, looking into the slowly churning mist ahead.
“Jake?”
“I don’t like this,” Bechet muttered. He thought for a moment, said finally, “Do you have a flashlight, Bobby?”
“What for?”
“Do you have one?”
“Yeah.” Falcetti reached under the driver’s seat, removed a heavy eighteen-inch Maglite, handed it over.
Bechet knew it was probably his condition—the paranoia that always came with not being at one’s best, to say the least—that was causing his mind to see the potential for an ambush here. He could see the potential—even without the ground fog this would have been a private enough place for one—but he could not see who would do such a thing, nor could he see a reason, what someone could possibly gain by it. He’d been drawn out the night before by a similar ruse, lured to a secluded place on the pretext of a friend in need. But that was Falcetti, hardly a match for Castello and his thug. This was Scarcella, Sr., and Scarcella, Sr., had nothing to do with this, had no allegiance or affiliation with Castello. More than that, he wasn’t at all the kind of man who could be persuaded to do something he didn’t want to do, never mind bait someone for Castello, never mind that someone being Bechet. And why would Castello even want to bait Bechet if Bechet was doing what Castello wanted him to do, what Castello had gone to such trouble to make sure Bechet had no choice but to do? How could Castello possibly know what was in Bechet’s mind?
It was possible now, Bechet realized, that he wasn’t thinking as clearly as he had believed he was back in Miller’s apartment. Or maybe this last half hour of activity and thought were just too much for him, were wearing him down. Maybe he had finally reached his limit, physically and intellectually and every other way possible, had passed it and was now in a realm that was far beyond his abilities, beyond anything he’d ever known before.
The only thing that was for certain was the fact that there was no way of determining what, if anything, was going on at the landing from inside this Camaro. Bechet reached for the door handle, pulled up, wincing as he did so. The door swung open a few inches by its own weight, and Bechet nudged it with his shoulder to open it the rest of the way. He wanted to wince then, too, but didn’t.
“Where are you going?” Falcetti said.
“I’m just taking a little walk. Wait here.”
“What the hell’s going on, man?”
“Just wait here, Bobby, okay,” Bechet said calmly. “I’ll be right back.”
Outside, the rain fell on Bechet’s bare head. He thought of his bloodied sweatshirt in the bag with the videotape back in the Camaro, that if he was wearing that sweatshirt now he could have pulled the hood up and saved himself from getting rained on. But as he stepped away from the Camaro, the drops landing on his head actually had the effect of soothing his pains. Cool, soft, like brushing fingertips in summer, Gabrielle’s fingertips. Bechet wondered then if he had a fever, if that was why his thoughts were so muddled and the rain so comforting. Or was the cut in his scalp simply radiating heat, the way cuts sometimes did? Either way, he almost felt good, felt his agonies washing away. There was something, too, about the sound of the rain pattering on the thick fabric of his mechanic’s jacket. It gave him something other than those endless echoes to listen to.
On him and around, then, a steady, soft hissing, just enough to drown out his own chaotic inner world.
He was maybe ten steps from the Camaro when he stopped. The sense that this was somehow wrong returned suddenly, overriding whatever sense of well-being the rain had created in him. The feeling ran deeper now, deeper even than the one he’d had moments ago. How could he ignore that? He wasn’t used to doubting himself, but he wasn’t himself now, was he? So maybe this wasn’t a feeling that was to be trusted, was instead one that had to be doubted, born as it was from that inner chaos.
Bechet moved again, walking slowly. He passed Lee Avenue, looked down it, saw no houses, no cars, nothing but just a few feet of glistening pavement disappearing abruptly into fog. He had walked for close to a minute, was approaching finally the sharp turn at the end of the road, when something began to emerge out of the mist ahead. A glimpse of dulled chrome. After a few more steps Bechet saw a shape that could only be the bumper of a vehicle. It wasn’t more then twenty feet ahead of him now. He knew by the sight of it, by its height and size, that this was Scarcella’s wrecker. It had to be. As he closed the remaining distance, he was able to determine that the large truck was parked with its nose, not its back end, toward the water. Its back end toward the water was the position the truck would have been in had its operator been preparing to tow someone from the muddy bank of the narrow boat launch. Maybe Scarcella, Jr., had parked there with his lady friend, Bechet thought, had taken her there for the privacy this spot offered. No traffic, certainly no one launching a boat on a day like today. Scarcella, Sr., had said that the woman his son was seeing was married, so maybe her place wasn’t safe and there just wasn’t anywhere else for them to go. Maybe this was, in fact, their spot, the place where they often met.
Bechet reached the back bumper, stopped. The wrecker was large enough, the fog by the water thick enough, that Bechet was barely able to see the entirety of the vehicle. The back window of its cab was visible, though, and Bechet saw no one in it. He looked around quickly, saw nothing within the limits of the fog but the wrecker, the tall, thick hedge that bordered the property to the left of the launch, and the short reach of shoreline to the right of it. From what he could see and hear, he was completely alone here at the water’s edge.
So far he hadn’t encountered anything to justify his belief that this was some kind of trap. If anything, he was close to being convinced now that this was nothing more than what it seemed: a young man compulsively stealing an hour with his lover. Bechet wanted to turn around and head back to the Camaro, call Scarcella and tell him that he had found the wrecker, that Scarcella could come out here if he wanted and chide his son. But that would mean a delay in the sedan being made ready for Bechet’s escape. He decided, considering what he’d been through in the past few hours, that the embarrassment of interrupting a tryst was nothing. He walked along the left side of the wrecker, came to the driver’s door. High up as the truck was on its industrial-sized tires, Bechet couldn’t see into the truck’s cab through the window. In a way, he was grateful for that. He knocked on the door with the heavy knuckle of his middle finger. The younger Scarcella was certainly inside, he and his lover more than likely lying together across the seat. When Scarcella responded, Bechet would tell him to call his father and that would be it, Bechet’s part would be done. But Scarcella didn’t respond, didn’t appear in the window above, to see who was there. Bechet knocked a second time. Again, nothing. He stepped back a little, to see if he could see into the cab, and it was then that there was a brief break in the churning fog, a break that allowed something to his left to catch his eye, something beyond the nose of the wrecker, in the mud alongside the boat launch.
Boots, angled in a way that told Bechet that whoever was wearing them was facedown.
He took a few steps toward the front of the wrecker, stopped when he saw someone sprawled out on the edge of the shore, one side of his body on land, the other in the shallow water.
Bechet hesitated, but only for a few seconds, tucked the end of the Maglite into the back pocket of his jeans as he hurried toward the body. He was leaving his boot prints in the mud as he approached the water, but there was no time to waste, no time to be careful. He grabbed the arm drifting in the water with his good hand and pulled as he stepped back onto land, rolling the body out of the water and turning it onto its back.
Scarcella’s lifeless face—eyes and mouth opened, mud-smeared—lay before Bechet. Bechet took a few steps back, leaving even more tracks in the mud, but there was no avoiding that, either. He knew enough about death to know that Scarcella had been dead for a while, so there was no point in trying to resuscitate him, no reason for Bechet to have rushed to him and moved him like he did. But how could he have known that at the time? The last detail Bechet saw before stepping away from the only son of his friend—a face so passive yet staring at him—were the two puncture wounds in Scarcella’s chest, one right beside the other. Bechet knew the weapon that had made them. An ice pick. Scarcella’s shirt and jacket, where they had been punctured, were only slightly bloodied, and the water where he had lain facedown was clear. Bechet knew that Scarcella’s heart had been stopped instantly by the long shaft of the ice pick, and because of that very little blood at all had run from the tiny wounds. What had come out of him had only done so by the force of gravity as he lay facedown.
But that didn’t really matter to Bechet. All that mattered was that he get out of there, now. He left the body on the shore, hurried toward the wrecker. There was a radio inside, and he thought of using it to contact Scarcella, Sr., felt compelled to tell the man as soon as possible what had happened. But that would only have delayed Bechet’s departure from the scene, and no good would come of that. He ran, as best he could, past the wrecker, turned the corner onto Ox Pasture Road, couldn’t see the Camaro but knew it had to be there in the fog, headed toward where his rattled memory said it should be waiting for him. As he did, he saw a figure coming toward him, just the vague shape of a man in the mist. Bechet had, of course, told Falcetti to stay in the car, but what reason, really, did he have to expect Falcetti to listen? The figure was still only a featureless shape directly ahead, moving swiftly, when Bechet said, “We have to get out of here.” But before there was a chance to say another word, the figure emerged from the fog and Bechet saw suddenly who it was approaching him with such directness, saw that this face was no less than the face of the man, he realized, too late, that he should have expected to now see.
The younger LeCur. The man who had bruised and cut Falcetti’s face, bearing the very bruises and cuts Bechet had made on his. More than that, though, the man whose father Bechet had killed to keep Gabrielle safe. Certainly LeCur knew that, or had, like Castello, assumed it by now, because here he was, coming at Bechet with everything he had, moving with the swiftness of a sudden storm, intent—and there was no mistaking this—on killing Bechet right there where he stood.
One could only expect to outrun one’s debts for so long.
Bechet reached back for the Maglite with his good hand, had just enough time to pull it free and take a wild swing at the opponent before him. It was just by luck that Bechet struck with the heavy end of the metal flashlight the hand that was lunging for his chest, fast, striking the knuckles of LeCur’s left hand, connecting with it as though it were a baseball and Bechet a major-league hitter. The blow landed with a solid crack, and the force alone, never mind the damage to LeCur’s many small bones, was enough to send the foot-long ice pick flying. But LeCur hardly registered the pain at all, made no sound and changed in no way the expression on his face, which was that of pure, focused rage. He continued toward Bechet, closing the little distance there was left between them, grabbing the back of Bechet’s right forearm with his own right hand before Bechet could counterattack with a backswing. He threw himself into Bechet, or tried to; Bechet, despite his battered upper body—bruised sternum, gashed scalp, useless left hand—still had his strong legs, his boxer’s footwork. He retreated, but not in a straight line, moving instead in a circular motion, giving no place for LeCur’s tackle to land, while at the same time keeping LeCur within range of Bechet’s favorite weapon, a looping overhand right.
He swung, all his weight and body mechanics behind the motion, slamming his large fist into LeCur’s face, catching his nose squarely. Bechet heard the fine bone break, saw the blood coming instantly from LeCur’s nostrils. Without wasting any time, Bechet followed up with a left hook to LeCur’s head, a punch he intended on missing because his left hand was of course lame and by missing with it but still following through his left elbow would strike LeCur, an old and dirty trick. An elbow, if it hit right, was like a razor, would open skin up, and it did so as it grazed just above LeCur’s right eye, in that narrow space below the eyebrow. Blood seeped from the cut, rolled fast into LeCur’s eye, but by then Bechet was well into his third blow, a shovel punch—a half hook, half uppercut—with his right that landed as LeCur began to cower in an attempt to avoid more blows. It hit him flush in the solar plexus, and Bechet would have done more, wanted to do more, was feeling no pain now, feeling nothing at all but the desire to remain standing at all costs while causing as much damage as he could, as often as he could, to his opponent. The old, brutal Bechet, the savage peekaboo boxer he had once been, was after all these years back, had been unleashed for one more time.
But LeCur was already on his way down to the pavement, so Bechet did what he could to keep the brutal savage in check; this wasn’t the time to become reckless. He stuck close to LeCur but held back his punches, scooting around his opponent as the man began to fall, moving with him as though they were partners in some strange dance, which, of course, they were. This restraint took all Bechet had, and because of this he knew it wouldn’t last for long, couldn’t last for long; a decade as a fighter, cultivating the killer instinct, the ability to hurt while ignoring being hurt was just too much to keep down. LeCur hit the pavement, was out when he had begun to fall, lay now unconscious at Bechet’s feet. Bechet looked down at him for just a moment, then ran to where the ice pick had landed, grabbed it and picked it up. He felt the too familiar shape of its handle against his palm but ignored what that made him remember. He turned to start back toward LeCur, to finish this once and for all, couldn’t have stopped himself if he wanted to, he was all savage now, the old Bechet again, conditioned for violence, but it was too late; LeCur, his face bloodied, flat on his back on the wet pavement, had come to, or close enough to it, and was drawing a handgun from the holster under his jacket. Not the Desert Eagle Bechet had taken from him, not even close to that, but it was still enough to make Bechet stop in his tracks when LeCur, through tearing, barely focused eyes, held it up and pointed it toward him.
“Drop it,” LeCur said. Between his thick French accent and his slurring speech, the words were barely audible. But Bechet understood them well enough. He lowered his hand, then let go of the ice pick. It hit the pavement with a clanking noise.
LeCur sat up, slowly, then got to his feet, moved faster as he did that—faster but with less control. He staggered as he stood, but somehow that only served to make him more dangerous in Bechet’s mind. The broken nose was causing LeCur’s eyes to water, already had caused, too, dark bruises, like the black smears athletes wore, to appear above his cheekbones. Most men, Bechet knew, wouldn’t have stood up after a beating like that. As tough as his old man, then, this Algerian was. LeCur’s right arm was fully extended, his grip on the gun tight, his knuckles bloodless-white. Bechet’s good work had only seemed to increase LeCur’s rage, but that just might be a good thing since, when pissed off, LeCur obviously tossed all his training out the window. The extended arm, the gun held in Bechet’s face, the fact that LeCur’s weight was shifted back on his heels and not on the balls of his feet where it belonged—these were the mistakes of an amateur, mistakes Bechet was looking now to exploit.
But it never actually came to that.
Through his sneer—blood from his mouth and nose staining his clenched teeth—LeCur said, “Kill him.”
Bechet looked at the young man. What he had said had made no sense at all, not till Bechet realized that LeCur wasn’t talking to him, was talking instead to someone else, someone behind Bechet. Looking over his shoulder, Bechet saw a figure standing ten feet away, on the threshold of the fog. A faceless figure, his right hand hanging by his thigh, in it the unmistakable silhouette of a handgun. The figure stepped forward, its features suddenly becoming clear.
Falcetti.
Bechet looked down at the firearm, the gloved hand holding it, then back up at Falcetti’s face. There was nothing Bechet could think to say.
“Shoot him,” LeCur ordered. “Now.”
Falcetti didn’t move, just stood there, staring at Bechet. Taking a few steps back, LeCur kept his arm raised, still holding the gun level with Bechet’s head.
“Shoot him,” he repeated.
Again, Falcetti didn’t move. A long moment passed.
“I can’t,” he said finally.
“Just fucking do it.”
“Bobby,” Bechet said. It was as much a question as a statement.
“I’m sorry,” Falcetti said, but Bechet wasn’t clear on who Falcetti was saying it to.
“Prove yourself, right here, once and for all,” LeCur said. “Kill him.”
Falcetti was shaking his head.
LeCur was losing the little patience he had. “You want your share or not?”
“Keep it.”
“Kill him!”
Falcetti raised his gun, aimed it at Bechet. The gun was fitted with a long silencer. Bechet stared at his friend. The only thing he could say was, again, “Bobby.”
His gloved hand shaking, Falcetti winced, his mouth clamped tight, his lips all but seamless. He looked as if he were trying to keep himself from crying.
“Just pull the trigger,” LeCur said. “That’s all you have to do. He’d kill you if he knew the truth, wouldn’t hesitate for a second, trust me. You don’t have a choice now. Kill him or he’ll kill you.”
Falcetti tried to steady his hand, failed. LeCur took another few steps back, just in case, looked from Falcetti to Bechet, and the instant he did, Falcetti swung his arm to the right a few inches, aimed his gun at LeCur and fired fast. The silenced shot was barely audible over the rain. Falcetti had fired too quickly, though, missed his target completely. LeCur spun and aimed at Falcetti as Falcetti aimed once more at LeCur, this time taking the second needed to do so with greater care. Bechet saw the look on Falcetti’s face—fear, an almost baffled surprise—as he and LeCur both fired, LeCur’s gunshot a flat, sharp crack that echoed out over the still water.
Bechet had dropped into a crouch between the first shot and the second two, watched as both men, their legs instantly buckling beneath them, went down. Nothing more happened then; neither man tried to get up or even moved. LeCur was the closest, so Bechet went to check him first. Falcetti’s second aim was much better than his first; LeCur had been shot in the throat, was struggling to breathe as fine, narrow arcs of blood spurted from the gash. Bechet stood and kicked the handgun from LeCur’s reach, then hurried to where Falcetti had fallen. He had been hit, Bechet determined quickly, in the left thigh. By the amount he was bleeding, though, Bechet knew that Falcetti’s femoral artery had more than likely been severed, and that if Bechet didn’t do something, Falcetti would bleed out, at best, in a matter of minutes.
“Shit,” Bechet whispered.
Falcetti looked up at him. His face was already white. “He got me, right? I didn’t just fall down.”
“Yeah, he got you.”
“I thought maybe I just fell. Did I get him?”
“What the hell is going on, Bobby?”
“I’m fucking bleeding.” Falcetti was looking down at his own thigh now. He seemed as much repulsed as he was scared.
“That’s usually what happens.”
“I’m sorry, man,” Falcetti said. He laid his head down on the wet pavement. There were tears in his eyes, his breathing was shallowing. “I’m sorry.”
“Tell me what’s going on, Bobby.”
Falcetti’s eyes began to flutter.
“Bobby, tell me what’s going on. How long have you been working for Castello?”
No answer.
“Bobby, c’mon. How long have you been working for Castello? Why did he have Scarcella killed? Bobby, c’mon, stay with me, tell me what’s going on.”
Again, Falcetti didn’t answer, couldn’t. He was on the verge of passing out, Bechet saw this. Pulling off his belt, he made a quick tourniquet, secured it as fast as he could around Falcetti’s thigh, as high above the wound as he could get to slow the bleeding. There wasn’t time to be delicate, and Falcetti screamed as Bechet pulled the tourniquet tight. At least he was conscious now. With his good hand, Bechet grabbed Falcetti by the collar of his jacket and dragged him down the street to the Camaro. There was no way in hell that he could carry him. He pulled Falcetti up into a seated position and leaned him against the back tire, then saw there was another car parked twenty or so feet back. It was an unmarked sedan, similar to the one LeCur’s father had been driving, no one visible through the windshield.
Without hesitation, Bechet dragged Falcetti to the sedan, propped him up against it, and looked inside. The car was empty, no keys in the ignition. Bechet opened the back door, then, squatting beside Falcetti and wrapping Falcetti’s right arm around his neck, he stood, got Falcetti to his feet and shoved him through the door and into the back of the sedan. Falcetti screamed out again as he fell upon the seat, his torso inside but his legs still hanging out, his feet still on the pavement. Bechet ran around to the rear passenger door, opened it and leaned inside, grabbing Falcetti’s collar again and pulling him the rest of the way in. Taking off his mechanic’s jacket, knowing that shock was inevitable and that he needed Falcetti alive, at least long enough to tell Bechet what he needed to know, Bechet laid the jacket over Falcetti’s torso. Closing the passenger door, Bechet took a quick look around. No one to be seen, nothing but the same rainy morning quiet, same shifting curtain of fog limiting the world. Nonetheless, it was time to get out of there, Bechet knew that.
Back near where LeCur lay, Bechet grabbed the ice pick, wiped its handle clean of prints with Miller’s T-shirt, then dropped the weapon again. He picked up the Maglite, thought of his muddy boot prints by the wrecker, decided to leave them, take care of that vulnerability by tossing his boots into the East River upon his return. Between now and then, wearing them was a risk he would have to take. He stepped then to where LeCur was lying, looked down at him once more.
They made eye contact again, LeCur’s stare a vague one, not like Scarcella’s stare yet, but that was only a matter of time. Bechet held LeCur’s stare for several seconds, watched as the last bit of cognition faded from the Algerian’s eyes. Finally they went cold, his stare the blank stare of a dead man, his gasping for air done. Bechet watched LeCur’s chest, waited for it to move. When it didn’t, Bechet crouched down, searched through LeCur’s pockets, emptying them. A wallet, another cell phone, a ring of keys. The last thing he found was the key to a motel room. The plastic tag identified the motel and the room. THE VILLAGE MOTEL, ROOM 9. Bechet collected these things together, pocketed all of them except for the ring of keys. He found the key marked GM, the key to the sedan, just to be certain he had it, then looked at LeCur once more before standing and walking finally away.
Back in the sedan, Bechet turned right onto Lee Avenue, heading toward Hill Street. Maybe two minutes had passed since LeCur’s gun had been fired, maybe more, and Bechet knew that it was possible no one had been around to hear the gunshot, but that if someone had heard it, it may have been assumed that the sound had come from the Indian reservation. There were nights—often, actually—when random shots were heard coming from there. Another reason why LeCur had lured Scarcella to that very spot? Bechet wondered. As he drove down Lee Avenue, careful not to speed, Bechet listened but didn’t hear any sirens in the distance, was certain he would have, even over the sound of the rain and the hissing of the tires on the wet pavement, if there were any right now to hear. He had pretty much pressed his luck enough for now, though, didn’t count on that solemn peace lasting for very long. One way or another, from one part of town or another, a dead Algerian was waiting to be discovered, and once one or both were, all hell was certain to break loose.
Turning left onto Hill Street, Bechet headed west. A mile later, at the college, he turned onto Tuckahoe Road, followed that to Sunrise Highway. At the train crossing, waiting for the light to change, Bechet looked over the seat and back at Falcetti. Trembling, white, the mechanic’s jacket staining with the blood seeping from the wound, Falcetti met Bechet’s eyes.
Neither said anything at first. The edges of Falcetti’s eyes were red, the skin raw, the eyes themselves already beginning to sink deep into their sockets. The wiper dragged across the wet windshield. The light, a long one, remained red.
“Where are we going?” Falcetti said finally. His voice was little more than a whisper.
“We’re going to get you patched up,” Bechet answered. He spoke flatly, then looked forward again, his eyes on the red traffic light.
“A hospital will call the cops,” Falcetti said.
“I know.”
“So who’s going to patch me up?”
Bechet ignored that. When the light finally turned green, he made the left turn onto Sunrise Highway, continuing west.
“You’ve been working for Castello from the start,” Bechet said.
“There’s so much blood.”
Bechet glanced back at him. “You’ve been working for Castello from the start, Bobby, haven’t you?”
Falcetti shook his head, the gesture a small one. “Not Castello,” he whispered.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m really fucking bleeding, man.”
“Stay with me, Bobby.”
Though he nodded, Falcetti was about to pass out again. There was no way to keep him conscious now; at this point, not even pain—all the pain in the world, all the pain he did or didn’t deserve—would do that. There was no knowing, either, if Falcetti would survive a two-hour drive west, if the one answer Bechet had gotten—not Castello—would be all that he would ever get.
“Why was Scarcella murdered?” Bechet said. “C’mon, stay with me. Why was Scarcella murdered?”
Falcetti didn’t answer.
“Bobby, c’mon, stay with me, man. Stay with me.”
As always, though, Falcetti wasn’t listening. Even when it was obvious that his friend had lost consciousness, Bechet kept calling back to him, trying to wake him. Eventually, though, Bechet gave up, focused his attention instead on keeping the sedan between the lane lines and maintaining an even speed. The last thing he needed was to get pulled over for erratic driving in a vehicle that was certainly unregistered, with a man bearing a fresh gunshot wound stretched across the backseat. No faster than the posted limit, then, but no slower, either, and between the two lines. This was all that was required of Bechet now, and yet, after what he’d been through, it was more than enough. He was a little grateful for his injuries, knew they would keep him from caving in on himself like a gutted building, which was what a part of him wanted to do, craved to do. But another part of him, the deepest part of him, knew that this was still so far from over. Bechet would not rest till it was, and only if it meant that Gabrielle was safe once and for all.
Whatever that took.
He followed Sunrise Highway through the desolate Pine Barrens, connecting with the Long Island Expressway at Manorville. From there it was a straight line, more or less, to Brooklyn, where the only hope for keeping Falcetti alive was waiting.