BIG MONEY

An Austin Carr Mystery

By

Jack Getze

Copyright 2008 by Jack Getze

First eBook Edition 2013

All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Down and Out Books, LLC

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Lutz, FL 33558

http://DownAndOutBooks.com/

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Cover design by JT Lindroos

ISBN: 978-1-937495-68-8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Big Money

Acknowledgements

Bio

Other Books Available from Down and Out Books

A preview of Robert J. Randisi’s Upon My Soul

A preview of A.C. Frieden’s The Serpent’s Game

A preview of J.L. Abramo’s Chasing Charlie Chan

For John, Jane and Patrick

PROLOGUE

The lady’s two-story house ranks as ancient, so it’s no surprise the pine floorboards creak. But do I detect a certain rhythm...as in footsteps? Hope I didn’t make too much noise going through her dirty laundry.

I lean back on the blood red living room sofa and hold my breath to listen. A grandfather clock tick-tocks in the foyer. The oil-burning basement heater pops and rumbles. And yes, there...bare or stocking feet pad quickly toward me down the hall. My heart rate ratchets up to match the hurried footfalls.

I stuff the DVD under my laptop and work hard to put on my three-o’clock-in-the-morning, full-boat Austin Carr grin. Not exactly a simple trick. And definitely not sincere. I mean, how am I supposed to be calm and forthright when this DVD suggests last night’s love interest may not be the innocent beauty I imagined? In truth, the lady headed this way could be a killer.

Clever of me to wake her up.

I don’t mention her name because...well, gentlemen do not identify their secret lovers, not even by pet handles. And seeing her march out of the murky hall into the living area’s yellowish lamplight strongly suggests the need for a new nickname anyway.

I gasp. Oh, my. And oops. Oh, my because she’s wearing nothing but white athletic socks. And oops because she’s using both hands and all ten red-nailed fingers to grasp a pump-action, single-barrel shotgun.

“You found the DVD, didn’t you?” Ms. Shotgun says.

“DVD?” If it wasn’t for rhyming consonants, I’d be pretty much speechless. My gaze is tightly focused on her bare breasts and that shotgun in the same close-up. Visually and emotionally, it’s a lot to absorb.

“I know you found it,” she says. “Wrapped in my black beach dress.”

My lips move without sound. I suppose my throat might be choked with fear, but I’d rather think I’m distracted by the long curve of Ms. Shotgun’s hip, the loose weight of her breasts swinging below the carved gun stock.

Watch me get a boner.

“I just checked the bathroom,” Ms. Shotgun says. “You rifled the hamper, found the black dress. I know you have my DVD.”

I try taking a deep breath. On tough stock and bond clients, this often works as a show of calm sincerity. “I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She racks a shell into the firing chamber.

Maybe my pledge of innocence lacked conviction.

I lift the laptop and offer her the DVD. My heart ticks to an even quicker time. My ego slips a notch. Time was, the full-boat Carr grin and a reasonable lie got me through bumpy spots with naked women.

“Play it,” she says. “We’ll solve the murder together.”

I slide the disk into the Mac and wonder if I’m really going to view what the Branchtown Sun calls the “MISSING HOTEL MURDER VIDEO.”

The DVD’s first images show a thirtyish woman primping her hair before a gilded oval mirror.

“Don’t you want to fast-forward?” Ms. Shotgun says. “Get right to the choking and burning?”

On screen, the victim cracks open her hotel room door. My jaw drops as Ms. Shotgun’s digital image rushes inside, pushing right through the startled hotel guest and knocking her flat on the carpet.

I turn from the laptop. “So it was you.”

Ms. Shotgun raises the pump-action level with my nose.

And I thought my future looked shitty last month.

ONE

One Month Earlier...

The big thing about my pal Walter Osgood, Shore Securities’ biggest producer, he’s like a kid when it comes to his feelings. He just can’t hide them. So when I walk into Luis’s Mexican Grill, see Walter at the bar and notice his every other breath is a sigh, that he’s clutching his Grey Goose like a soldier headed for war, I know Walter’s worried about seeing me. He’s got news I’m not going to like.

Great. A fitting end to a wonderful week. I’ve been taking it hard in the wallet, even harder in the shorts these past few days, ever since Monday morning’s appointment with the New York urologist.

The name’s Austin Carr, by the way. Since my Series Seven stockbroker’s license is temporarily suspended, instead of Senior Financial Consultant, the slick expensive business cards in my wallet say I’m a Special Management Adviser to Shore Securities, Inc., Members of the American Association of Securities Dealers. In truth, I am really just a salesman—like Walter—and I work for myself. Straight commission.

If we don’t sell, we don’t eat.

I slide next to Walter at Luis’s horseshoe bar and touch the slick Gucci material covering my buddy’s shoulder. “What the heck’s bothering you?”

Another sigh from Shore Securities’ number one producer of commission dollars. A bit girlish if you ask me. Maybe I’ve been living in Central New Jersey too long, but I find myself fighting an urge to smack him.

A lot of us stockbrokers call ourselves investment counselors, or if we have a license to sell insurance, too, financial planners. We like to wear two thousand dollar suits, carry leather briefcases and think of ourselves as professionals, like doctors and lawyers. But really we’re more like car salesmen.

“You worried about the business?” I say to Walter. “We’ll be okay without Mr. Vic. Carmela and I can take care of his accounts, keep the numbers coming.”

Walter and I agreed to meet here after work, tune up before Mr. Vic’s Friday night dockside farewell party in Atlantic Highlands. Shore’s boss, Vic Bonacelli, Mr. Vic, sails with his family tomorrow for Tuscany. Only his daughter Carmela refused to go. She’s staying behind to help me run Shore.

“Carmela’s like her old man,” I say. “Slick on the phone.”

Walter shakes his head.

I like to ruminate over the shortcomings of my profession with double margaritas and a positive setting: Luis’s Mexican Grill on Broad Street in Branchtown. The decor reminds me of home, the east side of Los Angeles, and Luis, the owner-slash-bartender, is mi amigo.

“Shore’s a dead puppy without Vic,” Walter says. “You know it better than I do.”

My jaw stiffens. “Whoa, Walter. Things aren’t that bad. A couple of lousy months.”

“Shore’s toast,” he says.

I lean forward, make him look directly at me. I need to see those expressive blue eyes. If Walter really believes Shore isn’t going to survive, then I can easily guess the nature of tonight’s bad news.

“You’re leaving?” I say.

Walter nods.

Shit. “Today was your last day?”

He nods again, then bumps his shoulder against mine. “You know how this shitty business is,” he says. “Two minutes after I’m gone, the back office is passing out my account records and my old best friends start calling my clients, tell them I have AIDS and I raped my twelve-year-old babysitter.”

Luis’s Mexican Grill is Friday-night packed, loud and oblivious. Walter still has his voice set on whisper.

“By leaving on Friday,” he says, “I’ve got a weekend to prepare my clients for your assault.”

Except for math, science, history and geography, Walter’s no dummy. Guaranteed he’s been tenderizing his good clients about this move for weeks.

“You’re an owner, Walter. You have a piece of Shore. Why would you throw that away after only a few bad months?”

When he shakes his head this time, not a hair moves. Walter Osgood pays a hundred bucks per styling. “Shore has lost money every month since you and I bought in,” he says. “With Vic leaving town, this AASD investigation, Sunny and Doppler taking a walk, well...the red numbers can only get worse. I’m bailing.”

Sunny was a complainer and Doppler spent his days distressed over potential bad weather. They’ve had a piss-poor attitude since Mr. Vic sold me, Carmela’s fiancée Tom Ragsdale and Walter half of Shore’s stock. Then business got worse and the American Association of Securities Dealers surprised us with an audit. The combination must have been too much Sunny and Doppler.

“Are you worried about this AASD investigation?” I say. “Is that why you’re leaving?”

“No,” Walter says. “I’m leaving because Jaffy Ritter Clark is handing me a check for four hundred fifty thousand dollars when I show up for work Monday. But if I were you, I’d worry what that AASD cutie might dig up on Shore Securities’ marketing practices. Remember that St. Louis bond default last year? Mr. Vic’s sales contest to pump it before the default?”

I turn Walter’s shoulder, make him look at me again. “You’re leaving me and Vic pretty much dead in the water, Walter. Without your numbers, we are in trouble. Can’t you give it another six months?”

Walter’s pale, blue eyes turn cold. “What’s going to change?”

TWO

It’s bad, bad news for my kids’ future that Walter Osgood is leaving Shore. Walter is our ace, having earned over nine hundred thousand in gross commissions last year. The firm is definitely going to teeter without Walter. And therefore so is my dream of building a college nest egg for Beth and Ryan.

After promising Walter I’ll keep my mouth shut until Monday, hugging him goodbye, I ignore the urge to self-medicate right there at Luis’s Mexican Grill and drive instead to Mr. Vic’s party in Atlantic Highlands. I owe the boss at least an appearance. And with all Mr. Vic’s single cousins and nieces there drinking like fish, there’s a decent chance I’ll get lucky.

Of course, it crosses my mind I’d be helping my own business interests if I tell Vic about Walter leaving, bring in the guys on Saturday to work Walter’s accounts. But it’s only a fleeting thought. Walter is a close friend.

I park, walk straight inside the bayside restaurant bar and bubbly flow of the Bonacelli clan and Shore Securities employees. At the bar, I order another martini.

A disk jockey’s thumping disco to an overflow dance floor. Half the dancers are women bobbing and weaving with other women. I’d like my odds of taking one to bed later if it wasn’t for the black storm clouds hurtling down from the north. Through long windows behind the bar, I watch lightning flash the sky over Manhattan, and I can’t help wondering how big a storm Walter leaving the firm will cause.

The world engineers me a tempest.

When I’ve sipped my overflow glass of gin and vermouth down to transportable levels, I join the crowd of familiar faces. Another Shore broker, Bobby Gee, and I admire the size of Mr. Vic’s family and the widespread Bonacelli characteristic of large breasts. Particularly among the women.

Someone grabs my shoulder. It’s Vittorio “Mr. Vic” Bonacelli himself, sole founder of Shore Securities. Thanks to this winter’s deal that brought me, Carmela’s now-separated husband Rags and Walter into the fold as partners, Mr. Vic’s current ownership is down to forty-nine percent.

But Mr. Vic is our beloved leader. He’d be the boss if that number was two percent.

“We need to talk,” he says.

Mr. Vic drags me to a quiet eddy in the flow of music and people.

“I want you to look out for Carmela while I’m gone,” Vic says. “I don’t want her going back to Rags.”

One and a half see-throughs have tuned me up enough to tell Mr. Vic exactly how I feel. I have plenty to do around Shore Securities without watching over his butter-face daughter.

“Isn’t taking care of Carmela one of Carmela’s jobs now, boss? Didn’t I just write her a big check for college graduation?”

Great figure, Carmela. In fact, everything about her is sexy. Everything BUT HER FACE. Butter face. Oh, hell, that’s a mean joke.

“You call fifty bucks a big check?” Vic says.

Hey, fifty dollars was all I could afford, and I think generous considering my current financial prospects. I mean, I was barely back on my feet when I had to fork over a down payment on Vic’s darn stock.

“Make sure you see Carmela every day,” Vic says. “She says she’s going ahead with the divorce, but she’s still nutty about him. If Rags comes back, goes ape-shit again...or you see Carmela with one puffy lip, you call my friend Tony. He knows what to do.”

Except when he’s behind the wheel of his Jaguar, the recently married-and-quickly-separated Rags—my former sales manager—is a pussycat. Crazy, yes. But not the hand-to-hand combat type. We’ll never see him again.

“And oh, yeah,” Vic says, “I told my mother to call you if she gets in any predicaments.”

Now there’s a problemo. “Mama Bones” Bonacelli, among other nefarious enterprises, runs a chain of free senior-citizen exercise clubs as a front for her betting operations. For entertainment, she practices voodoo and shamanism. With Mama Bones, a predicament could easily involve the FBI, peyote buttons or flesh-eating zombies.

“No whining about Mama,” Mr. Vic says.

I must have groaned out loud.

“You owe me big time for keeping you on a personal services contract until your AASD suspension is over,” Mr. Vic says. “And I’m letting you finish buying shares in the business out of your end of Shore’s profits so you can finally start building something for your kids.”

I sigh and check the shine on my Florsheims. “You’re right, Mr. Vic. I’ll keep an eye on Carmela. Mama Bones, too.”

“Thanks.” Mr. Vic clasps my hand. I feel a wad of paper pressed against my palm, and like a slick head waiter collecting his cash duke, I snag the paper from Vic’s hand in one smooth motion.

Later, when I’m alone, I see Vic’s handout is a torn sheet of yellow notebook paper. The name Tony Farascio and a phone number are penciled in block letters. The seven-one-eight prefix tells me this Tony guy resides in Brooklyn.

Wonder should I read anything into that? Vic’s emergency muscle comes from big time mob country?

No way.

THREE

It’s a mournful, no-more-Walter Monday. The late winter storm that blew in Friday became a nasty northeaster Saturday, and the storm still howls wet pellets of ice and occasional snowflakes sixty hours later. Only our nickname for Shore’s newest rookie salesman—Dominic Defino (rhymes with albino) offers our bullpen any relief from a mirthless world.

Wonder what these simultaneous telephone callers want?

Damn Defino.

Carmela informs me Mama Bones Bonacelli is on line one, some kind of confrontation with the Branchtown police. Oh, boy. Line two is that tight-assed cutie from the American Association of Securities Dealers, Ann Marie Talbot. Kind of a pretty-but-repressed schoolmarm type, Ann Marie wants to update me on her regulatory audit.

I’d like to update her audit.

I flip a coin to see who gets first crack at me. The nickel’s in my hand but I don’t look. My eyes drift to the empty desk where Walter sat for seven years. I smile remembering the time we sent phone sex into our new manager’s first sales meeting.

“Hi, Mama Bones. What’s up?”

“’Allo, Austin. I need-a your help.”

Mr. Vic’s mom, Angelina Bonacelli, has lived in Branchtown, New Jersey, sixty-three of her sixty-eight years, but she still speaks English as if she’d heard our language for the first time last week. She does this on purpose, I’ve decided, to make herself sound helpless when in truth the woman is tougher than week-old tomato pie.

I tuck the phone between my ear and shoulder, plop down in Mr. Vic’s padded swivel chair overlooking Shore Securities’ sales floor. “What’s the matter, Mama Bones. One of your zombies bite a cop?”

“Up yours,” she says. “My boy Vittorio says I should call you if I need help. And I need your help. I’m under the arrest.”

Sounds like she needs a lawyer, not a stockbroker. “Under arrest? You’re at the police station?”

“I’m home now, but the policeman is here to take me there. He says I cheated on the bingo game.”

“Bingo game?”

“At the church. You know. I go every Sunday night. The policeman says the game is fixed, that I gotta go to jail. Can you believe such a thing about Mama Bones?”

“Austin?” It’s Carmela, tugging on my sleeve. “Ms. Talbot said to tell you she’s finished the audit and that she’s leaving town. She needs to talk to you immediately. And Bobby Gee says you have to speak with one of Vic’s clients.”

Screw Talbot, the AASD, Vic’s client and Bobby Gee. Bingo, huh? I’m really curious about this. The world of chance is Mama Bones’ oyster, and if there’s a way to cheat at bingo, she’s the one to have figured it out. His mother put Vic through four years at Rutgers playing the ponies.

“Can I talk to the policeman, Mama Bones? Maybe I can straighten this out.”

“Sure, smarty pants. That’s why I called. Here. It’s your friend, Jimmy Mallory.”

I should have known. Branchtown Detective James Mallory and I coached our sons at T-ball together, and last year renewed our acquaintance when I got mixed up with a bad crowd, got my stockbroker’s license suspended.

“Vic’s mom is not under arrest,” Mallory says on the phone. “I can’t make her understand. She has to come to the station with me, answer the charges, is all. Sign a paper, then she can go.”

“What charges?”

“Like she said, fixing the bingo game. Misdemeanor fraud for now. She answers the charges, we investigate.”

“Jim, how the hell do you cheat at bingo?”

“Arrange with the priest to draw certain numbers, split the pot with him.”

Wow. I’ve heard Mama Bones can work you over better than the Notre Dame offensive line, but this manipulation truly ranks as awesome. She probably convinced the priest he was doing God’s work, keeping half for the church.

“Ann Marie Talbot here.”

“Austin Carr returning your call, Ms. Talbot. Carmela tells me you’ve finished your audit.”

“Yes, and I have bad news.”

“You’re coming again next month?”

“No reason to be rude, Mr. Carr. Frankly, it’s the kind of thing you don’t need right now.”

Ms. Schoolmarm’s cute looking. But the tone of her voice riles the back of my neck. The pitch grates my ass. “Why’s that?”

“Our audit turned up three different instances where your clients’ cash balances were used to reduce your overnight broker loan. The money was only co-mingled for a day, possibly because your bank failed to follow instructions, but it’s still co-mingling.”

The lights of Shore’s big sales room grow dim. I begin to breathe through my mouth. Co-mingling is an ugly word in the securities business. If the charge sticks, and the AASD holds one of their nasty, hero-AASD-saves-the-world-from-crooks press conferences, Shore Securities will be called thieves by every media outlet in New Jersey. Branchtown’s a long way from New York City, but even The Wall Street Journal might run a story.

“Could we discuss this in person, Ms. Talbot? I mean before you turn in that report? Co-mingling is a very serious charge.”

“I’m headed back to Philadelphia tonight,” she says. “I don’t see that there’s time.”

My guts twist into a tight ball. Every night, Shore deposits whatever bonds, stocks and cash we’ve collected during the day into our New York clearing bank, along with very specific instructions about what goes where, i.e., our account or individual customer’s accounts.

“I’m returning to Branchtown next week,” she says. “You can have input at that time.”

The bank people make occasional mistakes, putting our customer’s money in with Shore’s, co-mingling client funds with ours. We don’t know it happens until the next day, until we see a printout of what the graveyard bank shift did the night before, but then everything gets sorted and corrected the next morning by phone.

“If the mistakes are corrected immediately, how can you call it co-mingling?” I say. “I mean, you have to find out about a mistake before you can fix it, right?”

“I’ll try to call you next week,” she says.

FOUR

I am surreptitiously posed in Mr. Vic’s mahogany-paneled private office, one hand on the boss’s previously locked and out-of-bounds liquor cabinet, the other paw on Vic’s unopened bottle of forty-year-old bourbon, when I hear Carmela scream.

I have to say, honestly, my first thought is that Carmela has seen a mouse. The scream is high-pitched, squeaky and there could be a smile on my face as I reach Vic’s office doorway to check the sales floor.

But that’s not a mouse chasing Carmela down the center aisle of Shore’s big telephone room. It’s a rat—Carmela’s old beaux and Shore’s ex-sales manager, Tom Ragsdale. The giant rodent Rags holds a steak knife, and he’s fast, too. Probably the only way to catch him is step on his tail.

Spotting no other available appendages, I dive for his legs. I’m not really the hero type, but Rags’ small and demented brain seems focused completely on catching Carmela, and I personally owe this rat bastard plenty. Before he turned his life over to booze, drugs and gambling, Rags actually ran me down last year with his Jaguar.

My lunge hits target, my shoulder making perfect contact with the back and side of his knee. It’s a classic tackle, and we tumble together into a ball of fists and elbows, a crashing jumble against Bobby Gee’s desk. Vince Lombardi would be proud.

My ears await the rush of cheers and accolades from the dwindling, late Monday afternoon sales staff as I push up onto my hands and knees. But the only sound I hear are gasps.

Wait. Did my pants fall down?

Turning, I see—no—Rags has jumped up faster than me. While I was scrambling to my feet, Rags grabbed Carmela, ripped a bond calculator from the top of Bobby Gee’s desk and now wraps the machine’s electric cord around the poor woman’s neck.

“Back off, sucker,” Rags says, “or I’m going to recalculate this bitch’s yield to maturity.”

“Tony?”

“Yeah?”

I decided to call Brooklyn. It’s what Mr. Vic told me to do, and except for lining up left-to-right-breaking putts, and maybe right-to-left ones as well, Mr. Vic’s past advice has proven...well, not bad.

“My name’s Austin Carr, Tony. My partner Vic Bonacelli said I should call you if his daughter’s jilted ex-husband came back and caused trouble.”

“Jelly what?”

“Jilted. Carmela’s ex-husband. He’s here.”

“Vic’s in trouble?”

This guy Tony sounds like a mental midget. Hope it’s just a bad first impression. “No, his daughter Carmela’s in trouble. Vic’s in Italy.”

“Right. Uh...what exactly is going on?”

I shake my head at the phone, then glance at Rags and Carmela inside the big glass conference room. He has the door locked, the cord still tight around Carmela’s neck. Maybe I should have called the police first, but Rags looks really scary. Beady, drug-zapped eyes. Oily sweaty skin. I’m afraid he could be too much for local law enforcement-types like Mallory. Besides, Mr. Vic told me to call Tony, not the cops.

“Hey, Carr. I’m waiting here.”

“Sorry, Tony. I was just taking a look. Right this second, Rags is holding Carmela hostage inside our conference room. He has an electric cord wrapped around her throat. I don’t know what to do.”

“Did he say what he wants?” Tony says.

“A hundred grand to pay off some gambling debt. Says it’s a loan against the stock in Shore he’s signing over to Carmela as part of their divorce settlement. The split’s not a done-deal yet, so he thinks he’s got leverage.”

“Okay, that’s good. That’s very good. Tell him someone’s on the way with the hundred thousand.”

“You seriously want me to tell him you’re going to give him the money?”

“I’m always serious, Carr. Now get in there, tell him what I said, make sure he knows he doesn’t get the money if he hurts Carmela.”

Tony’s confidence is not catching, but it does somewhat relieve my first impression. He sounds like he knows what he’s talking about.

“How can I stall him for hours while you get the money, then drive down from Brooklyn?” I say.

“Your call was transferred to my cell phone, sunshine. I’m at Clooney’s on the beach, having a drink. I’ll be with you in ten minutes. Don’t worry about the cash.”

Handsome man, Tony Farascio. Six-foot plus. That Mediterranean-dusky look, onyx-black hair with a grizzly beard that probably sprouts a five o’clock shadow soon after breakfast. But Tony also sports delicate features, a chin, nose and cheekbones like a movie star’s. A pretty boy like George Clooney.

Standing outside the conference room, Tony shows my ex-sales manager Rags what’s inside his New York Giants sports bag, holding it up to the conference room glass. Must look like there’s a hundred grand inside because Rags pushes Carmela farther away, but steps closer himself to the door and reaches down to open up.

Tony checks over his shoulder to make sure I’ve emptied the office of potential witnesses, then makes his move. Big Tony from Brooklyn is quicker than any rodent. As the door unlocks, Tony kicks the door in, knocking Rags back into Carmela. Tony’s inside slick as a snake, rips the calculator, then the cord from Rags’ hands.

By the time I follow Tony inside the conference room, the skirmish is over. Tony has Rags pinned to the floor. Carmela cries, but she stands free, off in a neutral corner. Her previously neat hair sprouts black tufts the size of coffee mugs.

Tony digs in his pocket. “Bring my car around back.” He flips me his keys. “It’s the dark blue Caddy at the curb in front.”

Flat on his back, Rags twists an arm loose and swings at Tony’s face. Brooklyn Tony catches the flying fist and pops Rags hard with his other hand. Rags’ eyes roll up inside his head.

“Don’t hurt him,” Carmela says.

“Move,” Tony says to me. “Get my car.”

“Right,” I say. “What are you going to do with him?”

“Please don’t hurt him,” Carmela says.

Tony stands up. His big smile shows us a movie star set of pearly caps. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just relocate his ass. Like one of those dangerous New Jersey black bears.”

FIVE

One week later, I’m grabbing a stool at the bar of Luis’s Mexican Grill, anxious to eat a couple of Chef Umberto’s green chili burritos, when the world’s greatest bartender comes over and leans across the counter.

“Do you know this man?” Luis whispers. His head tilts, indicating I should look in the direction of the corner booth nearest the kitchen.

I follow Luis’s gaze. Looks like...it is, Joseph “Bluefish” Pepperman. Dining with two business-types, although now that I look a tad closer, both of his friends maybe a little too athletic and solid under the suits, ties and starched white collars. That could be a telling bulge against the one’s ribcage, too.

Bluefish sees me eyeballing his table. He smiles and I turn away.

“Anybody who bets in Branchtown knows Bluefish,” I say. “I’ve never seen him in here before, though. Have you?”

Luis shakes his head, no. “He has never been here before this afternoon.”

Luis wears his usual black slacks and white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to accentuate the muscles in his arms. My friend’s high forehead and aquiline nose tell of European descent, but his black penetrating eyes and high cheek bones give him a distinct Native American quality as well.

“Did Bluefish speak to you?” I ask.

“No. He frightened several of my customers into leaving, but I pointed him out because I believe he has an interest in you, does he not?”

“What do you mean? Is he staring at me?”

“Yes he is, and so are his men.”

I turn to stare back at him. Funny name Bluefish. It’s a common fish on the Jersey Shore, in the tuna family, but oily like mackerel—too oily for me and many others. I used to think it must be Bluefish’s greasy appearance that earned the local bookie his nickname. The black silk shirts. The slicked back hair. The man definitely sports a slippery quality that seems to match the oily taste of the fish.

The bookie nods in recognition. His head is long and narrow. But Bluefish’s nickname has nothing to do with oil or grease, I learned last year from my friend at the Newark Herald-Examiner.

“Have you ever see Jersey Shore swimmers called out of the surf by the lifeguards over of a boiling mass of fish?” my friend said.

“Yes, two summers ago. I heard somebody say it was a school of bluefish.”

“I don’t know if the bluefish are in a frenzy because they’re eating something smaller or because they’re being eaten by something bigger,” my friend said. “Never asked because I figured it didn’t matter. It’s the way the school of fish acts that earned Bluefish his nickname.”

“Violent, you mean?”

“Out of control. Frenzied.”

Glad I remembered that. And truly glad that except for the ponies once in a while, I don’t gamble. No debts to bookies, Bluefish or otherwise. This is good because Branchtown’s minor-league, too starched version of a Brooklyn goon squad, Mr. Joseph Bluefish Pepperman included, leaves their table and strolls around the bar in my direction. One good thing: I met Bluefish once at a restaurant in Spring Lake. Mr. Vic, who was taking me and some guys to dinner after a round of golf, told us that night that he knew Bluefish from high school.

“Hey, Carr,” Bluefish says. He offers his hand.

I’m surprised he remembers my name. There were four or five of us at the dinner table that night. The guy must have taken a Dale Carnegie class. I slide off my stool and shake. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Pepperman.”

He slaps my shoulder like an old drinking buddy. “Call me Bluefish.”

Luis saying, “It is not good for my business that you are here.” He leans across the dark horseshoe bar, staring at Bluefish, showing all of us that windy Halloween look in his eyes I’ve only seen once or twice before. He says, “I would like you and your friends to leave.”

Uh, oh.

Bluefish’s two sidekicks slide up quietly beside their bookie boss, creating a wall to screen us from most of the restaurant. Bluefish’s men unbutton their coats and show us pistols stuffed in their belts. Luis may have to reconsider his poor hospitality.

Across the room, a young woman leads her table in sharp laughter. The TV behind the bar is blaring spring training baseball highlights. The restaurant’s familiar onion, cilantro and simmering chili smells seem suddenly sharp and pungent. My pulse is up. What the hell is it with me and guns? Suddenly, they’re a major part of my life.

“Are you leaving?” Luis says. “Or will I call the police?”

I grew up in the eastern, Mexican-American section of Los Angeles. Ever since grammar school I’ve admired the code of honor and fierce pride with which so many Hispanics are raised. Simply put, my favorite bartender is an hombre. You feel safe drinking at his bar, but I hope Luis doesn’t think the switchblade he carries in his back pocket matches him up with these two semi-automatics.

“We’re happy to leave,” Bluefish says. “Your food looks like runny dog shit. But you’re coming with us. I think your big mouth has earned you a spot next to Carr. Get your ass out from behind the bar.”

Luis’s face hardens into wood. “I have customers. I will not leave.”

Bluefish glances at his two friends. The bookie’s pals draw their guns.

SIX

Bluefish’s black Chevy Suburban crunches gravel in Luis’s parking lot, then rolls quietly across the sidewalk into light traffic. Red dash lights cast a hellish glow on Bluefish and his doublewide driver, Max, who had big trouble squeezing inside the SUV. Max would have trouble squeezing inside a bus.

Luis and I are tucked in the Suburban’s middle row behind Max and Bluefish. From the jump seat behind us, Bluefish’s two pals in business suits hold their semi-automatics directly behind our cerebellums.

“Here’s the deal,” Bluefish says. “Tom Ragsdale is a degenerate gambler. No one will take his action. But then your asshole boss Vic tells me he’ll guarantee his son-in-law’s bets. Okay, I know Vic a long time. I take his word. But a few months go by, and now this hump Ragsdale is into me for eighty-nine gees.”

“Rags and Vic’s daughter are getting divorced,” I say.

“So?”

“I’m just saying. But no matter what, why is this my problem?”

Bluefish’s head turns back to the windshield. “Everybody tells me Vic’s coming back by the end of summer. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. In the meantime, I’m holding Shore as collateral, meaning you and your big mouth friend Poncho here are going to do me a couple of favors.”

The Suburban turns off Broad Street at Newman Springs Road and heads toward the Garden State Parkway. Every other building is a gas station or a liquor store. The good people of Branchtown like to fuel up before any long ride.

“Carr, you’re going to open an account for me at Shore Securities, help manage my money.”

Luis raps his window with soft knuckles, listening at the glass. He silently tests the door handle. Locked. The driver must have switched on his override. Is my favorite bartender considering a bailout?

“Sounds painless,” I say to Bluefish, “but a few months from now you’ll want Shore to accept bags of cash or stolen negotiable securities. I know how this crap works. It’s why Mr. Vic never opened an account for you all the time he’s known you.”

Luis’s hand tests the door handle again. Hope to hell he doesn’t leave me. That driver Max gives me the creeps. His head’s the size of a jack-o-lantern, his back and shoulders like a rhino’s.

“What favor do you ask of me?” Luis says.

“Liquor distribution. I got a firm in Philly would like to supply your restaurant.”

“No,” Luis says.

Bluefish’s chin drops to his chest. Very expressive, this bookie. I should introduce him to Walter. “This ain’t a negotiation, Poncho...you and me going back and forth. Do what you’re fucking told or I’ll bury both of you in the pine barrens.”

He nods out the window. We’re on the Parkway headed south now. Manicured lines of white pine, oak, and maple trees border both north and south lanes. Another twenty-five, thirty miles, the forest turns wilder. Nothing but scrub pine.

“Perhaps there is a third choice,” Luis says. “A contest. Myself against your driver.”

Bluefish grunts. “You want a piece of Max? That’s your solution?” Bluefish shakes his head. “You come across as smart, too, although maybe I was fooled ’cause you don’t talk much. But no, I see no benefit to me in that. I’ve got what I want right now.”

“Perhaps if I include a one-half interest in the restaurant itself—in addition to my liquor business?” Luis says.

My man is feeling confident. Is Luis in possession of material facts of which I am unaware? Maybe something to do with that door handle?

“I’m impressed,” Bluefish says. “How about you, Carr? You’re not going along with this dumb idea, are you?”

I’ve never gone wrong trusting Luis yet. El Hombre. He’s got a mean plan, I know it.

“Sure I’m going along,” I say. “Here’s my offer: Max wins, you get your new account at Shore, plus I’ll agree to launder cash for you, say one hundred grand a month.”

Bluefish scratches his narrow chin. “You’re actually making this tempting.” He sighs. “Max? What do you think?”

A bus going the same way zooms by in the fast lane, a big steel box loaded with senior citizens and their rolls of slot change headed for Atlantic City. Max the Creeper shrugs. Like maybe the Suburban went over a bump.

“Max will stomp him,” Max says. Speaking in the third person like a half-wit. Unlike Mama Bones’ thick Italian accent, I suspect Max is not cultivating misconceptions.

Bluefish says, “So what’s the rules, Poncho?”

“Bare hands, no weapons,” Luis says. “The fight continues until only one man is able.”

“You want to fight Max bare handed? Sounds like a waste of time,” Bluefish says. “Max?”

The driver’s huge head bounces up and down maybe an inch. My pulse ticks much higher. This duel is going to happen. Luis versus Max the Creeper. A pint of sour milk boils inside my stomach.

“Max stomp him quick,” Max says.

Bluefish stares out the car window. “Well, why the hell not?”

“If I win, you forget about these favors?” Luis says.

Bluefish shrugs. “If you win? Right. You know where to turn off, Max. I can’t notice a five hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk, not pick it up.”

SEVEN

The Suburban’s headlights slice through the inky air like white lasers, searching the blacktop gliding toward us. Pine and oak trees border both sides of the confined two-lane road, a thick, black wall of forest. Above the treetops, a narrow strip of sky shimmers with stars. Bluefish’s window is down, and inside the rush of wind, a night bird makes lonely calls.

I’m definitely getting nervous. The only thing keeping my heart rate below two hundred sits calmly beside me. I’m pretty sure Luis—mi amigo—can handle anything.

The Suburban’s red glow dash lights fire up the angled edges of Max the Creeper’s profile. Almost inhuman, really. Cartoonish. Trick imaging, yes, but I can’t shake the feeling he’s a monster driving me and Luis down some highway to hell.

Bluefish saying, “So, Max, tell the guys about your first job. The one you had when you were thirteen.”

Bluefish thinks this is funny. He covers his mouth with his fingers. Call it a silly hunch, but I’m going out on a limb and predict this revelation about creepy Max’s teenage past is going to make me worry even more about Luis’s future.

“Max work with circus,” the Creeper says. Talking about himself in the third person again, his voice a crackling whisper. Broken glass thrown on sandpaper.

“No, tell them what you did for the circus,” Bluefish says.

“Max wrestle bears.”

Bluefish fakes a cough. “Notice he said ‘bears,’ guys. Not ‘bear.’”

The Suburban swings into a private driveway. Six-foot lengths of treated logs bridge the roadside ditch where water trickles through tall grass. A battered mailbox, shaped like a black squirrel, stands sentry. How cute, except the critter’s head has been shot off.

Seventy-five feet off the blacktop, the forest opens into a grassy clearing with a mulched playground for kids, slides, a jungle gym, and parking for two dozen cars. Three brick barbecues line one side of the parking area. Probably where Bluefish holds his company picnics. Buries his wives and girlfriends.

The Suburban rolls to a stop against the parking lot’s log boundary. Luis’s hand is locked onto the door handle, his gaze pinned on Creeper. Luis’s body language reminds me of a house cat. Watching like Max is a mouse.

Trouble is Creeper is more like the Giant Rat of Sumatra.

Bluefish saying, “Do I even need to get out of the car, Max? I mean, how long could this take?”

I hear Max the Creeper click a switch. All the Suburban’s doors pop free, and Luis is outside before I smell fresh air. I saw his hand move this quickly once, when some pachuko hoisted Luis by the collar and my favorite bartender went for a switchblade in his back pocket. But Luis’s whole body is a blur this time. Like that house cat, making his move.

Poking my head outside, watching Luis over the SUV’s roof, Luis stands loose and ready beside the Suburban’s flank while Max is still squeezing out from behind the wheel like some ugly gob of toothpaste.

When Luis kicks Max’s door, stomping on the hinged steel like he’s breaking down a locked vault, Luis times his explosion precisely as Creeper’s noggin rises between the top of the Suburban’s door and the frame. The chunky sound of steel on Creeper’s head—like someone dropped a stick of butter on the floor—makes me wince. Max staggers to one knee, blood oozing from his temple. His shoulders weave, and he tumbles face first onto the parking lot’s shredded bark. The earth shakes like somebody dropped a piano.

My heart’s drumming, hard rain on a cardboard roof. The two guys in suits have scrambled out of the Suburban’s rear seat, slowly at first to watch the fight, then knocking me down, pushing past, as Max goes down. They want Luis. One rushes around the grill, the other goes for the rear bumper to trap him. My lungs want more oxygen.

Luis stoops out of my view from the top, then reappears like magic photography back inside the Suburban, sitting in the driver’s seat. One hand extends a gun toward Bluefish’s head. Luis must have taken the weapon from Max. A tear of sweat rolls down my right flank.

I see Luis’s end game, at last, and jump back inside the Suburban. Same seat I had before, behind Bluefish. Luis hits the override button as soon as my door shuts, raising all the windows and locking the three of us inside. Luis grins as he hands me the gun. What an hombre. “Watch carefully Bluefish’s hands. If you lose sight of them, shoot.”

It would be my pleasure, I think. I’m no killer, but if Bluefish has another gun on him, and I don’t shoot when he goes for his weapon, Luis and/or I could suffer serious and permanent injury.

Bluefish is no risk taker, however. He shows me the back of his hands, one poised by each ear. How sweet. He’s wearing his missing wife’s wedding band. Gold, and not perfectly round, the circle squared with tiny corners.

I line up the muzzle with the back of Bluefish’s demented brain, although I am seriously starting to worry about the two guys in suits. Locked out, they are hammering the windows and yanking on the doors and now firing weapons.

I duck. Cracks appear on the window beside Luis’s head, but the bullets don’t penetrate. Bulletproof glass? I’m not only impressed with Bluefish’s expensive and professional defenses, but also the fact Luis must have figured this out earlier. I remember him tapping the glass with his knuckles.

Luis throttles the Suburban into a bark spewing K-turn.

Bluefish says, “You humps are as good as dead.”

EIGHT

Plenty of parking at the Mexican Grill when Luis bounces us back into his gravel lot. With no bartender to mix drinks for over an hour, Luis’s thirsty customers obviously sought refreshment elsewhere. In Branchtown, drinking loyalties have limits.

I’m breathing like a normal running Labrador again as Luis flips off the engine. My heart-rate’s taken a dive, too. Probably down to a smooth one-eighty. Don’t think I was meant to aim guns at people. Or maybe it’s the dead-ass blank stare Bluefish just gave me. Looking at this guy gives me the idea I might be out of my league.

Luis swings his shoulders to confront Bluefish, holds up the car keys like a prize. “You will keep your word, forget about the favors you asked?”

Good thing I’ve got Luis, El Hombre. The man is in a league of his own.

Bluefish nods, reaches for the keys. “Sure.”

Don’t know about Luis, but Bluefish’s tone and manner do not sate me with confidence. In fact, it’s impossible to even hope he’s telling the truth. Or maybe I’m just the skeptical type. Being a stockbroker and all.

But I am not the only one. Bluefish’s fingers snatch air as Luis yanks the keys back. Luis says, “I would be a fool to let you leave if you only plan to kill us.”

Glad Luis agreed with my zero reading of Bluefish’s Sincerity Meter. Bluefish better be careful what he says next, too. I know for a fact Luis has the stomach to kill.

“I’ll keep the bargain,” Bluefish says. “I’m pissed off, yeah, so maybe it don’t sound right. But I’ll forget about the favors, leave Shore alone and the restaurant alone. Ragsdale’s debt can wait for Vic to come back.”

Bluefish tried that time. I have a small hope he might live up to his word. No confidence. Just hope. And actually, “forget about the favors” isn’t exactly “I won’t have someone shoot you in the head” either.

Luis gives him the keys to the Suburban.

Inside an empty Luis’s Mexican Grill, I cover a stool at the horseshoe bar, right under Luis’s collection of authentic caballista sombreros. My favorite bartender sends Umberto home, flips off the television and begins to toss trash, wipe glasses and towel the counter.

When the bar’s clean and ready for tomorrow’s setup, Luis pours us each a shot of Herradura Gold. A nightcap of warriors. Actually, I was more of a foil. Maybe a prop or the comic relief—like the real Poncho to Luis’s Cisco Kid.

We salute and drink.

Luis says, “Have you given thought to what happened tonight?”

“I’m trying to block it out.”

“Do not,” Luis says. “This is a serious matter. Bluefish will almost certainly try to kill us. Perhaps not right away. He would be wise to wait, perhaps put us off our guard by letting us think he kept his word.”

“Sounds sneaky enough for Bluefish. Did you get a good look at that pumpkin-faced creep Max who was driving...before you changed the shape of his head, I mean?”

Luis ignores me. “We must make plans, take special care. Before this is over, we may decide killing Bluefish first is our only protection.”

I pull my wallet, find the yellow scrap of paper Mr. Vic gave me that Friday night. I show Luis Tony’s name and telephone number.

“Who is Tony?” Luis asks.

“My boss said I should call him in case of trouble with his daughter. I did, and he took care of it. Rags is gone. Maybe he could take care of Bluefish, too.”

Luis switches off the beer signs. “Is this Tony a lawyer? Or a thug like Bluefish?”

“I don’t know.”

“It is of little consequence, I think. Most likely this matter must be settled between ourselves and Bluefish.”

Luis is ready to close the restaurant. I’m not sure, but I think he may have himself a steady girlfriend these days. I slide off the barstool. “You mean you and Bluefish will settle it, Luis. I’m not much of a fighter.”

Luis shakes his head. “This is not true, amigo. Myself, I am experienced with many weapons. My favorite is the knife, and I handle even the large ones with skill. Yet your words can be more cutting than my biggest knife. Austin Carr fights with his brain and his mouth. And he fights very well.”

Now that’s an interesting take on my Gift for Gab. I always saw my verbal proficiency as a shield, not a weapon. But who am I to argue with a Toltec warrior?

NINE

A year ago, I lived in a pickup-mounted camper. Thousands of dollars in debt, including overdue alimony and child-support payments, my wages were being garnished and the ex-wife had a restraining order preventing me from seeing our children. I had very little to lose in those days. Taking risks came smooth and easy.

Now my support payments—all my bills—are current. I get Ryan and Beth every Wednesday night for dinner and again every other weekend. I can afford a two-bedroom apartment and a leased Toyota. More important, my ownership interest in Shore Securities could fund my kids’ college educations, provided Carmela and I and the people we hire run Shore well.

Point being, all of sudden I’ve got plenty to lose. That’s why I’m turning loose Brooklyn Tony on Bluefish. I have no idea what happened to Rags after Tony dragged him out of Shore’s offices last week, but I know Rags hasn’t bothered me or Carmela since. Maybe Tony can pull off the same kind of disappearing act with Bluefish.

Tony examines me standing on his porch with the soft brown eyes of a German Shepherd. Calm, relaxed, just inside the threshold of his home in Gravesend, Brooklyn, Mr. Handsome extends his paw for me. “Come on in.”

He practically lifts me inside with his giant mitt. Tony’s got on an extra, extra large gray golf shirt and navy sweats, but there’s no missing the muscle beneath the loose cloth. This guy snatched me off the porch like I was a newspaper.

“Any trouble finding the place?” he asks.

His hand weighs on my shoulders like a backpack loaded for the assault on Everest. “No problem,” I say. “And I really appreciate you’re seeing me. I’m a little embarrassed coming for dinner.”

Tony’s body hardens like fast-drying glue. “Embarrassed?” His brown eyes narrow into a glare that fills my blood with worry. Jesus. Is this what they call the prison stare? “What?” he says. “You got a problem coming to Gravesend?”

Yikes. “Hell, no. I mean embarrassed about putting you out. Making your wife cook for me. I would have been happy to take you and the missus—”

“Oh.”

“—out to dinner.”

Using his hand like a puppeteer, Tony twists both our heads to greet a dark haired young woman striding our way. She’s wearing a black skirt and a furry, sleeveless sweater with yellow and black horizontal stripes.

“Is this Vic’s friend Austin?” she says.

Tony saying, “My wife Gina.”

Gina’s a knockout. Long midnight hair, maybe ten or twelve inches past her shoulders. Huge, oval, yellow flaked brown eyes. An ear-to-ear smile whose sincerity feels generated by an even bigger heart. The smile and the striped sweater remind me of honey bees and summer days. Sweet stuff, this Gina.

She offers her hand. “Austin.”

I give her the full-boat Carr grin when her fingers brush mine. I feel dizzy, spinning in a field of perfumed July flowers. Hey, wake up, Carr. Time to snap out of Gina’s spell here before I erect myself a tower of trouble.

“Can I get you a drink?” she says.

“Know how to make a Slippery Nipple?”

“But Carmela’s doing okay?” Tony says. “That prick Ragsdale was a serious loser.”

“Was?”

“Slip of the tongue. I took him to the ’splaining department is all, told him what might happen if he ever showed up again at Vic’s place.”

I nod. “Great. Thanks. No, Carmela’s doing fine. It’s this other thing with Bluefish why I called.”

Tony and I sip after dinner sambuca in the Farascio’s playroom, a tennis court sized basement with two bowling lanes, a pool table, a card table, a mini-theater with a big screen TV and recliners for eight, a juke box, a soda fountain and enough cushioned perimeter seating for the Rutgers marching band.

“But you said at dinner Bluefish promised to keep his end of bargain,” Tony says. “I don’t see the problem.”

“Neither I nor Luis trust him.”

Tony’s teeth crunch one of the three coffee beans floating in the sambuca. “I don’t personally know this guy Bluefish, but I heard of him. I don’t see him getting where he is in this world without keeping his word.”

“Even with people he’s about to kill?”

Tony grins. “You got a point there, pal.”

Gina calls from the top of stairs. “Telephone, Tony.”

I can’t see her, but I definitely remember what the touch of her hand did to my heart beat, the circulation in my extremities.

Tony stands. “Let me check out a few things,” he says. “I’ll get back to you.”

“Thanks, Tony. I’d appreciate any help you can give me with this Bluefish character.”

“Don’t thank me yet, sunshine. Let’s see if I can help.”

TEN

Mama Bones saying, “You should-a called me first.”

I wedge the phone between my ear and shoulder, freeing my hands to sign a stack of company checks Carmela’s presented me and wrenching my back. We’re busy at Shore today, the guys scoring big by calling up and working Walter’s accounts with enthusiasm and purpose. The big accounts are solid behind Walter, but he’s left a lot of crumbs on the table, the man too busy going after our clients. Don’t tell those AASD jerks who suspended my license, but I’ve been helping Shore’s bond desk fill orders and racking up a few commission dollars myself. My trades get routed through a phony rep number.

“Hey, I’m talking here,” Mama Bones says. Her voice crackles through the telephone.

Walter’s banging the phones, calling Shore clients whose names and numbers he swiped on the way out of here. The bastard. I heard twice today from my clients that Walter called them, told them Shore was bound to go broke, that we’ve already hired a bankruptcy lawyer. My pal Walter.

“Hey, Golly Gee!” Mama Bones says.

I stop signing checks. Nobody’s called me Golly Gee in a while. Not since I moved here from California and learned to curse properly, like a New Jersey native. “Mama Bones, I did tell you. I called to see if you needed help with that bingo game thing, and when you asked what happened when Bluefish came to Luis’s on Monday, I—”

“You should have asked me about Tony before you called him for help,” she says. “Is a bad mistake you asking this man to do something. He and his Brooklyn crew are worse than Bluefish, worse than rats. That Tony teach my little Vittorio bad things.”

“How did you know Bluefish threatened me at Luis’s?”

“Lucky guess.”

“Mama Bones?”

“Maybe I had a vision. Bye.”

“Mama—?”

She’s gone. Strange, although there were lots of people in Luis’s restaurant the other day who saw what happened. Plus Mr. Vic’s bragged many times about his mother’s exercise/bookmaking business. Unless she’s booking all the bets herself, she must be tied to, or even part of, Bluefish’s gambling operation.

One thing I’m not buying is Mama Bones’ voodoo vision theory.

Sixty-six percent of the time, eating dinner with my kids on Wednesday night is one hundred percent predictable. Ryan always picks Burger King. I invariably choose Luis’s Mexican Grill. Only when it’s Beth’s turn might our evening involve true culinary adventure. Tonight is such a night.

Beth saying, “Is this place cool or what?”

“Looks like Dracula’s castle,” Ryan says.

I brake for valet parking. The Locust Tree Inn & Restaurant on the edge of Branchtown’s southern border caters to foreign and gourmet tastes, and I should take advantage, try something exotic. I hear, for instance, the tube steak here rocks.

“Does this place have cheeseburgers?” Ryan says.

“Only dorks eat cheeseburgers every night,” Beth says.

“Hey,” I say. “Be nice.”

The kids precede me up flagstone steps. One of Branchtown’s earliest settlers snagged a fortune growing corn beside the Navasquan River, boating his crop up to Manhattan. Four hundred years later, his stone, three-story, thirty-room Tudor mansion remains the number one venue for weddings in Central New Jersey. And Wednesday through Sunday brunch, Branchtown’s priciest restaurant.

Like her mother, my daughter has expensive tastes.

Beth saying, “I’m cold.”

“I’ve got the creeps,” Ryan says. “Did you see that guy who brought us our Cokes?”

It is a little weird in here. We checked out the ten-pound leather menus, started with Diet Cokes and just ordered our forty dollar entrees. We’re still the only people eating.

“Do you have a jacket in the car?” I say to Beth. “I’ll go get it.”

“No. I thought this sweater would be warm enough, but it’s so drafty in here.”

“You picked this creep-o-rama,” Ryan says.

“Shut up,” Beth says.

“Be nice,” I say.

I take off my suit coat and wrap Beth’s shoulders. All four dining room walls glow with dark, richly oiled wood. Gargoyles with fangs, claws and bulging angry eyes watch us from all four cornices of the ornamental, hand-plastered ceiling.

“Really, Pop. Did you see that waiter?” Ryan says.

“He’s just old,” I say. “People’s ears and noses never stop growing, you know. That’s why almost everybody looks funny when they get old.”

“You don’t look funny,” Ryan says.

Ouch. “I’m not old.”

Ryan and Beth glance at each other and giggle.

Outside, two pine trees have grown extra tall, and two perfectly spaced lights shine at me through the forest. Looking out the window, the effect reminds me of giant ears and huge yellow eyes. Like a four-story cat peering at me. I shudder. Maybe Ryan’s right about this place. Creepy.

“What’s the matter, Daddy?” Beth says.

“Guess I’m cold, too.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Ryan says.

Figures. One trip for every glass of Coke. “We passed the men’s room on the way in,” I say. “Near the front door.”

“I’ll be right back,” the boy says.

Ryan takes off at a brisk walk. Iced tea does that to me. Or maybe it’s all liquids. I think the problem might be genetic as my old man was always using the toilet. Our family road trips were planned around the availability of clean public restrooms.

I watch Ryan tack toward the hallway. His shadow dances on the wall a moment after he disappears. I’m about to turn away when a huge second shadow flashes across the same wall. My heart skips when I think I recognize the odd profile.

“Ryan!” I jump to my feet and run after him.

Beth calling, “Daddy, what’s the matter?”

My daughter’s frightened. Behind me, her wavering voice cuts me, makes me want to turn back and comfort her. But I can’t. Not right now anyway. My priority has to be Ryan.

That second shadow I saw looked like Bluefish’s oversized driver, Max the Creeper.

ELEVEN

In the hallway just outside the dining room, I run into a charging rhinoceros. No wait. It’s the Creeper, crushing me against the wall and emptying my lungs with his horn-like fist. I know rhinos are bigger and stronger than Creeper, but it doesn’t feel like it. Or maybe I was fooled by Creeper’s soiled, spotted gray coat that closely resembles exotic animal hide.

Probably a funny thing to notice when you can’t breathe, but I think Creeper’s got that European perspective on bathing, too. Only sissies use soap.

“Get up,” he says.

I’m sinking to the floor as he says this. When my butt hits bottom, I still can’t grab a breath, let alone stand, and since I don’t see or hear Ryan, I choose to stay right here on the hardwood floor and occupy Creeper’s creepy attentions.

Air surges into my lungs as rhino-man yanks me up by the belt, wraps his anaconda arm around me and spins me horizontal. Holding me on his hip like a small rolled up rug. My lungs and spirit enjoy the newly reacquired air supply until I hear small footsteps in the hall.

“Pop?”

“Run, Ryan,” I say.

Holding me with his right arm, Creeper jumps sideways and snatches Ryan with the left.

“Hey,” Ryan says.

I feel like a beetle in the clutches of a six-year-old boy. Helpless and doomed.

Creeper delivers us like lost pets, one on each hip, back into the dining room. The huge chamber isn’t empty anymore, though. Bluefish relaxes at the table with Beth. His greasy fingers caress her hair.

My hands clench into fists.

Every inch of the five thousand square foot dining room smells like Creeper’s unwashed armpits. And I can’t take my eyes off his nose. It has more bends than a toboggan run.

“Have I made my point?” Bluefish says. He glances at my children.

Beth and Ryan nibble their dinners. My kids share one table, Bluefish, Creeper, and I sit at another. There’s maybe twenty feet of distance between us. Wish it were twenty miles. Where in the hell are the other diners? A waiter?

“I understand,” I say. “The point is you’re threatening my children.”

They can’t hear me, but for the kids, I’m forcing a smile. Playing relaxed. Showing them everything’s fine. I’m just dining with an eccentric client who likes to wear black suits and eat with his creepy rhino-shaped bodyguard.

So far, Bluefish and Creeper are keeping their voices and tempers down, going along with my oddball client act. Although Creeper doesn’t have to say or do much to make things look scary. The bandaged wound on his temple oozes blood from Luis’ door slam. I hope it hurts like hell.

“My point is you can’t protect them,” Bluefish says. “Not twenty-four hours a day, not for one fucking minute if I choose otherwise.”

“I get it,” I say. My hands long to grab this bastard’s slicked-back hair and rip off his scalp. Instead, I’m saying, “I’ll open your Shore account personally.”

I force myself to take a bite of my prime rib and beg my jaws to chew. See Ryan, Beth? Everything’s fine. I glance again at Bluefish’s temptingly long, grippable hairdo, but I’ve got no real options as far as I can see. Getting Beth and Ryan home safely can be my only priority.

“Good,” Bluefish says. “In the trunk of your car you’ll find an athletic bag with one hundred thousand in cash and a signed Shore Securities’ account application. Buy me big cap, big name stocks.”

“All right,” I say. “Blue chips for Bluefish.”

I hand the valet his tip with a shaky hand and slide in behind the wheel of my Camry. Because of the wide market for its parts, America’s best-selling automobile is also the country’s most stolen. Wish someone would steal my Camry with Bluefish’s money in the trunk.

“Okay, Pop, we’re in the car,” Ryan says. “So who were those men?”

The kids buzzed me with questions when Bluefish and Creeper abandoned us in the dining room. I told them we needed to scram, that I’d answer questions when we got to the car. Gave myself some time to think.

Beth saying, “Daddy?”

“They’re friends of Mr. Vic,” I say. “The one named Bluefish is mad Vic went away and left me in charge at Shore Securities.”

“Is that why that big creepy guy picked us up like little puppies?” Ryan says.

Internally, I’d admire my son’s eye for detail. He’s got Bluefish’s driver pegged.

“Max is a little rambunctious,” I say. “Like a big kid.”

The quiet in the back seat indicates a certain skepticism, I suppose, but in this case I think lies are superior to the truth.

Beth says, “Daddy, are those men like the man who tried to kill you last year? Criminals?”

The best lies, however, always offer a bit of truth.

“Maybe, but it doesn’t matter. I agreed to help him. Bluefish isn’t mad anymore.”

“He didn’t look happy,” Ryan says.

“If you had to ride around in a car with Max, would you look happy?”

Bouncing into my ex-wife Susan’s driveway ten minutes later, breaking a long silence, Ryan asks if he and Beth need to go into the FBI’s witness protection program.

“No,” I say. “But I’ll need to if you tell your mother about this.”

TWELVE

The next day after work I find Luis’s Mexican Grill in the full-boat grip of rigor mortis. Subdued voices, no laughter. The light crowd focuses either on oval plates of Umberto’s semi-famous enchiladas and tacos or CNN’s pretty face actress blaring death estimates for another drone attack in Afghanistan. The air tastes brittle, ready to crack.

A stranger might think America’s war with radical Islam was to blame for this pall, but I can see the cause is much more personal. Armed violence threatens the home front as well. I don’t recognize him as being among Luis’ friends, but another Toltec warrior pins me from under Luis’ caballista sombreros. Within reach of the stranger’s big paws, a tall brown package leans against his barstool. Could be a couple of golf clubs. Maybe one of those thin, fungo baseball bats. Then again, the shape reminds me of a single-barrel, pump-action shotgun.

No wonder the joint’s tense.

Luis is busy making drinks. He takes a while to spot me, Luis collecting money and mixing big pitchers of margaritas. Soon as our eyes lock though, my favorite bartender/club owner wipes his hands, slides down the bar my way, Luis jaunty, but tense, too, the swagger contained.

He grabs my handshake. The restaurant’s atmosphere isn’t the only thing uptight around here. Luis’ shiny black eyes bear the resolute wariness of a big-city cop walking up beside your car. One hand on his holster.

I’ve decided to file a complaint. “Bluefish threatened my children. He brought that creep-ass giant with him, too, surprised me, Ryan and Beth at the restaurant. Bastard had me roughed up in front of my kids.”

Luis’s eyes briefly shut. A long, slow blink. He says, “Did you agree to do him the favor?”

I nod. “I couldn’t say no with the kids there.”

“What about this new friend of yours, Tony?”

“I asked for his help. But I haven’t heard from him since the day before yesterday.”

Luis reaches low to his left, draws up a half-full bottle of Herradura Gold and pours us two shots. “It is lucky for me I have not yet fathered children. I have only myself and my restaurant to protect.”

My friend doesn’t know the half of it. Besides Beth and Ryan, my current security responsibilities include Carmela, Shore Securities and Mama Bones. Thanks to my boss and market mentor, Mr. Vic, I’m sworn to protect his, mine and ours. Where’s my badge? My troops? Where’s Tony?

“I noticed the guy with the shotgun,” I say. “I assume he’s a friend of yours.”

Luis ignores my implied question. He wraps two fingers around his tequila glass, drinks his Herradura and shoots a glance at the front door. Maybe he thinks, I’m guessing, that his armed pal remains obscure.

I throw back my own tequila. Tilt my head in the guard’s direction. “Oh, come on, Luis. He pinned me like an owl watching a field mouse when I walked in. And that brown paper package might as well be transparent. About as subtle as a bazooka.”

He shakes his head. “Then Bluefish’s spy will easily pick him out as well.”

“Count on it.”

He pours us another shot. “I must make my friend less visible.”

I glance at the man beneath the sombreros. “And maybe get a few more of them.”

I park in the Martha Washington Inn’s side lot, grab my coat and slide out of the Camry. A putrid, river-bottom odor whacks my nose. Branchtown residents have been throwing nasty things in the Navasquan River for more than four hundred years. The gifts return in spirit every low tide.

I breathe as shallowly as possible walking to the hotel’s main entrance. The Martha Washington Inn perches on a small bluff overlooking the river, the hotel’s whitewashed wooden exterior molting away like feathers from an ancient seagull.

The weather is cool and clear this evening in Central New Jersey. A few clouds glow pink in the west. Not a bad night to roost at the Martha’s upstairs brass and mahogany bar, watch the sun go down. After dark, lights pop on in the big river estates, throwing sparklers onto black water.

Maybe after I meet with the AASD’s Ann Marie Talbot, I’ll have a Bombay martini and check out the lights.

“Hey, Carr.”

I let go of the Martha’s front glass door and swivel to see who’s called my name. It’s Tony Farascio, all six feet of him, the stubble on his George Clooney cheeks thick and black as coal dust.

“Hey, Tony. What’s up?”

“I decided to help you with that other thing.”

Tony sticks out his hand. He’s wearing tan cotton slacks, new white sneakers and another extra big, short-sleeve knitted green golf shirt beneath an unzipped Navy blue London Fog windbreaker. I’m familiar with his big hands, that crunching grip, but as he walks toward me I notice Tony also owns exceptionally light feet for a big man. Like a pro football lineman.

We drop the shake. “Carmela told you I was going to be here?” I say.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I don’t need any help with the AASD. But I sure could have used you last night. Bluefish threatened my children.”

Tony slams a forefinger to his lips. “Wait a minute,” he says. He guides me inside the Martha’s lobby, then off to a quiet corner beside a thirty-gallon blue Chinese vase filled with blooming yellow forsythia stalks.

“Sorry, pal,” he says. “But I didn’t think Bluefish would make his move that fast. Plus, I had to get permission. But I’m on it now.”

I nod.

“I heard about the cash he gave you,” Tony says.

“You did? From who?”

“I got friends in Bluefish’s family. All over, in fact. You still have his money?”

“It’s still in my car.”

Tony smiles and wraps a thick arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go have a pop at the bar. You can tell me about this AASD problem.”

“I don’t have time. The AASD woman is waiting for me now. She just came into town today on a fluke and agreed to meet me. So it’s important. I don’t want to be late.”

He shrugs and redirects me toward the elevators. “Okay, let’s go see her. We’ll have a pop later.”

Once again I resist his forward momentum. Like before, my shoes slide on the slick marble. “You can’t go with me,” I say.

“Sure I can. You’re going to need me.”

He plows another few steps toward the elevators, me scuffing along with him, stumbling until he stops both of us with quick freeze. “Wait. I got an idea. Let’s go back to your car, get Bluefish’s money. We might need that, too.”

My heart rate ticks up. “What are you talking about? What’s Bluefish’s money got to do with the AASD? Jesus, Tony. You’ll get Shore closed down letting her see all that cash. Like I’m trying to bribe her.”

“Her name’s Ann Marie Talbot, right?”

“Yeah. So?”

“And if she files her report with co-mingling charges included, Shore Securities gets hurt bad?”

“Probably. But—”

“So trust me, Carr. Vic told you to ask for my help, right?”

“Yes, but there’s no way Mr. Vic would want you to try and bribe her. Jesus, Tony.”

Tony tows me back outside through the glass doors. Once more, the gooey, tongue-swelling smell of dead organic matter punches me in the nose. Tony’s arm, the odors, fear suddenly pumping up my heart rate...feels like I’m about to faint.

George Clooney’s big brother from Brooklyn checks my face, shakes his head. “You look upset.”

There’s no way I can stop Tony Farascio from doing whatever the hell he wants. If I try to muscle him, I will also end up as rotting goo, reeking like the rest of the Navasquan River bottom.

“When you give me Bluefish’s money, I think I gotta go see this Ann Marie by myself,” he says. “You’re not right.”

And like my series seven securities license, my Gift of Gab has been temporarily suspended.

I am fucking speechless.

Maximilian Zakowsky

Max stares at Ann Marie on the tiny black and white recording monitor. Look at her, rubbing that silly deodorant under her shaved arms. Pulling those little black panties over her round tight ass.

He completes another set of push-ups and rolls onto his back for sit-ups, but switching positions this time so he can watch Ann Marie’s TV image finish dressing. She’s hooking a lace bra under her pillow-size breasts. Stuffing her soft flesh into cups. What would she do if he went next door right now, to her hotel room, and gave her a kiss?

He sighs. Maybe Ann Marie is the woman to take Maximilian Zakowsky away from this life. Endless days of sit-ups and push-ups, arm curls. Exercising until his body groans. And for what? For crazy Bluefish? For a place to live? For Jerry, Max’s one friend in the whole world?

Ann Marie has been very nice to Max. She has sex with him almost anytime he wants. And why would she get dressed like this, in full view of the camera, unless she knows he’s watching? Ann Marie must be doing this just for Max.

He checks the red light on Bluefish’s recording equipment. Everything is good, working fine. Jerry and the rest of Bluefish’s boys will be lining up to watch this tape, Ann Marie’s breasts so special to look at.

Max wipes the sweat off his forehead and stands up to catch his breath. Bluefish says Ann Marie doesn’t know about the camera. But with Ann Marie playing with her breasts inside the bra like this, kneading herself, she has to be putting on a show for Max.

He touches the zipper of his pants.

THIRTEEN

I extend my tongue full length, French-kissing my third martini. The now-empty conical glass winks back at me, another subtle indicator of full-boat overindulgence. Could this warning blinker—a lighthouse perched above the jagged coastline of reality—suggest my ineligibility for a fourth see-through?

My only hesitation to leaving the bar involves a strawberry blond. She’s sitting on a nearby stool, upstairs at the Martha, and the lady seems to like my smile. Grinning back at me in a very particular way. I have the feeling if I stay right here drinking, Ms. Strawberry may wander over here and rub me up. She’s got “I do what I want” written across her forehead.

Logic, Shore’s business and my children's college education luckily snag hold of my gin rotted brain. Checking the bartender’s watch, I see Brooklyn Tony has been up in Ann Marie Talbot’s room more than an hour. If he’s trying to bribe that woman from the American Association of Securities Dealers, he could put Shore out of business, maybe install my pink ass in a white-collar prison. The U.S. District Attorney here is running for Congress. He loves to make an example of corporate criminals.

I throw down cash and slide off my stool. I must be nuts letting Tony go up to Talbot’s room, let him represent Shore Securities with the AASD. What was I thinking? At the very least I should have held out as long as physically possible, let the contusions and concussions speak later of my attempt to prevent Tony’s madness.

Besides Carmela, who walked in ten minutes ago, the bar’s packed with lingering sunset gazers and silver-haired seniors ordering early-bird specials from the bar menu. Through the crowd, the strawberry blond and I find each other again.

Too bad, I have to go. I only get a glimpse on my way out, but Ms. Strawberry’s wearing a scooped-neck black dress that frames her bosom and drapes her hips like liquid chocolate. A diamond earring twinkles at me, but not as brightly as the lady’s smile. If Johnny Depp as that movie pirate had a blond sister...

I wave and disappear into the elevator lobby.

Figures. Probably the love of my life back there and I’m ditching the bar and a chance to meet her because everything I have, everything my children need, could be sliding down the big financial drain as I speak. Or think. Or whatever the hell it is I’m doing.

Goddamn, I might as well have gone for the martini quatro. The third one buried me anyway.

The elevator doors rattle open before I push the button, and Tony’s dark-haired wife, Gina the Luscious, rushes out, almost crashing into me. What the hell’s she doing here? Her way-past shoulder length black hair dangles loose and uncombed. Her cashmere sweater sports a torn seam across the right shoulder. And Gina Farascio’s gorgeous face is drawn tight, her mascara smeared by tears.

The instant I catch her shoulders, preventing our collision, the lights go off and the Martha’s fire alarm fills the hall with high pitched electronic screaming and blinking red light. The piercing, throbbing whine stabs at my ears, the ugly noise somehow louder in the near dark.

Gina’s eyes go wide and wild, the intense red beacon flashing directly above us from high in the elevator lobby’s corner, the bloody light adds a frightening visual quality to the fire alarm screaming. If I’ve got my bearings right, the crimson bursts signal a location for the stairway. My heart is drumming.

It figures that lives are at stake. I have five or six ounces of Bombay Sapphire in me, not to mention the vermouth. Plus—let’s see if I can put this delicately—my brain’s missing some blood thanks to Gina being so close. My corporal contents have shifted.

A crowd of alarm driven bar patrons streams into the small elevator lobby, but instead of opening, the elevator doors lock shut. I reach for Gina’s hand as the swelling crowd of panicked seniors herds toward the stairs. I don’t see or smell any smoke, but Gina and I don’t have any choice but to go along. We’re swept up like leaves in a water-filled gutter.

I slip my arm around her waist to keep us together.

Outside in the parking lot, Gina and I huddle with two or three dozen other bar patrons, hotel guests and staff. Branchtown fire crews unload hoses while others rush inside the Martha Washington. I don’t spot Tony, Ms. Strawberry or Ann Marie Talbot anywhere in the crowd, but Carmela’s out here with Gina and me, Mr. Vic’s daughter talking with three young women and a uniformed cop.

FOURTEEN

Gina Farascio’s unruly gaze fixes on two Branchtown police cruisers bouncing into the Martha’s parking lot. Behind the black-and-whites, I recognize Detective James Mallory’s dirty brown Crown Victoria. He hits the driveway at thirty miles an hour.

I’m guessing Branchtown’s Bravest found something inside the hotel of serious interest to Branchtown’s Finest. Arson? Or maybe somebody got burned.

The number of people waiting to return has dwindled considerably, no doubt a casualty of alcoholic thirst. I could use another see-through myself. In fact, I’d head back to Luis’ right now if it wasn’t for Bluefish’s now-missing one hundred thousand. I’m beginning to consider final resting spots.

“Carr.”

I shift to see Detective Mallory stalking me from behind. He’s got two uniformed officers with him and a tense, don’t-screw-with-me expression. Actually, the only time he doesn’t have that nasty cast on his face is when he’s coaching Little League Baseball. Even then he talks to the kids like the umpire instead of a coach.

He grips my arm. “Talk to me, pal. Over there, by the patrol car.”

Mallory tugs me over hands on, like he’s dragging a convict up before the judge. He nudges me against the black-and-white’s rear fender and pushes his face up close. I think he might have had a beer with lunch. Sam Adams? Our noses are almost touching.

“Know a woman named Ann Marie Talbot?” he says.

Gulp. “Yeah.”

Mallory’s eyebrows snap higher. I can almost feel wind.

“She’s an investigator with the American Association of Securities Dealers,” I say. “She’s been auditing Shore.”

“Did you see her today?”

“No.”

“You sure? I found your name on a pad by her telephone.”

Double gulp. Why was Mallory up in Talbot’s room after the fire? My stomach begins to fill with battery acid. Is there a criminal reason why I haven’t seen Tony or Talbot?

“I had an appointment, but didn’t go,” I say.

Mallory grins. Now his breath smells like gasoline. Maybe he was drinking brandy. “You’re a bad liar, Carr. You expect me to believe you were at her hotel, but you didn’t keep that appointment?”

“I don’t care if you believe me or not. It’s the truth. I sent an associate to keep my appointment.”

Oh, my, that was dumb. Sometimes my Gift of Gab turns into Big Stupid Mouth.

“Yeah? And who would that be?” Mallory says.

I suck a big breath. Considering what Tony was carrying, and what he may have been doing with it, I’m not the smallest bit anxious to reveal his identity. Or Shore’s semi-serious AASD troubles. Oh, man, when am I going to learn to keep my trap shut?

I stall. “Tell me what’s going on. Why all the questions?”

Mallory right hand jumps up and pinches my shoulder. I want to knock it away. “Who went to see her, Carr? Tell me.”

If people exercised the right to remain silent, our prisons would be empty. “If you want me to say another word, Jim, explain what’s happened. My lawyer’s phone number is programmed into my cell phone.”

His intense gaze holds on mine, trying to intimidate me. Fat chance, Jimbo. I watched you throw baseballs all one summer. I’ve seen stronger arms on a sand crab.

Mallory saying, “Your five o’clock appointment was canceled, Carr. Ann Marie Talbot is dead.”

FIFTEEN

Mallory’s words smack me. Not as hard as Max the Creeper did last night, but enough to provoke the physical reaction I’m sure Mallory hoped for. I feel my eyes go big like saucers. When my breath comes back, it’s quick and shallow.

“Who did you send up there, Carr? Tell me now or I’m taking you in on suspicion of murder. Let the newspapers and TV stations have the news.”

I labor for a deep breath. I need oxygen. I need the Lone Ranger. The Cisco Kid. Luis. Okay, Carr, think quick. Tony Farascio is Mr. Vic’s friend. Tony’s carrying one hundred thousand dollars in what I assume to be unlaundered gambling money. And anyway you look at it, thanks to me, Tony went to see Talbot on Shore’s behalf. I do not want to give Mallory Tony’s name.

“Who the fuck was it!” Mallory is screaming at me. “Tell me.”

But Shore’s troubles can only blossom into full-boat disaster if I start lying during a murder investigation, playing hide-the-truth with Branchtown cops. When you’re sinking in heavy shit, it figures as pure folly to dig yourself in deeper.

“His name is Tony Farascio,” I say.

“Spell it.”

“F-A-R-A-S-C-I-O.”

“He works for you?”

“He’s a friend of Mr. Vic’s.”

“What, he’s a lawyer or something?”

“I’m not sure,” I say. “Maybe just a friend.”

Mallory’s eyes narrow. “But he was on Shore Securities business?”

“Uh...I guess.”

The tall cop pushes closer. His nose brushes mine. An Eskimo kiss. Gee, Jim, does this mean we’re going steady?

“Was he or wasn’t he, Carr? I thought you were running the company while Vic’s out of town.”

I cough to clear my throat. That backs Mallory up. Maybe I should tell him I have TB. “Mr. Vic told me to call Tony if I had trouble with...” My sentence dies. I’m wandering down a dangerous path here. I keep talking this way, explaining myself, it’s going to sound like I—or Vic, Shore, somebody—hired Tony Farascio to threaten or even kill Talbot.

“Trouble with what?” Mallory asks.

“Just trouble.”

Mallory shakes his head. His jaw sets like black-flecked white marble. “Screw this, Carr. You’re coming back to the station, spend the night answering questions. For now, just tell me what this Farascio looks like.”

The sun’s long gone. Stars flicker above the Navasquan River. I don’t see Gina the Luscious anymore, and the last stragglers have wandered back inside the Martha. The Branchtown Fire Department rumbles from the parking lot. Everything’s finished. Especially me.

“Six foot,” I say. “Two hundred pounds. Dark wavy hair and a permanent five o’clock shadow. Handsome as a movie star.”

“Eye color?”

“Brown. Like a puppy dog.”

“Listen to me, Jim,” I say an hour later. “Every night our back office tells the clearing bank in New York what to do with the money and securities taken in during the day’s business. We send the bank a list of names and account numbers, what cash and stocks are to be deposited in each.”

Mallory and I are in a twelve-by-twelve-foot police interview room with a wooden desk and two wooden chairs, the furniture coated with multiple layers of brown paint that was old twenty-five years ago. The puke green, chipped-plaster walls haven’t been washed since Richard Nixon was President. The square-tiled floor smells of lemon disinfectant.

“If the bank goofs,” I say, “leaves one dollar of a client’s funds in Shore’s catch-all account, then technically we’ve co-mingled client moneys. And if we don’t catch it, if the banker doesn’t bother telling us, just fixes it himself the next day, our permanent records become inaccurate.”

Mallory nods with satisfaction. “I get it. So if this co-mingling charge were to hit the newspapers, Shore would lose a lot of business, maybe even close. You or your boy Farascio killed Talbot to keep this report from going public.”

He waves papers at me I assume came from Talbot’s hotel room. How else would he know about the co-mingling charges?

“Exactly,” I say. “Shore hired Tony to kill the AASD investigator because everybody knows a murder trial would make us look good.”

“I don’t think your friend Farascio expected to stand trial,” Mallory says. “He figured to burn the place down, cover his tracks.”

The interview room door opens and Mallory’s partner leans in holding a manila envelope. The young detective looks nineteen in his schoolboy haircut and new, tan-colored J. C. Penney suit. He looks like an Eagle Scout.

“Here’s the fax from Washington,” the kid says.

Mallory opens the folder, reads a few minutes while I wonder what he’s looking at. I don’t have a rap sheet, but maybe Tony does. Maybe I shouldn’t have given up Farascio’s name. I definitely should not have let Tony go see Talbot. Mr. Vic’s going to choke me when he gets back from Italy. Or, more likely, Tony, Bluefish or Max will have throttled me long before the boss gets home.

When I get out of here, I’m never going to stop drinking martinis.

Mallory’s had enough of the file. He tosses the manila folder onto the tear stained, fear scratched table between us with a tiny splat. The papers and photos slide partially out of the manila, pulling my eyes like a cheesecake calendar. What is this crap?

“How long have you and Anthony Farascio been friends?” Mallory says.

“I told you. We’re not friends. I never met the guy until this week.”

“Right. He’s a total stranger. That's why you sent him up to deal with the AASD for you.”

“He’s Vic’s friend, not mine.”

Mallory grins. His bony fingers pick up the manila folder again. He slides out a photo-fax, nudges the grainy image across the table.

It’s a shot of a burned-out building, probably a restaurant and bar judging by the blackened sign in the foreground. The sign gives the joint’s hours as 10 a.m. to 2 a.m.

Mallory saying, “The Feds call Farascio, Tony the Torch.”

He slides a second photo toward me, this one featuring three, tarp-covered bodies, all with blackened feet peeking from under a dark-spotted canvas.

“He gets paid to burn things for insurance money,” Mallory says. “Sometimes there are people inside.”

SIXTEEN

A hard noise echoes inside my apartment. Rapping at the door. Who the hell needs me so badly at—I check the digital clock on my nightstand—three o’clock in the morning? Mallory had enough of me by midnight. And it sure isn’t Ann Marie Talbot. Is it wishful thinking to hope it might be Tony? With Bluefish’s missing cash?

I slide out of bed. The toasty cheese smell of tomato pie lingers in my living room, but the sensation’s not exactly pleasant. I stopped for eats on the way home from Branchtown’s ancient brick police station, and my stomach tells me I should have chosen lighter fare than Roman Ricco’s greasy pizza. Ricco’s idea of an olive oil drizzle resembles what’s left in the pan after you fry a pound of bacon.

Bang, bang, bang. Can’t be the Creeper. The front door would already be lying flat.

Peeking through a slit in the curtains, I see Gina Farascio huddled at my door. She’s wearing the same torn sweater and wild eyes I saw at the Martha.

What I don’t see until I open up is Gina’s handgun. She yanks some kind of shiny chrome revolver from her black purse, pushes it against my chest and rushes me back inside.

“Where’s Tony?” she asks.

Her voice wavers with emotion. Fear or anger, I can’t tell which. I’ve been too interested in her comely smell, the shape of her anatomy, that inner radiance shining from her eyes. And pretty much in that particular order.

Gina kicks the door shut behind her. “Tell me where he is or I’ll shoot.”

Where’s Mallory when I need him? I’d even settle for the Eagle Scout. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen Tony since about six. Before the fire.”

The good news: Gina removes the revolver from my chest. The bad news: she lifts the gun’s muzzle level with my nose. The really ugly news: her thumb cocks back the hammer. Judging by the large bore on this chrome puppy, I’m a few PSI’s away from decapitation.

“Turn around and walk me through the house,” she says. “Slowly. No tricks.”

Gina drops her lusciousness onto my leather couch and stuffs the gun back in her purse. “Sorry,” she says. “I figured he’d be here.”

Her huge oval eyes gaze up at me. My fear turned quickly to anger when she lowered the weapon a minute ago, but now my arms are itching to embrace her. And it’s more than lust talking. I want to soothe her soul. Honest.

“You have any scotch?” she says.

“Dewar’s.”

“Make it a double,” she says.

Takes me two minutes to make Mrs. Tony Farascio feel better, her feet stretched out on my couch, rattling her ice, sipping the watered whisky.

Most of it’s gone before she sets the glass down on my carpet, says, “Why were you with Tony at that hotel?”

“Actually, he was with me. I had a meeting with the AASD and Tony wanted to help.”

Gina snorts. Like Tony might have had some other motive besides kindness. Gee, why didn’t I think of that?

“What were you doing there?” I ask.

“Following Tony. I know he’s been cheating on me practically since the day we were married. I’ve just never actually caught him at it. If I could be one hundred percent sure—find him just once in the sack—I’d have the strength to leave him.”

I watch Gina push her shoes off, let them tumble to the floor. The black skirt rides up, showing me white thighs and making me dream higher.

“The woman he went to see is an auditor with the American Association of Securities Dealers,” I say. “She’s threatening to file a damaging report about my firm. I don’t think he was up there cheating on you.”

“You think Tony was in that woman’s room on business?” she says.

“Yeah. She was in town to see me, not him.”

Gina shakes her head at me like a scolding teacher, then reaches over her head for the light switch. “I’m sleeping on your couch tonight. I don’t have to sleep with Tony’s gun under my pillow, right?”

“Right.”

She flips off the light. “You’re a nice guy, Austin, but you don’t know shit.”

I wake up the next morning hard at work on Gina’s blurry, unseen naked body. Only trouble, I’m dreaming. Gina’s not sharing intimate touches. She’s not sharing my bed. Mrs. Tony Farascio’s not even in my apartment.

The blanket I gave her is neatly folded on the couch. The coffee machine still drips, and a clean cup awaits me on the counter, the mug and a scribbled warning: “Make Tony tell you the truth.”

SEVENTEEN

The truth about what?

That’s the question I keep asking myself as I shower, smear Jif Chunky on wheat toast and natty-up for work in a navy blue Canali, white button-down shirt and a maroon tie embroidered with tiny gold clocks.

The Canali’s secondhand, mind you. A sneaky-looking guy comes by the office every few months with a rack or two of little worn expensive suits. Rumor is he buys them from recent Wall Street widows. Wearing dead man suits is as close to The Street as most Branchtown brokers ever get.

Or maybe Gina’s message about getting Tony to tell the truth is a way of tugging my chain about her unfaithful husband. Maybe her message is a kind of red herring.

Wonder if Mrs. Tony Farascio’s pissed enough to take a lover?

I crank open the Camry’s sky roof as I roll onto Shrewsbury Avenue minutes later. Except for parallel golden streaks of airplane condensation, a few puffs of tangerine candy-cotton on the eastern horizon, the windy sky sets a clean palate for the coming day. The crystal air tastes like pine forests and snow-topped mountains.

I’m headed to work earlier than usual today, the sun still an un-flowering yellow bulb behind Branchtown’s century- old sycamores and oaks. The kind of trouble I’m in—Bluefish threatening Ryan and Beth, Walter leaving, Talbot’s charges, then her murder, Big Tony’s wife giving me lustful, restless thoughts—sleeping wasn’t an option. My mind buzzed all night.

One good thing, an idea that came to me as I spread my peanut butter, I’ve decided to send Ryan and Beth away from Branchtown. By good, I mean they’ll be safe. Missed but safe. My ex-wife Susan won’t go along at first, but I think she’ll cooperate after I describe Bluefish, the Creeper, the stories about Ann Marie Talbot’s body I overheard around the BPD station house.

For the past twenty-four hours, I figured Beth and Ryan would be safe as long as I did what Bluefish wanted. But Tony disappearing with the bookie’s hundred grand and Talbot’s murder dramatically changes that wishful assessment. Branchtown is turning ugly, especially for me and mine. Susan has to relocate our children someplace even I don’t know about.

A man doesn’t like to think he could be tortured into giving up his children’s whereabouts. But why take the chance? I am a stockbroker.

Crossing the train tracks, I glance across Broad Street toward Luis’s Mexican Grill. Luis’s and Umberto’s cars are parked there every day except Monday, but I’m earlier than usual, curious if I’ve beat them to work.

Both cars are there, Umberto’s fifteen-year-old Ford clunker and Luis’s well-maintained red Jeep, but something else quickly grabs my eye. Something that kicks my heart into race mode: A fast-rising column of black smoke gushes from one of the restaurant’s side windows.

Fire.

I have the Camry in a left turn anyway, so all I have to do is hold the wheel a little longer to snap a U-turn across both northbound lanes of Broad Street. See how easy? Now my little Japanese import bounces right back into Luis’s gravel and asphalt parking lot. Who cares if a Branchtown cabby shows me his middle finger?

I dig inside my coat for the cell phone as I slide to a stop. The front suspension bottoms as the car skids across the gravel.

The 9-1-1 lady gets my name and Luis’s address, but I say no when she asks me to stay on the line.

“I’m going inside,” I say.

The kitchen door is unlocked. Black smoke chokes the room from ceiling to my waist, a solid hot mass, the line between black and clear a sharply defined slash across the rectangular space. The top of the long, food prep table is already invisible.

I fall to my hands and knees and scurry like a rat along the wooden legs. Heat radiates on my back like the noon summer sun. My knees crack and shout with pain on Luis’s imported Mexican tile.

I had to wear the Canali, right?

Umberto lies near the kitchen’s twin stainless steel sinks he and Luis use to wash vegetables. I check the chef’s pulse. It’s strong and steady. There’s no sign of Luis.

I grab Umberto’s collar and drag him toward the back door. I duck walk to keep my head out of the smoke. Thank God the pint-sized Umberto doesn’t weigh much more than Beth. I have him outside on the back steps before I can say roasted pablano chili.

He coughs. Breathing fine on his own.

Crawling back inside, I see the mass of hot black smoke engulfs the top three quarters of the kitchen. I have to get lower than before, snaking along like some Marine recruit dodging barbed-wire. The low, cleaner air is hotter, too. My lungs tell me to turn back.

I wheel right at the twin sinks on my way into the main dining room. My navy blue suit begins to shred at the knees and elbows. Nobody’s ever going to wear this imported puppy again. The way my life’s turned so violent this year, I better start buying my clothes at Sears.

The fire must have started in the basement. Flames almost eat me as I approach the burning cellar stairway. I push the door closed to hurry past. The hair on the back of my right hand curls, singed by the heat.

In the dining room, I don’t find Luis on the right, but to the left, I spot a black Reebok poking out from behind the bar. Luis. I wriggle closer, the cloud of searing smoke warming my back like a red-hot poker.

I tug on his ankle but can’t move him. I inch closer. My back feels like it’s about to explode in flames. I grip him with both hands and yank. Nothing. He’s stuck like a long-term bull in a bear market.

EIGHTEEN

The burning smoke forces my head and stomach lower, pressing me to the floor with a force stronger than Creeper’s hands. My nose is inches from the stained linoleum floor. A long, gray bug with hundreds of synchronized legs runs for his life, trying to hide in my nostril. I snort to blow him away.

Maybe sniffing like that enhances the senses because suddenly I can smell the cotton-blend material of my best blue suit, warming to ignition. Sirens blare on Broad Street. The floor begins to heat up like a pancake griddle.

I wiggle beside Luis to see what’s snagging him. No accident here. Luis’s wrists are bound with rope and tied to the stainless steel leg of his four hundred pound ice maker. No time to untangle knots. I need a sharp edge.

A spasm makes me cough. Smoke fills my throat and makes me cough again. Dizziness blurs my vision. Probably the first stage of carbon monoxide poisoning.

My heart’s skipping rope as I yank Luis’s new switchblade from his right back pocket and hack at the ropes. But I run out of air before I can free him. My lips kiss the floor searching for the smallest taste of oxygen. I cough again, then choke. Maybe getting a spoonful of air. No matter. Smoke fills the restaurant, floor to ceiling. That has to be my last breath inside this burning coffin.

Praying adrenaline will help, I finally slash the rope in two and jerk Luis from underneath the bar and onto my shoulder. I stagger and reel backward under his weight, but the bar backs me up. I stay on my feet. This is it. Get out now. I can’t take a breath and I can’t stop walking. My face is on fire.

Through the black rolling smoke and heat, I stumble past the basement stairway, then bank left off the twin sinks and grope along the kitchen’s wooden table. My lungs want to burst. I’m starving for air.

My head and shoulders begin to outrun my feet, stealing my balance. I can’t see my nose in the blackness.

My right hip bumps the corner of the kitchen table, then empty space, and I pitch Luis and myself toward a memory of the back door. My shoulder crashes something hard, and I spin onto steps, stumbling enough to lose Luis and fall. For a second, I’m so disoriented I imagine I’m falling off a skyscraper.

The smoke clears on my way down. I see Luis land in the sturdy arms of a Branchtown fireman.

Nobody catches me. I hit the asphalt like a gasping fish.

The Branchtown Fire Department saves Luis’s restaurant, but it’s early afternoon before the nurses let me inside his hospital room to tell him the good news. The smoke and fire did some heavy but repairable damage to the interior of his building, but it’s the minor damage to his lungs and a concussion he needs to worry about, injuries that will keep him in the hospital overnight. The doctors say someone hit him over the head with a tube-shaped weapon, most likely a pipe. Luis is too groggy when I get to his room, however, so I head outside to the parking lot where I can use my cell phone. I need to call the ex-wife, tell her about moving the children to safety.

“What do you mean you can’t do it?” I say. “You have to do it, Susan. Bluefish threatened them. Now this gangster tried to kill Luis.”

“So you say,” Susan says. “But your word doesn’t count much.”

“I would never lie about our children. How can you even think that?”

“Where am I going to send the children, Austin? Disney World? Both my parents are sick. It’s too late to book a sitter for the weekend. And I was counting on you picking them up tomorrow. I’ve got plans. You can’t decide to back out at the last minute.”

“That’s what you think? That my story is bullshit, that I’m making this up just to get out of taking them for the weekend?”

“It occurred to me.”

I take a breath. And another.

“Austin?”

“You going to be home for a while?” I say.

“I’m picking up the kids at school in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll try to have someone else call you.”

“Yeah? Who, your secretary?”

“How about Detective Jim Mallory?”

Don’t know exactly what my BPD connections earned Susan in the way of clarification, but I heard later somebody convinced her to swallow my idea. Mallory or a patrolman on Mallory’s orders must have explained why I couldn’t know where the kids were headed, either. Otherwise I’m sure Susan would have called to tell me of her change of mind.

Sure she would.

NINETEEN

In Vic’s old office the next day, I touch a sterling picture frame with strange reverence. Not sure why I left hanging this mid-ocean action photo of Mr. Vic’s forty-four-foot motor yacht, the “Triple-A.” I do not need visual reminders of my mortality, how close to death by drowning I came last year. But maybe I relish how much private boats like this cost, how much money Mr. Vic made all those years as sole owner of Shore Securities. See, with room and board, figure I’ll need half-a-million for Beth’s and Ryan’s college educations, and it important to keep my hope alive, especially in the midst of Shore’s latest tornado. Maybe the photo of Vic’s yacht helps.

Except for the boat shot, the rest of the boss’s office crap has pretty much disappeared, casualties of an unbending policy: The Austin Carr Touch. Amplified I’m sure by the key to Mr. Vic’s well-stocked, well-heeled and normally well-locked mahogany liquor cabinet. My motto after two weeks of many forty-year-old double-bourbons: Make yourself at home.

A fold-up card table with a nifty Swedish coffee drip machine, straw baskets of sweeteners, nondairy creamer, spoons, paper cups and napkins replaces Mr. Vic’s antique glass-front lawyer’s bookcase. A longer, rectangular fold-up table bumps Vic’s ten-ton cluttered desk. Three black trash bags full of photos and other knickknacks—Vic can’t remember what his family looks like?—gives me enough room for a cushy swivel chair, four eighteen-inch computer monitors, three state-of-the-art laptops and a laser printer that could publish the paper version of The Washington Post. Plus, I can slide along the whole table, do four internet dating interviews at the same time.

The paneled wall’s invisible closet holds half my suits, half my dress shirts, drawers of socks and underwear and a rack of suitably conservative neckties. All this so I can dress here or at home, depending on mood, circumstance and the number of elapsed hours since my latest adventure inside a burning restaurant.

If this means an occasional wee-bit pile of dirty, smoky laundry, it’s exactly the kind of necessary office evil Austin Carr can live with. Function, not form, is another one of my mottoes, bourbon or no.

The intercom buzzes. Nasty noise, that. Another Mr. Vic leftover I could do without.

I touch the black button. “Carmela, after you call the hospital about Luis, call the electrician for me, will you? I want this intercom—”

“Your appointment is here,” Carmela says.

“It’s four-thirty already?”

My new partner sighs. The sound is breathy and sexy. “It’s five-forty-five. You told me to set it up after work, right?”

I sign off my Gmail account. This new dating site offers no one worth chasing. Hope I didn’t click myself into the annual membership.

“This interview is that big hitter from Jaffy Ritter Clark?” I say.

I do remember typing in my credit card number. Mandatory info, they said.

“Yup.”

“Frank something?”

“Franny Dahler,” Carmela says. “This big hitter’s a female. She did one point eight million in gross commissions last year.”

“Oh, my.”

“Right. Should I send her in?”

Talking all day, working her dad’s accounts and helping field my calls, Carmela’s voice grows huskier each day. Sends a low lovely tingle deep in my waist. Jesus, I’m so horny even the boss’s daughter is starting to arouse me.

“By all means,” I say. “Send in Ms. Dahler.”

“Hire her,” Carmela says.

Mr. Vic’s daughter has been hurling little tips on running the business my entire two weeks as chief. Even before I ransacked Mr. Vic’s office. I think the hairy-but-busty new college graduate is heady with power, although it can’t hurt to listen. She already came up with one idea that clicked like the trunk of a new Mercedes: Firing Mr. Vic’s crabby, overpaid secretary was a dash of genius.

What do we care if the woman is Vic’s sister?

I stand to greet the big hitter, my appointment, Franny Dahler. She’s been calling since Monday, one week after Walter left us for her current employer, Jaffy Ritter Clark. According to Carmela, Ms. Dahler wants to talk about switching firms.

I bet Jaffy Ritter gave her big office to Walter.

My door cracks open. I’m curious and hopeful. See, the loss of Walter’s production hurts Shore badly. And not just in profits for the owners—like me. Shore Securities needs a certain flow of business to justify four back-office people, three secretaries, and two traders, not to mention minimum clearing fees with a New York bank and fifty other expenses included in the cost of selling stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Peoples’ jobs depend on me lining up a new hitter to pick up Walter’s slack.

The door swings wide open. Oh. My. God.

“You’re Austin Carr?” Ms. Strawberry says.

TWENTY

Ms. Strawberry saying, “I was insulted you walked out of The Martha’s bar the other night.”

I give Cutie Pie the full-boat Carr grin. Is this reddish-blond-haired stockbroker pulling all three of my legs? “I had urgent business.”

Ms. Strawberry crosses her legs, showing me enough thigh to arouse Ben Franklin. “Really?” she says. “I was hoping you were looking at me with some urgency.”

I clear my throat, speechless. Wonder if producing boners is how she grossed nearly two million bucks last year? She certainly has all the qualifications for male leadership. Put Ms. Strawberry in a corporate boardroom, they’d elect her chairman and chief executive, all kinds of body parts going up during the vote.

“Maybe your decision to leave was blurred by too much drink,” she says.

I roll my chair up close to the desk. Don’t think Ms. Dahler’s quite ready for a complete frontal view of my lap just yet. My appreciation for her thin summer dress is quite formidable.

“Perhaps I was over-served,” I say. “But I left because I had to, not because I wanted to. There was a lot on my mind.”

“You mean Shore’s AASD troubles?” She grins, a startling display of pure white, perfectly capped teeth. She and Tony could have gone to the same dentist. Another movie-star-quality ranking for Ms. Strawberry’s long list of attractive physical endowments.

Wait. How did she know about the AASD investigation? Was Ms. Strawberry close enough that night to hear me talking to myself?

No. I know. “Did my ex-friend Walter mention the AASD investigation around Jaffy Ritter?”

Franny nods, bouncing her chin-length, wavy red hair. “More like he gave lectures on the subject. Not just me either. He’s been speaking before luncheon crowds this week.”

Sounds like Walter. The bastard. I thought we were pals, so I kept his departure secret two days. Meanwhile, he used that weekend to work on Shore’s client list, including two of my biggest clients. When I lived in California, Walter’s betrayal might have caused me to talk about my hurt feelings. But I live in Jersey now. No complaining. I have to accept the fact Walter made me his bitch.

And then get even.

“So why would you want to move your book and business to Shore?” I say. “There could be bad publicity about the investigation, plus you know Shore can’t afford the kind of bonus a big wire firm could pay you. Right now, Shore can’t afford to pay any kind of bonus.”

Let’s see how she handles obstacles.

Franny’s gaze searches mine, then holds me tight. Her chin is set, too. Like the keystone of an arch. “I don’t want a big bonus,” she says. “I want a bigger percentage of commissions and trailers.”

Okay, this figures. Franny Dahler, alias Ms. Strawberry, the Queen of Branchtown brokers, is pistol smart and quick on her feet. She knows instinctively that Shore Securities might flounder without Walter. She thinks I might be desperate in Vic’s absence. In the vernacular, the lady is trying to seize me by the short hair.

Ms. Strawberry saying, “And I’m willing to stick around long enough to make the deal pay off for both of us.”

I glance at my empty bourbon glass. I like this brass-blond lady, and I mean over and above my not-so-secret lust. I know she can sell bonds. One point eight million of them. I’d never say no to her. All of which means I am probably going to let her squeeze me on percentages. My only hesitation, I sense Ms. Strawberry is not telling me everything about her desire to change firms. It’s more than money. Swear to God, I’ll bet Walter got her corner glass office overlooking the Navasquan River.

But white lies and hunches can’t matter in Shore’s current situation. Walter’s lack of production is already worrying the back office. Once I start letting one or two of those people go, I’ll lose salesmen. Could become an ugly cycle. Mr. Vic will return next fall to find me and Carmela—just the two of us—working from a camper.

“How about forty-five percent for five years?” I say.

“How about sixty for three?”

It’s strictly business me wanting to hire her. I’m paying absolutely no attention to whatever is quietly lifting my desk—the card table with three computers and four monitors on it. Hope she doesn’t re-cross her legs again.

“Forty is what I pay my best producers, but for you I’d go fifty for six years.”

She shakes her head. “You need a big producer, right now. Sixty for one year, then fifty for another three.”

“My best offer is fifty-five percent for six months, then fifty for two more years, forty-five for another two—you sign a five-year contract.”

Her gaze roams my face. “Commissions and mutual fund trailers?”

“Everything.”

“Done,” she says.

In my enthusiasm to shake hands on the deal, I stand up from behind the big desk, forgetting my groin area will now be fully exposed. Her eyes throw me a slow once over, and Ms. Franny Dahler, Ms. Strawberry, leaves my private office grinning like a circus clown.

I’m not embarrassed. I think it’s good to tell women how you feel, and showing is always better than telling. I hope Ms. Strawberry can start next week. She’ll be earning at a better commission rate than me or Carmela.

I have more crap paperwork to sign than a U.S. Army supply sergeant. It’s eight o’clock before I close up Shore Securities for the weekend and begin to dream of Luis’s place, Umberto’s green-chili burritos.

A motion sensor illuminates the back parking lot as I walk to my Camry, but the neighboring businesses are closed, and a huge ring of darkness encircles me. Like a spotlighted performer, my skin tingles with the sensation of being watched.

Maximilian Zakowsky

Max squeezes into the shotgun seat of Jerry’s rumbling new silver Corvette. Max’s knees stretch the dashboard. His right shoulder bends the door glass. He feels like stick of gum in a shiny metal wrapper.

Max contorts his upper body to reach the window button, uses his hand to tug on his left leg, squashing his nuts to make room for Jerry to work the Corvette’s floor-mounted gear shift.

“Let’s steal a car quick,” Max says. “A big one.”

Jerry guns the loud V-8 engine, racing the car’s four hundred horse powers like a NASCAR driver. Or a kid with a new toy. Max has known Jerry four years now and each one is the same. Fast cars and faster women. Only thing new is fancier suits and the big diamond earring Jerry wears since he started playing golf with those ex-pro football players.

“You see something with New York plates, holler,” Jerry says. “Otherwise, I know a good spot on the other side of the tunnel.”

Max points with his left hand, his index finger touching the Corvette’s windshield. “Pull into the bus lot one mile ahead, right by entrance to Parkway. Many New York cars park there. People take bus to Atlantic City casinos.”

“Yeah? All right, let’s try it. Look for a Lincoln Town Car or a Caddy, some snazzy wheels. The chef at this place cooks for gourmets at the James Beard House.”

Max grunts.

“What’s the matter?” Jerry says. Jerry points the Corvette’s shiny silver nose toward the Garden State Parkway. The road rushes past like a black river of individual rocks, the sports car so close to the ground. Cold wind stings Max’s face.

“Come on, Max. I know you. What’s the matter?”

“We should hide, wait for this mark in his bedroom,” Max says.

“The boss’s way is better.”

“No mistakes when I catch the mark by surprise,” Max says.

Jerry glances at him. “What the hell are you worried about? Not that bartender’s lucky kick?”

Max breathes deeply. “Bartender was quick like a cat. Only a little lucky.”

“Nothing like that ever happened before. A freaking fluke is what that was.”

Maybe Jerry is right. “Is true. Max only get knocked down twice in whole life.”

Jerry brakes at a red light, hits the right turn signal. Click-click. Click-click. The bus parking lot is just across the street. Max will be much happier in a bigger car. So will Max’s nuts.

“I bet the other time you got laid out was from an elephant,” Jerry says.

Max says nothing. Elephants usually nice. It was a big cat that brought Max to his knees many years earlier. A mean, smelly lion named Victor.

TWENTY-ONE

At the two-gas-station corner of Broad Street and Willow, a black or midnight-blue new Lincoln Town Car matches my turn. When I straighten out and accelerate, the Lincoln’s wide headlights perfectly mimic my Camry’s modest speed, holding exactly half-a-block back. Like I was towing the puppy.

We’re traveling north on Highway 35, but I’m guessing my Friday evening just turned south.

Figures I’m being followed. In two weeks’ time, Austin Carr has seen two lifetimes worth of threatened financial ruin, fights, beatings, fires, assaults and murder. Not to mention interrogations, accusations and obfuscations. I’ve been betrayed, befuddled and bewildered. Of course I’m being followed.

I slide the Toyota over a lane and lock the doors. For the umpteenth time since Mr. Vic sailed for Tuscany and Walter sold my friendship for half a million dollars, I ask myself how violence and disaster so easily entered my life? Potential injury or death, a nonexistent love life and looming bankruptcy stalk my good humor like a trio of vultures.

Just before the next intersection, I flip the wheel hard left, ducking in front of oncoming traffic and bouncing the Camry into a Burger King. A triple beef, triple cheese sounds awful, but I need a place to hide.

All four of the Camry’s wheels go into a slide, but I swerve and pump the gas pedal just in time, carefully avoiding the eight-foot plastic King who serves as menu to the drive-thru line.

In my mirror, I see the Lincoln cruise past the second and final Burger King entrance. I can’t see the driver thanks to the Lincoln’s tinted windows.

I skulk in BK’s back lot five or six minutes. No sign of the Lincoln. I could have ordered a Coke and that triple-triple while I sailed past the King. Maybe a shake and an order of fries.

Two parked cars leave, and I spot an alley I hadn’t noticed before. Should I run for it? Seems like the natural thing to do, at least for me. I did the peyote thing with a Native American friend once, as a kid, and discovered through dream and hallucination that my animal spirit guide is a horse. Nervous, with extra-long legs for a get-out-fast giddy-up.

I yank on the Camry’s wheel and pull off a nasty, rubber-burning K-turn in front of an angry mom and two wide-eyed kids in a mini-van, then sail through the newly discovered back exit, turn left down an alley, doubling back toward Branchtown. Austin Carr is The Transporter.

Must be garbage day tomorrow. Overflowing tin and plastic trash cans litter the dark alley on both sides. Instead of a stallion, I feel like a bowling ball curling down a waxed lane. The Camry racks up a few cans—two spares and a strike.

I’m twenty-five feet from the next side street when a black shadow zips from a driveway and fills the alley, a low curtain sliding right to left. My heart thuds as I slam the brakes too late, skidding to a hard tap against the rear fender of the dark Lincoln Town Car—the one that’s been following me. As we collide, I’m thinking, where did he come from, when my Camry’s steering wheel explodes. The built-in air bag punches my face. My own hands —they were positioned low, thank God—strike harder against my chest. My body reels in shock and pain.

About the time I realize exactly what’s happened, that I’m still alive, I hear my car door open. Someone helps yank the giant pillow out of my mouth, nose and eyes. It’s Tony Farascio, wearing his usual golf magazine apparel, a full-boat grin on his George Clooney-like face.

His sausage of a thumb points toward the Lincoln as a window slides down. “Say hi to Gina.”

TWENTY-TWO

I am slowly adapting to my new environment. Ford Motor Company black leather, with buffed silver and polished walnut trim, hosted by the unofficial prince and princess of a Brooklyn mafia crew. Last time I saw Gina she wanted to shoot her husband with some kind of bazooka-size handgun. Now the two of them are almost kissy-kissy, Tony’s knockout wife looking extra sexy in a silky black dress.

“Hungry?” Gina says to me.

“I’ll let you know when my stomach grows back.”

“Did we scare you?” she says.

My heart rate is still elevated, but at least my nose stopped bleeding and I can move my wrists again. Every breath pains certain ribs. “Nope. I love being chased.”

Tony laughs. Not Gina. She hasn’t smiled at me since I climbed into the back seat, the two of them in front. The air tastes of leather and perfume, or maybe it’s Tony’s after-shave. On the radio, Frank Sinatra sings “Summer Wind.”

“We were having a little fun,” Tony says to me. “Don’t worry about your car. I’ll take care of the towing...everything.”

The first question that comes to my mind isn’t about my car. “It’s nice to finally see you again, Tony. So what happened at the hotel?”

“We’re headed for The City,” he says. “You got forty-five minutes to work up an appetite.”

Is he going to ignore my question?

“Maybe longer if the tunnel’s choked up,” he says. “You’re eating at the best Italian restaurant in Little Italy.”

Oh, boy. “Instead of dinner, how about discussing you disappearing with Bluefish’s hundred grand?” I say. “Maybe a sentence or two about Talbot turning up dead? Tony? What the hell happened?”

The Farascios exchange a long look.

“Wait until you taste the baked mac,” Gina says.

Hanging twine-covered wine bottles camouflage three short walls of the narrow, one room restaurant. A single glass window faces Mulberry Street. Fourteen white linen tables fill the boxcar sized space. The Farascios and I take up two, Tony needing a table all by himself.

Green, bell pepper-shaped wall lamps provide the only light. Sinatra is singing in here, too, some sappy 1950s love song I don’t even want to remember the name of. Truth is I’m a bit dizzy. Can’t shake this time-warp feeling about my current whereabouts and the Farascio’s company. It’s either a Sinatra overload or maybe it’s because Tony just told me to “forget about it” concerning Bluefish’s threats and money.

“Bluefish will back off me and Luis because you tell him to?” I say.

“Ab-so-fucking-lutely,” Tony says. “And he’ll eat the one hundred gees I took from him, too. The war is over. Trust me, this has already been explained to Bluefish.”

I’m far from expert on mob organizational matters, but I suppose it’s logical that a New York mafia family would hold sway over a bookie from Branchtown, New Jersey. Maybe Tony can have Bluefish and the Creeper called off. Mr. Vic certainly gave me Tony’s number for a reason.

“But what about Talbot?” I say. “Did you go to her room? Did you see her?”

“Sure,” Tony says. “She’s an old friend. I gave her a taste of Bluefish’s cash, explained about me and Vic, and now everything’s cool. No more co-mingling. She was okay when I left her.”

Gina’s open hand launches for her husband’s face like a tiger. But Tony’s quicker. He catches her wrist six inches from contact.

“I bet you gave her a taste,” Gina says. “Asshole.”

Tony’s fingers turn white around Gina’s wrist. She winces from the pain.

So glad I came to dinner with the Farascios.

TWENTY-THREE

“What are you looking at?” Tony says to me one minute later.

“Nothing.”

Not a lie actually because Tony Farascio’s question should have been, what’s looking at us. Gina in particular. Not that I’m about to tell Tony that two rough-looking gentlemen are ogling his wife. This joint being Tony’s turf, I figure Gina’s husband would exhibit few qualms initiating combat over her honor. I’m afraid on Mulberry Street this means we could all die in a haze of armor piercing bullets.

Personally, I’d rather get back to New Jersey.

“Don’t brush me off,” Tony says. “Somebody checking us out?”

Damn. Here it is again, that special Austin Carr moment when I know I am about to speak words that will produce inevitable, disastrous repercussions. Nevertheless, I will make my little speech...because...and here’s the unvarnished truth for a change...I’m a blabbermouth who craves the sound of his own voice.

“Two guys came in through the kitchen a minute ago, sat behind you,” I say. “In the corner. Seems like they might know you ... and Gina.”

Boy, I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. Regret always starts at the sound of my first words. When am I going to learn? This dysfunctional, self-destructive Gift of Gab is becoming a major and serious handicap. Wonder if I could get one of those special license plates with the embossed wheelchair?

No offense to those with missing limbs.

Tony spins to check out the new customers.

Gina’s gaze has been avoiding mine all night, but now her dark eyes fix on me, a hard angry glare. A chunk of bread she was about to dip into a dish of green olive oil leaves her hand and flies in my direction.

Guess she knows I’m a blabbermouth, too.

Tony’s German Shepherd eyes drift back to me and Gina. “Wise guys,” he says. “The one with the shrimp lips is named Jimmy something. I know the other one, too.” Tony focuses on Gina. “They’re both part of Nunzio’s crew.”

Gina frowns. “What are they doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Tony says. “Think I have to ask them.”

Over Tony’s shoulder, movement draws my gaze. “You don’t have to,” I say. “They’re coming over.”

Sinatra’s singing “New York, New York” now, the recording of Frankie with RCA’s big studio orchestra filling the little restaurant like the smell of cooked tomatoes. Wine bottles rattle and hum. With my hands on the table, I can feel the drums.

Tony stares over my shoulder. “Which one you want?”

I shake my head. “They don’t look like they’re going to start anything. Maybe they just want to say hello.”

“I’m not talking about the two guys behind me,” Tony says. “I’m talking about the muscle behind you.”

My head snaps. The Creeper and his friend with a diamond earring are headed our way.

Gina saying, “This would be a great time to show these people your gun, Tony.”

“I left it in the Town Car,” he says. “In case we need it later.”

“Perfect,” she says.

The one Tony calls Shrimp Lips stops closest to Gina. His lips really do look like boiled crustacean. Pink with blistered white stripes. I bet he’s a lousy kisser. He says to Gina, “Hello, Sugar. Want to dance?”

Gina makes a show of searching for a dance floor. “Where?” she says. “On the table?”

Shrimp Lips stares down at Gina’s considerable cleavage—slow and deliberate, his eyes leering and insulting. “Honey, with that set of tits, I’d be happy if we just wiggled around right—”

My jaw falls at the barnyard word. I can guess what Tony’s response will be...duh...and here it comes, Tony’s right fist leading his shoulder and hips out of his seat. His knuckles smash Shrimp Lips’ gooey mouth, and the sharp sound of breaking teeth and bone cracks the air like a whip.

Gina’s molester tumbles backward into the neighboring table. A man there yells. Two women scream and cower, knocking over a plate, glasses and silverware. Shrimp Lips grabs a tablecloth on the way down. The rest of that table’s dishes and glasses bust onto the floor.

Gina yanks on Tony’s sleeve as a thick arm encircles my neck, choking off my air. Jesus. My vision gets weird. Slow-motion. Everyone in the restaurant was watching. Now they are fighting. Honest to God, every single face in the previously subdued restaurant is now distorted in anger and frustration. Clenched teeth. Fierce eyes. Grunts and groans erupt around the room like steam jets of hissing bile.

Way in the background, Frankie is singing “top of the heap.”

Might have blacked out for a second there. I guess it’s Shrimp Lips’ partner choking me. I don’t know for certain because I can’t turn behind me, and even if I could, I probably couldn’t see because my eyes are halfway out of their sockets.

If that makes any sense. I’m not sure. Weird vision was just the first sign, or symptom, that a lack of oxygen could be affecting my cognitive abilities.

A fist hits me in the mouth, and the python around my neck rips over my ears. The punch has knocked me free of the headlock.

Before I can regain my feet, a giant beast compresses me onto the floor. Must be a moose. Or a grizzly bear sitting on me. Destroying my urban illusion of being in control of nature.

No. Wait. It’s human. Almost.

It’s Max, the Creeper.

Notice I said “destroying” my urban illusion, not “decimating?” TV newscasters and movie scriptwriters think the words are interchangeable, and they eventually will be, thanks to the word’s never-ending misuse.

For the last two thousand years, decimate meant to reduce by ten percent. Comes from the same Latin word as decimal. It’s what Caesar used to do to his troops when food ran low or certain units performed poorly. Centurions would count off every tenth man and kill him. A scene of slaughter, yes, but hardly the same as destroy. Ninety percent survived a decimation.

A shrieking lizard-brain alarm goes off when I realize what I’ve been thinking about. I’m definitely running short of air. Playing Jeopardy while my oxygen depletes. Caesar and his Centurions.

I twist my face right, gasp a mouthful of air, then throw my shoulders to the left. I successfully almost break my neck.

Fists punch my face. My head gets smacked against the floor. I hear a voice in my head begin to hum. Gina’s screams become a distant wailing, a spinning circle of smoky black sleep. The dark tornado sucks me inside.

TWENTY-FOUR

“Come on, get uppa.”

The familiar, thickly accented voice cancels a nightmare about having my head crushed. What is Mama Bones doing here? Or, more to the point, where the hell am I? My head’s full of blood and mucous, ready to split like an overripe olive. My nose feels like a wad of prosciutto. Oh, yeah. Now I remember. I’m at the best little Italian restaurant in Little Italy. The joint right off Mulberry Street where Creeper beats up one lucky guest before the pasta. Keeps the customers in line.

I roll to my hands and knees, the wood floor wet beneath me, and let Mama Bones’ sturdy two handed grip tow me onto my feet. Mr. Vic’s mother owns major grasping and pulling forearms. Like Caterpillar back-hoes. To develop that kind of hand strength, Mama Bones must have filled out thousands of phony bingo cards.

Two young men I remember from Mr. Vic’s sailing-away party in Atlantic Highlands stand watchfully behind Mama Bones. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, both wear black chinos, black Nikes high tops and black T-shirts. Both of them buff and athletic. Mr. Trim and Mr. Fit.

What’s up with them?

“No time to answer questions,” Mama Bones says. “These are my nephews, Tomas and Gianni.”

Gee. Suppose there’s anything to Mr. Vic’s claim his mother actually reads minds? Nah. It’s obvious and natural that I was thinking of asking that question, right?

The restaurant is quiet and empty of customers now except for our little group, basically the two nephews, Gina and Mama Bones around me and Tony on the floor. How long was I out?

Mama Bones squats beside Gina and touches the younger woman’s shoulder. Her hand rubs Gina’s back. It’s a side of Mr. Vic’s mother I haven’t witnessed. Almost warm and caring. Maybe I’m dreaming.

“We gotta go, honey,” Mama Bones says.

Gina’s hands and gaze won’t leave Tony’s face, the dark-haired beauty no longer Queen of Anything, just a shocked and frightened woman. Kind of the way I felt when Creeper hauled me and Ryan around the Locust Tree Inn, Creeper with one arm for each of us, carrying us like broken lamps.

“Tony’s hurt,” Gina says. “We have to get help.”

Mama Bones leans across Gina and touches Tony’s neck. Her fingers don’t stay in contact more than three or four seconds. “We’ll take him to the hospital,” Mama says. She waves for Tomas and Gianni to lift him.

“Come on. Get up,” she says to Gina.

“I hear a siren,” Gina says. “I should stay and tell the police.”

Mama shakes her head. “That’s not a good idea. This is Brooklyn. If the cops keep you overnight, Tony’s boss will have you killed in jail.”

“Tony’s boss? Why would he hurt me?”

Just what I was going to ask. We have a lot in common, Gina and me.

“Who you think ordered this, huh?” Mama Bones says. “You think Bluefish sent his Jersey people to Brooklyn without permission?”

Mama Bones leads our hurried, shuffling troop through an empty, dirty kitchen. Wonder why the chefs and waiters left in such a hurry?

Outside, in an alley busy with delivery vans and trucks, a handful of the restaurant’s curious staff, Gina first tumbles in row two behind the driver’s seat of a very clean white Cadillac Escalade. But when Gianni and Tomas stretch Tony’s wounded frame out in the Caddy’s extended trunk, Gina changes her mind and wants to ride in back with her husband.

Gina screams a few seconds after crawling close beside him.

Mama Bones grips my arm. “Her husband is dead,” she whispers. “That animal Max broke Tony’s neck.”

TWENTY-FIVE

Travel directly into Manhattan after your flight lands in Newark-Liberty International Airport, the New Jersey you see and remember consists primarily of smoking oil refineries, fleets of garbage trucks and rusty iron bridges. Very urban Americana, of course. But decidedly unappealing.

To snap another mental image of Jersey, drive south on the Turnpike to the Garden State Parkway, south again to watch the scenery slowly transform into forests of maple, pine and oak. Rivers, wooded hills and salt-water sloughs. Farms with horses and barns. The rural suburbs of central New Jersey equal anything you might see in Connecticut or Massachusetts.

Another thirty minutes south on the Parkway and you’re in New Jersey’s pine barrens, a desert-like, endless brush of stunted, twisted, yellowish evergreen scrub that makes the night drive from L.A. to Las Vegas look scenic. The acidic land and dwarfed, sickly trees look slightly bleached.

“Where are we going?” I ask. We’re about an hour out of Brooklyn.

“Somewhere Bluefish won’t look for you.” Besides the accent, Mama Bones’ language and tone also carry a certain confidence I wish I could share. When Gina discovered Tony was dead, she went off like a hotel smoke detector, and it was Mama Bones who brought Gina around with a small but magic smack. The old woman’s bag of tricks definitely carries big mojo. But I just witnessed a murder, and I can identify at least three of the four guys sent to kill Tony. If I’m Bluefish, I not only look for me under every rock, I station a man at each one to wait.

Gianni’s driving the Escalade, a big SUV that rides much smoother than a Chevy Suburban. Tomas rides shotgun. Mama Bones, a nonverbal Gina and yours truly stack the next row. Tony is still in the back. Hard to believe the guy with German Shepherd eyes wound up dead searching for a plate of baked mac.

“If Bluefish’s people wanted Gina and me dead, why didn’t they kill us tonight?” I ask.

“Their orders were to kill Tony,” Mama Bones says. “Gina was supposed to get an emergency phone call, be out of the restaurant. You were even bigger surprise. But when Bluefish finds out you and Gina watch his men kill Tony...guess who’s gonna be next on his list.”

Gina leans against me, her body loose from exhaustion. Despite all that’s happened and my shock over Tony’s murder, Gina’s weight warms me in places I shouldn’t be getting warm. Unbelievable. Down, boy. It’s rare, I admit, but sometimes even Austin Carr can show couth.

“How do you know all this, Mama Bones?” I ask.

Mama Bones leans forward to touch the driver Gianni’s shoulder. “It’s the next exit.”

It’s not an easy movement to pick up, the dark-haired, black-shirted young man presenting only minimum outlines, but Gianni nods.

“How do you think I know, smarty pants?” Mama Bones says. “Maybe me and Bluefish in the same business, you think? Maybe I work for Bluefish?”

“And he told you they were planning to kill—”

“Bluefish told me nothing,” she says. “But me being there probably saved you and Gina, at least for a day or two. We have to move fast.”

Gianni guides the Escalade off the Parkway. We roll through a stop sign at the end of the short off-ramp, turn right onto a ribbon of blacktop running into New Jersey’s scrub pine forest. A full grown female deer bounds into the SUV’s headlights, and then is gone. Planets stare and stars blink at us from a narrow strip of sky, an overhead source of vague light between the trees.

“But you heard what was going to happen,” I say, “and so you tried to help Vic’s friend Tony? I’m trying to understand why you were there.”

The SUV’s tires hum against the soles of my feet through the floorboard. Another deer watches us from the tree line, this one’s eyes glowing neon yellow. Or do those night-vision lenses belong to some other kind of animal? A hunter, perhaps. Sharp beaks or a mouth with fangs.

“I mean, I know you didn’t come to save me,” I say.

Mama, Gianni and Tomas laugh on cue like a warmed-up TV taping audience. Johnny Carson never had a crowd so well prepped.

Gina touches my arm. “Mama Bones came for me,” she says. “She’s my aunt. My mother’s sister. I’m named after her.”

Gina. Angelina. Right. I knew that.

TWENTY-SIX

Mama Bones keys the entrance to what looks like a giant log cabin. The scrub-pine forest has been cleared to within a hundred yards of the roofed, plank board porch we stand on, a boardwalk that encircles the two-story, all-log building. Behind us, a dirt clearing offers parking space for a Boeing 747 beside our white Escalade. An owl hoots. The Jersey night air smells of rain and dry pine needles.

Inside, Mama Bones flips a light switch. A thirty by thirty foot lobby greets my eyes—a four leather lounge chairs, two overstuffed sofas, a green felt card table, brass lamps and two televisions. Pine floors. Pine walls with animal heads.

“Some joint,” I say.

“Don’t get comfortable,” Mama Bones says. “You’ll only be safe here a day or two.”

“Then what?”

She shrugs. “It’s up to you. I bring you here, make you safe for a while because you’re with Gina. The rest of your life is up to you.”

Nice. Mama Bones would make a great Shore Securities sales manager. “You’re leaving me here all alone?”

Mama Bones shakes her head no. “Gianni is going to give you his bug-out bag.”

“Oh, boy. Whatever the hell that is. What about Gina?”

“I’m taking her somewhere else.”

I sigh. Mama Bones has that conversation-over tone in her voice, not to mention the upper hand. Gina’s her family. Guess I’m lucky to be alive, actually. But I’ll have to be even luckier to stay above ground. Every time I think my situation can’t get worse, it does. At least Ryan and Beth are safe.

“The bedrooms are upstairs,” Mama Bones says.

I glance toward the stairway. The hand-carved log railing and banister is a sculpture. Twisted tree branches, bull horns, cowboys and horse heads grow from the wood, living images of the Wild West.

“Who owns this place?”

“Bluefish,” Mama Bones says. “Gotta be the last place he’ll look for you.”

Gina steps out of the Escalade to hug me. It’s a halfhearted embrace. Indeed, the way Tony’s dark-haired widow dabs back tears with a tissue reminds me of a silent movie. Over-acted. Standing beside the Escalade with me, Gina looks at her aunt, says, “Did you tell him, Mama Bones?”

“He knows plenty,” the older woman says.

“Mama Bones? We discussed this. Austin needs to know the story on Ann Marie. To protect the business...for himself, yes, but also for your son and your granddaughter Carmela.”

Mama Bones shifts her gaze outside the Caddy SUV to stare at me. Like she’s trying to decide if she wants to turn me into a frog. Why did I think that? Who put that in my mind? Think happy thoughts, Austin. Happy thoughts.

“If you don’t tell him, I will,” Gina says.

Mama Bones grunts and slides her face out the window. “Ann Marie Talbot is not just any accountant for the AASD. She does favors for Bluefish and others before him. She was being paid to put the squeeze on you, help Bluefish take over Shore Securities.”

The owl hoots again and a chill climbs the skin on my back. There’s more. There has to be.

“And...” Gina says.

“And that’s why my son Vittorio go to Italy, why he leaves you in charge of Shore,” Mama Bones says. “Vic knows Rags can’t pay his debt to Bluefish, so Bluefish will come after Vic. Vic also knows the AASD investigation is rigged against him.”

“Mr. Vic left me to take the heat? He was willing to risk my family’s lives, as well as Carmela’s?”

Mama Bones nods.

That son-of-a-bitch. I’m going to drive a full set of MacGregor golf irons up his spaghetti-eating ass. Plus the leather bag and cart.

But below my surprise and anger—I always figured Mr. Vic for a worm, not a snake—another more logical jewel of thought blossoms and bubbles to the top. “Do you know who killed Ann Marie Talbot?” I ask.

Mama Bones glances at Gina. Mrs. Farascio nods.

“Brooklyn believes Tony did it for the hundred thousand,” Mama Bones says. “That’s what Bluefish told them, anyway. Said he had a video recording of the murder that the Branchtown cops took. A DVD. Brooklyn believed him and must have okayed a hit on Tony.”

“Nunzio’s been jealous of Tony for years,” Gina says.

“Where did Bluefish get a video of Talbot’s murder?” I say.

“Don’t know. It’s only rumor I heard.”

“But you don’t think Tony really did it?”

She looks at Gina. “No.”

Why do I feel her answer might be different if Tony’s wife wasn’t here? Wasn’t it Mama Bones who told me Tony was “a bad, bad man?”

TWENTY-SEVEN

I am so pissed at Mr. Vic, I can’t sleep. By leaving me here to deal with his problems, knowing the space involved serious danger, that son-of-a-bitch con man Bonacelli might as well have stenciled bull’s eyes on my children.

Some anger must be self-directed as well, as I certainly have to question my ability to choose business associates. First Walter, now Mr. Vic. And that does not even account for wacko Rags. I couldn’t have done any worse picking co-workers if, as a source pool, I’d used Seaside County’s special holding cell for violent suspects.

Hard to believe my golfing-buddy boss, Vic Bonacelli, would do this. Except, thinking semi-objectively for unbroken hours, enough moonlight to see only gray through Bluefish’s second-story window, I figure putting my family up as a target must have been the only way Mr. Vic could think of to protect his family.

Not that I forgive the dickface.

My body heaves and pitches, my molars grind all night, imagining what I’m going to do the next time I see him. Scream in his face? Punch his classic Roman nose? Use a thirty-four-ounce baseball bat to adjust the worst golf swing in Seaside County?

Just before dawn, I’m glad for the Vic-hating insomnia. As the northeastern New Jersey sky finally lightens to blue steel in the bedroom window, the quiet hiss of slow-moving automobile tires announces someone’s arrival.

The approaching tire sounds roll me off Bluefish’s California king. I know Branchtown’s Godfather Wannabe sleeps here because above this swimming pool sized, feather-soft bed rests a twenty-three pound specimen of his namesake fish.

I slept—no—rested on top of the blue satin bedcovers because I didn’t want to worry how clean his sheets were, what dried body fluids or particulate remnants I might be touching. Yuk. I can’t believe I even thought of that.

Two long strides put me at the window. This is the only bedroom with a view of the driveway and front door parking area. That’s why I picked it.

Crows squawk somewhere close as I carefully inch back the curtain. A Lincoln Town Car glides to a perfectly silent stop. The driver door pops open and Max the Creeper squeezes out like toothpaste.

Oh, joy. The sight of him kicks my heart rate up two notches. My legs want to flee down the stairs, race out the back, run through the forest until I’m safe and hidden.

Maybe later. Instead, I remain frozen by the window while Creeper thunders up the steps and rattles keys unlocking the split-log front door. Doesn’t he have to huff and puff or something? Blow my house down?

Creeper sure is making a lot of noise, though. Hope that means he doesn’t know I’m here.

Maximilian Zakowsky

Soon as he sees the complicated electronic controls—so many dials, switches and gauges—Max wishes he made Jerry come with him. The only thing Max knows about electronics is how to use an on/off switch. Plus, English is mostly a hard language for Max to read. Big words are impossible. What if he misses an important warning, an instruction? What if, in trying to use this meat smoker, Max burns down Bluefish’s hunting lodge?

Like Jerry always says, screw it. All Max has to do is make heat, not cook the meat. Ha-ha.

Max locates what he hopes is the main on/off switch, and then the digital control with a gauge for recommended temperatures. His thick forefinger finds and pokes the up-arrow on a switch, and presto, a red number appears. Two hundred degrees should be plenty. Today’s mark is already half-dead.

Bluefish’s meat smoker is big enough to hold two whole deer, one on each rack. But clearly Max’s job will be easier if he makes the space as large as possible. The mark may come to life when he sees where Max wants to put him.

Max slides out the smoker’s chrome rack and sets the table-sized equipment on the floor, leaning it against the bare block basement wall. The clink of metal hitting cold cement echoes in the nearly barren room.

Max climbs the stairs and shuffles through the lodge’s big living room, across the porch and down the front steps to the Lincoln Town Car. A pale blue sky shows where the east wind lives. The air smells of coming rain and lightning.

God himself is about to get pissy.

From the Lincoln’s trunk, Max lifts the mark off the spare tire and onto his shoulders. Though limp now, the young man fought hard earlier. A tough and loyal soldier, this man didn’t make a sound or give up one piece of information when Jerry cut him.

But the mark is not so tough and loyal that Bluefish’s smoker won’t make him talk. Fire and heat make people speak for thousands and thousands of years.

Even lions make noise when fire comes. They cry like babies.

TWENTY-EIGHT

I scramble to the bedroom window again when I hear Creeper’s Jurassic weight stretch the front porch boards. Through dusty glass, I watch Creeper shuffle-skip down the front steps, the big man’s arms and hips maintaining a bouncy rhythm all the way to the Lincoln Town Car. Looks like he might be whistling.

Gee, how nice Creeper is in such a happy mood. Skipping. Bouncing. Whistling. Maybe Bluefish wants him to strangle some puppies.

Creeper pulls open the Lincoln’s trunk. I have a good angle because of where he’s parked, and I can see a man inside, apparently dead or at least dead drunk. He doesn’t twitch as Creeper snatches him up by the crotch and neck, throws him across his bathtub-sized shoulders. I can see the guy’s black clothes and shape.

The Creeper keeps a jaunty gait as he hauls the familiar human back toward the lodge. The black sack of fertilizer on Creeper’s shoulders is dressed like, and sure looks like, Gianni or Tomas. Whichever, Mama Bones’ nephew isn’t dead yet. He lifts his head slightly, jerks his eyes open while he’s bouncing on Creeper’s shoulders.

Glad he’s not dead. But this means I have to do something. Mama Bones and those two men—Mr. Trim and Mr. Fit—pulled my ass out of a nasty spot a few hours ago. I can’t run away from their trouble.

Well, I could. A lot of stock jockeys I know would duck for an exit. And like I said before when I jumped on Rags, I’m no hero. I have no desire to test myself against Creeper. Are you kidding? It’s just that...well, if Creeper has captured Gianni or Tomas, whichever, what does that say about the present physical condition of lovely Gina Farascio and my charge, Mama Bones?

In particular, I keep thinking about Gina.

Although, maybe right now isn’t the best time. My breath comes in short shallow gasps. My heart’s clunking like a broken electric fan. Creeper does unhealthy things to my blood pressure. Worse even than General Tso’s deep-fried chicken balls.

I unzip Gianni’s bug-out bag. That takes half a minute as the camouflage canvas carryall is the size soccer goalies carry—think park bench. When I do get inside, the bounty includes a red climbing rope with clips and fittings and hooks, a pair of new blue jeans, a dark wool shirt, a green down jacket, a cell phone, sixty bucks cash, dry matches, a compass, eight protein bars, a waterproof tarp, a twelve-inch K-Bar hunting knife, water bottles and a snub-nose Smith & Wesson .38.

Fully loaded.

With an extra box of bullets

I’m tiptoeing down the lodge’s basement steps when someone—I assume Gianni or Tomas—screams. The sound pokes my gut like one of Umberto’s rare-but-deadly over-spiced burritos. Like a King Cobra bite, Umberto’s mistakenly prepared killer chili combo gives you less than one hour to consume an antidote.

The narrow, dank stairway feels like a mine shaft, the rock walls smooth and gray, the wooden steps uneven and warped. I travel down to the basement one careful step at a time, the Smith & Wesson held in front of me like an airline vomit bag.

There was nothing in my Series Seven stockbroker’s study guide to indicate the correct grip for revolvers, but I do my best at the bottom of the steps. I imagine fictional detectives played on the television show Southland as they deploy the two handed, arms extended grip. Weapon at eye-level.

I read in the newspaper once that even real cops think Southland was right on.

Stepping forward, what I see in Bluefish’s cement basement rattles my already shaky courage. Hell, I damn near pee my pants. Creeper has Gianni—I recognize the lower hairline now—hoisted in the air, Gianni’s bare feet stuck inside some kind of appliance. Directly beneath Gianni’s tootsies, an electric heating element glows red hot.

“Get him out of there,” I say.

Creeper glances at me over his shoulder. His gaze sneers at my revolver like it’s a giant cockroach.

Gianni screams again.

I fire at Creeper’s knees.

The gunshot slams my brain with sound, the explosion bouncing off the walls and around the cement room like a foul ball in the empty seats. My vision blurs and my sinuses sting.

Creeper doesn’t blink at the noise. His gaze drops toward his feet, focuses on the new white chip in the basement’s cement floor.

Can’t believe I missed. Creeper’s knees are as big as steamer trunks.

Another Gianni scream reaches my battered eardrums. The sound is heart-wrenching. I step closer and raise the weapon to target Creeper’s nose. My finger pressures the trigger. Funny, but I don’t think killing this man would bother me much. Creeper is the kind of monster who could have killed my children the other night without a qualm.

The big man must read my mind because he pulls Gianni’s feet out from the oven thingy. I resist an urge to shoot anyway. Creeper’s going to kill you if you don’t kill him, a voice whispers. Think of it in terms of Beth and Ryan’s future. Making sure they have one. Instead, I use the Smith & Wesson to wave Creeper away from the aluminum appliance. What would I do without TV and the movies? First the two handed grip, now the gun as casual directional aide. Who needs a police academy?

When Creeper is tucked away where he can’t reach me in less than three strides, I tell him to put Gianni down, then walk backward toward the big cooking thing.

“Is smoker,” Creeper says. Grinning at me with ugly teeth. But he still holds Gianni across his shoulders like a bagged wild animal.

“I don’t care. Put Gianni down—carefully—and walk over beside whatever it is. Then snuggle up. This thirty-eight won’t blow your head off, but you won’t hear the shot either.”

Creeper lets Gianni’s weight slide off his shoulders, stooping so that Mama Bones’ nephew drops gently onto the bare cement. Silence returns to the basement air. My gunshot played out like the last chord of a rock anthem.

I use Gianni’s hunting knife from the bug-out bag to cut the duct tape binding his wrists and knees. “You okay?” I whisper.

Gianni groans and mumbles two or three words I can’t make out. His bare feet are black on the bottom, smoking, with white blisters bubbling up like bacon. My stomach warns me I might get sick. I tighten my grip on the revolver.

A new voice on the stairway says, “Put down the gun, Carr.”

TWENTY-NINE

My heart skips. It’s Gianni’s brother Tomas and a Vin Diesel wannabe, the bald guy and Tomas both wearing tight black jeans and black T-shirts, a dark blockade on the basement stairway above. The angry expression on their faces gives me pause; their assault rifles give me weak knees. My Smith & Wesson feels like a squirt gun.

“I’m on your side,” I say, trying to keep an eye on Creeper.

“For the moment,” Tomas says. “So do your new pals a favor. Put that revolver down.”

Both assault rifles stay focused on my chest. I see no alternative but to comply, stooping slowly, the basement floor chilling my knuckles as I set down the Smith & Wesson beside Gianni’s wounded frame. The cold on my fingers travels up my arm and touches every nerve inside me. The basement air tastes of Gianni’s burnt flesh.

Under the artful direction of Tomas, his shaved-head sidekick and their U.S. Army-issue assault rifles, Creeper and I load Gianni into the back of the same white Escalade I rode in last night. The closeness of Creeper’s mountainous body keeps my nerves running on a blade. Standing next to the guy, I feel like I’m beside a rope leashed grizzly bear. Everything is safe and calm as long as the bear chooses.

Tomas motions with the muzzle of his rifle for Creeper to walk away from the Caddy, toward the pine building. Creeper obeys, at least in part I’m sure, because his mother raised him to be polite. Also perhaps because Tomas’ M-16 can deliver bullets in three-round bursts, up to ninety per minute.

I figure I’m looking good. Tomas didn’t send me over to the steps. But when I reach for the Caddy’s door handle, Tomas’s bald friend stiff-arms me away.

“You’re not coming with us,” Tomas says.

“You’re leaving me with Creeper?”

“Ha. Good name for him. And yeah, you’re staying because we’ve had enough of this fight. We want Max to know it. We want him to tell Bluefish.”

My stomach, which was finally returning to normal, flips upside down again. Wonder if that bug-out bag has any seltzer tablets?

“You hear that, Max?” Tomas says. “I’m taking my brother Gianni back, that’s all. I don’t care what you did to him. This battle is over. You can have Carr as a peace offering.”

My head does a slow but full-boat swivel, a deliberate search for escape routes. Everywhere the view is the same—scrub pine forest. Too bad I can’t fly. Looks like this stockbroker’s going for a run in the yellow-green woods.

“I was kidding,” Tomas whispers. “Here’s your gun back. You can take Max’s Town Car.”

Whew.

Does knowing someone’s planning to kill you give you license to kill that person first? Aiming the Smith & Wesson at Creeper’s garage door of a chest, I decide yes, it probably does. But I’m still not going to shoot him.

Not yet, anyway.

“Give me the keys to the Lincoln,” I say.

Tomas and his bald friend left fifteen seconds ago. I can still hear the car’s engine. The film of dust the tires kicked up now floats in the space between me and Creeper. The fog of war. Maybe I’m being a little dramatic.

Or not. I walk closer, within eight feet of Creeper, then aim the gun at the big goon’s twisted nose. Hey, this worked before. I like precedent. “Only one more time I say this, Max. Give me the keys.”

Creeper grins. His teeth look like a recently burned forest. Lots of dark empty spaces and broken, snapped-off tree-trunks.

I pressure the trigger.

Creeper digs into his pocket, eases out a baseball-size gob of brass and chrome and rusty keys. His huge fingers work on the tiny pieces of metal like a silversmith, quickly separating a silver car key.

Creeper knows I’m not bluffing.

The big man shows me the key he’s removed, that it’s for a Ford product, then stuffs the puppy in his mouth and swallows.

Bastard’s not as dumb as those teeth make him look. No one could be. What I mean, Creeper can tell by looking at me I won’t shoot him unless I absolutely have to. But how does a guy learn to trust instincts like that? Bigger than ballsy, if you ask me. Like a guy who’d wrestle two bears at the same time.

I am out of options. Waiting around for Creeper to pass the key is not what I’d call a viable option.

“Okay, smart ass,” I say. “I’m going to disappear into these woods. If I hear you following me, I’ll stop, hide and shoot you on sight.”

Creeper’s grin stretches into a wicked smile. It’s an ugly thing. Like the winner of a frightening jack-o-lantern contest on Halloween. Eyes and teeth from hell.

Sucks my breath away. Makes me wonder if a bullet to the brain would even kill him.

THIRTY

I stumble on an embedded pine cone, knock my shoulder against the gray, denuded limb of an otherwise-yellowish evergreen. Must be two hundred billion bad ass ugly trees in New Jersey’s pine barrens. And half of them are staring back at me, blocking my course. I feel like a tick, fighting his way across a dog’s hairy back.

My progress is slow and increasingly unsteady. Through, around and under these nasty scrub pine trees is a trail I carve myself, each step a road builder. Adding to my immobility, Gianni’s bug-out bag hangs on my back like a dead horse.

Although there is a lot of good stuff in there.

Checking the compass, for instance, I know I’m hiking due east. This is strategically important because I can’t negotiate two steps without tripping over a cone, make two yards without ducking under a snapped, sharp limb. I’ve suffered equally tough terrain getting to a bathroom stall at Giant Stadium, true, but keeping my direction would be impossible for this backwoods tenderfoot were it not for Gianni’s unusual compass.

Inside a hexagon-shaped, black plastic frame, the bubble lens magnifies a tightly-bunched field, the N, S, E and W part of a luridly 1960s psychedelic nude woman with large breasts. I like holding it.

I’m not stopping to listen for Creeper anymore. I figure he either came right after me, in contempt, or he decided to make a call for backup. If he came after me, he’d be here by now. At the very least, I would hear trees falling.

No, a Bluefish-sponsored posse of sweat suit clad gunman and young bikers probably now hunts me, not just Creeper. I’d guess no more than fifteen, twenty minutes behind me, too. I try to think of that when my leg muscles tell me to rest. If I could accomplish the task without getting wet, I wouldn’t stop to pee.

Twice I catch sight of the paved road I traveled with Mama Bones and the Trim/Fit Brothers—Gianni and Tomas—last night. Glimpses only, but enough to tell me I’m definitely on the right course. Eventually I have to hit The Garden State Parkway. Five miles. Ten miles. I don’t know how far it was, nor how fast I can negotiate this scrub pine and bright green poison oak.

I decide against using the prepaid cell phone in Gianni’s bug-out bag, at least for now. I’m not much of a multi-tasker, and moving quickly, efficiently and quietly through the pine barrens deserves no less than one hundred percent of my attention. My life depends on it.

I’d equate my current situation with an old fashioned parachute jump. Throw yourself out of an airplane, and it’s important to focus on pulling that rip cord.

Around noon, with a wind-driven cloudy sky announcing the arrival of darker weather, I realize my body has to rest. My heart and lungs can’t distribute enough oxygen to counteract the exhaustion or the cramping in my legs and back. Plus, I just noticed I’m already lying down.

Taking the first of an intended parade of slow, deep breaths, I notice bloody scratches now mark the back of my hands. Reminds me of the last time I tried to touch Susan’s breasts. I think it was our honeymoon.

I hear people whispering. Two, maybe three voices, Creeper’s not among them. Very close. Why didn’t I hear their footsteps? Should I run for it? Or hide? Or piss my pants and die?

The wind picks up again. The sky turned charcoal over the last fifteen minutes, and now the garbage truck rumble of thunder barrels this way, up from Baltimore and the Carolinas. Lightning flashes all over the southern sky.

Should I run or hide?

A cloudburst makes the decision for me. I reach inside the bug-out bag.

It’s midnight under Gianni’s black plastic tarp. I have a watch, and I’m fairly dry. But the undiluted darkness makes me dizzy, like all my senses are shutting down. I am generally and ominously uncertain of my status.

The wind pushes rain through the pines in a steady, unsettling hiss. Water splashes hard against the tarp. I smell pine resin and a sticky, fearful odor I finally connect to my own perspiration. I’m sweating like it’s the last day of the month and my sales commissions don’t match my bar tab.

Two sets of soft feet creep toward me across the wet, needle-covered forest floor. My heart beat quickens, and the thumping inside my chest is so intense, I worry the noise will give me away. Like Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart.

The gentle footsteps glide past, the searchers apparently seeing only black shadow beneath fallen pine trees, one stubby trunk leaning atop the other. I’d rather be in my apartment, sure, my bed in particular, but I am proud of this hiding spot. Like when I was ten and built a cool fort.

Lightning cracks close. Very close. I can hear tree wood split before the giant ka-boom flattens the plastic tarp against my body.

When my ears stop ringing, the footsteps are gone.

An hour later, the rain comes only in gusts, peaking when the wind surges, beating like a hundred tom-toms against the dead wood and plastic over my head. The air inside my makeshift tent smells only of pine resin now, not my stinky sweat.

I think my glands are empty.

My fingers grip another of Gianni’s gifts, that prepaid cell phone. I’m going to take a calculated risk and make one call. The calculation being, if I don’t make this call, I’m most likely going to die today or tomorrow among these sap-oozing pine trees. I give the hospital operator Luis’s room number.

He answers,“Hola.”

“Luis. How’s your head?”

“Austin? It is difficult to understand you. Is this a bad connection?”

“I’m whispering. I asked about the condition of your cabeza.”

“Oh. Si. Well...still attached to my neck, I am told. In fact I am being discharged as we speak. It is fortunate that you have called. Perhaps you could drive to the hospital and pick me up?”

I cough. “Uh...actually, Luis, I need you to pick me up.”

THIRTY-ONE

At first, the steady growl feels like part of the passing storm, a base ingredient of the distant thunder. Wind and rain against the pine needles, even my heartbeat, help mask the low pitched snarl.

Farther east, slipping stealthily from tree to bush—think Elmer Fudd stumbling hopelessly after Bugs Bunny—the rain eventually diminishes, and a steady, background hum becomes loud and distinctively rhythmic. It’s a familiar noise, one that quickly eases the tension in my neck and shoulders. Car and bus tires race across cement.

I’ve found the Garden State Parkway.

Hiding under that tarp as long as I did—I look at it as more of a strategic retreat—I’m hoping Bluefish’s posse thinks their prey escaped. Or at least that I headed in another direction. If they play the percentages, they should have split into smaller hunting parties by now, shifted to multiple locations.

And if I’m full-boat Carr lucky, Bluefish’s Team of Terror has given up searching for me on this direct route to the Parkway. Of course, luck hasn’t exactly been my long suit lately.

Emotionally, these last fifty yards are going to be the toughest. Do I break for the fence or not? I’m torn between fear and greed. Kind of like being a day trader. I can see the Parkway traffic passing south, see the bordering fence has no barbed wire, even that the grass apron is wide and long enough for Luis to pick me up here. But if I were Bluefish, this spot due east of his log manor is exactly where I would station one of my armed search details.

I check the time on my cell phone. Everything’s mine now, not Gianni’s. That’s because I lugged this bag and its contents through an insurgent held neighborhood. I’ve earned this stuff.

The digital phone clock reads four-fifty-four. Good. I still have over an hour before Luis said he’d be here.

My fingers grip the chain link fence. I throw my right leg atop the five-foot barrier, use toes, knees and arms to hoist myself over.

That wasn’t so bad. Hell, I had more trouble mounting Susan after the kids were born.

I stumble when I land, capsizing onto wet grass. My thick jacket cushions the blow, but a sharp rock stabs my shoulder as I roll away from the landing. Those military TV shows make this physical special ops stuff look so simple and easy. Who knew you could get hurt hopping a fence?

A single star shines between drizzling clouds. And then, through the same hole in the fading storm, the moon grins at me from an eerie angle, a twisted curve reminiscent of Creeper as jack-o-lantern.

THIRTY-TWO

A thin yellow beacon extends into oncoming traffic when I depress the flashlight button. I keep the light on three beats, off for the same, then repeat. Three on, three off.

I couldn’t remember which Parkway exit Gianni used last night—something south of sixty-three—so Luis suggested I blink the flashlight off and on between six o’clock and six-fifteen. If we don’t hook up, I’m to hide...that is, retreat again until seven, do the same fifteen-minute drill then.

It’s six-oh-five. Nothing yet. The headlights zip by me in flourishing numbers, Atlantic City drawing its usual and dedicated contingent of Saturday night gamblers. Imagine focusing all that energy—all those quarters—on some major world problem? Imagine the resources the right organization could muster? Billions. Stop Hunger Instantly Through Slots. Well, maybe S.H.I.T.S. isn’t such a great acronym.

I blink the flashlight again. Wish this thought occurred to me earlier, say while Luis and I made our plans, but what if one or more of Bluefish’s men is assigned to make regular trips down this part of the Parkway, too, the guy waiting for just such an obvious signal as my flashlight?

They don’t know I have a cell phone, of course, that I can call for help. But why would they rule it out? And lost in the pine barrens, where else would I meet someone, if not just north of the exit I used last night?

I’m worrying too much. No way this baseball team from hell—the Branchtown Bluefish—is looking for me here. They walked right past me, then must have doubled back because I never saw them again. And if they thought I had a cell phone, wouldn’t they worry I’d call the cops?

Luis will be here any minute anyway.

A tall pair of headlights flash their high beams five minutes later, an answer to my latest signals. The vehicle slows, kicks on its emergency blinkers and searches for parking on the side. The lights are heading right at me, then go dark.

I back up closer to the fence. A film of sweat breaks out in the hollow of my neck. Nothing is going to make me feel safe except Luis. Sure as hell hope this is him.

I recognize Luis’s Jeep as it passes. I breathe easy for the first time all day. When the Jeep’s wheels stop rolling, I push off the chain link fence and scramble up the grassy incline. My legs ache with weariness; the skin on my arms and hands stings with scratches. I try to forget my exhaustion and pain, keep focused on safety—Luis and that red Jeep’s back door.

Hey, who’s riding shotgun? That sure ain’t Umberto.

I yank at the handle, bend my butt to stuff myself into the back seat. The interior light stays off. I understand the concept, but the darkness starts a shiver. My driver and front passenger show me only outlines. A certain smell.

“Hurry,” Luis says.

Whew. For a minute there...wait. Is that a woman next to Luis? Looks like it. And that smell is a recently encountered perfume. In fact, I’m thinking everything about the woman up front is familiar, her hair, the way—

A tiny, invisible meteor ticks the right shoulder of my jacket and cobwebs the window beside Luis’s head, leaving a hole and a spidered windshield. Popping glass and the sharp crack of gunfire hit my ears a fraction of a second later.

My heart rate doubles. I yank shut the Jeep’s back door. The meteor was a bullet.

Luis’s female guest in the front seat leans out her window. She has something in her hand. Bang. Bang. Bang. Her three, return-fire gunshots light up the woman’s face, the interior of the Jeep, even the edge of the fence. It’s Ms. Strawberry. Her two handed pistol grip and rapid sturdy shooting tell me Walter’s new replacement, Franny Dahler, has fired many a handgun at hostile forces.

Ms. Strawberry is an experienced shooter?

The Jeep’s engine races when Luis stomps the accelerator. Our ass-end fishtails down the slope before catching purchase in the grass. We’re out of there.

THIRTY-THREE

I’ve seen her gun, so the badge isn’t much of a surprise. Like love and marriage, the two are supposed to go together. What makes me squint, blink, crane and refocus is the curious and voluminous expanse of Ms. Strawberry’s law enforcement specialties, each one clearly detailed on her slick, anchor-weight and permanently laminated government identification card.

Frances Dahler Chapman—her real name—not only holds a captain’s rank with the New Jersey State Police, and is therefore automatically the Garden State’s best-looking Jersey trooper, Ms. Strawberry also carries the title of Special Prosecutor for the New Jersey Governor’s Select Task Force on Organized Crime and was graduated magna cum laude from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Advanced Weapons Training School in Quantico, Virginia.

I’m talking to the Queen of New Jersey law enforcement.

“Why did your majesty want an undercover job at Shore Securities?” I ask.

I get a sneer, slightly more contempt in her green eyes than the twisted lower lip, and Ms. Strawberry takes her identification back. She and I face each other in the Viking-hall sized kitchen of what she earlier tonight described as a State Police safe house.

“Why the hell do you think?” she says. “Shore Securities is the absolute center of this corrupt mess. Where else would I want to be?”

I can’t get over the sudden change. Sexy Ms. Strawberry in the bar becomes big hitter, Walter’s all business replacement, then becomes a pistol-packing state cop hunting mafia dons. The X-Men have nothing on Franny Dahler. Or Dahler-Chapman. Ms. Strawberry. Whatever the hell her name is.

“What corrupt mess?” I say.

“Illegal gambling, prostitution, fencing stolen goods, counterfeit securities, extortion, burglary, fraud, murder and conspiracy,” she says. “And I’ve barely gotten my roll going. Shall I continue with what I suspect?”

I place my hands on the kitchen table where we sit, a swimming pool-size octagon of thick, hand-pounded copper, spreading my fingers like the polish on my nails needs a quick blow dry. Nonchalant. “You think Shore’s involved in all that stuff?”

“Probably. At the least, about to be involved. The spoils of an ongoing war.”

The copper table glows like a well-worn gold wedding ring. This is some safe house the Jersey troopers have staked out for themselves. A rock singer’s retreat would be more apt. Twenty giant rooms of English Tudor inside a secluded, secure, five-acre forest, with a dock on the Navasquan River. The raw land has to be worth ten million.

Speaking of dinero... “Obviously those commission runs you showed Carmela and me are just bullshit?” I say. “Shore Securities is still missing one a hitter?”

“That’s right. I’m a cop, not a telephone salesman.”

Did my query sound stupid? I guess maybe. It’s just that I have certain business responsibilities, certain financial priorities. “And you’re going to stay with us...undercover?”

Ms. Strawberry sips her third mug of premium coffee. “Probably not after tonight.” She ordered some older guy named Stuart to brew the fresh pot fifteen minutes ago, Stuart probably with the Troopers thirty years, forced to search cupboards, grind and measure Colombian beans, satisfy some thirty-year-old cutie with a Trenton State law degree. “Why? You thinking about outing me to your mafia friends?” she says.

“Of course not,” I say. “I’m thrilled you want to put Bluefish away. The bastard threatened my children.”

“My job isn’t to help you, Carr. Although I easily could, and might, if you cooperate with me.”

“For instance?”

“For instance, was anyone else in the Bluefish’s log cabin when you saw Max Zakowsky torturing that Gianni person?”

Pieces of gold sparkle inside Ms. Strawberry’s sea-green eyes. She’s wearing a white blouse tucked inside blue jeans, two-inch black heels and a gray tweed coat over her tan leather shoulder holster.

“No,” I say.

Hardly Carr-like patter, I know, but I feel lucky to make noise. I’m still stunned by this woman’s previously undisclosed identity and intentions. Like the time my little sister’s new babysitter turned judo-meister while shaking my hand, twisting my thumb until I yelped and flopped onto the carpet.

“Did you see Bluefish at the restaurant last night in Brooklyn?” she says.

“No.”

“What about Mama Bones?”

“No,” I say. Maybe a little too quickly.

Dahler’s head slowly shakes. Her bright copper hair catches highlights from the chandelier. “I’ve already explained that lying to me is a crime, Carr. But I’m giving you one last chance to tell me the truth. Not sure why. Nobody else gets this opportunity. Maybe I like your gorgeous smile.”

I smell sarcasm. Don’t get me wrong. I have more than a little faith in the full-boat Carr grin. It’s pulled me out of many tight and ugly spots. But, somehow, this time I don’t think the woman means it.

“We already know it was Mama Bones in that Escalade,” Dahler says, “so do yourself a favor, don’t tell me you didn’t see her at that restaurant. You saw her plenty. She had to be the one who dragged your skinny ass out of Brooklyn.”

Skinny ass? Now I have a skinny ass?

Over the course of my so-far semi-wasted life—everything but Beth and Ryan has been pretty much a disaster—I’ve found the best way to lie involves using a grain of truth to actually believe your own bullshit. You must make yourself deeply and truly accept the stink icing you are about to spread over simple righteous cake.

“I see Mama Bones all the time,” I say. “Mr. Vic asked me to keep an eye on his mother while he was in Tuscany. But it wasn’t Mama Bones who pulled me out of that restaurant.”

Invisible fingers tug on Dahler’s magazine-cover jaw, stretching the skin downward. A threat sparkles in her eyes. “You’re shielding a gang who wants to kill you, Carr...who will kill you, or your children, unless you let me protect you. But I cannot arrange your safety if you won’t cooperate.”

She searches my face for signs of intelligence. It’s a long and fruitless journey.

THIRTY-FOUR

Gaunt lines condense Luis’ ancient face, as if the five or so pounds he lost in the hospital pushed his primitive features back further in time. His piercing, roasted coffee colored eyes shine even sharper than normal. Positively hawkish.

“It is my experience that only under the most unusual and extreme circumstances should one say no to the federales,” Luis says. “Perhaps only if they ask, ‘Would you like to skip the blindfold?’”

After encouraging me and Luis to talk among ourselves, Ms. Strawberry—Ace Jersey Trooper—watches us from inside the warm and massive safe house kitchen, her gaze unflinching behind the side door’s glass window. Framed and pretty as a picture.

“Did you just make a joke?” I say to Luis.

“Are we laughing?”

Luis not only looks more ancient, I think he’s getting prehistorically mystical on me. I shiver. It’s cold out here on this little side-entrance porch. Too close to the river. I can hear music and women laughing on the water.

“They’re state-erales by the way,” I say, “and I ask you again, Luis, how the hell did the New Jersey Troopers get involved? I requested you and your Jeep, not Franny Dahler. Or Dahler-Chapman. Whatever.”

Trooper/coffee maker Stuart smokes a cigarette maybe forty yards away from us, snug in his black Northface jacket, pacing east and west along the edge of the budding maple and oak forest that surrounds the compound. Silver vapors rise from his burning tobacco. His rubber soles squish on a thick, soggy blanket of fallen leaves.

“Cap-i-tan Dahler wire tapped our telephone conversation,” Luis says. “After you called me, she marched into my hospital room with many men and demanded that she be included in your rescue, to ride with me.”

“She must have been showing off for her troops. Wanting to come along for the potential shootout.”

“What was I to do? If I had refused, she said I would be arrested, and that no one would come find you.” His breath materializes as it glides through the yellow porch light. Must be in the low forties. Lucky there’s no wind.

I turn my gaze on Franny inside the house. Definitely a hard edge to her this night, those green eyes frosty. But the woman is still a knockout, the copper-blond hair fluffy around her chiseled face. I don’t like that she tapped Luis’ phone, though.

“Remember this,” Luis says. “Without the cap-i-tan’s covering fire tonight, the rifleman’s bullets would have found us.”

I nod. I must have been frowning at her. “You’re right. I think both of you saved my life. Thanks for showing up, risking yourself.”

“Thank you for seeing your error. It is one of your most admirable qualities. Now please explain to me why you will not identify Mama Bones.”

So my pal Luis Guerrero wants me to flip state’s evidence. No wonder Ms. Strawberry let us have this private time together. “One reason, Luis, Mama Bones saved my life barely twenty-four hours ago. Two, she’s Mr. Vic’s mother. A friend.”

Luis’s penetrating gaze seems to have texture as it passes through my flesh and examines my soul. My gut and eyes itch from his spiritual transmissions, some kind of ancient Toltec penetration of my existence.

Luis saying, “But it is not better that we let the police arrest Bluefish?”

“Better than what?”

Luis’s careful gaze leaves me and rises to the starlight showing between the roof of the Tudor and the thickly budded forest. “Better than killing him ourselves. There is a reasonable chance that even success, if we are found out, could bring much trouble and sorrow.”

Hard to argue with that. “I see your point, but I can’t give up Mama Bones. Not after what she did for me.”

Luis gaze finds a star he likes. “Then we kill Bluefish. Only your testimony will make the capitan arrest him now.”

I don’t like what I’m hearing. “Why can’t I just hide out for a week or two, hope Captain Franny puts Bluefish away without my help?”

Luis brings his gaze back to earth, back on me. He nods, understanding, but his gaze and expression stay hopeful of something else. What? Has my favorite bartender thought of something I’ve failed to consider? I sense I am about to once more feel the touch of Luis’s ancient Toltec magic.

“What if you only pretend to identify this Mama Bones?” he says.

“What do you mean, pretend?”

“You’ve made the right move, Carr,” Captain Franny says. We’re alone in the kitchen an hour later, her pitch and my acceptance already exchanged. “But are you sure you want Detective Mallory to know you’re staying with me until I can assemble a State Grand Jury? I don’t have to tell anybody locally that you’re here.”

“No, tell Mallory,” I say. “He’s the person in touch with my children. He’d never do anything to hurt them. We coached baseball together.”

THIRTY-FIVE

A metallic click-click pulls open my eyes.

Paranoid imagination? Maybe I’m still dreaming. My brains holds the image of a giant robot grasshopper in the hall. Like on that episode of Star Trek Voyager; Species 8472, the one that even scares the Borg.

Why don’t these aliens just knock?

Wait. Or could that click-click have been the latching apparatus on my Trooper assigned bedroom door? Thick blackout curtains keep the midday sun at bay, the darkness thick, slowing my herky-jerky rise to consciousness.

But I can’t help waking up entirely when something or someone slides inside my room and gently seals the door. Fear gooses my heart.

After the briefest shaft of hall light, darkness again hugs me close. I breathe without making a sound. Clothes rustle nearby. Soon I hear the soft intimate whisper of a woman’s breathing. I smell that familiar lilac perfume.

Captain Franny Dahler’s weight on the edge of the bed draws me to her, and her simmering body heat toasts me through the sheet and thick cotton blanket. Slowly, she slides an arm and a leg over me and tugs at the fabric between us.

“Don’t say a word,” she says.

While El Capitan nibbles my chest, rubbing her breasts across my stomach, I consider this naked Trooper’s potential motivations.

Hmm. Let’s see. Hmm.

Well, after admittedly incomplete deliberations, I figure either Franny fell in love with the full-boat Carr grin or this is one of those top-secret super special police interrogation techniques they can’t show you on Law & Order.

A method too effective to make public.

Despite being in my utmost glory—I’ve spent twenty odd years waiting for an uninvited woman to sneak into my bedroom for a hump—I must say Franny is definitely taking her time getting down to the nitty gritty. If I get any more excited, in fact, we could be looking at early departure. An unscheduled culmination.

I try to steer her hips into a more favorable position, but she pulls away, quickly and completely.

Hey.

I’m left with the scent of lilac, the whisper of cloth on skin as she dresses.

“Franny?”

“We’ll finish this after your State Grand Jury testimony,” she says. “I believe in carrots as well as sticks.”

I have my fork stuck in a three-layer stack of Stuart’s blueberry pancakes when I see Franny three hours later. These State Troopers sure know how to make a guy feel welcome. Pouring the syrup makes me wonder what Stuart did to draw duty as Franny’s personal chef. I think his transgression must have been awesomely bad.

El Capitan, as Luis now calls her, looks undeniably scary this afternoon, storming into the gray stone and black tile kitchen like dark clouds and rain.

“What’s the matter?” I ask. I’m hoping her mood involves her self-denied encounter with Big Daddy. The chance may never come again, babe.

El Capitan glances at Stuart, then looks me straight in the eye. “My men monitored Mallory tipping off Bluefish to your children’s location,” she says.

My fork tumbles in slow motion, pancakes and syrup flying. My right hand balls into a fist. I know she’s a woman, but Franny Dahler just let me sell out my own children.

“If you had Mallory under surveillance, his phone tapped,” I say, “then you knew he was crooked, knew he might give Bluefish the location of my kids. Basically, you allowed me to use my family as your bait.”

“You picked Mallory,” Franny says. “You trusted him.”

“You knew it was a terrible idea if you’ve been watching him. You could have told me not to.”

“Why? I didn’t know you. I still don’t. I didn’t start worrying about your kids until you told us Mallory knew where they were. We’ve worked hard to find them since.”

Can I believe anything this woman says? “Where are they?”

“Staying with a friend of your ex-wife’s an hour outside of Philadelphia.”

“Give me the phone number.”

“We’ve already called. There’s no answer...yet.”

An odd dizziness hits me, like I jumped up fast after sitting too long. My eyes see faded images. Shadows in a yellowish glow. “But you’re still trying?” My voice sounds unfamiliar.

“Of course,” Franny says. “And I have two detectives and eight State Troopers already on their way. Fifteen minutes out.”

THIRTY-SIX

Her round backside pointed my way, the top half covered by gray tweed business coat, Franny listens and whispers to someone on the kitchen wall phone. My body feels weightless. Floating in a shallow pool.

Luis saying, “Capitan Chapman is hearing now from her detectives.”

Luis rests his hand on my shoulder. Now and then he squeezes the tense muscles beneath my dress shirt. The sturdy weight of his grip lets me breathe slower and more deeply, like a swimmer attached to a harbor buoy. But I am so damn angry. I want to scream out the window.

“My men are inside the house,” Franny says.

I push away from the table and stand. Again, dizziness whacks me. I bend forward at the waist, trying to stabilize my spinning head, but extra blood doesn’t help. My sickness comes from the heart. What the hell would I do if something happened to Beth or Ryan? I can’t even think about it.

Outside, birds squawk. Telling me. Like the crows and jays know something I don’t.

Franny glances at me. “Someone’s been inside.”

“Are Beth and Ryan safe?” I almost scream it.

Franny points her palm at my chest like a traffic cop, telling me to back off. Screw you, honey. I’m not waiting my turn while Beth and Ryan get run over by a bus.

“Yes. But I’m staying on,” she says to the telephone.

“What?” I say.

“They’re going downstairs,” she says to me. “They hear...noises.”

“What kind of noises?”

She holds up her palm again. My jaw grinds. I might yet decide to flatten that statuesque nose of hers. I take tiny steps in her direction. My fingers curl against my palms.

“Yes?” she says to the phone.

I stop close enough to smell lilac, then lean in and try to hear the mumbled voice on the other end of the phone. Franny’s purple flower perfume brings back the taste and feel of her breasts rubbing against me. Unfortunately, it’s an image that doesn’t last more than a split second. Having children is a real pain.

Franny covers the mouthpiece to speak to me. “Ryan and your wife’s friend are safe. They were tied up in the basement, but they aren’t injured.”

My heart skips. “What about Beth?”

Franny touches my arm. The concern in her eyes cuts me into tiny square sections. A hundred slices vertical, a hundred slices horizontal. I begin to disassemble like digital TV on a stormy, electrical night.

“The man who tied them up took your daughter,” Franny says.

My gut makes a fist. The sound my throat issues is part howl, part growl.

“Did they identify the perp?” Franny says to the telephone.

Her sea-green eyes find me as she listens. They turn dull as her slender fingers slowly cover the phone’s mouthpiece.

“It sounds like our friend Max,” she says.

Maximilian Zakowsky

He likes driving the big Lincoln so much, surging up and down these green hills, Max spots the hand-painted sign only as he’s whizzing by. Too late to stop. He must drive half-a-mile past, to a turnout, then go back to where three children have set up a table and their chairs.

It’s a nice day in the Pennsylvania country. Cool, but with a bright blue sky and pine-washed air Jerry says comes from Canada. The budding crooked oak trees and the rolling hills remind Max of the semi-wooded land around Budapest. With the car windows down, the clean air blowing, even the fresh green-grass smell is the same.

Max stops the car on the dirt pull-off with the kids. He squeezes from the driver’s seat, then stands a moment to cough at a dust cloud before approaching the children and their sign. The kids’ eyes get bigger and bigger as Max walks toward them.

The boy with crew cut hair and big hands is the oldest. The two girls might be his sisters. All of the kids are blond with blue eyes, all staring at Max like he was their Papa come to hit them with a stick. Kids are the same everywhere.

“You want a kitten, mister?” the boy says.

The boy with crew cut stands up to face Max. His younger sisters stay in their beach chairs, beat-up aluminum frames with green and white plastic strips as cushion. Lawn chairs, Jerry calls them. It’s springtime, but still pretty cold for beach chairs.

“How many cats you have?” Max says.

“Six. All of them two weeks old.”

“Fluffy had babies,” the youngest girl says.

The crew cut boy looks very worried about Max’s size and strange accent, scared maybe he’ll have to protect his sisters if Max turns out to be a creepy sex pervert. Max is used to this reaction, especially from children. He stretches his mouth and cheeks into a maximum smile. Showing his crooked front teeth.

“Is lucky day for Max,” he says. “I have exactly six nieces and nephews. They’re waiting now for presents from Uncle Max. I need a cat for each.”

“You want them all?” the boy says.

“Yes. You are smart boy. Is exactly what I want. Six kittens for six nieces and nephews.”

The boy glances at his sisters, then down at the black-and-white spotted smelly little cats. Squirming together like a swarm of cockroaches.

“Six kittens might be too much for one person, mister,” the boy says. “We want them to have happy homes.”

Max pulls from his pocket the Timberland wallet Jerry gave him last year for Christmas and slips out a one hundred dollar bill. Max knows he could just grab the box of cats and walk away, but he sees no reason to upset these children. Not his job, like the other thing.

Max sticks out the hundred dollar bill for the boy to take. “Is cold day, and children like you must have happier things for doing than to stand here. Let me make my nieces and nephews happy. They like kittens, will take home to four different houses.”

The crew cut boy is finally interested in something other than Max’s size and shape. His gaze focuses on the money. One hundred is many dollars for a child so young.

“You’re sure they’ll have a good home?” the boy says.

“Nieces and nephews love little cats,” Max says. “They take very good care.”

Max walks back and opens the Lincoln’s trunk, blocking the children’s line of sight. He dumps the stinking cats into an empty burlap bag. Lucky thing he brought an extra bag, although for the first time in an hour, the girl in the first burlap bag is completely quiet and still. He could probably put the cats with her.

Max pokes her leg through the burlap, checking to see if she’s still alive. A low whimper gives Max his answer.

Miles away from where he bought the little cats, Max can see the river and the bridge he’s approaching will be a very good place.

Max steers the Lincoln off the highway when he can, works the big car down dirt roads and trails to the base of the steel and cement bridge. The river is fast and smooth on this side, right away deep.

Plus there are lots of heavy round stones to put in the burlap bag.

He parks, oozes himself out into the chilly river air. The sky is orange and gold with setting sun of evening. The water smells dirty, like rotting mud and old car tires. Birds squawking somewhere. Crows maybe. Or jays.

Max opens the trunk.

THIRTY-SEVEN

The spring grass tastes cold and wet. I know this for a fact because I’ve been wrestled to the ground, my stomach, nose and mouth buried deep in the shady green turf.

“Where do you think you’re going, Carr?” Franny says.

El Capitan Franny Dahler seems to be the only living thing not latched on, pinning me to the lawn. Bet Luis and Stuart total three-fifty, three hundred and seventy-five pounds, easy, plus Stuart’s bomb-sniffing German Shepherd, Doris—who smells like ear cheese—has a sharp-clawed paw on my neck. I guess everybody wants credit for my arrest and detention.

I did get a little lathered up. All I could think of was wrapping my hands around Bluefish’s throat. I started running.

“I asked where you were going, Carr?” Franny says.

“Bluefimmsh’s.” My face being squashed in the grass makes the ever mellow Carr tones ring slightly out of tune.

“Bluefish’s? Good. I’m glad,” Franny says. “But instead of storming over there, getting yourself killed, how about working with me? When you go see Bluefish, my guys could have you wired up to broadcast like ESPN. You get him to say the right thing, give me the right evidence, maybe you don’t have to pick out Mama Bones for the Grand Jury.”

I stop struggling against Stuart, Luis and Doris. Not that I was getting anywhere. The three of them were too much for me, although I do believe that damn dog’s paralyzing cheese odor was the margin of victory. “Bluefish would be certain to check me for a wire, wouldn’t he?”

“Presumably,” Franny says. “But he won’t find the transmitter my people place in you.”

I stand up. Luis and Stuart let me dust off a few dozen chunks of chocolate brown mud. “In me?”

“Nano technology,” Franny says. “You won’t feel a thing.”

My stomach’s reaction seems somewhat negative. In fact, mulling over possible venous inserts and trans-dermal implantations, my gaze starts scanning for a place to barf. “Are you sure Bluefish will get in touch with me?”

“He already has,” Franny says. “A couple of hours ago. I was going to tell you when you pulled this macho jailbreak thing.”

Franny hands me a telegram with a lawyer’s signature. It says Mr. Joseph Pepperman may have information of import to one Austin Carr, who is believed to be in the custody of New Jersey State Police. A private golf round and meeting is proposed for tomorrow at the Branch Oaks Country Club.

“Bluefish wants me to play golf?” I say.

“It has to be about your daughter,” Franny says, “but this is the damnedest kidnapping I’ve ever seen.”

Maximilian Zakowsky

The little girl is not so little. She asks Max to call her Elizabeth, not Beth like her Daddy and Mommy call her. And the girl has things growing under her shirt, although not a woman yet. Max knows that. He’s no pervert. But Elizabeth is not a little girl either.

“Why are you mad at cats, Max?”

Max pushes the edge of his shovel into the soft ground. Wishing he didn’t have to dig a hole, but glad the rain made his job easier. “Not mad at cats. I don’t like them, and there is big difference.”

“How is it different?” Elizabeth asks.

Max smiles but keeps digging. He’s running out of time. “Mad at cats is an emotional thing. No thinking. Me, I know cats all my life and do not like them for many good reasons, reasons opposite of emotional. Logical facts.”

“For instance.”

“Cats are mean and selfish. If they need or decide for fun, they kill and eat things.”

“Those little cats you drowned couldn’t eat anybody.”

“Little cats grow up, eat pretty birds. Lions and tigers eat people.”

“Everything has to eat.”

“Cats torture their prey. Do not even eat what they kill sometimes. Cats are very mean.”

Elizabeth gazes at Max like she knows more than him. Superior airs, Max’s mother used to say. Women have looked at Max this way all his life.

“My freshman psychology book would say you might have another, even bigger reason for not liking cats, Max. Something that happened when you were a kid?”

Max stops his digging. He leans on his shovel. “Is true what you say, Elizabeth. Did your father tell you I used to be in circus? Travel all over Europe with animals and fun crazy peoples?”

“He said you’d been in the circus.”

“When I was little boy, lions got out of their cage and killed my father. Ate most of him before we find.”

Her face stretches, a longer chin and forehead. “Oh, my God, Max. That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

“Lion tamer Frederic said it was accident that the cages got open, but that lion tamer Frederic married my mother the next month in Budapest. Then lion tamer start acting like my Daddy. Make me sleep outside with his smelly lions.”

“The same ones that ate your real father?”

“Same ones.”

“Oh, my God. That’s the worst thing I ever heard.”

Max smiles. “I got even.”

Elizabeth look at him a long time before she ask. “What did you do?”

“I tell you later. First, you tell me something.” Max start digging again, but slower than before. Maybe hole not needed. “Tell me a story about your mother and father.”

“My mother and father? Why?”

“Max like stories about love and sex. You ever see them do it?”

THIRTY-EIGHT

My monster tee-shot splits the eighteenth fairway. Two-sixty-five, maybe two hundred seventy yards. Not long enough for the rankest of professional golf tours, but sufficiently distant and pretty to impress the members of any local men’s club. Present company included.

“Do they serve drinks on that flight?” Bluefish asks.

My child has been kidnapped. Worrying about Beth—I imagine her alone, sick with fear—this father can barely consider outside stimulus, let alone enjoy golf or the thematic white verbena and azalea of the Branch Oaks Country Club. Yet as any good golfer will tell you, not thinking about our physical actions is exactly how we golf legends earn the attention. We turn loose our muscle memory. Shut off the mind’s calculations and let our bodies, training and instincts take control.

I bend over to pick up my tee. “Only beer and wine on that flight. There’s not enough time to mix cocktails.”

“Ha, ha.” Bluefish’s laugh possesses a certain bullfrog quality. Kind of a wet croak.

Such good buddies, Bluefish and I. Playing friendly golf. Joking on the back nine. Enjoying the outdoors together. Trust me, I don’t forget one second this scaly bastard must have had my little girl kidnapped. At least two or three times a hole, I imagine myself spinning suddenly and burying the business end of my steel alloy golf club deep inside one of Bluefish’s eye cavities.

But so far I’ve suppressed my murderous impulses. I mean, the results of such conduct would hardly improve Beth’s situation, and in fact might include some kind of gruesome death for both of us. But every once and a while, just for a split second, I get the irrational notion that Bluefish wearing a putter in his face would somehow be worth any consequence.

Actually, that’s insane, not irrational. I might need to improve my grip.

I wave to my cart partner that I want to stroll down the fairway this hole. He can have the freaking cart to himself. The less time I spend next to Bluefish, the less chance there is I’ll attack and spoil my chance to get Beth back safely.

Bluefish drives our electric geezer-mobile on ahead to help Al look for his ball, maybe watch to make sure Al doesn’t cheat. I’ll walk with Jerry, who, like me, put his drive in the fairway. See, Bluefish and I each have best-ball partners for this big money match. A two thousand dollar Nassau with unlimited presses, plus five hundred buck birdies, sandies and one putts. The winners could go home with enough loot for a beachfront condo in St. Moritz.

Bluefish’s partner, Jerry, is Creeper’s pal from that Brooklyn spaghetti bar, the solid shouldered gentleman with a diamond earring. He can’t hit drives consistently or hit his irons, but Mr. Diamond Earlobe can sure the hell putt. Sank a thirty-foot twister on the seventeenth to once again put the Bluefish-Carr Cup Championship into a tie.

Al, my partner, is a nervous grandfather and admitted degenerate gambler. Big stomach, big ass, no hair. A decent golfer, and won a few holes early. But not much help lately. His soft brown eyes grow shiftier, his golf swing jerkier every hole since we had a beer at the halfway house. He sweats a lot lately, too. It’s as if there is something more than money at stake for bald, round Al.

I asked Bluefish at the last hole why my partner’s so nervous. But like every time I bring up the subject of my daughter, Bluefish says we’ll talk about that stuff later, over a Cuban cigar and brandy in the clubhouse.

“You didn’t know Bluefish was such a good golfer, did you?” Jerry asks.

The close-cropped grass under my feet succumbs to my weight like the carpet in a Ritz-Carlton lobby. “You’re the one giving your team a chance to win, not Bluefish. All day long.”

“You’re not too shabby yourself,” Jerry says. “What are you? Like one or two over?”

I shake my head. “More like six. I’ll be lucky to break eighty.”

“Bull...shit,” Jerry says.

On this, the final hole, with water and trees down the right, my partner Al’s tee shot soared into the lakeside forest like a migrating bird. So now, when I see Al roll from the electric cart to go find his errant ball-bird, Bluefish right behind him, I give up my stroll in the fairway to help my partner search.

Al discovers his ball tucked against the base of a tree trunk, the ball glued to the bark by a serious clump of twelve-inch crabgrass. This is what you call your basic bad lie, probably unplayable, and thus Bluefish’s dream, the reason he came along to observe. With bookie-man watching, Al will not be tempted to use the old foot-wedge. He’ll have to take the penalty.

Me and Bluefish staring at him, Al calls the lie unplayable, picks up his ball, takes a drop, then selects a four-wood from his bag and lines up directly toward the green. He’s planning to hit his next shot straight through the trees. Maybe Al thinks he can steer it like a Cruise missile.

“Geez, Al. Can you even see the green?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I’m lying two with the penalty. If I don’t get this on, I’m out of the hole.”

Tiger Woods couldn’t put his ball on the green.

Me shaking my head, Al whacks his third shot straight into the trunk of another pine. Like an angry bumble bee, the ball whizzes dead right, ricocheting into a long pond of black murky water.

Nice shot, partner.

Bluefish saying, “Looks like the match is riding on you, Carr.”

Funny, I don’t feel any extra weight. Not with Beth still missing.

Al drops his four-wood onto the pine needles like it’s a cigarette butt. Something he’s finished with forever. He waddles closer to me. His lips are white. “Don’t let him win,” he says. “Please. Don’t let Bluefish win.”

THIRTY-NINE

I line up a putt I think might win the match.

In case my hunch is right, I should be taking my time, measuring the task from all angles, pretend I’m a big-time pro at The Masters. But it’s impossible to concentrate on anything but my kidnapped daughter, and I thank God this is the last hole. Soon as I finish, I’ll hear how I can earn Beth’s release over cigars and brandy. The quicker I win or lose, the quicker I find a way to get Beth back.

Not that I’d mind walking out of here with an extra twenty grand. I could buy Susan that living room furniture she always wanted. Ha.

I’m crouched fifty feet behind the hole, staring at a slick thirty-foot downhiller, maybe four or five feet of right-to-left break. Jerry shanked his second shot into the water, hit his fourth into a bunker, then picked up to join Al on the sidelines. Bluefish already tapped in for his par after a nifty sand shot. Lucky bastard.

Everything’s up to me. I have to sink this birdie putt to win the match, two-putt for a tie.

Al, who hasn’t left our electric cart since his ball drowned...well, Al acts like his life depends on me knocking this in. His dry lips, the way Al paled back there in the woods, the problem’s got to be something approaching life or death. His eyes are the size of egg yolks.

My nerves fail. I know the putt’s too hard soon as I stroke it, the damn Top Flight shooting off my club head like a bottle rocket.

Oops.

My barking-puppy putt takes about half of the intended four-foot break and races past the hole at three-quarter speed. Sixteen feet beyond the target, my ball drops onto a new plateau, picks up more speed on the downslope, then dives off a cliff.

Behind me, Al gasps.

When my Top-Flight finally completes its gruesome charge, my ball lies fifteen feet off the front edge of the green. I have fifty, fifty-five feet back to the hole for par. Gee, nice putt, Carr. What a full-boat screw-up. You’ve guaranteed yourself a three-putt, loss of the match and a financial hickey the cost of a new Buick.

I turn to shrug at my partner, signal Al that I’m sorry for the lapse. But Al’s not in our cart anymore. There he is. Running toward the forest that borders the country club. Sprinting faster than an old, fat man should.

Crows burst from the top of a two-story, budding locust tree. A gust of wind rakes my face as if jet engines powered their wings.

Jerry runs to the trees in pursuit, waving a pistol with one hand, pushing buttons on a cell phone with the other. I imagine he’s calling for help.

“Let’s go see what’s happening, shall we?” Bluefish says.

“I don’t think—”

Bluefish points a gun at me.

The hiking is muddy, but much easier than the pine barrens. And Al didn’t make it far. When Bluefish and I find them, Jerry has his semi-automatic pointed at my golfing partner, the two of them inside a garage-size clearing half a football field from our electric golf carts. Al has collapsed against a tree trunk, his ass and legs on the ground. His hands cover his face, a reddish nose playing peek-a-boo.

He reminds me of Pinocchio, and a wave of pity hits me. My heart bounces when he issues repeated sobs.

Bluefish pushes me toward the center of the clearing where I can get a better view of Jerry holding the gun to Al’s head. Oh, please...

Soon as Jerry sees me watching him, he pulls the trigger on Al. Blood, skin, hair, bone, and brain matter gush from Al’s head. An explosion of gore. The sound crashes my ears like a freight train.

Al’s body melts onto last year’s leaves and pine needles.

FORTY

Bluefish and I smoke Punch Habanas inside a steel walled dungeon. On the outside, this place looked like a flat-roofed tack room, recently whitewashed, with two windows facing the big estate’s house and near the stables. But inside, there are no windows, the floor and walls are polished metal and the single entrance door clicks and locks like a Federal Reserve bank vault.

Feels like a rabbit trap, a private kill zone needing regular hose downs.

“When the door is shut and the alarm’s set, electronic devices can’t send, receive or record signals in here,” Bluefish says. “Like the Vegas joke says, what happens here, stays here.”

Wonder if Franny’s people are really shut out? If so, true privacy facilitates new possibilities for me. “Jerry checked me before we played golf,” I say. “Including my fillings. I’m not wearing any wires.”

“Of course you’re not,” he says. “But I figure in the course of a private and friendly discussion, when I could admit to say, extortion, kidnapping or even intended murder, why take chances?”

I nod. “Good point.”

“I figure the F.B.I. or that state-cop Dahler-Chapman could have some kind of miniaturized shit Jerry couldn’t find, something my so-called experts never heard about.”

“Not true,” I say, “but I understand the thinking.”

“Not that I’m calling you a liar.”

“Of course.”

“Anyways. In here, I feel free to discuss whatever.”

“If they did put some kind of miniaturized wire-thing like that on me, wouldn’t they already have heard you and Jerry kill Al?”

Bluefish removes the cigar from his mouth. “You mean that gunshot you heard? Or you barfing?”

I blink. Is that all Franny’s implant picked up? Maybe also Bluefish saying, Let’s go see? Shit.

“My pal Jerry might have killed a rabbit,” Bluefish says. “And if they dig up what’s buried in that clearing near the eighteenth hole, a shot dead rabbit is exactly what they’ll find. Our former friend Al ran off the eighteenth green instead of paying off his bet. Cheap bastard. We may never see him again.”

I try not to look disappointed, but this means Captain Franny still has nothing she can use against Bluefish. Nothing but me and what I know about Mama Bones being at that Brooklyn restaurant. “Why did you kill Al? Not just to frighten me, I hope.”

Bluefish sucks the mid-size Punch. “Like your former co-worker Ragsdale, Fat Al is a degenerate gambler. Ran up his debts but couldn’t pay off. He had it coming. Plus, I wanted to remind you that violence is part of my world, not yours.”

He leans back and blows a fine stream of Cuban cigar smoke straight up. Like a volcano. “So you lost the golf match. I assume you’re playing for my team now?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know what I’m asking. Nothing’s changed.”

“Oh, plenty’s changed. You kidnapped my daughter.”

He twists the cigar in his mouth, savoring the smooth wet tobacco. He makes it dirty, like a sex show in Tijuana. “Exactly. Now you have to do business with me.”

Goddamned bastard. I swear I could beat him to death with a nine-iron. “Beth is all right?”

“She’s fine. Now tell me what you’re going to say to the state grand jury about Mama Bones? What did you already tell Dahler-Chapman about me?”

I stare into Joseph Pepperman’s ebony gaze, a look that recalls the glass eyes in that trophy fish over the bookie’s bed. Shiny black marbles. Sightless and dead. Not the kind of man you really want to do business with.

But I think I must. For Beth. And Franny not hearing makes my betrayal a whole lot easier.

“Let Beth go, I’ll say whatever you want in front of the grand jury. I give you my word.”

I’m driven back to the golf course and my Camry by Bluefish’s attorney, Jano Johanson, a cosmopolitan Viking with long red hair, a full red beard. He just asked me where I’ll be later “in case your daughter is located quickly.”

I should lay this redhead lawyer out cold, get his three thousand dollar suit dirty with parking lot dust. Officer of the court, my ass. Bluefish’s Norseman raider is more like it. But getting Beth back safely can be my only consideration, and rocking the Norseman’s longboat is not a particularly aces idea now that I’ve made a deal with his boss.

“I’m headed back to protective custody,” I say.

“Are you a suspect or a material witness?” Jano says.

“I don’t know.”

He laughs. “Pal, I suggest you get yourself some legal representation.”

FORTY-ONE

The electronic phone chime doesn’t slow my mouth down. Neither does Franny plucking a slick, black Motorola cell phone from the inside pocket of her business jacket, holding up her hand. What works is Franny saying, “Carr. Shut up.”

It’s the story of my life, really. Always talking too much. Even when I’ve asked for the order and I know the sales manual says to keep quiet and wait; even when I should just embrace a woman and kiss her. No, whenever patience is most at a premium, whenever silence is truly golden, you can count on Austin Carr—Mr. Blabbermouth—to deliver entirely pointless and mood busting oratory.

I get nervous, I suppose. I tend to run on, delay the moment of rejection or acceptance. It’s a major flaw in the old Gift of Gab.

Franny pushes the cell phone against her ear. “Dahler-Chapman.”

Illegible blue symbols flash across the telephone’s glossy-black screen like a stock-market tape. The late afternoon sun glows like a florescent orange ball in the louvered kitchen windows. Stuart’s browning a whole chicken on an eight-burner, cast iron stove. In his white dress shirt and tie, the potholder mittens, Stuart could be taping a half-hour show on the Food Network.

Another Arresting Recipe from Cooking with Cops.

That’s right, I’m back at Trooper Bat Cave, being bullied by Franny and cooked for by Stuart. By her own order, I was describing to Franny, for the third time, exactly how Bluefish and Jerry killed my golf-partner Al. Although I suppose I was still specifically elaborating in some detail about my wild first putt when Franny’s cell phone rang.

“Repeat that,” Franny says to her Motorola.

El Capitan wears her strawberry blond hair differently tonight, pushed over to one side like a 1940s movie star. Remarkably symbolic of her general mood, actually. Obviously bent out of shape. Like the Queen of New Jersey Cops already suspects I have reached some tit-for-tat with Bluefish.

Listening to her cell, whatever it was the poor man or woman had to repeat, Franny’s forehead wrinkles. Now she glances at her diamond-studded Rolex. “You’re certain about the subject’s condition?” Her gaze lifts, finds mine. Her eyes are unreadable. Cop eyes. “I’ll make sure he gets there.”

I swear my heart stops. “What?”

Franny slips the phone back in her jacket. “Your daughter walked into the Rumson police station fifteen minutes ago. Beth claims that she’s fine, safe and sound.”

My heart restarts right into double-time. “She’s all right?”

“A bruise or two. Scratches on her back she says came from being locked in a car trunk. She’s on her way home right now in a State Police cruiser. If you want, Stuart and I will drive you to meet her.”

I throw off the anger about her being mistaken for a spare tire. She’s alive. Not even seriously hurt. Thank God. Thank God. Relief chases a rock of tension from my neck and shoulders. I sip suddenly sweeter air, then gulp richer breaths. Beth’s sunny-morning blond hair fills my mind’s eye, then her untrained but genetically true, someday-famous Carr smile.

Thank God. Oh, thank God.

“You made a deal with Bluefish, didn’t you?” Franny says. Her voice is a growl. Her green eyes are pure fury. By the stove, Stuart slides a step farther away from us.

“I didn’t make any deal.” For my purposes—that is, to produce a better lie—I choose to think of my arrangement with Bluefish as an offer I couldn’t refuse. Offer and deal are not the same thing. I did not make a deal.

Franny shows me a Mona Lisa smile, then grabs my forearm. She leans in close, so close her breath warms my neck. “If you don’t testify against Mama Bones tomorrow, Carr, you...are...fucking...dead.”

I don’t know why she’s whispering. Stuart has moved so far away, he must register a different GPS number.

When the mother of my children sees me on her porch, the one I built with my own hands, my ex-wife Susan becomes a gargoyle. Her nose flares. Her lips, eyes and ears pull back into a mask of ferocity. Fangs flashing.

Susan saying, “You are dead to these two children, Austin. Do you hear me?”

I think the ex-wife might be upset.

“What happened to Beth is your fault, you miserable, slime-sucking worm,” she says.

Definitely upset. But Susan never cursed like this before—you know, so ladylike. Her only four-letter word was dead. Must be that new boyfriend Ryan told me about at dinner a few weeks ago. Can’t remember the turkey’s name. The Presbyterian minister that goes to AA meetings.

Susan lets Franny inside the house, but blocks my path. Well, this could be a problem. Not only does Susan weigh enough to give me a good wrestle, but if I’m forced to push past her, lay hands on her, I’d be in violation of my court order. Possibly committing a crime.

A surreptitious elbow may be needed to precipitate my crossing of the threshold. There. And a wee-bit little shove. I came to see my daughter Beth and that’s exactly what—

Franny knees me in the nuts. Next, she throws a forearm under my chin, grabs my belt and throws her weight into my Adam’s apple and my belly at the same time. Whoa. She governs my center of gravity like ace pitchers control a baseball. Lifting and pushing...back we go.

Franny’s bum rush forces us both outside, narrowly missing Susan, but El Capitan doesn’t stop until I’m sailing off the porch. And what a shove by Ms. Strawberry. I’m on the cement walkway leading to Susan’s porch, looking up at Franny Dahler-Chapman two seconds after brushing past Susan

“When you feel like getting up, go wait in the car, Carr,” she says.

Funny.

FORTY-TWO

Understanding and maturity often arrive late in a boy’s life. Like youth, dreams are hard to leave behind. But when the dawn finally comes, and a boy grasps at last that his life will never involve five hundred thousand dollar European sports cars, million dollar yacht parties and famous beauties like Scarlett Johansson...well, that’s when a boy becomes a man.

At least I sure the hell hope so. Because it’s about time I grew up. Way overdue, in fact. See, worrying about my testimony tomorrow before a Special State Grand Jury, it occurs to me, were I rich like I always figured I should be, I’d have a hotshot attorney postponing my appearance or otherwise devising some totally legitimate loophole to excavate my ass.

But no, Big Money is not mine. I can’t afford an unbeatable mouthpiece. I never will. Nice things like top shelf defense attorneys are forever beyond my reach. So is Scarlett Johansson. I believe I understand this now. The Fast Lane down Easy Street is closed to Austin Carr.

Tomorrow, I can either identify Mama Bones and make Franny happy, or I can somehow not identify Mr. Vic’s gray haired mother and make Bluefish smile, not to mention Mama Bones.

The consequences of both are obviously the subject of some concern. If I please Franny, Bluefish might kill not only me, but probably Beth, Ryan, Susan, Susan’s friends and neighbors, not to mention everybody's lawns, dogs and goldfish. On the other handjob, if I fulfill my verbal agreement with Bluefish and refuse to point the finger at Mama Bones, Franny promised me jail-time for perjury and conspiracy to commit murder.

Why can’t one of my options be careful and supervised use of a reliable time machine? Why can’t I go back to that afternoon in Luis’s restaurant and tell Bluefish “fine” when he first mentions doing business with Shore?

At least it’s nice to know I’ve reached maturity.

I take my mattress off the bed in my Trooper Mansion bedroom and lean that sucker against the wall. I start with a few kicks, then step closer and start punching, right, left, right, left, until my arms are tired and I go back to kicking, kicking, kicking until my legs feel like wet cement.

I take up punching again.

I go on like this for, I don’t know, half an hour. When all four of my limbs are numb with exhaustion, I crumble to the floor. My mouth is open. I’m panting. Sweating.

Tears slowly fill my eyes. When the water finally overflows and tickles my cheeks, I stand up, fists trembling and bellow like a wounded bear for all my lost dreams.

“Scarlett!”

FORTY-THREE

“Could you repeat the question, please?”

Quiet, individual sighs blend into a raucous, collective groan that echoes around the oak paneled Trenton courtroom like a barking pit bull. The wave of verbal animosity finally crashes over me and dissipates.

Seems my dumb responses and other delaying tactics wear thin on the assembled State Grand Jury. Gee, I’ve only been on the witness stand two hours. And I’ve already given them my name and address.

“Mr. Carr, please pay attention,” Franny says. “This is very important. You’re taking up the grand jury’s time. Now, once again, look around the courtroom. Do you see the woman who had Anthony Farascio's body removed from the restaurant that night?”

Franny sports quite the courtroom demeanor. Impressively dressed. Authoritative. Articulate. In possession of all the facts. And pissed as hell at me for dragging this out, although staying very much in control for her audience.

“Please, Mr. Carr. Look at the target of this investigation. Do you see that woman from the restaurant here today?”

I have to admire the way Franny uses word emphasis. Every gaze in the courtroom focuses on Mama Bones. Hard not to, the way Franny drags her description out. I’ve heard any good prosecutor includes acting classes in his or her training, but Franny is so good she might need an agent.

I stare at Mama Bones. Her gray hair. The sharp eyes that miss nothing. And dressed today like the sweetest grandma you ever saw, including blue hair, hand knitted shawl and aluminum walker.

“Mr. Carr. Please.”

Guess it’s time to get this over with. I take one last deep breath before I drop the five hundred pounder: “I can’t be sure.”

Franny’s cheeks flush. “What did you say?”

I search the back of the courtroom for something to focus on. I memorize the details of the double door’s right side, the six-inch brass hinges. “I said I can’t be sure it’s the same woman.”

El Capitan’s sea-green eyes burst into flame. The small courtroom barks again with whispered conversations. A knot expands inside my gut.

Franny almost spits at me. “Mr. Carr, you identified this woman, by name, on two...no, three separate occasions. In your sworn statement to my office, in fact, you described Angelina Bonacelli exactly, and swore under oath, on the Bible, that you’d known this woman by sight for more than seven years.”

I nod in complete agreement. “Of course I know Mama Bones. She’s the mother of my business partner, Vic Bonacelli. I just don’t know for sure she was the woman in that restaurant.”

Franny snatches some papers off the prosecutor’s table. “You were certain before. My transcript shows you voluntarily mentioned Angelina “Mama Bones” Bonacelli, by name, as the woman who supervised the disposal of Anthony Farascio’s body.”

What drama. Franny’s long pointing finger reminds me of Madame La Farge.

“Yes, that’s true,” I say. “That’s what I thought. What I’m saying now is, though, I can’t be sure the woman in that restaurant was the same woman I see sitting here today. I’m just not certain.”

First Franny’s cheeks balloon. Then the air hisses out between her teeth like a punctured tire.

FORTY-FOUR

Franny Dahler-Chapman trashes her empty Starbucks cup, snaps open her briefcase and seizes a red manila folder. My Branchtown lawyer, Randall Zimmer, Esquire, begins to tap the eraser end of his pencil on a new pad of lined yellow legal paper. The preliminaries are over. It’s time, lady and gentleman, for the main event.

Franny pushes an eight-by-ten glossy photograph at us across the polished walnut desk. After handcuffing me in the grand jury room and locking me up, not letting me use the telephone for three hours, Franny now has questions. A minor Chapman-Zimmer skirmish in the hallway was followed by calmer negotiation which led to the three of us sitting down in this courthouse conference room.

“Talbot told you about the AASD report she’d prepared,” Franny says. “You knew those co-mingling charges would ruin your business. But when you went to her room that night, you probably weren’t intending to kill her. So what happened? You argued and lost your temper?”

I glance at the photograph. It’s a black and white shot of Ann Marie Talbot after the murderer choked and burned her, a close-up of her barbecued head. At least that’s what the black marker printing says on the back. Could be a horror-movie prop or a ruined, bone-in roast. The disgusting, barely human thing seems to be oozing some kind of black gravy.

Mr. Zimmer saying, “My client’s alibi is well established, Ms. Chapman. Should you decide to prosecute him for Ms. Talbot’s murder, you will in fact be the first witness I depose.”

Zimmer’s hawk-like eyes are the same dark caramel as the walnut desk. Looking at him, feeling the love, I am deeply and truly sorry for every lawyer joke I ever told. When you need one, a clever, juiced and tough-in-the-clinches attorney can save your sorry ass. Spending the big bucks goes down easy when your job or even a prison sentence is at stake. Right this second, having Mr. Z for a champion glows inside me like a double shot of forty-year-old bourbon.

“Would you mind looking this over as well?” Franny says. She shoves a three or four-page document at me, loose pages stapled together in the upper left corner.

Despite Mr. Z’s mighty parry and thrust, El Capitan’s green eyes shine with confidence. I saw a lightning flash of defeat in the Grand Jury room earlier, but now Ms. Strawberry’s back on offense, certain of her superior power and numbers.

I pick up the stapled papers wondering what the hell Franny throws at me now, but I wait until Mr. Z gives me the okay before I read. If you’re paying five hundred an hour for advice, it’s important to listen. Lawyers also like you better, work harder, when you follow orders. Especially big Germans.

Page one is like a cover sheet. A centered title. Oh, my. I’ve never read a Forensic Pathology Summary before. Must be like an autopsy report.

Should I put on rubber gloves?

FORTY-FIVE

OFFICE OF THE MEDICAL EXAMINER

Seaside County, N.J.

Forensic Pathology Summary

Body No. 244: Talbot, Ann Marie

External Examination

Body is clothed in a green, acetate-rayon dress which has been scorched, melted and destroyed along the tops of both shoulders. Burns are visibly consistent with position of body to charcoal burner and fire damage at scene.

A hand-lens examination of the burned fabric reveals loose fragments of victim’s carbonized tissue. Body is wearing no undergarments, stockings or shoes.

I glance up at Franny. “Talbot didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who dressed commando.”

“Maybe you raped her and kept her panties as a souvenir,” Franny says.

So much for playing Sherlock. Back to my perusal.

I think Franny’s mad she didn’t get to award me her previously offered carrot.

Body is that of an adult female Caucasoid, sixty-five and one-half inches in length, one hundred nineteen pounds in weight. Outward appearance consistent with stated age of thirty-four years. Hair and eye-color are indeterminable due to carbonization and/or destruction of all indicative facial and cranial tissues. Portions of the left sphenoid bone, left eye orbit, the left zygomatic bone and arch, as well as the left portions of the maxilla and mandible are exposed and burned.

Visible contusions on victim’s neck suggest manual strangulation prior to burning, although condition of surviving tissue prevents observation of typical asphyxia results, i.e., broken facial capillaries and/or cranial hemorrhaging.

Examination of oral cavity reveals absence of all teeth and indications of prior elective removal. Matches dental records of stated victim.

Visible carbonization and destruction of tissue on thumbs and fingers. Suggests effort to prevent or delay identification.

Back and buttocks unremarkable.

There are no tattoos or significant scars.

Rigor mortis is firmly established. Lividity is prominent and consistent with position of body at scene.

The internal examination tells me more than any normal person would want to know about liver weight and stomach contents, but a couple of phrases catch my eye. One, the doc’s exam of the respiratory system “strongly indicates manual strangulation as cause of death,” and two, all of Ann Marie’s burns were “administered post-mortem.”

Choked dead, then burned. Kind of like kicking a dead horse, if you ask me. Suggests a lot of anger.

“What I find interesting is that the murdered woman may not be Ann Marie Talbot,” Zimmer says. “You don’t even know the victim’s eye color.”

Guess Mr. Z was reading over my shoulder.

“The DNA results are due tomorrow,” Franny says.

Mr. Z shoots up like a geyser to full height, stands there smirking. He pushes aside his chair and encourages me to do the same, then turns back to Franny, says, “Please call my office when your intuition becomes reality. Mr. Carr is done with your questioning for today, and he will no longer accept your protective custody.”

“The body is Ann Marie Talbot,” Franny says. Without getting up, she points her right forefinger at me. “And if he didn’t kill her, he knows who did.”

Mr. Z glares at her. “The truth is, Ms. Chapman, you are angry with my client over his testimony before the Grand Jury this morning, a Grand Jury that I am sure would very surprised to learn the DNA results are not back. Your mistake and your anger have caused you to falsely imprison Mr. Carr for several hours today. At present, I am only considering charges, but I can assure you there will be serious legal consequences if your behavior toward my client and the public good continues.”

Franny doesn’t blink. “Are you curious what I think’s interesting about this forensic summary?”

Zimmer clutches my arm. “No.”

We show Franny our backs, and I stay close as my legal guide and seer reaches for the doorknob. Mr. Z’s manicured fingernails are as perfect as clear plastic.

“Only two reasons I know to have your teeth surgically removed,” Franny says. “Singers sometimes do it for the sound, to change their tone or timbre. Prostitutes do it to give more expensive blow-jobs.”

I try to stop, but Zimmer pushes me through the now open doorway. My right heel skids a few inches in protest. I can’t help it. I’m curious about the effects of tooth removal on oral sex.

“I think you found something in Talbot’s past and tried to blackmail her into changing that report,” Franny says. She pushes up from the walnut table. “When Talbot wouldn’t cooperate, wouldn’t let Shore off the hook, you killed her.”

Over his shoulder, Mr. Z says, “You should be writing screenplays.”

Franny strides into the hallway as we’re walking away. I’d like to find out how much a toothless BJ costs, but Zimmer’s hand is pulling my elbow, forcing me farther away from the blond I like listening to. I guess he’s right. She’s not exactly friendly.

Two uniformed cops strut side-by-side toward us down the otherwise empty passage. Behind them, late afternoon sun through streaked windows casts moving, undefined shadows on the floor. The cops wear shoes that click ominously on the cream colored marble.

Franny calls out. “You’re going to jail very soon, Carr. Murder. Conspiracy. At the very least, perjury and lying to a state prosecutor.”

Mr. Z won’t let me stop or even turn to look.

“And maybe that AASD report on Shore Securities should be part of my court filings on Bluefish this afternoon,” she says.

I don’t understand her threat until Mr. Z explains on the courthouse steps. If Franny includes Talbot’s preliminary AASD report in the complaint file against Bluefish, Talbot’s co-mingling charges against Shore will be public record. Accessible to the newspapers.

If the reporters dig it up—and it sounds like Franny will make sure they do—the headlines alone are going to bury us.

My shares in Shore Securities won’t be worth the price of a first-class stamp. Only scholarships will put my kids through college.

I’ll be back living in a Chevy camper.

FORTY-SIX

Clooney’s bar is lousy with pretty, sophisticated women. All the other birds fade to gray, however, with Gina perched among them. Arrow straight, raven shiny hair covers her ears and splits in two over each shoulder. Wonder how she lost the curls? Below a trim row of bangs, Gina’s super-sized, almond shaped eyes are shadowed like an Egyptian princess. A thick necklace of oblong gold rectangles completes the Cleopatra package.

I bow before sliding onto the stool beside her. “You summoned me, your Highness?”

Actually, Clooney’s was sort of my idea. I found Gina’s message saying she wanted to talk when I came home from the courthouse. I suggested a drink overlooking the ocean, maybe dinner if we found the right mood. Sure I’m half in love with Franny. She’ll always be Ms. Strawberry, a vision across the Martha’s crowded upstairs barroom. But one-half for Franny still leaves one-half for the new widow Gina, right? Tony was no pal of mine.

“I hear you refused to identify Mama Bones to a state grand jury today,” Gina as Cleopatra says. Her long fingers twirl a classic martini glass.

“And I thought grand jury proceedings were secret.” I check my surroundings, make sure our conversation doesn’t become public information as well.

“A friend of a friend was in the room,” Gina says. “The friend said Dahler-Chapman went ballistic.”

“Promised to put me away for twenty years. She’s really pissed.”

Gina sips her drink. “I think I might know why.”

The bartender’s gaze asks me what I want. I order a double Wild Turkey on the rocks, wondering where Gina’s going with this one. Not much of a secret why Franny’s feeling foul.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” I say. “Besides the fact I stiffed her on my testimony, maybe ruined her case, why is Dahler all over my ass?”

“Because she and Ann Marie were good friends. I saw them together once.”

“What? When? Where?” My heart rate rises.

“It was eight or nine years ago,” Gina says. “I saw them at a private party in northern New Jersey. Tony went out one night to play poker. I was jealous, so when it got late I drove to his friend’s, found Tony and his pals frolicking with four half-naked prostitutes. Two of them were Ann Marie and Franny Dahler.”

“Why didn’t you say something before?”

“I didn’t put it together until this afternoon when I saw the picture of Dahler in the newspaper. It reminded me of Ann Marie, the two of them that night. That’s when I left the message on your telephone.”

“You’re sure about this?” I say. “Talbot and Dahler were prostitutes?”

“I can’t swear they were pros. But I’m positive they were two of the four girls acting like it that night. They loved it when I plastered Tony with his friend’s five thousand dollar Tiffany lamp. Tony needed eighteen stitches.”

How did two mob party girls find their way into such unlikely government and semi-government employ? One an investigator with the American Association of Securities Dealers, the other a Captain with the New Jersey State Troopers? This would sure explain how Franny knew about Talbot’s tooth-removal trick.

Or is Gina delivering a ton of horseshit here?

If so, why?

“Let’s pretend you’re right,” I say. “How does Ann Marie’s past play into her murder? Is it connected to Ms. Strawberry being so hot to put Bluefish away?”

Gina raises an eyebrow. “Ms. Strawberry?”

Oops. I give her the sheepish full-boat Carr grin. “I was locked up with her for two days. I got tired of calling her captain.”

“Sounds like you got to know each other pretty well.” Gina smiles like she knows what happened in my bedroom Sunday afternoon.

My bourbon arrives. I taste it. Still the same. Like the Kentucky woods—dark and sunny at the same time. “Well, it was close. But I didn’t play my cards right.”

Gina laughs, then leans across the space between us. Her lips wet my cheek, cool against my skin. “You’re cute.”

Sexy would be my first choice. Cute isn’t bad, though, and at least a positive selection. I’ve certainly been labeled worse.

Gina finishes her martini. “I heard something else, too. The story Mama Bones told you was probably right. The initial Branchtown Police investigation did find a DVD and recording equipment in the next hotel room. The equipment was connected to a tiny hidden camera in Talbot’s room. Supposedly, the DVD showed the actual murder.”

“How could that be?” I say. “I mean, wouldn’t they have arrested the murderer by now?”

“The cops claim to have lost the DVD before anyone saw it but Detective Jim Mallory,” Gina says. “Then Mallory claims it was stolen. So Mallory was suspended and will likely be indicted. The Seaside County prosecutor thinks he destroyed the DVD to protect the murderer.”

“So Mallory’s been under suspicion for days, weeks. Where did you hear this?”

“From the same person who was inside the Grand Jury room. That friend of a friend.”

I’m not sure I believe her. Something about those dark eyes. “Pretty impressive information, Gina. Think your friend knows what she’s talking about?”

“Who said it was a she? Shall we order dinner? I’m starving.”

I make my move after dessert, suggesting a nightcap at my apartment. I know, I’m a rotten bastard. Tony’s barely cold. Luckily for my moral well-being, Gina’s not buying my act, and frankly I’m a little surprised. I maintained the full-boat Carr grin for over an hour. Honestly, I never figured she’d meet just to tell me about Ann Marie and Franny being party girls.

“I like you, Austin. I do. And God knows my marriage was in bad shape when Tony died. But it’s way too soon. Try me again next year.”

Right. In six months Gina will be married again and pregnant with twins.

I should have cut the grinning and kissed her.

FORTY-SEVEN

Carmela hands me a twice folded section of newspaper. I try not to stare at her figure—I understand it’s demeaning—but Vic’s daughter has on a scooped-neck, tight, yellow sweater this morning, and her scoops are bulging. My horny boy eyes require a hard sell to wrap themselves around a newspaper story.

I stand behind Shore’s trading desk, unable to sit down, let alone focus on printed matter.

“That’s page ten of today’s The New York Times,” Carmela says. “A friend woke me up at five o’clock this morning to read it to me.”

Here’s the thing about guys and breasts: If the FCC would allow it, a television channel showing nothing but naked female chests would win every ratings sweep. No male above the age of twelve would watch much else.

“Stop staring at my tits and read,” she says.

“Sorry.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have worn this sweater.”

I read the heading. Uh, oh. NJ Shore is mentioned. So are the words “crime boss.” I didn’t have my coffee yet this morning, and now I’m thinking why bother. This headline makes me want bourbon and tequila for starters because I know Carmela wouldn’t show me this story unless Shore Securities is mentioned somewhere within.

Grand Jury Claims Auto Shop

Owner is NJ Shore Crime Boss

The story’s opening paragraph—that Joseph “Bluefish” Pepperman was indicted and arrested last night following a two-year investigation by FBI and New Jersey State organized crime units—is pretty much all the real news they have.

More like a feature, most of the story details Bluefish’s alleged illegal operations—gambling, loan sharking, fencing stolen goods—and his colorful past, including murder charges, later dropped because of missing witnesses. There was also a runaway wife and missing girlfriend or two, possible crimes for which he is still under suspicion. Also, according to The Times, a much younger Bluefish served eighteen months in Rahway for assaulting two priests while robbing their church.

Nice guy.

Just before jumping to a back page, the story mentions the unsolved murder of Ann Marie Talbot—her identity now confirmed by DNA testing—and her about-to-be-released AASD report, which details the comingling transgressions of one—Oh, shit!—Shore Securities of Branchtown, New Jersey.

“I choked there, too,” Carmela says.

I quickly read again that nasty, ugly, make-a-broker-cry word. Co-mingling.

“Talbot’s field summary is a proposed report that has to be approved by AASD regional office,” I say.

“I know.”

“And it’s subject to challenge and change. No way her findings are supposed to be made public.”

“It gets worse,” Carmela says. She points to a quote near the end.

I gasp. The New York Times quotes “a source familiar with the investigation” as saying Joe Pepperman “effectively controls” Shore Securities of Branchtown, New Jersey.

Franny’s payback rings in my head like a chime made of spiked steel.

Something about that newspaper story makes me thirsty.

Luis’s Mexican Grill doesn’t officially re-open until eleven o’clock, but having tired of stocks and bonds early today, even before the market opens, I try the back door, pushing inside Luis’s newly, remodeled kitchen around nine-fifteen. Maybe I’ll go back to work later, assess the initial damage from the story. Then—if the account closings are as bad as I expect—I’ll let our three trainees go, call the landlord to see what I can do about breaking the lease. But these are things I do not want to do without significant fortification.

As I enter, Umberto stops chopping tomatoes on a wooden cutting board. Luis stands beside his cook examining a fresh pablano chili. The two men exchange an exaggerated look of surprise at my sudden presence in the kitchen.

Luis puts the pepper back in a bowl piled high with the big, dark green peppers, then stoops to lift a case of Corona long-necks from the floor. He balances the twenty-four bottle container on his shoulder. “Have you been sleeping again in my parking spaces?” he says.

His thin-lipped grin wouldn’t capture any smile contests, but if you know him, this wry twist of Luis’ mouth equates as a belly laugh.

“No, sir. No more football helmets for me,” I say.

For a brief period last year, I lived in a truck mounted camper, often parking overnight in my favorite restaurant’s lot. I bought a football helmet to survive my home’s unusually low ceiling.

“Then why have you come here so early?” Umberto asks.

“My investment in Shore Securities just took a serious and probably fatal hit,” I say. “I require the hearty consolation of premium tequila.”

I give Luis and Umberto the full-boat grin.

Luis can’t spare time to read newspapers or pour me liquor yet, so I verbalize highlights of The Times story while I slice limes for him at the bar.

The faster he’s ready for business, the quicker I figure to taste Herradura. Like the Congressional writers of American tax code learned long ago, a measure of self-interest strongly increases the population’s appetite for good works.

I’m loading two mixing bowls with green wedges, the acidic sting of citrus tickling my nose. Umberto bangs pots in the kitchen. Behind the counter from me, Luis pours ice into a tub full of those bottled Coronas, rattling the air.

“So you are here drinking at nine-thirty in the morning because...you believe this story will badly influence your business?” Luis says.

My elbow on the bar, I extend a forefinger toward the ceiling. “First of all—and this is important, Luis—notice I am not drinking. You won’t let me. You have your best customer chopping fruit.”

“You offered to help,” Luis says.

“Slave labor. I work only for the sustenance you promised. Second, it’s not just one story. All the Jersey papers, maybe The Wall Street Journal, will publish negative stories. The Branchtown Sun probably has Mr. Vic’s picture on the front page under a caption that says ‘Crook.’”

Luis hefts another brown paper bag of ice onto the rim of the waist-high beer tub. “Sometimes great crisis brings great opportunity.”

Thank you, Yoda. “I think not in this case, my friend. To your average investor, co-mingling sounds like stealing no matter how hard you explain clearing-bank procedures and their overnight help’s frequent mistakes.”

Half my clients will want their accounts transferred. The other half will seek my torture and death.

FORTY-EIGHT

I was wrong about the Branchtown Sun. Checking Mike’s Newsstand on my afternoon way to work, I learn our local paper did not run Mr. Vic’s photograph on the front page under the caption “CROOK.” In truth, Mr. Vic’s page one, three-column head shot is captioned, “MOB TIES.”

The photo and caption make me worry about a heart attack, then I read the story and have trouble breathing. Since everybody in this part of New Jersey knows Bluefish murdered his wife and that he once robbed churches, the Sun’s story buries the bookie’s arrests and convictions. Instead, the local paper plays up Bluefish’s alleged connection to Shore, the unsolved murder of Ann Marie Talbot at the Martha Washington and the dead AASD agent’s allegations of co-mingling at “Bluefish’s operation,” the previously mentioned Shore Securities.

Shoot me. The facts are bad enough. Why does the media have to spread lies?

I hear telephones ringing as I walk into Shore off the front sidewalk. Yolanda, our current greeter-slash-phone monkey, is talking, writing and listening as fast as she can, taking messages and punching flashing lights. The pink phone slips pile up in front of her like lawn flamingos after a hurricane.

All of Shore’s clients must be pulling their accounts.

I wave at Yolanda to send my calls through to my office.

“Are you sure?” I say. “I can’t believe it.”

Carmela grins at me, her shoulders braced against the doorway of my office. Her sweater’s been exchanged for a gray, loose-fitting, high-collar blouse. “Believe it,” she says. “We’ve lost a total of five accounts all day. And the brokers weren’t sorry to see those particular customers leave. Only one had real assets with us.”

“I can’t believe it,” I say. “The newspapers made us sound like the local mafia’s private investment bank.”

“What do you want me to say, nobody reads the paper? Or people like being a little bit connected? I’ll tell you this. Every single person who read the story and called us—at least a dozen, probably fifteen—everyone said they’d known Mr. Vic and Shore Securities for a long time, that the newspaper story had to be crap.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“You’ve said that three times now. Are you hungry? Want me to call out for a late lunch?”

I shake my head, no, my eyes on the stock market tape traveling across my office’s TV screen. The Dow is up big today. The Fed signaled they’re done raising interest rates, and the institutions were buying heavy. Even individual investors jumped in. That’s part of why the phones were so busy.

“How about Chinese?” Carmela says.

“This is fantastic. I can’t believe it.”

“Mexican? I could send somebody to Luis’s?”

Carmela’s smile reminds me of sunshine and hay. Or maybe it’s the freckles and hair on her upper lip.

“Green chili burritos?” she says. “Or did the Chinese sound good?”

Sounds like Carmela’s been dreaming about pork lo mien, although my mind’s suddenly spinning off in another direction entirely. Whoa. One of those crazy ideas that come out of nowhere. Or was it that homily Luis threw out there this morning—that concept he tossed at me, an over polished gem about turning crisis into opportunity.

“Hold off on lunch,” I say to Carmela. “If he’s still alive, I want you to find Rags, get his fax number, send him a copy of both The New York Times story and the Branchtown Sun’s, the picture of Mr. Vic.”

“I’m not talking to that scumbag,” Carmela says. “He tried to kill me, remember?”

“You mean when he pretended to wrap that calculator cord around your neck?”

“Pretended?”

“You know he still loves you, Carm. He probably just did it to scare you...so he could crack that line about recalculating your yield to maturity.”

“You’re an asshole, you know that?”

“Okay, you’re right. It was definitely an act of violence. Plus, I forgot you married the jerk. Can you just find him for me then? Get me a phone number?”

Yes, sir. A gem of an idea, Luis. Thank you. Crisis does indeed offer opportunity.

Carmela will talk to Rags. I know she knows where to find him.

I’ll call Walter myself.

FORTY-NINE

Maximilian Zakowsky

The low, black sky is a comfort to Max, the rain and thunder his oldest friends. It is the stark and glaring white sun that unnerves him. Days like today when the cloudless, blue sky has no depth and no spirit, the wind no taste. The world so still, it is as if all life abandoned the planet.

“Get in here and drive this goddamned car,” Bluefish says. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Boss was never a compassionate man. Much too self-centered, uncaring about others. But the two nights the boss just spent in jail have made him extra cranky, mean like circus animal. Cage crazy. “I am very sick, boss. Very bad stomach. What Jerry call squirtin’ dir—”

“Enough,” Bluefish says. “We’ll stop and buy you some diapers. Now get in the goddamned car or you’re fired. We have to pick up Jerry. I can’t fucking believe you’re afraid of that spic bartender.”

Max sighs. Big-time asshole is what Bluefish is. Sitting in his gas sucking Chevy Suburban. Shouting orders at Max, who could break him into little parts and pieces. His boss should know that he isn’t isn’t afraid of that Mexican bartender. The boss should respect Max’s better knowledge of natural forces.

Today, the sky is too pure and empty for fighting. Today is a day for staying home, not for confronting enemies.

“Okay,” Max says. “But give me one minute.”

“No. Wait!”

Max shuts the door to his room.

Inside a cigar box under his bed, his fingers clutch a sharp, hand-hewn arrowhead of flint attached to a thin, leather necklace. The familiar rough skin of the stone makes him close his eyes and remember the night his father presented him with this very special gift.

Slowly, using unusual ceremony, his father had lifted the rock necklace over his head that night and placed the ornament around Max’s neck. “Thousands of years ago,” his father said, “this arrowhead belonged to a wise and experienced hunter. A man with special knowledge. Carry it when you face danger, Maximillian. The rock has a spirit inside that will help protect you.”

Three days after his father gave him the arrowhead, Max’s father was dead. Killed by lions. Did the world’s strongest man die because he gave Max the ancient rock, his protection? Max will always wonder.

“Max, goddamnit!”

Bluefish shouts at him from the hallway. Mean bastard.

Max stuffs the arrowhead into the pocket of his jeans. Logic tells him that no rock, even such an old and perfectly carved one, could protect Max from bullets.

But why would his father lie? Besides, like his friend Jerry says, it can’t hurt.

“Max!”

“Here I come.”

Spooky how a basically friendly man like me, Austin Carr, can savagely dislike someone on initial eye contact. Their size and shape. Their expression. Don’t know if the feeling’s been natured or nurtured, but when instant aversion kicks me in the ass, the hostility and venom rise from somewhere deep.

My gaze locks onto a tall, blond man watching the front entrance as I press inside Luis’s Mexican Grill. Surfer Dude’s wearing long, white bathing shorts, flip flops and a blue T-shirt that says “Can I Put My Burrito in Your Taco?” yet he has the balls to sneer at me while I dance through five or six people waiting for tables.

This single, nonverbal exchange produces a lizard-brain reaction in me of distrust, fear and animosity. I haven’t wanted to punch a stranger this badly since April Higgins kicked my nuts on the first day of kindergarten. My feelings about this big blond surfer asshole aren’t logical. They must be prehistoric.

“Hi, Austin.”

I’m so busy puffing macho across the noisy restaurant, I’ve failed to notice my bar area co-occupant, Gina Farascio, her long black hair returned to those wavy curls that I can’t help but imagine spread out on a pillow. Curls-to-straight, then back to wavy curls. Gina the Luscious must spend as much time doing her doo as I do thinking about sex.

Well, that’s impossible. But almost.

Gina squeezes my shoulder as she leans in to buss my cheek. Her perfume conjures a summer flower garden, and I can’t help it, my hand instinctively reaches for her waist. Her flesh beneath the black cocktail dress electrifies my fingertips.

“I didn’t see you when I came in,” I say.

Gina pulls away, her gaze locked on mine. “No? What were you looking at?”

I toss her the famous full-boat Carr grin while I dream up a response. I’m looking for clever, flattering and pithy. Let’s see. How about, “I don’t know. Now I can’t remember anything before you said hello.”

Her midnight eyes light up like dawn.

The Gift of Gab has its moments.

I’m on a stool, my back to the front door, when the hubbub level of Luis’s restaurant plunges.

I wrestle my attention from Gina to glance down the bar. Dozens of faces are expressing concern. Their gazes seem to have focused on the entrance or already lowered themselves in submission. Can’t be zombies or masked gunmen. No one’s screaming. Maybe it’s just the threat of violence all these people are worried about.

“Bluefish,” Gina says.

I swivel more, enough to glimpse what most everyone else is glued to like their smart phone. “And Creeper,” I say. “The guy who kidnapped my daughter.”

Beth didn’t have a serious wound on her, the doctor told me. Emotionally or physically. And late last night on the telephone, my daughter told me Creeper mostly behaved like a gentleman, only frightened her when he locked her in the car trunk and drowned some kittens.

The trunk thing pisses me off and murdering kittens is so gruesome I don’t want to think about it. But maybe my anger at the giant creep should have limits. He didn’t hit, rape or kill my daughter. Not much to expect of another human being, I suppose, but Creeper being Creeper, I figure the big oaf basically behaved himself.

Jerry, Mr. Diamond Earrings, struts and shines between Bluefish and Creeper, the three of them like malevolent cartoon rats—Creeps, Sparkles and Snake, the boss—parading into some kitchen for a really big cheese heist.

“You’d think making bail, Bluefish would head for places unknown,” I say.

“Bluefish is here to see me,” Luis says.

I reverse direction again to check my favorite bartender. Luis has been extremely busy since I came in. Barely had time to wave hello and take my order. Glad the fire did so little damage he’s back raking in the coin. But someone should tell him all the food tastes like smoke. Personally, I don’t have the chilies.

“You and Bluefish have an appointment?” I say.

“Bluefish and I have unfinished business,” Luis says. “I knew only that he would come.”

“Me, too,” Gina says.

Huh? The combined fragrances of green chili, onion, cilantro and warming corn tortillas grows overpowering.

“What the hell is going on?” I say.

The two of them stare at me. Luis solemn and resolute. Gina’s smile sporting an odd twist.

Why is Gina here, by the way?

FIFTY

Luis’s Mexican Grill hums with happy people. I am forced to repeat myself. “Luis. What the hell is going on?”

“You are here at a time of awkwardness,” Luis says. Gina nods.

“No kidding,” I say. “Your sentence structure is indicative.”

“There may be some things, some events, even good friends should not witness or even be aware of,” Luis says.

“Especially good friends,” Gina says.

Feels like I’m playing charades. “Say what?”

“The possibility exists one could later be asked questions under oath,” Luis says. “And therefore threatened with imprisonment.”

“Questions like, did he tell you this, did she say that,” Gina says.

Okay. Now I get it. What they’re saying is, I don’t want to know what the hell is going on.

“It would be better for you to leave,” Luis says. “In fact, I have an urgent errand you must run for me.”

I shake my head, no. “I just got here. Plus, I’m very hungry.” I glance at the menu. “Or at least give me a little hint. Does this mystery have something to do with Bluefish’s recent and dramatic arrival?”

Luis clasps my shoulder in his right hand. The grip is stern and tight, meant to get my attention. “There is no time. You must take a letter to the post office for me before six o’clock, por favor.”

Moving to the cash register, Luis digs beneath the coin tray. What the hell are these two up to? My shoulder thanks me for arranging its release from Luis’ grip, but warns against further aggravation. Luis’s fingers pinched like pliers.

Luis hands me a brown, number-ten envelope addressed in neatly printed block letters to Rosalinda Sanchez, c/o Teresa Guerrero, 23 Libertad, Zempoala, State of Veracruz, Mexico.

“It is most important,” he says. “I trust only you.”

“Can I have a burrito when I come back?”

Luis smiles. “Umberto will make you something special. Now hurry.”

I sigh. Anybody but Luis, I’d tell them to stick the letter. I am anxious for my dinner. Gina here beside me. Hells bells, man. Why would I want to leave?

I slurp a swallow of water from a fresh glass on the bar and push off my stool.

Luis says, “And please, mi amigo. Do not read the letter.”

I stare at him. Gee, pal. That’s some level of trust. Imagine Luis thinking I might open his personal, private mail. About to do him a favor, he slaps my face.

I lock the doors of my Camry and rip open the brown envelope. I know, I know. But eight years of stock brokering withers even an honest man’s conscience. With me, Luis’s privacy has no shot.

Looks like a letter to his sister. Didn’t know he had a sister. And a check for thirty-eight thousand five hundred sixty-four dollars. Nice. Like the envelope, both the check and the letter are for Rosalinda Sanchez.

My Dearest Sister,

It has been ten years since I said goodbye to our small village by the sea. Ten years since I last saw you, Juana and Esmeralda, my fatherless nieces. Though I long to return home, I cannot. You know as well as I that our family and the village need the American money I send.

Because there is new danger for me here in New Jersey, I would like you to have the money which I have enclosed. Instead of the regular monthly amount, this check represents everything I have saved in the last ten years.

I hope you will use at least part of the money to enroll my nieces in a private school where they will learn English well. The money was always for you and their education. The only thing different is that you are to have the money now, in case this danger proves too great a hurdle. Do not be frightened by my words. You know how I tend to dramatize the simplest of events.

I must also tell you about a woman I have met. Nothing has been arranged. I have not spoken of my feelings yet. But I believe I have fallen in love.

Ha. I can imagine your smile as you translate this last sentence. Or perhaps Aunt Teresa is reading this letter to you, and the old woman has made you all laugh making her silly voices.

I imagine the whole Guerrero-Sanchez family will be much surprised that I mention my love for a woman. But no one could be more surprised than myself. I did not think myself open to such feelings, especially in America. Yet here I am, your lonely brother, imagining the love a wife and children would offer.

Her name is Solana, and though my back was to the door when she first entered my restaurant and my life, I still felt her power, her presence. A tingling at the top of my spine.

Without turning, I knew a great warrior had walked into the room. Imagine my surprise when I saw it was a woman, a mature woman, but with flashing dark hair and shiny bright eyes like the girls from Veracruz. A woman that made my heart beat faster with desire.

Enough. Perhaps one day you will meet her. Who knows what life brings?

Though they must have forgotten by now what I look like, tell Juana and Esmeralda that I love them. And remind them their uncle urgently wishes his nieces to learn English. Until I see you all again, I remain,

Your loving brother, Luis.

FIFTY-ONE

Maximillian Zakowsky

The menu’s Spanish descriptions are more helpful to Max than the English versions, but all he really knows is the Mexican food he ate before tasted squishy. Max likes steaks, pork chops, and Jerry’s favorite, barbecued ribs. Meat that needs chewing, not mushy things like squished beans, avocados and gooey cheese.

“What is hamburguesa?” Max says. He lifts his gaze, finds Jerry giving him a sideways nod that means Max should stand up and walk around the restaurant, make sure everything is safe for the boss. He and Jerry already checked out this Mexican place and the people inside. Max doesn’t see a reason to do it again.

“Max,” Jerry says.

Bluefish peeks at Max over the menu. The boss is still mad about Max not wanting to be here.

Max pushes himself out of the booth and examines the people around them. Bartender is making drinks. Big, blond guy playing with his smart phone. Austin Carr left two minutes ago, not that Max would ever worry about him. In fact, except the quick, tall Mexican behind his own bar, nobody in this whole place could slow down Max for more than a second.

Max nods at Jerry that everything is okay, then points at the restroom sign. “Be right back.”

His business finished, Max glances at himself in the mirror while washing his hands, and that empty feeling grips him again. It’s behind his eyes. The same desolation that unnerved him this afternoon, the strange quiet, the windless pale sky.

A world without life.

Max reaches inside his new sport coat—Jerry says the old one smelled bad—and removes the stolen Smith & Wesson Jerry gave him to carry this evening. The blue-black steel grip cools his sweaty palm.

Max worries tonight. There is danger. He touches the lump in his jeans pocket. He hasn’t carried his father’s spearhead for luck in two years, but Max is happy he brought it along tonight. Death is here. He knows it.

The gun against his hip, Max pushes open the bathroom door with his shoulder and sticks his head out. Nothing. He hurries to the end of the short hallway where he can see the biggest part of restaurant’s bar area. Nothing wrong there, either. Everything looks the same.

Holding the Smith & Wesson mostly inside his coat pocket, Max strolls into the main dining room where he can see both Bluefish and Jerry sitting at their table. The room is crowded. People’s voices are noisy.

From behind other patrons, a uniformed policeman walks up beside Bluefish, a pen and leather-bound ticket pad in his hands. The cop starts talking to Jerry, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Back and forth. Back and forth. Glancing now over his shoulder at Max.

Why is this cop so nervous?

Max hurries forward, his grip tight on the Smith, his thumb sliding back the revolver’s hammer. A woman to his right glimpses the gun, gasps, then points at it for her friend, another middle-aged woman. The second one screams.

Three gunshots discharge closely together. Max hears them as one long stuttering peel of thunder, a tornado rolling over him from behind. But each bullet feels different hitting him, each separate from the others. The first bullet burns his back like fire. The second knocks all air from his lungs. And the third taps his shoulder like the hand of a small child.

His legs lose the ability to support him. Sinking. On his way to the restaurant’s wooden floor, like a melting snowman, Max watches the nervous policeman draw his weapon and fire two shots, one each into the heads of Bluefish and Jerry.

Max’s weapon leaves his fingers and tumbles away from him as he hits the floor. So quick. Everything happened so fast.

He tries to stand, but his legs don’t work anymore. His hands push okay, and he can slightly raise his head. The big, blond guy in shorts and a blue T-shirt stands over him now, a wisp of gray smoke rising from the barrel of a small-caliber weapon in his hand. Stinky little twenty-two, a hit-man’s special, Jerry would say. Small bullets bounce around inside a mark’s skull.

Only this time, Max is the mark. The blond guy raises his weapon to shoot Max in the head. Max remembers the morning’s tasteless air. That cloudless sky.

A world without life.

Still in my Camry, I’m reading Luis’s letter for the third time when a truck or bus backfires. Kind of like a TV cop-show shootout. Bam-bam-bam...bam-bam...bam.

Wait a minute. I forgot the Camry’s windows are rolled up, the engine already purring. It’s possible I may have failed to appreciate the true, more violent nature of those recurring pops. Were they in reality loud explosions?

Rolling down the car window, I recognize another sound now—human adults screaming and yelling their bloody heads off—and even Austin Carr can put that together. Gunshots.

I hop out of the Camry. Luis’s letter tumbles from my lap. Don’t want to be running back inside with that little flag unfurled. Show Luis my true, villainous nature.

I refold Rosalinda’s check inside the letter, tuck everything under the Camry’s driver’s seat. My car’s semi-shag rug is a litter box of rice sized pebbles and coarse beach sand.

An orange sun fades below the parking lot’s pine tree border as I jog between a crowd of cars and SUVs. Branchtown lies in growing shadow. Small birds cheep-cheep their goodbyes to the safety of daylight. Tires and engines hum along Highway 35, a thick steel river of Friday night traffic. Fuel exhaust poisons my taste buds and lungs.

I am ten steps from the entrance when two uniformed Branchtown cops burst out from Luis’s Mexican Grill. I view mostly blue-black uniforms and blurry faces, then backsides as they run away from my path. The two cops dodge screeching rubber and two-ton fenders crossing the busy highway. What the hell? They must be chasing somebody.

I look left, then right, but whomever they’re chasing—maybe the shooter?—he’s doing a great job of camouflage. I can’t see anyone they might be running after.

Another strange thing, the cops haven’t drawn their guns.

“I hope to hell you got a decent look at them.” Franny says.

Her green eyes are dead-set against me. Dahler-Chapman and her sidekick, Chef Stuart, arrived at Luis’s thirty-eight minutes after the gunplay, twelve minutes behind the paramedics and first Branchtown Police patrol car.

How the hell was I supposed to know those cops were the shooters? “I can tell you something about them.”

“Well?”

“Two white males, dressed as Branchtown patrolmen,” I say. “One was one-sixty to one-seventy-five pounds, forty to forty-five years old. The other was two hundred pounds or more, in his twenties. Both of them five-ten to six feet tall. Didn’t get hair color because of the police hats. No facial hair, visible scars or tattoos.”

Franny says to Stuart, “You getting this?”

Of course he is. Everybody in the place is working pen on paper. First thing when they got there, after securing half the restaurant with crime scene tape, the real Branchtown cops told Luis’ patrons to sit down, write their names, addresses and phone numbers on slips of paper. I know it helped calm the place. The tears and shrieking lost most of their momentum when people tried to spell.

Franny saying, “Think you’d recognize these two if you saw them again?”

“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe not.”

“Come on, then.” Franny turns me over to a uniformed trooper the size of Paul Bunyan. Or maybe Bunyan’s blue ox. His hands poke me like horns, and he uses his state trooper chest belt to bump me around like livestock.

Franny says, “Let’s have you look at some mug shots.”

Transported toward the exit with Trooper Bunyan, I seem to have lost weight. At least I’m on my feet. Creeper went out on a stretcher, barely breathing. Multiple gunshot wounds, including one to the head.

Bluefish and Jerry are still here. Inside rubber body bags.

FIFTY-TWO

“It’s a simple question, Carr,” Franny says two hours later. “After you saw the two shooters, when you came inside the restaurant, did you see Gina Farascio near Bluefish?”

“I’m tired,” I say. “I want to go home.”

“As soon as you tell me what I want to know. Now how about it? Did you see Gina beside Bluefish before the EMT and patrolmen arrived?”

I sigh. My back is killing me. First the barstool, then the backseat of a cruiser, now this spine-twisting chair at Trooper Interrogation Central. I wonder if next I’ll be transported to a former Soviet bloc country so they can torture me?

“Gina checked Bluefish’s pulse. That’s what she was doing as I came back inside,” I say.

Having witnessed two men's brains oozing across the restaurant floor, all that fresh, salty smelling blood, I couldn’t see what direction Franny took me for this interrogation, let alone where we ended up. I can’t even say how long a ride it was.

Franny’s eyes narrow. “She was crouched beside him?”

“Yes. Touching his neck.”

“Which hand?”

“I don’t remember.”

Franny leans forward so that our faces are six inches apart. “Think. It’s important. Was she reaching across his chest?”

“Why?”

“It just is. Think. What was she doing with her hands?”

“Is something missing from Bluefish’s body?”

“Shut up. Did you—”

“See, I ask because the only person I saw going through Bluefish’s pockets was you, Franny.”

“Captain Chapman to you.”

“Captain your ass.”

One of her sea-green eyes winks at me. “You had your chance.”

Maximillian Zakowsky

Like a soft, helium-filled circus balloon, Max floats and bounces along the operating room’s white-tile ceiling. Below him, through much lighting equipment, the hospital’s blue clad doctors and green nurses huddle over his unconscious body in an egg shaped circle. Like Jerry and his buddies shooting dice.

Max is conscious of the danger, that being separated from his flesh means his spirit or his mind could get lost. But there is a sturdy string attached to that helium filled balloon, and whenever he wants, Max can will himself down the line, like fireman down a pole, straight back to operating table. Make Maximilian Zakowsky’s spirit and body whole once again.

Most of the dream is exactly how Max remembers the actual events. How he hid and waited under the cages to kill his mother’s new husband. How the smell of the cats made him sick. And how he endured by imagining himself feeding the lion tamer to the bastard’s own lions. The same smelly cats that ate his father.

But at the place in the dream where Max is ready to strike, ready to kill the lion tamer, the lions scratch through their cage floor and claw at Max’s back.

Max screams in surprise and pain.

The balloon is gone and Max can’t open his eyes, can’t move his hands. Maybe this is a dream, too. Or maybe now Max is dead. Those blue doctors killed him.

His mouth and throat are sore like he swallowed a basketball. And someone must have hit him on the head with a big hammer. Each heartbeat brings a new throb of hurt.

Max hears people speaking. Soft voices talking about him. Patient Max Zakowsky.

“We could write an article for the New England Medical Journal on this man’s head,” a woman says.

“The bullet must have struck at an incredibly lucky angle,” a man’s voice says.

Gentle fingers probe the base of Max’s skull.

“No, feel that,” the woman says.

Max wish he could open his eyes and see her. Her voice is like music.

“I’ll bet this man’s sphenoid bone is at least fifty percent thicker than yours or mine,” she says.

“I hope you never get a chance to compare, Meredith. But I know he was damn lucky with the other three bullets. No bones, major arteries or organs were damaged. Unless we’ve missed something, Mr. Zakowsky will be walking out of here in a few days.”

Intense, burning orange light becomes the early morning sun shining in Max’s window. Is his mind floating again?

No, Max is waking up in a hospital bed, the searing pain from his head to his hip no longer part of a dream. The pain is real. Hard to believe bullets could deliver so much hurt but not kill him.

Max rings a bell for the nurse.

A gray haired woman with two pillows for a chest and a garbage can sized ass walks into his room.

“Where pants?” Max says.

“Only when I have to,” woman says. “Right now, I’m running full commando.”

Max like this woman’s odd ways. He knows she’s being silly with him even if he doesn’t totally understand the joke. Commando is naked underneath, but...

“Your clothes, what’s left of them, are in the closet, Mr. Zakowsky. But don’t think you’re going anywhere.”

“No. Max not going anywhere today. But would like to see my blue jeans.”

The gray haired woman brings him a shredded mess. His fingers work the fabric carefully, searching each torn pocket. The last, Max finds his father’s ancient piece of flint, caresses the spear tip with his thumb and forefinger. His father was right. Spirit in rock protects.

“Looks like the nurses had to scissor you out of those jeans,” the nurse says.

“Happens a lot,” Max says.

She laughs.

“What did the cops want?” Mama Bones says.

“If I knew who did this,” Max says. “Also if I recognized anyone. If I am willing to look at books of photos.”

Max sits up, grateful that his pain is going away. Max is tired from walking the hospital halls all day, dragging his IV cart along with him like a pet dog. But Mama Bones could become a new underboss in Bluefish’s family. Max should show respect.

“Did you say anything to them?” Mama Bones asks.

“Nothing,” Max says. “I learned more from them.”

“Yeah? So you know Bluefish and your friend Jerry are dead?”

“I saw their brains. Yes.”

Mama Bones nods. “Nunzio says it wasn’t him. But my niece Gina was at the bar when you and Bluefish were shot. She tells me she had nothing to do with the killing either, but I’m not so sure. She was very mad about her husband. And mad about Ann Marie.”

“Ann? Why?” Max asks.

“Gina was Ann Marie’s friend once.”

So, that’s it. Max finally understands. Ann. Franny. And Gina. All three of them were friends. He nods, smiling to himself. He has a suspect now for Ann Marie’s murder. He needs to check something, but if he’s right, he will kill the murderer, Austin Carr and that Mexican bartender. Assassins. Maybe Max drown them all together in a bag like those smelly little cats.

FIFTY-THREE

A telephone pressed against my ear, I dial 0, slide gently onto my living room couch, ease back and stretch out my feet. Some beatings I like to take lying down.

I just spent an exhausting and stress filled Saturday morning reading the newspaper. The kids’ mutual funds are down, my horoscope sucks and the local rag whose name I won’t mention ran another follow-up on Shore and Bluefish. Plus, I have a sinister premonition about this call I’ve been trying to make.

“May I help you?” the operator says.

“I’m having trouble reaching a number.” I rattle off the seven digits of my house line. Well, Susan’s house line now. My old ranchero. I don’t like numbers much, my business being so full of them, and I can’t remember what Susan looked like naked. But this damn phone number is burned into my head like some ancient petroglyph.

“The line’s been disconnected, sir.”

A hole in the earth opens up beneath my couch. I’m plunging through space like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. “Are you sure? That’s been my house line for eight years.”

“That number was disconnected yesterday, sir. By the billing party.”

I park in front of the old homestead and immediately know the truth. The realtor’s FOR SALE sign stuck in the lawn pretty much tells the tale.

I can’t believe Susan would do this without telling me.

Dazed, I stumble inside the house through a loose and insecure back door lock, inspect the empty rooms and cupboards, the bare walls and floors. Vacant spaces where I played Legos with Beth and Ryan. Barren corners once stacked with toys.

My gut aches, as if poison ripped at me.

The telephone rings as I unlock my apartment twenty minutes later. I hurry, hoping for no logical reason it’s the kids.

“Hello?”

“Hey, pal, it’s Walter. How you been?”

I sigh. “Fabulous. Susan and the kids moved without telling me.”

“Sorry,” he says. “I just wanted to let you know I signed those papers you sent me and had them notarized. I dropped them off at the post office on my way to work this morning.”

I don’t think Walter is even slightly interested Susan skipped out. Why should he be?

“A hitter like you, dialing for dollars on a Saturday?” I say. Busting balls is what Walter deserves.

“Yeah, well I’m still working on getting all my Shore people over. Thought this might be a good day to remind them how well I’ve managed their money.”

A month ago I considered him a friend. Now he’s calling up my customers and telling them their money’s at risk with Shore. “Right, Walter. And the follow-up story on Bluefish and Shore Securities today had nothing at all to do with your decision. Are you going to send our customers reprints?”

“That’s a great idea.”

I must be the world’s dumbest victim. I can’t believe I just said that. “Well, thanks for signing those papers, Walter. Nice doing business with you.”

“When do I get my first check?” he says.

“I’m not sure. Call the escrow company where you sent the papers. I can’t see where it would take them more than one or two business days.”

“All right,” he says. “Take it easy.”

I wonder if Rags has received his paperwork yet, if he’ll sign as easily as Walter. Carr’s Famous Plan to Create Opportunity from Crisis proceeds nicely on course. I’m not planning on The Fortune 500. Honestly, it’s mostly payback, although I would hope to cinch myself enough moo-la to secure Beth’s and Ryan’s college educations.

But my thoughts won’t stay on business. The sight of my empty old ranchero, that ugly FOR SALE sign...the memories there with my kids. These images won’t stay out of my head but minutes at a time.

The Creeper only took Beth. Susan kidnapped both my children.

FIFTY-FOUR

The telephone wakes me up minutes before midnight. I’m stretched out on my living room couch with the TV on, one of those Law & Order cop shows, the good guys putting a hard screw on the scumbag. Although now that I think about it, I have quite a little career blooming myself as a law enforcement snitch.

Ring, ring. Okay, I’m coming. Should I put the Seaside County Grand Jury testimony on my résumé?

Reaching behind me for the main house phone, I remember Susan has skipped with the kids. Maybe the caller is Beth or Ryan, ratting out their overprotective mother. Probably wishful thinking, but my kids love me. I know that. They’re going to want to see their Pop.

“Hello?” I say.

Click. A hang up.

Must be a wrong number, the caller probably expecting a female voice on this end. You’d think this late, even on a Saturday night, people using the telephone would take a bit more care pressing buttons.

I rest the phone back in its cradle and return my head to its well-worn spot on the couch’s padded arm rest. On TV, a commercial runs instead of my favorite cop show, and my eyes droop, then slowly shut. I’m thinking maybe I should make my way to the bedroom when the damn phone rings again.

Ass-a-hola.

I pick up. “Hello?”

Click. Another hang-up.

Gee. And I tried to sound so vibrant and appealing that time.

Now I’m pissed. Okay, this is why I ordered the near-full complement of technology on my apartment telephone. I sit up on the couch and flip on the table lamp, dial star-six-nine. Takes nine or ten rings, but finally an elderly man picks up and growls hello. Sounds like a lifetime smoker of unfiltered compost.

“Did you just call 555-6564?” I say.

“Nope. This is a pay phone in Clooney’s. I was walking by.”

“Did you see who was using the phone?”

Silence. One beat...two. The old geezer’s probably trying to remember what phone I’m talking about. “A woman,” he says.

“Really? What did she look like?”

Silence. Then another voice whispering in the background. “I don’t know,” he says finally, “but I gotta go. Lillian is waiting for me.”

He hangs up.

Walking into Clooney’s forty minutes later, checking the bar, the first thing my peepers latch onto is State Trooper, State Prosecutor, Frances Dahler-Chapman, El Capitan herself. She’s alone and deep into the martinis, I’m guessing. Hunched over the bar; the strawberry-blond hair slightly askew; in a black sleeveless dress. As I’m standing in the entrance area staring, she lights a cigarette with wobbly hands.

Franny’s drunk. Oh, boy. Big Daddy’s owned a motive for weeks. Now he smells opportunity.

Wonder if it was Franny that called me? I don’t see anybody else here, but there’s no real evidence she or anyone else I know was the caller. Big coincidence I get a phone call from my second-favorite bar and restaurant, though. Guess it could have been just a wrong number.

I focus on the sordid memory of Franny’s dark, naked body in bed and decide on a pump and hump strategy: Pump her brain for legal information, then hump her bod for sexual gratification.

Shocked? Please remember, I’m a trained telephone salesman. Any lie can be framed with truth. There is no lechery too base in the pursuit of love or big commissions.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Franny says. “You lied to me. You lied to the grand jury.”

“I had to. Bluefish said he’d kill my children.”

Franny glances at me side-saddle. Her lime-colored eyes radiate the glassy quality of calm water. “I could have protected them,” she says.

I shake my head. “No. You could have locked me up, maybe made me safe. I totally would have done what you wanted if I didn’t have kids. But I can’t have them pulled out of school, hidden away some place. Frightened.”

Franny slurps at her half-done martini. The sound attracts the glance of Clooney’s young bartender, a crew cut athletic type who wasn’t all that pleased to take my drink order. Probably figured he was going to pick up Franny’s disassembled pieces when Clooney’s shuts the doors at one-thirty.

God, aren’t men awful?

Franny sighs. Her moist gaze locks with mine. “Maybe you were right. I should have realized what you were up against,” she says. “And the truth is, it was Fluebish I wanted. Now that he’s dead, I think I’m not so mad at you anymore.”

Fluebish? The lady is bombed. Big Daddy’s starting to worry a little. She might be too drunk. I mean, even stockbrokers have some pride. It would be like selling limited partnerships to your mother.

“You’re not going to prosecute me?” I say.

“Probably not. The investigation’s over.”

I like the sound of this. “What about Talbot’s murder?”

“That’s almost done, too,” she says. “We traced the video recording equipment to a stolen trunk of stuff that matched swag found in Bluefish’s warehouse. Bluefish or a friend of his must have killed her.”

“So there really was a DVD of the murder?”

“I think so,” she says. “But no one will ever see it again.”

“Why?”

Franny gazes out Clooney’s giant bar window at the dark Atlantic. “Because the killer was powerful enough to make it disappear.”

“Powerful enough to push around cops?”

Her gaze finds me again. She blinks. “Mallory for sure. Maybe his chief. Branchtown’s a cesspool. The local lops are protecting someone.”

“I don’t believe you.”

She giggles. “Local lops? How can you even understand me?”

FIFTY-FIVE

Franny laps at her last-call martini like a thirsty Labrador. “Ever see that old Jack Nicholson movie Chinatown?” she asks.

“Not more than twenty times,” I say. “I think Robert Towne won an Oscar for it.”

“Who’s Robert Towne?”

“He wrote it. An original screenplay.”

“Oh. Well, then,” she says, “you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. They, I mean he, repeats the line a bunch of times in different parts of the movie. ‘It’s Chinatown, Jake,’ like there’s nothing Jake can do, things are unknowable in that part of the city.”

“Towne was writing about the dark side of people’s souls, not geography,” I say. “You never know what goes on inside a person’s heart.”

“Exactly,” she says. “That’s what I mean, too. Austin, you cannot believe what goes on between certain powerful friends in New Jersey. Really.”

“What are you talking about?”

Franny stares again out Clooney’s floor-to-ceiling windows. The lights of cargo ships blink on a black, invisible sea.

“Franny?”

She plants her martini glass a little too hard on the bar. The stem breaks at its base, and Franny lets the top half fall and crash as well. “Me, Austin. I’m talking about me.”

Ms. Strawberry bursts into tears, stands to leave and eventually hugs me for emotional support. Perhaps persuaded by the electrifying sensation of Franny’s chest pressed against me, I decide information time is over. What the hell is she talking about, Chinatown?

I work on something clever to say, then decide to skip my tendency of overemphasizing verbal intercourse.

Show her how you feel, ace, don’t tell her.

When she lets go of her hug, I slide my hand farther around Franny’s waist and pull her against me. When I bend down to kiss her, Ms. Strawberry doesn’t turn away and our lips come together like pancakes and maple syrup. Tender at first, I let my passion build, slowly, until our tongues are doing a tango.

My mouth is numb when the kiss is over. Franny’s whole body relaxes against mine. She tilts her head up and whispers. “Want to follow me home?”

I kiss her neck. “I might be persuaded.”

The bar check has been paid, including a nice tip for the disappointed bartender. Franny’s stuffing a lighter and a pack of Marlboros into her purse. Big Daddy’s revving up with thoughts of a midnight ride.

“Listen,” she says, “I forgot something. The reason I came, actually. Be a nice man and go wait for me in the parking lot or take a pee? I have to talk to someone. Two minutes.”

Where did this come from? And who the hell is she going to talk to. There’s only one table of customers left in the dining area, no one in the bar but us and one older man. “I’m not allowed to meet him?”

“He’s very shy.”

“So it is a he?”

“A trooper friend. I have a subpoena for him in my purse. Now go wash your face or wait for me outside. I need a couple of minutes.”

I glance at the bow-tied geezer across the bar. If he’s getting paid by the State Troopers, it’s a pension or as a nursing home informant. “He’s already here?”

“Yes. Now give me five minutes of privacy. Please?”

Curiosity rules this stockbroker’s heart—remember Luis’ letter to his sister?—and when I leave Franny in the sunken bar area, duck out Clooney’s front entrance into the sparsely populated parking lot, I make a sharp left turn instead of heading for my Camry. The air smells of wet sand and decaying seaweed.

The restaurant’s beachfront lights are off because Clooney’s outdoor deck hasn’t opened yet, so when I slip around the building, stand on the sand in front of those floor-to-ceiling windows, I can stare unseen into the lighted restaurant. Clooney’s last diners are asking for their check, and Franny still sits alone at the bar. In the rectangular box of the big windows, it’s like I’m watching television.

For the first time, I notice the late, lingering diners include Mr. Vic’s daughter, Carmela Bonacelli. She’s laughing, showing off that figure in a black dress with tiny straps.

My gaze returns to Franny. She’s digging in her purse, doesn’t see the person walking up behind her, at least not until the new arrival takes possession of my empty stool. Large, dark eyes, long black hair and—like Ms. Strawberry, Franny Dahler-Chapman—this new woman wears a black sleeveless dress. Did everybody come from a funeral?

The new arrival is Gina Farascio, and side by side, Franny and Gina look like salt and pepper shakers, the hair color separating light from dark.

Slowly, like she hates giving her prize away, Franny extracts a thin, square container from her purse and hands the parcel to Gina.

What was that?

Maximillian Zakowsky

Pressing his back against the wall, Max slides down on his haunches to wedge himself into a dark corner of the basement. He needs to make himself as small as possible, but coiled and ready, too—able to jump like a spider.

When he first began working for Bluefish, Max used a more direct manner. He would walk straight up to the mark, tell the man his time was up, then knock him down and finish explaining.

Most times, the mark let Max do whatever Max was supposed to do. Beat the guy up, sometimes break a bone. But often the mark would run, and Max would have to chase him. Max hates to run, Max being too big to run fast for long, plus things always seemed to get in his way. Couches. Cars. Other people. By the time he caught a running mark, Max was usually too pissed to hold back. Twice he killed when he was not supposed to. Also, once or twice, maybe three times now counting that Mexican bartender, the mark actually got away.

Max takes a series of long, slow breaths. His body relaxes, gravity working on his big muscles to drop him even lower into the basement corner. Experience had taught Max to hide and relax. Guarantee yourself surprise and the ability to strike first. His own record was clear: Once Max got his hands on someone—like his dead friend Jerry always said—forget about it.

FIFTY-SIX

The lady’s house ranks as ancient so it’s no surprise the original pine floorboards creak. But do I detect a certain rhythm...as in footsteps? Hope I didn’t make too much noise going through her dirty clothes, finding this DVD.

I sit back on the blood red living room sofa and hold my breath to listen. A grandfather clock tick-tocks in the foyer. The oil burning basement heater pops and rumbles. And yes, there...bare or stocking feet pad quickly toward me down the hall.

I stuff the DVD under my laptop, gasp when she joins me in the living room. Oh, my. And oops. Oh, my because she’s wearing nothing but white athletic socks. And oops because she’s using both hands and all ten red-nailed fingers to grasp a pump-action, single-barrel shotgun.

“You found the DVD, didn’t you?” says Gina Farascio.

“DVD?”

“I know you found it. Wrapped in my black dress.”

My lips move without sound.

“I just checked the bathroom,” Gina says. “You rifled the hamper, found the black dress. So I know you’ve got my DVD.”

I take a long, deep breath.

Gina racks a shell into the firing chamber.

I lift my computer and offer her the DVD.

“Play it,” Gina says. “We’ll solve the murder together.”

I slide the disk into my Mac and wonder if I’m really going to view what the Branchtown Sun calls the “MISSING HOTEL MURDER VIDEO.”

On screen, Ann Marie Talbot cracks open her hotel room door. Gina’s digital image rushes past the startled Talbot, knocking her flat.

I turn from the laptop. “So it was you.”

Gina raises the pump-action level with my nose. “Watch the video.”

I suck an extended breath. Instead of blowing my head off right now, Gina apparently needs a short refresher course in homicide. Okay. Take your time, dear. In fact, I don’t mind studying the course material, too, maybe even take a little Q&A afterward.

Or write a five hundred page essay.

On my computer screen, Gina’s image finally stops kicking a motionless Ann Marie Talbot. And I do mean finally. It must have taken Gina several minutes to release all of her jealousy, her sense of betrayal.

Oh, my. Maybe Gina’s not quite satisfied. On screen, the former Ms. Cleopatra and reining Ms. Shotgun drops a knee onto Talbot’s chest. Her hands lock around Ann Marie’s throat, the throttling action energetic to say the least.

My belly rolls over like sewer backwash. This is worse than ugly. I’m watching a real murder.

Gina pokes me with the shotgun, forcing me to watch her on screen.

I look and see Gina’s image hop through a sliding glass door onto Talbot’s hotel room balcony. She comes back seconds later carrying one of those Japanese-style, cast iron grillers. The barbecue coals inside the hibachi already glow white hot.

The hibachi was never mentioned in the newspapers, but I’ve wondered since Franny showed me that autopsy report. I remember asking myself what a “charcoal burner” was doing in Talbot’s hotel room. Sounds like a basic and serious violation of fire codes.

“Franny was having a barbecue?” I say.

Gina gazes intently at her own image on the computer screen. “Steaks for her and my husband. Although Tony didn’t stick around for dinner.”

I suppose my plan is to delay Gina for as long as I can, pray for the cavalry.

“Wait. Tony knew he was going to see her that evening?” I ask. “And you followed him to the Martha Washington?”

“Yeah. I heard them screwing through the door, then fighting over whether or not he should stay. When Tony left her room, I hid down the hallway so he wouldn’t see me, then went back.”

“You were in a jealous rage, huh.”

“Ann Marie and I are old friends. Screwing my husband was a really shitty thing to do.”

I feel my forehead bunch into wrinkles. “Old friends? You mean that story you told me about Franny being a mob party girl with Ann Marie was really your story? It was you and Ann Marie?”

“All three of us,” Gina says. “We were young, in school, attracted to the bad guys and their big rolls of money. Poker Pals, Tony and his friends called us. We were popular for years, even after a couple of us tried marriage. Tony’s guys knew us well, knew we were smart and could be trusted, so they eventually decided we should have jobs aiding and abetting their businesses, put us on the payroll.”

“Ingenious,” I say. “So Ann Marie took accounting classes, earned her C.P.A. and went to work for the AASD. Franny joined the New Jersey State Troopers after law school. But how about you, Gina? Where did you hook up?”

Her mouth twists into something only resembling a smile. “Tony decided I’d be best suited for something else.”

“What?”

Gina’s finger slides to the shotgun’s trigger. “Keep asking questions, you might find out.”

“You’re a hit-man—I mean, hit-woman? Oh, come on.”

Gina shrugs. “More odd jobs than anything, carrying weapons into places men can’t or surprising people who need some encouragement to repay a loan. Sometimes it’s a combination.”

I need to line up an inventory of questions like icy bombs for a snowball fight, keep them coming until that cavalry arrives. Could be a long wait.

“Where did the DVD come from?” I say. “And how did Franny get it?”

“I’m tired of your questions. Stand up.”

“Oh, come on, Gina. What’s your hurry? Who was bugging Ann Marie’s room?”

Her big almond-shaped eyes stare at me. “Bluefish put in the recording equipment. Talbot was working for him. They were hoping to catch you screwing her.”

“But I’m single.”

“She’s an AASD official investigating your firm. The potential scandal would’ve made you think about cooperating with Bluefish and his friends.”

“So after the murder, Franny got the DVD from who? Detective Mallory?”

“I don’t know,” Gina says. “Mallory or Bluefish or Max, whoever had it then. I just told her to get it for me.”

I’m almost out of snowballs. “But wasn’t Franny working for Bluefish? Pretending to be after him, indicting him, but really setting things up so he’d be acquitted? Why would she give you the DVD?”

“With Bluefish dead, her only options were me or the cops.” Gina pushes the shotgun closer to my face. “Now stand up. We’re going to walk slowly through the kitchen, down the stairs past the basement and into the cellar. I need you to help me carry something.”

I shake my head doubtfully. “You mean that shotgun’s too messy to use in the pretty basement or the living room.”

She shows me a real smile this time. Nasty and cold, but real. She says, “Stand up.”

I stagger to my feet and head for her kitchen.

FIFTY-SEVEN

Perhaps I perused too much Carlos Castaneda-type mystical literature in my youth, but all I can think about on my way down Gina’s cellar steps is could this be my Last Battle on Earth? Am I prepared to give these moments the attention my life’s purpose deserves? I try to absorb every detail of my surroundings, let loose my inner warrior’s imagination for fight or flight.

Wish I could remember how Castaneda’s Don Juan shaman character created a double. Boy, would I like to be somewhere else.

“Take it slow,” Gina says.

She’s four or five steps behind me on the cellar stairs, yet I can feel that shotgun aimed at my back. My skin senses that weapon like it’s a glowing, white hot poker. The Radiator of Death.

I mean, Gina’s definitely going to kill me. I’ve seen the DVD, asked way too many questions, because, as we all know, those of us with the Gift of Gab never know when to shut the hell up. It’s a universal fact.

I nearly choke over my next assertion. “I can keep my mouth shut, Gina. You don’t have to kill me.”

“It won’t hurt,” she says. “I’ll make it a head shot.”

Ringo and Ginger Baker, my dad’s two favorites drummers, are playing a duet with my heart rhythm—back beat, jump beat, downbeat. Everything all at once. The air grows staler as I pass the basement and approach the dark bottom of the stairs. Gina flips a switch and an overhead light pops on showing dark-stained wood shelves covering three of four cement walls. Typical garage junk fills the shelf space. Beach chairs. Lawn food. Stacks of clay gardening pots. Broken exercise equipment. Discards of suburban life on the Jersey Shore.

“If I let you live, I’d always worry you would hurt me with the information,” Gina says. “Or somebody like Franny would make you talk to save their own ass. I’m sorry, sweetie. You’re a pretty good fuck. But I can’t take the chance or the stress.”

“Why did you bring me home with you last night?” I say. “Why even let me have the chance of finding that DVD?”

“When you came back inside Clooney’s last night, I could tell by your face you’d seen Franny give me that DVD. I had to find out how badly you wanted to watch it, if you knew what it was. I also enjoyed taking you away from her.”

Other than folding Gina up in one of her own collapsible aluminum beach chairs, I see nothing in this cellar that could help me take away that shotgun. I see nothing, that is, until I spin all the way around to face her.

My racing heart almost stops. Max the Creeper is balled up like a spider beneath the cellar stairway. In the spilt second I debate whether I should speak, leap or do nothing, Creeper grabs the initiative. Any action on my part is instantly too late. Talk about fast.

As her white-stocking foot touches the last step, Creeper grabs Gina by the ankle and yanks, dumping the naked, dark haired beauty, screaming, onto the cellar floor.

Ka-boom. The shotgun tumbles loose onto the floor and goes off, blue fire flashing from the muzzle. Gina’s scream and the explosion batter me. Stacks of burnt-orange clay flower pots explode inches from my left hip. A wisp of smoke rises from the shotgun toward the center of the room.

Creeper pounces from behind the stairway—two blurry fast steps and he has Gina by the head and shoulders, his arms around her like tree trunk size constrictor snakes.

I lunge for the shotgun. In the air, a hear Gina’s neck snap.

My chest slams the cellar floor, my outstretched fingers successfully grabbing the shotgun. I roll hard to the right, trying to give myself some distance, but Creeper’s on me like a cave in. His forearms press my arms and shoulders flat against the cold cement. His hands encircle my throat. A sulfur smell fills my nose.

The way I figure it, Austin Carr will be a full-boat dead man in two-to-three seconds, soon as Creeper breaks—what did that autopsy report call it—my hyoid bone?

Though my arm is pinned to the floor, the fingers of my right hand can touch the shotgun. I can barely wiggle my wrist, let alone grip the weapon. But this is my Last Battle on Earth, and I’m about to lose, about to pass on to that other world, that Great Mystery about which we poor humans know so little and worry so much.

I have to try something.

Maybe I can twirl the shotgun a little with my fingers, reposition the barrel so the muzzle aims at Creeper’s knee and leg. Give him a kiss he won’t forget. Yes. There. Like playing spin the bottle.

Creeper’s weight presses on me like a stack of marble tombstones. Impossible to breathe. I’m blacking out.

My thumb finds the trigger.

FIFTY-EIGHT

When my thumb squeezes the trigger, nothing happens. Figures. The shotgun must be jammed. A final and desperate piece of bad luck for Austin Carr.

I try once more, a near-death panic pushing my actions, giving me a miraculous surge of will. Still nothing. No explosion. And this time my furious attempt to fire the weapon makes the gun stock rattle on the cellar’s cement floor.

Creeper’s beady little gaze snaps toward the noise.

This is beginning to look like The End, that often forecasted demise of Austin Carr and his full-boat smile, the semi-orphanization of Elizabeth and Ryan Carr, two school age children who—

Air rushes into my empty lungs. Creeper has decided he’d rather have his paws on the shotgun than my throat. What a strange tactical decision, especially considering the shotgun so recently proved unreliable and I was almost unconscious. Go figure.

Creeper’s poor judgment not only means oxygen for my air-starved lungs, but now that I can breathe, perhaps I can even launch a counterattack, wrestle free of Creeper’s awesome weight and strength. I throw my shoulders and hips to the left, away from the shotgun. I catch Creeper reaching for the weapon. My jerky twist breaks me loose all at once, like a stuck lid on a jam jar.

My newly reacquired air supply tastes even sweeter, and a measure of confidence joins the adrenalin zooming through my blood. It’s a little bit like last night at Clooney’s, when Gina told Franny that I—Austin Carr—would be spending the night in Brooklyn.

I scramble onto my haunches and face Creeper. His ass sits flat on the cellar floor, knees up, feet in front of him, the shotgun between his ox-like thighs and pointing my way. We can’t be more than five feet apart. My gaze looks straight down the shotgun’s barrel.

“That gun is jammed,” I say.

Though even a broken weapon is disconcerting at this proximity and angle—that black hole almost smells like eternity—my tone carries a certain hint of superiority. I mean, I pulled that shotgun’s trigger. It didn’t work. It’s not like I’m bluffing.

Why is he smiling?

“Gun not jammed,” Creeper says. “No shells in chamber. You have to do this each time.”

He works the shotgun’s pump. Clickity-clack.

I knew that. The cellar’s tomblike silence wraps around me like a shroud.

Employing Gina’s working shotgun like a conductor’s baton, Ludwig Von Creeper orchestrates me up the steps, across her stainless steel kitchen, through a screened kitchen door, down wooden back stairs and into Gina’s back yard that faces her next door neighbor.

A one-car garage, square like a mausoleum, rests at the end of Gina’s flower and rock lined cement driveway. Inside is a black Buick LeSabre. The excited chatter of morning birdcalls emanates from the evergreens separating Gina Farascio’s place from her neighbors. The taste of baking bread rides a soft breeze.

Seems ironic I knew the shotgun needed to be pumped, but forgot the facts when they mattered most. By way of excuses, I can only say I’ve never fired any kind of shotgun. Plus, I know I wouldn’t be the first stockbroker to panic in that scary situation. Remember, a lot of us jumped out windows just because the stock market went down. I am a bit disappointed, however. I thought I would do better, perhaps show bravery and calm under fire. I wanted to make Luis proud.

Oh, well.

Creeper urges me toward the LeSabre’s trunk. A single raven squawks at us from the top of a red maple with just emerging leaves. The bird’s oily black coat shines iridescent in the morning’s new sunlight, a dark jewel against the pale bronze leaves.

Creeper makes me wrap my ankles in duct tape, seal my mouth with the same stuff, then stick my hands behind me so he can wrap my wrists. My body automatically leans forward, my first plan in these situations always being cheerful cooperation.

When he pops the Buick’s trunk, I resist too late and Creeper easily pushes me inside the tight compartment. Going down, I bang my head on the trunk hinge.

Creeper tucks my feet and shoulders inside, slams the lid. The compression of air pops my ears. Total darkness engulfs me.

After what seems an hour drive, Creeper hoists my body from the Buick trunk and stands me up. We’re back in New Jersey at some private marina, maybe in Leonardo or Atlantic Highlands. Pretty sure I can see Sandy Hook directly across the water. The salty smell of the ocean invigorates my mood. Maybe we’re going fishing.

He cuts the tape around my ankles and walks me out on a wooden pier. This should be fun, the crack of dawn a perfect time to bait fish, and those burlap bags Creeper brought along from the trunk should, like blankets, keep us warm. It’s going to be cold out there on Sandy Hook Bay.

Creeper leads me to a skiff tied at the end of the dock. The small, flat-bottomed boat holds a pile of lead weights and heavy linked chain.

Uh-oh.

FIFTY-NINE

Cold out here on the glassy waters of Sandy Hook Bay. Downright bitter. My teeth chatter like castanets, my nose runs and the skin on my arms has more bumps than a fresh plucked chicken.

Creeper’s massive shoulders paddled us a mile offshore in nine strokes, faster I think than a two hundred horsepower, turbocharged Evinrude. Now he’s planting the oars and unfurling curtains of burlap. Gulls squawk and circle overhead. Marine vultures, each of them. Hungry and waiting.

The pointed bow, flat-stern skiff barely rises and falls on this morning’s light swell. My butt’s flat on the boat bottom, an aluminum bench poking me in the ribs. A thick, gray mist hovers above the ocean’s relatively calm surface, a smoky fog that smells like spoiled clams.

Despite my gloomy surroundings, immediately preceding events and the obvious implication of Creeper employing a chain filled boat to transport us, I’ve been making a wholehearted effort not to over-analyze my future. Up until now, that is. But somehow the cold air, the chattering teeth...well, logic suggests it might be time to focus on my impending death. Use the bitter cold of eternity as motivation for my absolutely finest Gift of Gab. Come on, Carr. Let him have it.

“Mmmm. Mmmm.”

I forgot my lips are sealed with duct tape. This makes communication more difficult, certainly. On the plus side, however, when my golden tongue somehow does get me out of this impossible and dangerous impasse, Letterman, Oprah, Ripley’s—they’ll all want interviews. I’ll have to hire a PR chick.

“Lay down on the burlap,” Creeper says.

I roll onto the brown, itchy shroud. Intended shroud, that is. I still have a shot. I have plans. But I wish those damn seagulls would shut up. Too much competition for Creeper’s attentions.

“MMMMMM,” I say. Louder I hope.

The big man stares at me. His gray eyes are softer than I imagined, the coldness not out front. But the crooked smile that forms on his razor-thin lips...well, that’s reminiscent of a gash once received from a broken beer bottle.

“You have final words?” Creeper says. “Okay. Is big American tradition. I see plenty of movies.”

He rips the tape from my mouth. My lips are half ripped off. But the Great Spirit smiles on me. A chance for redemption. Take your very best shot, boy. This IS your Last Battle on Earth.

“Why are you killing me?” I ask. “Gina Farascio is the one who planned your boss’s assassination, had you shot, killed your friend Jerry. Obviously you know that. You just broke her neck.”

Creeper starts wrapping me in the torn-up burlap bags. Burrito el Broker. He says, “My boss and my friend both die in your friend’s restaurant. Right after you leave, too. You are part.”

This is a bum rap. “I didn’t know, Max. That’s why Luis sent me away. So I wouldn’t be a part of the killing. Maybe Luis didn’t even know. I can’t imagine him allowing such a thing in his restaurant. But even if Luis knew—and I don’t think he did—you can’t blame him. Bluefish wanted him dead.”

Creeper’s monster shoulders roll forward, a shrug that slightly rocks our boat. He continues to truss me in the scratchy burlap. The gulls squawk louder, like they might be getting excited.

Creeper is not going to be an easy sale, and the birds know it, too.

“It was Gina, Max. It was always Gina. As soon as I asked her husband to help me fend off Bluefish, Farascio’s family must have decided to take Shore for themselves. It’d be easy with me in charge, Mr. Vic out of town.”

You need a kicker on that one, Carr. Come on. “And they would’ve taken Shore if you hadn’t of gotten rid of Tony and Gina for me.”

Creeper’s done with the burlap. Forget the burrito image. I must look like a cheese stuffed, whole wheat Hoagie roll. Creeper’s tennis racket hands snatch up a truckload of chain link. Then, one loop at a time, Creeper begins to package me in my ocean-going steel jewelry.

“I’d be signing over Shore to the Farascio family right now if you hadn’t killed Gina. Truth is I owe you.”

Creeper threads two loops around my waist. The weight of the chain presses the rough burlap tight against my skin.

“Owe me?” he says.

I suck a gulp of air. “Definitely. You saved me—I don’t know—maybe a couple of hundred grand over the next couple of years. You might deserve a big reward.”

He throws more steel around my neck.

“Reward?” he says.

My body chills like I’m at the bottom of a grave, the cold dirt splashing against my throat and face. But I must battle on. “Ab-so-fucking-lutely,” I say. “Very big. How about I write you a check tonight for fifty thousand, plus tomorrow we write up a contract for your services? Full-time employment at Shore Securities. What do you need? Two hundred grand a year?”

Creeper removes a brass padlock from the pocket of his Dockers. His cucumber-size fingers struggle to line up the two ends of the chain. “I think no,” he says.

SIXTY

The urge, of course, is to panic. I mean, this reward baloney is not fooling Creeper. But...and this is a big but, a real redline rule of sales...to switch arguments now is guaranteed failure. Positive doom.

Think going over Niagara Falls in a tea cup.

See, with any client, you can never give up, never let them believe they know better than you. You have to maintain expert status or the whole relationship sinks. You keep pushing benefits, asking for the order.

When he can, a big hitter like my ex-pal Walter Osgood will pick on some unique area of the client’s psyche, some weak spot where the customer is particularly soft and vulnerable.

What was that story Beth told me about her time with Creeper?

“Max,” I say. “Your boss is dead. So is your friend Jerry. Where the hell are you going to go? Back to the circus? Maybe they’ll let you clean the cages of the lions and tigers. Those big smelly cats.”

Creeper jams the lock through both ends of the chain, his jaw muscles flexing. But he hesitates...frowning before snapping that puppy shut. Oh my God. He’s thinking about it. Creeper’s actually considering my desperate and semi-ridiculous proposal.

Time to ask for the order.

“Work for me, Max. You won’t be sorry. Let’s go to my office right now, I’ll write you that check for fifty thou. What do you say?”

Creeper stares at the still open padlock. A passenger jet heading into Liberty-Newark cruises low in the steel blue morning sky. My heart knocks against my ribs.

Click. Creeper locks me up. The chain around me seems to double in weight, an anchor pushing me against the aluminum hull of the boat.

“Max no talk good,” he says. “Cannot be stockbroker.”

I work hard to adopt a full-boat smile. I know it looks bad. I mean, he shut the padlock, converting my ass into a two hundred fifty pound, semi-verbal fishing sinker. But the truth is I swear I’ve almost got him. I know it sounds nuts, but I’m telling you. I’m close to closing him. Come on, Carr. Drive this big ugly puppy into the doghouse.

“You don’t have to be a stockbroker,” I say. “In fact, you don’t have to say a word to anybody if you don’t want to. I’ll tell my employees you’re a mute.”

Max shakes his head. “You big liar. Your own daughter say so. Also a wimp. Elizabeth tell me about your electrical sex with wife.”

Huh? How does Beth know about that? “You mean Susan’s Mobachi 3000?”

Max snorts. “Yeah.”

At least snorting is what I think his thick ugly nostrils are doing. He could be just cleaning his nose. You don’t pick up a lot of social etiquette wrestling bears.

I take a deep breath. Turn it around, Mr. Golden Tongue. Turn this wimp thing around. “That should make your decision easy,” I say. “I’m a trusting soul, Max. It’s true. I want to get along, let everybody do what they have to do. For a tough guy like you, I’ll always be an easy mark. In other words, I’m such a wimp, you can always kill me later. Anytime you feel like it. Like after you cash that fifty thousand dollar check.”

Creeper’s gaze falls to the padlock. “Is stupid idea. Max no stockbroker.”

Son-of-a-bitch, this sale is still alive. “Forget stockbrokers, Max. You say nothing to anyone, except maybe ‘Get the fuck out of my way.’ I want you to drive my car, Max, be my bodyguard. Gina and Tony’s friends might try something.”

Creeper fingers the lock. His gaze climbs to the brightening Sunday morning sky. A pastel blue now, warming the damp air.

Like a pre-1990 computer, I can hear Creeper’s square head ticking. Slowly, he twists to look at me. I sense curiosity in his gray eyes.

“What kind of car would Max drive?”

SIXTY-ONE

One Month Later...

“Are we going for Mexican again?”

Ryan’s six-word query comes across as one long whine. I know my son doesn’t like hot sauce or even overly spiced food, but I thought my budding all-star shortstop enjoyed Umberto’s relatively mild chicken chimichangas. He never said he didn’t.

“It is my Wednesday night to pick the restaurant,” I say.

Beth shakes her head. She’s glaring out the passenger window in the backseat of my Camry. “And that means Luis’s. You haven’t picked another place for us to eat on Wednesday in like, what? Three years?”

“What about that night we went to Zorro’s for a masked cheeseburger?”

Beth says, “Masked cat was more like it. And the only reason we went there was because Luis’s was closed for a few days after the fire.”

I brake the Camry at a red light on Broad Street. A mile-long white stretch limo pulls up beside us, diverting my mind from repartee’ with Beth. Why do these limos always have blackout windows? Like if we actually saw Bruce Springsteen or Harlan Coben, we might jump straight out of our cars and attack them?

Green light. I push down on the gas pedal. Thanks to the ex-wife’s change of heart, I have Beth and Ryan again on Wednesday nights, plus every other weekend. When I showed Susan’s attorney how well Shore was doing, what my new ownership percentage was, the man became very interested. When I showed him how I’d named Susan custodian of the kids’ college mutual fund accounts, well, he became almost friendly.

So did Susan, actually. Soft and gooey. She actually smiled at me tonight when I picked up the kids. Nothing like a mid-five-figure bribe.

Being the one to “capture” Creeper probably helped my cause as well. Though I discouraged the idea, primarily because the perception was inaccurate, the media continually played up the sensational angle of a father using his Gift of Gab to trick a murderer, his daughter’s kidnapper, into surrendering. In truth, I probably would have made Creeper my driver, as promised, if some shell collecting beach bum hadn’t seen Creeper with Gina’s shotgun, called 9-1-1 right away on his Nokia.

Those Keansburg cops swarmed over us like locusts fifty feet from the dock, had Creeper in handcuffs before I could explain the special conditions of his new employment.

He must have had outstanding warrants.

We hit another red light. “Tell you what, kids,” I say. “As a special treat, in celebration of this modest family reunion, I’ll take the two of you back to the Locust Tree Inn for steak and lobster. Bluefish and the Creeper won’t be there, but maybe we’ll meet some other—”

“NOOOO,” Ryan and Beth say. Their combined voices vibrate the Camry’s windows.

I was only kidding. I’m hitting Luis’s tonight for reasons other than tequila and burritos.

“You are a silly man,” Mama Bones says. “You see those two pretty girls at the end of the bar?”

“Yes.”

Luis’s Mexican Grill is filled with Bonacelli clan members tonight—all the Bonacellis and the happy, recently encouraged crew of Shore Securities. We’re having a party to celebrate Mr. Vic’s return from Tuscany, not to mention the surge in new accounts shared by all.

“Luis is in love with the girl on the right,” Mama Bones says. “One with dark hair and dark eyes. Her name is Solana.”

I give Vic’s mother the full-boat Carr grin. Don’t want Mama Bones turning me into a toad.

She lets the twinkle in her eyes spread across her whole face. Wrinkle by wrinkle. “You such a goofball, Austin. You’re lucky I’m not ten years younger.”

Ten years? Hell, twenty wouldn’t give her a shot. “I’m sure you were something, Mama Bones.”

“You better believe it.”

I nod and grin like one of those bobble head dolls. I have another question on my mind. “So, before I get back to my kids over there—”

“Where?”

I nod, pointing with my head.

“Oh, you got very beautiful children.”

“Thanks. But please, a question. Were you the woman who called me from Clooney’s that Saturday night, the person who set me up to see Franny give Gina that DVD?”

The smile on Mama Bones’ face freezes. “How you figure that out, smarty pants?”

I knew it. “Just a hunch.”

“Hunch, huh?” Mama Bones touches her chin. “Yeah, I’m the one who called. I wanted you to see that state copper with Gina. That copper playing every side of the fence.”

Mama Bones might have her villains mixed up. Blood can be thicker than truth. It was Gina who wanted to sell out Shore Securities to Brooklyn. “But why show me that DVD? What was I going to do about it?”

“What you did worked out fine, smarty pants. It’s sad about my niece, but now Vittorio keeps his business.”

I touch Mama Bone’s shoulder. She’s going to be very unhappy with me later. “I’m sorry about Gina, Mama Bones. She was a very special person.”

Mama Bones lowers her gaze. Wonder if she’s up for a mob promotion now that Bluefish is dead?

“I’m going back to my table,” she says. “My Vittorio will be here soon. I know he is anxious to see you. But when you come over to my table later, I want you to meet my sister’s girl Nicky.”

“Right.”

“She gotta a great figure.”

SIXTY-TWO

When Beth, Ryan and I finish eating, we walk three blocks to Carvel’s for ice cream. Though it’s fun to show and share with my children things I liked as a kid, my job as parent isn’t only to be protector and pal. Once every visit—six times a month—I exercise them like boarding horses and rein the discussion down trails my children might not like to travel.

“So you two are studying hard in school, right?”

They both nod, Beth with somewhat less enthusiasm. I used to slip in questions like this when I thought they least expected interrogation, another technique I learned watching television cop shows. But ambush with teenagers is hard these days. Too many video games with terrifying monsters.

“The grades are still good, right?” I ask. “Both of you?”

“I got all A’s and B’s for the year,” Ryan says.

Silence from my daughter. Uh oh.

“Beth?” I scrunch my eyebrows when she glances at me. Never underestimate disapproval as a training tool.

“Maybe I got a C or two this time,” she says.

My ex-wife will have a hissy fit. Beth has been all A’s and B’s since kindergarten.

I lick my double-fudge chocolate on a sugar cone. “School is extremely important,” I say. “Life is about choices. Good grades and more schooling gives you extra choices. Bad grades, no college, your career options are pretty much restaurants and hospitals. Waiting tables or changing bedpans is what our current, aging population most craves. The Baby Boomers are eating their way into early bad health.”

Ryan stares straight ahead. I may have gone too far with my explanations.

“We know the speech, Daddy,” Beth says. “We need a college education to earn The Big Money.”

After I drop Beth and Ryan at Susan’s new house, a four-bedroom ranch two blocks from the beach, I head back to Luis’s.

I’m at the bar, being introduced to Luis’s girlfriend, Solana, when Mr. Vic parades inside the restaurant like he’s the first astronaut coming home from the moon. Talk about your favorite son. Takes him fifteen minutes just to hug and kiss his five sisters, Mr. Vic being passed from table to table like a bottle of ketchup. Shaking hands, slapping shoulders, laughing with the men between lip smacking the women.

With the Bonacellis, one virus today gets you twenty colds tomorrow.

An hour later, we’re finally alone. Mr. Vic says, “So business is good despite the bad publicity?”

“Oh, yeah,” I say.

We’re drinking margaritas at the corner table beneath Luis’s wall-mounted television. The Yankees and Red Sox are playing a pre-season game in Boston. The whole U-shaped bar—a baseball bleacher section in disguise—cheers the TV, a buffer between us and the Bonacelli-Shore revelers. Much to the baseball fans’ chagrin, Luis let Mama Bones turn up the house music for dancing. The combined roar is deafening.

Mr. Vic’s coming at me slow, but he’s obviously heard what I’ve been up to. If I know Vic, he’s getting ready to jump me. Go ahead, pal. I’m ready.

“Business is real good,” I say. “Like the publicity was good for us, not bad. We lost five accounts the first day, but that was pretty much the end of it. We’ve opened one hundred fifty new accounts since.”

Mr. Vic nods unconvinced. Here it is. His eyebrows pinch. Oh, yeah. Here it comes.

“I hear Rags is trying to sell you his seventeen percent interest in Shore,” Mr. Vic says. “You know those shares are supposed to be Carmela’s. What do you think you’re doing?”

“Not trying to sell, Vic. Sold,” I say. “Escrow closed today.”

The frown deepens, like he wants to punch me. “What?”

I stand up. “Come out back with me, Vic. I have something to show you.”

Mr. Vic stares and hisses. “Carmela’s supposed to get those shares in the divorce agreement.”

I show Mr. Vic my most delicious, full-boat Carr grin. “What divorce? Carmela’s decided she’s still in love with crazy Rags. She’s down in the Caribbean with him right now, sobering him up at Eric Clapton’s gold-plated rehab. Glad my money’s going to such a good cause.”

“You’re not getting away with this,” he says.

I turn and hit the TV’s off switch, then reach up over the bar and cut the dance music, too. The sudden absence of loud noise makes everyone in the restaurant stare my way. Or maybe it’s the fact that I am now standing on Luis’s bar.

“Everybody come outside,” I say. “I have a special surprise for Vic and all you Bonacellis.”

Lots of murmuring, but nobody wants to comment on what’s tied down on the flatbed of the giant white truck I had parked in Luis’s lot.

“Is this a freaking joke?” Vic says finally.

“No,” I say. “In addition to Rags’ shares, I also closed today on Walter’s seventeen percent interest in Shore.”

Mr. Vic’s face turns white as fresh snow. “What? You bought Walter’s stock, too?”

“Yes, sir. As of noon today, I own fifty-one percent of Shore. You work for me now.”

Dazed, Mr. Vic glances again at the white truck’s heavy load, a giant rectangular sign. The bright, red-lettered plastic will tomorrow take its place above Branchtown’s busiest street. I think it might take Vic and his mother a long time to get used to Shore’s new moniker.

Our new sign reads Carr Securities, Inc.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Lawrence C. Sylvia, M.D. (Deceased), Chairman of the Department of Pathology, Monmouth Medical Center, Long Branch, N.J. for helping me create this fictional story's autopsy summary. Any inaccuracies are mine, not Dr. Sylvia's.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Former Los Angeles Times reporter Jack Getze is Fiction Editor for Anthony nominated Spinetingler Magazine. Through the Los Angeles Times/Washington Post News Syndicate, his news and feature stories have been published in over five-hundred newspapers and periodicals worldwide. His screwball mysteries, BIG NUMBERS and BIG MONEY, were first published by Hilliard Harris in 2007 and 2008. His short stories have appeared in A Twist of Noir and Beat to a Pulp. He is an Active Member of Mystery Writers of America’s New York Chapter.

http://austincarrscrimediary.blogspot.com/

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Other Books by Down and Out Books

See www.DownAndOutBooks.com for complete list

By J.L. Abramo

Catching Water in a Net

Clutching at Straws

Counting to Infinity

Gravesend

Chasing Charlie Chan

Circling the Runway (*)

By Trey R. Barker

2,000 Miles to Open Road

Road Gig: A Novella

Exit Blood

By Richard Barre

The Innocents

Bearing Secrets

Christmas Stories

The Ghosts of Morning

Blackheart Highway

Burning Moon

Echo Bay

Lost (*)

By Milton T. Burton

Texas Noir

By Reed Farrel Coleman

The Brooklyn Rules

By Tom Crowley

Viper’s Tail

Murder in the Slaughterhouse (*)

By Frank De Blase

Pine Box for a Pin-Up

Busted Valentines and Other Dark Delights (*)

By A.C. Frieden

Tranquility Denied

The Serpent’s Game

By Jack Getze

Big Numbers

Big Money

Big Mojo (*)

By Keith Gilman

Bad Habits

By Don Herron

Willeford (*)

By Terry Holland

An Ice Cold Paradise

Chicago Shiver

By Darrel James, Linda O. Johsonton & Tammy Kaehler (editors)

Last Exit to Murder

By David Housewright & Renee Valois

The Devil and the Diva

By David Housewright

Finders Keepers

By Jon Jordan

Interrogations

By Jon & Ruth Jordan (editors)

Murder and Mayhem in Muskego

By Bill Moody

Czechmate: The Spy Who Played Jazz

The Man in Red Square

Solo Hand (*)

The Death of a Tenor Man (*)

The Sound of the Trumpet (*)

Bird Lives! (*)

By Gary Phillips

The Perpetrators

Scoundrels: Tales of Greed, Murder and Financial Crimes (editor)

Treacherous: Griffters, Ruffians and Killers (*)

By Gary Phillips, Tony Chavira, Manoel Magalhaes

Beat L.A. (Graphic Novel)

By Robert J. Randisi

Upon My Soul

By Lono Waiwaiole

Wiley's Lament

Wiley's Shuffle

Wiley's Refrain

Dark Paradise

(*) Coming soon

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Here’s a sample from Robert J. Randisi’s Upon My Soul.

PROLOGUE

The day Sangster woke and discovered he had a soul after all, everything changed.

But along with the soul came a conscience, something else he had never experienced in his thirty-seven years. He was not awake five minutes when he began to weep. He wept not only for the people he’d killed over the years, but for their families, who had been deprived of their loved ones. He wept uncontrollably, and it was a day of firsts, for he had never cried before, not even as a child.

Sangster was a new man, but the question became...was he a better man?

He left his apartment that day and never returned. In fact, no one in California ever saw him again, and for many years he was presumed dead. Those who knew him figured that his line of work had finally caught up with him.

It seemed logical to assume that a man who was an assassin for hire would fall prey to an assassin, himself.

But that was not the case...

ONE

Three years later...

Sangster looked up from the chessboard at the man who had appeared at the end of his front walk. In the almost three years he had been renting this house on Algiers Point—one of the neighborhoods left dry by Hurricane Katrina located across Lake Ponchatrain from the French Quarter—the only person who had ever come up that walk was his neighbor, with whom he played chess at least three times a week.

“Know ’im?” Ken Burke asked.

Sangster glanced across the table at the older man, who had not looked up from the board.

“Yeah,” he said, “I know him.”

The man advanced up the walk carefully, as if he expected somebody to take a shot at him at any moment. He probably would have felt better if he knew Sangster hadn’t touched a gun in three years.

When he reached the porch he stopped and stared at Sangster before he spoke.

“Hello, Sangster.”

“Primble.”

Burke looked up at that, eyed Sangster, who could only shrug his shoulders.

“What do you want?”

“A lot of people think you’re dead,” Primble said.

“That was kind of the idea, Eddie.”

“It worked pretty well,” Eddie Primble said, “until now.”

“Well, you didn’t find me,” Sangster said. “I know that much. Who was it?”

“Top secret,” Primble said. “Is there someplace we can talk?”

“You don’t want to talk in front of my friend?”

Primble looked at Ken Burke, who continued to eye the board intently.

“You have a friend?” he asked. “Things have changed quite a bit in three years.”

Sangster looked at Primble.

“Yes, “he said, “they have.” He looked at Burke. Primble had aged badly in three years. Sangster knew Primble must have been forty, but much of his hair had receded and he’d put on weight. He looked fifty—healthy enough, but fifty. The cut of his suit also bespoke of some progress financially. He was sweating. It was February, but that didn’t mean much in New Orleans. It was still nearly ninety degrees.

“I have to talk to this man,” he said to his chess opponent.

“Go ahead and talk,” Burke said. “I’m concentratin’.”

Sangster looked at Primble.

“He won’t listen, he’s concentrating.”

“I intend to talk very plainly,” Primble warned.

“Talk as plainly as you want,” Sangster said. “I have no secrets from Burke.”

“Your friend,” Primble reiterated.

“And neighbor,” Sangster said. “He lives in the house next door.”

“How much does the old timer know?”

“Everything.”

“Everything?” Burke asked. He ignored the “old timer” remark. After all, he was seventy. If that didn’t qualify as an old timer, what did? “If I knew everything, this game would’ve been over a long time ago.” Sangster knew—Primble did not—that Burke was not only talking about chess.

“Eddie,” Sangster said, “you found me—or somebody found me for you. What do you want?”

“I need you,” Primble said, “to...to do what you used to do.”

“He wants you to kill somebody,” Burke said, eyeing the board, chin in hand.

“That’s what I used to do,” Sangster said. He looked at Primble. “I don’t do that anymore.”

“You don’t—come on, Sangster,” Primble said. “What else does a man like you do?”

“I’m retired.”

“Retired?”

“I don’t kill anymore,” he said. “I haven’t killed anyone in three years. I don’t even own a gun, and I haven’t held one in all that time.”

“You expect me to believe that?” Primble asked.

“I don’t care what you believe, Eddie,” Sangster told him. “It’s the truth.”

Primble thought a moment, put one foot up on the first step. It was warm, and he was sweating. He loosened his tie, undid the top button of his shirt.

“All right,” he said. “For the moment let’s assume that you haven’t killed anyone in three years.” He adopted a look of complete puzzlement. “Why not?”

“That’s not important,” the ex-assassin said. “All you need to know is that I don’t do it anymore. You need to find someone else.”

“Do you know how long it took me to find you?” Primble demanded.

“Let me guess,” Sangster said. “Three years?”

“I’m not just gonna take no for an answer, Sangster,” Primble said. “That’s not what I do, remember?”

“I remember very well.”

“In fact,” the man went on, “when you walked out you left behind an unfinished assignment. I had to have someone else do your job for you.”

“Luckily,” Sangster replied, “you hadn’t paid me in advance.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I know,” Sangster said. “I’ve been trying to get you to see the point, Eddie.”

“Sangster,” Primble said, “you were the best I ever ran.”

“I’m out of the business, Eddie.”

“You can’t get out of this business, Sangster,” Primble said. “Why don’t we just call the last three years a vacation?”

Sangster looked at the chess board. The old man hadn’t made a move yet. He had his chin in his left hand, and his right hand was down out of sight.

“Eddie—”

“You don’t think I came alone, do you?” Primble asked.

“I don’t really care if you came alone or not, Eddie,” Sangster said. “You’re leaving, either way.”

“There are two guns trained on you right now. If I nod, you’re dead, and your chess buddy, too.”

It got quiet, and suddenly they all heard the sound of the hammer being cocked on a gun.

“I thought you said you didn’t own a gun,” Primble said.

“He don’t,” Ken Burke said. “I do.”

Burke brought his right hand into sight. He was holding a big .45 Peacemaker, the kind they used to carry in the old west.

“You so much as twitch, let alone nod, and it’ll be the last thing you ever do,” Burke told Primble.

“Easy, old timer,” Primble said. “That thing’s pretty old. It might explode in your hand.”

“I guess you don’t really know much about guns, do ya, Mister?” Burke asked. “That probably comes from havin’ other people do your killin’ for ya. This here’s a collector’s item, and I keep it in pristine shape. It’s the pride of my collection, and believe me when I tell you it’s in fine workin’ order.”

That was the most Sangster thought he’d heard the older man say at one time in the almost three years he’d known him.

Primble was sweating even more, but it wasn’t from the heat.

“Is he serious?” he asked.

“Dead serious,” Sangster said. “Show him, Burke.”

With his left hand Burke took his wallet from his pocket and flipped it open to show Primble his badge.

“You’re a cop?”

“Sheriff,” Burke said. “Retired, but I keep my hand in.”

“Sangster,” Primble said, “I just wanted to talk.”

“Then you should have left the threats at home,” Sangster said. “Come on.” He stood up, as did Burke.

“Where we going?” Primble asked.

“You signal your boys to put up their guns,” Sangster said. “We’re going to walk you to the ferry, so nobody decides to take a shot at me.”

“Look, I—”

“We’re done talking, Eddie.”

“I need you, Sangster!”

“You heard the man,” Burke said. “Now give whatever signal you arranged so your men know to put up their guns.”

Primble frowned, and for a moment looked like a man about to cry. Finally, he turned his body partially and waved his hand in disgust.

“They’re leaving,” he said.

“Good,” Sangster said, “they’ll be on the same ferry you’re on. Let’s go.”

“I don’t know why—” Burke prodded Primble in the back with the barrel of the Peacemaker and the man almost jumped out of his skin. They made the walk to the Algiers ferry in silence.

Sangster watched the ferry start across the lake back to New Orleans.

“You sure his men were on there, too?” Burke asked.

“I’m sure,” Sangster said.

Sangster looked at the Peacemaker is his friend’s hand.

“I’m glad you brought that over here today to show me.”

“Yeah,” Burke said, with a grin. He took it off cock and lowered it to his side.

“Would it really have fired?”

“To tell you the truth,” Burke said, “I don’t know.” He waited a beat, then added, “Maybe if it’d been loaded.

TWO

On the ferry, Silk Guiliano and Jimmy O’Malley walked over to where Eddie Primble was sitting.

“What the hell happened?” Silk asked.

“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “He run us off?”

“He did,” Primble said. “He’s still as good as ever. Wants me to believe he hasn’t pulled the trigger—hell, even held a gun—in three years, but...” Primble shook his head in admiration. “He had that old man hold the gun. It was...brilliant.”

Silk looked at Jimmy.

“He ran us off, and Eddie’s impressed.”

“I ain’t so impressed,” Jimmy replied. He looked at Primble. “Is the bet still on?”

“It’s still on,” Primble said. “I fingered him for you, didn’t I? You both get a good look at him?”

“I did,” Silk said. He was in his early thirties, dressed completely in black. He had christened himself “Silk” years ago, liking the name and all its connotations. “Smooth as silk,” that’s what he told women, and he also considered himself to be smooth as silk with a gun.

O’Malley, on the other hand, was just the opposite. Late twenties, he was rough, crude, but effective when it came to killing.

One of these men wanted to take the place of Sangster in Eddie Primble’s operation, but Primble wouldn’t pick one until he knew that Sangster was dead and not coming back. So a wager had been put in place, between Silk and Jimmy. Whichever man managed to kill Sangster would get his spot. The other man would be relegated to second banana, and neither man wanted that.

“So,” Primble said, “you both know him on sight, the rest is up to you.”

Silk and Jimmy exchanged a look, then Silk asked, “Are you sure you didn’t talk him into coming back?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “Maybe you told him about us?”

“He says he’s done with it,” Primble said. “If he’s truly finished, I can’t have him running around out here alive, not with what he knows. No, he didn’t agree to come back. He’s your target, boys, and there’s a lot at stake.”

“He didn’t look so tough,” O’Malley said.

“Don’t underestimate him,” Primble said. “That’s the only advice I’m going to give you both.”

“I’m not going to underestimate him,” Silk said. “What’s the point of killing him if he’s not the best?”

“Oh, he was the best all right,” Primble said. “The best I ever saw. Probably still is.”

“We’ll see about that,” Silk said, looking back at Algiers.

For want of something else to say, Jimmy O’Malley said, “Yeah.”

THREE

It had taken Sangster a year to get to know Ken Burke well enough to tell him the truth. As a retired lawman, Burke didn’t approve of the way Sangster had made his living, but as a man who had done his own share of killing—all in the line of duty, of course—he understood a man finding redemption. As a Christian, he forgave Sangster, and their friendship grew stronger after that.

They didn’t finish their chess game after walking Primble to the ferry. Sangster told the old man he had some thinking to do.

“About leavin’?”

“Maybe.”

“That’d be a shame.”

“I know,” Sangster said. He loved the house in Algiers. He also loved the French Quarter and everything it had to offer, from its great bookstores to its countless musical venues, its food and its women. Especially its women.

“Then don’t let that feller ruin it.”

“There’s only one way I could be sure he won’t, Burke.”

“By killin’ him?”

Sangster nodded.

“And I’m not going to do that.”

“Got to be another way, then.”

“That’s what I’m going to think about.”

“Well, gimme a shout if you need me,” Burke said. “I got guns that I know will shoot.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks, Ken.”

After his neighbor left, Sangster walked to one of the front windows and stared out. He had known someone would find him sooner or later, but he’d hoped it wouldn’t be his old boss, Primble. Now he was either going to have to deal with the man, take care of him or move on and make a new life somewhere else. The only problem with the third one was he knew Primble wouldn’t stop looking. He had too much invested in Sangster just to let him go, and if he could find him—or have him found—once, he could do it again.

The problem with the second option was that he didn’t kill anymore.

So the only option left to him was number one, deal with him.

From his vantage point, he could see his mailbox, one of those big metal ones mounted on a pole and fitted with a red flag. When the flag was up, something was in the box. The flag had not been up in the three years he'd been living there, because nobody knew where he was to send him mail. He didn’t even get junk mail because he’d instructed the post office never to deliver it.

Then why was the flag up now?

He went out the front door and down the walk to the mailbox. He saw that the door was slightly ajar. He hadn’t thought about things like booby traps and trip wires for over two years.

That first year he’d kept expecting to find death around every corner, but eventually he was able to relax and start living a normal life—not “again,” because he couldn’t remember when he’d actually lived a normal life. Certainly not growing up. How normal could it have been to constantly be trying to avoid parents in his own house? And certainly not since he killed his first man at fifteen. So surely it had only been the past two years that he could call his life normal, by conventional standards.

Now, as he stared at the mailbox, he had to summon back some of those old instincts. He examined the pole and the box on the outside, then used his fingers to search for wires of any kind. Finally, after pressing his ear to the box and listening intently, he eased the door open and looked inside. There was one single brown letter sized envelope inside. He studied the interior of the box for several seconds before reaching in to remove it. Now that he was holding it he had to be concerned that it might be a letter bomb. How could he have existed all those years having to deal with this kind of fear every moment?

He ran his finger over the envelope carefully before slipping his thumb under the flap and unsealing it. It came open rather easily, indicating it hadn’t been sealed very long ago. Inside was a single piece of white paper with two handwritten lines on it:

I’m at the Lafitte House

if you want to talk.

It was signed: E.P.

He folded the note and put it back in the envelope. As he turned to go back to the house, he swiped at the red flag to put it back down. As it came down it made a connection with a wire and a puff of smoke leaped into the air. Sangster took one step away from the box and watched the smoke rise and dissipate. Primble’s sense of humor. He just wanted to show Sangster that he could be dead at that moment.

Instead of going back to his house he walked across to Burke’s.

FOUR

“What are you going to do?” Burke asked.

“I’ll have to handle it, somehow,” Sangster said.

“You think he’s here to kill you?”

“I think he was here to get me back,” Sangster said. “Failing that, he’ll have me killed.”

“Not kill you himself?”

“No,” Sangster said, “Primble doesn’t kill. He has others do that for him.”

“Like you?”

“Yes,” Sangster said, “like me...at one time.”

They were seated in Burke’s kitchen, each with a Blackened Voodoo beer bottle in front of them. It was early, but they both thought the occasion called for it.

“He said he had guns with him,” Burke said.

“I believe him.”

“How many do you suppose?”

“At least two.”

“And you plan on takin’ them out?”

“Not if I can help it.”

Burke leaned back and regarded his friend across the table.

“You said you don’t kill for a livin’ anymore.”

“That’s right.”

“How about to survive?” Burke asked. “Could you kill then?”

Sangster stared at his beer bottle.

“I don’t know, Burke,” he said. “Are you a religious man?”

“No,” Burke said, “not in any way you’d understand.”

“Do you believe men have souls?” Sangster asked. “Souls that tell them what’s right and what’s wrong? Souls that make them feel compassion?”

“You’re confusing a soul with a conscience, son,” Burke said. “I know you told me you woke up three years ago and discovered you had both, but maybe it was just one.”

“Which one?”

“That’s for you to figure out. If you decide it’s a soul, then you might not want to put any black marks on it. But if you decide it’s a conscience—well, you can kill and still have a conscience.”

“Am I kidding myself, Burke?” Sangster asked. “A hitman is all I’ve ever been. Can I be a hitman who won’t kill?”

“A hitman is what you used to be, son,” Burke said. “Just like a cop is what I used to be.”

“You’re still a cop, you old coot,” Sangster said. “You’ve told me that a hundred times.”

“Have I?” Burke asked. “Then who is the one kiddin’ themselves?”

FIVE

Bourbon Street at midnight was a world unto itself.

The club doors were wide open, scantily-clad girls stood in windows and doorways, enticing men to come inside. One girl was riding on a swing, in and out of the window of a gentlemen’s club. There were frozen Margarita bars on almost every corner, and almost every storefront—T-shirt shop, club, restaurant—and alcove had an ATM machine.

Sangster loved Bourbon Street, but tonight he could hear the music and voices floating on the air the two blocks to Chartres Street, where he was entering a small club just off of Jackson Square. He wore a pair of black cotton trousers, black T-shirt and a charcoal grey sport coat.

Sangster only came to the French Quarter a few times each month, sometimes during the day to prowl the used bookstores, other times late at night like this to hear the music. He had discovered the small Club Celestine—a distinctly Creole name—only a few months earlier, and this was his third time there.

Sangster was not a seafood lover, so he usually ordered either jambalaya or etouffe, both with chicken. Crawfish was something he had never even considered tasting and had never understood people’s obsession with shrimp or crab legs.

He placed his order for jambalaya this time and an ice cold bottle of Abita, and settled back to enjoy the music which, tonight, was a Zydeco band.

“You came back,” a woman’s voice said.

He turned his head and looked up at her. She was tall, dark-haired and slender, probably thirty-three or thirty-four. Her green dress left her shoulders bare and the hem hit just above her knees. Certainly not risqué, but there was enough bare skin to be interesting. She had a long upper lip that kept her from being beautiful, but he doubted she ever got any complaints. The overall effect was extremely attractive.

She had spoken to him the last time he was there and, rather than be rude, he had bought her a drink. But he’d left the club alone that night, with the vague feeling she’d been disappointed. It wasn’t that he didn’t find her appealing—he certainly did—but years of killing people had left him ill-equipped to deal with the living, especially women. He could seduce a woman if his intent was to kill her or to use her to get to someone else, but in the real world he was rather inept at the dance that men and women took part in.

“I was sitting over there alone when I saw you come in,” she said. “May I join you?”

“I, uh, already ordered,” he said.

“So have I,” she said, “but they can bring my plate over here. May I?”

He didn’t know how to refuse, so he finally just said, “Sure.”

“I’ll get my drink.”

As she hurried back to her table to pick up what looked like a martini, he thought back to how his day had started with Primble appearing on his doorstep. Having turned his ex-employer away he probably should have remained on Algiers for the evening, but he had already planned this trip into the Quarter and didn’t want to let the man be the cause of his changing his plans. Besides, he didn’t think Primble’s men would come after him—at least not so soon. His former “handler” would at least want to wait a few days to see if Sangster would call him. (Primble called himself a “Handler.” Sangster had always thought of him as more of a “Manager” or “Agent.”)

The woman returned with her drink and sat down. Sangster stared across the table at her, trying to dredge up her name, which he was sure she had told him last time.

“You don’t remember my name do you?” she asked.

Sangster had an excellent memory. It had served him well for years, freeing him from having to write anything down, like names, addresses or instructions.

“Of course I do.”

“Well,” she said, “I won’t make a liar out of you by asking you to tell me what it is. Your name, on the other hand—well, you never told me your name last time, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

She raised her eyebrows, as if to say, “What about this time?”

“Stark,” he told her, because he had never killed anyone while using that name and it was on the driver’s license in his pocket. “Richard Stark.”

“Stark?”

“Is there something wrong with that name?”

“No, no,” she said, “it’s a good name, strong, masculine, but not too testosterone fueled. I like it.”

“I’m glad.”

When the waiter came over, the woman said, “Could you bring my order over here, please? The gentleman was nice enough to ask me to join him.”

“Yes, Miss.”

When he walked away she looked up at the small stage, where the group was beginning to assemble.

“Do you like Zydeco?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, “quite a bit.”

“So do I.”

“Quite a coincidence that we’re here again on the same night.”

She sipped her drink and eyed him over the rim of the glass. “It’s not really such a coincidence.”

“No?” He wondered if she was going to tell him something he didn’t want to know.

She shook her head. “Uh-uh. I come here almost every night.”

“I see.”

“So any time you come here, you’ll probably see me.”

“There are bigger and better clubs in the Quarter,” he said. “Restaurants that serve better food. Why this one?”

“I happen to own a small piece of this one.”

“Oh.”

“So tell me, what are the better clubs with better food?”

“I put my foot in my mouth. Sorry.”

“That’s all right,” she said, with a smile. “After all, you’re here. You must like the music and the food.”

“I do,” Sangster said, “but mostly I like the size.”

“Yes,” she said, “it is...manageable.”

That was a good word for it, Sangster thought. The club was manageable. He was able to enjoy his food, the music and see everyone in the room. The other larger, more crowded clubs and restaurants offered too much possibility of danger.

The waiter reappeared carrying their plates, and they leaned back to allow him to set them down. He noticed that the lady had ordered shrimp creole. He could smell the spices across the table. But his own jambalaya looked more appetizing to him.

The group began to play, making conversation impossible, so they ate and enjoyed the music together.

SIX

Sangster found himself laughing.

He hadn’t laughed in a very long time. They finished their dinner, had some dessert, more drinks, more music, and he was laughing.

Her name was Lily. He remembered while they were eating. He saved it, though. Wouldn’t say it until later, when she was convinced he had forgotten. It was then Sangster realized he was not only laughing, he was being playful.

He thought it was very unlike him, but then decided it was just unlike the man he used to be. He didn’t know if it was unlike Sangster, because he still wasn’t sure what Sangster was like.

They were finishing up their desserts when the group took a break.

“Do you want to meet them?” she asked.

“Why?”

“Because as part owner I can have them come to the table.”

“No,” he said, “that’s okay.”

“Why not?”

“I enjoy the music,” he said. “I don’t enjoy making small talk.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” she asked. “Making small talk?”

“I don’t know what we’re doing,” he admitted.

She studied him for a moment, then said, “You don’t, do you?”

He shrugged.

“You’re a rare man, you know?”

“How so?”

“Well, for one thing, you don’t seem to have an ego.”

“And for another?”

“You seem to be fairly honest,” she said. “Unless this shy boy thing of yours is an act?”

“‘Shy boy?’”

“Don’t be ashamed,” she said. “I’m finding it...refreshing. And genuine. If you turn out to be a player I’m going to be very disappointed.”

“A ‘player.’” These were terms that had never before been used to describe him. He had been a player in his own business for many years, but not in the way she meant.

“I get the feeling you’re a man out of time,” Lily said. “Like...you were just thawed out yesterday. Were you?”

“Was I what?”

“Thawed out?”

He took a sip of his coffee and said, “Not yesterday.”

Sangster stayed for another set, some more coffee rather than another beer. Lily did the same, eschewing another martini for coffee.

When the band broke for the night to a smattering of appreciative applause from those who had remained for the final set, Sangster said, “I have to go.”

“Really?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, “I have to get back.”

“Wife?”

“No.”

“Roommate?”

“No wife,” he said, “no roommate.”

“Then what’s the hurry?”

“I came for the music,” he said. “The music is done.”

“Stay for another reason,” she said, looking him directly in the eye. “I live upstairs.”

He stared across the table at her. In truth, she had become more and more appealing as the night went on, especially that overly long upper lip.

But he couldn’t stay. He’d been avoiding personal conflict for three years. Getting involved with a woman was inviting conflict. He had let his guard down with Burke, but that had worked out. What were the chances it would happen again?

“Okay, then,” she said, sitting back. “We don’t close for another hour or so. Let me know if you change your mind.”

“I’ll get the check—” he said, raising his arm for the waiter.

“Forget it,” she said. “On me.”

“Why would you do that?”

She grinned and said, “I’m a sucker for men who play hard to get.”

He stood up and said, “I’m not playing.”

“Yeah,” she said, “I know.”

“Good-night, Lily.” It was the first time he let her know he remembered her name.

He walked to the front door, stopped and looked through the glass. His eyes scanned the street, the shadows across the way, the shapes in them.

He turned and walked back to Lily’s table.

“I changed my mind.”

Back to TOC

Here’s a sample from A.C Frieden’s The Serpent’s Game.

1

New Orleans, Louisiana—August 2005

Silence is a lethal tune—Satan’s anthem for those souls so bruised by this ruthless world that its stealthy carriage of melancholy and anger sends the mind into near-paralysis. Jonathan Brooks understood this too well. To him, silence was a ruse, oversold as peace. Hyped as longed-for solace. This morbid tune brought only maddening echoes of failed love, his soul bled dry by Linda’s caustic slurs lobbed from afar.

Silence. Dreadful silence.

If he’d turn on the radio it would quell its assault. He’d survive a little longer. He gazed at the worn surface of his oak desk, one palm down on it, the other still gripping the phone’s handset that he’d just slammed down to hang up. Linda’s venomous tirade still festered unpleasantly. Her voice had stirred up only anger and despair.

“I’m not answering again,” Jonathan whispered alone, the scorching heat in his office now even more stifling than earlier. “I won’t,” he again told himself.

But he would. She’d call again. Pumped-up on God knows what meds, she’d dialed his office twice already that morning, for no good reason—just to open old wounds and salt them with her spitefulness. And he’d hang up on her again.

Then his cell phone rang. He’d had it. Jonathan pressed Ignore, scrolled through the contacts list, opened his ex-wife’s profile, went to her first name and changed it to “Bitch,” then to her last name: “DontAnswer.” He didn’t have the stomach for more fights. Not today, at least, and this day had barely begun.

The noiselessness. The corrosive stillness.

Jonathan stood up and walked out his office to extinguish this dead air with the cacophony of the secretarial cubicle just outside, where Amber would surely have her radio turned on, or be typing loudly on her keyboard, or talking on the phone. Or his law partner Dino might be there, babbling useless drivel into Amber’s ear while undressing her with his eyes, his amplified masculinity tiptoeing the fledgling firm ever closer to a sexual harassment lawsuit. Noise. The comfort of chatter and random sounds. Even that annoying thud of drops from a leaky ceiling hitting the bucket next to Amber’s chair. Any noise would suffice.

Amber looked up at him nonchalantly, a bag of dried banana strips in her hand. She did it so well: pretending not to notice that Jonathan had just ended another yelling match with his ex. It felt odd, as she never muffled her opinions when it came to clients or the other lawyers.

Jonathan, still hearing Linda’s voice bounce around his skull, looked up at the ceiling above her.

“When are they fixing this?”

“Today, supposedly,” Amber replied with a long sigh, brushing back her wavy auburn hair over her bony shoulders.

“If they don’t, we’ll find someone else who will.”

“Well, if the building weren’t a hundred years old.”

“I know, I know.” And he did. She’d reminded him enough. This squalor was the only space he and Dino had agreed on, and that’s with Dino’s insistence that they’d sublet the crappiest of the three offices to yet another lawyer, one who hardly ever showed his face, preferring instead to spend most days hunting for clients at funeral homes and hospitals. Jonathan had accepted the conditions ever since they’d haphazardly joined forces a long four years ago. Because good-paying clients give you choices. Because they were harder to come by these days. Because billable work is what ultimately pays the rent. He stared down the hall at Dino’s closed door.

“Soon,” Amber said quietly. “Very soon.”

“Yes, I’m counting the months,” he uttered, again eyeing her, “and I’m taking you away from this, too.”

She returned a tepid smile. She hadn’t yet said yes. Perhaps she understood Jonathan’s difficult decision. Two months earlier, he’d given Dino notice that he would be out by mid-spring. Out of the partnership that had only fomented frustration. Out on his own, and with whatever clients he’d manage to take. How Jonathan would afford Amber was still a huge question mark, but he’d promised himself to find a way, somehow.

Amber again gazed up at the ceiling. “If Katrina hits us, that leak could get a whole lot worse,” she said, her gaze turning snooty. “My computer isn’t waterproof, you know.”

Jonathan sighed. “We’ll get it done.”

Amber sometimes acted like a princess. She certainly dressed like one; she walked like one; but it annoyed him when she spoke like one—though her resume gave no hint of anything more than a modest upbringing in Baton Rouge and a few stints as a receptionist at law firms no bigger than Jonathan’s. But she was also damn good at what she did, and with the meager salary they’d settled on, she surprised everyone to become the firm’s miracle worker.

“Oh, I forgot,” Amber said, jumping to her feet and stretching her lean build, veiled by an orange sundress, over the edge of the cubicle. “This came in for you a little while ago.” It was a small, gift-wrapped package decorated with a lavender ribbon. “I bet it’s chocolate,” she added, barely disguising her smirk as she shook the box near her ear. “Can’t possibly be from a client.”

“Probably not a client,” Jonathan surmised. He didn’t have many left. His largest client—a subsidiary of a national shipbuilder—had moved offices to Norfolk in June and hired East Coast admiralty lawyers for their future legal needs. And his next largest had given him only a trickle of litigation work over the last year. And none of the remaining clients—all much smaller—would be so kind as to send him anything more than an occasional past due payment. He took the gift and turned toward his office.

“It’s gonna melt in that oven of yours.”

Jonathan’s office hadn’t had a working A/C in two weeks. He’d thought of taking the window unit near Amber’s cube, or even Dino’s. But that would mean war. He half-smiled, chuckled and shut the door.

He plopped down into his creaky chair and lobbed his feet up on the credenza. The ribbon came off easily, as did the neatly wrapped ivory paper. She was right. A box of candy, black, with a label that read “Golden Globes” in both English and what he assumed was Russian. Though he had never mastered Cyrillic, he still remembered enough to mumble the syllables.

“Zolo...Zolotye Kupola,” he whispered, deciphering the characters printed above an image of ornate domes of an orthodox church that covered the front packaging.

A chill suddenly crawled through his veins. Who would send him anything Russian? It had been nine years since his painful experience took him to that country. A client’s banal trial over a collision at sea had mushroomed into a perilous race to save his brother’s life, as well as his own. Now, this box of chocolates scared the bejesus out of him.

His hands began to perspire. Jonathan got back up, tossing the box onto his desk. He paused at the window and gazed out the grimy glass onto a quiet, sun-drenched Julia Street. It can’t be.

A flood of disturbing memories suddenly ransacked his thoughts: his brother lying in a hospital bed gasping for air in a run-down clinic in central Russia; his hand clenching his brother’s until his last glance; his final hard breath. But it wasn’t just what had happened there; it was everything else in his life that had collapsed since then, and as a consequence. He turned and gazed at the box, motionless, tempted to open it but fearing what more it would resurrect.

The eerie silence had returned, this time dragging with it more unbearable wounds from the past. He vented a long sigh as he flipped open the lid. A handwritten note slightly larger than a drink coaster rested on top of four rows of individual candies wrapped in gold-colored foil. He returned to the window with the note in hand and unfolded it slowly.

I need to see you. Urgent.

It was signed simply “M”. His heart began to pound hard at his chest. There was no phone number, no email address, nothing else—only a faint watermark at the center resembling a logo or coat of arms of sorts. The note’s brevity surprised him, but the sender didn’t. It was her, Mariya, just as he’d feared. That Russian hellion who’d murdered a man in cold blood right in front of him. A psychopath extraordinaire who’d both helped and tormented Jonathan nine years ago.

Jonathan rushed back to Amber. “Let me see the original package.”

His question triggered only her raised brow.

“The package!”

Amber shrugged. “It wasn’t mailed.”

Jonathan caught his breath. “But it’s from...Russia.”

“Russia?” she asked with an embellished frown. “What are you talking about? I told you, it wasn’t mailed. Some kid dropped it off.”

Jonathan opened Mariya’s note once more and gazed at the watermark. “Shit...” It suddenly hit him. “The Monteleon,” he mumbled, recognizing the coat of arms of the landmark hotel in the French Quarter. “Isn’t it?” He held the note a few inches from Amber’s face.

She turned to her computer and typed a search for the hotel’s website. An instant later, the screen confirmed his suspicion.

“Dammit, she’s here,” he said, gripping the walls of her cubicle till his fingers hurt.

“Who?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

He stepped back into his office, grabbed his jacket and brushed by Amber on his way to the stairs.

“Wait, wait—listen to this,” she said turning up the radio by her computer monitor. “It may really be headed this way, they’re saying. I’m worried now.”

Jonathan stopped and turned. “What will?”

“Katrina.”

The radio announcer spoke fast. “Folks, the National Hurricane Center is now advising that Katrina is turning northward over the Gulf and will probably make landfall in seventy-two hours or so...”

“That’s right,” a second announcer butted in. “Experts we talked to are saying it could become a Category Four—or even Five—real soon, and it could slam anywhere between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama. We’ll have a better idea by tonight.”

“God...” Amber put her hands to her cheeks and stared vacantly at her boss.

Jonathan knew what this meant. Hell, there wasn’t a maritime lawyer who didn’t know what a hurricane that size could do. “That means landfall on Monday.”

“Guess I’ll take the day off, huh,” Amber said, her hands still over her jaw.

“Don’t trust weathermen.” Jonathan didn’t want her to bail without more certainty about the storm. A key deposition was scheduled for Tuesday, with her playing wingman—at least for appearances—and they needed all of Monday to prepare. Most importantly, it was for Cramer, the owner and president of his largest client, an engineering and logistics company with a handful of lucrative contracts with the Port of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana. Cramer was volatile but a fairly reliable, good-paying client that Jonathan wanted to keep happy—but a client who’d take a sudden schedule change with indignation, regardless of the storm.

Amber lowered the volume. “What if they’re right?”

“They’ve been wrong before; they’ll be wrong again.” Jonathan turned to leave and headed through the cramped guest sitting area between her cubicle and the front door.

“But you have a meeting.”

“Cancel it.”

“But it’s—”

“I’m leaving, so make up something.”

“Are you upset?” Amber asked, her voice tapering.

“No.”

“I mean, it’s not my business or anything...” Her words sputtered. “You don’t have kids and you’ve been divorced three years now—why’d you guys even talk? She’s in Idaho, for heaven’s sake.”

Jonathan froze. “Iowa.”

“And you haven’t even seen her in over a year.”

“Ten months.”

He stared at the frosted glass door with his name etched on the other side in between those of his two co-tenants—an order that still jabbed him with insult, as it did each time he walked in and out of this space.

“I don’t get it, but that’s just my two cents.”

Like being hit by a baseball bat, but without the pain. That’s how Jonathan took the assault. Amber—with her faux blue-blood demeanor, and her bad timing—had come out with all guns blazing, finally breaking her silence about all the crap she’d overheard since he’d hired her almost two years ago. He tilted his head to one side and stabbed Amber with scorn.

“I’m leaving for other reasons, if you must know.”

Jonathan wasn’t sure if he was more embarrassed than angry. Perhaps Amber was right. Yes, Linda and he hadn’t completely severed their ties, despite the long, drawn out divorce—an astoundingly lengthy fifteen-month legal battle to unwind a childless marriage with little property to divide. There was no logic to it then, nor now. Jonathan had confessed this to himself many times, even more so on the nights he’d staggered to bed with a full bottle of wine in his stomach. How could Amber not see this as odd? Especially given the strain she’d seen on his face time and time again. For a brief moment he pondered how ludicrous his tolerance seemed, but he couldn’t fathom changing anything, not yet anyway.

“Please, never bring up Linda again.”

Amber blushed, her eyes widening, and disappeared behind her cubicle wall without uttering another word.

He inhaled the musty air of the decrepit office space before heading to the stairs. Closing the door behind him, he paused, recycling Amber’s shot across the bow, and realized he’d been harsh. He reopened the door and poked his head in.

“I’m sorry...I didn’t mean to react like that,” he said, shaking his head. “Please don’t quit,” he added.

“No worries,” Amber voiced, still sheltered in her cube. Her head emerged timidly. “I know things have been difficult here, but I’m sure it will get better, especially since you’re...you’re going to have your own place, you’ll be done with them.”

Jonathan paused and nodded.

“You’re an amazing lawyer. Just the way to speak with clients; manage their crises; remember their children’s names; make them feel strong; and your near-magical sense of predicting every move from opposing counsel. Do you hear what other lawyers say about you? You’re what every attorney in town wants to become. And you know I’m not exaggerating. But even the best lawyer’s sometimes fall on tough times. What makes them great is that they can get back on their feet faster than anyone.”

“You’re too kind, Amber,” he replied, taking a deep breath, but then worried about Mariya, realizing he didn’t want her to show up here and involve Amber in any way. “If Dino’s out, why don’t you close up early?”

Amber looked surprised. “It’s ten in the morning.”

“Yes, I know, but I’m serious, lock up early and take care of things in case Katrina’s headed this way.”

He sighed and left, his head now bursting from the anxiety of Mariya’s message and Linda’s earlier tirade. This was not the morning he’d wanted, nor the Friday he’d longed for after a grueling week with difficult clients and a judge’s ruling that severely weakened his most promising lawsuit. Then he remembered the radio announcers’ warning. Hurricane Katrina was the last thing he needed, but by the time he’d descended to the darkened lobby, he sensed it would pale in comparison to the storm Mariya was likely to cause if he allowed her to find him.

He stopped at the glass doors that also served as the entrance to a run-down salon full of Vietnamese girls who Jonathan was sure, judging from the demeanor of their male clientele, gave cures to more appendages than simply toes and fingers. Two of the beauticians turned, waving and smiling.

Jonathan now had only Mariya on his mind. He imagined she was back to cause trouble. He could think of no good reasons. He peered through the glass and scanned the street for any sign of her. Looking further down, west and east, he eyed a few pedestrians—none of whom looked like her.

Two blocks, he thought. That’s where he’d parked his car, in an open lot. The shortest path was through an alley across the street, but he’d avoided it since a jewelry store owner got stabbed in broad daylight two months back. He leaned on the door but stopped short of opening it. He had a bad feeling, but he couldn’t let Mariya set the rules. She’d tried long ago, and now, on his turf, he would not allow her to taunt him without paying a price. He’d find her at the Monteleon, he thought. He’d confront her there. She’d likely not do anything stupid in public.

2

Moscow, Russia—Three weeks earlier

“Not on the seventh,” the man whispered his rule alone, unmoved that it was mere superstition. There was no mistaking it. The date leapt from the dial of his watch. But fallacy had so many rules: wear black—anything black—before each hunt; sleep facing east; touch the fallen’s blood after the crimson madness has been splattered—often with strangely chaotic beauty—and calmed; the Bible placed face down under the bed, a virgin bullet resting across Proverbs 6:16. Rules. For justice, for pardon, for survival—all concocted over two decades at the friendly end of a barrel.

Huddled in the driver’s seat, eyeing the nearly empty street, Sal continued to deliberate over the date. Seven had cursed its way into his trade like no other omen. A dagger had gone through his bicep on the seventh of January, the night he’d cleansed the world of a Colombian “horticulturist,” if you will; he’d been trapped in a rat infested tunnel under the Berlin Wall for an agonizing seven hours; his father passed away on the night of his seventh birthday. He sighed and glanced at the wires that dangled from the steering column, searching for anything to dispel the wicked prophecy. He’d started on the sixth, he told himself, but it wasn’t convincing. Now was nevertheless the seventh, and blood would spill today. This can’t be good.

The cell phone began to vibrate loudly, trembling its way across the dash toward his side. The man’s gaze panned to the device as it continued its unanswered path along the molded plastic surface, past the center vents, behind the wheel, which he gripped firmly, his hands perspiring in their motionless state. An assassin’s hand is quick and steady only when things are crystal clear, but they hadn’t been since his botched hit in the seedy Cairo slum of Manshiet Nasser. Then again, things hadn’t gone well for some time, he thought. Not in Damascus, not in Yerevan, not in Tashkent. The phone’s subdued rattle competed with the sounds of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 that filled the stuffy, cloistered space of the Volga sedan he’d hot-wired the night before. He didn’t answer. The device rumbled a little further, butted the windshield and went quiet.

Cold sweat oozed down his chest. He scrounged his blazer pocket for pills. He unwrapped the wadded tissue, picked his potion, tossing three tablets down his dry tongue, and swallowed. But they did nothing to stop him from plunging right back into his pool of thoughts, a grim mosaic of diffuse images: the cryptic instructions from CONTROL crumpled up and aflame over the logs of his furnace; a fresh cigarette burn on the armrest of his leather chair, the one by the windows, the one he’d sit in for hours before and after each kill; the flag-draped coffin being wheeled out of the back of a plane; the stone-faced doorman slouched over the front desk of his apartment bloc as he departed, weighed down by lead, gun metal and bewilderment. He knew the flickering from reality had long become resistant to the downers, no matter the dose, the frequency, or his sporadic delusions of a cure. He understood without believing.

He gazed ahead at the sooty pavement of the bleak street that bordered an area of shoddy brick warehouses and dilapidated Soviet-era tool shops. Dark smoke spewed from a distant power plant, its funnels piercing the gray morning sky above the nearby rooftop of Clinic Number 14, a pricey medical facility strangely thrown into this unglamorous corner of Moscow.

Another call came in. He shook his head, dispersing the haphazard mental footage that had clouded his vision. His palm greased the steering wheel as he checked his watch. He shook his head again and stared intently at the rattling phone. He didn’t expect any calls, and there was no caller ID, but this time he answered.

“Sal.” The woman’s voice was as cold as this place in January.

“Jesus,” he muttered and then lined up forceful words in her native Russian, his American accent nearly hidden. “I told you never to call this number.”

“I have no choice. I left you many messages, and you haven’t replied. Not a sign. Nothing! What am I supposed to do?”

“Isn’t that a sign?” he mumbled.

He felt a rage accompany Irina’s exaggerated sigh.

“I’m no fool,” she spat out. “You promised me...just last week. You swore you’d tell her. And I’m sure you didn’t.”

Sal instantly replayed his own words that audaciously clumsy night when he’d pledged to her the world as their bodies frolicked in miasmic eroticism, the escape soothed by barbiturates and inebriation, with the one woman who could—and who did—take him to Shangri-La as often as his unrepentant soul meandered her way.

He swallowed hard. “You’re right, I didn’t...”

He anticipated her next rant. She’d warned him enough. And he cursed himself for having made the promise in the first place, not because it wasn’t what he wanted. God, no. He’d long craved to catapult his wife out of his life, and to set her on fire doing so. But he preferred to fuel his grotesque lies over surrendering any admission or giving up the charade. A divorce was the last thing he’d wanted to get dragged through. A man in his position couldn’t risk a scorned, vengeful wife. Lying was easier, then and now, no matter the price—easier because his wife was across the pond, a figure of distance, rather than a demanding, pestilent creature at his side, though now it all mattered less.

“I’ve given you everything,” he said. “Look at your damn wrist. What do you think that cost me? And look in your living room. What’s there that I haven’t paid for?” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his pack of Marlboro Reds, plucked a cigarette out and brought it to his dry, chapped lips. “And your mother... her car, her new teeth?” The scent of bourbon rose from his wrinkled shirt. “What more do you want?” He flicked the lighter, his hands shaking slightly, enough to alarm him.

“Your devotion, your honesty.”

Sal snorted. “Fidelity is for the dim and the dead.” He then siphoned a long drag of his tobacco. “And honesty, my dear, is something you’ve never known yourself.” He replayed one of the first things she’d told him some eight months earlier—that she twirled from a brass pole to raise money for her sister’s surgery and for no other reason, only to discover that for years she’d tramped the tables of nearly every gentleman’s club in Minsk. There is no honesty among whores, he thought.

“You don’t need me,” Irina said, her words crawling to a mere whimper. “It’s clear. I...I give up.” The line went dead.

A glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror hit hard. His eyes were swollen, red and glassy, a raggedness worse than he’d ever put himself through. A killer in repose shouldn’t look like a corpse, he thought, the remnants of the pride he’d once carried with his gun withering each second he met his reflection in glass and in spirit. But he knew it wasn’t fatigue alone. His demise, as the doctor had said, would surface in many forms: pain, disorientation, weakness, gauntness. That’s what being terminal meant, no matter his effort to block this reality from his mind.

He counted the hours he’d been awake: thirty, thirty-two, maybe, nearly the same number of years he’d been scouring the planet for someone else’s filth, without question, without remorse.

The cell phone vibrated again.

He’d always despised Irina’s feistiness, her condemnations, her relentless, futile search for concreteness, for certainty well beyond what he was capable of delivering. But it was not like him to back down. He’d allow her to be right, but she could never win. He reached for the phone and let it pulsate in his palm for a moment, his hesitation nearly accidental, until he flipped the cover and answered, his mind prepped to resume the duel.

“What?”

“Dad, it’s me.”

His jaw dropped. “How the hell...?”

“Please, hear me out. I need help.”

Sal had heard those words before, and it stirred him up with disgust to witness another plea, and especially now when all that mattered was one important trophy—Yuri Chermayeff—about to roam the halls of Clinic Number 14 bearing the future resting place of his 9 mm hollow point bullets. He thought of hanging up.

“Dad?”

“I can’t talk now.”

“Please, they arrested me.”

Sal’s heart sank. His son had failed him once more. “This isn’t the time.”

“I’m at the Sheriff’s. I can’t get ahold of Mom.”

“Stop!” Sal fought his instinct to want to hear more. It seemed easier to hang up. He clenched his fist.

“They’re saying I stole a ’Lex.”

“A what?”

Paul sighed. “A Rolex. At the mall.”

“What do you mean they’re saying? You stole it, I’m sure, right? Didn’t you?” Sal slammed his fist on the door and kicked the brake pedal. He kicked it again. But the shock suddenly felt oddly artificial, morphing quickly into the same wrath he’d felt so often before. His voice hardened. “Why? Why the hell are you destroying yourself, your future? It’s wrong. You steal, you cheat, you lie...I didn’t raise you this way.” But Sal knew it wasn’t so clear. He was like so many neglectful fathers playing the blame game. He hadn’t been there much for Paul, not for many birthdays, even fewer Christmases. So many lost opportunities.

“Help me; I’m begging you.”

“No.”

Sal’s heart raced as he suddenly remembered the countless unfriendly stares: the neighbors, the principal, the school bus drivers, the old woman at the convenience store, the whole pack of them armed with some tale of his son’s mischief, and he’d appeased them all as a father must. There was no more innocence left in Paul’s youth, not a thread of it for Sal to cling to. And it made him angrier to recall the past. But it also tore him apart to speak to Paul so harshly. A disarmed, disjointed part of him wanted to leap through the phone lines and embrace his son. It had been months since they’d been face-to-face, back in tranquil Pensacola, but even then they’d simmered over another disconnect. “Find your own way out of this mess,” Sal added. “You’re paving a horrible path for your life.”

“Don’t preach to me, Dad. I know all about you now, what you do, what you’re hiding. I’ve known for longer than you think.”

That’s impossible. He’d prided himself on his shroud, the elusiveness worthy of acclaim and infamy in the darkest corridors of power. His son was no smarter than any of the governments and syndicates he’d deceived. Sal didn’t answer. He didn’t believe.

“I also know about your woman,” Paul uttered in a shaky voice.

Sal cringed. “I’m warning you.” He rubbed his bristly cheeks.

“How d’you think I got this number, huh?”

He abruptly suspected a conspiracy. Was Irina capable of unleashing such malice? Or was his son toying with Sal’s failings? Nothing made sense. “Shut up!”

Sal closed his eyes and rested his head on the glass, the coolness crawling across his scalp as he heard faint sounds of a bicycle, pedals cranking, training wheels wobbling, the chain rattling. The metallic noises blended into reality accompanied by sounds of giggling—a child. His own. “You can do it,” Sal had exclaimed proudly, pushing Paul’s back as he ran alongside. “Go for it, go, you’re almost there.” Laughter reigned. It echoed enchantingly until Sal opened his weary eyes.

“I need bail money,” said his son, now sounding on the verge of tears. “And a better lawyer than that slacker you used last year.”

Sal’s hands began to tremble, his teeth grinding. He threw the cigarette out the window. “You’re doing this deliberately, aren’t you? You’ve always wanted to be the opposite of Joel. The bad versus the good. The rebel in the shadows of my little prince. And you know why he was a prince? Because he didn’t screw up his life like you’ve done ever since you could walk. But why now, why continue your streak of uselessness? He’s dead. Joel’s DEAD! Taken away for God and country, just as I’d feared when I fought so hard to stop him from going off to war. You don’t have to compete with him anymore. You win. You’re the winning loser. Why can’t—” He was abruptly overcome by his vile cocktail of wrath and shame, choking his diatribe into a feeble gasp, all the while wanting to hold his son ever tighter in his fold, ever closer to the vague notions of forgiveness that Sal briefly contemplated.

“This is the last call they’re letting me make.”

“I can’t help you now.”

“Please!”

“No!” Sal slapped the phone shut on his thigh and slumped back into this seat. He wasn’t going to cry. Damn it. He fought not to. “I love you, you fool,” he whispered alone, now feeling awful that he’d again let his anger go unchecked. And now he also worried over Paul’s words—that he somehow knew his father’s trade. This was the last thing Sal ever wanted his son to know, as it was unfathomable, unforgivable. Early on Sal had not been the father he ought to have been, and now, as a seasoned spy and occasional deliverer of death, there’d be no explanation good enough, and no hope at all, for repairing the broken past. I am a failure, Sal admitted, his fist still clenched.

He closed his eyes and let himself get dragged into a remembrance minefield, reeling in from the past the very moment he crossed that line, when he’d given up on his younger son. He’d never forget. There was no overt act, but rather an omission, an absence, a message so scarring it now gripped him with such strength that he began to breathe erratically. Paul had purposely chosen to miss Joel’s funeral, his own brother, his own flesh and blood of twenty-four years. He’d disappeared for days, not out of sorrow, but rather to flaunt his spite on those closest to him, using a weapon even Sal couldn’t counter: apathy.

3

“This is nuts,” Jonathan told himself, holding the glass door halfway open. The door pane was warmed by the morning sun that every day this time of year made the sidewalks sizzle and turned parked cars into kettles.

He eyed the shadow under the mauve-colored awnings of Mrs. Lorraine’s flower shop across the wide one-way street. No one there. The shaded, recessed entranceway of Jason’s Pizza also appeared unoccupied. There were few places anyone could hide along this block, unless Mariya had crouched inside or behind a parked car. There was no sign of her, but he couldn’t shake the tension running through him. He couldn’t imagine her wanting to make contact after all the years, but she had. And the absence of any good reason made him only think of the obvious. She was a killer. A woman with no soul to speak of, and a decade’s passing would do little to change her, he told himself.

Ten years, he thought further, meeting his reflection in the glass. He chuckled. The man Mariya had met so long ago had indeed aged. He looked tired. He’d put on a few pounds. The expensive clothes were no more. The old days of legal stardom were long gone. He scratched his bristly jaw. Even if his curiosity could outweigh the apprehension running through his blood this very moment, he wouldn’t want her to see him, not like this, even if she had some farfetched justification. The hell he’d gone through in Russia, and the utter emotional and physical destruction of it all—the charred remains of his home, Linda’s horrific injuries, the subsequent divorce, the colossal debt, his firm’s collapse. Unspeakable agony. Nothing had gone right, and for so long. Whatever pride he had left made him want to hide.

But the longer he stared at the street, the more he knew hiding was pointless. Suddenly, he spotted a woman walking with a man on the sidewalk. But judging from the cameras they carried and the way they dressed, they were harmless tourists. He sighed again, feeling relieved, and then scanned both directions once more.

Jonathan knew Mariya. She was no fool. She was as resourceful as she was devious. Jonathan recalled her disguised appearance in New Orleans nine years ago: a blonde wig, large sunglasses, and a wicked grin, as she stood behind the wheel of a rental car about to track her prey—a rogue official, a murderer himself. Two days later, the papers announced the man’s mysterious death. There was no mystery for Jonathan, but he’d said nothing and let it go. Justice had somehow messily prevailed, and punishment had been duly dispensed, albeit by a woman with no respect or patience for judicial processes, or for rules in general. If indeed Mariya was back in town now, she’d know how to find Jonathan better than he’d know how to evade her. After all, he’d seen firsthand her skills, perfected over decades in the name of the Soviet and then Russian intelligence apparatchik. A master spy. And a killer, he reminded himself. A woman with no qualms about terminating her enemies in cold blood. Could she still be like that now? She was in her late forties or early fifties back then. Nearly ten years had passed. Perhaps she’d mellowed out. He further entertained the thought. Retired. Wrote her memoir. Maybe she’d gotten married and spent her days growing vegetables and flowers at a remote dacha. He thought about this some more.

No, not her.

His mind was again captive with scenes he couldn’t erase. A cold, wet Moscow alleyway where he’d laid face-down, half-conscious for God knows how long until he’d finally mustered the strength to get up. A bullet ricocheting off the walls of a dark tunnel and piercing his shoulder. Running with all his strength through a snowy forest to escape armed men with dogs. Mariya shooting a man’s head off at near point blank range and then, seconds later, lighting a cigarette, as if she’d just finished having sex. Mariya. The Mariya. A sparkplug like that simply can’t retire.

His eyes scanned the street. There were no good options. Chasing her down at her hotel felt rash. Going home would be foolish. He thought of driving to Mandeville, across Lake Pontchartrain, to lay low for a while at one of his favorite restaurants. For a second he even thought of heading back upstairs. I’m not scared, he told himself. I’m not.

The sidewalks were empty. He left his building, weaved past the few parked cars and crossed the street toward the alley on the other side. He heard only his own footsteps on the rough pavement and the distant whispered sounds of traffic on Magazine Street. He kept a steady pace into the alley. His old, green Camry came into sight some forty yards away. Just as he reached for his keys, an accompanying sound came from behind him. Heels. At a woman’s pace. He fought his urge to turn and quickened his walk, gripped the car key tightly, straight out, ready to unlock the door.

The stranger’s pace hastened.

Jonathan suddenly heard his name. Softly the first time. Louder the second. The woman’s voice—stern and with a subtle accent—was unmistakable. The crazy, death-smitten Russian spy had crawled out of the bowels of hell and found him. He stopped and held his breath. Running the remaining yards to his car would be senseless. Besides, he wasn’t about to show her an ounce of fear.

Her pace slowed.

“What do you want, Mariya?” He didn’t turn, quickly trying to picture her, factoring in what ten years would do to her pale Slavic features.

“I need your help.” She sounded only five yards behind him.

Jonathan slowly turned.

Mariya hadn’t changed much—still petite, fit, with a slightly muscular figure. There was no disguise this time. Her hair was longer, but the same hazelnut brown. The same deep dark eyes that shamelessly withheld countless secrets. The same woman he should now run from with Godspeed.

She stood there, poker-faced, wearing linen trousers and a blouse too thick for New Orleans in August—though it exposed her deep cleavage in plain view. No surprise. She’d always been at the borderline of high fashion and gaudiness, he remembered. But that was to be expected if you were the devil. All that was missing was the smell of sulfur.

She cracked a smile, then brought her small, black leather purse up to her chest and hugged it as one would a teddy bear.

“Nice to see you,” she said, tilting her head and added, “You have a few gray hairs, and you gained a bit of weight, but you still look okay.”

“You’re too kind,” he said.

She shrugged.

Her gaze was different somehow than he’d expected. Her eyes quixotically hinted that there was something warm-blooded behind them, though he struggled to imagine a selfless side of her.

“You didn’t come all this way just to say hello.”

Mariya took a step closer in her four-inch heels.

“You’re right. But I’m happy to see your face.”

Though she’d always spoken near-fluent English, her accent had thickened slightly since he’d last seen her nearly a decade ago. Perhaps she was spending more time in her native Russia. Maybe. But why is she here? In New Orleans, of all places, where she faced being charged with a long-forgotten murder.

“You can help me.”

He shook his head.

“Did you read what I wrote you?”

“Yeah, so what? You want my help.”

“You really read every word?”

“What? Yes.” Jonathan recalled only the four handwritten words on the note.

She looked down. “That’s all you have to say?”

“I’m going to tell you this just once,” Jonathan said, crossing his arms and meeting her gaze. “I’m not helping you because you are crazy. Yes, I’ve never said this so bluntly before, but you are certifiably insane, and mean, and violent, and cold-blooded, and egocentric and sexually demented. And that’s aside from the fact that people around you die prematurely. Have you noticed that about you? Have you?”

“I didn’t expect this greeting.” Her smile withered. She raised her chin and loosened her grip on the purse.

Jonathan shook his head. How could she not? They weren’t friends. Even though she’d helped him, he’d also witnessed her madness firsthand.

“I’m leaving, Mariya. I’m sorry you came all this way, but I want nothing to do with you.”

He turned and briskly walked the short distance to his car, got in and shut the door. He fiddled with his keys for a second, fighting the urge to roll down the window and ask what help she’d needed. His curiosity tempted him. He glanced at her. The fact that she stood ten feet away comforted him that his car probably wouldn’t explode upon turning the ignition. It didn’t, and he chuckled. Crazy broad.

Jonathan pulled away from the parking spot, turned toward the Constance Street exit, but suddenly the pedal fell flat. The engine died and the car coasted silently for a few yards until he pressed on the brakes. He threw it into Park and quickly tried to restart it. He looked over his shoulder and spotted Mariya through the back windshield. She’d walked out from behind the row of cars into his lane and threw her hands in the air.

He turned the ignition key again, and again. The engine whined but failed to start.

“Jerk!” He punched the dash with his fist. After kicking open his door, he jumped out, pointing the finger at her. “What did you do to my car?”

“I’m sorry,” Mariya shouted from twenty yards out. “You have to help. You owe me that.”

With every step he took on his angry march toward her came a different insult for this Russian hazard. Towering over her petite figure that innocently and deceptively veiled her viciousness—and with excruciating restraint in his voice—he asked, “What on earth do you want from me?”

She looked up at him calmly. “My nephew is dead. He’s in the morgue, and you’re the only person I can turn to.”

He felt his face turn red—but he told himself it might be from mild embarrassment, perhaps, but certainly not sympathy. For all he knew she was a pathological liar spitting out another ruse.

“Your nephew?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I swear.” She raised her right hand as if the gesture would sway him.

Jonathan’s next thought was that he should be doing other, more important things—like preparing for Cramer’s deposition—rather than waste time bickering with this can of gasoline from the past.

“Do you understand the risk I’ve taken to come into this country? He’s my nephew, and he apparently drowned a week ago.”

Jonathan didn’t want to be outright rude, but everything coming from her was suspect.

“How do you know it’s him?”

“I just do—it will take too long to explain. His body is here for certain.” Her voice shook, and her gaze turned frosty. “You have to trust me, if only this once.”

“Trust you?” The thought of that unsettled him. It reminded him of Dino, who’d used the same phrase each time he’d roped in a new client. Yes, the best client, he’d often brag. This case will bring in millions. It’ll let us have offices with real views of the city. We’d each have our own secretary. Believe me. Trust me. Jonathan had counted the losing cases by the number of times he’d heard Dino profess those words. The mental echo pulsated like a brightly illuminated porn shop sign. It was a clear indication Dino didn’t trust himself. And an equally clear clue Mariya was also full of it.

She grabbed the sides of her head and growled. “I helped you find your brother, didn’t I? And I protected you, and got rid of the man responsible for his death. You could at least do something for me in return.”

Jonathan had expected her to use that card. How could she not? She’d rescued him from a debacle in the cold, dreary Russian capital. The cerebral images once again scrambled his thoughts. Studying her face, he sank deeper into the memories of the ordeal. The unbearable pain returned. The pain of finding Matt—a dying Matt. He’d hoped to forget the details forever. But Mariya’s voice—and the way she’d said the word brother—made him all of a sudden nauseated. He clenched his jaw.

“Please.”

She looked into his eyes intensely, waiting, perhaps wishing, pleading, and feigning a gentler look than the one she’d usually carried. Her eyes began to water. And then a tear streaked down her cheek. He’d never thought she was capable of it. She was cunning enough to act this out, he cautioned himself. But he wasn’t sure. He met her gaze—and calculated as lucidly as possible—seeing perhaps for the first time this Russian troublemaker finally reveal a sliver of compassion.

She dug into her purse and retrieved a tissue. She delicately dabbed the corner of her eyes with it, careful to leave her makeup intact.

“I want to be left alone.”

Mariya squinted, squeezed her purse with both hands, and butted Jonathan’s shoulder with it. For a small purse, it sure felt heavy—and he guessed why.

“I came a long way!” Her voice cracked. “I want to tell his wife, his mother, his children, what happened, to give them closure—the same closure you found ten years ago. You should understand this. And they’re poor, from a small town in Siberia, so they can’t come here. I don’t know anyone else here who could help.”

Jonathan scanned the parking lot, unsure if she was really alone. A half-empty lot in broad daylight was hardly a scary place except to someone already afraid. To someone who’d been tracked down. And nothing she’d said so far had attenuated his fear. “Go to the morgue yourself. It’s at Tulane and Broad.”

She grabbed Jonathan’s wrist and jolted him toward her. “I’m here illegally. The last thing I’m going to do is walk into a government office. The FBI is still looking for me. If it’s money you want, I’ll pay you—”

“Stop!” The thought of taking anything from her, be it money or praise or affection or chocolates or anything else, riled him up.

“I beg you.” Mariya stepped closer. Closer yet. She threw the purse strap over her shoulder and raised her hands to his collar.

Jonathan looked up at the blue sky blotched by small, charcoal-colored clouds. A refreshing, long breath laced with the scent of her sweet perfume vented his lungs. He didn’t repel her embrace, but the awkwardness crept through her grasp, the timid squeeze strengthening with each passing second. She pressed her head into his chest, her solid grapefruit-sized breasts planting into his ribs. Surely now she’d feel his racing heartbeat, he thought, anxious that she’d sense his fear.

“I’m not the same woman. And now, I’m sad and need to know what happened to my nephew.”

“What’s his name?” Jonathan didn’t look down.

“Igor.”

Jonathan imagined an enormous, toothless beast from Siberia with biceps the size of a bear’s thighs.

“Igor what?”

“Yakin. He was a good, kind, honest man. A father. A dedicated worker, with a hard life.” Mariya squeezed Jonathan even more tightly into her hold, her palms pressed flat on this back.

He stood motionless. He pondered reciprocating her hug, if anything out of pure human impulse, out of kindness or empathy, but her gesture contrasted sharply with every vibe he’d ever gotten from her. It mattered little that no woman had held Jonathan with such closeness in over a year. It mattered even less that she’d momentarily effaced her hardened warlord persona. Her act, whether genuine or fabricated, would not pierce his armor. He couldn’t allow himself to trust her. At least he recycled the warning to himself again and again as he lingered motionless in her embrace.

“One day,” Mariya said softly, “I will tell you many things that will surprise you. But now, I need this favor from you.”

His back was drenched with sweat, as much from the heat and muggy air as from her uncomfortable clasp. An entire minute passed, silently, her arms still wrapped around him. His hands drooped to his side. He began to feel a weirdly soothing aura. Something comforting. He quizzed himself. It was obvious. She was part of his past—intertwined in a momentous and tumultuous piece of history, albeit brief. She embodied that reality in her very existence. A history he both abhorred and secretly valued that very instant in her proximity. He felt his resistance fade, as if witnessing it from outside his body. What harm could she really do? She was not in Russia, after all, but rather on his turf.

He closed his eyes. He reached his arms around her shoulders, his hands over her back. She wore no bra. Her hair smelled of lilac, not sulfur. Her heart was also racing. It brought back the images of the night he’d first met her. He’d tracked her down at a Moscow hotel. And he remembered how attractive she was the moment he laid eyes on her. But that was long ago.

“Only on one condition.” He moved back, gently peeling her hands off him.

Peering up at his face, she asked softly, “What?”

“You don’t lie to me.”

Her poker face returned. She didn’t answer right away. Her lips stayed as straight as a hyphen, until she said, “Horosho.”

Identifying a corpse at the coroner’s office might be simple enough, he thought. But what gave him pause was going on behalf of Mariya, a woman associated with an unsolved murder, among other unpleasant liabilities. He weighed the risks some more. “Fine, I’ll find out what I can.”

Mariya’s face lit up.

“What does he look like?”

“Dark hair, dark eyes, not tall...and you will recognize him by a tattoo—a snake wrapped around an anchor. It should be on his right arm.”

Jonathan sighed.

“Spasibo, my old friend.” Mariya pulled out a receipt, jotted something on it and handed it to him. “My mobile number. Please ask them all the right questions, as quickly as possible. I must go, now.”

Jonathan felt strangely relieved that he’d agreed to help but wasn’t sure why. Perhaps the guilt of having said no would have been too unpleasant, even knowing who this woman was.

“Please undo what you did.” He handed her the keys.

It didn’t take long for her to again amaze Jonathan with her resourcefulness. She popped open the hood and quickly dug into a space behind the battery. She grimaced, appearing to struggle with something, pulling hard at whatever was buried in there. A few more tugs revealed a black tube the size of an empty paper towel roll, with a coiled wire dangling from one end.

“Done.” She slammed the hood shut, rubbed the dirt off her hands, and got behind the wheel. The engine started instantly. She stepped out and grinned.

“Don’t do it again, or I’ll kill you,” Jonathan said with a seriousness meant to confuse or amuse her.

She raised her brow and chuckled.

He took out his cell phone and scrolled through some names until he found the one he could count on for help.

Back to TOC

Here’s a sample from J.L. Abramo’s Chasing Charlie Chan.

LENNY ARCHER

When Lenny Archer managed to open his eyes, the first thing he saw was a small black circle with a white spot at its center. As he began to focus the circle became deep red and he recognized the white object. A tooth. Lenny probed the inside of his mouth with his tongue and found the space where the molar and a few of its neighbors had once been. And he could taste blood. Lenny realized he was face down on the floor and made an effort to move. The pain in his lower abdomen was unbearable. He shifted his gaze to the significantly larger red pool that spread from the floor up into his shirt below his waist. Archer let out a ghastly sound, part animal moan and part angry prayer.

“This mope is still breathing,” said Tully.

“Put him out of his fucking misery.”

“Maybe he’ll tell us where he stashed it.”

“If he was going to spill, he would have talked before you knocked his fucking teeth out,” said Raft. “The guy is a fucking mess. Kill him. You’d be doing him a favor.”

Lenny Archer tried to remember where he was, remember what he’d been doing before taking a bullet in the stomach and a kick in the face. He wondered if it really mattered.

Archer remembered sitting at his desk looking over the notes Ed Richards had handed him and hearing the noise in the hallway outside his office door. Midnight, too late for a social call and long past business hours. Archer had instinctively placed the notes in the fold of the newspaper on his desktop and quietly slid open the top drawer. Lenny pressed the remote switch to start the office tape recorder and he pulled out his handgun. And he listened.

Silence.

Archer rose from his chair and moved to the door, his gun in hand, intending to check the hall. He slowly turned the knob, the door knocked him to the floor and his weapon discharged. Then another shot and the terrible pain in his abdomen and the crushing blow to his head.

Archer thought he heard voices, in his mind or in the room, debating his fate. He seemed to remember questions. What did Ed Richards tell you? What did Richards give to you? Who else did Richards talk to? Who did you talk to? And each time he had failed to respond he could remember another blow to the face. And then blackness.

Lenny looked in horror at the pool of blood growing larger at his waist. The voices were louder now.

“You’d be doing him a favor,” Raft said.

Tully pressed the gun barrel against Lenny’s head.

“Bingo, Richards’ notes,” said Raft.

Tully looked over to the desk. Raft held the notes in one hand and he tossed the newspaper at Lenny with the other.

“Shoot the motherfucker already,” said Raft.

“We’re still not sure who else knows about this.”

“The sooner you kill this fuck, the sooner we can get to Richards. And trust me; Richards is going to spill his guts.”

An hour earlier, Tully and Raft had followed Richards to the parking lot of a donut shop on Fifth. The shop was closed for the night. Richards pulled up next to the only other car in the lot. They watched from a distance as he climbed out of his car and moved to the driver’s window of the other vehicle. Ed Richards passed some papers through the window, quickly returned to his own car and drove off.

“Follow the other car,” Raft had said.

“What about Richards?”

“We know where Richards lives, he can wait. Let’s see where this guy goes, who the fuck he is and what he knows.”

They followed the second car to a building on Fourth Street and waited for the driver to enter. When they saw the light go on in a second story window, they left their vehicle and moved to the front entrance of the building.

“Fucking private dick,” said Raft, checking the names on the mailboxes.

“There are two of them,” said Tully.

“Not tonight. Whoever this one is, he’s alone up there. Let’s go and check his ID.”

Tully and Raft stood in the hallway outside the office for a minute, unsure about how to play it. They had pulled out their weapons.

“Sounds like he’s coming this way,” Tully said.

They heard the footsteps and watched the door. When the knob began to turn, Raft slammed his shoulder into the door. A shot went off. They stepped into the doorway and saw the man on the floor, a gun in his hand. Tully fired a round into the man’s stomach and then quickly moved to kick the man square in the mouth.

Raft found the wallet in Lenny’s jacket pocket.

Lenny Archer knew he was a dead man. Tully held the barrel of the gun against Lenny’s temple.

“It’s not too late, Leonard,” Tully said. “We call for an ambulance and you survive this mess. All you need to do is help us out a little.”

Lenny Archer could feel the life spilling out of the center of his body.

“Is your partner in on this?” Tully asked.

“No.”

“You wouldn’t lie to us at a time like this, would you, Leonard?”

“No.”

“Any last words?”

Archer closed his eyes, felt the lightness in his head and saw the bright light behind his eyelids.

“Life is a carnival,” Lenny Archer said.

Tully pulled the trigger.

JAKE DIAMOND

I met Jimmy Pigeon on the set of a film shoot on a Los Angeles sound stage. All I knew about private investigators was what I had found in the Hollywood movies I was desperately trying to break into.

Nick Charles, Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade.

After arriving in LA in pursuit of fame and fortune, I had managed to land several small film roles. Very small. Always a low budget crime melodrama. Always a second-string petty criminal or thug. If it was a prison movie—a man framed and incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit—I would be the slow-witted convict at the far end of the mess hall table eyeballing the hero’s mashed potatoes as he laid out plans for escape. If it was a heist film—an FBI agent negotiating the release of hostages following a failed bank robbery attempt—I was the gang member lurking in the background listening stupidly while the boss and his right hand man argued the destination of the getaway jet. On the film shoot where I met Pigeon, it was kidnapping. A private eye was employed by a prominent politician to locate his young daughter being held for ransom. The abductors had strongly advised the girl’s father against involving the police. I played the role of the kidnapper with the fewest lines.

Jimmy was a genuine private investigator engaged as a consultant for the production. Pigeon’s job was to help the actor playing the PI in the film look more like a real private eye than an actor playing one, which was nearly an impossible task. I watched Jimmy closely while we were on the set together, his character, concentration, style and charisma. I talked with him about his work as often as he would allow between takes, studying his every move as if I would one day be competing for the lead role in The Jimmy Pigeon Story. And then something entirely unexpected and unexplained occurred. I found myself much more fascinated with the notion of being a private eye than with the idea of portraying one. On the final day of shooting I found the nerve to ask Jimmy what he thought of my wild impulse. Pigeon invited me to visit his Santa Monica office to mull it over.

A week later, Jimmy was sitting at his desk looking at me as if he wasn’t sure where to begin or whether or not to begin at all. I sat opposite Pigeon in what he informed me was the client chair. I was learning already.

“Well, if nothing else,” Pigeon finally said, “Jake Diamond is a perfect name for a PI. Did you come up with it yourself?”

“Gift from my parents,” I said. “How about yours?”

“James C. Pigeon,” he said. “Since day one.”

“C?”

“Not important,” Jimmy said. “Why do you want to give up acting? Believe me, it’s a lot more glamorous than what I do. And certainly more lucrative.”

“There’s not enough glamour to go around,” I answered, “and I’m weary of waiting for some to get around to me. I wondered if you ever considered taking on a partner.”

“Had a few.”

“And?”

“How about this, Jake,” Jimmy said. “I’ll tell you the story of my last partner and then you tell me if you want to leave the bright lights of Hollywood for the dark alleys of Southland.”

As he was making his offer, Pigeon had pulled a bottle of bourbon and two small glasses from a drawer in his desk and began pouring.

“Sounds fair,” I said as he passed me a glass.

“There’s not too much about fair in this particular story, Jake.”

Jimmy took a pack of Camels from his shirt pocket, lit one and dropped the package onto the desk between us.

“Light up if you like,” Jimmy Pigeon said.

And he began.

JIMMY PIGEON

Jimmy Pigeon sat up in his bed. His eyes were leaking like a faucet. He grabbed a roll of toilet paper from the bedside table. It had replaced the empty tissue box sometime during the night. Pigeon sopped up the tears running down his cheeks. His right nostril was packed as solid as a car full of clowns. Jimmy considered trying to blow his nose but he was afraid of what might spill out of his ears. He had hardly slept all night, the plop plop fizz fizz cold and sinus cocktail he had guzzled before crawling into bed had him up to urinate every thirty minutes. He had arrived home late the previous night from a rare vacation, visiting his sister and her family in South Carolina. Six dreadful days. Everything down there, from the family station wagon to the family kitten, was covered in layers of fine yellow dust. By day two the pollen had settled on his shoes, had found refuge in his nose, mouth and eyes. By day three he could barely breathe. His sister, her husband and the kids seemed unaffected, immune, adapted, empirical validation of some Darwinian theory. Pigeon dried his face again and made his way to the bathroom. He adjusted the water to a few degrees below scalding and he stepped into the shower, making a plaintive wish for an unobstructed nasal passage.

Ninety minutes later, Jimmy took the short walk from his apartment to the office. He looked out at the brown haze hovering over downtown Los Angeles in the distance. It was a sight for sore eyes. As he turned onto Fourth Street he spotted two uniformed officers planted at the front entrance to his office building. Pigeon pulled a business card from his wallet and he quickened his pace. One of the young patrolmen stopped Jimmy at the door.

“Can I help you, sir,” he asked.

“Just trying to get to work,” Jimmy said, carefully offering the officer his card.

“Please wait here, sir,” the officer said. He turned and carried the card into the building.

“Something happen?” Jimmy asked the second uniform.

“Officer Sutton will be right back, sir,” the cop said and then nervously added, only for something to say, “there was a high pollution warning this morning.”

“Love it,” Jimmy said, taking in a deep breath for the first time in nearly a week.

The uniform returned his attention to the street.

A few minutes later, Sutton was back.

“Would you please come with me, Mr. Pigeon,” he said.

Jimmy followed Sutton into the building and up to the second floor.

The building superintendent stood in the hall, pale as a ghost. He looked at Jimmy and then turned his eyes away. At the office door, Jimmy immediately noticed the crack in the opaque glass pane which ran diagonally across the hand painted words. Archer and Pigeon, Private Investigation.

Sutton pushed the door open. Jimmy’s eyes went to the floor. Lenny Archer, his face nearly unrecognizable, lying in what seemed an ocean of blood.

Pigeon sadly looked away and surveyed the room. It had been turned upside down. File cabinet drawers open, papers scattered everywhere. Two men in white lab coats dusting for prints. Two plain clothed detectives staring back at him. The older of the two starting toward him.

“Are you okay, Mr. Pigeon,” the detective said. “You don’t look very well.”

Allergies, Jimmy thought to say, aversion to violent death.

“When did this happen?” Jimmy asked.

“I can’t say. The call came in a few hours ago. The medical examiner is on his way. We’ll know more after he takes a look. Do you feel up to a few questions?”

“Give me a moment,” Jimmy said. “I need some air. Can we talk outside?”

“Sure. We’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Jimmy walked back down and out of the building. He passed Sutton and the other uniform at the door. They had nothing to say. He walked twenty feet from the entrance, leaned against the building and lit a cigarette.

Jesus Christ, Lenny, what the fuck was it about?

Jimmy was crushing the cigarette under his shoe a few minutes later as the two detectives approached him.

“Go ahead, ask,” Jimmy said before either could speak.

The older of the two took charge. The other detective took notes.

“When was the last time you saw your partner?”

“Monday evening, a week ago today. I left town early Tuesday morning, got back in late last night.”

“Did you speak with Mr. Archer while you were gone?”

“No. I imagined Lenny could stay out of trouble for six days.”

“Do you have any idea about why this happened?”

“None.”

“Whoever it was seemed to be searching for something.”

“No idea,” said Jimmy.

“A case you were working on? Something particularly sensitive or dangerous?”

“Nothing I was involved in,” Jimmy said. “Nothing Lenny told me anything about.”

“Did you usually work separate cases?”

“Most of the time.”

“So, you can’t really help us on this.”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I learn anything.”

“Mr. Pigeon, it would be much better for all concerned if you left this to us.”

Not much better for Lenny.

“I didn’t get your names,” Jimmy said. “I thought I knew all of the Santa Monica homicide detectives.”

“I’m Detective Raft and my partner is Detective Tully. We’re LASD,” said Raft, handing Jimmy a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department business card.

“Oh?” said Jimmy.

“We were handy,” Raft said. “Can you tell us anything about Mr. Archer’s next-of-kin?”

“He had none,” said Jimmy.

“Here’s the ME,” said Tully. “I’ll take him up.”

Tully started toward the Ford that had pulled up in front of the building. An ambulance turned onto Fourth Street. Tully led the Santa Monica Medical Examiner into the building. Solomon Meyers, a familiar face.

“When can I get back into the office?” Jimmy asked.

“Hopefully by early this evening. Is there somewhere I can reach you before then?” Raft asked.

“I’m not sure where I’ll be. You have my card. You can reach me at the office number, hopefully by early this evening. Can I go now?”

“Sure,” said Raft. “I think that’s all for the time being. You have my card, if there’s anything we can do.”

“Thanks, I’ll let you know,” Jimmy said and he quietly walked away.

Raft returned to the office. The medical examiner was studying the corpse, the ambulance drivers were waiting for the ME to release the body, the crime scene investigators were dusting, collecting, shooting photographs. Detective Raft called Detective Tully out into the hall.

“Do you think Pigeon knows anything?” asked Tully.

“I don’t believe so,” said Raft. “Archer and Richards both said no. But Pigeon is a snoop and from what I hear a very good one. And he has a poor fucking attitude. We’ll need to keep a close eye on him.”

“Do you think they’ve found Richards yet?”

“I’m sure they have,” Raft said. “I imagine that’s why the Santa Monica PD was too busy to take this one.”

Pigeon spent the remainder of the day alone. He sat for hours at the Santa Monica Pier, watching the ocean. He dropped into a few bars along Third Street, nursing more than one drink in each saloon. A toast to Lenny Archer. At a table in the rear of Murphy’s Saloon four men in military uniform, all in their late sixties or early seventies, sang patriotic songs and tipped drinks in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the allied invasion of Normandy. It was too much celebration for Jimmy to handle. He left the bar and treated himself to a steak dinner before returning to his office.

Someone had tried valiantly to scrub the floor, most likely the building superintendent, but a large faint stain remained. The strong scent of bleach had taken the place of the hideous smell of fresh blood. The office was still in shambles. He knew he would need to call someone in to pick up, to fix the glass pane on the door, maybe drop an area rug down. He knew he wasn’t up to it himself.

Jimmy went over to Lenny Archer’s desk and opened the top drawer. In the top center drawer of each of their desks sat a small ceramic change bowl filled with coins and paper clips. Imbedded into the bottom of each bowl was a remote switch, a small button which started the tape machine that recorded sound through a microphone hidden in the ceiling light fixture. The tape recorder was hidden in the wall behind a metal vent cover. Jimmy emptied the bowl in Lenny’s drawer.

The record button was depressed.

Jimmy went over to his own desk for a screwdriver. He detached the metal grill and he pulled out the machine. He carried it back to his desk and rewound the tape. He lit a cigarette and pressed the play button.

Pigeon could not identify the voices but he could tell there had been two men in the office with Lenny. The dialogue was audible, as were the background noises. The first gunshot followed by a close second. The awful sounds of the beating Lenny had taken. The brutal interrogation, a name mentioned more than once. Richards.

Ed Richards.

Something to go on.

They had found what they came looking for; Lenny had been of no use to them.

And then the final fatal gunshot.

Pigeon replaced the tape recorder and switched on the small portable TV hoping to catch the late local news. He pulled the pint of bourbon from his desk and drank from the bottle. Jimmy caught the lead story, a Santa Monica author and journalist found shot to death in his beach house. The place had been ransacked. The Santa Monica police suspected a robbery turned felony homicide.

The name of the victim was Edward Richards.

Jimmy turned off the TV, slipped the bottle into his jacket pocket and left the office. He stopped at the front entrance to check the mail. He unlocked the box and found two bills and a postcard. The card had been addressed to Jimmy at his sister’s place in South Carolina, but the street address had been transcribed incorrectly and the postcard was stamped Return to Sender. On the front of the card was a photo of the Santa Monica City Hall Building and on the back side of the card was an eight word message to Pigeon.

Chasing Charlie Chan.

Wish you were here.

Lenny.

Back to TOC

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

THIRTY-SEVEN

THIRTY-EIGHT

THIRTY-NINE

FORTY

FORTY-ONE

FORTY-TWO

FORTY-THREE

FORTY-FOUR

FORTY-FIVE

FORTY-SIX

FORTY-SEVEN

FORTY-EIGHT

FORTY-NINE

FIFTY

FIFTY-ONE

FIFTY-TWO

FIFTY-THREE

FIFTY-FOUR

FIFTY-FIVE

FIFTY-SIX

FIFTY-SEVEN

FIFTY-EIGHT

FIFTY-NINE

SIXTY

SIXTY-ONE

SIXTY-TWO

acknowledgments

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Other Books by Down and Out Books

sample from Robert J. Randisi’s Upon My Soul.

sample from A.C Frieden’s The Serpent’s Game.

sample from J.L. Abramo’s Chasing Charlie Chan.