Fifty-to-One Page 15

  “And then...”

  “Exactly. And then. Like Cole Porter wrote. Birds do it, bees do it.”

  Tricia shuddered. “He must be sixty years old!”

  “What, you think you won’t want company in bed any more when you’re sixty?” Borden looked over at her, and she hoped that in the darkness he couldn’t see she was blushing. She was grateful when he turned back to the road.

  “I see,” he said. “There hasn’t been a Mister Trixie yet, has there.”

  “I’ve had plenty of boyfriends,” Tricia said. “Back home.”

  “I’m sure—to share malteds with at the soda shoppe, hold hands at the drive-in. It’s okay. I understand. Things don’t move quite as fast in South Dakota.”

  “I’ll have you know,” Tricia said, coldly, “things move plenty fast in South Dakota. Boys have more hands there than a wall of clocks. Coral had to—Colleen had to beat ‘em off with a stick.”

  “Oh, is that what she used?” Borden said, and Tricia felt herself blushing again.

  “There’s no need to be vulgar, Mr. Borden,” Tricia said.

  “Charley,” Borden said. “Call me Charley. Everything we’ve been through together, we should be on a first-name basis.”

  Tricia looked down at her hands. “Tricia,” she said.

  “Tricia,” Charley said, as they tooled along the highway at a whisper. “Pleased to meet you.”

  He reached out a hand and patted hers, and for the first time in a long time she felt a bit of relief, a trace—just a trace—of comfort. She wasn’t in this alone.

  But the moment passed. Charley took his hand away and said, “So. Barrone. Where are we going to find him?”

  “Don’t look at me,” Tricia said. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, this is the man’s car. There’s got to be something in here that’ll give us an address. Check the glovebox, why don’t you. Maybe he’s got the papers for the car in there. Or something with his address on it.”

  Tricia unlatched the glove compartment, swung it open, and a little light inside flickered on. She started sorting through the contents. “He does have some papers, let’s see...here’s a map...a brochure...two ballpoint pens...a writing tablet...a—”

  “What?” Charley said, after she’d been silent for a bit. “What else?”

  “Pull over,” Tricia said.

  “What? Why? Here?”

  “Pull over,” she said again, and when he turned to look she held up a slim leather box filled with photographs.

  In the wan light from the dashboard, from the illuminated mirror, and from the glove compartment, the two of them flipped through the photos. There were somewhere between twenty and thirty of them—closer to thirty, Tricia thought. Each was a stark black-and-white image, and each showed a combination of people—some vertical, some horizontal; some living, some dead. Halfway down the stack she found two that included Mitch. In one he was holding a knife, maybe the very stiletto she’d seen him pocket earlier that night; if not, one much like it. The man at his feet had bled copiously, though in black and white you couldn’t quite tell where the blood ended and the dark tile floor began.

  In one she saw Robbie, and though he wasn’t holding a weapon himself what he was holding was nearly as bad: He held another man’s arms behind his back, much as Mitch had held his, and the man he was holding was coming to a similar bad end. The circle of life.

  Each photo had a date inscribed by hand on the back, along with a location: Umberto’s, Central Park Boathouse, Corner Mulberry & Hester. Each had names: Monge, Mitchell, Paulie Lips. And on each, one of the names was crossed out. On one, two names were crossed out, and turning it over Tricia saw a pair of dead bodies on the front, a man and a woman caught naked in what looked like a basement rec room. She felt her stomach rebel, forced herself to fight her rising gorge.

  Several of the photos had the name Barrone written on them, and in those the man holding a gun in the pictures was tall and chiseled, skin pockmarked, close-set eyes cold. In fairness, he didn’t look his age—even in the later-dated photos he looked like he could be forty, not sixty. But he didn’t look like a man you’d want your sister to take to bed all the same.

  “Jesus,” Charley said, after Barrone had made his fifth fatal appearance. “This is not your average garage owner.”

  “Maybe there’s an explanation—”

  “Of course there’s an explanation. Your sister’s boyfriend is a hit man. That’s the explanation.”

  They kept turning over the photos, one by one, images of bad men and worse, hunters and their prey.

  Then they got to the end.

  The last photo—the very last one—dated just a little over a month ago—showed the scene Coral had described: a dead man in a gutter, several live ones standing over him. One of them was Mitch. The tall man with the chiseled features was in this photo, too, and his name was on the back. But it had been the last hunt for him and he’d been the final quarry.

  Because he was the man in the gutter, and on the back it said Barrone.

  24.

  The Guns of Heaven

  “I guess we know why he’s been away for the past month,” Charley said.

  Tricia put the photos back into the box, put the lid back on, and slid it into the pocket of her dress.

  “And I guess that rules out finding him,” Charley said. “He’s not exactly in a position to help us.”

  Tricia put her head back against the seat, closed her eyes. She felt like crying. These were killers—real killers, not the fun sort you read about in books. They killed without remorse, without hesitation, over and over; they even killed their own. And took pictures to remember it by. What chance did she and Charley stand against them? What chance did Erin and Coral have?

  “What do you want to do?” Charley said. “Now that we’ve got the photos, we’ve got something to trade. We could head out to Queens, try to make a deal. Or, Tricia,” he said, “I could take the photos out to Queens and you could get on a train back to South Dakota. They wouldn’t look for you there. You could go back to your old life, pretend you never met me, pretend none of this ever happened. Maybe that’d be the smartest. What do you say?”

  Tricia opened her eyes, pinned him with her stare. “I say we need guns.”

  They drove off the highway and back into the heart of the city. At the all-night drugstore in the lobby of the Warwick, Charley went to the counter to coax a sandwich and a coke out of the counterman, while Tricia worked the payphone in the corner. On the way in, Charley had asked her where she proposed to find guns at eleven on a Saturday night in the middle of New York City. “Do you know any gunsmiths that keep night hours on weekends? Because I don’t. I don’t know any gunsmiths, period.”

  “I don’t know any gunsmiths either,” Tricia said, “but I know a woman who’s got at least two guns.”

  “Who?”

  “Just get your sandwich, I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She’d gone to the payphone, hunted through the heavy phone book hanging from a wire, found no “Heaven” or “H” on the page for “LaCroix,” struck out again looking for Coral under both “King” and “Heverstadt.” Finally she just rang up the operator and gave her the address of the rooming house itself.

  “Oh, is that where all the excitement was?” the operator said with a girlish squeal. “Down on Cornelia Street? I just heard about it on the radio!”

  “Yeah, very exciting,” Tricia said. “People getting shot. Nothing more exciting than that.”

  “Well, you don’t have to be a grouch about it,” the operator said. The phone on the other end started ringing.

  As it rang, Tricia found herself thinking, Can you trust Heaven? Are you sure? But Coral had trusted her; that had to count for something. And what choice did she have anyway?

  It took half a dozen rings before a familiar Eastern European voice answered. “Hello?”

  “I’m calling for Heaven LaCroix,” Tricia said.

  “N
ot here,” the landlady said. “You call back later. Is madhouse.”

  “Please,” Tricia said quickly, before the woman could hang up, “I know she’s there, she’s taking care of a little boy, she wouldn’t have left him alone. Please. Just put her on the phone.”

  “Who is this?” the landlady said, and you could almost hear her eyes narrowing.

  “A friend of hers. It’s very important—”

  The landlady’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You the girl came by earlier, ran out after shooting.”

  “I didn’t shoot anyone—”

  “No,” the woman whispered, “I know, Heaven tell me. But the police, they say you do, they wait for you. Don’t come back.”

  “I won’t,” Tricia said. “But I need to talk to Heaven. Could you please get her on the phone?”

  “I get.” Tricia heard her set the receiver down. Then the sound of footsteps departing. There was a murmur of voices in the background. Boarders? Or cops? Both, probably.

  Before the footsteps returned, Tricia heard her dime fall into the phone’s innards and she deposited another from the handful of change Charley had given her.

  Eventually, the footsteps came back—two pairs of them. “Hello?” It was a different accent this time, very light, almost Dutch-sounding.

  “Heaven,” Tricia said. “Don’t say my name, don’t give any sign that it’s me.”

  “Okay,” Heaven said.

  “I’m safe—but I need your help.”

  “Okay,” she said again, though this time it sounded like a question.

  “I’m going to get Colleen out from where she’s being held, I have someone with me, but we’re dealing with some very dangerous men and can’t go in barehanded. I need to borrow your guns, Heaven—yours and the one you took from Mitch, the guy in the hallway.”

  “Who’s that on the phone?” a voice asked. “Hey—miss, I’m asking you a question.”

  “My sister,” Heaven said, “calling from Limbourg. I’ll just be a minute.” Then, to Tricia, “Dear Clara, I’m so glad to hear you’re moving to New York. I do think I can help you find work, yes. You know weekends I work at a club called the Stars, right? After the last match, cleaning up—usually starting one-thirty, two in the morning. I bet they’d have work for you, too.” Her voice rose. “We’ll ask them when you come, Clara. Next month.”

  “I hear you,” Tricia said. “I’ll be there tonight. One-thirty.”

  “How’s mother, Clara?”

  “I’m going to hang up now.”

  “Oh, good, good.”

  Tricia set the phone back in its cradle, hoped the call hadn’t been traced, hoped the operator hadn’t listened in. But just in case—

  She returned to the counter, lifted one of Charley’s arms. “We’d better go.”

  “Can’t you sit for a minute to eat,” he said through a mouthful of turkey and lettuce. “I got one for you.”

  “We’ll take it with us,” she said.

  He grabbed the two sandwiches, one whole and one partly eaten, wrapped them in a paper napkin, dipped for one last pull at his coke.

  “Now,” Tricia said.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming.” Outside, on the street, he asked, “What’s the rush? Your friend with the guns?”

  “No, she won’t be ready for another two hours. I just didn’t like how nosy the operator was getting. She seemed a little too interested in what was happening down on Cornelia Street.”

  “You think she called the cops?”

  “I don’t want to find out.”

  They rounded the corner to the side street where they’d parked the Lincoln, then backed away when they saw a policeman bending over beside it, hands on his knees, trying to see in through the driver’s side window.

  “Easy come, easy go,” Charley muttered.

  They walked briskly through the combination of pitch-black and bright-as-day that is New York City as midnight approaches. After a couple of blocks, Tricia found herself flagging, falling behind. “Do you know any place we can go for a couple of hours?” she said. “I’m beat.”

  “I know some places we can’t go. The office. The Sun, the Stars. Cornelia Street. Queens. This city’s starting to feel awful small.”

  She chose not to mention that they’d be going to one of those very places when 1:30 rolled around. “Come on, Charley, you’re a resourceful man. Where would you go if you didn’t want to be found for a few hours?”

  He thought for a bit, then took her arm. “I know a place.”

  Half a mile downtown and a few blocks west, just off Times Square, Charley led her up a flight of stairs and knocked on a heavy wooden door. A panel slid open speakeasy-style and a pair of eyes looked out at them. “Borden!” a voice called out. “Haven’t see you in dog’s years!”

  “Mike,” Charley said when the door swung wide, revealing a man in an undershirt and apron, dishtowel in one hand and a pair of shot glasses in the other. “This is...Trixie, Mike. A friend of mine. We’ve got an appointment in two hours, need to be off the street in the meantime.”

  “No problem,” Mike said, and ushered them into a quiet, dark room where a handful of men sat drinking. No one looked up, no one said anything to them. “What’s your thirst?”

  “No drinking for us tonight, Mike,” Charley said. “What we really need is a good hour’s sleep. The back room occupied?”

  “No,” Mike said, “just some things of mine I can clear out.”

  “Leave ‘em,” Charley said. “We’re not particular.”

  Mike took them to the room, where Tricia had to step over a man-sized duffel bag and a pile of newspapers and pawnshop tickets to get to the low mattress on the other side. There was an armchair, too, though it looked none too comfortable.

  “You’ll tell me what this was all about, right,” Mike said, “when it’s all over?”

  “If I’m in talking condition, you’ll be the first I tell.”

  “Knock in an hour?”

  “Give us ninety minutes,” Borden said.

  “You got it.” Mike swung the door shut.

  “Go ahead,” Charley said, and waved at the mattress. He lowered himself into the chair. “Lie down.”

  Tricia did, pulled up a thin blanket over her. She kicked off her shoes and instantly felt better. She looked at Charley, who was twisting to find a comfortable angle in the chair.

  “Hey, Borden,” she said and lifted the blanket. He looked up. “There’s room here for two.”

  “You’re not worried I’ll offend your virtue?” Charley said.

  “Two hours from now, I’ll have a loaded gun in my hands,” Tricia said. “I’m sure you’ll be a perfect gentleman until then. Now lie down and get some sleep.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Charley said.

  25.

  The Last Match

  She didn’t intend to wind up in his arms, but that’s where she found herself when the knocking at the door awakened them. It felt nice, she had to admit. Secure. Even if it was a false sense of security—and lord knows it was—there was something to be said for having a strong pair of arms around you. Or even a not-so-strong pair like Charley’s.

  But it was moot, since she didn’t have it anymore. Charley had leapt up, shooting from a deep sleep to fully awake like toast from a toaster. He’d said nothing about how they’d found themselves, and she’d gone along with his silence. Just as well not to add one more complication to a situation that was already, not to put too fine a point on it, a goddamn mess.

  While she splashed some cold water on her face and gargled a mouthful of Listerine in the little bathroom across the hall, Tricia tried to decide whether getting ninety minutes of sleep was a blessing or a curse. She felt less sore but more groggy. Take your pick.

  “If anyone asks, Mike,” Charley was saying when she returned from the bathroom, “you haven’t seen us. That’s for your sake, not ours. Well, not just ours, anyway.”

  “That’s okay,” Mike said. “You know me. I nev
er see anything. It’s how I stay in business.”

  “Good man.”

  “How do you know him?” Tricia asked, when they were down on the sidewalk again.

  “Who? Mike? He’s an old, old friend. Known him longer than...well, probably longer than anyone. We were in reform school together.”

  “Reform school?”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Charley said. “Bet you never would’ve guessed I was in reform school.”

  “No, actually I would have guessed that,” Tricia said. “I just wouldn’t have guessed you had any old friends.”

  “Ouch,” Charley said. “You’d think you’d be nicer to me after we spent the night together.”

  “We didn’t spend the night, we spent ninety minutes.”

  “Still and all,” Charley said. He reached into his pocket, pulled out an apple and something wrapped in a napkin. He held the apple out to her. “A present from Mike.” She took it. He unwrapped the last remaining bites of his sandwich. “So, where are we meeting this friend of yours?”

  Through a mouthful of Granny Smith she said, “The Stars Club.”

  “That’s funny,” Charley said, “it almost sounded like you said ‘The Stars Club.’ ”

  She swallowed. “I did. Heaven will meet us there after the last match ends. She works there nights.”

  Charley stopped walking. “Are you out of your mind? Tricia, we can’t go there. Nicolazzo owns the place. He could be there, for all we know. And even if he’s not, he’s certainly got people there, they know what you look like, they’ll recognize you as soon as you walk up to the front door.”

  “So we won’t go to the front door,” Tricia said, thinking of Erin saying, There have got to be at least three exits from this building, maybe more. Three ways out meant three ways in.

  She walked on for a few steps, saw Charley still standing where she’d left him. “You coming? Or are you leaving me to do it alone? Because I will. Come or don’t, it’s up to you, but I’m going.” She didn’t wait for an answer, just walked off, and it took half a block before Charley caught up with her.