Fifty-to-One Page 30

  “You are firing on agents of the United States government, a federal offense punishable by life in prison. Drop your weapons and allow us to board.”

  The ships kept racing, jostling each other for position, the big yacht pulling away in one direction, then the other, only to find itself headed off by the more nimble boat. Finally, Tricia felt the engines cut out and they slowed to a dead stop with the police boat out of sight on the far side of the pilot house. Nicolazzo and his men ran down that way; once they were past, Tricia and Coral followed.

  By the time they arrived, O’Malley and two uniformed cops were standing on the deck alongside a half dozen federal agents, thick flak jackets protecting their torsos, steel helmets covering their heads. The feds had machine guns cradled at the ready in their arms and Nicolazzo’s men had their hands up, guns littering the deck at their feet.

  Tricia dropped her gun. When one of the feds looked Coral’s way, Tricia nudged her with an elbow and Coral reluctantly released hers as well.

  Two of the feds cleared an opening at the rail and Special Agent Houghton Brooks, Jr. climbed up through it. He wasn’t wearing any armor or protective gear, just the gray suit he’d had on in the interrogation room. But he walked blithely into the middle of this deadly crowd as if he’d been taking a stroll down Fifth Avenue.

  He located Nicolazzo and marched up to him.

  “Salvatore Nicolazzo,” he said, “you are under arrest.”

  Nicolazzo chuckled, looked at the men on either side of him. “You can’t arrest me here. You can’t even be on board my ship. We are in international waters. You have no jurisdiction here.”

  “You were,” Brooks said, “in international waters. Until about five minutes ago. You’re in U.S. waters now, mister.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Nicolazzo said calmly. “Check the instruments. I assure you my captain knows perfectly well where international waters begin and end.”

  Tricia tried to see through the window of the pilot house, but the glare from the morning sun prevented it.

  “Very well, let’s check the instruments,” Brooks said. He strode up to the door to the pilot house and swung it open. A man trussed hand and foot rolled out. He’d apparently been leaned up against the door. This was the captain, Tricia presumed, judging by the nautical cap on his head. A gag of some sort prevented him from making more than soft mewling sounds as he squirmed about.

  Past him, inside the pilot house, Charley stood at the ship’s wheel, his hands gripping it tightly at the two and ten o’clock positions. His taped finger stuck out accusingly.

  “What have you done?” Nicolazzo said. “What have you done?” He would have leapt at Charley but one of the feds, coming up behind him, restrained him.

  Brooks checked the instruments, nodded. “U.S. waters. I assure you, Mr. Nicolazzo, we wouldn’t have come after you otherwise. The Bureau always operates by the rules.” And to Charley: “It’s just as well that it took us a little while to pinpoint Miss Heverstadt’s signal underwater. That gave you enough time to steer the ship here. Your government is grateful to you, mister...?”

  Charley looked at Tricia.

  “Stephenson,” she said.

  “Borden,” he said.

  50.

  Fifty-to-One

  The man the glazier had sent over was kneeling in the corridor, fine brush in hand, carefully painting gold letters onto the new pane in the door:

  HARD CASE CRIME CHARLES BORDEN, PROP.

  “I might ask him to change that,” Charley said. “Borden, I mean.”

  “Why?” Tricia asked.

  “Now that the feds are keeping an eye on me, it feels like maybe it’s time for a fresh start,” Charley said. “Anyway, too many people who know me by that name would like to do me harm.”

  “Or you owe them money,” Erin said.

  “That, too.”

  “So what’ll you change it to?” Tricia said.

  “Why?” Charley said. “You think you might have a personal stake in the matter some day?”

  She found herself blushing again, damn it. “Anything’s possible,” she said.

  He kissed the side of her head. “Don’t worry, I’ll pick something that sounds similar to Borden. Keep it easy to remember.”

  “Gordon?” Erin said. “Arden?”

  “Something like that.”

  He opened the door to the chateau. Four faces turned their way. “That’s okay, don’t get up, girls. I just wanted to let you know I’m back.”

  “You ever hear of knocking?” Annabelle said. She had nothing on but a towel—wrapped turban-style around her head.

  “What, and miss seeing you like that? Never.” He pulled the door shut and they went on to Madame Helga’s at the end of the hall.

  “What happened to you?” Billy Hoffman said as they entered, gesturing toward Charley’s black eye and taped-up finger.

  “Long story,” Charley said. “Let us use your office, will you?”

  “Of course.”

  They went inside.

  Charley handed the phone over to Tricia, who sat behind Billy’s desk. How long had it been since she’d walked through that door for the first time? Since she’d seen Hoffman sitting right here and Robbie Monge staring at her as she danced. Poor, unfaithful Robbie Monge.

  She picked up the receiver and placed a call to Aberdeen. The phone rang and rang and she let it—mama might easily have been at the other end of the house when the ringing started, and she wasn’t as young as she used to be.

  “Hello...?”

  Tricia’s face lit up. “Mama! It’s me, Patricia.”

  “Patricia? Are you coming home?”

  “No, mama, I’m not. But guess what? Coral is.”

  There was silence on the other end. Then: “Coral?”

  Tricia thought about the scene down on Cornelia Street earlier that morning, when she’d accompanied Coral to her room. She’d finally gotten to see Artie. Damned if he didn’t have his father’s chin after all, and no doubt at all who the father was.

  What are you going to do? she’d asked Coral, who’d had to think about it.

  I’m going to go home, she’d said finally. Not for good—but for now.

  “Yes, mama,” Tricia said. “Coral. And she’s bringing someone with her.”

  “A man?” her mother said coldly.

  “After a fashion,” Tricia said.

  Charley got up then, waved at Erin to do the same. “We’ll be outside,” he said. “Take your time.”

  When her call with her mother was finished, Tricia didn’t hang up the phone, just depressed the hooks with her forefinger and then released them. She placed another call, to a number written in a neat, straight hand on the back of a business card whose front only contained a man’s name, not the name of his employer.

  “Brooks here,” the man answered. Over the phone he sounded, if anything, even more stiff and formal than in person.

  “This is Tricia Heverstadt.”

  “Oh, Miss Heverstadt,” he said, warming up just a little. “I want to express our thanks once more. You did an outstanding job this morning. And now with Royal Barrone turning state’s evidence against Nicolazzo—”

  “I can’t take credit for that.”

  “You put us in touch with him,” Brooks said.

  “I made one phone call,” Tricia said.

  “You did an outstanding job,” he repeated. “And that is the reason I asked you to call me. So that we might discuss in private the matter I alluded to in our first conversation.”

  “What matter is that?”

  “Your skills, Miss Heverstadt, could be of considerable service to your government. Salvatore Nicolazzo is not the only criminal who has eluded us for years. If you were able to get close to him and his confidants, perhaps you could do the same with others.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Simply by way of example,” Brooks said, and she heard some pages flipping on his end of the phone, “there is a
mister Jorge Famosa, living in New York now but a native of Cuba originally. He peddles narcotics in the northeast, smuggled in from his homeland. His operations have been disrupted recently by the fighting down there—you have heard of this rebel, Castro, and his guerilla forces?”

  “I think I’ve seen the name,” Tricia said, “but—”

  “Well, Miss Heverstadt, we have word that Famosa is recruiting criminals from New York’s Cuban community to travel to Cuba and kill Fidel Castro. And once they’ve done that, they intend to back a bid for power by the dead man’s brother, Raul Castro, whom they believe will be more sympathetic to their operations.”

  “What does this have to do with me, Agent Brooks?”

  “We thought you could infiltrate Famosa’s organization and help us bring these men to justice before they create an international incident.”

  “Do I look to you like I could pass for Cuban?”

  “No, ma’am,” Brooks said, “but then you don’t look Italian, either.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tricia said, “I’m just not comfortable—”

  “That’s all right,” Brooks said, and she heard some more pages flipping. “If you’re more comfortable with our Sicilian friends, we have no shortage of assignments there, especially now, with Nicolazzo and Barrone out of commission. That creates a power vacuum and we have already heard this morning—on the QT, you understand—that certain men at the next level down are trying to fill it. There’s one fellow, for instance, who has been operating a brothel out of the Statler Hotel—he’s employed there as their house detective, if you can believe that.”

  “Agent Brooks—”

  “Then there’s another gentleman, Paulie Cusumano, a.k.a. ‘Paulie Lips.’ He runs a club called the Moon and word is he intends to turn it into a casino—”

  “Agent Brooks!” Tricia had to shout to get his attention. “Agent Brooks. I appreciate what you’ve done for me, you and Captain O’Malley. You’ve given me a second chance and I won’t forget it. But I’ve had my fill of this sort of thing. I just want to lead a simple, quiet life from here on in. No criminals, no gunfights, no undercover assignments. Just working in the book publishing business with Charley—where at least in principle all the danger stays on the page.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” Brooks said. “You have the makings of an excellent field asset.”

  “Thank you,” Tricia said, “I think. But I assure you, my mind’s made up.”

  “Very well. The government does not pressure its citizens. I’d like to think you might reconsider someday—but that’s entirely up to you. In the meantime,” Brooks said, “there are just a few loose ends I’d be grateful if you could help us tie up. For example, the matter of the stolen three million dollars. Are you quite certain, Miss Heverstadt, that you don’t have any idea who took it?”

  “Quite certain,” Tricia said. And before he could say anything else she added, “Would you look at that? I’m so sorry, Agent Brooks, I just realized it’s almost noon and I have to be somewhere.”

  “But Miss Heverstadt—” Brooks said.

  “Goodbye, Agent Brooks.” She hung up.

  Outside, Erin was seated at her desk, going through the mail that had piled up. She said, “Everything okay?”

  “Fine,” Tricia said.

  “Want to get some lunch?”

  “Actually,” Tricia said, “all I want to get right now is some sleep. Could you let Charley know I’ll see him a little later?”

  “Sure,” Erin said.

  And Tricia headed out. But instead of going across the hall to her cot, she took the elevator downstairs.

  Down the block, where it had once said “Red Baron” in Gothic letters, the sign now said “O.J.’s Bar and Grill.” Inside, the propellers and framed aviation pictures had been removed from the walls. The place looked unchanged otherwise, though, and was every bit as barren of customers at noon as it had been any of the previous times she’d come here. She ordered a coke from the bartender, who served it to her unenthusiastically. She carried it to one of the dark, anonymous booths against the back wall. Renata was right, she thought. These places did all look pretty much the same.

  She didn’t have to wait long—maybe ten minutes. Don was the first to show up, coming in through a doorway labeled EMPLOYEES ONLY behind the bar. Larry appeared a few minutes later, walking in off the street. Larry’s beard had come in a bit more in the months since she’d seen him last. Otherwise, the two looked much the way they had, though she thought maybe their clothing seemed a little improved.

  “Boys,” Tricia said, raising her glass and waving at them with it. “Want to come over here for a minute?”

  “Why, it’s our authoress,” Larry said. “Our mystery writrix. What brings you here? Are you working on another book?”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” Tricia said, and there was something in her voice that stopped them dead.

  Larry exchanged a glance with Don, who shrugged expressively. Without another word they came over to her table, Don drawing two glasses of beer along the way.

  “You want another drink?” Don said, pointing at the finger of coke left in her glass.

  “I still have some,” Tricia said.

  “You know what they say, Don,” Larry said, “some people look at a glass as ninety percent empty, while others prefer to see it as ten percent full.”

  “How did you know you’d find us here?” Don said.

  “I didn’t,” Tricia said, “but I figured it was worth a try. This is the time we always used to meet when we were working on the book. Remember? Ten past noon.”

  Larry took a long swallow of his beer. “Some people see it as ten past noon,” he said, “while others prefer to see it as fifty to one.”

  She gave him a funny look.

  “What?” he said.

  “Nothing,” Tricia said. She turned back to Don. “You seem very much at home there behind the bar. You get a job here?”

  “Not exactly a job,” Don said.

  “What my friend is too modest to say,” Larry said, “is that he owns this place now. Bought it fair and square from the previous owner. Tore down that wretched bric-a-brac from the walls, turned it into a proper establishment one isn’t embarrassed to be seen in.”

  “Really,” Tricia said. “And where, might I ask, did you get the money to buy a bar? You’d have to write a lot of travel guides to make that kind of dough.”

  “My beloved aunt,” Don said, “passed away.”

  “Ah,” Tricia said. “I’m sorry to hear it. And you, Larry? What are you doing these days? Still writing?”

  “Of course—we both are,” Larry said. “We’re writers through and through. We will never stop.”

  “That’s so,” Don said. “But what he’s too modest to tell you is that he has also opened a bookstore. Down in the Village. Sells used books. Some rare, some not so rare. A real addition to the neighborhood.”

  “And where’d you get the money to do that?” Tricia asked.

  “My beloved uncle,” Larry said.

  “Dead?”

  “The poor man.”

  They all took a drink in silence.

  “One of you want to tell me about it?” Tricia said.

  “Not particularly,” Larry said.

  “You know,” Tricia said, “all along we kept asking ourselves, who could possibly have read the book before it was published? It never occurred to me to ask, what about the guys who helped come up with the plot in the first place.”

  “What finally made you think of it?” Larry said.

  “You were overheard,” Tricia said. “Making your plans. This woman said she’d seen two men, one with a beard, one without, both New Yorkers by their voices, around noon in a back booth in one of her father’s bars. At first I thought she was just making it up to save her skin. But then it dawned on me about the names of the bars.”

  “The names?” Don said.

  “Her father’s name is Royal Barrone,
and he’s in the habit of naming all his bars after himself: Royal’s Brew, the Rusty Bucket. The same initials. And then I thought about where we’d met to do all our plotting. The Red Baron.”

  “I see,” Larry said.

  “Why did you do it?” Tricia said, and she couldn’t keep her voice from quavering as she did. “Do you have any idea what sort of trouble you caused me? I almost got killed. My sister, too. Quite a few people did get killed. And for what? So you could run a bar?”

  “And a bookstore,” Larry said.

  “You risked your own lives, too,” Tricia said, “and on the basis of what, a crazy plot cooked up for a crime novel?”

  “Not a crazy plot,” Larry said. “A brilliant plot. You remember I asked you at the time, why should we come up with a perfectly good plot and hand it over to you, when we could use it ourselves?”

  “For a book! Not in real life!”

  “And why not? After you left that day, when we finally put the last pieces in place, Don and I sat here a while longer, talking, and it dawned on us that this was much too good a premise to waste on mere fiction.”

  “But the combination to the safe—that was just a guess on my part! Didn’t you realize that? It could’ve been completely wrong!”

  Larry shrugged. “But it wasn’t. And I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be. It just made too much sense.”

  “You climbed up the side of a building, broke in through a window, sawed and chiseled through a door, and braved angry mobsters on the way out, all on the basis of a guess, just because you thought it made sense?”

  “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds foolish,” Larry admitted. “But here we are, owners of a bar.”

  “And a bookstore,” Don said.

  “Aren’t you afraid the man you robbed will figure it out?”

  “Why? He hasn’t yet.”

  “Well, for one thing, directly or indirectly, he’s the man you bought the bar from. Royal Barrone works for Salvatore Nicolazzo. He used to until today, anyway.”

  “You’re kidding,” Don said.