“Fair enough. Let’s pretend I believe all that. Beth found him by the water, maybe after someone fought with him. Was that you?”
“No. I just told you, I thought you did it. I don’t know how he got down there in the first place.”
“What do you mean, ‘first place’?”
“I need to go now.”
“I get it now. You did something
after
Beth saw him. The cops reported he’d been bashed on the head at least twice. I’m betting you did the second bashing. Come on, Dani, what’s your story?”
“It’s like this. I came home and saw Beth heading down to the river. I started to go into the house and remembered the last time I’d seen you, you were walking down there. I went down and she wasn’t there, but I found Angelo lying on the beach with some fishing gear. It scared me to death. I pulled that old rowboat down into the water, put him and the fishing gear in it and pushed it off. It might not have been the best thing to do, but it was all I could think of at the time. I guess maybe I murdered him.”
Bad news: she had, maybe, drowned a man. Good news: it was to his benefit. “It’s not certain Angelo drowned, Dani. He might have fallen off the bridge. The cops are figuring it out. Could he have told anyone we are here?”
“Maybe he did, maybe not. He is—was—a loner. Tony’s group likes to work in pairs to do the heavy lifting, like to strangle people, but Angelo liked to work alone.”
Charming.
Tom had wondered why Tony’s pizzeria had so few customers. Was all this real, or had he fallen into a Woody Allen movie? “Dani, you’re not making any of this up, are you?”
“No. The twins will blame me for Angelo. I know they will.”
“Twins?”
“Uh-huh. Harvey and Marvin, Tony’s younger twin brothers. They go by Harv and Marv.”
“Those are not very Italian names.”
“I know. In spite of the family name, they’re mostly Swedish. They’re pretty sensitive about it.”
“Weird. Tony’s locked up and this Angelo is dead, but I still have a Harv and a Marv to worry about. Who else? How big is Tony’s family?”
“Small. Tony’s really pretty small-time. He just doesn’t know that. There’s one first cousin I’ve never met who did the books long ago. He’s long gone and is legit now, a white sheep in the clan.”
“Have you ever seen Wyatt Stone before?”
“What, the skinny young guy? No, of course not, that’s silly. He’s got nothing to do with our problem. Tony eats guys like that for lunch.”
“Dani, did you set the fire in my Quonset hut room?”
“Uh-huh. I couldn’t let you stay there. They would have found you there right away.”
“And you rigged the engine fire in the Nash?”
“Hey, that idiotic car sticks out like a sore thumb. You’re hiding, remember, Tom?”
“It wasn’t yours to burn.”
“It’s an
English
car with an
English
electrical system. They all catch fire sooner or later. I just speeded up something that would have happened anyway. That thing isn’t safe and anyone who sees it remembers it. I’ll do anything to protect you, Tom. You are so much better in the flesh than the crappy Polaroid photo Tony gave me. If you were an inch or two taller, we would be perfect together.”
“Dani, I’m not your boyfriend.”
“Not yet.” She squared her chin. “Anyway, Angelo found us and he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. We need to get out of here now or we’ll both be murdered. Tony will send Harv and Marv after us when Angelo doesn’t call in.”
“Dandy. How about describing the brothers to me?”
“Uh-huh.” She started rummaging in a purse. “I got a Polaroid of them when the pizza parlor opened. They’re identical twins. Here.”
It wasn’t much of a picture, but the faces were clear enough. The brothers were stocky and either tanned or dark-skinned if the color on the Polaroid was correct. Their black hair was streaked with gray, but they still looked as much Nordic as Italian. Noses were small, almost delicate. Eye color was not distinguishable.
“What eye color, gray, green, blue? How tall?”
“Uh, the twins have blue eyes. Tony’s five-five, so Harv and Marv are maybe five-eight.”
“Your old boyfriend is five foot five, and I’m too short for you at six-one?”
“You’re a little stuck on yourself, do you know that? It’s just that when I trade up I like to really trade up. I like to wear heels when I’m out with a guy. Actually, your height’s fine for me.”
“Is there anything else particularly important I should know about Tony and his brothers if I want to stay alive? Especially I want to warn Claire.”
“Oh, her. God, I forgot about her. Have you talked to her?”
“They wouldn’t let me call from the safe house in Arizona. I reached her once from a drugstore pay phone for a minute. I called from here and left one message. Now I can’t reach her at all.”
“You left a message. You told her where you were?”
Tom didn’t like where this was going. “So?”
“Ah, shoot, Tom, think about it. Think how you got the pizza job. Think about how you could have been found in Phoenix. You telephoned her. She was on Tony’s payroll.”
“Claire is with the mob? No.”
“Well, maybe not with them. More like on retainer. I happen to know she’s disappeared. I hope for her sake she’s done a better job of hiding than you and me.”
“Well, that’s great. I suppose maybe it does explain how this Angelo got here. Claire. Damn it.”
“So she’s history. Now focus on our problem, will you?”
Good point
. “What else do you know about Harv and Marv?”
“Not much that matters here. They hate each other, but they’ll work together to kill us. We should leave now.”
“And go where? I’m broke. No car.”
“I have a good car.”
“Money?”
“Not really, thanks to Gary screw-up Grant.”
“Then broke, we’re safest here for a couple days. By the way, someone may be after Renada too.”
“Aw, come on.”
“No, she thinks a guy she was with back in Germany will come after her. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her patrolling the grounds.”
“The woman is delusional to think that she’s hot enough that a man would follow her.”
“It can help us though. And as soon as Robert calms down about the tribal elders, I expect her to put him on watch too.”
“Somehow I don’t see us putting our lives in the hands of those two.”
There was something else he had to clear up. “Thursday, you had a fight with Gary at the front of his store. What was that about?”
“How would you know? Oh, now I get it! You’re the one who knocked me out.”
“I thought you were robbing him. He indicated you were. I mean, his body language did when I came up behind you.”
“Gary lies in English, Indian and ‘body.’ No, Tom. Like I said, even before I met you, I’d decided I wasn’t going to help Tony and his boys terminate you. I was going to bail out. I bought a so-called new identity from Gary. But the documents bounced the first time I tried to use them and he wasn’t going to give me my money back, the little prick. Then you kept me from collecting.”
“All right, I’m sorry. I don’t normally go around braining women.”
“It’s cool. I guess it shows what kind of guy you are. Maybe that’s one thing Gary and I agree about. That’s why we’re so good for each other, you and me.”
“We’re not a couple, Dani.”
“Not yet. We’ve both got a lot to think about together, though. In particular, are you willing to kill someone to avoid being killed?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“I’d say it’s
the
question. If we’re going to sit around waiting for Tony or his brothers to find us, we can make out our wills right now. I’m sorry if it offends your Marine-officer, college-boy sensitivities, but you need to be thinking in terms of ‘kill or be killed.’ I’m leaving now.”
Flushed with anger, he ushered her out and tuned the tiny television to the Green Bay game. He picked up the photograph of Harv and Marv and stared at it. They didn’t look dangerous. But neither did Tony, or a lot of serial killers, rapists, and pedophiles pictured in the newspapers. Kill or be killed, huh?
****
The pink telephone interrupted a game of Solitaire Harold was about to win. He almost always won since he almost always cheated. He picked up to hear Lester Stone identify himself. He spoke as rapidly as his nephew had the night before.
“Harold, we’ve got a problem. You’re going to have to level with me about what we’re doing with this Tom Hawk guy.”
Uh-oh. This was trouble
. “What seems to be wrong, Lester?”
“Last night Wyatt found a fat guy prowling an area where Hawk had just been. He came after Wyatt, and Wyatt kind of panicked and brained him.”
“Yeah, he told me about the fisherman. He killed him? The cops came?”
“No and no.”
“So what’s the big deal?”
“The guy did show up dead later, but not at the place where he fought with Wyatt. I can’t let my brother’s kid get in trouble with the cops on his first case, Harold. What are we doing up there?”
“Lester, I can’t tell you that.”
“Then I’m pulling Wyatt out.”
“No! Wait, I’ll tell you. It all has to do with my worthless cousin Tony. I told you how when I was, you know, sick, the Reverend Timmy-Bob came to the, to that hospital, and showed me the One True Path. One thing he wanted me to do was to make up with my family, all of them. So I went to see Tony. We had a nice dinner and I took him to see that damn
Godfather
movie.
“He wigged out about the movie. He wanted to be remembered like Marlon Brando. He made a tape of his life going way back and gave me a copy. I’m named in it. Hell, maybe you’re named in it. I didn’t listen to all of it.”
“A tape. I wouldn’t have believed Tony could be so dumb.”
“Even he knows now what a screw-up it all was. It started when of his guys screwed him in some horse race deal. Tony cooked him in his pizza oven and this Tom Hawk saw the body and reported it. Tony managed to dump the body but they found other evidence. Then somehow the original tape disappeared when Tony started getting rid of all kinds of stuff that might get him in trouble.
“The feds tried to hide Hawk in Arizona until they could try Tony, but Harvey and Marvin found him. He got away and he might have the tape. If that tape gets out a whole lot of people are going down, Lester. Tony’s gone nuts. We need him in prison, in a mental asylum or dead.”
“And you’ve got a copy of this tape that talks about all of us?”
“I
had
one. I destroyed it after Tony tried to have me killed in my bed.”
“Couldn’t get you in the oven, eh?”
“The man is my first cousin. He wouldn’t have come after me in the old days, but that movie changed him. The point is his original tape has disappeared. My source says Tony is convinced either Dani or this Tom Hawk has it. He needs it back and he needs Hawk dead. You got to help me. I never got into the wet end of the business. I was just the accountant. And I’ve been clean for fourteen years.”
“Are you crying, Harold?”
“It’s sinuses.” He blew his nose and it was much louder than expected.
“Poor baby. Settle down. Let’s try to figure out where we stand. This fat guy Wyatt tussled with, Wyatt says he stank of cigars and had a nick out of one ear.”
“Which ear?”
“Wyatt doesn’t remember.”
“It sounds like Angelo Conti, Tony’s driver and pet moron. I didn’t think he could find his bottom side with both hands. I’m astonished he got to Michigan without help, let alone found Hawk. Tony wouldn’t depend just on him. I’d expect him to send his girlfriend, Dani or one of his brothers, but most likely Dani. She’s got more brain cells on one side of her head than Tony and his fool brothers.”
“Describe her.”
“She’s beautiful, but huge. Six-foot, maybe six-one. Blonde.”
“Wyatt reports a woman like that staying in the same rooming house.”
“So, both of the people who might have taken the tape are there. Maybe your nephew can get it. Then we’ve got Tony where we want him. Lester, are you with me?”
“Yeah, but there’s a problem. If Wyatt gets the tape, there’s a good chance he’ll hear it and give it to the cops. We can’t tell him about it until we have to.”
“Oh for pity’s sake, just tell him he’s forbidden to listen to it.”
“Listen to
you
. ‘Heaven’s sake, why on earth, pity’s sake’—I liked it better when you swore every third word.”
“I don’t cuss since Reverend Timmy-Bob led me to the Path, Lester. You know that. You should clean up your speech, too. Now please, get your nephew back on his meds, right away. This whole thing is out of control, completely out of control.”
“Now
you
need to calm down. Maybe you should take some of your prescription.”
Harold came
that
close to saying, “Screw you,” but caught himself. They had explained at the hospital that anger could lead to…the other problem. He said, “Your boy Wyatt is lucky he only met Angelo, not the brothers. I hope he’s up to this.”
“He’ll just have to be, won’t he?”
“Well, tell him that. Goodbye, Lester.”
He stared at the idiotic pink telephone. Stinky should take it out in the desert and bury it. He wished he didn’t need Stinky. It was not easy to stay legit. It was not easy to stay on the One True Path.
Chapter Nine
The Packers lost and Tom got Robert to go with him to the grocery store.
Gary was repairing the broken pane of glass from the visit by the elders. He was wearing sunglasses on an overcast day, was limping and one ear was bandaged, but he greeted them cheerfully. “Hey, guys, I’m glad you’re here. Come on back to the office. I’ve got a check all made out for Aunt Mildred.”
At the office Tom protested, “You talk like it’s all a done deal.”
“It has to be. I can’t take another business meeting with the tribal council like the one I had yesterday. I’m counting on you on this one, Tomahawk. No mineral rights, no casino, and I’ll be road kill. We gotta have this deal.”
“I get it. Run the plan by me.”
“My pleasure. Mildred’s farm is next to the reservation. Well, she has 160 acres that once
was
a farm. Not many people are crazy enough to try to grow cash crops up here anymore. Since the land has been in the family for ages, she holds the mineral rights. The tribe thinks there’s a viable ore vein mostly under their land and hers. They’re keeping it hush-hush. I gotta have her rights to sell to the tribe. Otherwise, there’s no casino deal.”