Authors: R.J. Ellory
Once again, a murmur of consent from the five seated men.
‘So everything goes . . . everything goes as if nothing has changed. This guy, this Sonny Bernstein, seems he will stand for his father, and whatever he says is going to be the same as if Lenny himself had said it. That’s the way we’re treating this business, and if it comes out the way we figured then everyone’s going to go home happy.’
Marcus eased back his chair and stood up.
‘But there is still this one thing, and I am not happy. You have all done what you were supposed to do. We have vehicles, we have weapons, we have the people we need. Victor has provided the floor plans and names we need. We know what we’re after and we have a way to get it.’
Marcus paused and surveyed the gathered faces. ‘However, despite this, I am not happy. I am not fucking happy at all.’ His fists clenched, and the tension in the room tangibly increased. ‘This Thomas McCaffrey is still somewhere. He may already be dead. The point is that we don’t know. This is something that we cannot forget about. This is something that has to be fixed, and fast. You understand?’
The gathering nodded, looked at one another, looked back at Marcus.
‘Whatever it takes we find him. Get word out to whoever you know. Speak to the people you trust, even to the people you don’t. You need buy-money then you speak to Sol. When it’s done the man who found him gets twenty-five bonus. That’s all there is to it. I want this Thomas McCaffrey found before this thing goes off on the twenty-fourth.’
Once again the men nodded in affirmation.
‘So, until the night before, we don’t meet again. Not any of us. Not in the same place. No phone calls from landlines. Use payphones. Don’t use cellphones. Everyone knows the drill. Anyone wants me they go through Sol, understood?’
The men nodded, grunted their acknowledgements.
‘So let’s get out there.’
They all rose, all five of them, and as they left they each shook hands in turn with both Ben Marcus and Sol Neumann.
Once the office was vacated Marcus turned to Neumann. ‘I see Lester McKee was not present.’
Neumann nodded.
‘Trouble?’
‘Enough.’
‘Someone’s going to take care of it?’
Neumann nodded. ‘Someone’s going to take care of it.’
‘Did he do the thing with the trailer . . . the one with the cigarettes out of the McCarren Park warehouse?’
Neumann shrugged. ‘Fuck knows.’
‘He did something else?’
‘He did something else.’
‘We’re going to lose him?’ Marcus asked.
‘Yep.’
‘And on the day? Who’s going to take his place?’
‘Albert has a boy we can use.’
‘Not his own kid for Christ’s sake . . . that kid has to be the dumbest motherfucker ever to walk the face of the earth.’
Neumann smiled. ‘No, not his own kid. Some other kid he knows.’
Marcus raised his hand. ‘Whatever, whatever. Just take care of things right, okay?’
‘Ben,’ Sol Neumann said, in his voice a tone of disappointment and surprise. ‘When did I ever—’
Marcus reached out and gripped Neumann’s shoulder. ‘Never
is the answer to your question Sol,’ he said. ‘I’m not talking about you . . . I’m talking about these other assholes. Hell, they’re good people, but this is the big one, right? This is the thing. This is the one that makes everything come together, and I cannot afford any fuck-ups, know what I mean? I made an agreement with Lenny, an agreement I never intended to keep. Now, events unforeseen, I have to keep this agreement. I got Lenny’s kid up from Miami, and as far as I know the guy’s a fucking ghost. I got this McCaffrey guy on the loose. I got his dead brother and his dead fucking sister . . . a fucking social worker and a nurse for Christ’s sake! You imagine how that’s going to look on my résumé? I got too many variables Sol, too many variables. I don’t sleep so well when there’s variables.’
‘Take it easy Ben, take it easy,’ Neumann said. ‘This thing has been worked out professionally. Victor knows what he’s doing, and this McCaffrey guy has gone somewhere and I figure he isn’t going to come back. If I were him I’d pick a direction and just keep fucking running. Believe me, nothing is going to go wrong, Ben, nothing is going to go wrong.’
‘I know, I know, I know. I just cannot have anyone out of step on this. There’s going to be a meeting with Freiberg. I have any loose ends, anything looks out of place, then I’m going to have to kill him. That’s just the way it’s got to be. I get the idea Freiberg has created a mirage around this guy. I don’t care who he is, how many people he knows down in Miami . . . fact that we’re not getting any substantial word on him tells me that it’s a scam. Way it feels right now I’m going to have to kill Walt Freiberg, maybe this Sonny Bernstein as well. People around them will fall into line fast enough. Freiberg has made himself the head of Lenny’s crew. He disappears, then that crew will become ours and we can still pull this thing on the twenty-fourth. I don’t want to do that, but if that’s what needs to happen then that’s what will happen.’
‘Ben, it’s okay. Go to the club will you? Go see one of those girls and get a fucking massage or something. You’re making something out of nothing. It’s going to go fine . . . believe me . . . it’s going to go fine.’
Ben Marcus smiled and reached for the door handle. ‘Ever the
optimist, Sol, ever the optimist. How’d you get to be so fucking optimistic?’
Neumann smiled back. ‘Dropped me on my head when I was born . . . been as cheerful as fucking springtime ever since.’
‘You
know
she killed herself,’ Harper said matter-of-factly.
‘You heard me,’ Freiberg replied.
Harper turned to look at Cathy Hollander.
Evelyn had stated the facts the way she saw them, the way she believed them to be. Confirmation was everything. One person is opinion, two people . . . well, two people say the same thing and you can pretty much take it to the bank.
‘And why do you think she killed herself?’
‘Why?’ Freiberg echoed. He pushed his dinner plate to the side and leaned forward. Harper thought the man looked like something from a ’40s classic – Edward G., Jimmy C., Humphrey B.; Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre somewhere out back in the kitchen sharpening things and looking scary, all hooded eyes and high-key lighting. ‘Why does
anyone
do such a thing?’
‘Two of them did, my mother and Garrett Sawyer, both in the same house and five years apart.’ Harper shook his head. ‘What the fuck was that all about?’
Freiberg leaned forward. ‘People kill themselves for two reasons. There’s something they want they can’t have. There’s something they’ve got they don’t want. That’s pretty much it. Doesn’t get an awful lot more complicated than that.’
Harper was silent for a moment. Once more he looked at Cathy. She smiled understandingly. Harper looked at her lips, the way the muscles tensed when she changed her expression. He wanted to know why she had pulled away. He wanted to kiss her again, make her yield.
He turned back to Freiberg. ‘She had something she didn’t want,’ Harper said matter-of-factly.
‘Something she didn’t want? What d’you mean?’
‘Evelyn told me . . . that Anne was aware of the life my father
was leading and felt she couldn’t escape from it. That’s why she killed herself.’
Freiberg smiled. It was a dry and humorless smile. ‘Is that what she told you?’
Harper nodded. ‘Yes. Why?’
‘Because, my dear friend, it was exactly the opposite.’
‘The opposite? I don’t understand.’
‘Anne Harper didn’t kill herself to get away from something. She killed herself because the people who loved her, at least the people who
said
they loved her, were hell-bent on making her leave your father. That’s why your mother died, because her sister, your Aunt Evelyn and her husband, other people who knew her at the time . . . all of them were doing everything they could to make her leave your father. That was what happened Sonny, that was
exactly
what happened.’
Harper was frowning, looking sideways at Cathy Hollander, then back to Walt Freiberg.
‘It isn’t difficult,’ Freiberg said. ‘Your father and your mother, like Romeo and Juliet, the Montagues and the Capulets, and all manner of bullshit thrown in there by people who had no goddamned business getting themselves involved. Evelyn and I never saw eye-to-eye as you know. There was always something with that woman, something undercover, something unspoken. Never said what she meant, never meant what she said. I mean, for Christ’s sake, look at the bullshit lines she fed you. Your father is dead. Goddamnit, you’re how old? Thirty-whatever fucking years of age before you find out that your father isn’t dead; all these years, he’s alive and well and living in New York. And then this thing with your mother . . . dying from pneumonia, that’s what she told you, right?’
Harper looked back at Freiberg, didn’t move, didn’t say a word.
‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ Freiberg asked again. ‘She told you that your mother died of pneumonia?’
Harper nodded.
‘So what the hell is that? The truth about your parents is right there in front of you all this time. She tells you just what she wants you to know and nothing more. That was always her way. That’s just the person she is, Sonny. She didn’t want your father around Anne, believed that what she thought was right for your
mother was more important than whatever the hell anyone else might think, even Anne herself. Anne lived under a cloud. Jeez, she was one of the prettiest, brightest girls I ever knew. She was a real sweetheart, and smart too, very smart indeed. And yet you could see something else there, like there was something that haunted her. You could just feel the way she lived under this oppressive cloud all the time, and that came from Evelyn.’
Freiberg shook his head, ground his cigarette into the ashtray and lit another.
‘And Garrett? Garrett was a good man. I knew Garrett long before he ever met Evelyn. Garrett Sawyer was a tough bastard, didn’t take no crap, but he got himself in with Evelyn and that was the end of that. Guy was never the same again. We used to go out, me and Edward and Garrett, used to go out and see people, used to play cards over in Atlantic City with Ray Dietz and Victor Klein, a couple of guys who now work for Ben Marcus. We caused some trouble, we upset some folks, but we never did any real harm. We were young, and things never seemed to be as serious as other people made them.’ Freiberg smiled. ‘One time . . . I tell you about this one time with me and Garrett—’
Freiberg stopped mid-flight. He shook his head. The smile vanished. ‘Hell, I’m sorry, kid. You don’t want to be hearing good ol’ boy stories about me and Garrett Sawyer. Where was I?’
‘Garrett and Evelyn,’ Cathy said.
‘Right, right . . . Garrett and Evelyn. Yeah, so I knew him before he ever met her. I knew Garrett when he was a hired hand for this freight company downtown. Hard-working guy, real hard-working. Never complained, never a bad word out of his mouth about anyone. And then he met Evelyn, and Evelyn was something else. She was like whatsername in that Brando movie, the one where the sister comes to visit.’
‘
Streetcar Named Desire
,’ Cathy said.
‘Right, the sister . . . the one who was in
Gone With The Wind
.’
‘Vivien Leigh . . . she played Blanche DuBois.’
‘Right, right, Blanche DuBois. She was like that, all airs and graces and ideas above herself, that’s just how she was. From the moment Garrett met her he was walking on eggshells with everything he did. He was a regular guy, a real straight-up Joe,
and then she came sailing in like the Queen Mary and kicks the wind out of his sails—’
‘Why did he shoot himself?’ Harper asked.
Freiberg shrugged his shoulders. ‘You asking me whether I think he wanted out of the thing with Evelyn?’
‘I’m asking why he shot himself, that’s all. You knew him. You knew what he was like—’
‘You knew him too kid, you were almost a man when that thing went down.’
‘I was twelve.’
‘Okay, fine, you were twelve. You weren’t a baby, though. You lived in the same house as Garrett for more than ten years. Why d’
you
think he killed himself?’
Harper smiled, like he was embarrassed, like he’d been asked something intensely personal in front of the whole class.
‘So?’ Freiberg said. ‘What’s your view on this?’
‘I don’t think I’m qualified—’
‘Qualified?’ Freiberg asked. He laughed coarsely. ‘This isn’t Harvard. We don’t need qualifications. I’m asking for your opinion Sonny . . . just your opinion about a man who lived under the same roof as you for a decade or more. That’s all. Don’t make something out of it that isn’t there.’
Harper turned once more and looked at Cathy. His right hand was on the table, and even as his eyes met hers he felt her hand close over his own.
Port in a storm
, he thought.
None of this matters. None of this is important. Everything here in New York will someday be of no significance
.
Cathy nodded. ‘Speak,’ she whispered. ‘It’s okay.’
‘I think . . . I think he was hiding a secret,’ Harper said.
‘Hell, everyone has secrets kid. Show me someone who doesn’t have secrets and I’ll show you a dead guy.’
Harper was shaking his head. He smiled. The expression was of someone exhausted but resilient. ‘Not just
a secret
,’ he said. ‘I’m talking a big fucking secret.’
‘Whatever the hell went down in that house . . . Christ, it’s all years back, it doesn’t matter anymore, right? The past is the past. All that matters is today, tomorrow. Christmas is coming. You have to be happy about that. Everyone’s happy about Christmas.’
‘I don’t know that happy is something I can use right now,’ Harper said.
‘Sure it is,’ Freiberg replied. ‘You have to work yourself out of this serious attitude thing you got going on—’
‘What the hell’s the matter with my attitude?’ Harper asked. ‘I’ve been here, what . . . six days? I’m starting to unravel a little now. I’m starting to wonder whether I can really hang all this together and stay upright for more than ten minutes at a time. I go see Evelyn. I ask her some questions. She breaks up like a storm cloud and the tears come. She tells me the truth. She tells me my mom committed suicide, that she died lonely and afraid. That’s what she said, Walt. She said that Anne Harper died lonely and afraid. You have any idea how that makes me feel?’