Peril (30 page)

Tony's face stiffened, and for a moment the two men stared silently at each other. Then Tony turned around and headed up the stairs.

Labriola watched him briefly, then turned to Caruso, grasped his shoulder and gave it a painful squeeze. “Don't fuck up.”

“I won't,” Caruso promised.

Labriola jerked open the door and surged out into the night, his heavy bulk lumbering up the stairs.

Caruso sucked in a troubled breath, pulled himself from behind the wheel, and headed up the stairs behind Labriola. The buzzer was already ringing by the time he joined him on the landing.

The door opened and a tall man in a dark suit appeared, his blue eyes ghostly in their icy glint.

“You Batman?” Labriola laughed.

“What?”

Caruso released a nervous little chuckle. “That's what I called you,” he explained. “Mr. Labriola don't know you by no other name.”

The man's eyes shifted over to Labriola. “Leo Labriola,” he said.

“Yeah, that's me,” Labriola said gruffly. “And this is my son, Tony. It's his wife that's missing.”

The man in the dark suit nodded. “Stark,” he said.

“So,” Labriola said, slapping his hands together. “We gonna stand in the fucking street all night, or what?”

Stark smiled quietly. “Please come in,” he said.

Caruso trailed along, following Labriola and Tony into the shadowy interior of Stark's apartment, where Mortimer stood silently in a far corner of the room.

“Would anyone like a drink?” Stark asked.

“We ain't here to socialize,” Labriola said. He stepped forward, leaving a space between Caruso and Tony. “I paid you a lot of money, but you didn't find my son's wife.”

“No, I didn't,” Stark replied evenly. He nodded toward Mortimer. “But my assistant, Mr. Dodge, did.”

“Mr. Dodge,” Labriola bellowed. “You trust your . . . assistant?”

“Yes.”

“You trust him like I trust Vinnie?”

“I would trust him with my life,” Stark said.

Labriola laughed. “Okay, so this fucking guy . . . Mr. Dodge . . . he wouldn't short you, would he?”

Stark smiled. “I said I'd trust him with my life. Not my money.”

Labriola's eyes seemed to leap with canine joy. “So you already know about this fucking guy? How he was gonna short you?”

“I know that he found the woman you're looking for,” Stark said. “And I know that you're going to forget that he found her.”

Labriola seemed unable to process Stark's response. He glanced back and forth between Caruso and his son, then leveled his eyes on Stark. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about a woman,” Stark said coolly. “Her name is Sara, I believe. And she no longer exists for any of you.”

Tony stepped forward slightly. “I'm not looking for her,” he said. “You see her, you can tell her I'm not looking.” He turned to Labriola. “Let's go, Dad.”

Labriola didn't move. His eyes remained on Stark. “Who the fuck you think you're talking to, asshole?” he sneered.

Stark's voice turned steely. “Here's what's you do,” he said. “You. Leave. Sara. Labriola. Alone.”

Labriola squinted hard, as if trying to bring something very small into focus. Then he glanced unbelievingly at Caruso. “You hear this fucking guy?” he bellowed. “You hear how he talks to me?” He laughed, but edgily, as his gaze shot from Caruso to Tony, then back to Stark. “You a fag?”

Stark faced him silently.

“I asked you a question,” Labriola said. “Are you a fag?”

Stark gave no answer.

“ 'Cause you must be a fag if you think you're gonna fuck with
me.
”

Stark stared at Labriola without expression.

“Or maybe you think
I'm
a fag,” Labriola sneered. He stepped forward and with surprising speed yanked a thirty-eight snub-nosed pistol from his jacket pocket and aimed it at Stark. “You ready to die, fuckhead?”

Stark said nothing, but Caruso saw a dark gleam come into his eyes, as if something important had suddenly occurred to him.

“I asked you a question,” Labriola said.

Stark faced him silently.

Tony eased forward and stretched his hand toward Labriola. “Give me that, Dad,” he said.

Labriola jerked the gun from his son's reach. “Shut the fuck up, Tony,” he barked, his eyes still on Stark. “You look a little fucked up, Batman,” he said. His eyes slid over to Caruso. “This guy look a little fucked up to you, Vinnie?”

Caruso nodded.

Labriola thrust his hand forward, snapped back the pistol's metal cock, then stepped forward and pressed it against Stark's forehead. “Check this asshole out, Vinnie.”

“Stop it, Dad,” Tony said.

Labriola paid no attention. “Do it, Vinnie!”

Caruso came around behind Stark and began patting him down, then suddenly stopped cold and drew a nine-millimeter automatic from beneath Stark's arm.

“Gimme it,” Labriola snapped.

Caruso placed the pistol in Labriola's outstretched hand.

Labriola stepped back and smiled at Stark. “Nobody fucks with Leo Labriola.”

“What now?” Stark asked coolly.

Labriola laughed. “What now?” he asked mockingly. “Now we go for a little ride.”

ABE

He waited until the lights went on in Samantha's apartment. Then he turned and made his way back to the bar. As he walked, he replayed the events of the last few days, how she'd shown up out of the blue, the way she made him feel. He didn't know whether anything would come of it, but who ever knew if anything would come of anything, or if what came would last, or even be all that good? But what the hell, he thought as he turned onto Twelfth Street, all life really gave you was a chance not to fuck it up.

At the bar Jake was counting the receipts and Susanne was clearing the last of the tables.

“She done good,” Jake said. “The crowd really seemed to like her.”

Abe nodded, then glanced over at the now-empty tables, recalling how conversations had trailed off during her first song, fallen silent for the last two. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, they did.”

Jake and Susanne left a few minutes later, and Abe returned to the piano and played Samantha's closing number, remembering the way she'd sung it, how she'd made the lyrics seem like the sum total of what a person could learn.

He'd just played the final chord when he heard the door open at the front, realized that he hadn't locked it after he'd let Jake and Susanne out.

CARUSO

He stood obediently behind Stark and Tony, guarding them from the back, while Mortimer and Labriola stepped inside the bar. Over their shoulders he could see the barkeep moving toward them.

“I can't serve you, Morty,” the barkeep said when he reached them.

“We have to talk,” Mortimer said gravely.

Before the barkeep could answer, Labriola said, “You got a table for—what we got here?—four of us . . . plus you . . . so that means a table for five, right?”

The barkeep looked at Mortimer uncomprehendingly.

“Just do it,” Mortimer told him

“Yeah, just do it,” Labriola said coldly.

The barkeep didn't move. “I think you'd better go,” he said.

Labriola laughed harshly. “Go? You don't even know me, and you're telling me to get out? That ain't very nice.” He drew the pistol from his jacket pocket. “Like I said, fuckhead, table for five.”

The barkeep didn't move, and Caruso thought it would all end at that instant, Labriola blasting the barkeep first, knocking him backward and over the nearest table, then turning to the others, dropping them where they stood, Stark and Mortimer, both of them staggering backward under a hail of bullets, geysers of blood shooting from their chests, all of it a scenario Caruso knew he was helpless to stop, the Old Man's rage now at full throttle, hurling everyone toward disaster.

Then, suddenly, Mortimer's voice broke the silence. “Abe,” he said quietly, “please.”

The barkeep nodded softly, then turned and headed toward the back of the bar, walking slowly, like a man to his execution.

“Okay, let's go,” Caruso said. He turned around and jerked Stark and Tony forward, then walked behind them, at Labriola's side, until they reached the back of the room, where they gathered around a wooden table.

“Sit,” Labriola ordered. He wiped his mouth with his fist. “And hurry up about it.”

Caruso lowered himself into a chair off to the side and watched as the barkeep, Tony, Stark, and Mortimer took their seats around the table. He could feel the air heating up around him, a hundred desperate voices in his head, a babble of notions, all of them aimed at escape, until the futility of it all silenced them and he felt himself sink into that silence, cold and wordless, as if already dead.

“Got a regular powwow here, don't we, Vinnie?” Labriola asked as he plopped heavily into a chair.

Caruso nodded stiffly, his neck locked in the tension of the atmosphere, every bone aching.

Labriola placed the pistol on its side, laid his hand over it, and stared at the barkeep. “Okay, here's the deal. My son here, his wife left him, and he don't want to do nothing about it. But the way I see it, this woman fucked my son when she left him. And so she fucked me too. Only that was a mistake, 'cause I ain't like Tony.” His smile was a sliver of ice. “So, can you help me out here, Mr.—”

“Morgenstern,” the barkeep said.

“Yeah, right,” Labriola said. “My point being, this woman, my son's wife, she should have had a little talk with her husband before she run out on him. 'Cause it ain't respectful, running off like that, without a word. Now, my son, he'd let her get away with it, because he ain't got the balls to do nothing about it.”

“But you have,” the barkeep said suddenly.

“You goddamn right I have,” Labriola said. “Big fucking balls, asshole.”

Caruso saw the barkeep's hand drift toward the end of the table and remembered those fingers at the piano keys. That was what he must be imagining at the moment, he thought, the fact that he was in danger of never doing that again, that one wrong word or movement, and those same fingers would never dance around the keys again. But so what, Caruso decided, shoring himself up for whatever lay ahead, loading the whole bunch of them into a car crusher if that's what the Old Man had in mind.

Labriola was talking again when Caruso returned his attention to him.

“Now, you know where she is, right, my son's wife?” Labriola said. “I mean, she works for you, so you know where she is.” He lifted his hand like a flat stone to reveal the pistol coiled beneath it. “And I'm sure you don't mind telling me where she is, right?”

The barkeep's hands reached the curved edge of the table and stopped. “No, I don't mind,” he said almost cheerily.

Caruso could hardly believe his ears. Here he was, ready to put a bullet in the fuck, and the barkeep was saving him the trouble, caving in even without the Old Man popping him one. He glanced to his right, saw Labriola grin, and grinned with him.

“Good,” Labriola said.

Caruso turned back to the barkeep, who was sitting silently, staring at Labriola.

“Well?” Labriola blurted out after a moment.

“Well what?” the barkeep asked.

“I thought you was gonna tell me where she is, my son's wife,” the Old Man told him.

“I am,” the barkeep replied casually. Then his eyes froze. “For a price,” he added.

“A price?” the Old Man barked. “You ain't getting a dime out of me.”

The barkeep shrugged. “I don't want money.”

“What you want, then?” Labriola asked.

The barkeep looked at Mortimer, then back toward Labriola. “One of those big balls you got,” he said.

Shit, Caruso thought, seeing the slaughter once again, everybody dead, the Old Man standing in the lightly waving reeds of the Meadowlands, sipping whiskey from a bottle as Caruso hauled one body after another from the back of his blue Lincoln Town Car.

Labriola sat back slightly, lifted the gun from the table, and aimed it directly at the barkeep's head. “You're one dumb kike,” he said.

Suddenly, Tony leaned forward. “Let's go, Dad,” he pleaded.

“Go?” Labriola yelped.

“I don't want to talk to her, Dad.”

Labriola shook his head. “What a pussy you are, Tony.”

“Dad, please, you can't.”

Labriola whirled around. “Can't what, Tony?” he asked icily. “What, you giving the orders now? Telling me what I can't do?” He looked at Caruso. “What do you think, Vinnie, you think maybe I should show this little fuck who's the boss?” He glanced at each man in turn, his lips curled down in a sneer. “Teach all of you who's the fucking boss.” He shot his gaze over to Caruso. “Gimme your gun, Vinnie,” he said. His hand shook violently, like a ragged cloth in a tearing wind. “Gimme your fucking gun!” he screamed.

Caruso drew the thirty-eight from his waistband and handed it to Labriola.

Labriola glared at the barkeep. “Let's start with you, Mr.—Morgenstern.” He spun the chamber. “There's only one bullet in this fucking thing. You got the balls to pull the trigger?”

“Dad, stop it,” Tony said.

Labriola spun around and cracked the pistol against the side of Tony's head. “You sound like that bitch wife of yours, Tony.”

Tony lurched backward, his hands to his head, blood seeping through the closed fingers.

Labriola laughed. “Stop it! Stop it!” he repeated in a high, female plea. “That's all she ever said.”

Tony drew his hands from his head and glared at Labriola. “What are you talking about?”

“Stop it! Stop it!” Labriola whined in the same mocking tone. “Like she thought she was boss.” His eyes gleamed madly. “Like she didn't know my rule.”