Applaud the Hollow Ghost (28 page)

I didn't tell her I'd have my own agenda, and one that didn't entirely match hers.

“I don't know if it's good for you to be there,” she said. “Gustavo may not want a stranger—”

“I'm not a total stranger to Gus,” I said. “What I have to say is important. It will help you get what's best for Trish. Also…” I paused. “Also, it's the only way I can help Lambert Fleming. And it was
you,
Rosa, after all, who told me I had to help him because nobody else would.”

So together we worked out sort of a plan.

Of course, our plan had lots of what the military people call contingency factors, and the rest of us think of as loose ends. In other words, we didn't quite know how things were going to work out, but had to go ahead anyway. One of the longer loose ends I could see, and Rosa couldn't, was hanging out there precisely because Rosa was mistaken about one important thing—something I'd finally become convinced of.

But it didn't seem helpful for me to tell her just then.

*   *   *

S
O IT WAS
R
OSA'S
and my joint plan—slightly modified, and loose ends notwithstanding—that had Casey at the wheel of the Voyager on Sunday afternoon, waiting to drop Lammy and me off at Gus's gate and then drive off in a hurry.

One modification Rosa didn't know about was that Lammy was coming along. I hadn't planned on that, either. I couldn't see his presence causing anything but problems, but I've been wrong before. And he begged me to let him come. He was scared to death about what would surely happen to him if I wasn't around—a very reasonable fear—and he figured if I was going down he might as well go down, too. Those were my words, not his, but I knew he was thinking along those lines. On top of all that, he wanted to help save his own damn life, for God's sake, and who was I to take that away from him? Those weren't his words, either. Or mine. They were Casey's. So I figured the man of God had spoken—or something. Lammy came along.

Rosa got Gus to agree to the meeting, and to have Dominic and Steve there. She'd wanted to ask Gus's permission for me to be there, too. She said he usually gave her whatever she asked for. I rejected the idea. First of all, Gus might have said no. Secondly, I didn't want Gus telling Dominic or Steve I'd be there, or want the two of them thinking I had any arrangement with Gus. But mostly, I wanted Gus himself in the dark. He'd be less likely to interfere with my agenda.

I wouldn't have trusted Gus to take out last year's garbage without his looking to see what was in it for him. He would do whatever he thought was in his interest, and it would be better to catch him unaware. I'd apparently earned his respect, more or less, and told Rosa she could speak up on my behalf after I was already there. That, plus his not knowing whom I might have told where I'd be, made me believe Gus would have no inclination to harm Lammy and me. That is, unless something went seriously wrong—which I was seriously hoping wouldn't happen.

Gus's estate was adjacent to a country club, and was itself the size of a nine-hole golf course. A high wall, coated with white stucco to match the house, ran all the way around. We waited in the Voyager on a side road about a half mile down from the iron gate that controlled the only entrance, Lammy in the front passenger seat and I sitting on the rolled-up sleeping bag in the back. It wasn't quite as late as I'd hoped it would be, and the sun was still up, when Dominic rolled past. He was talking on his cell phone, maybe telling Gus he was nearing the gate. I wasn't happy that Karen was with him, even though I'd known it was likely. Then a few seconds later came Steve, in the Ford van.

Lammy and I had to go in right behind Steve. Otherwise, we'd have to climb over the gate, or over the wall with its original topping of broken glass and its recently installed razor wire. I didn't think I could do that, and Lammy certainly couldn't. Casey pulled out behind the van, keeping his distance. When Steve turned into the entrance drive that led to the gate, Casey accelerated.

“Don't get too close,” I said, “he's gotta wait for the gate.”

“Are you nuts?” Casey kept his foot on the pedal. “The gate'll be open already, for Dominic.”

By the time we pulled even with the driver, Steve was already through, and the tall, iron-barred gate was sliding closed.

“Go!” I shouted. Lammy's door was quicker to open than the sliding rear door, and he was a couple of steps ahead of me, which was where I wanted to keep him. “Run, Lammy!”

The Voyager's tires spun on the cleared pavement as Casey sped away and I charged after Lammy. I was proud of him. Despite his bulky coat and boots, he must have been moving faster than he had in years. He made it through the slowly narrowing space with a couple of feet to spare. Steve's van was already into the woods and out of sight.

I'd have made it through the gate, too, if I hadn't slipped on a patch of snow, hard-packed and as smooth as ice. I lost maybe two seconds. But that was enough. The gate clanked into place, trapping Lammy inside, staring out at me through the bars—terror-stricken.

“Don't worry,” I said. “I'll climb over.”

And I did. I'll never know how I made it up and over. Like Lammy, I had on a winter coat, thick pants, and leather boots. My gloves were leather, too, and they gave me some grip on the cold, slippery bars. Like the wall itself, the gate was twice my height, the bars maybe four inches apart. At the top there were fancy curlicues and sharp points and some old-fashioned barbed wire. But I made it, with only a few tears in my clothes and one scratch on my cheek. I had to. I was more horrified at the prospect of my leaving Lammy alone in there than he was.

I dropped the last four feet to the pavement. “See?” I said, between gasps. “Nothing to it.” I was nearly hysterical myself, and Lammy looked ready to burst into tears. I actually thought maybe I should hug him.

But I didn't want to give the idea we were scared to whoever was manning the monitor for the video camera fixed high up on the wall, pointing down at us. I kept my face turned away from the lens and pulled Lammy close to the wall under the camera.

Meanwhile, Gus's militia was already arriving.

Actually, I was happy to see the open, cabless Jeep bouncing out of the woods toward us. Better to have Gus's usual security guards get to us before Dominic or Steve, since the guards were more likely to notify Gus and less likely to just shoot us on the spot. But then Steve's van appeared, too, right behind the Jeep.

The guards—two thugs in matching snowmobile suits and semiautomatic rifles—climbed out of the Jeep and Steve stood by as they searched Lammy and me, very professionally, head to toe and everywhere in between. All they found was the Beretta under my arm. They'd have found anything else there was, too, which is why there wasn't anything else.

“I'll take that,” Steve said, reaching out for the Beretta.

“No fucking way,” the man answered. He checked the magazine. “Damn thing's fully loaded. Mr. Apprezziano don't let no guns but his on the property. Even you don't bring no fucking piece in here, Mr. Connolly. You know that.”

“Listen, you dumb sonovabitch. Give me the fucking jagoff's gun. I'm taking it in to Mr. Apprezziano so he'll know just what this asshole was up to.”

“But we got our orders,” the other man said, stepping close to his partner. “We gotta—”

“Fuck your orders! I'll have both your asses, you don't give me that goddamn piece.” Steve, taller than either of them, leaned toward them and spoke very slowly. “Who the fuck you think I am, some two-bit fucking security guard like you?”

Gus was the big boss, but the guards knew Steve was far higher on the ladder than they were. He wasn't Italian, so he'd never be
made,
but still, he'd married into the family. He was a physically big man, too, and he exuded power. Besides, Gus was up at the house … and Steve was right here, in their faces.

The guards gave in … which in the end turned out to be for the best, for a reason no one could ever have dreamed of.

Lammy and I rode to the house in the back of Steve's van, sitting on the bench seat. One of the guards sat in a captain's chair swiveled around to face us, and the other followed behind in the Jeep. It was the same ride, in the same vehicle, I'd taken five days earlier, and the same road I'd walked out on after my visit with Gus. But it seemed shorter this time.

It was still light out—although it wouldn't be for long—and I noticed for the first time that the carpeting in the van was blue. We bounced up and over the little hump-backed wooden bridge, crossing the stream. Looking out the window, I didn't see or hear any guard dogs, but knew they were around somewhere. I'd seen a tangle of thick leather leashes, and a couple of muzzles, lying on the floor of the Jeep.

Steve parked the van beside Dominic's car and we all climbed out. The Jeep pulled up and the driver waved a cellular phone at Steve. “Mr. Apprezziano says to bring these two in to him,” he called. “Says he's in the library.”

CHAPTER
37

I
F
G
US'S LIBRARY WASN'T
as large as my entire apartment with the inner walls removed, it didn't fall short by much. There were even lots of books. A couple of walls full of them—from waist-high on up almost to the beamed ceiling, plus a couple of those ladders that run on wheels along rails so you can get the topmost volumes down. From the bottom shelves down to the floor, all the way around, were hand-crafted cabinets made of what I took to be birdseye maple, stained a golden color.

Of course, the very thought of Gus settled under a floor lamp in one of the comfy-looking chairs that were scattered around, cradling a volume of—let's say—Cooper's
Leatherstocking Tales
and transported to the pristine forests of upstate New York, was ludicrous. My guess was the lamps Gus used most in his library were the ones in the tanning bed that sat in one corner with its top up, looking like an open casket at a wake.

Besides the easy chairs and their floor lamps, there were four well-stuffed sofas, several library tables with carved legs and lion's claw feet, lots of table lamps of various styles, and even a huge—and, I suspected, interior-illuminated—globe.

It was plenty warm in the room, although there was no fire burning in the white brick fireplace. The predominant smell wasn't old books, but Old Spice aftershave—which I wasn't especially fond of, and which therefore I attributed to Dominic Fontana. His left arm was hanging in a narrow black cloth sling, and he wore a gray suit with a sort of a shine to the fabric. He was standing with Gus beside one of the library tables. The table was obviously used by Gus as his desk, because it held a telephone and a green-shaded desk lamp and several copies of racing forms in various colors. Gus himself was decked out in black-and-green plaid pants and a brown wool cardigan, unbuttoned, over a cream-colored shirt.

The two men were standing near the opposite end of the room from the door we entered, and beyond them was a wide, tall set of windows. The view was to the south, where the expanse of snow on the yard glowed with a rosy tint in the dying light of the afternoon sun. Gus wasn't enjoying the view, though. He'd spun around when Lammy and I stumbled into the room, pushed forward by Steve. After waving Dominic down into a nearby chair, Gus stood for a long moment, not saying anything and clearly not enjoying this view, either.

Goldilocks was there, about ten feet this side of Gus, his hands deep into the pockets of a dark blue blazer that he wore over a white shirt, open at the collar. When I got my balance I nodded to him and he nodded back, as though we were both happy to see a familiar face—and maybe we were. There was other muscle in the room, as well. Two average-sized, hard-looking men I'd never seen before—they could have been twins, actually—both wearing dark suits and narrow ties. Gus's version of secret service bodyguards. One stood off to our left near the fireplace; the other behind Gus, to the side of the windows beyond which the snow was already fading from rose to gray as the rapidly waning afternoon gave way to evening.

Not far from Gus and Dominic, at one end of a sofa that could have held three more people with room to spare, a solemn little dark-haired girl in white sneakers, light blue pants, and a pink sweatshirt sat with her hands locked between her knees, her body pressed close against the side of a thin, gray-haired woman in a plain black dress and flat-heeled shoes. The woman's arm was around the little girl's shoulders. Something about the look on Rosa's face said that Trish was under her protection now, once and for all, and she wouldn't give her up to anyone. Not Gus, not Dominic, not even Steve—not while Rosa had any breath left in her.

And, I decided, not while I did, either.

Everyone stared at everyone else, until finally Gus spoke up. “Steve,” he said, pointing our way, “you know nobody brings a weapon into my house.”

“Sorry,” Steve said, and then tapped me on the shoulder with the Beretta. “But I took it off this—”

“Put it in your pocket.”

“Jesus Christ, Mr. A.,” Dominic said, “that's—”

“Watch your mouth, both of you,” Gus said.

“Sorry,” Dominic said. “But Steve's got—”

“Yeah, I know. Steve's got the pervert. I see that.” Gus turned toward the sofa where Rosa and Trish sat, then looked across the room at the man near the fireplace. “Raymond.” His voice was strong, but not harsh. “Take the child out of here. She should not—”

“No,” Rosa said, staring at Raymond and freezing him in his tracks. She turned back to Gus. “I told you, Gustavo, I have something to say. I told you I would wait to say it until Steven arrived. Now he is here, and that this unfortunate young man is with him I take to be a sign from God. I wish to speak in front of him, and everyone.”