Black Water Transit (41 page)

“Mom …”

She lifted a thin yellow hand and placed it on Casey’s
cheek. Her fingers were cold and her hand shook a little. Her eyes were wet.

“I’ve made your young life a hell, Casey.”

“No. Yes. Perhaps. I’ve been trying to help you.”

“I know. Are you through trying to help me?”

Casey’s eyes were burning, her throat pounding. Her mother waited for whatever answer was coming. Casey shook her head.

“No, Mom. I’m not.”

“Then I’d like to start.”

“Start what?”

“Start trying. Do you think we can do that?”

“We can try.”

Casey even managed to believe her for quite a long while.

Carmine had said nothing to either of them during the entire trip, sitting in the back of Senza’s blue Crown Victoria and staring at the back of Senza’s huge dented skull as if he could drill a hole into it to match the one he had put in Senza’s left cheek. Jack was in the passenger seat, holding the Glock casually, and smelling Carmine’s blood in the air-conditioned interior. It smelled of chlorine and rust. The blood had run quickly at first, but had slowed to a thin red ribbon by the time they pulled into Frank’s driveway in Rensselaer. Frank had been waiting in the shadows under the trees beyond the wrought-iron gates. Creek Johnson was nowhere around. Nor was Frank’s wife, Claire. Frank Torinetti’s garage was big
enough to hold five cars. Once they had the doors down, it was as dark inside as if it were midnight. The garage was solid brick and stone, as cool as a cave. They had to move the Cord and the split-window coupe and Claire’s turquoise T-bird to make room for the wooden chair that Frank had carried out from the gatehouse. Jack moved the cars out of the way while Fabrizio Senza stood over Carmine DaJulia.

Frank Torinetti leaned his back against the redbrick wall. He was dressed in pale pink satin pajamas under an emerald-green robe. His ankles showed blue-white and bumpy with purple veins above the burgundy leather slippers. Under the single hard light his face was shiny and wet, his skin sagging like melted wax, his deep-set eyes glittering with a yellow light. He was smoking a cigarette and watching Fabrizio Senza as the old man draped sheets of plastic over the nearby cars. Then Senza lifted Carmine DaJulia up off the floor beside the chair as if he were a plaster model, sat him down into it, and pushed him upright.

Carmine’s face was stone, his breathing slow and steady. They had taken off his pale-gray silk suit jacket and his shirt. His hands were behind him, cuffed with black plastic cable ties. Others bound him to the rails of the heavy wooden chair. His heavily muscled body looked whale-white under the light, his big belly smooth and round, a blood-soaked bandage pasted onto it over his lower left side, held in place with a section of his torn shirt.

The blood had dried into a brown mass, but every time Carmine exhaled, a thin ribbon of fresh blood would pulse out from under the bandage and run down into the waistband of his suit pants. Enough of it had run down over his belly to soak the entire front of his slacks. Just above the wound near his right knee there was a leather belt—his own belt, black crocodile with a
buckle made of lapis lazuli and a gold
C
on the crest—cinched in tight, bunching the fabric up around the tourniquet, and under the fabric his leg was swollen and tubular, straining against the material. He had one shoe off and one shoe gone, lost somewhere during the long careful journey back from Riveredge Park. After a few minutes, during which no one spoke and Carmine’s breathing grew less steady, Frank stepped away from the wall and stood in front of Carmine. Jack leaned against Claire’s Thunderbird, saying nothing.

Carmine lifted his head and looked back at Frank, his expression blank. Frank nodded over Carmine’s head and Fabrizio Senza stepped into the circle of light. The bandage on his cheek was fresh, but a huge blue-black bruise had spread across the side of his face, and tears were seeping from his left eye and running down into the bandage. Jack studied Fabrizio, looking for pain, but the man’s face might have been cut from a slab of wood.

“Show him,” said Frank.

Fabrizio Senza reached into his rumpled and bloody suit coat and extracted a long cedarwood box. He leaned down to show Carmine the box and popped the silver catch that held the lid. The lid was spring-loaded. It snapped open to reveal a dark-blue satin interior. Lying in the little satin coffin was a straight razor, glittering steel and silver filigree, with a long curved handle made of bone.

Carmine’s breathing became less regular. Senza straightened up, took the razor out of the case, set the case down on the plastic sheeting covering the fender of a dark green Bugatti, and walked around to the back of Carmine’s chair. Carmine tried to follow his movement but could not bring his head around. The muscles of his neck and shoulders were too thick. His eyes strained in their sockets until the whites showed, giving him a
wild-horse look, but it was no use. Senza was behind him now and close enough for Carmine to hear the man breathing and smell his dried blood.

Carmine looked back up at Frank.

“Frank, this isn’t right.”

“No? Why?”

“This was between me and Jackie.”

“You and Jackie?”

“Yeah. I mean, it was you or him.”

“Me or him?”

“Yeah. I was … I was taking care of you. Frankie, you know I been backing you up. You been sick, you got no energy. Somebody had to look out for us. All I was doing—”

“Are the feds watching this house?”

“How the fuck would I know?”

“Are they?”

Carmine hesitated and then shook his head.

“No.”

“Why?”

“They don’t know Jackie was coming this way. After Fabrizio called, I told them they was going south. Jersey. They broke off.”

“You wanted them off, right? So you could kill Jack?”

“It wasn’t about Jack. He was bringing the feds in on you. Whining and begging. Alla this time, Jack’s too fucking good to hang out with people like us. He gets into trouble, all of a sudden we’re family. I done it for you, Frank. He’s gone, the feds can’t get to you. All I been doing in this is keeping them off you.”

“You put the feds on Jack in the first place.”

“It wasn’t that simple.”

“You talking to the feds, hah? About me?”

Carmine shook his head.

“No. That’s not how it went.”

Frank shook his head, glanced over Carmine’s shaved
skull. Carmine followed the look and tensed up so hard the sinews in his neck popped out like cables. Senza did nothing, only waited. From where Jack was standing, he could see all three men, arranged in a tight group, Senza half in shadow, Carmine upright in the chair under the light, bathed in the kind of glow you expect to see around angels, and Frank, his weight on one foot, body held up by nerves and anger, but calm, calm in a way Jack had never seen him before.

It was Frank’s business calm, he decided. This was how Frank looked when he was involved in his business. He wasn’t Jack’s old childhood buddy anymore. He was a grown man and most of his life had been spent doing things that Jack had never wanted to believe he would ever be capable of doing. Things like this. Frank’s voice was low and soft, his anger damped down but present.

“Fabrizio knows what each one a them spinal bones does. He’s like a doctor. He can cut you so your arms don’t work, or your legs and your arms, or just cut you so your pecker don’t work, or you can’t breathe, or you can’t move only you can still feel everything.”

“I know … Jesus, Frank, I know.”

“So don’t embarrass me like this. I ain’t having any fun here.”

“I know. Jeez, Frank—we’re friends. This wasn’t about you.”

“You got busted. For something. The Canadian shit?”

Carmine was silent for perhaps another thirty seconds. Jack waited and wished with all his heart that he had never come back from the war. Senza shifted his weight, his shoes grated on the concrete floor. Carmine jumped as if they had wired him to a socket.

“Fabrizio,” he said, “come out from behind me, hah?”

Senza said nothing. Frank reached out and lifted Carmine’s chin so the light was full on his face and he could see the man’s eyes.

“Carmine. You gotta explain this. We can’t walk away from here without knowing what the deal is. I don’t wanna hurt you. But I can’t let this thing get away from me. On my mother, Carmine, I’m gonna let Fabrizio do whatever it takes, and you know, at the end of it, you gonna tell me everything. This ain’t the movies, Carmine. You gonna be in bad pain. You never gonna be a walking man again, you gonna piss in a diaper, live the rest of your life on your back, breathing through a tube in your throat. We go back all the way to Ditmars, Carmine. I don’t want this. Please, be a friend here.”

“I was being a friend! I gave them Jackie. I coulda given them you! But I covered you. Now I’m inna chair here, and that cocksucker over there is laughing at us both.”

Frank lifted a hand, touched Carmine’s cheek.

“Listen to me. This is about you and me. Inna beginning. What did they pop you for? Drugs?”

“Okay … it was the cars. And the money.”

Jack pushed himself off the car, spoke to Frank.

“Ask him about Creek.”

Carmine sent Jack a look of hundred-proof hatred.

“Creek’s a fucking mope, a tool. I used him. He’s bringing in cars from Auburn, I put him on to a seller in Canada. Creek goes up there, buys a couple, maybe once or twice a month. Sometimes he takes Fabrizio for the company or to drive one back with him. I ask him, can I get in on this? The mook says yes. He don’t know shit.”

Jack wanted to believe him but could not.

“Why did you want in on his deals, then?”

“Hey, he’s a mutt. I packed the trunks with dope, with shit, and he never tumbled. That dumb bastard, he drives up to the customs stop at Wolf Island, up there by Cape Vincent, they could have sniffer dogs, whatever, he never thinks of that. But they don’t, and he goes back and forth, him and Fabrizio, just an old wop and a cowboy
numb-nuts. The customs guys never gave him a look, just wanted to feel up those old classic cars. I used them. I used Creek, I mean. Not you, Fabrizio. Not you, I swear. I would never have let—”

“What were you bringing in?” asked Frank, his voice soft.

“I been doing some stuff for the Canadians. Moving cash mainly. For the bikers. The Mohawks. Frank, I needed the money. You ain’t active now. People are making their own moves. New people. You ain’t paying any attention. I know you’re sick, but jeez, Frank, you got fucking responsibilities.”

“I know I got a wife.”

Carmine flinched.

“Claire’s got nothing to do with this.”

“She didn’t know?”

“She … knew I was protecting you.”

“You and Claire close, then?”

“Frank, she’s … worried. About the future.”

“So you the future for Claire, hah?”

“No. It wasn’t like that.”

“Yeah? Tell me what it was like. I’m lying in bed at night, you mutts think I’m stoned, I’m gone. I watch you and her. You doing it right in front of me. I watched, Carmine. Don’t tell me you both doing all this for me. You got busted, then. How? Did Creek find out? Rat you out?”

Carmine pulled his lips back, showed his teeth.

“Creek rats me out, he’d be a greasy smear on my heel.”

“How, then? How’d you get nailed?”

“The Canadians, the fucking horse cops. Whaddya call them?”

“The RCMP?”

“Yeah. They had a fink in the Mohawks. He rats me out. The Canadians hand me over to the feds.”

“The feds? This Greco broad?”

“Yeah. I mean, she’s the main one. Once I got busted, the FBI handed me over to the U.S. attorney. Make a deal. That was her.”

“How long?”

“Shit … six, seven months.”

“Who’s the target?”

“It was gonna be you. I had to give her something. I don’t give her something, my deal’s off. She figured Jackie here was dirty already. She was primed up. So I give her what she wanted. I give her a guy, big shipping company, lots of assets, told her he was all mobbed up, connected, a made guy. She went for it like a snake at a chicken.”

“This Pike guy. He a part of this?”

“Pike. Shit, no. The guy’s a fucking loose cannon.”

“How’d he get into it, then?”

“He come to me about his guns. I figured, hey, this is fucking icing on the cake. I already had the Cobra primed up. Jackie takes the gun thing on, all I need to do is find out when it’s going down the river, and I make sure the Cobra’s on board same day. Then I call Greco and ba-bing, they got Jackie for guns too. It was a walkin off the street. It was too good to pass up. Then Jackie goes all civic and rats Pike out. Man, that rocked us all. Greco almost shit when she got the call. Then she figured it didn’t matter. They had Jackie either way. But it was beautiful all the way around. They get Jackie here, and they get Pike too. Bonus, two for one.”

“How’d you do Jack?”

“Jackie brings his Cobra in. I got another. Guy I put Creek on to, in Montreal, he knew where to get one just like Jackie’s.”

“Did Creek help you? Get the Cobra?” asked Jack.

“No. I couldn’t trust him for that. Why? He saying I did?”

“I haven’t asked him. Yet,” said Jack.

“Well, he ain’t been no fucking friend, Jackie. You think he’s such a big buddy? Fuck that noise. Ever ask him where he gets his money? He paid me a hundred thousand on the vig just a month back. You see him, ask him where that came from.”

“No. Not my business.”

“No? You dumb prick. You so fucking stupid, you drove that fucking Cobra for two whole days, didn’t even know it wasn’t yours. It was a walk. Setting you up was a fucking pleasure.”

Jack kept his mouth shut. Frank walked away to the workbench and poured himself a glass of red wine, another for Jack. He placed each glass carefully on a wooden tray with the words
Lake Placid
painted in a forties arc of bright fall colors. Jack thought he looked like a priest, working at the low wooden bench under the dim light. Frank walked over with the tray held out before him, his face moving from light to shadow and back into the light again as he reached them. Jack looked in Frank’s eyes and saw pain, loss, and death there, and also the kid he used to be, the boy’s face under the ruined mask of sagging skin. Frank touched his glass to Jack’s glass.