Close to You (28 page)

Instead he pressed a folded piece of paper into her hand.

“What's this?”

“The combination to the safe.”

‘Too little, too late, Larson. You probably heard, I've already been robbed.”

“I did hear and I'm sorry I didn't get this to you sooner.” How could he tell her that he had been holding on to the combination as a reason to seek her out again?

She ignored his apology.

“I was wondering if I could talk with you, Eliza.”

“About what?”

“An investment opportunity I think you might be interested in.”

“This is hardly the place, Larson,” she answered shortly.

“Oh, I know that. I know that,” he answered nervously. “But I was hoping that we could get together over the weekend sometime and talk.”

“I don't think so, Larson. I'm not looking to make any investments right now.”

“This is really a great opportunity, Eliza,” he insisted.

She looked at him squarely. Though she hadn't gone to the police about it, Eliza still had her suspicions about the possibility of Larson being the one who had robbed her home. And if Joe Connelly found out that it was this slimeball who had been making the sick phone calls, she would personally find him and scratch his eyes out, for threatening not her, but her daughter.

“Look, Larson. I'm not interested. Period, the end. Please leave me alone.”

He skulked away angrily. Eliza Blake was an ungrateful bitch.

Another Saturday night.

It was after two
A.M.
when Meat finished cleaning up. He pulled the large, heavy-duty plastic garbage bag from its container and tied a knot at the top. Then he put on his jacket and turned off the lights in the bar.

The bats are gone now until next year,
he thought as he went outside and the frosty night air blew against his face. Meat laid the garbage bag down on the cement and rifled through his pockets for the keys to lock up.

The dark green Dumpster was at the back of the building, next to Meat's car. He always parked there so he could hop right in after his last duty was completed. He sauntered across the deserted parking lot. Deserted, save for the one other car that sat waiting, headlights off.

At first Meat didn't hear the car rolling toward him. But he did hear it when it began to accelerate. He turned to face the direction of the sound. The headlights flashed on, blinding him. He dropped the garbage bag and raised his arms to shield his face from the glaring light.

The car careened into him and then over him, braking to a stop after nailing its target. Then the driver put the car in reverse and backed up over Meat's crushed body, finishing the job.

“God forgive me, Joe, but I'm relieved.” Not wanting Janie to hear the conversation, Eliza whispered on the phone extension in her bedroom.

“I feel the same way, Eliza. At least that's one we don't have to worry about anymore. I knew you wouldn't mind if I called you at home to let you know.”

“ ‘Mind'? Are you kidding? Now I won't have to worry if my skirt is too short tomorrow,” she joked lamely.

“We're not out of the woods yet, Eliza,” Joe warned, “but I know I'll sleep a little better tonight than I have been lately.”

“Do the police have any idea who killed him?”

“Nothing so far, but in my book, whoever it was did us a favor.”

 

When Samuel called that evening, Eliza tried to keep her voice even as she told him about Meat's demise.

“Good. I'm glad,” he said adamantly. “I don't know what I would do if something happened to you.”

Eliza was troubled. It was clear that Samuel was falling for her, hard. And she guiltily acknowledged to herself that she had encouraged him. She had wanted to have a man
with her during this tense time and, out of her own need, she had used him. Not maliciously, but she had. She had told herself that she was helping him through a tough time, but the fact was he had been helping Eliza through hers.

Samuel was a lovely man, but the timing just wasn't right He was coming off the harshest blow of his life and it was natural he would be grasping for something or someone to hold on to. She, on the other hand, still had not resolved her feelings about Mack. This wasn't the way to start a solid relationship. Plus, she had to admit, they didn't exactly have wild chemistry between them. Samuel was pleasant to be with, but she felt no excitement at his touch. Eliza knew she needed that, to go forward.

She had to tell him. But how could she? She didn't think Samuel could take another hurt right now. The longer she waited, though, the harder it would be.

For once in his life Augie Sinisi had the upper hand. He strode confidently into the marble-floored lobby of Richards Enterprises.

“I'd like to see Mr. Richards, please.”

The prim receptionist eyed Augie's overalls. “Do you have an appointment, sir?”

“No. I don't. Just tell Mr. Richards that August Sinisi wants to see him. I have some very important information for him.”

Within minutes Augie was sitting in Larson's office.

“This better be good, Augie. I'm very busy.”

“I know, Larson. You're a busy guy. Very busy.” Augie's smug smile signaled trouble.

“What is it, Augie? What's this information you have for me?”

“I just thought you'd be interested to know that the police could be getting an anonymous tip about your parents' untimely death.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Larson said sharply.

“You know damn well what it means, Larson.”

Larson's mind raced.
The strongbox. Augie's got the letter. Careful. Careful.

“You know, Augie, my house was broken into over the weekend.”

“Gee, that's too bad.”

“If someone had something that had been stolen from my house, that could mean that person was a thief. That person could get into a lot of trouble for that, especially if it turned out he had been breaking into other houses, too.”

“Yeah, I guess he could. But not as much trouble as someone who offed his parents.”

Larson absentmindedly fingered the paperweight that sat atop the latest financial report of Richards Enterprises as he considered Augie's words. “Yes, that's true. But neither person would want to go to jail, would they?”

“No. And nobody would have to, either. If I get my money out of your company and get something extra as, you might say, a little dividend, nobody has to go to jail. The police don't need to know anything.”

“We've got it, Joe.”

“Yes!” Connelly wanted to kiss his contact at the phone company right through the phone line. “Is it that Richards number I gave you last week?”

“No, but it
is
a phone in New Jersey. You know I can't tell you who. Have your NYPD detective call me.”

 

Northern New Jersey was so close to New York City that it was acceptable practice for NYPD detectives to drive out to local Bergen County police departments when necessary. Detectives Ed Kane and Kenneth Sheehan entered the Upper Saddle River police station and showed their badges to the sergeant at the desk.

“What can we do for you?”

“We need some help. We have a phone subscriber out here who's making threatening calls. We want to go the house and talk to the guy,” Kane said.

“What's the guy's name?” asked the sergeant.

Sheehan looked at his pad. “Walinski. Jerry Walinski. Know him?”

“Sure. I know the poor son-of-a-bitch. We all do.”

The unmarked sedan with New York plates pulled into the driveway behind the Upper Saddle River Police squad car. The detectives and two patrolmen walked up to the front door and rang the bell. A dog barked warningly from inside.

Jerry Walinski answered the door in his wheelchair.

 

Joe wanted to deliver this news face-to-face.

Jerry Walinski was not going to be doing Eliza or her little girl any harm.

“It's pitiful, really. The guy is a paraplegic. He was in a car accident a few years ago and he'll never walk again. But he did get a huge insurance settlement for his suffering and a lifetime loss-of-wages.”

“What about his seeing me without my makeup?” Eliza asked.

“He made it up. Imagined it. The cops said he had pictures of you all over the place. Videotapes, too. He has a lot of time to sit around and think.”

Eliza digested the information. “What do we do now?”

“Well, we can prosecute.”

Eliza's face crinkled with distaste. “I don't know, Joe. The thought of dragging a paraplegic into court doesn't turn me on.”

“My guess is, we could reach some sort of plea bargain, with the stipulation that Walinski get psychiatric counseling. He wouldn't have to do any time.”

“Fine. That sounds like the way to go.” Eliza nodded, satisfied. “So we're all clear now? I mean, with Bacon dead and Walinski taken care of?”

“It sure looks that way,” Joe smiled. “I think we can take the security off your house now.”

Eliza stared into the TelePrompTer and read the lead-in to the last piece of the broadcast

“For hundreds of years, bats have fluttered through our subconscious as symbols of evil and darkness. But research is casting a new light on bats as perhaps the most highly specialized of all mammal groups. With Halloween approaching, we thought we'd take a
FRESHER LOOK
at our misunderstood creatures of the night.”

As she watched the story on the monitor, Eliza had to hand it to Keith. He had done a first-rate job. The piece began with video he had culled from the San Antonio affiliate. Shot at dusk, it showed literally millions of Mexican free-tailed bats, the largest concentration of warm-blooded animals in the world, flying from the wide, dark mouth of the Bracken Cave. The long black column of bats looked like a tornado spinning across the Texas sky as the bats left to consume the two hundred tons of insects they would eat that night

The first sound bite came from a leading authority on bats.

“Bats are really among the gentlest of creatures. They've just had bad press. The only bats that people see are the
ones that are sick or dying. If you find one lying on the ground someplace, naturally the bat opens its mouth and bares its teeth. It's trying to scare you away. Of course, you should never pick up a bat lying on the ground. You should never try to catch a bat or keep one in captivity. But if people could just see bats as they really are, they'd find them just as comical and cute as other animals.' “

It was a long sound bite as sound bites went, but it worked.

Keith had gone back up to the Bronx Zoo and videotaped the public's reactions, which they had had to forgo after the Meat episode. Eliza winced as she watched the snippets of interviews done with zoo-goers exiting the World of Darkness.

“They're creepy,” a woman said.

“They're neat,” said a teenaged boy.

“I find them fascinating,” a man said.

Fascinating, useful; beautiful or strange, Eliza knew that, as long as she lived, she would associate bats with Cornelius “Meat” Bacon.

 

Eliza felt an enormous weight lift from her shoulders as the Town Car let her off in front of the house. The security sedan, parked for so long at her curb reminding her of a funeral car, was gone.

The aroma of Mrs. Garcia's
arroz con frijoles
greeted Eliza as she opened the front door. She heard Janie chirping from the kitchen.

“Pollito,
chicken.

“Gallina,
hen.

“Lapiz,
pencil.

“Y pluma,
pen.

“Ventana,
window.

“Puerto,
door.

“Maestra,
teacher.

“Y piso,
floor.”

This is what Eliza had longed for. The homecoming to a secure, well-tended nest. Her daughter singing happily.
How lucky she was! Eliza walked over the freshly vacuumed rug in the hallway, toward the kitchen. Janie ran into her mother's arms and Eliza hugged her precious child.

Eliza kissed the top of Janie's head and tried to push an unsettling thought from her mind. The
FRESHER LOOK
piece that was being prepared for next week's broadcast. Halloween. The fifth anniversary of Linda Anderson's disappearance.

Florence Anderson didn't have her daughter to hug tonight.

Abigail wasn't particularly in the mood for dressing up for Halloween again this year, but she had to put something together. It was tradition. There was no way her friends would let her out of going to the annual Greenwich Village parade. They would drag her if they had to.

It would be quite an event. It always was, as hundreds of gay men and women used their very creative energies to come up with the most fabulous and imaginative costumes. Abigail had gone each year since she'd moved into the city and enjoyed it, to a point. It was fun being a part of the decked-out group that gathered on Houston Street and marched up Sixth Avenue. But Abigail always found herself thinking of the night as a tragic anniversary.