Crooked (19 page)

“Whoa,” Sam erupted, “not too bad, man, after all…”

“Hold everything.” Drummond thrust his paw in the air, lip atremble. “An even split? I think not. I planned this, I have the connection to sell the gold—” He was interrupted by another sneeze.

“No way!” Sam protested.

“Then there’s the matter of the cheese,” Barney added, looking at his nails.

Drummond finished blowing his nose. “Cheese?”

“Cheese. You may find this difficult to believe, but there are people who collect rare cheese.”

“Hey!” Sam smacked himself in the head. “You mean like the fuckin’ shit we found in the first hole?”

“Few years back, a British collector paid fifteen hundred dollars for a one-ounce lump of two-hundred-year-old Tibetan cheese at a Sotheby’s auction.”

“Fifteen hundred bucks? For old cheese?” Silvi gaped contemptuously.

“Would we get fifteen hundred dollars an ounce for the fucking cheese in that hole?” Joey perked up.

“Not quite. However, the manifest for the
Bunker Hill
includes…”

“Five hundred two-inch waxed balls of New York State Gouda,” Drummond said distantly, he being only too familiar with the original manifest.

“Yoo-hoo?” Nicholas shouted. “Remember the two hanging provolones over here?”

Drummond gestured testily to Silvi. She scowled and lowered the hostages. “What are you getting at?” Drummond pounded the railing.

“I vacuumed some of the cheese balls up, about two hundred eighty in all. I called around, and I think you might be able to get a thousand apiece for them. Gouda turns out to be the rarest of the Colonial cheeses, which were almost exclusively cheddars and…”

“Two hundred and eighty thousand dollars’ worth of old cheese.” Drummond blinked as if something more than indignation was in his eye.

“Better than nothing. Everybody’s stake is upped another fifty-six thou.”

“Slam!” Joey high-fived his brother.

Drummond’s red-rimmed eyes blinked up at a shaft of sunlight. “Twenty-three million dollars,” he whispered.

Barney clapped his hands, giving them a good rub. “The cheese is in the locker with the gold. I’m not taking a cut of that. It’s all yours, just to make sure there’s no hard feelings.” Barney smiled, adding: “Though I don’t know why I’m giving it to you. I don’t doubt that you planned all along to kill me, kill us all. So take the cheese, give me my friends, and we part company without recriminations.”

Barney helped Nicasia to a cab while Nicholas brought up the rear with his crated Moolman. As their cab pulled away, Barney looked back. The Pazzos, Silvi, and del Solar were in a heated debate onshore next to the seaplane.

“Guess that takes care of that.” Barney tried to lighten the mood. “Tell you what. I’ll make it up to you guys. How about I spring for dinner?”

“Stop this cab,” Nicholas fumed, opening the door well before the taxi was at a full stop. A passing SUV practically obliterated
Trampoline Nude, 1972
when he stepped out. He slammed the door and limped off in the direction of Yucca Flats Bar & Grille.

His brow knit, Barney didn’t say anything for a while. He just hugged Nicasia, kissing the top of her head periodically, relieved to have her safe. And she hugged him back, though she’d occasionally soft-punch him in the chest as her mood shifted between love and anger. Barney figured he’d better wait to spring the plane tickets lest he rock the boat in the wrong direction.

Drummond stood at the railing of the garbage slip for some time after Barney and company left, staring out at the sun rippling on the Hudson River, the file still in his hands. Silvi came back into the depot from the seaplane, slamming the door. He didn’t turn to look at her as she sauntered up next to him, contempt on her lips.

“To me it is surprise Newcastle would trust a burnout like you with twenty-three million dollars in gold. Why we trusted you, that is more surprise. We have been talking, and have decided on a new way to split the money.”

Drummond arched an eyebrow quizzically at the water, but said nothing, did nothing.

Perhaps in his younger days he would have been more deft, but having his plans unravel so completely, his retirement slip away, left him in a daze. It took the blade of the stiletto in the back of his neck to bring Silvi’s point home. He fumbled mechanically for the revolver in his pocket. But by the time he had it out and had turned, he was already to his knees, watching the gun drop from his numb fingers. Doves of white paper from the file wafted through the air. He fell to his side, his entire body stinging with pain. The ants were finally eating more than his soul.

Silvi’s blur stood over him with a mocking expression, a shaft of sunlight making long shadows of her features.

“Sorry, no gold watch.”

C h a p t e r                           2 9

 
A
fter a drink at Yucca Flats, Nicholas cabbed across town. Hobbling down Dover Street, he made a right on Water Street. His legs were still wobbly from hanging upside down for two hours, and the icy sidewalk and cumbersome crate weren’t helping him navigate the way. But his course was set for his apartment and a tall Macallan, and he failed to notice the gray Crown Victoria that rolled slowly down the block, pulling to the curb behind him.

“Cheese,” he muttered derisively, shaking his head as he entered his building. It was all his feet could do to ascend the stairs. The simple act of unlocking the door weighed heavily upon his legs. Stumbling into his apartment, he dropped the crate next to the wall, tossed his overcoat on the floor…and his knees gave unexpectedly. He turned sharply toward the kitchen counter to keep from falling.

A shadow passed over him, and the floor creaked. He shoved himself off the kitchen counter toward the wall as something buzzed past his ear.

Mr. Porkpie had his steel cue raised again, and this time it made a divot in the wall as Nicholas rolled back toward the front door, falling on his back to the floor. He latched on to his overcoat and grabbed his sap.

Porkpie lurched toward him, but the throw rug slipped under him and he nearly fell on top of Nicholas. The cue’s blow glanced off Nicholas’s shoulder and into the wall.

Nicholas swung the sap. Like a fist punching a side of beef, it connected with a solid
fwap
to Porkpie’s temple. The assailant spun from the blow. In one motion Nicholas threw the coat over his head and rolled away from the front door toward the window.

Porkpie reeled, his back slamming the front door.

Just as Detectives Hatchet Face and Roly-Poly shouldered it open.

Nicholas saw Porkpie stumble forward, slip on the throw rug again, and catapult headlong toward him.

Nicholas covered his head with his arms.

Glass shattered, wood splintered: Nicholas peeked up through the crook of his arm just in time to see Porkpie’s feet disappearing out the window.

A silence followed as Hatchet Face and Roly-Poly shared an incredulous reverie. Finally, they said in unison: “Holy shit.”

Nicholas carefully brushed the glass from his hair, groaning as he got to his feet. “Never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad to see you boys.”

He turned to the broken window and looked down. Roly-Poly and Hatchet Face stepped up next to him.

“They’re not gonna like this down at Hundred Centre, Billy.” Hatchet Face wagged his head like he was gazing down upon the dearly departed.

“Not to mention at the precinct, Marty.” Roly-Poly bit his lip. “That Ford was new.”

Below, Porkpie’s lower half protruded skyward from the windshield of the detectives’ Crown Victoria. His tennis shoes had popped off and landed on the car’s roof. His exposed white-stockinged feet were twitching.

Nicholas withdrew from the window and clapped the detectives on their shoulders. “Looks like you boys got your man.”

Roly-Poly shoved Nicholas. “Five-pound salami, four-pound bag—it don’t fit. We saw you come in with that crate. It’s got the Mule Man in it, I’ll bet.”

“It sure does.” Nicholas’s brain sizzled with schemes, and one popped out. “I just now came from reclaiming the Moolman from Slugger down there.”

He sauntered over to the bar cart and picked up a glass. “After reclaiming the painting, I dropped into a bar—Yucca Flats on the West Side, around noon. Made a call, had a drink, and caught a cab. Driver’s name was Ahmed. He dropped me at the corner. That sound like a guy trying to get away with a hot painting?”

Roly-Poly and Hatchet Face exchanged doubtful expressions. Nicholas continued, pouring himself a scotch with a trembling hand.

“Slugger obviously wasn’t happy about losing the painting he stole from Bagby…You boys want some scotch?” Nicholas held up the bottle, realizing he’d have to work on exactly how he’d swiped it from Slugger.

Hatchet Face squinted. “How’s that?”

“That guy sticking out of your windshield’s the guy that killed Bagby. Look.” Nicholas plucked the steel cue butt from the floor with a cocktail napkin. “See this little crown on Slugger’s sawed-off pool cue? Remember the medical examiner’s report? The mark on Bagby’s neck was a little crown. Just like in the
B
of the Brunswick trademark here on the cue. He kept this baby in that big carpetbag, which he was carrying the night I saw him exit Dr. Bagby’s.” Nicholas shivered, stuffing a couch cushion into the obliterated window. “Slugger’s also the guy that tried to hold up the Strunk Gallery last week.”

Hatchet Face and Roly-Poly didn’t so much dislike the story as Nicholas’s smooth telling of it. They fingered their cuffs and attempted to stare Nicholas down.

“Hold it, Palihnic.” Roly-Poly grinned. “Sounds like you been obstructing justice. If you knew he killed Bagby…”

“Hey, don’t you get it?” Nicholas was on a roll. “I only just today set up a meeting and swiped the Moolman back from him. As you can see by the shiner, it took a little doing.” Drummond’s kick to Nicholas’s head at the barge depot had left its mark. He took another swig of Macallan. He could have fingered BB, but she was a potentially rich client worth protecting. Besides, he had a weakness for the dastardly ones. “Today’s the first time I’ve seen Slugger since that night on Mott Street. But he tried to come take the painting back a little faster than I thought.”

Roly-Poly snorted as he radioed EMS. Hatchet Face put his thumbs in his belt loops, scrutinizing Palihnic. “Is this for real, pal?”

Palihnic shrugged. His eyes twinkled knowingly.

“You got a dead guy sticking out of your windshield who
definitely
killed Dr. Bagby and is behind the art thefts of the Moolman and the Strunk Gallery. Who knows what else he’s been up to? Probably has had his rap sheets bound. And let’s face it. Porkpie isn’t exactly in any position to contest any of it.”

“Maybe that’s what you’re counting on.” Hatchet Face folded his arms.

“We’re not kids, am I right?” Nicholas collapsed onto the couch. “A closed case is a closed case. I got the painting, you got the murderer. What more do you want?”

Sirens sounded down the block, and Roly-Poly went downstairs to greet the troops. Nicholas could tell from Hatchet Face’s sidelong look that he was tempted to respond:
I want the truth.

But they both knew that “the truth” in police work was a conviction.

Or a closed case.

Or just good old-fashioned results.

Nicholas frowned, reflecting. But there was another kind of truth, outside of police and insurance work. The kind Mel wanted, and the kind Nicholas didn’t have a handle on.

Hatchet Face went over to the bar cart, splashed some scotch into a glass, and drank it straight down. He shot Nicholas another sidelong glance.

“If it doesn’t hold, you’re in deep shit. Not just with the law. But with me. How’s that grab you?”

Nicholas raised his glass and winked. “Just super.”

C h a p t e r                           3 0

 
A
few days later, Nicholas stalked past Garth’s black 1966 Lincoln, the one that had been their father’s, and up to the apartment door.

He brushed past his brother into the apartment, scanning the taxidermy as he always did: suspiciously. He was slouched and looked irritable, and he failed to notice the glass of scotch Garth tried to hand him.

“Yoo-hoo?” Garth tinkled the ice in the glass.

“Look, Garth”—Nicholas took the glass and drank half of it—“I wish you guys would just cut this Sunday dinner shit out.”

“Oh?” By contrast, Garth was in a positively jolly mood, which further irked Nicholas.

“We are not a family.” Nicholas looked Garth up and down, scrutinizing his brother’s lack of style. Still with the college professor look. “These Sunday dinners are a sham and you know it. They’re just some way of you two trying to make me something I’m not.”

“Nikolai!” Otto burst into the room and fairly tackled Nicholas.

“Get the hell off me!” Nicholas tried to free himself from the gnomish Russian’s embrace.

“Ve drink, yes? Eetz good! Where to be Mal? Dah-tay? Very pretty.”

“Garth, I’m outta here, just as soon as I…would you get him offa me?”

“I think he likes you.” Garth smiled blithely. “Oh, been meaning to tell you. I contacted those insurance people. They didn’t have anything for me, but said they get stuff all the time. Said they only recently needed an appraisal of an ivory-billed woodpecker.”

“God dammit! Would you get him…”

“Nikolai!” Otto suddenly released Nicholas, completely oblivious that the latter had been trying to escape his bear-trap hug. “Otto to make very special cheeken for you, my friend. You to make very heppy.”

“That tears it.” Nicholas downed the rest of his drink and handed Garth the glass. As he reached the door to leave, Angie opened it. “Hi, Nicholas!”

She held his face and gave him a kiss, patting his cheek.

Nicholas reddened. “Look, Angie, I was just telling Garth that I’ve had it with these—”

“Mai tai!” Dottie raced in from behind Angie, fist in the air. She stopped in front of Nicholas, her dark eyes shining up at him.

“Mai tai!” She waved her fist at him, waiting.

The color drained from his face, and he scrunched his nose at Angie in anger. “Oh, this is low, Angie. Dirty pool.”

She batted her eyes at him and smiled, taking off her coat.

“Mai tai!” Dottie insisted.
“AW! AW! EE! EE! TOOKIE-TOOKIE!”

“Mai tai.” Nicholas bumped her fist with his, then glared at Angie and Garth. “You two think you can play cupid, is that it? Mel is going to walk through that door, isn’t she?”

“Nope.” Angie breezed past him to the counter and poured herself some wine. “She doesn’t want to see you. But Dottie did.”

“Will you sing me the Tarzan song, Nicky?”

Garth raised his eyebrows. “You sang her the Tarzan song?” Their father used to sing them that song to put them to bed.

Nicholas scowled at Angie and Garth. “Well, isn’t this just super.”

He cut past Dottie and slammed the door as he left. A cab was pulled over down the block, discharging a passenger, and he trotted down to it.

This fiasco called for somehow getting in touch with his inner self, like going to Gravy’s and working his magic on that bartender, Judy, his peanut in her capable hands.

But the back door to the cab opened, and Mel stepped out. She was wrapped in a shawl, her short black hair blowing in the briny breeze from the Hudson River.

Her chin raised defiantly, she drew her shawl closer.

“Great.” Nicholas flapped his arms at his side. “I suppose this was Angie’s little trick too?”

Mel avoided his eyes and said softly, “It was my idea to come.” As she stepped onto the sidewalk, Nicholas skirted around her and into the cab, thinking that he’d never really noticed how great she smelled, even just in passing. He slammed the door.

He connected with the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and heard him say, “Where to?”

“Where to?” Nicholas snorted.

“Yeah, where to?”

Mel was at Angie and Garth’s door when a hand on her shoulder spun her around.

“Look.” Nicholas’s eyes were ablaze. With anger? She couldn’t tell. “I’m going to say this one time. You listening? Good. I’m not in love with you. You can’t make me be in love with you. The only person I love is me. Got it?”

Her eyes searched his.

“Even if I were in love with you,” he continued, “which I’m not…”

“Nicholas?”

“What?”

Mel finally had him. She finally knew what his problem was. Or so she thought. Nothing so pat as that he was afraid of commitment. And with this insight came the serenity of knowing.

“Why are you so upset?”

“Because I like who I am. I don’t want to be controlled. By Angie, or by you or by Dottie and certainly not that Russian wrestler…”

“Controlled? Isn’t that another way of saying loved?”

“Bingo!” He clapped his hands. “I don’t want to be loved, and I don’t want to love. My father loved me, and I loved him, and look what happened? He
trusted
me. I ruined him and our family’s finances. I broke his heart, and he died.
I killed him
.”

Nicholas heard his shouts echo and vanish across the buildings like an escaped bat, down the block, and off into the cold night.

“Did I just…?” Nicholas began, wincing. “Did I just say that I’m emotionally stunted because of my relationship with my parents?”

The cold wind whistled off the building fronts around them.

Mel tucked a lock of dark hair behind one ear, a smile sneaking up one side of her face. Her eyes met his. “It wasn’t me who said it.
For a change
.”

Nicholas groaned, looking for some avenue of escape. There was none, and he slumped back onto a parked car. “So what now, Doctor?”

She stepped up to him and latched her hands on to his lapels. “Fortunately, I think there’s a cure for your condition.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“Jeeze, Nicholas. Is it so hard to open your heart to me, and let me open mine to you? It’s really not that hard, you just have to trust me, trust yourself. And just because I want an emotionally available and committed man doesn’t mean I don’t want the charmer, too. I like him. A lot.”

“Does that mean I have to kiss you now?” Nicholas wrapped his arms around her. “Is that the cure?”

“Kiss me
and
call me in the morning.”