Harmony In Flesh and Black (22 page)

“Stay where you are,” Fred said. The two moved toward him.

“You're not going to fire that,” the weasel said.

“Depends,” said Fred.

“Asshole,” said the redhead.

“Hey, asshole,” said the weasel. “There's a guy wants to talk to you.”

“Tell me about it,” said Fred.

“Tell you shit,” said the weasel.

Fred's shoulders, neck, and head were starting to throb. Did nobody need their car? Did nobody need to come down around lunchtime to take a car out and go someplace?

“Somebody wants to talk to you. Which he believes you have something he paid for,” the redhead said.

Fred asked, “Buddy Mangan can't call?”

The redhead spat. “Buddy Mangan hell,” he said. “Buddy Mangan, you wish!”

Fred looked at them and waited. The redhead stood upright and shrugged his big shoulders, loosening them.

“He told us to bring you in,” the brunette said.

“That does not seem practical now,” Fred said, reminding them of the gun. “Who wants to talk to me?”

“Where's the pitcher? Where's the broad, the nood?” said the redhead. “Which you have.”

The weasel made a move toward the pocket of his crimson Harvard windbreaker, on which the splotches of new blood would not show.

“Try me,” said Fred. He gestured with the gun.

“Kleenex,” said the weasel. “You mind?”

“Be my guest,” said Fred. “Slow.”

Way back in the dark behind the weasel he saw lights from an elevator door opening, and people, a couple, getting out, walking this way.

Fred watched the weasel pull the pack of tissues out of the side pocket of his windbreaker, demonstrating innocence, all sweetness and light. “See?” He selected one and started work on his face.

The weasel moved a step; Fred motioned him back. The couple was coming closer.

The redhead watched, still threatening.

“Put the knife away,” Fred said, motioning with his head. The guys could hear footsteps behind them now.

The redhead's knife went into his right pants pocket. He had a sheath in there. Fred held the gun in his jacket pocket, hoping he wouldn't have to shoot through the tweed.

As they neared, the couple looked at the three men uncomfortably, not wanting to intrude; they were a man and woman in their sixties, wearing raincoats and hats, dressed for springtime in Boston whatever the weather. The weasel's face dripped copiously. The couple walked on into the cement dusk, looking for their car.

“We don't know for certain it's the guy,” the redhead said.

“It has to be,” the weasel whispered. “We picked him up at the kid's place. He looks right. He's staying at the Charles Hotel, like the kid said.”

“Where's Russ?” Fred asked, a chasm of alarm opening up in him.

The couple drove slowly past them, he at the wheel, she looking at the three men, still interested. She lowered the window. She and the old man had been arguing about it. She was telling him to slow down. She couldn't forget the blood on the weasel's face, and some blood on him, too, Fred thought.

“Is everything all right?” the lady asked bravely. The three men were facing each other, tense.

“How about it?” Fred said. “Everything all right?”

The two men nodded.

“My friend fell down,” the redhead explained, snickering.

“Thanks,” Fred said. The car drove off. It was a small, modest new black Cadillac. The driver was now telling his wife, “See, what did I say?”

“This is the guy, or the kid lied,” the weasel said. Fred noticed that his face was pockmarked.

“Where is he?” Fred asked again.

“This isn't going anywhere,” the weasel said.

“Let's call your guy, if he wants to talk,” Fred said.

“You want to call while I wait with him?” the redhead asked his partner.

“Shit, you know we can't call. We have to fucking drive back so he can turn the fucking radio up, lean over, fucking whisper in our fucking ear, fucking drive all the fucking way to fucking Providence for fucking permission to fucking go to the goddamn motherfucking toilet?” said the weasel.

The elevator doors were opening again. A woman stepped out with two young children dressed like Easter.

“Tell me about Russell,” Fred said.

“The kid?” the redhead said. “I forget where Russell is. You remember, pal?”

The weasel shook his head, his congealing ringlets making jerky arabesques. “In case you care, buddy, he's healthy, and he might stay healthy. You never know.” He slipped the pack of tissues back into the pocket of his red windbreaker.

The redhead bent down and slashed the left rear tire of Fred's car with his knife. The two men turned.

“One'll do it,” the weasel said. “We don't want to make the guy mad. Just slow him down.”

“As long as the kid's healthy,” the weasel said to Fred, “why don't you stay in this nice hotel garage a few minutes and let us make, like, our getaway, so we don't anybody worry about the kid.”

“Why don't you tell your friend to telephone me here at the Charles,” Fred said.

“Asshole,” the weasel said.

“Stay in your room,” the redhead said, “in case he calls. He don't like to call for nothing, you hear what I'm saying? If he calls. If you don't hear by five, he's not calling, is my guess. He'll send someone.” He smiled and shook his shoulders like a fighter.

Fred watched the men swagger out of the garage the same way the cars came in, up the ramp.

The woman and her children, a boy and a girl—perfect; six and eight?—came up to him. The girl, older, pointed at the rear tire and said, “He has a flat.”

“Never mind,” Mom said, hustling them along. This was supposed to be a nice hotel.

Fred took the stairs up, disregarding the stares of his fellow lodgers. There was no sign of Dawn in the Quiet Bar. She was supposed to take Russ upstairs; not finding him, she'd hightailed it out of here, Fred had no doubt. He went up to his room and confirmed it. Dawn was slick. Could she have set this up with Russell's friends from Providence, who were missing a painting that someone down there had paid for? In the meantime, they had Russ himself as a consolation prize. The pieces Fred saw now were plain enough. Russell, having identified Smykal's painting, had initiated a process that led to Buddy Mangan—and evidently, now, to some disappointed backers whose money Mangan had been representing.

Fred was basically uninjured—only bruised and grazed. The bright blade had kept its distance. He ducked into the bathroom and pulled a long bath. Molly was due in less than an hour. She was going to see him roughed up, and he wanted to reduce the evidence as best he could.

He couldn't leave the room, since they had Russell.

While he waited for the tub to fill, he called the number listed on Smykal's poster. LIVE ** MODELS. It gave him only Dawn's recorded message. Fred told it, after the beep, “Dawn, Sheila, this is important. Call Fred as soon as you can.” He left his number at the hotel.

He called the number on Buddy Mangan's card. No answer. A ring, but no machine to take the message he would have left: “I can get you the painting.”

Fred climbed into the hot water and listened for the phone. For a situation that he wanted not to be his business, he'd got into this one pretty deep.

Providence would call unless he decided to send someone—someone better than the redhead and brunette tag team.

Fred lay in the tub, bruised in spirit. That was the necessary consequence of allowing domestic instincts purchase. Old as he was in this world, Fred was surprised at feeling betrayed. Russ had sold him out to buy time, or they had scared it out of him. They had the kid stashed, likely in fucking Providence. Fred had been mooning around outside his door last night, intending to offer him protection, going easy on him, and first chance he got, the kid sold him out.

Fred fixed the features of his two assailants in his mind. He wouldn't forget them. He could find them in mug shots in fucking Providence when the time came.

While they had been picking him up at Russell's and following him here, Fred himself had been noticing nothing but what a stud he must look, having that good-looking young woman, Dawn, in the car with him and at his mercy. He, dazzled by pussy, had been set up by the oldest trap in the world—well, no, the oldest but one. The oldest trap was a person's native hope.

Hot water eased the bruises. There were abrasions but no cuts of consequence. Fred's knuckles were banged and skinned; his cheek was skinned, too, and his mouth bruised. He wouldn't get a shiner. In the art business you stood out with a shiner. Even flashing a gun for the most part wasn't done, though Fred knew of at least one Boston dealer who wore one on his premises.

He stretched his legs a last time, then got out of the tub and toweled off. He was feeling better for a little exercise. Wrapped in the towel, he lay down.

He tried Mangan again. They wouldn't let up on the kid until they had that painting—though what the muscle behind Mangan wanted with a painting, Fred couldn't imagine.

Lying on the bed, he played back the grunts and ejaculations of the opposition during their conversation, the bits of information they had dropped. They hadn't even been sure, those two, that Fred was the man they wanted.

Fred rose to a knock on the door.

Up off the bed with the hotel's towel tucked in, gun in his right hand, Fred moved quietly to the door. “Who is it?”

“It's Molly, you goof! Who do you expect?”

He threw open the door and closed it behind her, tossing the gun on the bed. He hugged her around her arms full of groceries and kissed her bright face.

“Jesus,” said Molly, seeing the gun bounce. “Kinky.”

Then she saw Fred better. “Fred, you all right?”

“Sorry,” Fred said. “Some people came to see me who leapt before they looked. I'm all right. I should have called and told you not to come.”

“And miss this?” Molly asked. She pulled his towel off and had a look.

“Nothing important damaged.”

25

After they'd eaten, Molly called work and told them, “Something came up.”

“Cute,” said Fred. “Clever. Original.” He was wishing he still smoked.

Molly waved him quiet. She kept on with the phone, saying she'd be late getting back.

Fred was in the bed. Molly fidgeted around the room, worrying. She was pleasant to look at after rough exercise had scared some thugs back to Providence, and while you were waiting for a telephone call concerning, perhaps, ransom demands on a worthless kid who had betrayed you.

“I don't like violence,” Fred said. “Although I'm good at it.”

“I'm going to take a shower,” Molly said. “I'm sure yours is better than mine at home.”

“I like yours better, though it's worse,” Fred said. “Please be my guest.”

Molly said, “Want to call down for coffee while I scrape off?”

Fred tried Mangan's number first. No answer.

*   *   *

With Molly there, Fred organized things in his mind. He laid out as much as he knew. Molly listened, wrapped in the hotel's towels, sitting by the window, drinking coffee.

“So you figure,” she said, “Mangan has the letter Clay wants?”

“It makes sense if Smykal tried to sell the package twice, giving the painting to one buyer and the letter to the other as an opening gambit. It would be very stupid, but he probably had no inkling who he was dealing with. Having seen only Clay, how could he guess Fred? And if on the other side only Russell was visible, it must have looked like child's play.”

“Mangan or his backers want the painting.”

“Right.”

“Russ, whose hide you hope to save, in order to save the same miserable hide told his pals in Providence—sorry,
fucking
Providence—that you could help them with their problem. Because first Russ, then Mangan, concluded you hijacked the picture.”

“I guess so.”

“Mmm,” said Molly. “I'm not sure I like it, any of it. Except I liked the painting.”

“It is a good picture, isn't it?” said Fred. “All this hoorah, you forget.”

“If it's the mob behind Mangan, why would the mob buy a painting?” Molly asked.

Fred said, “You can launder money that way, but this particular painting seems an odd choice, being unsigned and all.”

“Unless they have the letter.”

“Yes.”

“Which apparently they do.”

“Right.”

“Let me think about this,” said Molly. “How does it work? The laundering?”

“You have cash that you can't afford to account for but you want to be able to. Otherwise, anything you buy with it, if you're nailed on a RICO, goes to the government. If you buy something of value for cash under the table—like a painting you might have inherited or picked up at a yard sale for nothing—and then you sell it on the open market, that transfer generates income you can be seen with. You can buy cars and dancing girls or whatever,” Fred said.

He sat by the window with his coffee. Molly, finished with hers, was putting herself together, heading for work again. She was dressed in black stockings, a blue jumper and a white blouse, and the red knitted cardigan: her housewife-librarian outfit. She looked very sexy in it, her brown curls still damp, drying. The room was festooned with wet white towels.

“You should see Clayton's room,” Fred said. “He makes as much impression on it as a ghost.”

“Obviously you're planning a straight trade,” Molly said. “The painting for the kid. The kid doesn't deserve you, Fred.”

“If I can get through to that attractive nuisance Buddy Mangan,” Fred said.

“Good luck with your phone calls,” Molly said. “Call if there's something I can do. Or if…” She faltered. “Or if you plan to go somewhere.”