Big Money (Austin Carr Mystery) (4 page)

NINE

A year ago, I lived in a pickup-mounted camper. Thousands of dollars in debt, including overdue alimony and child-support payments, my wages were being garnished and the ex-wife had a restraining order preventing me from seeing our children. I had very little to lose in those days. Taking risks came smooth and easy.

Now my support payments
—all my bills—are current. I get Ryan and Beth every Wednesday night for dinner and again every other weekend. I can afford a two-bedroom apartment and a leased Toyota. More important, my ownership interest in Shore Securities could fund my kids’ college educations, provided Carmela and I and the people we hire run Shore well.

Point being, all of sudden I’ve got plent
y to lose. That’s why I’m turning loose Brooklyn Tony on Bluefish. I have no idea what happened to Rags after Tony dragged him out of Shore’s offices last week, but I know Rags hasn’t bothered me or Carmela since. Maybe Tony can pull off the same kind of disappearing act with Bluefish.

Tony examines me standing on his porch with the soft brown eyes of a German Shepherd. Calm, relaxed, just inside the threshold of his home in
Gravesend, Brooklyn, Mr. Handsome extends his paw for me. “Come on in.”

He practically lifts me inside with his giant mitt. Tony’s got on an extra
, extra large gray golf shirt and navy sweats, but there’s no missing the muscle beneath the loose cloth. This guy snatched me off the porch like I was a newspaper.

“Any trouble finding the place?” he
asks.

His hand weighs on
my shoulders like a backpack loaded for the assault on Everest. “No problem,” I say. “And I really appreciate you’re seeing me. I’m a little embarrassed coming for dinner.”

Tony’s body hardens like fast-drying glue. “Embarrassed?” His brown eyes narrow into a glare that fills my blood with worry. Jesus. Is this what they call the prison stare? “What?” he says. “You got a problem coming to
Gravesend?”

Yik
es. “Hell, no. I mean embarrassed about putting you out. Making your wife cook for me. I would have been happy to take you and the missus—”

“Oh.”

“—out to dinner.”

Using his hand like a puppeteer, Tony twists both our heads to greet a dark
haired young woman striding our way. She’s wearing a black skirt and a furry, sleeveless sweater with yellow and black horizontal stripes.

“Is this
Vic’s friend Austin?” she says.

Tony saying, “My wife Gina.”

Gina’s a knockout. Long midnight hair, maybe ten or twelve inches past her shoulders. Huge, oval, yellow flaked brown eyes. An ear-to-ear smile whose sincerity feels generated by an even bigger heart. The smile and the striped sweater remind me of honey bees and summer days. Sweet stuff, this Gina.

She offers her hand. “Austin.”

I give her the full-boat Carr grin when her fingers brush mine. I feel dizzy, spinning in a field of perfumed July flowers. Hey, wake up, Carr. Time to snap out of Gina’s spell here before I erect myself a tower of trouble.

“Can I get you a drink?” she says.

“Know how to make a Slippery Nipple?”

“But Carmela’s doing okay?” Tony says. “That prick Ragsdale was a serious loser.”

“Was?”

“Slip of the tongue. I took him to the
’splaining department is all, told him what might happen if he ever showed up again at Vic’s place.”

I nod. “Great. Thanks. No, Carmela’s doing fine. It’s this other thing with Bluefish why I called.”

Tony and I sip after dinner sambuca in the Farascio’s playroom, a tennis court sized basement with two bowling lanes, a pool table, a card table, a mini-theater with a big screen TV and recliners for eight, a juke box, a soda fountain and enough cushioned perimeter seating for the Rutgers marching band.

“But you said at dinner Bluefish promised to keep his end of bargain,” Tony says. “I don’t see the problem.”

“Neither I nor Luis trust him.”

Tony’s teeth crunch one of the three coffee beans floating in the sambuca. “I don’t personally know this guy Bluefish, but I heard of him. I don’t see him getting where he is in this world without keeping his word.”

“Even with people he’s about to kill?”

Tony grins. “You got a point there, pal.”

Gina calls from the top of stairs. “Telephone, Tony.”

I can’t see her, but I definitely remember what the touch of her hand did to my heart beat, the circulation in my extremities.

Tony stands. “Let me check out a few things,” he says. “I’ll get back to you.”

“Thanks, Tony. I’d appreciate any help you can give me with this Bluefish character.”

“Don’t thank me yet, sunshine. Let’s see if I
can
help.”

TEN

Mama Bones saying, “You should-a called me first.”

I wedge the phone between
my ear and shoulder, freeing my hands to sign a stack of company checks Carmela’s presented me and wrenching my back. We’re busy at Shore today, the guys scoring big by calling up and working Walter’s accounts with enthusiasm and purpose. The big accounts are solid behind Walter, but he’s left a lot of crumbs on the table, the man too busy going after
our
clients. Don’t tell those AASD jerks who suspended my license, but I’ve been helping Shore’s bond desk fill orders and racking up a few commission dollars myself. My trades get routed through a phony rep number.

“Hey, I’m
talking here,” Mama Bones says. Her voice crackles through the telephone.

Walter’s
banging the phones, calling Shore clients whose names and numbers he swiped on the way out of here. The bastard. I heard twice today from my clients that Walter called them, told them Shore was bound to go broke, that we’ve already hired a bankruptcy lawyer. My pal Walter.

“Hey, Golly Gee!” Mama Bones says.

I stop signing checks. Nobody’s called me Golly Gee in a while. Not since I moved here from California and learned to curse properly, like a New Jersey native. “Mama Bones, I did tell you. I called to see if you needed help with that bingo game thing, and when you asked what happened when Bluefish came to Luis’s on Monday, I—”

“
You should have asked me about Tony before you called him for help,” she says. “Is a bad mistake you asking this man to do something. He and his Brooklyn crew are worse than Bluefish, worse than rats. That Tony teach my little Vittorio bad things.”

“How did you know Bluefish threatened me at Luis’s?”

“Lucky guess.”

“Mama Bones?”

“Maybe I had a
vision. Bye.”

“Mama
—?”

She’s gone. Strange, although there were lots of people in Luis’s restaurant the other day
who saw what happened. Plus Mr. Vic’s bragged many times about his mother’s exercise/bookmaking business. Unless she’s booking all the bets herself, she must be tied to, or even part of, Bluefish’s gambling operation.

One thin
g I’m not buying is Mama Bones’ voodoo vision theory.

Sixty-six percent of the time
, eating dinner with my kids on Wednesday night is one hundred percent predictable. Ryan always picks Burger King. I invariably choose Luis’s Mexican Grill. Only when it’s Beth’s turn might our evening involve true culinary adventure. Tonight is such a night.

Beth saying, “Is this place cool or what?”

“Looks like Dracula’s castle,” Ryan says.

I brake for valet parking. The Locust Tree Inn & Restaurant
on the edge of Branchtown’s southern border caters to foreign and gourmet tastes, and I should take advantage, try something exotic. I hear, for instance, the tube steak here rocks.

“Does this place have cheeseburgers?” Ryan says.

“Only dorks eat cheeseburgers every night,” Beth says.

“Hey,” I say. “Be nice.”

The kids precede me up flagstone steps. One of Branchtown’s earliest settlers snagged a fortune growing corn beside the Navasquan River, boating his crop up to Manhattan. Four hundred years later, his stone, three-story, thirty-room Tudor mansion remains the number one venue for weddings in Central New Jersey. And Wednesday through Sunday brunch, Branchtown’s priciest restaurant.

Like her mother, my daughter has
expensive tastes.

Beth saying, “I’m cold.”

“I’ve got the creeps,” Ryan says. “Did you see that guy who brought us our Cokes?”

It is a little weird in here. We checked out the ten-pound leather menus, started with Diet Cokes and just ordered our
forty dollar entrees. We’re still the only people eating.

“Do you have a jacket in the car?” I say to Beth.
“I’ll go get it.”

“No. I thought this sweater would be warm enough, but it’s so drafty in here.”

“You picked this creep-o-rama,” Ryan says.

“Shut up,” Beth says.

“Be nice,” I say.

I take off my suit coat and wrap Beth’s shoulders. All four dining
room walls glow with dark, richly oiled wood. Gargoyles with fangs, claws and bulging angry eyes watch us from all four cornices of the ornamental, hand-plastered ceiling.

“Really, Pop. Did you see that waiter?” Ryan says.

“He’s just old,” I say. “People’s ears and noses never stop growing, you know. That’s why almost everybody looks funny when they get old.”

“You don’t look funny,” Ryan says.

Ouch. “I’m not old.”

Ryan and Beth glance at each other and giggle.

Outside, two pine trees have grown extra tall, and two perfectly spaced lights shine at me through the forest. Looking out the window, the effect reminds me of giant ears and huge yellow eyes. Like a four-story cat peering at me. I shudder. Maybe Ryan’s right about this place. Creepy.

“What’s the matter, Daddy?” Beth says.

“Guess I’m cold, too.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Ryan says.

Figures. One trip for every glass of Coke. “We passed the men’s room on the way in,” I say. “Near the front door.”

“I’ll be right back,
” the boy says.

Ryan takes off at a brisk walk. Iced tea does that to me. Or maybe it’s all liquids. I think the problem might be genetic as my old man was always using the toilet. Our family road trips were planned around the availability of clean public restrooms.

I watch Ryan tack toward the hallway. His shadow dances on the wall a moment after he disappears. I’m about to turn away when a huge second shadow flashes across the same wall. My heart skips when I think I recognize the odd profile.

“Ryan!”
I jump to my feet and run after him.

Beth calling, “Daddy, what’s the matter?”

My daughter’s frightened. Behind me, her wavering voice cuts me, makes me want to turn back and comfort her. But I can’t. Not right now anyway. My priority has to be Ryan.

That second shadow I saw looked like B
luefish’s oversized driver, Max the Creeper.

ELEVEN

In the hallway just outside the dining room, I run into a charging rhinoceros. No wait. It’s the Creeper, crushing me against the wall and emptying my lungs with his horn-like fist. I know rhinos are bigger and stronger than Creeper, but it doesn’t feel like it. Or maybe I was fooled by Creeper’s soiled, spotted gray coat that closely resembles exotic animal hide.

Probably a funny thing to notice when you can’t breathe, but I think Creeper’s got that European perspective on bathing, too. Only sissies use soap.

“Get up,” he says.

I’m sinking to the floor as he says
this. When my butt hits bottom, I still can’t grab a breath, let alone stand, and since I don’t see or hear Ryan, I choose to stay right here on the hardwood floor and occupy Creeper’s creepy attentions.

Air surges into my lungs as rhino-man yanks me up by the belt, wraps his anaconda arm around me and spins me horizontal. Holding me on his hip like a small rolled up rug. My lungs and spirit enjoy the newly reacquired air supply until I hear small footsteps in the hall.

“Pop?”

“Run, Ryan,” I say.

Holding me with his right arm, Creeper jumps sideways and snatches Ryan with the left.

“Hey,” Ryan says.

I feel like a beetle in the clutches of a six-year-old boy. Helpless and doomed.

Creeper delivers us like lost pets, one on each hip, back into the dining room. The huge chamber isn’t empty anymore, though. Bluefish relaxes at the table with Beth. His greasy fingers caress her hair.

My hands clench into fists.

Every inch of the five
thousand square foot dining room smells like Creeper’s unwashed armpits. And I can’t take my eyes off his nose. It has more bends than a toboggan run.

“Have I made my point?” Bluefish says. He glances at my children.

Beth and Ryan nibble their dinners. My kids share one table, Bluefish, Creeper, and I sit at another. There’s maybe twenty feet of distance between us. Wish it were twenty miles. Where in the hell are the other diners? A waiter?

“I understand,” I say. “The point is you’re threatening my children.”

They can’t hear me, but for the kids, I’m forcing a smile. Playing relaxed. Showing them everything’s fine. I’m just dining with an eccentric client who likes to wear black suits and eat with his creepy rhino-shaped bodyguard.

So far, Bluefish and Creeper are keeping their voices and tempers down, going along with my
oddball client act. Although Creeper doesn’t have to say or do much to make things look scary. The bandaged wound on his temple oozes blood from Luis’ door slam. I hope it hurts like hell.

“My point is you can’t protect them,” Bluefish says. “Not twenty-four hours a day, not for one fucking minute if I choose otherwise.”

“I get it,” I say. My hands long to grab this bastard’s slicked-back hair and rip off his scalp. Instead, I’m saying, “I’ll open your Shore account personally.”

I force myself to take a bite of my prime rib and beg my jaws to chew. See Ryan, Beth? Everything’s fine. I glance again at Bluefish’s temptingly long,
grippable hairdo, but I’ve got no real options as far as I can see. Getting Beth and Ryan home safely can be my only priority.

“Good,” Bluefish says. “In the trunk of your car you’ll find an athletic bag with one
hundred thousand in cash and a signed Shore Securities’ account application. Buy me big cap, big name stocks.”

“All right,” I say. “Blue chips for Bluefish.”

I hand the valet his tip with a shaky hand and slide in behind the wheel of my Camry. Because of the wide market for its parts, America’s best-selling automobile is also the country’s most stolen. Wish someone would steal
my
Camry with Bluefish’s money in the trunk.

“Okay, Pop, we’re in the car,” Ryan says. “So who were those men?”

The kids buzzed me with questions when Bluefish and Creeper abandoned us in the dining room. I told them we needed to scram, that I’d answer questions when we got to the car. Gave myself some time to think.

Beth saying, “Daddy?”

“They’re friends of Mr. Vic,” I say. “The one named Bluefish is mad Vic went away and left me in charge at Shore Securities.”

“Is that why that big creepy guy picked us up like little puppies?” Ryan says.

Internally, I’d admire my son’s eye for detail. He’s got Bluefish’s driver pegged.

“Max is a little rambunctious,” I say. “Like a big kid.”

The quiet in the back seat indicates a certain skepticism, I suppose, but in this case I think lies are superior to the truth.

Beth says, “Daddy, are those men like the man who tried to kill you last year? Criminals?”

The best lies, however, always offer a bit of truth.

“Maybe, but it doesn’t matter. I agreed to help him. Bluefish isn’t mad anymore.”

“He didn’t
look
happy,” Ryan says.

“If you had to ride around in a car with Max, would you look happy?”

Bouncing into my ex-wife Susan’s driveway ten minutes later, breaking a long silence, Ryan asks if he and Beth need to go into the FBI’s witness protection program.

“No,” I say. “But
I’ll
need to if you tell your mother about this.”