Brothers and Bones (28 page)

“How about my any of my cell phones?”

“We were never able to get a bug in any of them, but sometimes we picked up conversations with a directional mic.”

“Jesus.”

“It was usually the phone bug at your apartment that told us when to back off because you’d hired other PIs to tail you.”

Bonz looked at me as if, between the two of us,
I
was the more unbalanced one, and said, “You hired people to tail you?”

I exhaled loudly. “For years I thought I was being followed. I thought I was crazy, for God’s sake. Every now and then, though, I hoped it wasn’t all in my mind, and I tried to prove it—just a couple of times—by hiring someone to follow me around and see if anyone
else
was following me around.”

“And we heard you contact those investigators,” Randy said, “so we backed way off, were much more careful, until you gave up and we heard you call them and end the tail. Then we’d pick right back up with our normal routine.”

“Goddamn you,” I said.

“You had people listening to everything that went on in Charlie’s apartment and everything said on his phones?” Bonz asked. “That’s a lot more manpower that it sounds like you have.”

“We weren’t listening all the time. We were taping it all. We had a full-time transcriptionist listen to the tapes and describe what she heard, transcribe any conversations. We sent the transcripts with our reports.”

Bonz nodded and said, “It must have been a combination of the bugs and the fact that years had gone by without the tape showing up that probably let Siracuse feel secure in letting Randy and his team cut back their surveillance.”

“What tape?” Randy asked.

“Shut up, asshole,” I said.

“So, Charlie,” Bonz said, “you get everything you need from this guy?”

I looked at Randy. I wanted to punch him in the face. “Yeah. Let’s dump him.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Randy said. “You said you weren’t gonna kill me!”

“I told you to shut up,” I said. “We’re not going to kill you, you lucky bastard.”

Randy looked relieved, but only for a moment. “Doesn’t matter, I guess. Carmen Siracuse will probably kill us anyway. Our surveillance is blown.”

“Don’t worry about Siracuse,” I said. “He’s going down.”

Randy couldn’t stifle a bitter laugh. Can’t say I blamed him.

“So you’re through with me?” he asked.

Bonz fixed his dark, wild eyes on Randy. “You won’t, absolutely fucking will
not
, tell Siracuse or his men that you spoke with us.”

“You think I’m gonna brag about that?” Randy asked.

“And you won’t tell them where we are or where you might think we’re headed.” Randy shook his head vigorously. “And you won’t talk to the cops.”

“And admit to planting illegal bugs?” he said. “I won’t, I swear. Can I go now?”

Bonz appeared to be considering his request.

“Come on, I gave you everything you wanted.”

“Well, not quite,” Bonz said. “Charlie, he’s gotta have a cell phone in one of his pockets. We’ll want that. And take his cash. We can use it. Oh, and grab his driver’s license.”

“What do you need that for?” Randy asked.

Bonz’s eyes met Randy’s in the rearview mirror. “So I’ll know where you live, Randy, in case I decide that maybe you lied to us, or weren’t as helpful as you could have been, or I suspect you’re helping Siracuse find us, or maybe that you told the cops about our little chat here, the fact that we kidnapped you, or if you discontinue your cell phone service while we still need it, something like that. If I know where you live, I’ll be able to visit you to talk to you about that. Won’t I?”

“Yeah,” Randy said. He closed his eyes.

“Would you like that? If I visited you?”

“No offense, but I don’t think I would.”

“No offense taken, Randy, because you’re right. You wouldn’t like that at all. We’re clear, right?”

Randy opened his eyes and nodded. I found his cell phone in his pocket and money and his license in his wallet.

“Okay,” Bonz said, “
now
you’ve given us everything we wanted.”

At first I wanted to tattoo swastikas and the phrase “White Power” on Randy and dump him, still bound hand and foot, in Roxbury, a dangerous, low-income suburb of Boston where you definitely wouldn’t want to be found at night in the guise of a white supremacist. But I thought about his blind colleague with the nails in his skull, and realized that Randy and the other investigators in his firm hadn’t really had much of a choice. Sure, I was angry at them all. They’d put me in therapy, made me think I was crazy. But after meeting Grossi face-to-face, could I blame them? We ended up cutting Randy’s bonds and leaving him on a street corner in Watertown, near the Massachusetts Turnpike. The lucky bastard.

THIRTY

Between Aunt Fannie’s cash register and Randy Deacon’s wallet, Bonz and I had two hundred eighty-four dollars. With it, we purchased supplies at the twenty-four-hour Walgreens in East Boston. The register clerk didn’t seem to recognize us, which meant either that our faces—or, more likely,
my
face, as the cops didn’t really have a clue who Bonz was—hadn’t yet appeared on TV or in any of the local papers’ early editions, or the clerk didn’t watch the news or read the paper. The former was certainly possible. The latter was extremely likely.

As soon as we turned out of the drugstore’s parking lot, we attacked the junk food we’d bought, ripping open bags and tearing cellophane wrapping. We crammed pretzels and cupcakes into our eager mouths, washing them down with iced tea and bottled water. We managed to fill our stomachs without wasting much space on nutrition.

After we ate, I looked at the items remaining in our shopping bags.

“We’re running from the cops and we’ve got hardened Mafia men chasing us, right?” I asked.

Bonz nodded.

I stared into the Walgreens bag at the numerous items we’d bought. “And we’re going to beat them all with a pair of cheap walkie-talkies, a roll of duct tape, and a couple of Swiss Army knives?”

“I’ve still got the cop’s gun,” Bonz said.

“Oh, well, between the gun and the duct tape, I feel totally safe.”

“We’re on a budget, Charlie,” Bonz said. “And you never know when the stuff in that bag might come in handy. Actually we should each carry one of those knives, just in case.”

I put the walkie-talkies and two new rolls of duct tape into a small backpack we’d bought, alongside Jake’s notes, then handed Bonz one of the pocketknives and slipped the other into my pocket. Thus armed, I felt as though I could take on a skinny Cub Scout.

I was also armed now with Randy Deacon’s cell phone. I really needed to call Jessica, but I doubted Bonz would think it was a good idea. Plus, I wanted to be alone when I finally spoke with her, so I decided to wait for a better time to call her.

In a few minutes we reached the Stay-Long Motel, which seemed oxymoronic to me. I waited outside while Bonz paid for our room.

Our room had a typical “modern motel” motif, which meant it was full of drab decor and stale odors, and devoid of charm and personality. But it had a shower and two beds, which meant it was just fine for us.

We flipped a coin for the right to shower first. Bonz actually tossed the quarter and, I suspect, lost, but he told me he won and I wasn’t going to argue with him. Besides, he needed the shower much more than I did.

We had decided to clean ourselves up right away, before we got some sleep, then use some of the supplies we’d picked up to change our appearances a little. Though I was aching to get some sleep, Bonz and I had agreed that if we were forced to move quickly because our location was somehow discovered by the mob or the authorities, we wanted to have different looks when we did.

So while Bonz showered, I sat on one of the beds and, with one eye on the bathroom door and one ear listening to the stream of the shower, I took the cell phone out of the pocket of my stolen leather jacket and dialed Jessica’s number. As anxious as I was to talk with her, I dreaded the call. As the phone rang in my ear, I looked at my watch. Six fifty a.m. She’d be awake. She was probably watching the morning news at that very moment. She’d probably already seen a story about me. Even if she hadn’t, she’d hear about Angel’s murder in my apartment soon enough. Perhaps the cops had already come a-knocking, looking for me. I had to talk to her. I had to explain.

On the third ring, I wondered whether calling her might be a bad idea. But, I thought, it was too soon for the police to have obtained authorization for a wiretap on her phone and I didn’t believe she’d simply agree to one. I decided that, if she answered, I wouldn’t stay on long.

After five rings, Jessica’s machine picked up. Shit. Her caller ID would have displayed Deacon’s number, which she wouldn’t have recognized, of course. Why would she want to talk to someone she didn’t know named Randall Deacon at 6:50 in the morning?

After the beep, I was silent for moment, completely at a loss for words. Finally, I said, “Jess, it’s me. I didn’t do it. You have to believe me. I’m in some trouble, sure, but not the kind you think. I just…I need some time to think things through, figure a way out of this mess. Just…believe in me. Please.” I paused but couldn’t think of a thing to add other than, “I love you.”

I hung up. In the bathroom, the shower was still running, so I lay back on the bed. There wasn’t anything I could do about Jessica just then. I’d call her again when I could. I closed my eyes and my thoughts drifted to Carmen Siracuse’s fat face, lying through chocolate cake–smeared teeth about not having anything to do with my brother’s disappearance. I thought about Siracuse’s sick bastard of an enforcer, Grossi, with his hammer on his hip and his pocket full of nails. But I knew thinking about them wasn’t productive, so I forced my mind to turn toward Jake’s clue, about how if I wanted answers I should turn to prayer. I thought about that, and about Saint John’s church, and Father Sean, and what I’d seen there, and where in the church the tape could be hidden, because I thought it had to be there somewhere. I thought about all of this, determined to make some headway before I let myself sleep.

* * *

What seemed like ten seconds later Bonz was shaking me awake. Through tired eyes I noticed that his long hair and beard were damp and he was wearing nothing but a motel towel around his waist.

“Your turn.”

I was so exhausted I felt drugged, or possibly concussed, as I heaved myself off the bed. The too-brief dip I took into the waters of sleep had done nothing but make me feel more tired when I emerged, ever so reluctantly, from them. As I made my way across the room, I couldn’t help but look at Bonz’s naked torso. It was a sight for more than one reason. Despite years of undoubtedly meager and unhealthy food rations picked from trash cans or eaten at the occasional shelter, he was an impressive physical specimen. He was lean, his muscles hard and defined. But that wasn’t what held my eye. Rather, I saw in brutal clarity what I’d seen only a hint of in the dim light inside Aunt Fannie’s thrift shop. Bonz’s naked torso was a county road map of scars and old wounds—jagged slashes and cruel, clean cuts. Some scars were shallow trenches in his skin, others were raised, red, knotted rope. The scars covered nearly every inch of flesh, crossing over each other, running vertically, diagonally, horizontally. Here and there were ugly, discolored, irregular remnants of burns of some kind. The marks also covered his arms and what I could see of his neck underneath his thick beard. I couldn’t imagine what—or who—could do all that to another human being. But, of course, I didn’t need to imagine. I knew. It was Grossi.

* * *

Bonz had apparently used most of the hot water, but I still found the lukewarm shower mildly refreshing. Afterward, as I wrapped the towel around my waist, I felt slightly rejuvenated. Just slightly. I went into the bedroom and found Bonz snoring loudly, lying flat on his back on the other bed.

“Hey,” I said.

Nothing. I repeated it more loudly. Still nothing. I nudged his scarred, muscled shoulder. He groaned.

“Let’s do this,” I said.

Bonz sat up. “Shit.”

We went into the bathroom together with our bag of supplies. In the harsh, bright-white glare of the bathroom light, Bonz’s scars were even more arresting. I tried not to stare, but Bonz caught me once or twice. He didn’t seem to care.

I saw that his hair was sand-colored. It had looked much darker when it was long and filthy. I took out a hairbrush and a wide-toothed comb and attacked the briar patch on his head. It was like grooming a stray sheepdog. I let him try to get the knots out of his beard himself. With our brand-new scissors I began cutting. I wished we’d bought garden shears for the job, but I hacked away as best I could. I cut away chunks, sawed my way through a few Gordian knots, and, every now and then, dragged the brush or comb through his thick tangles. It must have hurt like hell, but the most he did was grumble a few times. After several minutes, I stood back to survey my work. Bonz’s hair, which had hung below his shoulders and stood wildly out to the sides of his head, now varied in length from two to three inches. Hey, I’m no hairstylist. Sure, his hair looked like crap, but given what I had to work with, I didn’t think I’d done too badly.

Next, Bonz took the scissors and cut away most of his beard. He had the same kind of trouble I did, so if he was harboring any ill will over my treatment of his head during his haircut, I assumed he let it go then. As he cut, he said, “Have you really thought about what you wanna do?”

“What do you mean? I want to find the tape, bring Siracuse down. And I want to prove my innocence.”

Bonz was silent for a few moments. He wrestled with a particularly nasty clump of beard hair, then finally said, “You sure you wouldn’t rather go into hiding, go on the run?”

“And end up on
America’s Top Fugitives
?”

Bonz paused and looked at me in the mirror. “What’s that?”

“TV show. Forget it.”

He shrugged. “It’s just that it’s not that easy to stay ahead of the cops. And, well, Siracuse and his guys…these are some really nasty people who are after you. Believe me, I know.”