Brothers and Bones (46 page)

“You played puppet master, yanking my strings for years, ruined my life, framed me for murder.”

“Ancient history.”

“You killed my brother,” I said.

“Bonzetti killed your brother.”

“Okay, but he wouldn’t have been able to do that if you didn’t keep Jake locked up for weeks, torturing him. Torturing
my brother
. In my mind, you killed Jake, same as Bonz did.”

“Whatever. You killed Big Frank. He was a brother to me.”

“Not a fair trade,” I said. “My brother was what every man should be. Your ‘brother’ was a piece of garbage who, they say, once kicked an old man to death over a parking space.”

I’d wanted to remain confident, cocky, like I held the cards, but I thought for a moment I might have gone too far. Siracuse’s eyes died as all life, all humanity, drained out of them. They turned crypt cold and gravestone hard. It seemed as though all the air had been sucked from the room. I sweated. Just when I thought Siracuse might give Grossi the order to turn my head into a pincushion, he leaned back again, the chair protesting loudly beneath him. He blinked and his eyes had returned to normal.

“Nobody’s perfect, right, Beckham? We all have warts. Big Frank did, I admit that. I sure as shit do. Lippincott here does. Grossi’s got more than most. You probably do, too. Hell, even your brother Jake did. You might be surprised to hear—”

“Don’t say another word, Siracuse,” I warned, barely able to keep my voice from cracking. “I mean it. You may have killed Jake, but you won’t touch his memory. I swear to God, you say another word and the deal’s off.”

“I’m just saying, your brother, he—”

“I’m not fucking around here. This is nonnegotiable. One more word about Jake and it’s over. No deal. I don’t give a shit what happens to me. Bonz and the tape go to the cops and you come crashing down. You hear me?”

Siracuse actually looked amused, the son of a bitch. But he nodded and said, “Okay. So we have a deal then? You’ll give us the tape and Bonzetti?”

“After we make a copy,” I said.

“Sorry, Beckham, no dice. No copies.”

“Then I’ve got no protection. What’s to keep you from killing me later?”

“You don’t trust me, take your girl and my half million and disappear. Shit, you’re a smart guy, you can figure out how to do that. You think I got nothing better to do than spend my life looking all over the world for you? I just want the tape and Bonzetti. You can do whatever the fuck you want.”

“And you’re not worried I’ll have a change of heart and tell my story to someone?”

“Beckham, if you ever tried to cross us, you wouldn’t have a shred of fucking evidence to back you up. We’d have the tape, and we’d have the gun and your bloody shirt. And you’d have nothing. So what do you say, smart boy? Deal?”

I pretended to think about it. In fact, the past few minutes had been nothing but pretending. I just wanted to make it look good.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” I said.

“You’ll take us to the tape and Bonzetti?”

“No. I won’t take you there. I’ll
lead
you there. If Bonz sees me pull up in a caravan of black sedans, he’ll take off. And if he’s already retrieved the tape, they’ll both disappear. But not for long, because they’ll show up on tonight’s evening news.”

Siracuse nodded. He laced his fat fingers together and tucked them under one of his chins. “What’s your idea then?”

“I drive the car I came in. It’s what he’s expecting me to show up in. You guys follow at a distance. But not in one of your flashy mob cars; he’d spot that a mile away.”

Siracuse pursed his flabby lips and studied me. I felt Lippincott at my side, studying me as well. I knew what they were thinking.
Can he get out of this? He’ll be alone in a car, which we’ll be following. He can’t make any stops without us knowing it. He won’t try to get away because he won’t leave Jessica behind. We took his cell phone so he can’t warn Bonz ahead of time. This should be okay, right?

Lippincott cleared his throat, perhaps as a way to warn Siracuse that he’d be speaking, seeking permission, in a way. I looked at him and he stared back with his cold gray eyes. “Why should we trust you, Charlie?”

I tried to sound as convincing as I could. “Because I’m tired, Lippincott. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in days. I can’t think straight anymore. I just want this all to be over. And you’ve left me no choice about how it will end, have you? I don’t want to see Jessica hurt, and I don’t want to go to prison, which you can make happen even if I turned the tape over to the media and the authorities.”

“And you have no problem betraying your friend Bonzetti?”

“He’s not my friend. I barely know him. And he snapped my brother’s neck. Maybe later I’ll feel bad about turning him over to you, I don’t know, but I doubt it. And if I do, I’ll get over it. Look what you’ve gotten over, right?” I gave him a pointed look and said, “And, as you know, Jessica means everything to me. A hell of a lot more than Bonzetti does. Besides, I assume your getting Bonz is nonnegotiable.” I turned to Siracuse. “Am I right?”

Siracuse nodded. “You’re right.” He was still studying me with his cunning little eyes. He looked at Lippincott, who nodded, as if Siracuse cared what he thought, then he looked at me again. “Okay, Beckham, we’ll do it your way. Remember everything you just said, though. You’re fucked if you don’t do exactly as you said. And the rest of your girlfriend’s life will be all of four hours long, and it will be nothing but gangbang followed by bang-bang, got it?” Just to make sure his subtle message was clear enough for me, he formed his thick digits into a finger gun, pointed it my way, and pretended to pull the trigger.

“I hear you,” I said. “I assume you’ll be bringing a team of guys to take down Bonz?”

“I can handle Bonzetti,” Grossi said from his chair in the corner.

“I’m sure you can,” I said. “You’ve got a permanent limp, a Band-Aid between your eyes, and half an ear—all courtesy of Bonz—to prove it.”

I saw Grossi twitch, like an electric current just sizzled through him. “You think you’re fucking untouchable, sitting there. Just wait till we—”

“Grossi, knock that shit off,” Siracuse said. “You fuck this up for me and you’re dead, you got it? Not him, you.”

Grossi stared at me with his black, shark eyes, trying to scare me. He was too late.

“When do we leave?” Siracuse asked.

I looked at my watch.

“Can’t leave for an hour yet.”

“Why not?”

“We get there early, he’ll know. He’ll run, with the tape.”

“My boys will get into position. He’ll never see them.”

“You don’t know Bonz. He’s better than you think. Better than most of your guys. No, I show up when I’m supposed to show up, in the car I’m supposed to show up in. You guys follow…at a distance. And bring Jessica. That’s nonnegotiable, too. I want her there.”

“Whatever. What then?”

“I’ll lead you to the tape. Bonz will be with me. You guys follow. When you realize where we’re going, you’ll see there’s plenty of ways for your guys to sneak up on him. When we have the tape, you take Bonz, you take the tape, and I take Jessica and the cash.”

Siracuse ran my plan over in his mind.

“That’s it?” he said finally.

“Just one more thing. Lippincott has to be in the car behind me. Just him and Jessica. Nobody else in the car. He’s the one I give the tape to.”

Siracuse looked surprised. “You’re not gonna try to make me go, too?”

“Would you go?”

“Fuck no.”

“But you’d send Lippincott,” I said and Siracuse chuckled good-naturedly. “Just him and Jessica and a briefcase with my money. He meets Bonz and me. I assume you’ve got my money.”

“I do.”

“You must think we’re stupid,” Lippincott said.

I turned to him. “Don’t worry. Uncle Carmen will look after you. I’m sure he’ll have Grossi following your car, with a gaggle of goons riding with him, ready to swoop in and grab Bonz when I give the signal.” I turned to Siracuse. “Am I right?” He spread his hands, silently saying, “Of course.” I added, “But make sure they stay out of sight until we have the tape, or Bonz will see them and fly.”

Lippincott cleared his throat and said, “Um, Carmen, I’m not sure this is the way to go.”

“Sure it is,” Siracuse replied. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. Like Charlie says, my guys will be right behind you.”

I stood up. Grossi followed me with just his eyes. “If we’re all set then, fellas,” I said, “I’m gonna go out to my car and take a nap until it’s time to leave.”

“You can wait here with us.”

I started for the door. “I’m dead tired. I’ll be in my car, sleeping. One of your guys can watch me, if it makes you feel better. In fact, wake me in an hour, okay?”

“Fuck you, Beckham,” Siracuse said.

I ignored him and was almost through the door when he said to Mole Man, “Fuck it. Follow him.” I paused, waiting for the wiseguy. Siracuse continued. “Check his car for weapons and listening devices. If it’s clean, let him take his nap. You sit out there and watch him.”

“Should I wake him in an hour?” Mole Man asked.

“Shut the fuck up, you idiot.”

Grossi spoke up. “Hey, what if Bonz gives him a piece when they meet?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Siracuse said. “Charlie’s with us now. Besides, he knows they’ll be outgunned, wherever the hell he’s taking us, right, Charlie?”

“Right on both counts,” I replied.

Siracuse looked at his mole-faced underling again. “Make sure he just sleeps, got it?”

Mole Man nodded. I avoided Grossi’s gaze, ignored Lippincott completely, and took a last look into Siracuse’s eyes before walking out of the office, across the warehouse to the front door, and out into the thick, almost suffocating fog. I walked to my car and Mole Man told me to wait while he searched it. I held my breath until he stepped away from it, nodding to himself. He stepped inside the warehouse door and returned a few seconds later with a straight-backed wooden chair, which he set down on the sidewalk. He sat, lit a cigarette, and tipped the chair back against the warehouse wall. I turned and got behind the wheel of Rantham’s Honda Civic.

As soon as I was alone in the car, I did my best to make it look like I was trying to get comfortable enough in the small confines of the car to sleep. As I did, I surreptitiously swept Randy Deacon’s nearly dead cell phone from where I’d left it, on the passenger’s side floor, laying among spare computer parts Rantham had left there, buried beneath a week’s worth of old fast-food wrappers. I thanked God Siracuse hadn’t considered that I might have a second phone. Perhaps it looked to Mole Man like just another computer part. Since it was almost dead, and I’d taken Rantham’s phone, Randy’s had become garbage. So I’d tossed it in a pile of litter on the car floor. It had since become a lifeline.

I took off my jacket and folded it to use as a pillow, then held it against the window and leaned my head against it. I knew Mole Man was sitting not ten feet away, directly to my right. He could see me clearly through the passenger window. Without moving any part of my body but the fingers on my right hand, I flipped open Randy’s phone and dialed by feel, entering the number of the cell phone Big Bopper Harwick had kindly loaned Bonz. I heard the faint beeping of the numbers as I pressed them and knew there was, thank God, a little juice left. The phone was down at my side, in my hand on the seat next to me, but I could hear the distant ringing, followed almost immediately by Bonz’s voice, sounding a thousand miles away.

“Yeah?” At least that’s what I think he said.

This was going to be a pretty once-sided conversation, seeing as I could barely hear Bonz, and I had to speak without appearing to be doing so, so I tried to be as succinct as possible.

“Bonz,” I said, “it’s me. I can’t hear you very well. I don’t have time to explain. Can you hear me okay?”

I listened hard. It sounded like he said, “Yeah” again.

“Eddie,” I said, calling him by his given name for the first time. “I’ve figured out where the tape is.”

I couldn’t hear exactly what he said, but the tone came through loud and clear. He was glad I figured out where the tape was, and not so glad that I called him “Eddie.”

“You still nearby?” I asked.

Another affirmative reply. I think.

“I’ve got a plan, Bonz, but it’s dangerous for you.”

He said something I couldn’t make out.

“Can you repeat that?”

He yelled and I clearly heard, “So fucking what?”

He had no idea how dangerous it was, yet he wanted to be a part of it. He either trusted me more than he should have, or he wanted revenge badly enough to risk everything to get it. Either way, I was glad he was on board. I said, “I hope you can hear me. I need you to make another trip to Aunt Fannie’s, which isn’t far from here, and which I think should actually be open now, and buy a couple of things I remember seeing there the other night.” I told him what we needed, what to do with it, gave exact directions for where to meet me, and told him that he had an hour and a half to do everything I asked and get into place. I also told him that Lippincott would be following me to our rendezvous. And that a healthy handful of Siracuse’s men would certainly be following behind Lippincott, coming solely to bring down Bonz. I gave Bonz one more chance to back out, prayed he wouldn’t, and was rewarded, I think, with a reply telling me to stop being a pussy. Finally, knowing I had to be just about out of battery, I asked Bonz if he understood everything and I was pretty certain that he said he did. I hoped I heard him right. I hoped he’d heard me right.

I closed the phone as inconspicuously as I could and stuffed it into the crack between the seat and the seat back, where it would be hard to find if, for some reason, Siracuse decided to have the car searched again.

I’d come up with a plan. I didn’t know if it would work. I hoped it would. If it didn’t, Bonz might die, Jessica would probably die, and I would definitely go to prison for a long, long time. That is, if I didn’t die, too.

FIFTY

As I drove down Mount Auburn Street, I could just make out in the rearview mirror, about a quarter of a mile behind me in the fog, the pale shape of a nondescript Chevy Lumina carrying Lippincott and Jessica, whom I’d seen dragged into the car and whom I hadn’t been allowed to talk to. I pulled over to the curb as near as I could to the front entrance of Mount Auburn Cemetery.