No Show of Remorse (30 page)

I sat him down in his chair, leaned close to his ear—the one with all the blood on it—and said, “If you move I'll hit you again, Richie boy, and I won't hold back this time. And then, when you wake up—
if
you wake up—you'll be wearing these.” I held up the handcuffs I'd taken from his belt.

Through it all, Frankel never left his chair.

“You're smart, Frankel,” I said. “If it was both of you, I might have had to shoot someone.”

“I'm not armed.”

“That's even smarter,” I said. “Talk to me.”

“You get all these lies from your client, Marlon Shades? Or is some of it from Jimmy Coletta?”

“Jimmy won't talk to me. I threatened him the same as I did you. He used born-again Christian language, but basically told me to go piss up a rope.” Frankel looked like he believed me.

“Your whole story's a lie,” he said. “But…” He paused, and I could almost see the machinery in his head try to sort things out. And then he weakened. Maybe he thought he could work a deal. “But,” he repeated, “even suppose some of it was true. Say, selling the shit to Lonnie Bright. Jimmie and I wouldn't have known about anything extra Sal cooked up with this piece of shit.” He nodded at Kilgallon. “About killing Lonnie, I mean; and reselling the coke.”

“Shut up, Frankel,” Kilgallon said. “Don't be a pussy, for chrissake. Lonnie Bright had at least four slugs in him.”

“But only one killed him,” I said. “Only one
could
have killed him. And that one would have been a hell of a shot if it came in the middle of a gunfight.” I paused and stared at Frankel. “It's all in the autopsy reports, if anyone was ever interested in looking at them, analyzing them.”

“Anyway,” Frankel said, “I'm not admitting anything. There's no evidence of any drugs on the scene.”

“Right,” I said. “Lucky for you, I guess. Although, did you ever wonder why they disappeared? I mean, a shootout with people killed? Wouldn't it have been easier to explain things if there'd been drugs there?”

“There weren't any.”

“But let's say for a minute that there
were.
Who took them?”

“Shit,” Frankel said. “It would have been your client, Marlon Shades. He must have—”

“For chrissake, shut up!” Kilgallon couldn't keep his voice from rising. And apparently he couldn't keep from looking around the room, either. Toward the kitchen doors, the windows, the archway just in from the hostess station. “The guy could be wired,” he added.

“So what?” I said. “It's all hypothetical, right?” I concentrated on Frankel. “Suppose there
had
been cocaine, and suppose there
had
been money up there in Lonnie's place. Someone walked away with all of it. The bags of coke, the money … Maybe it was you and Richie boy here. Maybe—”

“Fucker.” This from Kilgallon, more a mumble than a challenge. He still seemed distracted, looking around. I was sure I knew what he was expecting—which is why I'd wanted Breaker around as back-up.

“I didn't walk away with anything,” Frankel said. “They carried my ass out.”

“Maybe you got your share later,” I said. “Maybe Richie did too. Maybe that's how you bought your first restaurant.”

Frankel gave a small laugh then. Small, but it seemed a genuine reaction to what I'd said. “The money for the first restaurant? That came from my lawyer cousin. That can be traced. Where he got it, God only knows. Maybe he scammed more than the one client he got disbarred for.” That seemed genuine, too. “I didn't get shit from the Lonnie Bright deal, other than—”

“There
was
no deal, asshole,” Kilgallon whined. “You—”

And that's when we heard the front door of the restaurant open … and then close. Shortly after that Theodosian came into the dining room, folding his raincoat and draping it over a chair as he walked.

CHAPTER

47

T
HEODOSIAN TOOK HIS TIME
, winding his way among the tables toward us. “Sorry I'm late,” he said. “The rain, the Friday night traffic, the—” He stopped a couple of yards away and slid his hands deep into the pockets of his corduroy sport coat. “Y'know, Foley, I never figured you as a killer, okay? And I still don't. But you
are
a suspect in a homicide and … well … the gun?”

Very slowly, with just the tips of my fingers, I pushed the Beretta across the table. Then I sat back, leaving the gun closer to Kilgallon than to Frankel. You have to make choices, even when you're not quite sure.

“Thanks,” Theodosian said.

“I understand.” I shrugged. “I mean, if I
were
a killer, how would you look if—”

“What's this guy doing here?” Frankel asked.

“I thought maybe
you
invited him,” I said. “Or maybe Richie boy wanted—”

“Dammit!” Kilgallon grabbed the Beretta and stood up. “I said cut out the ‘Richie boy' shit.”

Frankel stood, too, which left only me sitting. Kilgallon backed up, moving away from the table, toward Theodosian.

But Theodosian stepped backward a little, too. “Take it easy, Richard,” he said. “Use your head. Don't do anything foolish.”

“Bullshit.” Kilgallon was way beyond taking it easy. “This cocksucker's been fuckin' with me all night. But that's over.”

I spread my arms wide, palms up. “Okay,” I said, “what now … Richie boy?”

“Now,” he said, “we get you out of our way.” He raised the Beretta, pointed it at my face, and squeezed the trigger.

Maybe I heard a
click.
And maybe not, because Theodosian yelled something and Kilgallon spun around toward him with the gun still raised. And when he did, Theodosian shot him, once. The Beretta fell to the floor. Kilgallon seemed to stand a little taller, for just an instant, and then he went down, too.

“Him and Frankel, they were both in on it,” Theodosian said. He crouched down beside Kilgallon. “Selling coke to Lonnie Bright.”

By that time Frankel was on the run, headed for the kitchen doors. No sign of a limp now. “Bastard's probably got a gun!” Theodosian yelled. “I had his phone tapped. That's how I knew to come here!”

By then Frankel was pushing through the swinging doors into the kitchen, and I grabbed Kilgallon's leather coat from the chair back and went after him.

Inside the kitchen I hit the wall switch and the lights went on, but Frankel wasn't in sight. I moved forward, slipping my arms into Kilgallon's coat as I did. To my right was an exit to the outside, but a little box on the wall, with its tiny red light blinking, said going that way might bring every squad car on the North Shore screaming up. Frankel wouldn't have gone that way, and I couldn't afford to, either.

The only other door in sight was on the other side of a wide stainless-steel counter that was stacked with pots and pans, and divided the room in two. It was a wooden door, painted white like the walls, a door that might lead to a storage room … or maybe into the lumber yard. Running around the end of the counter seemed to take forever, but when I got there the door was unlocked.

*   *   *

I
CLOSED THE DOOR
behind me and found myself in what felt like a very large building, and smelled like wet wood and mildew and cat droppings—like an old barn. It was very dark, with the faintest of light showing here and there through cracks in the walls, mostly up near the roof, and around the edges of a set of huge, barnlike doors, off maybe fifteen feet to my right. They were wide and tall enough to drive a moving van through. They were closed, and probably had been for twenty years or more.

I heard Theodosian's voice from the kitchen behind me. “Hold on, Foley!” he yelled. “I'm calling it in. Don't take any chances. Help is on the way!”

I turned left, away from the outside doors, and moved deeper into the darkness. Whatever sounds my shoes made on the concrete floor were lost in the pounding of rain on the metal roof far above. I looked up. There were two skylights, but they were nothing but rectangles of gray, patched onto the inky blackness.

My eyes adjusted enough so I could tell I was headed down the length of a large building … the lumber shed. That had to be why the door into here had no alarm, because the shed and the other buildings must all have been inside the wired fence. This building seemed mostly emptied out and abandoned, but with wood scraps and piles of debris scattered around. Passing through, I could tell that the walls along both sides were partitioned into stalls, probably for storing different sizes and kinds of wood and building materials. Moving closer to the right side, I saw that some of the stalls were divided by horizontal shelving; some were just empty little three-sided rooms.

At the end of the building, I made out a second set of outside doors. I ran up and gave them a half-hearted shove, and they didn't budge. Facing back the way I'd come, I stood in the dark and listened, but heard only my own breathing and the incessant drumming of the rain.

I ducked behind a partition wall, got down close to the floor and poked my head around the edge. The shed had to be a good fifty yards long, by maybe twenty wide. The storage cubicles along the sides flanked an open space down the middle that was way more than wide enough to drive a truck in one end, load or unload it, and drive it out the other. I could tell now that there was a second floor, too, or really two second floors; balconies running the length of the building along both side walls, but not connected across the center. It was too dark to see, but the upper levels were probably broken up into sections, too. Safety railings ran along their outer edges, and there must have been room to walk from one storage stall to another up there. The only ladders I could see were down here at my end, primitive wooden ladders nailed to the wall and going straight up from the floor to the balcony, with hardly any pitch to them at all.

The kitchen door was on the side opposite me and lost in the darkness down at the other end, but I was sure Theodosian hadn't come through into the shed yet. And I was equally sure of the presence of Arthur Frankel. I felt him here in this big, empty woodshed with me, somewhere, even though I couldn't hear him.

And if help was on the way I couldn't hear that, either. My sense about anyone coming who'd want to help
me
was that I shouldn't hold my breath. I'd given up on Breaker Hanafan, the bastard.

So I waited, watching down the length of the building, and finally the kitchen door opened, just a little. Light came out and I instinctively pulled back. But I was far away and in deep shadow and I knew I couldn't be seen, so I looked out again. The door opened wider, but the light spilling out still didn't reach anywhere near as far down as I was.

I watched Theodosian lean out through the doorway, look both ways, then pull back again. “Frankel?” he called. “I know you're in there.”

Frankel didn't answer.

“Foley? You just sit tight and stay out of trouble, okay?”

I didn't answer, either.

“Look here, Frankel. The worst—” He stopped. “Well … it's Arthur, right? Can I call you Arthur?” Theodosian's voice was clear over the sound of the rain, and sounded calm, almost soothing. “You were in on the Lonnie Bright deal, sure, but the worst you're facing is a conspiracy to traffic in cocaine.” He paused, then stepped into the shed and closed the door at once, shutting out the light from the kitchen. “Hell, Arthur, the deal wasn't even done. What's that, then, attempt to conspire? Conspiracy to attempt? Whatever it is, the statute of limitations probably ran already. Give it up, man. Get a decent lawyer and you'll walk.” He paused. “Whaddaya say, Arthur?”

There was a moment of silence, and then—to my disappointment—Frankel answered. “You said my phone was tapped.” He sounded about midway between me and Theodosian, on the other side of the open space, but up on the second level. “I didn't call Richard from my phone, though. I called—”

“Not yours,” Theodosian interrupted. “I said
Kilgallon's
phone.
Richard's
phone. Or if I didn't, I meant to.”

“You shot Richard,” Frankel called. “Why'd you do that?” At least he was asking the right questions.

“Jesus Christ, Arthur, he tried to kill Foley; then he turned on me with the gun. So he's hurtin' a little right now, but he'll survive. It's his … shoulder. Anyway, he's got bigger problems to face. Way more than you. He flat-out murdered Lonnie Bright.”

“No one told me there'd be any killing,” Frankel said. The tremor in his voice was unmistakable. “So maybe you're right. Maybe—”

“Frankel, wait!” I called. I was standing now, but still hidden behind my wall. “You don't really know if Kilgallon's alive or dead.”

“Jesus, Foley, I
said
he was alive, didn't I?” Theodosian sounded disappointed in me. “Whose side are you on, anyway? Just stay put. I think Arthur's decided to use his head.”

“You said help was on the way, too,” I said. “But where is it? I don't hear anyone. No sirens.”

“I been wonderin' that myself,” he answered. “But Christ, it's not like the city. They probably got one or two squad cars in this town and a volunteer fire department.”

“Frankel,” I yelled, “listen to me. If this guy was on official police business, do you think he'd have come alone? And how'd he arrive at the restaurant? We'd have seen a car drive up. Where—”

“I
told
you, Foley,” Theodosian cut in. “I been working with the state on special assignment, with your friend Frick-the-Prick.” There was a change in the sound of his voice and I realized he'd moved farther down the shed—coming my way. “It's just Frick and me and he's taking time off, fishing or something. What was I gonna do, call in a battalion? All I knew was there was a meeting; I didn't even know you'd be here.” There was a pause, and he was coming closer; I could feel it. “I didn't wanna draw outside attention, so I parked down the street and walked.”