Sweetheart (9 page)

“I’m working on it.”

“I’ve got nothing to do.”

“Pretty soon you’ll have plenty to do. Right now people don’t know what you’re up to. It creates tension.”

“So I just sit here on my ass.”

“Till I say move it.”

Wade clunked the phone down. He locked the office, rode an elevator to the lobby, and strode out of the building. It was the noon hour, a mild, blowy day. He stood against the percussion of traffic that surged up Cambridge Street, God help anyone in the way. He crossed the street when the lights let him. The plaza of Government Center swarmed with office workers out for the warmth, the men in shirt sleeves, the women bare-armed, tourists among them, also peddlers and vendors, the food smoking from their pushcarts. A ravaged old man, death warmed over, rattled a cup of coins, and Wade, who could never walk by a beggar without giving something, stuffed a fast dollar into the cup. A Chinese youth glided by on roller skates, skillfully, like a spirit.

With a sidelong glance Wade noticed that the beggar was trying to follow him, perhaps to thank him, or perhaps to ask for a little more. Then the beggar seemed to lose his way, to vanish, a wraith like the youth on skates.

Wade queued up to buy a hot dog at a busy pushcart. In front of him was an assemblage of City Hall types, Cro-Magnons in Arrow shirts, their conversation carnal. Suddenly they all wheeled around, their eyes darting past Wade to a sudden commotion. Wade pivoted.

He elbowed through a crowd that did not want to move, its fascination too great. “Look out!” he said and shoved people aside. The beggar was sprawled on his back, coins spilled around him, somebody stepping on the dollar. Wade crouched over him. There was dried blood on his face, not from shaving but from picking, and a yellow fringe of foam on his lips. His eyes were sightless, his fingers curled into claws. Wade listened for a beat and felt for a pulse and then, wincing, the crowd gasping, he gave the man mouth-to-mouth.

It was in vain.

He staggered to his feet as two uniformed policemen wended toward him. “The guy’s gone,” he said and stumbled away, again using an elbow, more emphatically this time. He bought a can of Coca-Cola, gargled a mouthful, and spat it into the gutter as his stomach turned. Somebody in passing brushed close to him.

“That’s no way to make a living,” Victor Scandura said from behind glaring spectacles and continued on. Then he stopped and looked back.

“You got something to say?” Wade asked.

“Another time,” Scandura said. “When you’re feeling better. ”

F
LOWN UP
from the New York office were four federal agents with newly contrived credentials that bore the seal of Suffolk County, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Agent Blodgett met them at the airport, provided them with rented cars, introduced them into the lava flow of early Boston traffic, and escorted them to the Saltonstall Building, where they gathered into Christopher Wade’s outer office and stood stiffly in look-alike suits. Each had a background in accounting. Each looked dry, distant, and difficult — perfect for the task, Wade mused. He glanced at Blodgett and said, “I assume Thurston has briefed them.”

“They know their objective.”

“Which is?”

“To harass, to scare.”

Wade looked skeptical. “They can harass Gardella, but they won’t scare him.”

“They’ll make him uneasy,” Blodgett said in a tone low and authoritative. “That’s good enough for your purposes.”

“You hope.”

“You worry too much.”

“My nature.”

“Change it.”

“You sound like Thurston.”

Blodgett smiled, as if he had gotten a compliment.

Within the hour Wade and two of the four agents arrived at the drab premises of G&B Toxic Waste Disposal Company in East Boston. A tank truck was parked behind a chain fence that was warped in places. A
no trespassing
sign clung unsteadily to an unlocked gate that swayed open when Wade touched it. The three of them strode into a cinder-block building, followed a dim corridor to its end, and made a commanding entrance into a surprisingly neat and bright office, the furniture chrome and leather. Two women stared from their desks, and a small man with lank hair and a Givenchy necktie leaped up from his.

“Who the hell let you guys in?”

Wade seemed to smile. “You’re Rizzo, right? You’re the manager.”

“I’m the owner.”

“No, you’re the manager. You answer to Rita O’Dea, and she answers to her brother.”

The man instantly went on guard, eyes narrowing. His tie hung past his fly. His shirt was silk. “I’ve seen your picture in the paper.”

“Then you know why I’m here,” Wade said and glanced at the women, who averted their eyes. Both were attractive in hard, uneven ways. Wade noticeably admired each.

“This is bullshit,” the man said, and Wade returned his gaze to him.

“I saw only one tanker out there. Where’re the rest?”

“Hauling waste.”

“I heard they don’t go anywhere. They just drive out of state and leak a lot.”

“You hear wrong.”

Wade assumed a virtuous expression. “These are two of my assistants. This is Mr. Holly, that’s Mr. Haynes. They’re going to check your shipment records for the past year and audit your books. Figure them being here at least a month.”

The man’s eyes radiated contempt. “This is bullshit.”

“Don’t you believe it, Mr. Rizzo.”

“You got anything to show?”

Wade flashed a court order.

A half hour later, back in Boston’s business core, he left his car in a private lot and walked around the corner to an imposing office building of darkened glass, where on an upper floor Aceway Development Association had a suite, Anthony Gardella one of the principal owners, though not of record. The two other agents from New York were waiting outside the building for him. Their bogus names were Danley and Dane. The one named Danley glided forward, the dark glass reflecting his movement. “We just saw Gardella go up,” he said and looked pleased. Wade wasn’t. “What’s the matter, Lieutenant?”

Wade glanced at the traffic, which honked and fumed. “Let’s not go in yet.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t feel like facing him.”

The agent made a face. “You afraid of him?”

“Yes,” said Wade. “I’m afraid of him.”

• • •

From a dormer window in Rita O’Dea’s bedroom, Alvaro had a full view of the driveway leading to Anthony Gardella’s house. When he saw the flash and sweep of headlights, he noted the time and later the fact that, as usual, Gardella entered his house through the three-stall garage, the doors of which moved electrically. He also observed that, of the two men who had arrived with Gardella, only one stayed, Ralph Roselli, who presumably would spend the night in a downstairs guest room. The other man, Victor Scandura, left in another car, his own.

Alvaro further noted that the grounds were well lit, as usual.

He moved swiftly from the window when Rita O’Dea called from the bathroom. Clad only in magenta Jockey briefs, he pattered to the door and peered through the vapors. Half out of the shower stall, she looked like a big baby picture that had burst out of its frame.

“No towels!” she cried.

He found one, terry cloth, monogrammed, one that he had used earlier, but was dry now. He spread it wide and rubbed her down, her flesh quivering. Gently he raked his fingernails down her back and gave her a shiver. She snatched off her shower cap, her hair jumping loose, and gazed at him over her shoulder.

“Sometimes you know just what to do,” she said and sought his lips. The kiss was vigorous on her part, expert on his. He helped her into a massive robe and tied it for her. She reached for a brush as the telephone rang in the bedroom. “Get it,” she said.

He fetched it for her. It was cordless. He stepped back to listen to her talk and immediately knew from her voice that the caller was her brother. She threw a look at him.

“This is private.”

He retreated into the bedroom, but it wasn’t far enough. She told him to go downstairs, which he did after squeezing into a pair of pants. He made his way into the kitchen, where polished pots and pans hung from a wall like weaponry. A knife gleamed from the butcher’s block. Opening a side door, he peered out into the chill darkness. Only a couple of lights glowed inside Anthony Gardella’s house. He had never been in it, but he knew it was laid out more or less like Rita’s. He also knew that Gardella never lingered more than a moment near a lit window, even with the shade pulled.

He went back up to the bedroom, where Rita O’Dea was moving about with a heavy step. She was dressing and doing it hurriedly, giving only scant attention to how she looked, which was uncharacteristic. “What’s the matter?” he asked and received no answer, not even a look. “Why you so quiet?”

“I’m quiet, you should be too.” She shook her shoulders. “Button me.”

He lifted her hair and did up the back of her dress while breathing on her neck. “Where you going?”

“My brother wants to see me.”

“Is there a problem?”

“Don’t ask. It was for you to know, I’d tell you.”

He stepped around her, forced her to look at him. His beard had a sleek look and smelled of bay rum. “What’s the matter, you afraid I keep a notebook on things you tell me?”

“No, only the things I don’t tell you.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means my brother and I only trust each other.” Then she smiled thinly. “It’s how we stay in business, kiddo.”

• • •

Jane Gardella, staring through her darkened bedroom window, saw Alvaro standing in the side door of Rita O’Dea’s house and suddenly remembered where she had seen him before.

A part of her went cold.

The beard had fooled her. Slowly she dropped back from the window and only with the greatest effort restrained herself from running downstairs to her husband. It was not something she could tell him.

It had been three years ago.

She was Jane Denig then, a stewardess for Delta. She sat in the passenger seat of a red Porsche in a crowded car park at Miami Airport and watched through the windshield as her boyfriend Charlie dealt with a buyer some twenty yards away. Charlie had no choice. He was in debt, behind in his child support, the mortgage on his condo, and the payments on the Porsche. She had no choice either. She loved him, or thought she did.

She watched the deal go down while sitting safely in the car. She was unobserved, her face shrouded in shadow as the richness of the Florida evening poured in on her. Money changed hands in an almost priestly way. Cocaine was passed, though with a slight hesitation. Then in a snatch of light she glimpsed the buyer, who was obviously Hispanic, slim, clean-shaven, and very handsome. He seemed to throw Charlie a little kiss before he vanished.

Charlie scurried back to the Porsche and pushed himself behind the wheel, his face ashen. “Damn it!” he said, trembling and searching for a cigarette he couldn’t find. “He only paid me half what he said he would.”

“Then why’d you give him the stuff?” she asked.

“I didn’t want to fool with him,” Charlie said miserably. “I know what he does on the side.”

She waited for the answer.

“He kills people.”

• • •

Christopher Wade met with Russell Thurston in frail light behind a dark building where scraps of paper, fruit rinds, and flattened soft-drink cans littered the asphalt like fragments from an explosion. Wade, catching the whiff of an alley used as a privy, said, “Couldn’t you have picked a better place?”

“Call it an adventure.”

“You want a report?”

“I already got one. Things went well.” Thurston’s smile was an ironic shadow in his steep face, and his breath smelled of what he’d eaten, which was French food at the Café Plaza. “But tell me, are you really afraid of Gardella?”

“You bet I am.”

“As long as it doesn’t make you too cautious. When do you think he’ll make contact?”

“Soon. Victor Scandura’s been nosing around.”

Thurston’s breathing quickened. “Gardella will want to take you to dinner, no guinea joint, but someplace nice. He likes to put on airs.”

“You know his habits.”

“I know guineas.”

Wade experienced a quality of feeling he couldn’t explain. Nor did he want to. Having it was bad enough, and watching the glint in Thurston’s eye made it worse. Thurston moved closer.

“Something’s breaking down in Miami that could have repercussions here. We think it involves Gardella’s money operation, somebody’s greedy fingers. Bodies could fall.”

Wade said, “You going to let it happen?”

“How can I stop it? And even if I could, why would I want to? It gives Gardella more to think about and you more of an edge.”

“That contract on him, he must know about it.”

“Fits, doesn’t it?” Thurston said and turned sharply. There was static from the alley, a derelict’s gut-rending cough, and they moved quietly to another side of the building, the windows meshed in steel. “You know who owns this building?” Thurston asked and smiled as if from a private joke. Wade looked up and just barely made out the weathered sign that read
gardella’s cold storage.

“Damn you,” Wade said. “This is my life you’re playing with.”

• • •

Anthony Gardella closed the door of his library to give him and his sister total privacy. The chairs were leather. His voice was sober. He gave an account of what had happened at G&B Toxic Waste and later at Aceway Development. “I should’ve been called too,” she started to say, but his eyes silenced her. He gave a curt assessment of the situation, no more than she needed to know, and then informed her of happenings in Miami, which caused her to tighten. He spoke without haste, without inflection, almost — it seemed — without interest. Then there was silence. She knew enough not to break it. She also knew that her involvement in his operations — unprecedented in the eyes of his associates — was distant, token, a gesture of his to make her feel useful, valued, good about herself. He let his head drop back, closed his eyes, and said, “You got any questions?”

“I know why you told me about Miami,” she said in a small voice. “Ty’s there.”

“What do you feel for him?”

“He’s still my husband. I don’t want to see him dead. I don’t want to go to the wake knowing we did it.”

“He’s garbage.”

“No, Tony. He’s only weak. He’s not big like you and me. And it wasn’t all his fault. You remember how it was. I was never good to him. Maybe you know why.”

“I don’t care why.”

“He made me mad. He wasn’t you. I wanted you, Tony, but you’re my brother.”

“I don’t want to hear talk like this.”

“My big brother.”

“You been drinking?”

“No, Tony, making love with the spic, that’s all.”

“I got more things to tell you. You want to listen, or you want to keep saying things that get me mad?”

“I want to be sixteen again. I want to get into a size-ten dress, and I want Papa to scold me and you to hug me.”

Gardella opened his eyes and looked at her. Her dense hair gathered light; no lines in her large face, only a shadow. “Go home, Rita. I’m tired.”

Much later, after receiving a succinct phone call from Victor Scandura, he climbed the stairs to his bedroom. A small bedside light was on. His wife lay well into the covers. He leaned over and kissed the top of her blond head.

“I’m not asleep,” she said.

He sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her cheek. “You were me,” he asked in a weary voice, “what would you do about Rita?”

“Be good to her.”

“I am,” he said. “A lot of times too good.”

“Tony.”

“What?”

Her slim hand floated up to his face. “Thank you for asking me.”