The Con Man's Daughter (41 page)

Kevin Dunne remained in the hospital, a long road ahead of him-at least two surgeries and lifelong speech therapy. Martha was at the North End Tavern, supervising the cleanup crew and drawing new construction plans. Eddie promised to supply the labor.

"I filed the warrant for Sophie," Babsie said.

"We'll never see her again."

"Not without an army of lawyers. She was already on the Concorde when Zina was trying to kill you. Probably eating shrimp on the Riviera before we got home to Yonkers. Must be nice to be rich and beautiful."

"You
are
beautiful," he said.

"I'd rather be rich."

Bit by bit, it was all coming back to Kate. Eddie filled in some holes for her. She said she was first held in the apartment above Coney Custards. She remembered the smell of sour milk and the sound of the machines. The following night, they moved her to the boat, where she was guarded by two or three different people. She said that after the initial struggle with Zina, Sophie was the only one who had actually hit her. She'd come in drunk or high, start sobbing, then slap Kate around, yelling at her in Russian.

"Kate said she could smell mothballs," Eddie said.

"Your old uniform."

"I was so close to her that first day, Babsie. The day I met Lukin on the boardwalk. Just a few blocks. I could see Coney Custards. She was upstairs. If I'd walked a little farther, maybe I would have heard her voice, a scream."

"No second-guessing. You promised we wouldn't do any second-guessing."

Kate had told him that when she was on the boat, she could hear a band practicing nearby. They played the same songs, in the same order, every day. Kate memorized them. One of the nurses had kids in New Dorp High School. She called the director of the music program and read off Kate's list. It was the New Dorp High School marching band Kate had heard.

"So the love story of Zina and Sophie starts to go sour on April sixth," Babsie said. "Kate surprises Zina when she's breaking into your house. Zina panics and snatches her. To make matters worse, later that day Sergei shows up with Paulie's head and reports everything Paulie blabbed about the Rosenfeld millions, plus the romance between you and Lana. That day changed everything for them."

"April sixth was a bad day for all of us."

"But from that point, Zina knew she had to go for broke. It was about winning Sophie, and she'd stepped over the line. She gets Sophie in this emotional state about her mother, then tries to keep her in a sick dream. That's why Zina gets up the next morning and shoves Anatoly Lukin under the train for his part in the murder of the Rosenfelds. Now she's Sophie's secret hero. Couple of days later, she ices Angelo Caruso for his part; poor Ann Marie is just there. And that leaves you, but she can't kill you, because you've become the central figure in an imaginary romantic triangle."

"As I said before, you can be a bit melodramatic."

"It slipped into a sex game," Babsie said. "Zina wore your uniform. Sophie wore the old dresses from thrift shops, like the ones she thought her mother wore. They had the original
Bright Star
as the setting. If she had known that story earlier, the one about Lana singing Irish lullabies, that would have gone into the script, too. Kate being there probably added to the excitement. Maybe that saved her life."

"What about the DNA? The possibility I was Sophie's father."

"That was an afterthought. Secondary to the wine and weird sex."

"Did you have these erotic ideas in Sister Mary Elizabeth's class?"

"Sexual role-playing is big these days. We locked up a high-priced hooker on Central Avenue a few months ago. She had a closetful of costumes. She had nurses' uniforms and nuns' habits for every order you could think of, including some that would make you hide your knuckles."

"It was Paulie the Priest who saved Kate's life," Eddie said. "Zina would have killed her without blinking. But when Paulie told them about me and Lana, it raised the possibility that I was her father. Sophie couldn't let Zina kill her sister."

"So tell me the truth about the fight at the Caruso graduation party," Babsie said. "That whole choreographed
Raging Bull
thing, that was bullshit."

"Finally, you're right about something. That night, I hit Paulie Caruso harder than I'd hit anyone in years, and I meant it. He was spitting his teeth out in his hand."

"You went there hunting for him," Babsie said.

"I wasn't invited."

"How did he find out about you and Lana?"

"Tailed her is my guess. He had to've known for a while, but I never noticed any change in him. Most guys, there'd be a fistfight, and it'd be over. Paulie internalized it, brooded. Even the day of the robbery, I never had a clue he was pissed. Then immediately after the press conference, he starts treating me like garbage. Didn't want to be near me. It took me a couple of weeks. Then I went after him."

"Ever consider turning him in? You could have made a deal for yourself."

"I needed proof. The only evidence I had was the ten grand Paulie gave me. He would have denied it. I would have gotten locked up; he would have walked. Unless I could get an admission on tape."

"That's the reason you went there," she said.

"On the day of the graduation party, I wired myself up and drove to Howard Beach. Paulie was in the backyard. I came in through the garage, as always, through the basement. Angelo was down there cooking, checking the gravy. He had a few vinos in him and was singing and stirring the gravy. It was just me and him down there, and he said to me, 'How does it feel to be a millionaire?'"

"Pauhe never told him he kept your share."

"I played along. I asked what Paulie was going to do with his. Angelo tells me he's taking care of washing Paulie's share. 'Two point eight million is not easy to keep in your sock drawer,' he says."

"No wonder Paulie could afford the Italian villa. He had almost six mil, his share and yours."

"Paulie only gave Angelo one share to wash. I told Angelo that all Paulie gave me was ten grand. He can't believe it. We go outside and he's arguing with Paulie in

Italian. He tells Paulie that he's giving me his share. That's when Paulie tells me he knows about me and Lana. He says he had Lana whacked because of me. That's the word he used, 'whacked.' That's when I hit him. Twice, hard. He goes down, blood and teeth everywhere. The wise guys grab me."

"And they feel the wire."

"One guy does and rips my shirt open. I take the wire off, hand it to Angelo, and tell him I was only getting him proof that Paulie screwed me."

"He bought it?"

"Not right away. But he made a few phone calls and found out I wasn't working for any DA's office."

At the foot of the hill, a weekly gathering of the same ruddy-faced old men had begun. One by one, they shuffled down through the park, coming from Sunday Mass at Sacred Heart in tan raincoats and gray tweed overcoats. From youth to death, they trod the same weekly path to the front door of Morley's Bar and talked stiffly of politics and local history until Morley legally unlocked the door and the hops and malt commenced to unlock the tongues.

"You think it was true," Babsie said, "that Paulie really had her killed?"

"It could have been a macho thing-he had a problem with that. Then again, he had a wild mean streak."

A collective girlie scream rose from the field below as the ball neared the goal.

"So what do you think?" Eddie said. 'Too much baggage for you?"

"You? A cruise ship has less baggage than you."

"I was a bad drinker, Babsie. Virtually everything in my life that I regret, I did when I was drinking."

"Give me some time to think, Eddie. I'm still pissed off about Friday in Borodenko's house. You should have told me you had an affair with Lana. To me, that goes right to the heart of trust."

The bells of Scared Heart church rang behind them. They both looked at their watches, although they knew exactly what time it was. They'd heard those bells all their lives.

"My mother used to tell a story about you when you were a kid," Babsie said. "She stopped in church during the middle of the day one time. It was like a Tuesday afternoon. She goes in to light a candle. She thinks the church is empty, but then she hears this low murmur coming from the little altar on the side. She sees Father Prendergast. He must have been in his nineties then. He's saying Mass on the side altar, and you're the altar boy. Only the two of you in the entire church."

"He was dying then," Eddie said. "But he had some good days, and he'd want to say Mass. I was probably in the eighth grade. A little bigger than most of the others. They'd send someone to get me out of school."

"My mother said that you helped him to a chair, right in the middle of the Mass. He sat on the side for about fifteen minutes. And you knelt in front of the altar and waited."

"He had spells; then he'd get better. I missed him when he died."

"My mother said it was the sweetest thing she ever saw in her life. You helped him when he forgot where he was. Just the two of you saying the Mass. She said you weren't as bad as she'd thought."

"Well, actually, I missed the money. I always stole five bucks from his wallet after Mass."

"You're so full of it," she said.

"Now I want those days back," Eddie said. "I don't deserve it, but I want it all. I want the clean sheets, family dinner after Mass on Sunday, school plays, Monopoly on the floor, soccer games. All the things I thought were boring years ago."

"No more cocktails and showgirls?"

"Just you."

"No more secrets," she said.

"Absolutely no more secrets. I swear."

Eddie looked back down at the soccer field. The screaming got louder. Grace's team made a goal, or thought they had.

"You weren't as bad as you think," Babsie said. "I'll tell you this. If Paulie Caruso did that to me, no way would I have let him keep all that money for himself. No way I'd let that bastard walk away with my share. I would have burned it or given it to charity… anything but let that scumbag have it."

Eddie nodded. His brow furrowed, he kept nodding, deep in thought.

"You took the money," Babsie said. "Don't tell me you took the goddamned money. Oh shit. That's why that fake boodle in your trunk looked so good. It wasn't fake."

"I didn't say I took it."

"Jesus, Eddie. You are so goddamned high-maintenance. Does it ever end with you?"

"Babsie, listen to me. I never said I took the money."

She sat there breathing hard. This was exactly what her father had warned her about when she'd tacked his picture on her bedroom wall in freshman year. Look at those eyes, her father had said. All those eyes will ever see is trouble, because that's all they'll ever look for.

"I love you," he said. "And I understand the responsi-bility that goes with it. I promise you, no more secrets. I meant that."

He was willing to give up the money to save his daughter, Babsie thought, at least that's in his favor. She looked down the hill past the Toyota, at the girl who called her Gramma. Grace loved him. God, she loved him. Kids are never wrong.

"Keep me in the dark on this, Eddie," she said. "The new rule is we both get to keep one secret. This is yours."

About the Author

Ed Dee retired as a lieutenant after twenty years with the NYPD's Organized Crime Unit. Then he earned an MFA in Writing at Arizona State University. His debut novel,
14 Peck Slip
, was a
New York Times
Notable Book of the Year.

***