He stopped at the same rest area near Atlantic City, fed money into the pay phone outside, dialed Lindell's number. The sky to the west was orange and red, a sunset at 3 A.M.
When Lindell answered, Johnny said, “It's done.”
“Tuco?”
“No,” he said after a moment. “This isn't Tuco.”
Silence on the line, then: “What happened?”
“He's gone. There was nothing I could do.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Then get away from there. Go back where you're staying. Keep the rig with you. We'll pick it up.”
“Yeah,” Johnny said and hung up.
There was a twenty-four-hour Burger King there. Johnny could see someone pushing a mop around inside. He went back to the Explorer, opened the passenger-side door.
“Come on,” he said. The boy was half-asleep, dead weight as Johnny lifted him down, set him on his feet. He unzipped the field jacket, got it off him.
“Sorry,” he said. “But I need this.”
The boy didn't resist. Johnny pointed at the front door of the restaurant.
“Go on in there,” he said. “It's warm. They'll take care of you.”
The boy didn't move.
“Go on,” Johnny said. He put a hand on the boy's back, pushed him gently. “Go.”
The boy looked back at him, then began to walk toward the brightly lit restaurant as if in a dream.
Johnny pulled the jacket on, the lining still warm, got back behind the wheel. He looked toward the restaurant, saw the boy reach up, tug the front door open.
He started the engine, pulled out of the lot, got back on the Parkway. The inside of the Explorer smelled like gasoline and gunpowder. He stripped his gloves off, powered down the window, dropped one out, then the second twenty minutes later. Then he settled back for the long drive north.
It was a small parkâa swing set, plastic slides, a teeter-totter. There were maybe a half dozen kids playing, parents watching them from benches. Alongside was a small lake, year-round geese walking the banks, two children feeding them bits of bread from a plastic bag. The afternoon was cold and clear, a light dusting of snow still on the ground.
Harry pulled to the curb, parked behind an old Honda. As he got out, a woman on a bench turned to look at him. She was in her mid-thirties, long red-brown hair tied back, a waist-length fake fur coat.
He had the card out before he reached her.
“Ms. Wicks?” he said. “Sherry?”
She turned back to the children.
“Janey!” she called. “Be careful on that.”
Halfway up the slide ladder, a golden-haired girl turned, looked at them for a moment. Then she scrabbled over the top and down the slide.
“I'm Harry Rane,” he said. “We spoke on the phone.”
She took the card, looked at it, the handwriting on the back.
“Mind if I sit down?”
He sat beside her, the wood slats cold against his back.
“Sorry to make you come here,” she said. “But I promised Janey I'd take her. And I've got work later.”
“I understand. I appreciate your giving me the time. How old is she?”
“Four next month.”
“Must keep you on your toes.”
“I don't mind it. She's the best thing that ever happened to me.”
He wasn't sure how to respond to that. Didn't.
“It was a shock. Hearing from Nikki like that. Out of the blue.”
“I'm sure.”
“Two years, not a letter or a phone call. I didn't know if she was dead or alive. Then the phone rings this morning. I never even knew she was back.”
“It's only been a couple months.”
“Long enough. If she wanted to call me, she could have. But I don't blame her. I'm sure I remind her of things she wants to forget. What I don't understand is why she came back at all.”
She slipped the card in her coat pocket, took out a pack of menthol cigarettes, lit one. Behind them, geese squawked.
“She tells me you had some contact with him,” he said.
She nodded, not looking at him. Janey was on the swings now, she and two other girls her age taking turns pushing each other.
“He came by the Heartbreak,” she said. “Looking for her.”
“How did he seem? Was he angry, agitated?”
“Johnny? Johnny's never agitated. Even when he's angry, you can't tell. That's what's scary about him.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he was looking for Nikki. Wanted to know if I'd heard from her. I told him I hadn't. And it was true. Then.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“You don't know him well, do you?”
“No.”
“Johnny doesn't threaten. Like I said, he's always calm. He told me if he found out I knew where she was and hadn't told himâor if I tried to warn herâhe'd come back to see me.” She blew smoke out.
“That sounds like a threat to me.”
“Maybe. But I really didn't have any reason to worry about that, did I?” She looked at him. “Until now.”
“There are things that can be done.”
“Like what? If Johnny wants to find me, he'll find me. Like I said, you don't know him.”
“Maybe there's someplace you can go. Stay with a friend. For a little while at least.”
“And what about work? Are you going to pay my bills? Is Nikki?”
“Maybe we can work something out.”
She shook her head, dropped the cigarette and put it out with her shoe.
“Janey's father,” he said.
“What about him?”
“Is he around?”
“He's dead.”
“I'm sorry.”
“I'm not. She's better off without him. And so am I. He wanted to be a musician, but all he ever really was, was a junkie. And a liar.”
“Is there anybody in your life ⦔
“To look after us? Is that what you mean? No. I do all the looking after. I told Johnny there was, because I didn't want him to think I was alone. But I don't think it made any difference.”
“Did he hurt you?”
She looked away, didn't answer.
“If he hurt you,” he said, “if he's breaking the law, then that's all we need.”
“Is that what I am?” She turned to him. “A means to an end?”
“That's not what I meant.”
“If anyone gets Johnny sent back to jail, it'll have to be someone besides me. Johnny doesn't forget anything. Ever. Nikki knows that.”
“I'm sorry. I know you feel like you've been caught in the middle.”
“Is she paying you for this? To look after her?”
“The agency I work for, yes.”
“But there's more to it than that, isn't there?”
“What do you mean?”
“Nikki always knew how to get what she needed, especially out of men. Always. That's what she did with Johnny, Joey, everyone. I used to admire it, her ability. Envy it. She was always thinking ahead. She still is, I guess.”
“You sound angry.”
“Not at all. I was happy to see her get out of here, try to get her life together. I even went out to visit her in California, right after she got there. Before Janey. She asked me to stay. I thought about it.”
“Why didn't you?”
“She wanted me to stay for her, not me. She was homesick, I guess. But I saw some of the things she was getting into out there, and I didn't want anything to do with them. Dancing was bad enough. I took a bus home.”
“What sort of things?”
“You'll have to ask her about that.”
He let that go.
“Have you had any contact with Harrow since that night?”
She shook her head.
“But every time I come home, I'm looking in the mirror for headlights. Wondering if it's him.”
“He know where you live?”
“I don't know. But if he wants to, I'm sure he could find out.”
She reached into a coat pocket, came out with a black matchbook, handed it to him. There was no type on it, just the outline of a green neon heart with a crack through it. He opened it, saw the number written inside.
“That's the number he gave me. To call if I heard from her.”
“Is this where he's staying?”
“I don't think so. He told me he wouldn't be there, but if I left a message he would get it.”
“You didn't call.”
She gave him a sad smile.
“Did you think I would?”
“I guess not. I'm sorry.”
“She did the right thing, leaving. I loved her like a sister back then. Still do, I guess. And I still wish her luck. Tell her that.”
“I will. Can I keep this?”
“Go ahead. I don't want it around. I don't want anything of his around.”
He put it in his jacket.
“And this,” she said. She took a folded bill from her pocket, put it on the bench. “Take it. Give it to her. Throw it away. Do whatever you want to do with it. I don't want it.”
He picked up the bill, saw it was a hundred.
“He gave this to you?”
“He thought I needed it. I do need it. But not from him. Not for that.”
She looked at him. He met her eyes.
“Then I'll give it back to him,” he said. “When I see him.” He put the bill in his shirt pocket.
One of the other mothers was collecting her children from the swings, getting them ready to go. The sun was low in the west, the sky brushed with scarlet.
“There're two numbers on that card,” he said. “The front is the agency number. Ray Washington is the guy that runs it. You can ask for him. On the back is my home phone. One way or another, you'll always be able to reach one of us, day or night. You hear from Harrow, you're worried he's around, you just want to talk, anything, you can reach me at that number.”
Her playmates gone, Janey began to run toward the bench. Sherry stood, put out her arms. Janey ran into them, out of breath and red-faced.
Sherry hugged her tight. Janey peered out from around her shoulder, looked at Harry.
“Come on,” Sherry said. “Let's get you home and fed. Alex will be there soon.”
“Who's Alex?” Harry said.
“Her sitter. She watches her at night. When I work.”
He nodded, stood up, feeling out of place now, excluded. The little girl watched him.
“Hold on to that card,” he said. “Make sure the sitter has those numbers too. She sees, hears anything ⦔
“Thank you,” she said and lifted Janey up. The girl buried her face in her mother's jacket, peeked at Harry, smiling, hid her face again.
“I'm sorry,” he said.
Sherry looked at him.
“About what?”
“About all of it.”
“Don't be,” she said. “We all make our own lives, don't we? With what we have to work with?”
“Yes,” he said. “I guess we do.”
“And nobody owes us anything. So we do what we have to do. And that's just the way it is.”
He waited as they made their way to the Honda. When they got to the car, Janey looked over her mother's shoulder at him, waved good-bye. He waved back.
He was still standing there in the fading light, the empty playground behind him, when they drove away.
“What the fuck happened down there?” Connor said.
Johnny blew smoke out, looked at the ocean. They were on the Asbury boardwalk, the day bright and cold, the sun flashing hard off the water. Gulls argued above.
Connor's topcoat was buttoned to his neck, hands deep in the pockets. The wind was whining through the holes in the Casino roof.
“I don't know,” Johnny said. He propped one boot on the pipe railing overlooking the beach. “What did you hear?”
“Don't give me that bullshit. I didn't drive all the way down here for that.”
Johnny finished his cigarette, flipped it onto the sand.
“Whatever,” he said. “I guess you'll believe what you want.”
“What I believe is when a meth labâowned and operated by rivals of Joey Aleaâgets torched and all the hired help gets whacked, that Joey Alea's involved in it. And if Joey Alea's involved in it, then you should know about it.”
Johnny said nothing.
“But there's one thing I do need to remind you, John, though I hoped that I wouldn't. You better not have been personally involved in what went on down there. You start doing wetwork for this guy again and there's no way I can protect you. We went over that down in Glades. You know the deal as well as I do. You get back into the heavy stuff and we'll need to terminate this relationship.”
Johnny looked at him, met his eyes. Connor stuck it out a few seconds and then turned away, looked out at the barren beach, the waves beyond.
“As long as we understand each other,” he said.
Johnny didn't answer.
“Fucking freezing out here,” Connor said.
“You said you had something for me.”
“I do. Let's walk.”
They started down the empty boardwalk, the wood warped and uneven beneath their feet. There was little chance of anyone seeing them here. The wind and cold were keeping even the homeless away, and the boards were too treacherous for joggers.
When they reached the boarded-up entranceway to the Casino, Connor stepped into a pigeon-stained alcove to get out of the wind. He unbuttoned his topcoat halfway, took out a manila envelope, handed it over.
Johnny undid the clasp. Inside were two thin, banded packages of money and a Xeroxed sheet of paper. He left the money, pulled out the sheet.
“That's a copy of the original paperwork,” Connor said, buttoning his coat back up. “It doesn't give the specific town or the family. Just the regional office it was handled out of. That's the way it went into the computer. I'm working on getting the whole case file.”
Johnny read the sheet.
“Chicago,” he said.
“That's where they lived at the time they signed the papers. Doesn't mean they haven't moved somewhere else since. But whoever they are, they were in or near Chicago at that time.”
“It's a big city.”
“Like I said, I'm working on it. But that's what I've got so far. Thought you'd want me to share it with you.”
Johnny slid the paper back into the envelope, shook out the money, saw new hundreds.
“Five grand,” Connor said. “It'll have to do for now. We make some progress, I'll see what else I can shake loose.”
“Thanks.” He put the money back in the envelope.
“It isn't Christmas yet, you know. That's not a gift.”
“I didn't think it was.”
“We need to get down to it. I want you to wear a wire at your next meeting. Try to get him to talk about the meth lab. That mess could be the leverage we're looking for. But we need him on tape.”
“I'll see what I can do.”
“When you have a meeting set up, you call me. There's a Bureau tech owes me a favor. He's put together a simple rig, smaller than a pack of cigarettes. I can wire you up myself.”
Johnny nodded, looking off at the beach. Thinking about Chicago.
“But don't lose sight of one thing, John. We didâand still doâhave a deal. But if you stop holding up your end, then we don't have anything. You go back to Glades and neither of us gets what he wants.”
“I heard you.”
“So you need to start producing. You're on the books as a TE now. You know what that means?”
“No.”
“A Top-Echelon source. That means you and I cut our own deals, do what we want, nobody knows about it, it's all confidential. You don't testify, you don't show up in reports, you don't have any exposure at all. But you need to earn your keep. You're on the payroll now. You need to justify that.”
“I understand.”
“Good. But maybe what you don't understand is that the only reason this has been such a sweet deal for you so far is that I'm your handler. Me. No one else. I go to my SAC, tell him I'm having trouble with a CI, he takes me off it, reassigns you or closes your folder. Then you're on your own.”
“I'm not going to deal with anybody else. Not now.”
“You might not have a choice.”
“There's always a choice.”
“We need results, John. Results I can use. Not talk, not guessing. And we need them soon.”
“And you'll get them,” Johnny said. “Soon.”
Â
“I don't know,” Mitch was saying. “Just pick up and leave like that.”
They were sitting in a booth at Pratt's, a half-full pitcher of beer on the table between them. They'd left the Firebird at the Sea Vista, walked the two blocks to the bar in the wind and cold.
“Up to you, Mitch,” Johnny said. “But you should think about it. Things are coming together now. I had an idea the other night, set something in motion. I'm going to be making some moves soon.”
In the back of the room, two pimps were playing pool, a pair of bored-looking women watching them, one milk white and bleached blonde, the other light-skinned black. On the jukebox, Prince was singing about going crazy.
Mitch drank beer, lit another cigarette.
“It's a good thing you have here,” Johnny said. “I understand. The woman. The girl. Place to come home to. People there waiting.”
“You could have that too, Johnny, you wanted it.”
Johnny shook his head.
“Maybe once,” he said. “Not now.”
“Why not?”
Pool balls cracked loudly. Wind rattled the big front windows.
“Too much has happened,” Johnny said. “I used to think it was easy. You see what you want, you move toward it, you take it. But you've got to keep it too, keep it together. And that's not always so easy to do.”
“But you're out now, man. You can do whatever the fuck you want. Anything.”
“Not that simple. Since I've been away, I've done shit that ⦔ He trailed off. Mitch was watching him.
Johnny drank from his mug, feeling the beer now on his empty stomach. He watched one of the pimps circle the pool table, heard balls thump into pockets.
“I've been thinking a lot,” Johnny said. “About what happened. In Florida.”
Mitch watched him, waited.
“I had a lot of time,” Johnny said. “To think. And you know what I kept coming back to?”
“What?”
“After my trial, after the sentencing, Joey sent Tuco down there to take out Cardosa.”
“Yeah?”
“Why'd he wait?”
Mitch didn't answer. Johnny got a cigarette going, drank beer.
“I should have seen it,” he said. “It was a setup, all of it. He wanted to get rid of me, but he didn't have the balls to do it himself.”
“Johnny, I had no idea ⦔
“Doesn't matter now. It'll all be settled before this is through. Everything. That's why I came back.”
“Are you sure about Joey? I mean, I never liked the guy, butâ”
“I'm sure. And I'll deal with it. But we need to think about what comes after.”
“You say âwe.'”
“Get me straight, Mitch. I didn't come back here to fuck up your thing. I'm happy for you.”
“I'm glad to hear you say that.”
“But I'm blowing out of here soon. For good. I have to settle some business, make a side trip and then I'm gone. You come with me. After things get settled, you can send for Sharonda and the girl.”
“Where you gonna go?”
“North. Someplace clean. Far away from here. I have a place in mind, I've been looking into it. I'm putting together the cash. That thing I told you about. Enough to last us a long time there.”
“I don't know, John. I think I'd just be in your way, you know? I mean, I was never in your league. Even back in the day. I'd just slow you down.”
“I'm done with ripping and running. This isn't about that. This is about family. This is about what happens now.”
Mitch looked at him, couldn't hold his eyes, looked away. “I don't know, man.”
“Think about it. When the time is right, we'll have to
jump fast. I'll try to give you as much warning as I can, but there might not be much.”
He took out some of the money Connor had given him, counted out ten hundreds. He folded them, tucked them under the ashtray.
“What's that?” Mitch said.
“That's for you.”
“Why?”
“Because I feel like it.”
Mitch looked at the bills.
“Go ahead. Take 'em.”
Mitch slid the money out.
“It's only a grand,” Johnny said. “But there's more when you need it. Buy some things. Whatever you need.”
“Pay some bills.”
“Whatever. When you need more, let me know.”
Mitch put the money in his shirt pocket.
“Thanks.”
Johnny poured beer into their mugs.
“You seen Frazer around?”
Mitch shook his head.
“Not since that day.”
“Good.”
“Johnny, I know the way you feel about him and all, but ⦔
“But what?”
“He's an old man. Maybe you shouldn't treat him like that.”
“Your memory must be fucked up.”
“What's past is past, John. I mean, what happened then ⦠He's still the guy that raised us.”
“And a good job of it he did too, didn't he?”
“I'm just sayingâ”
“When Belinda was fourteen, he put his dick in her. You forget that?”
“You don't know that, John.”
“No. I do. And it happened more than once. Why do you think she got out of the house as soon as she could? Got
fucked up all the time like she did? When her car went off the road, hit that abutment, he was as much to blame as she was.”
“John, you weren't even around when that happened.”
“If I had been, I would have put that old bastard down then and there. It was good for him I was gone.”
“That was cold. Their not letting you go to the funeral.”
“Like you said, it's ancient history.”
They grew silent. The pitcher was almost empty.
“There's some shit you can't control,” Johnny said. “That's always the way it is. You live in pain and you die in fear and there's nothing anybody can do about it. But some things you can control. You can get a handle on them, make them go your way. You just need the balls to do it.”
“You always had it wired, Johnny.”
“You think so? That what you call sitting on my ass for seven years? Having it wired? Let me tell something, no matter how tough you think you are, how much you eye-fuck the world, there's one thing gets stolen from you every day. And there's no way to steal it back, no matter how hard you try. No fucking way at all.”
“What's that?”
“Time,” Johnny said.