Johnny pulled up to the warehouse door, waited, the Firebird idling. He flashed his brights and the door began to roll up. There were lights inside, forms silhouetted in them. He opened the glove box, the Sig there in easy reach.
He drove into the warehouse slowly. Ahead, parked on the concrete floor, was the black Explorer and Lindell's Lexus jeep. Viktor the Russian stood between them.
Johnny pulled up in front of the Explorer, shut the engine off, watched the garage door slide closed in the rearview.
Beyond the vehicles was a waist-high guardrail protecting a spiral metal staircase that ran up to a glass-walled office. There were lights inside and the door was open. He saw Lindell come to the glass, look down at him.
To the right was a break room with wide windows, fluorescent lights, vending machines against the wall. There was no one inside that he could see.
The Russian turned away as if uninterested, sat on the guardrail and lit a cigarette.
Johnny got out of the car, left the door slightly open. Lindell and Joey Alea came out of the office, down the stairs. It was the first he'd seen Joey since the meeting in the Escalade.
Joey came toward him, his arms wide. Johnny stepped in, took the embrace.
“Lindell told me what happened,” Joey said. “But you're okay, that's the important part. That's all that matters.”
Joey nodded at the break room.
“Come on,” he said. “Let's go in there. More room.”
Lindell went in without waiting for them. There were
three long tables inside, plastic chairs. Lindell dug in his pocket for change, fed it into one of the machines. There was the whir of a motor then a pop and hiss. He slid a plastic door open, took out a paper cup of coffee.
“There've been some developments,” Joey said. “Some ramifications you need to know about. Have a seat.”
Johnny pulled a chair away from the table, sat down.
“This is something I didn't anticipate,” Joey said. He pulled a chair out, sat down, put his elbows on his knees and began to rub his forehead, looking at the floor. For the first time Johnny noticed the strands of gray in his hair.
Lindell leaned against the machine, sipped his coffee, waited. His face gave nothing away.
“It's the old man,” Joey said.
“What about him?”
“He's not happy. It has to do with that thing in South Jersey.”
“I thought he was leaving you alone.”
“I don't know what the fuck's gotten into him. He had that Frankie Santelli come by the mortgage office yesterday. I mean, the place where I fucking do
business
. Like he didn't care.”
“What did he want?”
“Frankie said all of the sudden there's a lot of heat. Some Feds came to talk to Tony at his house, including a DEA guy. Says it's the first time the G has bothered Tony at his house in years.”
“Why would they do that?”
“I don't know. Frankie asked me the same thing. I said, âHow the fuck should I know?' But this fuckin' guy ⦠he's like a walking
malocchio.
He just looks at me like I know more than I'm telling and he knows it.”
Johnny shrugged, got his cigarettes out, lit one. Outside, the Russian was sitting in the front seat of the Explorer, door open, playing the radio.
“So you're scared,” Johnny said.
“Scared?
Fuck
him.”
Johnny blew smoke out, waited.
“Frankie passed on a message,” Joey said. “The old man wants to talk with me, face-to-face.”
“And?”
Joey looked at Lindell.
“You believe this guy,” he said. “Nothing fazes him, huh? I tell him Tony Acuna wants to talk with me and all he says is âAnd?'”
“He's your uncle,” Johnny said. “Whatever goes on between the two of you is just that. It's got nothing to do with me.”
“You think it's that easy?” Joey said. “You're with me. You think my uncle doesn't know that? He knows you're out, you're back here. He might get the wrong idea.”
“Which is?”
“That I brought you up here so I could make some kind of move against him. If he thinks that, he might try to move first.”
Johnny shook his head.
“What?” Joey said.
“This whole thing. All this âfriend of ours, friend of mine' bullshit. I thought you were done with it, anyway.”
“It isn't that easy.”
Johnny looked at Lindell. A single drop of sweat had crept out of his pomaded hair, was crawling down his left cheek.
“So you're thinking,” Johnny said, “maybe you go to this meeting and you don't come back?”
Joey said nothing.
“When is it?”
“Monday night.”
“Where?”
“Down the Shore. Long Branch. Some locksmith shop. Friend of my uncle owns it.”
“You know the place?”
“Yeah.”
“So we get there early, take a look around.”
Joey looked at Lindell, smiled.
“See, already he's thinking,” he said. Lindell didn't respond.
“You think I'd let you go alone? Leave you out in the wind?” Johnny said.
“No. I didn't. But it feels good to hear you say it.”
“Who's going to be there?”
“My uncle. Some of my uncle's people, probably. Santelli, I'm sure.”
“And he said just you?”
“Just me. I can bring a driver but he can't come in.”
“Now that shit right there worries me already,” Lindell said.
“Things go bad while you're inside, there's not much we can do about it,” Johnny said.
“You can make sure that, if I don't come out of there alive, no one else does either.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because if I get clipped, you and Lindell are next. My uncle wouldn't want you around, not know what you were planning, whether you were going to come back at him in some wayâ”
“Now, wait a minute ⦔ Lindell said.
Joey looked at him.
“What? You think it'll be some other way? You want to go to my uncle, throw yourself on his mercy, go ahead. I'm just telling you the way it is. I go, we all go. And I'm sure I don't have to remind you, both of you”âhe looked at Johnnyâ“the only juice either of you have is with me. My uncle could put paper out on your heads tomorrow and no one would care, no one would speak for you. Hell, I'm blood, his sister's son, and for all I know, right now he's got someone digging a grave for me down in Ocean County.”
He got up from the chair, went over to the window, looked out onto the warehouse floor. Johnny pinched out his cigarette, put it back in his pocket.
“Thought you were all done with this, didn't you?” he said to Joey's back. “You thought it was all just going to be real-estate deals and counting money from here on.”
Joey didn't answer.
Johnny stood up.
“Have Lindell call me tomorrow, at the motel. We'll work out the specifics. I'll need some things.”
Joey turned to him.
“I knew you wouldn't let me down, John.”
Johnny shrugged.
“You keep forgetting,” he said. “I owe you.”
Â
At a rest stop on the Turnpike, he pulled up to a bank of outdoor phones, rolled down the window. Tractor trailers idled in the lot beyond. He dialed Connor's beeper, then punched in the number of the phone, hung up and waited. It rang almost immediately.
“Yeah?” Connor said.
“I've got something for you, straight up. But you better have something for me too.”
“I do.”
Johnny breathed out.
“What's going on?” Connor said.
“I just met with him, up in Newark, some warehouse near the port.”
“You should have called me beforehand. We could have gotten you set up.”
“No time.”
“So what happened?”
“Some beef with his uncle. Over the Pine Barrens thing. He's worried.”
“He should be.”
“He says his uncle got visited by some federal men.”
“I know.”
“How's that?”
“I sent them.”
Johnny watched a truck roll out of the lot, back onto the Turnpike.
“Why would you do that?” he said finally.
“I can't just wait around, sitting on my hands, for you to come up with something. I wanted to rattle Joey's cage a little
bit. So I put together a bogus CI report that said Tony Acuna knew something about that meth lab going up in flames. I made sure it got copied to the right people. Then I just sat back and waited.”
“You should have told me.”
“Why? If I'd been getting useful reports from you, I wouldn't have had to make one up.”
“I might have been in danger.”
“Hey, you told me you had nothing to do with it, remember?”
“You played me.”
“And you haven't been playing me?”
He didn't answer.
“So, what's the deal?” Connor said. “His uncle want to meet?”
“Yeah:”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“This week. Somewhere down the Shore. I don't know where.”
“Yes, you do. Or if you don't now, you will. No way Joey Alea's walking into a meeting with his uncle and you're not around somewhere. He'd be too worried about coming out of there with half a dick.”
“He didn't give me the specifics. He's calling me tomorrow.”
“And you're going?”
“He wants me to.”
“Who else?”
“Lindell. Maybe this Russian Joey has working for him.”
“Viktor Ismayla.”
“I didn't get his name.”
“We know who he is. Out of Brighton Beach. He's a nobody.”
“You know all this, why you need me?”
“I've asked myself the same thing.”
He lit a cigarette.
“What have you got for me?”
“An address. You got something to write with?”
“Hold on.”
He opened the glove box, pushed the Sig aside, found a cracked ballpoint pen, an envelope. He scribbled on the paper until the ink started to come.
“Okay,” he said.
“Before I give you this, let me emphasize something, John. I don't know what you're planning on doingâ”
“I just want to see him. Once. That's all.”
“Let me finish. I had to call in a lot of favors to get this, bend some rules. My ass is on the line here. Now, you want to make contact with that boy, see him, that's one thing. You try to take him, harm or threaten the parents at all, that's something else. If that happens, I will turn the full resources of the Bureau over to finding you and making sure you go back to prison for a long time. We understood on that?”
He blew smoke out.
“Yeah.”
“Good. I'm taking a big chance here. And I'm trusting you.”
“Let's have it.”
“George and Lynda Haynes,” Connor read off. “Twenty-two Eleven Green Bay Road, Lake Bluff, Illinois.”
Johnny wrote it down.
“What's his name?” he said.
“What?”
“You saw the file, right? The whole thing?”
“Yes.”
“What's his name? What do they call him?”
Connor sighed.
“Matthew,” he said finally.
Matthew,
Johnny thought.
A good name. Matt.
“Let me tell you how this is going to work,” Connor said. “Are you listening?”
Matt Harrow.
“Yeah.”
“You're going to call me when that meet's set up. And then we're going to get you wired. This is nonnegotiable.”