Wiseguys In Love (11 page)

She picked up the phone and dialed 911.

“Nine-one-one,” a voice responded.

“I—I need to report a crime.”

“Where?”

“Um…” she stammered. Well, now what was she going to say?

“Ma'am?” the voice prompted.

“Um, SoHo. Grand Street.”

“Where on Grand?”

“Nineteen Grand, off West Broadway.”

“Can you see what's going on?”

“What?”

“Is the crime still in progress?”

“No. It hasn't happened yet.”

“What?”
The voice sounded annoyed.

“Look, there are two men who are going to kidnap Henry Foster Morgan, the editor-in-chief of
Smug Magazine,
and kill him.”

“The head of
Smug?
That stupid magazine that's always getting sued?”

“Er, yes.”

“We was wondering when someone was going to have the brains to do that—come on, lady! Look, this line is for
emergencies.
This is not some kind of party line for your Friday night!”

Click.

Lisa felt her mouth drop open. Good God, the police weren't interested? Who the heck else did they expect you to call in this city?

This is nuts.

A human being was going to die. Her stomach went queasy. All right, she had to get a grip on herself. She breathed deeply.

Maybe she could handle this by herself. No, she
had
to handle this herself. She could not just sit up in Connecticut knowing her boss was going to get killed or go thumbless. She swallowed as the odd image of Henry Foster Morgan trying to open his bottle of aspirin with no thumbs came into her head.

He'd probably just hire someone to do whatever it was that he did with his thumbs. Or, more likely, it would end up as part of her job description.

No, she had to do something. She was a competent person; she could think her way out of this.

She found herself pacing, hunched over in the office.

Well, she'd called the police, and that got her a big nothing, and she certainly didn't want to run into those two guys again. So what could she do?

She stood straight up.

She could warn him.

That's what she could do. Warn Henry Foster Morgan not to go out, not to leave his building. Just stay inside. Hide there until they got tired of waiting and gave up. Then he could take a long vacation. He wouldn't mind that.

She was jolted back into the room as she gazed at the torn masking tape on her wrists.

She quickly peeled it off, cringing as she pulled. It felt like a hundred Band-Aids, and it made her angry. She rubbed the skin and picked up all the tape and threw it in the basket.

She left Henry's office. She'd get a cab and get over there as fast as possible. She stopped short at the elevator.

What was she
doing?

She should get her car and get the hell away from here is what she should do. God, she'd probably missed the barbecue, she thought, looking at her watch.

She paced in a circle.

Should she do the right thing and warn him? Or the safe thing and go to Connecticut?

She stopped still for a moment.

What a dummy! She could
call
him. Then she wouldn't have to go all the way downtown, and she wouldn't have to run into those guys, and she could get her car out of Harlem and go to Connecticut!

When the phone rang in the living room, Henry was in the process of getting himself a Bloody Mary to get him to the cocktail party. He was just about to take his first sip. He hated telephones when he had to answer them. He loved them when someone else had to answer them. He stalked into the living room and grabbed the phone.

“What!” he yelled.

Lisa sat on the other end, frozen. It was that tone of voice humiliating her, just like he did every morning. Well, he was still alive. She guessed there was some good in that. Maybe she should go to Connecticut. Leave him to that Tony guy.

“Answer, goddamn it!” his voice snarled.

“Mr. Foster Morgan?” she said, dropping her voice to try to disguise it.

“Who is this?”

She took a breath.

“Never mind. You're in danger. Don't go out tonight. There are men trying to kill you.”

There was a long pause, and she heard him exhale, and this odd gulping noise.

“Okay, who is this? Is this Mindy?”

“I'm telling you for your safety. Do not leave your apartment, or you'll be killed. Wait until tomorrow morning and then get out of town as fast as you can.”

There was a pause and an odd slurping noise.

“How did you get this number? Who the hell do you think you are, calling me like this? I mean, what the fuck do you think I am? Stupid?”

“No, I— I—”

“Listen, you dumb bitch, you ever call this number again and I'll have you arrested.”
Click.

Zero for two. Lisa went numb. Now what was she going to do?

*   *   *

Michael got on line at the deli behind a woman who seemed to be ordering enough food for forty. What luck. This always happened to him. At bank machines for instance, he always got stuck behind the whack who had seventy transactions and couldn't figure out how to use a bank card.

He needed to get away from Tony for a moment. Part of the problem with his stomach was Tony. Michael knew that Tony hadn't liked his solution about Michigan. He'd wanted to ice her. Make it clean and neat. But he'd gone along with Michael's reasoning. Aw God, he felt awful. They'd kill this guy, then Tony would drive him up to Giuseppe Geddone's and watch him kill the guy. They'd go back down to Solly's and collect the envelopes.

Fourteen thousand, that was his cut.

He stared at the salads and pastas behind the glass counter. The woman moved off and Michael finally ordered his sandwich.

He had to figure a way out of this whole mess. He couldn't shoot somebody. He just couldn't do it. He got to the checkout, grabbed a bag of Cheez Doodles for Tony, and went back to the car. His appetite seemed gone as he tossed the bag into the front seat.

“He come out yet?”

“Naw,” Tony said, and ripped open the bag with his teeth.

They'd been sitting very still, eating. Michael had just been looking down at the morning's
Daily News
when Tony nudged him. He looked up, across the street at the doorway.

Standing in front of it was a guy who had on a long white coat. He was searching in his pocket for something. He looked like a doctor.

Tony held up the Page Six photo, his eyes bouncing from the windshield to the blurry photo.

“That's him,” Tony proclaimed. “C'mon.”

Michael thought quickly.

“Naw, that's not him,” he said lazily, then took a bite of his sandwich.

“Mikey, look. It's the same guy.” He held up the paper.

“No, look at the picture. That's an older guy there. A guy about fifty. The one across the street's young,” he said, waving the sandwich.

They watched the man take off his regular glasses and put on a pair of jet black sunglasses.

“I dunno, looks the same to me.”

“No. Look, the guy in the photo has short hair.”

“Yeah,” Tony said warily. “But what if it's him? He's getting away.”

“Look, it's
not
him. Fahcrissake, let me eat in peace,” Michael snapped, and looked down at his paper.

His eyes slid over to Tony, who was watching Henry Foster Morgan like a hound dog.

The man was standing there, looking east. Goddamn it, why didn't he move? The sooner he walked away, the sooner Tony could go back to his Cheez Doodles and the sooner Michael could sit in peace, planning how to get around Rosa's revenge contract.

His eyes bounced back up to Henry, and Michael's stomach relaxed a little as he started strolling east down the street. His back was to them. He felt Tony sink back on the seat.

“Yeah, I guess that's not the guy,” Tony conceded.

A cab screeched in from behind them, and Michael looked back to the
Daily News.
Suddenly, Tony shot straight up in his seat.

“Mikey, look, it's Michigan.”

His mouth froze around the sandwich and his eyes opened so wide, he thought he was never going to get them back to normal. He watched as she stood, holding the door to the cab and calling and waving down the street.

“Madonna! That's the guy.” Tony started the car.

Michael couldn't believe it. What the hell was she doing here? She must have some kind of a death wish. The schmuck. The jedrool.

Before Michael knew what was happening, she was back in the cab. It pulled out, blocking the street, just as Tony hit the accelerator. There was a screech as he floored the brake pedal and stopped just short of the cab.

A barrage of Haitian came out of the cabdriver, and a barrage of Sicilian was pouring out of Tony. Michael stared at the back window, at Michigan's face. Her mouth had dropped open and her eyes were huge and she was frozen and staring back at him through the glass. His eyes shifted up the street and he watched Henry Foster Morgan stop at the corner, glance back at them to see what all the racket was about, and then disappear down the street.

His heart sank as he felt Tony's weight spring off the seat. In a second, he was out of the car. Michael opened his door and spit out the sandwich. Tony was standing, screaming at the cabdriver. Michael ran up next to the two of them, leaned down, and stuck his head in the back window, watching her squash herself against the opposite door.

“What the fuck's the matter with you? You want to die?”

She bit her puffy lower lip and he watched her grab the door handle and bolt.

Before he turned around, he heard Tony yell, “Hey, you get back here!”

Michael turned in time to see the gun come out of Tony's shoulder holster. The cabbie shut up, raised his hands, and backed off as Tony took off after Michigan.

“Shit,” Michael said under his breath as he began to run after the two of them.

He followed Tony's figure as it rushed in and out of the street lamps, down Grand Street. He sped around the corner of Green, to the right, toward Canal, with Michael following. His heart was pounding, the alarm clock in his pocket that Tony had shot was banging against his thigh as he ran.

He rounded the corner as the cab sped out past him. Halfway down the center of the street, he stopped and saw Tony pointing his gun out, in his aiming position, at Michigan, who was shaking with her hands above her.

“Tony, no!” Michael screamed, and hurled himself down the street.

He came up to them and looked at Tony.

“Yeah, she ain't gonna say nothin' to nobody! Then what's she doin' here, huh, Mikey?” He was angry now.

“I don't know.”

“I shoulda blowed her away back there.”

Michael couldn't talk. He didn't know what to do now. He couldn't believe this woman. What the hell could have been going on in Michigan's mind? He'd gotten her off the hook once. He didn't think it was going to happen twice. What—

“All right. You're comin' wid us,” Tony said, waving the gun at her.

Michael exhaled. He wasn't carried away enough to try and whack her in the middle of a Manhattan street. They walked silently to the car and Tony opened the back door.

“Get in. You get in back wid her. I'm troo lissenin' here.”

They both ducked in the back and Tony slammed the door so forcefully, the car rocked from side to side.

“What—”

“Shut up. Just shut up!” Michael snapped as Tony opened his door and swung himself inside.

The
bong, bong, bong
of the door alarm went off and Tony slammed the door shut, which silenced it. He started the car and the windy sound of the air conditioning began to hum.

Michael could feel her staring at him as they went east, across Grand Street.

“Where are we going?” he asked, leaning forward.

“It's almost nine.”

“So?”

“We gotta meet Solly.” He grunted.

Michael's eyes got large.

“We're taking her to Solly's?” He leaned forward and dropped his voice. “You think that's a good idea, she sees Solly's?”

“I don't think it's gonna be a problem what she sees after tonight.” Tony shook his head. “The whole evening's screwed-up now,” he muttered.

They drove in silence. Michael's mind was like a fuse blowing. No thoughts came in clear and loud, just frantic half messages, half-finished thoughts. They were going back to see Solly. They were fucked. He was fucked.

Lisa sat dazed. This was not what was supposed to happen. She was just going to lean out of the cab and warn him and that was it.

He didn't even look around when she'd called his name!

And what was going to happen now? It was one thing to try and prevent a crime, it was another to wind up as the victim with her neck on the line. She couldn't believe it. And for whom? Henry Foster Morgan? That was adding insult to injury.

Okay, she'd decided that she could handle it, take a stand and be brave. Now she was in real trouble. Now it was
her
thumbs on the line.

Tony knew he'd never make it home in time for dinner, so now he'd be stuck heating up the meatballs in the microwave. He was sure his mother was making meatballs because he'd seen ground beef and pork and veal in the refrigerator before he'd left this morning.

He didn't like heating things up in the microwave. They got cold too quick.

He also wanted to go back to Angela's.

They turned down onto Mulberry Street in silence. Several limos were parked out in front of the dark doorway. The club had at one time been a legitimate storefront. In the big picture windows, meant to show off the latest in canned goods and groceries, now sat two dusty statues—one of San Gennaro, the other one of the Virgin Mary.