Recall Night, page 3
part #2 of An Eli Carver Supernatural Thriller Series
I was genuinely impressed, it sounded amazing. I wondered if she could teach me how to do it. Maybe that could be my new start. “Sure sounds it,” I said.
She looked at me for a long moment, and then it seemed like I saw a decision made somewhere behind her eyes. “Yeah, well, not so much. Maybe for you it would be, but for a woman? Turns out we’re not allowed to be cool.”
“What do you mean?”
“This guy who employed us? His name is Jerry Slovak.” She spoke quickly and easily, like a dam had broken. I figured maybe she’d been aching to tell this story for a while, and finally found a mark in me. I didn’t mind that at all. “He chose a team of young woman because he was an ugly prick in his sixties and he wanted to fuck young women,” she went on. “He got his way with a lot of them too, they were looking for something to lift them above the rest of us and thought the occasional fuck or blow job was worth it. Maybe it was, I don’t know. I didn’t take that route.
“We all lived and traveled together, and this sleazy-ass boss used us for jollies and profits. Women left all the time, but they were quickly replaced with replicas. It was easy for him, and the money was good. The excitement, the travel, for a while it was fun. But it got old real quick.”
The glamor sure rubbed off her story quickly. “Yeah,” I said. “Sounds like it would.”
“And Jerry, he wasn’t only creepy, but paranoid too. I mean, he was always carrying heaps of cash, so I get it, but it made him angry and volatile, you know?”
“I guess I can see that. But what do you mean, you weren’t allowed to be cool?”
“Not me personally, but women. Whenever we’d have time off and try to chat up guys in bars, tell them what we did because it was cool as fuck, they would always start telling us how to play cards, like we hadn’t just said we were actual professional gamblers. Like I said, you broke the mold already. I thought maybe you would. Most men are so insecure they can’t imagine a woman in a role like ours. Honestly, I wanted to brag and be cool and get laid, but I couldn’t.”
“What the hell?”
She laughed. “Right? First off, men would be incapable of understanding what I’d said. Maybe after three or four times, they’d finally get that I was an actual gambler. Then they’d try to tell me how to gamble, and they would always, and I mean always, be so fucking wrong. It was exhausting. And then they’d tell us how dangerous our life was, like we didn’t know. Like we couldn’t handle it. So they missed out. Idiots. So many hot guys, so many idiots.” She laughed again, but there was tiredness behind it.
“You surely can’t have trouble getting laid though,” I said. “I mean—”
She held up a hand. “Don’t go there. Of course I can get laid. But only if I keep what I do to myself and act like a woman is supposed to.”
“That’s shitty.”
“You don’t need to tell me. I mean, some of these guys could have used my skills, you know? Maybe I’d have been willing to teach one of them. Maybe even steal Jerry’s money as starter cash and go off with them. But they never even imagined the temptation because they couldn’t imagine I was telling the truth. Like I said, women aren’t allowed to be cool. It’s a man’s world.”
I nodded, infuriated, but saw the truth of what she said. “If it’s any consolation, I think you’re cool as hell.”
She looked down. “Mold-breaker,” she said quietly.
We were quiet for a moment, then I realized something. “But if the boss was an asshole and you knew what you needed to know, why would you need another guy to go off with?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said maybe you could have taught one of those idiot men, stolen the boss’s money and gone it alone. Why would you need one of those men? You could take your boss’s money and have it all to yourself. You know all you need, so you only need yourself, right?”
“Well.” She smiled, then looked away again. “I guess so.”
Her bag was still on her lap and I saw her knuckles whiten again, and suddenly it all clicked into place.
“This is confessional,” Sly said, appearing beside me in a cloud of fragrant smoke, echoing my thoughts perfectly. Or perhaps he was just a personification of my thoughts.
“It’s why she was paranoid of the cops,” Graney said. “And why she’s so talkative all of a sudden. This is guilt-ridden.”
The rat-faced dead cop was dead right. She saw me as a sounding board and probably someone she’d never need to see again once we got to Penn.
“Take her fucking bag, cocheese. You want a new start? If that bag holds all her boss’s cash, there’s your new start right there.”
“She’s awfully trusting,” Michael said. “You gotta wonder why.”
“What are you thinking about?” she said.
I jumped slightly, caught her eye again. “Sorry, I have a habit of drifting off like that. Just thinking over what you told me, that’s all.”
She smiled and it was full of ice-cold confidence. “I should point out that I’m armed. And not much scares me.”
I returned the smile. “Except those cops.” I nodded over my shoulder but the police had obviously grown bored of the teens and moved on.
“Well.”
We were quiet again for a while, the world outside flashing by the window. Eventually I had to ask. “So why did you tell me all that?”
She smiled, nodded. She’d been waiting for me to come up with the question, I guess. “You said you were at a loose end and needing a fresh start. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself, but it would be nice to have another set of eyes. A back up. I have a meeting in New York, you see.”
“And you think maybe I could be your bodyguard, that it?”
She shrugged. “Look at you. You’re kinda intimidating. You can fight, I bet. You can look mean, right?” She smiled.
I wasn’t sure if she was toying with me or not. “You don’t know me at all. Maybe I’ll take whatever you’ve got there and fuck off.” I wouldn’t, but she didn’t know that.
She shook her head just a little. “No, you won’t. I told you, I can read you better than those cops could. There’s something about you, like you need to make good on a promise, maybe.” She frowned. “No, I’m not explaining that right. But there’s something…”
I guess she was right. And right then, I did need some direction. Anything to put off calling in that favor from Tony Moretto. It all felt a little fated, and I didn’t like that, but I couldn’t ignore it either.
“Take her fucking bag, cocheese.”
Alvin was back and he agreed. “Why make life complicated? You’ve got some money but only a few grand. Imagine how much she might have in there. Look at those white knuckles.”
Graney appeared, sitting right next to her, grinning across the narrow table at me. Sly was leaning up against the back of her seat, staring into nowhere while he enjoyed his ever-present joint. I think half the reason he smokes them constantly is to wind up Dwight, who wants some so badly but can’t bring himself to ask a black man.
“Is this atonement?” Michael asked me. “Is this making good? Or is it falling back into old ways?”
I didn’t answer him, because I didn’t want the woman to think me mad. But he had a point. Truth is, I didn’t know the answer.
“Well? You want to help me, big guy?”
“What’s in it for me?”
“Adventure?”
I raised an eyebrow.
“How about adventure and five hundred dollars cash?”
“For one meeting when we get to New York?”
“Yeah.”
“Make it a grand.”
“Seven-fifty.”
I shrug. “Okay, cool. Why not?”
She smiled and reached a slim hand across the table. “Bridget Carlson.”
I shook. Her skin was warm and smooth. It felt somehow dangerous. “Eli Carver.”
NOW
We push back into the restaurant, crunching over broken glass, stepping over pools of blood.
“How the fuck ain’t you dead, cocheese?”
“You got some dark gods lookin’ over you, white boy.”
Graney, Alvin and Michael are there too, all of them pushing through the doorway behind us as we hurry back in.
“Fuck all y’all,” I growl, and Bridget looks at me askance, but says nothing. I brush through the ghosts and see the chef has emerged from the kitchen and he’s helping Lombardi up. The man has blood all down his left cheek from a head wound, one hand pressed to it as he grimaces. The only heavy not shot is helping his buddy up, that guy’s suit jacket dark with blood all across his right shoulder.
“Clear the door,” Lombardi says through gritted teeth. “Shut everything up.”
He’s right, the law will be here any time. I hope that door at the back does lead to another way out. I grab the leg of the first guy I shot, still lying on the sidewalk outside, and drag him in, then shut and bolt the doors. Seems pointless with all the glass blown out. I do my best to ignore the people shouting and coming to gawk. Cell phones will start filming through the smashed windows any second. These fucking idiots, there could be more gunfire any moment for all they know. Either way, I keep my face down and well out of any potential video.
“Let’s move,” I say, and gesture at the back. I grab my gym bag and Bridget’s suitcase and start through the restaurant.
“Yes, go.” Lombardi is on his feet, pushing the chef ahead of him. A teenager, face white as chalk, comes from the kitchen and opens the back door. We all pile through, into a short corridor, then a barred back door. The teenager then the chef, then Lombardi, me and Bridget right behind him. The two heavies come through on our six and then we’re all in an alley that’s dark and grim, stinking of refuse and piss.
“Go,” Lombardi tells the chef. “Take Jacky with you. Lie low, I’ll call.”
The chef needs no more urging than that and he grabs the kid and hauls him away.
Lombardi turns to me. “Some shooting. You better get gone too.”
“No way. We’re staying with you.”
“What?”
“We need info.”
He stares at me for a moment and I see his eyes lose focus then find me again. The bullet that clipped his skull has left him mildly concussed is my guess. There’s a shiny black Cadillac parked twenty feet up the alley and the heavies have already unlocked it. The wounded one is in the passenger seat and the other stands half in the driver’s door. “Boss?” he says.
“Let’s go,” I tell Lombardi and he’s smart enough to know what’s most important.
He stumbles to the car and falls into the back seat, me and Bridget piling in the other side. My door clips a big metal dumpster as I pull it closed because the heavy has already peeled away. We hear distant sirens as the Caddy reaches the end of the alley and screeches left into a blare of horns and braking tires, then he floors it and we’re away. I notice Lombardi has the blood-soaked money Bridget gave him clutched in his free hand. Maybe not so concussed after all.
If I’m honest, this isn’t quite the new start I’d envisioned, but it feels right somehow. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
“Let me look at that,” Bridget says, from the middle of the back seat next to Lombardi.
He takes his hand away, blood all down the inside of his wrist, soaking into his sleeve. Bridget checks the wound, lips pursed. Seems like maybe she knows what she’s doing. “Got a handkerchief?” she asks.
The wounded guy in the front passenger seat reaches back with his good hand. “Here.”
“Thank you, Johnny,” Lombardi says.
Bridget moves the boss’s hair aside, presses the folded handkerchief to the bullet graze there. It’s bleeding like a son of a bitch, but looks fairly superficial to my eye.
“You should be grateful you have so much product in your hair,” Bridget says. “It deflected the bullet.”
Lombardi side-eyes her and she gives him a tight, humorless grin. I like this woman.
“Davey, head for the townhouse,” Lombardi says.
The driver nods. “Yes, boss.”
Davey and Johnny, good to know. And the boss is Paul Lombardi. I wonder how many are left in his crew after this night’s work. The chef and his young helper are probably outsiders to the family. Could this be all Lombardi has left? Seems unlikely. I need to know more.
Lombardi leans his head back and closes his eyes, takes long deep breaths. “So why the fuck are you riding with me?”
It’s a fair question. The sensible thing would be to get as far away from this albatross as possible. “That bag the gunman took,” I tell him. “It had a lot of money in it. So I need to know who that was So I can go get it back.”
Lombardi barks a short laugh. “You are some piece of fucking work. Good shooting back there too. I had six guys and they did nothing, you took out the shooters on your own.” He tips his head toward me, opens one eye. “Who the fuck are you?”
“No one. Just a friend of Bridget.”
“Sure. Well, I’m sorry about the money, but that’s just collateral damage.”
“The fuck it is!” Bridget shouts. “I put everything on the line here, I paid you back, and the rest of that money was for me to get away.”
“Then I’m sorry you got caught in the middle of that. Really I am. But what can I do about it?”
Bridget looks down at the money still clutched in Lombardi’s other hand. She’s shit out of luck there, but I know she’ll ask.
“We could start by you giving me that money back.”
Lombardi barks his laugh again. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you caused me to lose the rest.”
“No, I didn’t. These events are unconnected.”
I catch Bridget’s eye and shake my head. “Mr. Lombardi, I know Bridget is upset and she has every right to be. I know you don’t owe her anything. Your business with her is done. The fact she got robbed by that asshole isn’t your concern.” She’s scowling at me, but she’s also smart enough to let me speak to this guy in his own language. “So while it’s not your problem, as it happened on your turf, perhaps you could do us a small favor and tell me who the fuck it was. Then let me take care of our business.”
Lombardi gives me that one-eyed look again. “You’re something else.”
“I’m just a guy.”
“Sure.”
Things are quiet for a minute and I let him think things over. I’m guessing his thoughts are sluggish right now, but he’s a pro. He’ll be considering every angle. And he’ll want something for this favor, even though he already owes us. That’s how these things work. Power builds on power, the more you have, the more you take, and that way you stay on top. I’m happy to play the game for now.
Davey heads into the Holland Tunnel. I’m glad we’re leaving the city behind, it feels right. But I have a feeling I’ll be back before too long.
“How much was in the bag?” Lombardi asks.
Bridget glances at me and I nod. At this stage, she might as well be honest. She sighs. “Eighty grand.”
Shit a brick.
Lombardi smiles. “That’s not small change.”
He’s right. It certainly isn’t.
He looks back at me. “And who the fuck are you? Name?”
Oh well, if we’re being honest. “Eli Carver.”
His eyes widen slightly, Johnny twists from the passenger seat and narrows his eyes at me. Seems my reputation precedes me, even though I have no idea who these assholes are. Interesting. I don’t think I like this feeling of notoriety.
“The Eli Carver?” Johnny asks. I notice he and Davey look a lot alike, and I figure them for brothers. Wide jaws, deep foreheads, broad shoulders, black hair and blue eyes.
“The only one I know,” I tell him.
“Johnny, call Doc Brown,” Lombardi says. “Tell him to meet us at the townhouse.”
Johnny nods and turns back to face the front, aware the order is a veiled version of Shut the fuck up and mind your business. But he makes the call, muttering quietly as we drive. He’s a hard fucker, given he’s sitting there with a bullet wound in his shoulder, bleeding heavily.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Lombardi says. “I’m in a compromised position right now, and I could use some help. Especially given the unfortunate loss of life back there. You need to get Bridget’s money back, I understand that. So we’re going to work something out. But for now I have a motherfucker of a headache, so everyone is gonna shut up until we get to the house and I get some painkillers and treatment.” He leans his head back and closes his eyes again.
Bridget looks at me, her eyes searching mine. I nod. This is okay. We’ll figure something out from here.
THEN
We made small talk for the rest of the train ride, but it was all superficial. I told her I was orphaned at five years old by a drunk driver, grew up angry. That much is true. I skirted the edges of where I went in life, but I guess she filled in the blanks enough. She told me she’s the only daughter of an Irish-American father and a Japanese mother, her parents live in Florida now, and she had a brief stint as a nine-to-five wage slave until she answered that ad for a gambler’s assistant. It’s weird where lives go, random branches, fractal events leading to unknown destinations. I let my eye rove over the other passengers in the car and wondered at their stories. Everyone has one, everyone is the protagonist in their own personal drama. And every life story is interesting, even the most seemingly boring. In all honesty, a boring life is the most interesting thing there is to me, it’s so different to my experience.
Even the ghosts went quiet, my festering five drifting off to wherever they go when they’re not harassing me. It was a little after 10:00 p.m. when we got to Penn Station. “Is it too late for this meeting?” I asked Bridget.
