Recall Night, page 4
part #2 of An Eli Carver Supernatural Thriller Series
“Nah, I told them when I was getting in. They’re expecting me around 10:30.”
She headed out, pulling her small suitcase by its handle behind her, the other bag over her shoulder and held tightly by its strap. I shouldered my bag and followed. She led us onto West 31st Street and turned left with confidence, then right onto 7th Avenue at the next light. She clutched the bag tighter to her chest.
“We gotta go far?” I asked.
“Yeah, but the walk will be good after sitting in that train for hours. About twenty blocks, toward the Village.”
“Cool.” She was right, the walking was good. I was glad we weren’t taking the subway.
The streets still bustled, New York City never really sleeps. I’d switched automatically onto alert. It was a little shocking how easily the old habits came back. My eyes were everywhere, senses strung tighter than garroting wire, but on the outside I looked calm and casual. I just wished I had a gun. I didn’t want to risk bringing one over the border, but I felt naked working without one. I’m a natural shooter, Vernon always used to say, and it’s true. I can shoot better than anyone I know, but I’ve put in hours of training and practice too. Being a natural just makes the hard work easier. You still have to put the hard work in. I guess I can rely on my hand-to-hand fighting skills if I have to, I’ve put a lot of hard work in there too. But if we come up against bozos with guns, all the punches and kicks and chokeholds in the world might not be worth shit.
“Hey, Bridget, you said you were armed, right?”
“Got a thirty-eight in my bag.”
Not much, but something. “You want I should hang onto that, in case?”
“In case what?”
“In case I need to actually be a bodyguard.”
She smiled up at me and shook her head. “I’ll hang onto it for now. Thanks though, for taking this seriously.”
Cars crawled by, engines and impatient horns making most of the noise. Sometimes music blared from a diner or bar. “So talking of taking it seriously, tell me what’s happening.”
She glanced up at me again and nodded. “Fair enough, you deserve that, I guess. Okay, I’ll give you the abridged version. Remember how you said why didn’t I just go it alone? Well, I decided I was going to. But Jerry has this habit of noticing when his girls are getting itchy and he quickly starts cutting them off, making it difficult. He’s a cunning fucker. So I couldn’t let on that I was thinking of leaving. And the money was good, but he rationed it out, to stop any one of us from having too much all at once.”
“Pretty controlling, huh?”
“To say the least. But we had time off, we had some money. Not retirement cash, but something. So I decided to build myself a private enterprise. I started going to smaller casinos when I wasn’t working, places Jerry didn’t bother with because he preferred higher stakes. I kept my head down, played well in those places and started to save up. It was going well. Then I fucked up.”
We stopped at an intersection, waiting with half a dozen other people for the light to change, so she clammed up. It was a companionable silence. As soon as we started walking again, she picked up where she left off.
“In one of these small places I heard about a high-stakes underground game.”
“Oh, I can see where this is going.” I felt bad for her, but if I was right, she was pretty dumb.
“Yeah, well, I guess I was a little naïve.” That was just another word for dumb. She should have known better, but I kept that to myself.
She pursed her lips, maybe thinking the same as me. Then, “I got in on this game, and it was obviously rigged.”
“And you can’t count a rigged game.”
She twisted her mouth into a wry expression. “Exactly. And I went into the hole a little before I figured it out. I should have run out, called it quits, but I was annoyed. I thought I could play myself out, figure out their fix and play it against them.”
“Naivety and hubris? Dangerous combo.”
She laughed softly. “Fuck you. Anyway, I said I was gonna give you the abridged version. I lost all my nest egg, and then some. I owed these cats a lot of money.”
“How much?”
“Thirty grand.”
“Shit, that is a lot of money.”
“It sure is.”
“So who is it you owe?”
“Mobster by the name of Paul Lombardi.” She glanced up at me. “You know him?”
“No.” And I wasn’t lying. I’d crossed paths with many over the years, but Paul Lombardi wasn’t a name I’d heard before.
She paused, checked the street signs. “Nearly there. Let’s cut to the chase. I tell Lombardi I can get the money, I just need time. He says I can have thirty days, but then I’ll owe forty grand. So fuck it, I have to pull the last chance gambit.”
“You take all Jerry Slovak’s money.”
“Exactly. So I have the money I owe right here, and a decent cut on top. We go, I pay my debt, we leave. I give you your money and you fuck off. We never see each other again. I start over clean with a decent chunk of Jerry’s money in my bag, you have a little more cash for your start over. Okay?”
“Sure. What about Jerry?”
“What about him?”
“Won’t he be looking for you?”
“Of course, but he won’t find me.”
I wondered if she knew how hard it really is to disappear. “You sure?”
“We’re here.” She pointed to a restaurant on the corner of 7th and West 15th called Gino’s, then gave me a tight smile. “Let’s go.”
Before I could say anything, she pushed open the door and strode inside.
And pretty soon it was a fucking bloodbath in there.
NOW
The townhouse is a three-story brown brick on the end of a row of similar residences on a quiet street on the outskirts of Bridgewater, New Jersey. There’s a sign for Washington Valley Park at the end of the street. I try to remember the details for future reference. It’s taken around an hour to make the drive and not a word was said by anyone the rest of the way. Lombardi is resting his head and I’m impressed with Johnny, stoically enduring his gunshot to the shoulder. I have no idea how bad it is, but his jacket is wet with blood and his face is pale as ash. He’s a hard bastard, that’s for sure. I’m guessing he’s glad he called the doctor.
When Davey pulls up in the street outside it’s nearly 1:00 a.m. and everything is still, like only the suburbs can be in the middle of the night. In nature, the night is alive, but wherever people have taken over, they kill the life and everything goes into a kind of stasis when they sleep. It’s the height of the unnatural. Uncanny.
As we climb out of the car, the front door opens and an ancient black man stands in the light pouring from the hall. His face is like a walnut, it’s so deeply lined. His eyes are concerned as he steps back to let us in. He has a quick look over me and Bridget, but doesn’t seem surprised to see strangers with the boss in the middle of the night. “Doc Brown is here,” he says.
“Thank you, Alfie.” Lombardi gives the man a smile, and it’s genuinely warm.
I get the feeling these two go back a long way. Perhaps the old guy worked for Lombardi’s dad before him or something, probably known the boss since he was a boy. But that’s speculation, and that kind of guesswork can be dangerous. Better to wait and know, than think you already have knowledge that might come back to bite you. I mentally lodge the suppositions anyway. I need to learn everything I can about these people.
We troop into a large front room and a middle-aged guy in shirtsleeves jumps up. Even though Johnny is clearly the more injured, he goes directly to Lombardi first. Johnny isn’t surprised and Davey helps him into a chair, fussing quietly over his brother.
The doc works without questions, cleaning and dressing Lombardi’s head, then gives him painkillers. Bridget was right, it’s not too bad. “Just let me know if you feel any dizziness, nausea, blurred vision, stuff like that, okay?” the doc says.
Lombardi nods, then sits back and closes his eyes again. “See to Johnny,” he says, but the doc is already over there, taking the man’s jacket off.
As his shirt is peeled away the entry wound is obvious, a dark hole in the meat of his substantial deltoid muscle. The man winces but says nothing. The doc leans him forward, but there’s no exit wound. “Bullet’s still in there,” he says. “This is gonna hurt.”
“Already does,” Johnny says.
They lay him on a heavy wooden table and the doc gives him drugs then gets to work. Johnny doesn’t make a sound and after twenty minutes the slug is out and the wound stitched. Johnny sits back in the chair, arm in a sling, face still pale.
“The bone got clipped, but not broken,” Doc Brown says. “You’re pretty lucky. Just try to keep that still for a week or two.”
Johnny nods, shuts his eyes.
“Okay, everyone to sleep,” Lombardi says, getting groggily to his feet. “It’s late and all business can wait until tomorrow, no arguments. Alfie, show Eli and Bridget to the guest rooms. Johnny, Davey, you two stay in the room down here.” Without another word or glance, he leaves.
“Sir?” Alfie says, touching my shoulder. “Madam? If you’ll follow me.”
He leads us up two flights of stairs to the top floor where three doors surround a small landing. He points to the first two. “Take your pick. Each has a bathroom, and they’re made up. Anything else I can get you?”
“No, thank you.” I look at Bridget. “You gonna be okay?”
“Sure. But we’re leaving it too long. That money has flown.”
“Don’t count on it. Plenty of options yet. Trust me.”
She looks at the floor, her body sagging with fatigue. “This really isn’t how I expected any of this to go down.”
I shrug. “When the wind blows, you bend or break. We’ll figure it out.”
She puts a hand against my upper arm, squeezes. “Thank you. You know I don’t have your seven-fifty anymore, right?”
“Yeah. And I might charge you a little more than that when we get your money back.”
She laughs. “Fair enough.”
Without another word she turns and goes into the first room. The door closes behind her, then a lock snicks. Alfie is still hovering. “Thanks,” I tell him.
He nods and heads back downstairs.
I look at the other room he indicated, then glance at the third door. Call me paranoid. I open it to look in. It’s a kind of study, a desk and chair, computer on it. Ornaments on the desk, the color scheme, the drapes, all make me think this is a woman’s space. A large bookcase fills one wall and there are weird little carvings on it. Black wood with hectic, real-looking hair and grimacing faces, and strange metal geometric sculptures. A lot of the books look old, a few spines show titles like Occult Science, The Black Arts, The Book of Smokeless Fire, and there’s stuff from Anton LaVey and Aleister Crowley. Among them are books on quantum physics, string theory, astrophysics. There’s a Bible next to a Koran, and various volumes on wicca, voodoo, astrology, kabbalah and more. Quite the esoteric collection. I log it all for future consideration.
I go into the room next to the one Bridget took and it’s simple but well-furnished. Fatigue crashes over me like a wave. I lock the door, go into the bathroom to piss, then fall onto the bed, fully clothed except for my boots. Darkness is quick to swallow me. As I go under, I wonder where the fuck my ghosts have got to.
* * *
“Wake up, cocheese!”
Sleep drags at me like an anchor and I want to let it pull me back down, but that seems unwise.
“Don’t miss all the fun, motherfucker.” That’s Alvin.
I open my eyes to watery early light and Michael nods from where he leans by the door. Dwight and Alvin prop themselves against the wall nearby.
“What fun?” My voice is like a wino’s, thick and cracking.
“I don’t give a fuck, someone is gonna bleed for this!”
Oh, that fun, perhaps. Lombardi’s voice is pure rage, so I guess his head has cleared. He starts yelling again, voice fading as he heads downstairs.
Sly and Graney are sitting on the edge of the tub in my en suite bathroom, smoking a joint as they watch through the open door.
“You really wanna get into this?” Sly asks.
“Let him!” Graney says. “My boys will catch him more easily if he gets tangled up with a bunch of two-bit mobsters.”
“What makes you think they’re two-bit?” I ask him. “They could be high up for all we know.”
“You ever heard of Paul fucking Lombardi before?”
Graney has a point.
“I’ve been out of the loop for two years. A lot can change in that time.”
There’s a rapid tapping at my door and when I look over at it, the ghosts have all gone. I get up and open it to see Bridget outside. Her eyes look haunted.
“Come in.”
“What are we going to do?” she asks.
I wave her in and she shuts the door behind her.
“First, I’m gonna shower.” The sight of her pink cheeks and wet hair has made me feel like the bottom of someone’s shoe. “Then we go down and I talk to Lombardi.”
“I’ve been thinking about it. Honestly, I’ve hardly slept and thought about nothing else. I need that money, Eli. I’m out to sea without it.”
“I know. Don’t worry. One way or another, we’ll be okay.”
“We?”
I smile, but try to make it friendly, not lascivious. I didn’t mean it that way. “I have a habit of finding my way through circumstances. In fact, I pride myself on it. My whole adult life has been dealing with difficult situations. I had something of a slip a couple of years ago, but I’m back on keel now. I’ll make sure you get your restart money. Somehow.”
“Why?”
She asks a pertinent question right there. I have to think about it a moment or two, try to straighten up my thoughts. The five amigos are crammed in the bathroom, sniggering at me.
“Tell her why!” Dwight says, mock whisper. “Tell her what you want to do to her!”
And that is part of it. I’m a man with desires, and she is beautiful and smart and gutsy. All those things I like in a woman. But it’s not that, not primarily. “I’ll tell you why,” I say, picking my words carefully. “I’ve been out of the game, out of my game, for a while, and I need a way back in. So I was planning to see this one guy, who’s an asshole, but I might have found some work. So I might as well see if I can find work with this asshole instead. Plus, I have a new outlook on life. I have things to…atone for. So helping you pays forward the debt I’m carrying.”
“You’re a fucking superhero now?” Graney says, voice gravelly with disdain. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
Bridget is looking at me hard, her earthy brown stare drilling deep into my soul. “Atone?” she says eventually.
“You know what a rōnin is?” I ask.
“Remember I told you my mother is Japanese?”
Oops. “Oh yeah, of course! Do you speak Japanese?” The question is out before I think to stop it, but I guess it’s not offensive.
“Yes. But that’s moving a long way from whatever fucking point you’re trying to make here.”
I can’t help grinning. I like her fire. “Okay. So if a rōnin is a masterless samurai, I guess I’m kind of the mob equivalent of that. Which means I have to find work, but I have to find meaning too. I have to find purpose.”
“You’ve thought a lot about this, huh?”
“While I was in Canada, yeah. And especially when I was preparing to leave. When I realized I had another chance.” Her eyes narrow but she doesn’t push for an explanation and I’m grateful. “I figure I need to keep atoning for the sins of my past. I can’t fix them, but maybe I can balance the scales a bit now.” And maybe these pain-in-the-ass ghosts will finally leave me alone, but I don’t tell her that.
She purses her lips for a moment, then says, “You know, rōnin literally means ‘wave man’. It’s idiomatic, means wanderer or vagrant, someone without a home. It was adopted to mean masterless samurai later.”
“Okay. But that doesn’t change the principle, does it? It’s still pretty accurate, I have no home.”
Her eyes soften again. “I guess not. So okay, you’re a modern American rōnin, with a need to do good.”
I can’t help the slight flush that creeps up my cheeks, smile ruefully. “If you say it like that, it sounds hokey as hell.”
“It is hokey as hell, Eli!” She laughs then. “But you know what? I’ll buy it. Why the fuck not? You have more self-awareness than ninety percent of the people I come across. But here’s the thing. You want to do good. Helping me isn’t doing good. I fleeced casinos, stole from my boss, got in debt with the mob.”
“But you were led astray by your job, you tried to do the right thing, and you got caught in some literal crossfire.”
“You’re rationalizing there, drawing some pretty wavy lines between good and bad.”
She’s right, but there’s no other way to do it. “I find I have to rationalize a lot. There is no good and bad, Bridge. Just varying shades of bullshit. All I can do is try to help the people I think are intrinsically decent at heart.”
“Intrinsically decent at heart? Holy shit, Eli.”
I smile, shrug.
“Just one thing,” she says at last.
“What?”
“Don’t ever call me Bridge.”
Not what I expected, but okay. “Sure.”
She waits in my room while I quickly shower, then put some fresh clothes on. I do it all in the bathroom with the door closed. Then we head downstairs. I’m immediately a little uncomfortable. Alfie is there again, hovering obsequiously, and there’s a black woman, maybe in her fifties, bustling around the table in the large dining room, laying out eggs and bacon. She’s even wearing an old-fashioned frilly apron. This is some racist bullshit I do not like. Bridget catches my eye and mouths, What the fuck? I can only nod and shrug.
