“A badge has given a lot of small men big ideas, over history.”
“That’s the SIU fuzz to a tee.”
Charlie shrugged rather grandly; it was his third beer. “They’re just fuckin’ crooks, like any other fuckin’ crooks. Not cops who do their jobs and keep the streets looked after and make up for their shitty paychecks with a little gravy. No, these guys got no code of honor. These guys got the ethics of a goddamn sewer rat.”
Frank was down the ladder now. He knelt and plugged in the electrical cord and the tree glowed vividly in the otherwise under-illuminated room. Rockefeller Center had nothing on the Lucas tree.
Getting to his feet, Frank said, casually, “Somebody’s been following me.”
“Besides cops?”
“Besides cops.” He came over and sat next to his old friend, and the two men’s eyes met. “I see cars where they shouldn’t be. Driven by guys I don’t know.”
Charlie sighed. He put his beer down on a coaster on the glass-top coffee table.
“Me, too,” Charlie said.
“Silent Night” by a children’s choir was singing in the background as the two men chatted about the possibilities, none of which were what either wanted for Christmas, or any other day.
Frank sat and watched Eva, lovely in a dark sweater and skirt, hanging tinsel on the tree. She’d already been up on the ladder and now was doing the lower branches; when she bent over to apply the silver glittery stuff, the sight of her nicely rounded bottom made him glad to be alive.
She was everything he needed — let the other guys have their mistresses and whores. He had his personal beauty queen, right under his own roof.
Also, he had Bumpy, the German shepherd, who Eva graciously allowed to invade the penthouse a few days a week; Bumpy was perfectly housebroken and a real gentleman, well deserving of the dog toy Frank had bought him at Macy’s.
Since Frank figured the dog didn’t know Christmas from Easter, he gave the animal its present early, tossing the rubber thingie to the dog, who proceeded to have the time of his life tossing it around like a dead squirrel.
Enjoying the dog’s enjoyment, Frank wandered over to Eva; he was sipping a glass of eggnog with a little rum in it. “I love it here. With you.”
“Me, too.” She flashed a smile at him but something sad lurked within. “But it is nice to go out, sometimes.”
“Bumpy almost never went out, after a certain point. He liked to stay in, and read, and watch TV and listen to music. Play chess. He didn’t go out much.”
“That sounds like prison.”
“Not hardly!” He gestured around at the lavish living room. “You think this is prison?”
She said nothing, just applied another strand of tinsel to another branch.
Frank came over and touched her shoulder. “Bumpy couldn’t go out without... something happening.”
“He was more of a public figure than you, Frank.”
“True.”
“We can still go out. Even tonight.”
Frank sighed, moved off a few steps, gesturing. “Where? With who? Everybody I know is under surveillance. I’m being watched these days and I don’t even know who by. I can’t even be with my family at Christmas.”
“Why not?”
“Too obvious a target — for cops and business rivals.”
He leaned down and played with the dog some more, tossing the damp toy, getting it back, tossing it again. Then he wandered over to a window, drew back the drape just enough to peek out at the decorative wooden Christmas angels stretched out across the street. People were out walking in the lightly falling snow; he watched them, envying them, and then took in the parked cars across the way. Idly he wondered which of them held undercover cops.
Eva’s hand touched his shoulder so unexpectedly, he flinched a little.
Her head was cocked, her eyes yearning. “Why don’t you just pay who you have to pay? Then maybe we’d have a little more freedom.”
“Baby, I do pay them — I pay them all. Cops, accountants, lawyers, who don’t I pay?Everybody’s on my payroll — and I shell out a fortune, but it don’t matter. Doesn’t satisfy ’em. More you pay, the more they expect.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Frank...”
“Of course not. Because it’s like dope. You pay them off once and they can’t stop coming back for more. They always want more.”
The worry coloring her lovely features made him heartsick — this was his life, and his problems, that had put them in their penthouse prison.
He smiled gently at her, took her by both shoulders. “Go put on something nice.”
“What?”
“We’re going out.”
Frank had Doc pick them up the back way, which meant going down the service elevator and exiting through a long dark hallway into an alley between garbage cans. Not an auspicious start for a nice night out — Eva had on a mink coat over her beautiful evening dress, and Frank was snappy in gray sharkskin under the cashmere topcoat, and they were a stunning-looking couple, who at the moment were acting like a couple of deadbeat tenants running out on their landlord.
When they got to Small’s Paradise, things weren’t any better: Nicky Barnes was in the process of climbing out of his sky-blue Bentley, in typical Superfly threads topped off by a Santa Claus cap.
“Aw shit,” Frank said. “Keep going.”
Doc looked at Frank in the rearview mirror. “Around back?”
“Fuck that. Sneaking out of my apartment building was bad enough. I’m not playin’ backdoor man at my own damn club... Just drive.”
They tried several other nightspots, but some were closed Christmas Eve, and assorted reasons made the others impractical as well, so they wound up at a Chinese restaurant where nobody knew Frank from Adam and it would be an hour for a table. So they ordered takeout.
The place was a joint, no place to sit while you waited under harsh, buzzing fluorescent lighting, and steam everywhere. Eva was getting pretty steamed herself.
“Listen,” she said, “I’ll sit in the car.”
Doc said, “Go ahead, Frank. I’ll wait for the stuff.”
Frank asked, “Can you carry it all? We ordered a ton.”
“Sure, no problem. Go on.” Doc’s expression was that of a man who understood the difficulties of keeping a woman happy.
Frank slipped the big man a couple twenties, then turned to take Eva’s arm, but she’d already stepped outside.
“Don’t forget the hot mustard,” Frank said.
“What’s that, that yellow sauce?”
“Yeah, the yellow sauce.”
When Frank got out the door, he saw Eva half a block down, trying to get in the car, which was locked. Snow was falling good and hard now, and he slipped a little on the sidewalk when he trotted down to her, but kept his balance.
“Damn,” Frank said, not even having to search his pockets, just knowing, “Doc’s got the keys. We better go back.”
She shook her head, squinted; snow was dusting her mink. “I can’t, Frank. Those lights give me a headache — you go.”
“What, and leave you standing on the street?”
Her hands were in the pockets of the fur, and she was hopping on her heels a little, shivering, her breath visible. “Frank, it’s cold. It’s just down on the corner — go! Get the keys.”
He knew arguing with her was pointless right now, so he headed back; seemed to him the snow was coming down harder by the second. A drab-looking Chevy went by, a little too fast for the weather, catching Frank’s attention. He was about to go in the restaurant when he glanced back, toward Eva, and saw the Chevy down there round the corner.