Though the vehicle had apparently moved on, something had the nape of Frank’s neck tingling. He did not go in the restaurant to help Doc, who was paying and getting yellow sauce, his arms already filled with a bunch of stained sacks.
For some reason, Frank just stood out in the snow and the cold and waited, and then he saw the car coming back around that corner, and he ran, placing every step carefully so as not to slip and fall and not make it to Eva in time. He could see her standing next to the car, her expression turning curious as she saw him running toward her.
Then he had her by the wrist and she didn’t have time to ask him why, as he ran with her toward that restaurant, the only door they could get into on this block. The Chevy was almost on them, gunning its engine, and then Frank pushed in through the doors with Eva, and Doc — arms full of sacks — saw his boss dive for the grimy floor and take his wife with him.
The windows shattered under an explosion of gunfire, a grease gun most likely, and patrons were screaming, and cooks and waitresses were chattering in Chinese as if gibberish could make the threat disappear.
Doc had ducked down himself, the sacks of food spilled all over the place, and had a pistol in either hand, firing out at the car through the now open window. He hit the Chevy a couple times, puckering metal, and the vehicle — which had slowed to a near stop to make the hit — screeched off.
Like a presidential bodyguard, Doc gathered Eva and Frank up off the floor and hustled them out of the decimated hole-in-the-wall and down to the car and piled them in back.
Blood had soaked through Frank’s topcoat on his left shoulder, but he didn’t feel anything but anger. “What the fuck was that?”
“Are you hit?” Doc asked.
“Just drive.”
Doc did.
Christmas Eve or not, security was stepped up at Frank’s penthouse, Frank’s own people including his brothers as well as cops on the payroll — not SIU, of course — patrolling not just the Lucas floor but every floor of the building.
An older black doctor who had been Bumpy Johnson’s medic of choice attended Frank in the master bedroom. His brothers hung around on the periphery as the doc worked on Frank’s shoulder wound. Stretched out on top of the covers, Frank had been given some painkiller and felt fine, except for somebody having the fucking nerve to shoot at him... and to launch the hit when he was out with his goddamn wife. That was fucking low.
Upon getting back to the penthouse, Eva had disappeared, and an hour had passed before she returned bearing early editions of the papers. She’d gotten these in the lobby, from a flunky Frank had sent to gather them. Now, having made her delivery, she was perched on her side of the bed, supportive of her husband but staying out of the doctor’s way.
In Frank’s lap — hurting him way more than any shoulder wound — was a front page with a big nasty tabloid picture of Charlie Williams gunned down on the floor of a jazz club toilet. The only thing lower than those SIU cops, Frank figured, were the reporters who thrived on tragedies like this.
Brother Huey was pacing at the foot of the bed. “Was it Nicky did this? You think it was Nicky, Frank?”
Frank said nothing.
“To think I thought that guy was...” Huey, tears in his eyes, was trembling with fury. “I’ll fuckin’ kill that bastard, whether it was him or not, you tell me to. Say the word, Frank. Just say the word.”
Frank said nothing.
Huey gestured with two hands, pleading. “What do you want me to do, Frank? Your brothers are just waiting for the word. We can’t just sit here and—”
“Hitting me, I understand,” Frank said, reflectively. “But Charlie? Who did Charlie ever hurt? And who didn’t like Charlie? Everybody liked Charlie...”
Expressions were exchanged among the brothers: somebody didn’t. But no one said it.
Eva said, “I feel bad about Charlie, too, Frank. But what I’m wondering — who shot at us?”
Frank said nothing.
“You’re right,” Eva said, and she smiled — as icy a smile as Frank had ever seen from her. “It doesn’t matter. Because we’re leaving. Are you finished, Doctor?”
The doctor blinked at the woman of the house. “Yes. I can wait in the living room, to discuss medication, if you’d like some time alone with your husband...”
“I would. Please leave us. Everyone?”
Frank said to Huey and the others, “Go home — go see your kids. Christmas Eve, for Christ’s sake.”
The brothers and bodyguards and various onlookers filed out, and Eva went over and shut the door on those loitering in the hall.
On her way to her dresser, Eva flicked a look at Frank, saying, “It doesn’t matter who shot at us. Because we’re leaving.”
She yanked open a drawer and took out their passports, slapped them on the dresser; then she went to the closet and got two suitcases and began packing.
He was too weak to get out of bed, but his voice was strong: “Where did you go? Where have you been? You go out alone, after we get shot at?”
She said nothing, going to the closet again and carefully picking out items, quickly and efficiently, like a skilled shopper at a fire sale.
“Eva, what are you doing?”
“We can leave from here. Money’s in the car.”
Frank blinked. “What money?”
“Everything you stashed at your mother’s house.”
“In your car? The Corvette?”
“Yes. That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
“And where is your car?”
“Out front.”
“With ten million dollars in it?”
She shrugged. “I guess. I didn’t stop to count it.” He climbed out of bed; he was weaving, but his concern and anger fueled him. “Are you crazy, woman? We gotta get that cash back to Teaneck. Who went with you?”
“Nobody.”
She was at the dresser getting stuff from drawers and he could look over her shoulder into the mirror at her — not that her eyes met his that often.
He said, “You went out driving around without security? After what went down out there?... Doc’ll take you back.”
She had one bag packed and started on another. “We’re not going to Teaneck. We’re going to the airport.”
“The airport.”
“We’re leaving the country.”
“To where? No, we are not leaving the country.”
She turned to him and her eyes were wild. “Frank, Charlie’s dead. And they tried to kill us. What else has to happen before you come to your senses? We have all the money we could ever—”
He took her into his arms and held her close and calmed her like a child. “Come on now, baby. Everything’s gonna be fine.”
She wasn’t crying, but she was close; and when her breathing slowed, he asked her, “Where are we going, anyway? Spain? China? Which fuckin’ place is it to be, girl?”
Her chin got crinkly. “We can go anywhere we want. We can live anywhere.”
“We can run and hide,” Frank said, “is what you’re saying.”
“You make it sound—”
“Like something I would never under any circumstance do. Listen, baby — this is where I’m from. This is where my business is. Where my family is, my mother. This penthouse, this is my place, our place, too.”
Tears pearled her eyelashes. “I’m scared, Frank.”