“… and I understand why you might think it was me. But you gotta remember that things aren’t always what they look like. Take your boy Wylie here, for instance. I told y’all he held a gun to my head, but did anyone believe me? Hell, no. Well, screw it.…just listen to this goddamn tape before y’all make up your minds.”
Marlin heard Corey fumbling with the microphone, and then the hiss of an audiotape. Corey’s voice came on first:
“At least tell me why you pointed your gun at my head. Don’t you know a man can’t think straight in a position like that?… Well?”
Then Wylie’s answer…
“Okay, I’m sorry about that. I really am. But when I’m investigating a guy for murder, and I feel like I have some solid evidence, I tend to go at him pretty hard. It’s just my style. Let’s say, worst-case scenario, you confess to the murder but you didn’t really do it. We’d know that, because you wouldn’t be able to tell us specifics about the crime scene. And if you did do it-the gun is just my way of speeding things up a little.”
The radio went silent, and all Marlin could think to say was: “Way to go, Corey.”
Phil Colby gave a low whistle. “Now, that’s an interesting development, wouldn’t you say?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
On Friday evening, Sal was sitting in the living room, his bum leg in front of him on an ottoman. Twenty-four hours since that skinny little tree-hugging bastard had broken Sal’s leg, and he was finally figuring out how to manage the pain. This codeine was pretty good stuff-you just had to watch out how much you took, that’s all. Sal had figured that out real fucking quick. It took the edge off the pain, but if you got a little too aggressive with it-say, like popping three pills instead of one-you’d find yourself in la-la land, chasing imaginary wildebeests, wearing a loincloth, all from the comfort of your own bed.
But a pill and a half worked just right, holding the pain at bay without putting Sal into a stupor. Last night had been a wild ride, one weird-ass dream after another. Stranger than any of the trips he experienced as a young punk, when he had occasionally indulged in a few of the drugs that members of his crew were selling. Kind of fun, but you had to keep a handle on that shit. Couldn’t overdo it. Sal sometimes wondered if Vinnie ever took any drugs, but he figured Vinnie was smarter than that.
Speaking of Vinnie, Sal vaguely remembered talking to him earlier in the day, asking him to take care of some things. Sal couldn’t remember exactly what he had asked him to do, but what the hell. Vinnie knew what to do. Didn’t have to spell things out for him anymore. That was the good thing about having a son. You could teach him things, help him learn a few of the basics in life. Like throwing a curveball. Changing the oil in your car. Busting a guy’s kneecaps.
Sal and the family had already eaten dinner, and Angela was doing something in the bedroom now. That’s the way it was: If Sal was in his den, Angela would be in the living room. If Sal came into the living room, Angela would find a reason to go to the bedroom. Sal knew that Angela was pissed off at him about the whole Maria thing (who, by the way, he hadn’t humped in several days, thank you very much), but he was noticing lately that she didn’t even want to be in the same room with him. That’s one angry woman, who can’t stand the sight of her own husband. What the fuck were you gonna do?
Sal was flipping through the channels, not a goddamn thing to watch on TV, when the phone rang.
“Angela, you got dat?” he yelled.
No answer. The phone rang again.
“Angela! Maria!” Where the hell was everybody?
It rang again.
“Well, fuck.” Sal leaned toward the end table and grabbed the cordless phone off its charging base. “Yeah?”
“Sal?”
“Who’s dis?”
“Is this Sal Mameli?”
Sal paused. He didn’t like unidentified callers. If one of his former colleagues ever managed to track him down, Sal figured he might receive a call like this one. And this guy here sounded like he was speaking carefully, trying to disguise his voice. But he didn’t sound like a Jersey boy; more like some local yokel. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” Sal said. “Depends on what you want.”
There was no answer, and Sal began to hang up. Then the caller finally responded. “I saw what you did with the body.”
Sal’s jaw dropped and his heart flopped like a fish on a dock gasping for air. He let a few seconds pass while he tried to get his shit together. Then he spoke again, trying to sound casual-and a little angry. “What the hell are you talking about? Who is dis?”
“I saw it, Sal. I saw where you put the body.”
Sal managed to give a small laugh, one that he thought sounded believable. “Yeah, you keep saying dat, but which fucking body are you talking about? Jimmy Hoffa? Amelia Earhart? Who?”
Sal heard the caller take a breath, as if he were about to answer, but then the line went dead. Sal stared at the receiver, as if he could look through miles of telephone line and get a clear view of the man who had just called.
“Think it’ll work?” Billy Don asked around a mouthful of beef jerky.
Red had just climbed back into his battered red truck after using a pay phone. Damn right, a pay phone. Red had seen enough of those criminal-type shows on TV to know better than to use his own phone. Never knew who might be listening in, who might trace the call. Plus there was regular old Caller ID. “He sounded pretty shook up,” Red said. “Acted like he wasn’t, but I could hear it in his voice. Guy was about to drop a load in his britches.”
“So you still think it was him?”
Red nodded and scowled. “That’s what I been tellin’ ya, ain’t it? Now pass me a beer.” Billy Don dug into the ice chest on the floorboard and came up with a cold one. They had stopped by the grocery store earlier and stocked up on drinks, jerky, chips, donuts, and other snacks. Red figured it might be a long night, so he wanted to be prepared.
Red was kind of pissed that Billy Don kept asking him that question: So, you think it was him? Well, damn, of course he did, and he had already listed all the reasons why.
First, Sal Mameli had what the cops called a motive. That meant he had a reason to kill Mr. Slaton. Mameli had been trying to buy up all the brush-clearing businesses in Blanco County, Slaton’s included. But ol’ Emmett-from what Red had gathered-wasn’t playing ball. Red imagined that had pissed Sal off pretty good.
Second, Red and Billy Don had seen Sal Mameli driving away from Slaton’s house in a huff, just a couple of days before Slaton disappeared. Coincidence? Hell no. So not only did Mameli have a motive, he seemed to be hacked off at Mr. Slaton, too. Red had mentioned all of this to that deputy named Wylie, the cocky son of a bitch, but the guy didn’t pay much attention.
And fourth, Mameli just seemed like one of those… whatchamacallits-a wiseguy. A man that’s connected to the mob. No telling whether Mameli really was in the mob-and Red doubted it since the guy lived in Blanco County, about as far from mafia country as you can get. But that didn’t mean Mameli couldn’t be just one of your garden-variety criminals. And hell, everybody knew that your average Eye-talian American was nothing but a street thug. From what Red could tell, watching cable TV shows, the wops who made it into the mafia were just the ones with the biggest balls, the ones willing to take the biggest chances. But none of them-whether they were in the mob or not-could be trusted. Oh, sure, you had a few exceptions to the rule. Real Italian heroes, like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. But Sal Mameli wasn’t sophisticated like those guys. No, Mameli was a greaseball, and he practically had murderer written on his face. But it seemed like Red was the only person who had figured that out.