“Again,” he said, frowning at her.
“Pour me one of those, would you, Frank?” she said. “You’d think you were playing tonight.”
Frank poured two fingers of bourbon from the crystal decanter and handed her the Baccarat glass.
“It is like I am playing,” he said, pouring himself a glass. “If he didn’t remind me so goddamn much of myself, maybe I wouldn’t feel this way. But shit, every scout from Syracuse to Alabama is going to be there.”
“He seemed calm enough,” Lexis said, feeling the warmth of the liquor spread through her. The car turned onto the West Side Highway. Ships moving up the river appeared in the dark. Lights from New Jersey twinkled on the other side. Ahead, the George Washington Bridge spanned the night, illuminated by hundreds of blue-white lights and pulsing with the flow of red taillights.
“He hides it,” he said. “Like I do. He’s nervous, though. I can see it. It’s a guy thing.”
Frank picked up the phone. “Pass that guy, goddamn it, Duvall. I told you to hurry.”
The limo surged ahead, swerving in and out of the traffic. Someone blared his horn. Lexis held out her empty glass. Frank pulled down the corners of his mouth.
“Afraid I’ll embarrass you?” Lexis said, shaking the glass.
Frank puckered his lips and poured another. “Embarrass” was a hot button. A word she would fire at him from time to time that reminded them both of the day she caught him cheating dead to rights. The day he promised to kill her if she ever tried to leave him and take his son.
Frank loved to pretend to the world that all was well in the Steffano household. He hated to be reminded that it was all a façade. She couldn’t always push that button, but on a night like tonight, this close to game time and all the people, she knew she had the upper hand.
She smiled to herself and backed into the corner of the car, sipping from her drink with both hands. Frank took out his cell phone and called one of his friends, confirming a business meeting for later.
Theirs wasn’t the only limo pulling up to the big game at Riverdale Country, but it was the only one Lexis saw with chrome tire rims that matched the grille. The air was crisp and a breeze wafted up from the Hudson River and across Bertino Field. The bleachers were already filled and buzzing under the lights. They walked across the grass and along the track. The team was warming up. Frank walked through a small opening in the fence and right up to the edge of the playing field where the referees were conferring.
“Allen Francis,” he yelled, cupping his hands. “Go kick their goddamn ass, son!”
Allen looked at his father, then dipped his face mask down to his knee, intent on his stretching. Frank strode back toward the track pumping his clenched fist, his face a beaming smile.
A man in a brown suede coat with his arm around his wife walked past looking. Under his breath, he said, “What an asshole.”
“That Allen’s such a good kid,” the wife said, shaking her head.
“Nothing like the old man,” said the husband.
Lexis jammed her hands into her coat pockets and turned her head.
Frank returned with a flushed face and said, “He’s ready now.”
He led Lexis up to the top row and told some older people to squeeze down for the quarterback’s parents.
“Frank,” Lexis said.
Too loud, he said, “What? These snooty old farts wouldn’t even be in the championship if it weren’t for my boy. They can slide their skinny asses right down.”
Lexis clamped her lips tight and angled her face away. Frank began to scour the crowd for college scouts with his binoculars. Lexis was thinking that at the quarter break she could get a quick one back at the car.
“There,” Frank said, still loud, grabbing her arm and pointing. “That’s the guy from Syracuse. There’s the one from Penn State over there.”
Lexis glanced and nodded, then quickly focused on Allen as the team broke into small groups after their stretching. Allen began throwing passes down the field to his receivers, licking his fingers between throws.
“Look at that arm,” Frank said.
“You didn’t play quarterback, did you, Frank?” Lexis asked, feeling light-headed.
Frank glanced at her quickly, then put his binoculars back up to his face.
“I had a hell of an arm,” he said. “Just like him. But, you know, with my size they put me on the line. That’s the only thing he got from you. Those eyes and that frame.”
Lexis just nodded.
30
THE THIRD COLLECTION RUN for Bert and me on our own takes us to an old refurbished hotel on Raquette Lake by the name of Bright Side. I study a map before we leave and see that Lake Kora is close by and right on the way. I’m driving Bert’s old Ford Bronco, and he’s asleep with his face against the window when I pull off Route 28 and down Uncas Road. When I stop the truck, Bert scratches his head and rubs his eyes. It’s late afternoon and the sun is shining through a warm breeze, but I slip a flashlight from under the seat into the side pocket of my cargo pants.
“A little lost,” I say.
“That’s okay,” he says. “I gotta piss anyway.”
Bert climbs out and makes for the bushes. I walk down a dirt path that leads to the water, the smell of pine needles in my nose. Across the lake, under the shadows of some tall hemlock trees, I think I see the rooflines of the cottage that Lester told me about. Up the shore a ways is a weathered dock and a small skiff. I pick my way along the rocks on the water’s edge and check out the new camp that was apparently built over the spot where Durant’s lodge used to be. It’s a Tuesday and late in the season, so I’m not surprised there are no signs of any people.
I’m halfway across the small lake, rowing, when Bert appears on the shore.
“What the fuck you doing?” he asks with his hands cupped around his mouth.
“I think I know where we are,” I say. “I had a friend used to own that place over there. I’m just checking it out.”
Bert shrugs and rips a thin branch from a tree. He strips off the leaves and starts to whip the seed heads off the grass growing out of the bank. I know if I offer to thumb wrestle him when I make the turn back onto the main road, he won’t even remember this place.
The cottage is sagging and it smells damp in there under the shade of the trees. The front porch is coated with moss and even a few saplings struggle up out of the wood. The key is buried in a plastic bag at the base of a post. I dig it up with a flat rock and unlock the heavy front door. In the back of the kitchen is the pantry. I have a hard time swinging back the shelves. They seem to be fixed and, just as I was in the prison, I am gripped by the fear that I am the victim of a ruse. A film of sweat breaks out on my arms as I strain against the wood frame. Finally, their rusty hinges creak and give way and there behind the wall is the full-size door of a safe.
I spin the knob, marveling at how slick it moves after all these years. It clicks, and I spin the second one until it clicks too. I press my weight against the lever and the door swings open. I flick on the flashlight and walk down into the cool dry space that is lined with narrow wooden boxes stacked upright like books on a shelf. My heart starts to thump when I see the metal strongboxes on a shelf in the corner. When I open them, I suck in my breath.
Refracted light sparkles back at me in a million different hues. There are rubies and emeralds fat as walnuts, but mostly it’s diamonds set in rings, strung from necklaces, or mounted on precious crowns. I slip four of the biggest stones into my pockets.
“Holy shit,” I say and sit down on the edge of a shelf that is labeled Picasso.