Marion lowered his gun.
Talley stood motionless against the wall, watching Marion the way a bird watches a snake. Marion shrugged.
“Life is unforgiving.”
Marion crossed the room to retrieve the one good disk, pocketed it, then went to the car. He helped Jane out, then opened the back door and helped Amanda. He walked around the car, climbed in behind the wheel, and drove away without another word. Talley saw him using his cell phone even before he was out of the parking lot.
The motel was quiet.
A dark wind had blown through Bristo Camino, something beyond Talley’s control, beyond his pain and his loss, and now it was gone. Now, only the three of them were left.
“Jane?”
Talley stumbled out of the room and ran to his wife. He hugged her with frantic desperation, then pulled his daughter close, squeezing them to him as the tears spilled down his face. He held them and knew then that he would never let them go, that he had lost them once and now had almost lost them this second time, lost them forever, and that he could and would never allow that to happen again.
It was over.
28
Saturday, 4:36 A.M.
Palm Springs
SONNY BENZA
Sonny Benza didn’t try to sleep again after they got off the phone with Glen Howell. He popped twenty milligrams of Adderall and snorted two lines of crank to prop himself up, then the three of them sat down to wait.
The first time the phone rang, he damn near jumped off the couch.
Tuzee looked at him, asking if Sonny wanted him to answer the phone. Benza nodded, saying, Yeah, answer it. Tuzee answered.
“It’s the airport. They wanna know where you want to go. They gotta file a flight plan.”
“Tell them Rio. We’ll change it in the air.”
As Tuzee hung up, Salvetti said, “They’re still gonna know where we go. These jets fly so high that air-traffic control watches them all the way.”
“Don’t worry about it, Sally. We’ll take care of it.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
The second time the phone rang, Tuzee answered without asking. Benza could tell from Tuzee’s expression that this was the word.
Salvetti said, “Shit.”
Tuzee punched on the speaker, saying, “It’s Ken Seymore. Ken, Sonny and Charlie are here. What do you have down there?”
“It’s gone to shit. All of it’s gone to shit. I’m still here at the development, but-”
Benza shouted over him. The fear in Seymore’s voice infuriated him.
“I don’t give a shit where you are. Do we have the goddamned disks or not?”
“No! They got the disks. Glen Howell and two more of our guys are dead. They got Manelli and Ruiz and I don’t know who else. It’s a goddamned clusterfuck down here. I don’t know what happened.”
“Who killed Howell? Talley?”
“I don’t know! Yeah, I think it was Talley. I don’t know. Man, I’m hearing all kinds of things.”
Sonny Benza closed his eyes. Just like that it was gone, everything was gone, three low-class assholes break into a house and everything that he had worked for his entire life was about to end.
Tuzee said, “You sure they got the disks?”
“Talley gave the disks to the Sheriffs. That much I know for sure. Then I don’t know what happened. Glen got jammed up at the motel, they had a big fuckin’ firefight or somethin’, and now the FBI just rolled up, the real FBI. What do you want me to do?”
Benza shook his head; there wasn’t anything Ken Seymore or anyone else could do.
Tuzee said, “Vanish. Anyone who isn’t in custody, take off. You’re done.”
The line went dead without another word. Ken Seymore was gone.
Benza stood without a word and went to the great glass windows overlooking Palm Springs. He was going to miss the view.
Salvetti came up behind him.
“What do you want us to do, Boss?”
“How long do you figure we have before the Feds get here?”
He had a pretty good idea, but he wanted to hear it.
Salvetti and Tuzee traded a shrug.
Tuzee said, “Talley will tell them what’s on the disks, then they’ll probably talk to Smith. I don’t know if he’ll corroborate or not.”
“He’ll talk.”
“Okay, they’ll want to detain you as a flight risk to give themselves time to write the true counts, so they’ll get a warrant based on our alleged involvement with the killings and kidnaps in Bristo. Say they get a telephonic warrant and coordinate with the state cops out here through the substation … I’d say two hours.”
“Two hours.”
“Yeah, I don’t think they can get here before that.” Benza sighed.
“Okay, guys. I want to be in the air in an hour.”
“You got it, Sonny.”
Salvetti said, “You gonna tell New York?”
Benza wouldn’t tell New York. He was more frightened of their reaction than he was of battling the Feds.
“Fuck’m. Go get your families. Don’t bother packing, we’ll buy new when we get there. Meet me at the airport as soon as you can. Forty-five minutes tops.”
The three of them stood mute for a time. They were in deep shit, and all three of them knew it. Benza shook each man’s hand. They were good and dear friends. Sonny Benza loved them both.
“We had a good thing here, guys.”
Charlie Salvetti started to cry. He turned away and hurried from the office without another word.
Tuzee stared at the floor until Salvetti was gone, then offered his hand again. Benza took it.
“All this will blow over, Sonny. You’ll see. We’ll get this straight with New York, and we’ll be fine.”
Benza knew that was bullshit, but he appreciated Tuzee trying to cheer him. He even found it within himself to smile.
“Philly, we’re gonna be looking over our shoulders the rest of our lives. Fuck it. It’s all part of the game.”
Tuzee smiled tiredly.
“Yeah, I guess so. See you at the airport.”
“You bet.”
Tuzee hurried away.
Sonny Benza turned back to the window. He admired the lights in the desert below, glittering like fallen dreams, and remembered how proud his father had been, how much the old man had bragged, Only in America, Sonny, only in America; right down the fuckin’ street from Francis Albert!
Frank Sinatra had been dead for years.
Benza went to wake his wife.
Saturday, 7:49 A.M., Eastern time
New York City
VIC CASTELLANO
Vic Castellano sat on his terrace overlooking the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It was a beautiful morning, clear and pleasant, though it would be hotter than a sonofabitch before noon. He still wore the white terry-cloth bathrobe with Don’t Bug Me on the back. He liked that sonofabitch so much he’d probably wear it until it was threads. He put down his coffee.
“I can tell by your expression it ain’t good.”
Jamie Beldone had just come out to see him.
“It’s not. The police have the disks. They have Benza’s accountant, and several of his people. Once the Feds develop the information, we’re going to have a fight on our hands.”
“But we’ll survive it.”
Jamie nodded.
“We’ll take a few shots, but we’ll survive. Benza, that’s something else.”
“That sonofabitch still hasn’t had the decency to call. You imagine that?”
“It shows a lack of class.”
Castellano settled back in his chair, thinking out loud. He and Jamie had gone over this a hundred times last night, but it never hurt to go over such things again.
“We’ll survive, but because of this Mickey Mouse West Coast asshole we’re exposed to serious heat from the federal prosecutor. This means we’ve got just cause to seek redress.”