“Nothing. I can still play my own hand till tomorrow night. You know Long Island well?”
“Pretty well.”
“About fifty miles out there’s a town called Bay Shore. On the Great South Bay.”
“I know it.”
“Go there Sunday morning, around nine. Go down to the end of Maple, park there.”
“What will I—” But Banadando had hung up.
Levine replaced the receiver and Andy said, “What was that? Sounded like a real sweetheart.”
“Mobster,” Levine said. “He’s gonna give some evidence, for some reason he made me the intermediary.”
“Why’s he giving evidence?”
Levine was reluctant to hold back — it wasn’t as though he mistrusted Andy — but he had to maintain a habit of reticence in this situation. “Some of his pals have a contract on him,” he said.
Andy’s lip curled. “Let ‘em kill each other off. Best thing that can happen.”
“I suppose so,” said Levine slowly, but the words were ashes in his mouth. He understood why what Andy had just said was the common, almost the universal belief among the police; whenever one mobster killed another, great smiles of happiness lit up the faces in the precinct houses. But Levine just couldn’t take pleasure from the death of a human being, no matter who, no matter what he had done in his life. He supposed it was really selfishness, really only a matter of projecting their deaths onto himself, visualizing his own end in theirs, that made him troubled and sad at the cutting short of lives so stained and spoiled, but nevertheless he just couldn’t bring himself to share in the general glee at the thought of a murdered mobster.
A little later, as he was leaving Andy’s room, he paused in the doorway to let a wizened ancient man pass by, moving slowly and awkwardly and painfully with the help of a walker. That’s me, Levine thought, and behind him Andy said, “If they start bumping one another off, Abe, just step to one side.”
Levine looked back at him, bewildered, his mind for an instant filling with visions of doddering oldsters bumping one another off: “What do you mean?”
“Your mobster pals. They love to kill so much, let ‘em kill each other. It isn’t up to us to stop it, or to get in the way.”
“I’ll stay out of the way,” Levine promised. Then he smiled and waved and left, walking around the ancient man, who had barely progressed beyond the doorway.
Maple Avenue in Bay Shore ended on a long wide dock, covered with asphalt and its center lined with parking meters. Levine found a free meter, got out of the car, and strolled a bit, smelling the salt tang. Once or twice he glanced back the way he had come, without seeing Jack Crawley; which was as it should be.
Out near the end of the dock, several small boats were offloading bushel baskets and burlap bags, all filled with clams. Two trucks were receiving the harvest, and the men working there called cheerfully at one another, talking more loudly than necessary, but apparently filled with high spirits because of the clarity and beauty of the day.
Nine A.M. on the third Sunday in October. The air was clear, the sun bright in a sky dotted with clouds, the water frisky and glinting and cold-looking. Levine inhaled deeply, glad to be alive, barely even conscious of the straps around his shoulders and chest, under his shirt, holding the recording apparatus.
He strolled aimlessly on the dock for about fifteen minutes and then turned at the sound of a beep-beep to see a small inboard motorboat bobbing next to the dock, with Banadando at the wheel. Banadando gestured, and Levine crossed over to stand looking down at him. “Come aboard,” Banadando said. “We’ll go for a run on the bay.”
Clammers and fishermen were in other small boats dotting the bay. Long Island was five miles or so to the north, the barrier beach called Fire Island was just to the south, and Banadando’s boat — Bobby’s Dream was the name painted on the stern in flowing golden letters — was simply another anonymous speck on the dancing water.
Bobby’s Dream was compact but comfortable, its cabin — where Levine now sat — containing a tiny galley-style kitchen, cunning storage spaces, a foldaway table and a pair of long upholstered benches that converted to twin beds. “Nice, huh?” Banadando said, coming down into the cabin after cutting the engine and dropping anchor.
“Very clever,” Levine said.
“That, too,” Banadando agreed. Today he wore a longbilled white yachting cap edged in gold, the bill shielding his eyes as yesterday’s hat had done. In blue blazer, white scarf and white pants, he was almost a parody of the weekend yachtsman. Sitting on the bench across from Levine, he said, “After dark I take the inlet, I go out to the ocean, I sleep in comfort and safety. Nobody knows where I am or where I’ll be next. I land where I want, when I want. Until I leave town, this is the safest place in the world for me.”
“I can see that,” Levine said.
“You wired?”
“Of course,” Levine said.
Banadando shook his head, smirking a bit. “We all go through the motions, right? You know I know you’re gonna be wired, so I know you know I won’t say anything you can use. But still you got to go through the whole thing, strap it on, walk around like a telephone company employee. You broadcasting or taping?”
“Taping,” Levine said, wondering if Banadando would insist on being given the tape.
But Banadando merely smiled, saying, “Good. If you were broadcasting, we’d be too far out for your backup to read.”
“That’s right. Mr. Banadando, we—”
Banadando made a face. “I figured you’d find that out, who I am, but I don’t like it. How many cops know about our little conversation?”
“Four, including me. We’re already aware of the existence of rotten apples. Don’t worry, we won’t alert Polito through the department.”
“Don’t tell me not to worry, Mr. Levine.”
“Sorry.”
“You’re a long time dead.”
“I agree,” Levine said.
Banadando took from an outside pocket of his blazer a sheet of white typewriter paper folded into quarters. Opening this, smoothing it on the tabletop, he turned it so the handwriting faced Levine. It was large block-printed letters in black ink. He said, “You see all this?”
“Yes?”
“I’m not giving you this paper, you’re remembering it. Or you’ll listen to your tape, later. You see what I mean?”
Levine looked at him. “Why do you think I’m going to be in that much trouble, Mr. Banadando?”
“Because I don’t know how smart you are,” Banadando said. “Maybe you’re very dumb. Maybe one of the three cops you talked to is right now on the phone to Giacomo. Maybe you get nervous in the clutch. Maybe all kinds of things. I can’t see the future, Mr. Levine, so I protect myself from it just as hard as I can. Okay?”
“Okay,” Levine said.
Banadando’s fingertip touched the first word on the sheet of paper. His hands were thick and stubby-fingered, but very clean, with meticulously-groomed nails. The effect, however, was not of cleanliness but of a kind of doughy unhealthfulness. “This,” Banadando said, his sausage finger tapping the word, “is a telephone number.”
Levine frowned. The word, all alone near the top of the sheet, was THIRSTY. “It is?”
“The phone dial doesn’t just have numbers,” Banadando reminded him. “It has letters. Dial those letters. You’ll call just after noon today; this is back in the city, it’s a city number.”
“All right.”
“You got to call no later than ten past twelve, or he won’t be there.”
“All right.”
“When the guy answers, you tell him you’re Abe. That’s all he knows about you, that’s all he needs to know. He’ll tell you does he have the stuff yet or not. If it’s no, he’ll tell you when to call again.”