“That’s really why we didn’t hunt so hard for Teddy,” said Joey. “Would you?”
“But it ruined everything,” said Charlie. “All the dreams, they died with her. Hugo left a few weeks later, Ralphie and Joey just hung on. I knew someone who knew someone, and I figured I was only good for one thing anymore, so I passed the word about locks and safes, and soon I was doing it all again and again with them Warrick brothers, but it never felt the same.”
I was sure it didn’t. There was something so ecstatic about the story of five neighborhood guys pulling off the crime of the century that the aftermath had never made much sense. Teddy and Hugo had altered their names in an attempt to obliterate their pasts, and now I knew why. Ralph and Joey hadn’t moved forward at all in their lives, and now I knew why. Charlie’s life had turned into an absolute wreck, and now I knew why. At the heart of their effort to reinvent themselves was the worst of all crimes, the murder of a child, and how could anything bright and shiny come from that?
I lifted my arm to the candlelight, checked my watch. “We have to go. Do you have what you need, Rhonda?”
“Sure. Thank you. It’s quite a story.”
“Hold it like you promised,” I said. “And when I’m ready, I’ll tell you who Teddy Pravitz became in his new life after the robbery.”
“Will it be interesting?” she said.
“It will be on the front page, is what it will be, and get you your full-time gig. Now can you do me a favor and take Monica home?”
Rhonda turned to Monica, who was still in tears and who seemed lost in some strange emptiness. “Of course.”
“No,” said Monica. “I’m staying with Victor.”
“It’s going to be dangerous. I don’t want you around.”
“Are they going to dig up that basement tonight?”
“Probably,” I said.
“Then I’m going.”
“Monica-”
“Don’t even, Victor,” she said. “It’s my sister. Someone from her family should be there.”
I thought about it for a moment, realized there was nothing I could do to change her mind, and nodded.
“Go on ahead,” said Rhonda. “I’ll clean up.”
And so we left her at the table as the four of us made our way slowly to the back of the ruined shed and climbed into the borrowed green taxicab. Monica sat in the back, leaning against the door and as far away from Charlie as she could. Charlie leaned forward, wringing his hands. Joey nervously tapped the wheel with his fingers. I pulled out my cell phone.
“Where to now, Victor?”
“Home,” I said as I pressed the button for Beth’s cell. Just as we were about to pull away, I saw Rhonda, clutching her pocketbook and coming toward the car. “Hold up,” I said to Joey as I closed the phone.
Rhonda leaned into my car window, her elbows on the sill. “Can I ask one more question?” she said. “Something I forgot to bring up?”
“Go ahead,” I said.
“Charlie. You said that Teddy gave you the Rembrandt, but you never said what you did with it.”
I turned to look at Charlie, shook my head. “He doesn’t know what happened to the painting,” I said. “It disappeared.”
“Really?” said Rhonda. “No idea?”
“I have an idea,” said Charlie. “A pretty damn good idea.”
“Charlie, be quiet.”
“No, Victor. Joey don’t want nothing more to do with that painting, and neither does I.”
“Are you sure?”
“Let it go back to the damn museum. Every penny would only make me sick. You told me I can’t start new without paying for my past. How could I start new with a wallet full of cash from what happened?”
I thought for a moment, let the familiar disappointment roll through me, and then I realized how right he was. “Okay, Charlie. Go ahead and tell her.”
“So where is it?” said Rhonda.
“Is Ralphie’s workbench still in the basement?” said Charlie.
“Yes, it is,” I said.
“It was made up of plumber’s cast-iron pipes and wooden beams. I pried up a beam, slipped it in one of them pipes, and hammered the beam back down. It should still be there.”
“How fabulous,” said Rhonda.
“That doesn’t get printed until I give the okay.”
“I promise,” said Rhonda.
Just then she leaned forward into the window, leaned in and faced me as if to give me a huge kiss. I felt a little awkward about kissing her in front of everyone after everything we had heard, but then her face kept moving until it was past me. She reached out, grabbed the car keys with her right hand, killed the engine, pulled back with the keys in her hand until she was once again leaning on the car window.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“I’m sorry, Victor, but I can’t let you go.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s not what I get paid for, sweetie,” she said as she reached her left hand into her purse, pulled out a neat automatic, and placed the tip of the muzzle right at my head.
66
I figured it out right away, exactly what was happening. As Charlie cursed at the sight of the gun and Monica gasped and Joey laughed, the truth of it clicked in my head, left, right, left, oh, crap. I might not be the sharpest spade, but put a gun to my head and I sharpen considerably.
He had sent her from the start, Teddy had. She was the friend from Allentown. Rhonda, not some old grizzled vet, she was the left-handed dispatcher of both Ralphie Meat and Stanford Quick, now here to wipe out Charlie, and Joey, and then me. Monica had met Teddy in California, so she’d have to go, too. Who’s next? We were next, the four of us, and I had delivered us all to her like sacrificial lambs on the altar of my stupidity.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t checked her out. I had called Newsday, I had asked if there was a Rhonda Harris who reported for them on the art beat, they assured me there was. But I hadn’t asked for a description, and how hard is it for a clever hit girl to steal an identity for as long as it takes to get the job done? And I should never have doubted, for even an instant, that someone was out there to wipe away Teddy’s problems in his old hometown. The one thing I had learned about him was that he never went with just a single option. Always have a backup plan, kid, or the vultures here will eat you alive, had said Theodore Purcell, and now his backup plan was pointing a gun at my face.
“Does this mean you’re not writing a book?” I said as I frantically tried to figure out what the hell to do.
“Why would I worry over words when this is so much simpler?” she said.
“No agent? No proposal? No advance? I thought we had a future together.”
“Oh, Victor,” she said as she waggled the gun at me. “We do. It’s just going to be very short.”
“What’s going on?” said Monica. “Victor?”
“She’s going to kill us.”
“Of course she’s going to kill us. But why?”
“It’s payback for what we done to your sister,” said Joey. “Karma with a gun.”
“Chantal wouldn’t have wanted that.”
“But it’s what she’s getting,” said Rhonda. “And after what I heard, I think I’m doing everyone a favor.”
“You look good for a Korean War vet,” I said.
“That’s my father,” she said. “But with two false hips, he doesn’t get around so well anymore, so I took over the family business. One step up from animal control.”
“You led them to me again, you idiot,” said Charlie.
“I guess I did.”
“As a lawyer you might be okay, Victor,” said Charlie, “but as a bodyguard, you’re the-”
Before he could finish, I jerked up the door latch and slammed the door with all the strength in my shoulder. I expected to feel the weight of her bang away from the taxi, but she did a graceful sidestep as the door swung wildly open. I almost tumbled to the ground, held up only by my seat belt, when the door swung back and smacked me in the head.