Bobby shrugged his shoulders. “Once I told him, I couldn’t take it back, not if I wanted to keep breathing.”
“Not if Jimmy Ding Dong knew about it.”
“No excuses, but even after Tony mentioned drugs I thought the worst I’d be doing was moving some pot. Not even you could get bent outta shape over a little pot. I swear, I didn’t know it was heroin until I moved the first load. I told Tony I didn’t like it, but he just told me that was too bad for me, that I should just take the money and keep my mouth shut, so that’s what I did.”
“I thought you two were old pals, you and Tony P,” I said.
“Guys like Tony and Jimmy, they don’t have friends. They see you as an asset or a liability.”
“Better to be a living asset than a dead liability.”
“Especially with drugs. Drugs are big money, Moe. Big as in huge block letters in neon lights. Big as in Times Square on New Year’s Eve big.”
I was curious. “How much have you made?”
His face lit up in spite of himself. That always happened when he talked money. “A hundred grand, give or take, and that’s just from the deal itself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ve invested almost all of it in the stock market. It’s already up to almost half a million.”
“Such blasphemy,” I said with mock scorn. “Karl Marx is spinning in his grave.”
“Fuck Karl Marx.”
“What about Samantha?”
Bobby didn’t like that. “What’s Sam got to do with this? Why bring her name up?”
“Because you got her killed, you asshole. That’s her badge on your chest. Sam was a cop.”
He sat up in bed and swung his legs over the side. “What the fuck are you talking about, Moe?”
I pulled the letter out of my pocket and threw it at him. “Read up, Bobby.”
As he did, I explained to him how I’d gone to Koblenz, and about the discrepancy in her age. I told him about Sam’s dad being a Pennsylvania state trooper, and how Sam had wanted to follow in his footsteps.
“It all adds up,” I said. “She was determined to be a cop, only no one knew about it. See there in the letter, where she explains that she was recruited to be in a special program to infiltrate radical groups using nontraditional means to finance their agendas. And when she hooked up with you, she thought she had hit the daily double. You were connected with every radical group at Brooklyn College and with major heroin trafficking. Just one problem. She fell in love with you. She had enough evidence on you to put you away for a hundred years, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.”
Bobby just stared at the letter, open-mouthed, stunned. Then in a whisper, said, “But the bomb, who did — ”
“Jimmy Ding Dong is my guess. C’mon, Bobby, think. Tony had to protect his interests. He couldn’t afford to let Samantha fuck up your sweet deal. See in the letter where Sam talks about the investigation being compromised, and that she couldn’t be sure who to trust anymore. I bet you if you find out who was in her unit, you’ll find a crooked line back to Tony P.”
“Huh?”
“That apartment she lived in, some guy claiming to be her father rented it for her. Only it wasn’t her father. It was another cop. If her landlady hadn’t forgotten about the suitcase Sam had stored in her attic, Sam’s death would’ve gone down forever as a screw-up by some half-assed radical group. Don’t you see, Bobby? Susan Kasten had nothing to do with Sam’s death. For all we know, Sam and Marty just went for a hot dog at Nathan’s that night and had no idea the bomb was in the car. The only explosives the Committee had were the dummy explosives you supplied them with, but it wasn’t dummy explosives that blew up Sam and Marty all to hell. It was Tony P protecting you, his cash cow. That’s why Jimmy Ding Dong tried to run me off the road in Pennsylvania. They thought I was on to something about Sam. The irony is that if Jimmy hadn’t tried to kill me, I probably would’ve put down my trip to Koblenz as a painful waste of time.”
“But why didn’t the cops do a better investigation if Sam was one of their own? They always go nuts when another cop gets killed.”
“Because no one knew she was a cop. That was the whole point. Read the letter again. Her name wasn’t on the books, she got paid in cash, and she had only one contact whose real name she didn’t even know. It protected her from being exposed, and it protected the cops who could deny any connection to her. I hope that half a million dollars was worth it to you, Bobby.”
“Do you want some of it, Moe? I’ll cut you in for half. You and your brother can go into business, take care of your folks, never have to worry about anything again.”
I felt myself squinting at him in disbelief. I couldn’t quite believe I’d heard what Bobby had just offered. “Are you outta your fucking mind? I don’t want your blood money, Bobby. Forget all the junkies whose lives you and Tony are ruining. You can probably rationalize that away, but you can’t rationalize away what happened to Sam. You’ll be repaying that debt the rest of your miserable fucking life.”
“You’re right,” he said, swallowing his words. “I’ll never stop repaying it. I promise.”
“Well, it’s over now. I won’t turn you in, Bobby. I should, but I won’t. Tony P would have you killed the second you got inside because he could never trust that you wouldn’t rat him out. I don’t want that on my conscience too. I figure you’ll have to run anyway because without your magic get-out-of-jail number, you’ve become a liability to Tony. Either way, you’re fucked.” I turned to go.
“There’s one problem,” Bobby called after me.
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“It’s not over. I have one more run to do. That’s what Tony and Jimmy were doing here before, letting me know.”
“But you’re not protected anymore.”
He laughed. “You think they give a shit about that now? Besides, Moe, it’s not like I have a choice.”
“Yes, you do. You have to run anyway. Why not run now, before this last shipment? I’ll help you get out of here tonight and you can be on a flight to Mexico before they know you’re gone. With all your money, you can get to Europe and make a nice life for yourself. You’ll even have your guilt to keep you company.”
He shook his head no. “Can’t do it.”
“Why the hell not?”
“For one thing, even if I get away, you’ll still be here. And …”
“And what?”
“Tony and Jimmy have Lids.”
“How?”
Bobby shouted, “Hey, you told me to find Lids, right? Wasn’t it you who said I had all the connections? So I used my best connection, and Tony had the number you gave me traced. Tony said he would keep Lids safe. I had no reason not to believe him. How the fuck was I supposed to know you’d gotten yourself tangled up in all this shit?”
He was right. When I asked Larry to help me find Lids, I hadn’t thought anything through. Now I’d helped deliver Lids into the hands of the man he feared most. After a moment of quiet came the revelation: Whether he did the one last drug run or not, Bobby, Lids, and I were all on the roster of the soon-to-be deceased. Bobby and I seemed to hit on that realization at about the same moment. We were both looking off into space and then, as it came to us both, we turned toward one another, our eyes locking together in mutual understanding and fear. If this was what seeing the future was like, I wanted no part of it. We are all born into this world under penalty of death, but we don’t walk around with destiny on our shoulders. Now I felt like I would snap in half under its weight. Bobby too, from the look of him.
I said it first. “We’re all dead, you know that, right?”
“I know. Tony P may be a fat gavone and a buffoon with his stupid magic tricks, but he’s not stupid. Believe me, the guy’s smarter than you think. He makes all kinda money.”
“That’s why we’re dead. He knew your deal with the cops was gonna come to an end sooner or later. What, did you think he was just gonna give up the drug trade and happily go back to car parts and fireworks?”