“And then he senses something wrong. He stops, turns, calls out, something like ‘Johnny’ it was, and he calls it out again, but he gets no answer. When he turns around again we done stepped out of the shadows.
“There’s a moment when he figures out what is happening and then the strangest thing. You’d think he’d run, or come out swinging, or something. I was worried that maybe he’d be carrying and me, all I had was that stupid bat. But there’s this little smile comes on his face and he starts talking to us, you know, being all friendly. ‘How you guys doing? Nice night, isn’t it? Think we can work something out?’ Like he’s charming us, like he’s going to talk us out of it. But he’s not, is he? The other guy, he says to me, ‘Shut ’im up, Cheaps.’
“ ‘Shut ’im up, Cheaps.’ And sos that’s what I tries to do. One-handed is all, I don’t mean to hurt him much, I want to get him in the arm, shake him up. I bring the bat back with one hand and give it a swing. And I get him in the arm and he starts cursing at me and he swings that suitcase at me and he slams me, he slams me. He gets me on the shoulder and it hurts, and I get pissed at this little pissant and I want to shut him up. Sos I grab the bat with my other hand and I take it back and I was never much with a bat and sos I figure I better put some oomph into it. And so I does.
“And he ducks, and it’s like he ducks right into it.
“In Little League I couldn’t hit a basketball with a rake, but this time, with this swing, I get him flush on the face and something gives, I feel it, and down he goes, as if a string keeping him up had been cut, down he goes, like a magic trick. Except it isn’t magic, is it? I give the bat a swing and it smacks up against his head and the string is cut and he’s on the ground and there’s blood, shit. And then we see, see that, see that he’s, that he’s…”
“Say it,” I said.
“Fuck you, Victor.”
“You sure?”
“No doubt about it. Blood everywhere.”
“What happened to the body?”
“Splash, man, if you get the picture. Hey, don’t look at me like that. I been sick about it every day from the time it happened. It wasn’t supposed to be like it turned out. We was just supposed to take the suitcase from him, is all.”
“What was inside it?”
“I wasn’t supposed to know, we wasn’t supposed to open it. But we did, didn’t we? His keys was in his pockets, we was supposed to get them too, and so when we found them we opened the thing.”
“And?”
“Loaded to the gills.”
“With what?”
“Cash.”
“Joey.”
“And it was heavy, too.”
“What was this guy doing with all that cash?”
“Who knows? But he wasn’t up to no good, that’s for sure. Just the way he tried to charm us, the bastard, you could tell he was into something and thought he knew how to handle himself. Son of a bitch, if he just hadn’t of ducked.”
“What happened to the suitcase?”
“We was supposed to hand it up to the guy what hired us. But you see all that sitting in front of your face, what are you going to do? We’d been taking all the risks, and all for a measly three hundred each. Shit, Victor. The two of us what had done the thing loaded up our pockets, our crotches, our shirts, just stuffed in as much as we could. We ended with about ten grand apiece and you couldn’t really tell there was nothing missing, it was still that full. Then we locked it up again, and the guy what brought me in, he lugged it away.”
“Who was he?”
“Just someone. I don’t want to say. We go back.”
“To get out of this, you might have to tell his name to the DA.”
Joey shrugged.
“And this guy, he lugged the suitcase to where?”
“Don’t know. That was the job, to take the suitcase and deliver it on up. But the guy I was with said it would have to be buried after what I done with the baseball bat. That was twenty years ago and for twenty years there’s been silence. Until now.”
I leaned forward. “Tell me.”
“Last night. Late. They came around asking me about it, demanding answers, wanting to know who else was involved. They knew about the pier, they knew about this Tommy that we offed. And, Victor, they was looking for the suitcase. Two men, a sour face with a Brit accent what did all the talking, and some other, shiny-faced freak who stood stiffly with a cigarette in his fist and said nothing, not a freaking word.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Nothing. They wanted the name, too, but I gave them nothing. That’s why I got this decoration round my eye. But I always been stand-up, Victor. You know that.”
“Sure. Stand-up. So how’d they know about you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this, ever since it happened I ain’t said a word about it to no one. No one, understand? I ain’t like one of those peacocks strutting around, proud of who they offed. It made me sick, the whole thing. I look back, whatever I turned out it wasn’t what I was intending. You think I planned what I became. You think I planned three jolts in the joint. I was young, I didn’t know what I wanted. But after that, I couldn’t want nothing decent, you know? All I was fit for was what I ended up doing, small-time nothings with the occasional spectacular screw-up. But I thought this thing what happened was long over. I thought I was past it. And then, twenty years later they’re looking for the suitcase? What the hell’s that all about, Victor?”
I didn’t have an answer for him then – my advice had been to make a deal, to give the story and the name of his old pal to the DA, to pay the price and put the thing behind him, a suggestion he said he’d have to think about but that I figured he’d ignore – and I didn’t have an answer for him now, but I would find one, yes I would. On the last day of his life, Joey Parma had given me a sordid piece of his sordid past, and now that his throat had been slashed I couldn’t just give it back.
Joey Cheaps might have been a sad sack no-account who still owed me my fee, but he was a client. That means something, to be a client. It means he gets my loyalty, whether he deserves it or not. It means he gets my absolute best for the price of an hourly fee. It means in a world where every person has turned against him there is one person who will fight by his side for as long as there is a battle to be fought. And the final battle, far as I could see, was just beginning. So, I couldn’t just ignore what had happened, I couldn’t just ignore that my client was dead, that his killer was free, that his past had risen to swallow him whole. My life was imploding in on itself like the fizzling core of an atomic bomb, but a client was dead and something had to be done. Yes, something would have to be done.
But first things first.
Chapter 5
“YOU WANT SOME veal, Victor?”
“No, ma’am,” I lied. “I’m fine, thank you.”
“I made it last night. The whole family came. But I prepared too much. I have it left over. I will just have to throw away.”
“All right then,” I said. “If you’re just going to throw it away.”
“Good. Sit. And some baked rigatoni? And a sausage? You want me fry a sausage?”
“No, thank you, Mrs. Parma.”
“Are you sure? No trouble.”
“Well, if it’s no trouble.”
“Sit. You’ll eat and then we’ll talk. Like civilized people. Sit.”
I sat. It was no use arguing with Joey Parma’s mother when she decided you needed to be fed. You would eat and you would enjoy.
Mrs. Parma’s house was dark, the curtains drawn, the lights low. I could barely see my way into the kitchen to the little Formica table to the side, but Mrs. Parma, in a long housecoat and slippers, bustled about her territory with an assuredness born of long practice despite her failing sight. When she opened the refrigerator and bent down to feel for the platter of veal, the light illuminated the lines on her cheek, her lean prowlike nose, the dark circles beneath her eyes, the stoic tragedy of a woman who lost her son years ago and had just now gotten around to burying him.