Eddie had turned around to find the little guy staring at him intently, the cigar lowered, the old Vinnie peering at him, almost sweetly, so that Eddie knew that Vinnie was remembering how Eddie had saved him from that bully so many years before. So, Eddie, how you doing, huh?
That was the moment, Eddie thought now, his large hands wrapped around the mug, that was the moment when he could have asked anything of Vinnie Caruso. If he’d been in debt, the money would have been there. If some guy had been giving him trouble-on the job, say, or anywhere else-that guy would have been spoken to by Vinnie or some thug Vinnie sent, and the trouble would have instantly gone away. But Eddie had only shrugged and said that he was doing fine. Then they’d shaken hands, and Vinnie had tapped the side of his head, and said his parting words, You was good to me, Eddie. And when somebody’s good to Vinnie Caruso, he don’t forget.
The problem was this. Eddie didn’t like asking favors. He didn’t like doing it ever, and normally wouldn’t have done it at all. You didn’t do a guy a good turn because you expected to get something back. The priests had taught him that. If you do good to get good, they’d told him, it wasn’t really good at all. But now, as he thought about it, he hadn’t helped Vinnie Caruso all those many years before because he’d expected to get something back. So it was okay, he figured, asking Vinnie for a favor now, as long as it was just this one.
Caruso came through the door with the peculiar swagger he’d adopted over the last few years, and which Eddie thought he’d probably gotten from mob movies, especially the one where this wiry little guy talks big and screws this gorgeous blonde, and backs up everything he says with sudden bursts of annihilating violence.
“Hey, Eddie,” Vinnie said brightly as he strode up to the booth. “How they hanging?”
“I’m good,” Eddie said. “Want a beer?”
“Nah,” Vinnie said. He stripped off his jacket and hung it on the metal hanger beside the booth. “I’m a scotch guy.” He snapped his fingers and the barmaid appeared. “You got Glenfiddich, sweetheart?”
“Yeah.”
“Two cubes. Three fingers.”
The barmaid looked as if she’d just bitten into a lemon. “Okay,” she said, then turned on her heel and disappeared.
“So, how you doing?” Vinnie asked.
“Good,” Eddie said. He took a sip of warm beer.
“At the marina, right? That was the last time?”
Eddie started to answer, but the barmaid returned with the scotch, placed it on a small paper square in front of Caruso, then stepped away.
Vinnie lifted the glass. “To old times.”
“Old times,” Eddie echoed.
The glasses clinked together and each man drank.
“You been waiting long?” Vinnie asked.
Eddie shook his head.
Vinnie leaned forward. “So, what’s on your mind, Eddie?”
There seemed no way to edge around it, close in slowly, so Eddie said, “You know about Tony, right? That his wife left him?”
“Yeah, I heard about it.”
“Tony says his father is trying to find her.”
Vinnie’s fingers tightened around the scotch. “So?”
“So I was wondering if he asked you to do it.”
Vinnie took a quick hit from the scotch, then set the glass down hard. “I don’t talk about business, Eddie.”
“That means yes, right?”
“That means I don’t talk about business is what that means.”
“The thing is, Tony’s spooked,” Eddie said.
“Spooked? Why?”
“ ’Cause he don’t know what his father has in mind.”
“For that wife of his?”
“Yeah. He don’t want nobody strong-arming her.”
“Who said anybody was gonna strong-arm her?”
“He’s afraid, that’s all,” Eddie said. “You know how Labriola is.”
“Mr. Labriola just wants to find his wife for him,” Caruso said. “Then he’ll tell Tony where she is and Tony, he goes and talks to her.”
“He told you that? The Old Man?”
“Yeah,” Caruso said.
“So you’re looking for her?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Caruso admitted. “But like I said, Mr. Labriola, he just wants they should talk, Tony and his wife, work things out, you know what I mean? Make nice. He don’t like it when things don’t go smooth.”
Eddie looked at Vinnie doubtfully.
“What?” Vinnie asked crisply.
“And if the wife didn’t want to make nice, you wouldn’t do nothing to her, would you, Vinnie?”
“What would I do?”
“You wouldn’t do nothing is what I’m asking.”
“Why you asking me that, Eddie?”
“I’m asking because suppose you find Tony’s wife and she don’t want to have nothing to do with Tony. What then?”
“What then?”
“What do you do?”
“To the broad, you mean?”
“Tony’s wife, yeah. Supposing you find her and she don’t want to..”
Caruso laughed. “Suppose I ain’t actually the guy looking is what you should be supposing.”
“You ain’t looking for her?”
“No,” Vinnie said. “Not me personal.”
“Who is?”
Vinnie laughed. “I ain’t sure myself. All I know is this. Mr. Labriola had me pay a guy to find Tony’s wife. So I did.”
“You paid a guy?”
“Paid him plenty.”
“What guy you pay, Vinnie?”
“A guy ain’t connected to Mr. Labriola or me or Tony or nobody else you ever heard of.” Caruso laughed. “Mr. Labriola mulled over some guys. Burt Marx, remember him? I told the Old Man, I said, ‘Burt Marx? That fucking guy couldn’t find a chink in Chinatown.’ ”
“So who’s looking? Who’s the guy?”
Vinnie suddenly glanced about nervously. “You think I can tell you that, Eddie?”
“Vinnie, you remember that night when we come up on each other there at the hotel?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“And we talked awhile, right, you and me? And then I got up to leave and you said, ‘So, Eddie, how you doing?’ Remember that?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, so, this is how I’m doing. I need to know who this guy is, Vinnie. The one looking for Tony’s wife.”
“What’s it to you?”
“It ain’t for me,” Eddie answered. “It’s for Tony.”
“What does he care who’s looking, long as she turns up?”
“He wants to know what’s going on, that’s all. It’s his wife, you know, so he wants to know.”
Caruso downed the last of his scotch. “Okay, suppose I give you this guy. What then?”
“I’ll keep an eye on him, that’s all.”
“Just you?”
“Yeah.”
Caruso laughed. “You can’t watch a guy twenty-four hours a day.”
“As much as I can, then. When he turns in, I’ll turn in.”
Caruso considered this for a moment, then said, “You know what Mr. Labriola would do to me, don’t you, Eddie?”
Eddie nodded.
“You get any idea the guy’s maybe getting suspicious, maybe catching on to you, you got to back off, you understand? And I mean fast, Eddie. You don’t look back. You just back off and he don’t see you no more.”
“Okay.”
Caruso plucked a cigar from his jacket. “ ’Cause let me tell you something, this guy, he’ll drop the deal he gets wind of something. And you know what would happen if this guy dropped the deal he has with Mr. Labriola?” He lowered his voice to a desperate whisper. “I’d have to whack him, that’s what.”
“You?”
Caruso lit the cigar and waved out the match expansively. “Who else would Mr. Labriola trust with a job like that?”