“The book said no bugs.”
She laughed, and her laughter loosened something in him, a little knot of jumpiness and self-doubt.
He hazarded a smile. “New dress?”
She smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle with a quick sweep of her hand. “I thought it would be good for tonight.”
“It looks great,” Abe told her.
“The pearls are fake,” Sara said.
“But the face is yours, right?”
She laughed again, and again something loosened slightly inside him.
The waiter appeared. “Cocktails?”
“What’ll you have?” Abe asked.
“Vodka gimlet,” she said.
“Okay, the lady’ll have a vodka gimlet,” Abe told the waiter. “I’ll have straight rye.”
They talked idly until the drinks came, and watching her, listening to her, Abe felt himself falling and falling and knew no way to break his fall.
He lifted the glass the waiter had just set down. “So, what do we drink to?” he asked.
She lifted the gimlet, and he expected her to toast the new job or New York or, worst of all, “our friendship,” but she said simply, “To happy endings,” and touched the rim of her glass to his.
CARUSO
Labriola’s Lincoln rested like a huge blue coffin in the driveway of the house. Sitting in his car, Caruso could see the front window, the Old Man pacing back and forth behind it, usually with a can of beer in his fist. He wore a white sleeveless T-shirt, his huge, muscular arms fully exposed. He seemed to shake the house as he moved, and Caruso could not imagine how awesome his physical presence must have been to Tony, and how different from the feeling of utter vacancy Caruso had experienced after his father left, the empty chair at the kitchen table, the car missing, along with the money his mother kept in a shoebox in the closet, everything gone with the old man around that distant corner, the whole idea of Dad.
Briefly he replayed the conversation he’d had with Tony, all that stuff about maybe the Old Man wanting to be stopped, wanting Caruso himself to stop him, the whole thing some kind of bizarre test. He’d let himself believe the whole fucking story for just long enough to say yes to Tony, agree to meet him here, have yet another talk with the Old Man. But now he doubted every word of it. Now it all sounded like bullshit. The Old Man didn’t want to be stopped. The Old Man wanted… What did he want anyway? Sara Labriola dead, that’s what. But why? That was harder to figure out. What good would whacking Sara do? No good, Caruso reasoned, no good at all, to anybody. But maybe that was the point, Caruso thought, that it being good for something had nothing to do with it. The Old Man wanted it, that’s all. He wanted Sara dead. He hated her fucking guts and he wanted her dead. But why? Caruso wondered again briefly, then dismissed the thought. It didn’t matter why. The Old Man wanted her dead. End of story.
Caruso glanced in the rearview mirror. At any moment Tony’s car would pull up behind him, the headlights momentarily illuminating the dark interior where Caruso waited, smoking nervously, now convinced that it was all a bad idea, that he should never have agreed to meet him here. For what good would it do, after all? Labriola had told him what he had to do, given him the assignment he’d waited for all his life. He could feel the heaviness of the thirty-eight, cold and stonelike in his trousers pocket. He drew it out, threw open the cylinder, and stared at the single bullet Labriola had given him and which he’d dutifully inserted. One shot, that was all he had. He knew that this was part of the test, Labriola’s way of making certain that he placed the barrel directly at the back of Sara’s head before he fired. There could be no second attempt, no way to make it good if you fucked up the shot.
But what about all the things that could go wrong? Caruso asked himself. A person could suddenly shift right or left just as you pulled the trigger. A person could stumble and fall right in front of you and you’d be standing there like a complete asshole, the goddamn pistol in your hand and the person already on the ground. Standing there… with one lousy shot to do the job.
Tony’s words sounded in his mind. He’s not right, you know. He’s not right in the head. He decided that Tony had a point. The Old Man’s insistence on his having only one bullet in his piece, the way he’d carved that ugly word on its casing, all of that added up to a nuttiness that even Tony couldn’t guess. Okay, Caruso thought, so, yeah, Labriola has a screw loose, but that was no reason to be nutty yourself. And whacking somebody with only one bullet in your piece is as nutty as a guy could get. Fuck it, he thought, no way. Besides, how would Labriola know if he had just the one bullet or if he brought a fucking rocket launcher, as long as the job was done. With this conclusion, he leaned over, flipped open the glove compartment, grabbed five cartridges, loaded the pistol, then tucked it into the waistband of his trousers.
Tony arrived seven minutes later. From the rearview mirror Caruso watched as he got out of his car, walked over, and tapped at the window.
Caruso rolled it down, and a thick wave of smoke billowed out and up and was instantly torn apart by a sudden gust of wind.
“Thanks again, Vinnie,” Tony said.
Caruso looked at him sternly. “I’ll tell you something, Tony, you better talk to him good, because, you ask me, he ain’t in no mood to change his mind on this thing.”
“He hasn’t told you, has he?” Tony asked.
“Told me what?”
“Told you what that guy he hired is supposed to do once he finds Sara.”
“No,” Caruso said. The tight wad of steel nestled against his back seemed to move suddenly, shift and stir like an animal in its earthen hole. “No, he ain’t told me nothing about that.”
Tony appeared to believe him, though Caruso could not imagine why, since he’d lied and lied about this thing. And not just this thing either. He had lied and lied period. It was his way of life.
“So, anyway,” Tony said. “Thanks.”
Tony’s voice was completely different than Caruso had ever heard it. He seemed sad and broken and trapped like a rat, like a guy who’d lost the most important thing he had and could find no way to get it back. It was his wife he’d lost, of course, and for a moment Caruso wondered what it must be like to be that close to someone, want them to stay with you that deeply. Then he thought of his father… and he knew what Tony was going through. He wanted Sara back because nothing would ever be the same if she didn’t show up again. But so what, he thought, now hardening himself for the job he’d have to do if Tony didn’t get the Old Man to call it off. So what? He’d wanted his father to come back the same way Tony wanted this bitch wife of his to come back. But had he? Fuck, no. Same way with this wife of Tony’s. Just wanting somebody to come back didn’t mean they’d do it. And you were a sap if you thought it would. Tony was a sap, Caruso decided, and Mr. Labriola was right in despising the little prick.
He felt the pistol rustle again, jerked open the door, and got out of the car.
“Let’s get this shit over with,” he said sharply.
They passed through the gate, mounted the stairs, and stood silently together after Tony rapped at the door.
Standing in the darkness of Labriola’s porch, Caruso felt the pistol against his backbone. It seemed rough as bricks, and as the seconds passed, it grew cold and weighty, heavier than the moon and stars, a vast, motionless planet, grim and unlighted, and he yearned for the moment when the job was finished and he could toss it over the Verrazano Bridge and be done with it.
The porch light flicked on, and frozen in its harsh light, Caruso felt utterly exposed, as if he’d already been nabbed by the cops and hauled in for a lineup, eyes watching him from behind the glare, picking him out, sealing his fate. He could almost hear the whispers of the witnesses who’d seen him do it. Yeah, that’s him. I know because of that little mustache. Caruso glanced toward the door, caught his translucent image in the glass. Before the hit, that fucking mustache had to go.