Jorge returned to the bar, mop in hand. “Okay I start now?”
“Yeah,” Abe said, then grabbed a stack of envelopes from beside the cash register, walked to a booth at the rear of the bar, and began to do the bills. Casey McPherson had taught him to pay everything on time. That way, if you ever had a problem, the suppliers would cut you a little slack. Twenty years had passed since then, but Abe had yet to ask anyone to wait for the money or take less than what was owed. That’s the one thing he could say, the bar had sustained him. It paid for his apartment on Grove Street and the occasional night at some cabaret joint uptown. Those were the nights he lived for, a table alone, a dark room, a singer with a trio-piano, sax, bass-an ensemble so pure in Abe’s mind that there were moments, brief and a little scary, when the voice and the instruments joined in an arrangement so balanced, so inexpressibly right, it brought tears to his eyes. There were even a couple of times when he had actually hit that elusive mark himself, the unexpected D-flat he’d added at the end of his arrangement of “She Was Too Good to Me,” for example. Perfect. He looked up from the bills and remembered the sound of it, the way Lucille’s voice had curled around the note, so sad and lost and goddamn hopeless. That was a moment, he told himself now, smiling quietly the way he always did when he thought of something really good.
MORTIMER
The car swept up beside him before he’d even noticed it, but once he saw Caruso get out, he knew he was in deep shit.
“Hello, Morty,” Caruso said.
“Vinnie.”
“Let’s take a ride.”
Mortimer climbed into the car. “I’m gonna pay you, Vinnie,” he said.
“Oh, I know you are, Morty,” Caruso said.
Mortimer could see that Caruso was trying hard to add a hint of the psychopath, the idea that not only would he hurt you, he’d have a great time doing it.
“It’s just a question of whether you do it now or after you’ve maybe lost a piece of yourself,” Caruso added.
“Yeah, okay.”
Suddenly Caruso grabbed Mortimer’s left wrist and squeezed. “Spread your fingers.”
“Oh, come on, Vinnie…”
“Spread your fucking fingers!”
Mortimer gave in and spread his fingers, then watched as Caruso’s gaze snagged on his wedding band.
“A married man,” Caruso said. “Your wife love you, Morty?”
Mortimer shrugged.
Caruso released Mortimer’s hand. “So here’s the thing. You’re down fifteen grand. So I ask myself, has Morty got that kind of cash? And I say to myself, I don’t know and I don’t fucking care. ’Cause if Morty don’t have it, he’s gonna get it. He’s gonna pay me. I’m right about that. I know I am. Because you’re not stupid, Morty. And you know what happens to a guy if he don’t pay me. Right?”
Mortimer nodded dully.
“So what are we looking at? Week?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Good,” Caruso said. He seemed glad that it was over, as if the psycho act were a heavy load he was happy to lay down. “So, we’re clear then.”
“We’re clear,” Mortimer said.
The car stopped and Caruso reached over and swung open the door on Mortimer’s side. “So, you feeling okay, Morty?” he asked like a guy who’d hurt another guy’s feelings and was now looking to make up.
“I’m fine,” Mortimer said a little sourly, but only because the pain had suddenly swept in again, reminding him of the little time that remained, and all the time before it that he’d wasted, and how time was like a river that swept you along invisibly, taking some people to nice well-lit places and others into the deep dark wood.
STARK
The scotch was warm, and he settled back in the high leather chair and listened to Brahms’s violin concerto, the final movement, where all the yearning was. So much yearning, he thought, the lone violin seemed to reach ever upward, toward some impossible height of unquenchable desire. To be captured by such longing for even the briefest moment, he knew, could change a man forever.
He closed his eyes and she was with him.
Marisol.
The odd truth assailed him once again, the fact that he’d traveled the world only to find the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen lounging in a small bar in Chueca, on the dark side of Madrid.
It had begun as business, just another day in the life of one whose job it was to find the scattered pieces of broken lives. Runaway partners, children, husbands, wives, people he tracked down and bought back to what they’d shattered when they left-homes, businesses, a lolling sense of trust. He’d always understood that it was not his job to put anything back together-blasted families, companies, estates. He simply brought back the ones who’d fled the destruction so that they could face whatever punishment or reconciliation his clients had in mind.
He remembered the small packet of information Lockridge had given him.
Lockridge, who claimed to be Marisol’s lover.
Lockridge, who claimed to want her back because he loved her so.
Lockridge, who said he only wanted a chance to talk to Marisol, apologize, beg her to return.
Lockridge, who swore that if Marisol refused to go back to him, he would let her go.
There’d been a photo of the woman in question, but it hadn’t done her justice. A beauty like hers was rare and deep, but it was not the beauty of a fashion model or a movie star. Nothing about her appearance seemed the product of oils and powders, the right slant of light. Her loveliness made its own light, and this light flowed over her like a stream.
“She’s a seductress,” Lockridge had written along the margin of the photograph, “so be careful.”
Careful, Stark thought now, lifting the glass to his lips again as he recalled the moment he’d first seen her in the flesh, the way she’d looked at the little wrought-iron table in Chueca, her long, slender fingers curled around a glass of red wine to which she’d just added a burst of Casera water. Her black skirt fell well below her knees, and her plain white blouse was knotted at the front and open just enough so that the orbs of her brown breasts were slightly visible.
Her coal-black hair had thrown off small white flashes when she’d turned her head at his approach, and as he’d drawn near, he’d seen tiny drops of sweat along her upper lip. But it was her eyes he most remembered when he remembered her-dark, oval, with a hint of ancient coastal towns about them. “ Buenas tardes, senor ” was all she’d said.
TONY
He sat behind the wheel and stared at the house, the unlighted windows, the motionless curtains, the Explorer that rested in the otherwise vacant driveway, everything just as Eddie had described it after he’d gotten back to the marina.
She was gone. The pain of her leaving turned instantly to a wild, inchoate anger, so that he flew out of the car and strode across the lawn and bolted into the house as if carried on a boiling wave.
Once inside, he slammed through the first floor, checking each room, then stormed up to the second floor, where he did the same. In the bedroom he made no move to retrieve his clothes from the floor, his attention focused instead on the unmade bed, the way she’d left the sheets rumpled, the blanket sagging toward the floor.