“That one still doesn’t fit,” I said.
“Unless Bobby Toms wanted to throw us off,” Richie said, “and didn’t care how he did it.”
“Remember, Susan Silverman says that what might seem like a pathology to us likely makes perfect sense to him,” I said.
“The avenger,” Richie said.
“But avenging what?” I said.
We had circled all the way back there.
Richie drank some of the coffee I had made for us. When he put his cup down, he seemed to be at rest. I knew better. Knew him well enough to know how fiercely he was fighting to maintain composure. He was Desmond Burke’s son, as much as he had been kept separate from the family business. He was Felix Burke’s nephew. As different as he was from them, he was of them.
He blew out some air, unclenched his fists, and gently rubbed Rosie’s head.
“This will work,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“You’re convinced Albert knows where Desmond is being held and that Desmond really is still alive,” Richie said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Felix didn’t even attempt to deny he had the guns,” Richie said.
“He say where?”
“‘In a creative place’ is all he said. And said he would tell us where when Desmond was safe.”
“But his word is good on turning them over?”
Richie nodded.
“Good,” I said.
“Obviously your father knows where they are, too,” I said.
“They would have to kill him before he’d tell,” Richie said.
“Because he won’t give them the satisfaction?” I said.
“Because he’s Desmond Fucking Burke,” Richie said.
There was another silence between us. We both drank whiskey. Finally Richie said, “I very much want you to be right about all of this.”
“I am,” I said.
“And you still believe that we can rescue my father before it is too late?”
“Who better than us?” I said.
Sixty-Five
The diner, a dive called Jake’s, was up the road from a sports bar on Bay Street called Home Plate.
It served a breakfast and lunch crowd and was generally closed, we had learned, by four in the afternoon at the latest. The original Jake was an old Providence friend of Albert Antonioni’s. The family still ran it but were long gone by the time the principals and their seconds arrived at a little after nine o’clock. That part of the deal had quickly been brokered by Antonioni’s people.
Pete Colapietro had called the Taunton cops and told them to ignore lights inside if they were passing by, telling them there was a meeting taking place that might help him close the books on what he told them was some major shit.
“I am taking it on trust,” he’d told me, “that this isn’t going to turn into Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.”
“Okay,” I’d said.
“Okay meaning it won’t,” Pete had said, “or that you’re hoping it won’t?”
“Little of both.”
“What I was afraid of.”
Richie and I were in one of the two cars parked up Bay Street. Tony had brought Ty Bop and Junior with him. Albert had brought two of his own troopers. That was the deal.
Tony had chuckled speaking to me from his car and said, “I know that old man tougher than a cheap steak. But he don’t know that even though the sides look even, they not.”
“What do you know about cheap steaks?” I said.
“You forget, Sunny Randall,” he said. “I wasn’t always slicker than shit.”
He knew that he had about half an hour to conclude his business and then we were coming in. Albert Antonioni had once told me that if I wanted to take him on, I needed to bring an army. So I had brought a small one.
At a quarter to ten o’clock, Richie and I walked through the front door of Jake’s at the same moment that Spike and Vinnie Morris came through the door from the kitchen, both with guns in their hands. Vinnie had a .44. Spike had a Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter that I was fairly certain was new.
Junior and Ty Bop and Albert’s men looked at Spike and Vinnie. Tony Marcus and Albert looked at Richie and me.
“Don’t,” Vinnie said to the other shooters in the room.
“We need to talk,” I said to Tony and Albert, but Tony knew I really only wanted to talk to Albert.
Tony spoke first.
“You just made a whole lot of fucking trouble for yourself, girl,” Tony Marcus said, playing it as well as Denzel would have.
“Well, yeah,” I said. “But let’s face it, that’s not the first time you’ve told me that.”
“This wasn’t part of no deal,” Tony said.
“You’re a businessman, Tony,” I said. “Did you think I was going to let Felix Burke cut you in on this gun deal and get nothing in return?”
“Why isn’t Felix here?” Tony said.
“Because I am,” Richie said.
Albert looked across the booth at Tony.
“You didn’t tell me she was in this,” he said.
“All due respect, Albert,” Tony said. “Just ’cause we about to do business don’t mean I got to tell you all my business.”
Richie and I stood in the middle of the room. Richie had said nothing. By instinct I looked over at where Ty Bop was standing near the counter. I knew that he knew how much of this was show. But I also knew that he had the jangled nerves and attention span of a hummingbird. So I was hopeful that he was still processing that in the moment Richie and Spike and Vinnie and his boss — and me — were all on the same team.
“Deal’s off,” Albert said, and started to slide out of the booth.
“Don’t,” Vinnie said again.
“I know who you are,” Albert said.
“So don’t,” Vinnie said.
“What,” Albert Antonioni said to me, “you just gonna hold us here?”
“I just think of this as an extension of the negotiations that I assume you and Tony have now concluded,” I said.
“This ain’t your business,” Tony said, still acting, and still selling it like a champion.
“Think of this as my commission,” I said. “As I understand it, you are getting a whole new territory for your prostitution business, a territory you say you have sought for some time. In return, Albert is about to make a killing, so to speak, on the biggest bulk shipment of illegal guns ever to make its way into New England. My ex-husband and I want nothing to do with any of that. But we do want a little somethin’ somethin’ in return.”
I looked at Albert. “I’m curious about something,” I said. “If you wanted Desmond and Felix’s guns so badly, why didn’t you just take them, and not go after the Burke family this way?”
There was something completely reptilian now in Albert’s eyes as he stared at me.
“The first time I ever met you was during that thing with Brock Patton and his daughter, remember?” he said. “You and your husband and Desmond and me. I never told you, because it wasn’t shit you needed to know, it was between Desmond and me. But there was a price tag came with me leaving you alone. He never talked about it with anybody else. I never talked about it with anybody else. But the price tag was that Desmond would leave the gun business to me.”
I looked at Richie. He shook his head, like it was news to him, too.
“We had an understanding,” Albert said. “Now all this time later, he breaks it. I couldn’t let that stand.”
“I get that,” I said. “But why wait this long?”