I started the car and pulled out hard. I drove away from that place fast, down the rutted, deserted road under a sky where faint streaks of gray light still showed in the west.
Chapter 7
By the time I got to Antonelli's the clouds had thickened. The stars had given up, and the moon was a nonstarter. Patches of fog stood sentinel-like in the trees on the other side of 30, up by Tony's house.
The parking lot was as empty as the sky. The outside lights were off and the red neon Bud sign was dark, but the inside lights were on. I tried the door. Locked. I rapped a quarter on the window. The curtain moved, showed me Tony's face, jaw tight. The curtain fell back into place as I went over to the door. Tony pulled it open, locked it behind me.
The tables from the back of the room had been piled on the ones in the front and the chairs pushed between them or dropped on top. A mop stood in a steaming bucket in the middle of the empty stretch of floor. The reek of ammonia was so strong it made my eyes water.
"What the hell are you doing?" I went around the room opening windows.
"Started downstairs. Couldn't stop." Tony's words came a little thick, a little slow. "Fuckin' cops left the place a mess, just walked out when they was through."
I came back to where he was standing. "I thought you'd be open."
"Woulda been," he nodded. "Started to. But . . ." He paused, looked at me. "This happen to you before, your line of work?"
"Bodies, you mean? Once or twice."
He went over behind the bar, took the bourbon off the shelf. The gin was already standing open on the bar. Tony brought the bottles and glasses over; I pulled two chairs from the pile. We sat, bottles on the floor beside us.
"Vultures," Tony said. He gulped a large shot, poured himself another. "Phone's been ringin' since I got back here. Couldn't take it."
I looked over at the phone. The receiver was dangling from its spiraled silver cord.
"Reporters. Every goddamn paper west of Albany must have nothin' to write about." More gin. "Coupla people wantin' to know could they help. Help with what?" He gestured around the room. "An' assholes. 'Hey, Tony, what happened?' 'Hey, Tony, heard you found a stiff in the basement.' 'Hey, Tony, heard your brother killed him.' Shit!" He shrugged. "I didn't open." His knuckles whitened around his gin glass. His voice got louder. "They been comin' around anyhow, bangin' on the door. Who the fuck they think they are, these guys?"
I drank in silence and he drank too, until the silence was both blurred and sharpened and talk was easier.
"Tony," I said quietly, "did Jimmy kill that guy?"
He looked at me for a long time. The gin had cleared everything from his eyes but pain. "Looks that way," he said finally. "Don't it look that way to you?"
"How it looks and what it is might not be the same,"
I said. "Let MacGregor and Brinkman worry about how it looks. Tell me what's going on, Tony."
He picked up his bottle; it was empty. He got up and got a new one, walking too carefully. "I don't know," he said. He sat heavily. "Little sonuvabitch said he was gonna stay clean. Stay away from Grice. Get a fuckin' job. He was scared, Smith. You saved his ass an' he knew he was lucky." He paused, drank. I lit a cigarette, got up, found an ashtray. "He met this girl, moved in with her. Nice kid. Didn't see him much after that. Funny thing, we was gettin' along better, the coupla times he did come around." He trailed off. His eyes roved over the silent room as though he were looking for something.
We drank. I waited a few minutes. Then, "Tell me the rest, Tony."
His face suddenly flushed. "What the hell for? Anything I say, you're gonna run to your buddy MacGregor. You gave him those fuckin' keys, Smith. What the hell'd you do that for?"
"I had to do that, Tony. You know I had to." I kept my voice even.
"Had to," he muttered, half to himself. "Motherfucker."
"Tell me the rest, Tony."
"Fuck," he said. He drained his glass. "Grice came here last night workin' that protection shit. He ain't never pulled that on me before. Maybe I ain't a big enough operation. Or maybe he figured chewin' on me would break his teeth. But last night he's tellin' me Jimmy's in deep shit, an' it's gonna cost me to keep it quiet. Cost me a piece of the action, long term. Action." He laughed
softly, without humor. "I told him to shove it. You was there for the rest."
"What kind of trouble did he say Jimmy was in?"
"Didn't say. What's the fuckin' difference?"
"Maybe it's not true. Maybe he was just fishing."
"My ass." He reached for the gin bottle, closed his hand on air. He tried again more slowly, picked the bottle up. The cold night air drifted through the room, drifted out again. It didn't take the ammonia smell with it. I wouldn't have, either.
"Jimmy's girl," I said. "Know anything about her?"
"Nice kid." He poured gin very slowly into his glass.
I leaned forward. "What's her name, Tony? Where does she live?"
He gave me an unfocused gaze. "Don't know. Somewhere."
"What's her name?"
"Nice name. Old-fashioned." He frowned. "Alice. Alice Brown ..."
"That's a song, Tony."
He stared defiantly, "s a name, too."
"Yeah, Tony, okay. Where does she live?"
"Alice Brown, Alice Brown, prettiest little girl in town. She sells seashells. No, she don't." He rubbed a hand along the side of his nose. "No, she don't. She sells pies. Georgie Porgie, puddin' an' pie—"
I took the gin glass from his hand. "Go on, Tony. Pies?"
"Pies, asshole." He reached for the glass; I put it on the floor. He slumped back in his chair, looked at me. "Pies. Blueberry, strawberry. Chocolate cake. Cookies, even."
"Where?"
"People eat 'em. Gimme my gin."
"Where?"
He frowned, didn't answer.
"All right," I gave him his glass. "Listen, Tony. I'm going to make a couple of calls and then we're going to close this place up and go home. Okay?"
He shook his head. "Gotta clean up. Smells bad in here. Smells like blood. Shit!" His eyes were suddenly wild. "In the cellar, Smith. There's a dead guy in the cellar!"
"No, there's not." I stood, put my hand on his shoulder. "There was. He's gone. It's okay, Tony."
He stared at me, unseeing. Then he turned his eyes away. "Fuck you," he said.
"Yeah." I walked to the bathroom. I ran cold water in the cracked sink, splashed it over my face and the back of my neck. That cleared my head. I came back out; the ammonia hit me again, cleared it even more.
I picked up the mop and the bucket, hauled them to the bathroom, dumped the scummy gray water down the toilet. Half a dozen flushes later the place was almost bearable. I left the door propped open and went to the phone.
I hung up the receiver, searched my pockets for change. I checked my wallet for Eve Colgate's number. She answered on the second ring.
"It's Bill Smith," I said. "I want to ask you a couple of questions."
"Where are you?" Her voice was low and measured, the way it had been last night. "Are you at Antonelli's? Is Tony all right?"
I looked over at Tony, slouched in the chair. He wasn't drinking now, just staring into the emptiness in front of him.
"He's drunk. He's okay. You heard?"
"My foreman. He said you ... found the body. It all sounded horrible. I'm sorry." She paused. "Not that sympathy does you much good."
"You'd be surprised," I said. "Thanks."
There was a short silence. Through the phone I could hear a Schubert piano sonata. The C Minor, written while Schubert knew he was dying. I'd never played it.
"You said you had some questions?" she prompted.
"Oh. Yeah." I cradled the phone against my shoulder so I could light a cigarette. "I found some silver today that I think is yours."
There was a very short pause, just a heartbeat. "Where? How?"
"An antique place near Breakabeen. I'll bring it over in the morning. But I wanted to ask you: do you know a girl, probably about sixteen? Golden hair, sparkling eyes, dazzling smile?"