Cruez was just standing there looking like one of Zapata's banditos. You could hack at his face with an ax and probably not notice the difference afterward. He didn't worry Crease, but he might get in the way just enough to trip him up.
Tucco took off the shades. He wanted to show off the death glare, try to really spook the shit out of Crease. It wasn't going to work but you had to go through these little games, it was just the way that they had to be.
Those black, blank eyes focused on Crease now, Tucco's face empty of all emotion.
"You want to know what I did to her after you left?" Tucco asked. His voice was utterly empty, meaning it was supposed to be serious. But Crease knew he was really laughing inside, still making his own fun.
"I already know," Crease said.
"I cut her." Tucco tried to smile and his lips barely quivered. "I took her nose first. It happened so fast she didn't even know it was gone for a minute. There was nothing but a hole there and I could look all the way back into her head. You think you'd still want to fuck her without a nose? I don't think so. I think you'd throw up. Then I hacked off a few of her fingers. Not too many, just a couple. I left her her thumbs, so she can still open bottles of beer and shit. But they were important to me, those fingers, right? You know what I mean. I didn't like that she'd been touching you with them."
Crease said, "You didn't do anything to her."
"I slit her tongue up the middle, turned her into a snake. Kinda sexy really, I think I'm starting to get a little kinky in my old age, the two pieces slithering around in her mouth. Last, I took her eyes. Those gorgeous eyes, man, and you know I'm someone who appreciates a woman's eyes. The way they twinkle, the way a sexed-up mama gives you that hooded lid look, right, when she's trying to get you into bed. I still got 'em, in a little jar back at home, if you want to see them. Sitting there, the cook serving me, I have the jar next to me, tell it how my day went."
Crease gestured to the Bentley. "You left your window open."
"What?"
"I can see her in the back seat drinking, looks like a scotch on the rocks. Not that I'd ever believe you'd hurt her. Not even if her fingers did touch me."
Tucco turned and looked back at the car, tilted his head a little to see Morena in the back staring at them, sipping her drink. It was funny and it wasn't funny. She caught Crease's eye and the old familiar ache climbed back into his chest.
Tucco said, "Yeah." His hands started to move. "I'm gonna reach into my pocket for a cigarette."
"No," Crease said. "You're not." Instead, Crease drew his own pack and proffered it.
"What's this? Are those… Jesus Christ, are those menthol?"
"All the store had left."
Tucco waved them away. "You're making me sad, seeing you like this. How'd this happen to you?"
It was a good question, Crease thought. He still wasn't any closer to an answer.
"You in this place, I'm finding it hard to believe."
"I do too."
The smell of burning leaves drifted through the air. Tucco stared off at the hills in the horizon. "So where'd you bury that other one I sent after you?"
"Jinga's boy? I sent him home."
"You did? How'd he get there?"
"I gave him some cash to pay his way on a truck."
It tickled Tucco so much that he almost let out a laugh. You couldn't ask for more from him. Just seeing a flash of his teeth was like outright hysteria in anybody else. "If Jinga hears that story he'll kill the idiot himself. And you know the imbecile is gonna tell him."
"Seriously, you offered him twenty g's to ice me? You couldn't keep it even slightly realistic?"
"He was a moron to believe me. That Jinga, he hires some stupid people. Not my fault that these dimwits expect every fairy tale you tell them to come true. Besides, I knew he wouldn't get the drop on you. I didn't want him to."
That sounded like the truth. This whole thing, it was just Tucco-and Crease too, he had to admit it-having more fun while they both ramped themselves up, got the adrenaline going. You couldn't take things too seriously in the life, not even while somebody was getting waxed in front of you. While machine guns stitched the walls around you and you hid behind an end table no thicker than cardboard. You always had to take it easy, find the humor in the moment, even if there was none.
"You need much longer to do what you came here to do?" Tucco asked.
"I don't know."
That was an affront. It was squirrelly, not giving an answer. It made Tucco purse his lips and go, "Humph."
Crease lit one of the menthols and took a drag. Jesus, it was like smoking cough drops. "Another couple of days, nothing you can't deal with. Watch the leaves for a while longer. Maybe you can figure out a way to break new territory up here, get some guys in the truck stop to work for you. Get some kickback with smuggling over the border."
"Canada, yeah. Big thing now is wetbacks coming up from south of the border, and Asians coming in from north of the border. Getting guys with 18-wheelers, hauling freight… plenty of room for fifty, sixty chinks trying to start a new life."
"See, you can be benevolent. Asians will be naming their kids after you. Tucco Lee."
Tucco's brow started to knot at the thought of it, until he realized Crease was just fucking with him. "So, this thing you have to do here. It has to do with your father? And how you came down to New York, and why you're a narc?"
"In a way, yeah."
"Good, get it squared, then we'll square up, see where we stand."
Crease said, "I'm going to get in the back of the Bentley and talk with her. Give us some privacy."
Tucco was too slick to show he was pissed about it. It went back to how he liked to be pushed right to the edge.
But Cruez swung out in front of Crease and tried to block him, which was the totally wrong move to make. He'd juked the show. Tucco was playing it so cool, and now he had to extend that cool to Cruez too. You could see it got under Tucco's skin a little, having to go the extra yard and put his arm on the monolith and ease him back. It put too much attention on the scene and too much focus on the fact that Crease was getting what he wanted.
Tucco said, "Sure, you get yourself a drink too, all right? Got everything you could want back there." Knowing Crease didn't drink but making the offer anyway. "Your old man, he liked whiskey, right?"
"The cheaper the better." Grinning, Crease let the cigarette dangle. When you had a pose you liked to hit you had to stick with it. "This will only take a minute."
"Take your time in my car, with my woman, man. What's mine is yours."
There was a time when it was true. Tucco wouldn't deny Crease anything. It was part of the action, dangling everything you owned in front of your crew's faces. See which one of them would leap for the bait, which ones wouldn't.
The ones that wouldn't were more greedy. They were only biding their time until they could get it all. The ones who acted like they didn't want anything, those you got rid of first.
Chapter Eight
Crease got in the back of the Bentley and rolled the window up. He turned and Morena was sitting there with the glass in her hand, tinkling ice cubes. First thing he wanted to tell her was that she shouldn't be drinking now that she was pregnant. It sounded ludicrous even to himself.
She said, "I don't know what to call you."
She'd known him by the other name. He'd had that name for the last two and a half years, up until only a few days ago, but he couldn't remember what it was now.
He said, "My name is Crease."
He wondered what would happen next. If she'd throw the drink in his face, slap him, or sidle into his arms. And how he'd react. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do. Kiss her, clasp her hand, press a palm to her belly, start going kitchy-kitchy coo, kitchy coo.