their loyalty to me since Carmella and I were the first people to hire them and teach them the ropes, but I’d already cashed in my goodwill marker and goodwill favors go only so far. No matter what people say, money talks and bullshit walks and those are the facts of life… Brooklyn style, anyway.
On the ride home from dropping Jimmy back at his car, the echoes of Declan Carney’s eloquence were replaced by doubts: doubts about my next steps and how much risk was too much risk. The risk, after all, wasn’t mine. I mean, I was taking the risk, yet it was Sashi Bluntstone who would pay if I fucked up. Had I been doing things by the book, I would have driven straight from Martyr’s building over to Detective McKenna’s office and handed him the list, but I couldn’t do it. I worried that the pressure on McKenna to make something happen was too great and he might put on a full court press. The way I figured it was that if Sashi was already dead, it didn’t matter what I did. The thing I worried about was McKenna bulling ahead and setting off alarm bells. If Sashi were still alive and that happened, the man who had her might panic and kill her in a rush to destroy evidence of any connection between him and the case. I wasn’t about to be the cause of that. The kid’s life was worth more than being second-guessed.
Just as I was pouring out a few fingers of Dewars, the call box buzzed.
“Hey, stranger.” It was Mary Lambert and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thrilled to hear her voice.
“Come up.”
She wasn’t decked out this evening. She wore a white sweater, jeans, and boots with a black leather motorcycle jacket. Damned if it didn’t make her look even sexier than she had the last time. I’d forgotten what it was like to be smitten, to see a woman through foggy eyes. I think she could have worn a housedress and slippers and I would have thought her the sexiest woman alive.
“Scotch okay or would you prefer wine?”
“Scotch is fine. A little water in mine, please.”
I handed Mary her glass. “I’m glad you’re here, but to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“If you can’t figure that out, I think you might need some remedial romance classes. I like you, Moe. I like you a lot. You’re a gentleman.”
Somehow I doubt her assessment would have been the same had she heard the way I spoke to Thompson and Martyr earlier that evening. Still, I wasn’t about to argue the point.
“Thank you. I like you a lot too.”
“And frankly,” she said, picking up the photo of Larry Mac, Rico Tripoli, and me, “I’m pretty fascinated by the story of you three. Let me take you to dinner and you can finish the telling.”
“Sorry, I’ve already eaten.”
Her face fell. I’d disappointed her. I didn’t like disappointing her.
“That’s okay,” she lied, and not very well.
“How ‘bout I whip you up something to eat and I’ll open up some wine and tell you all about the misadventures of the Six-O precinct’s Three Stooges?”
That was more like it. Her face brightened. “An omelet?”
“I can manage that. How about cheddar, chorizo, and sweet peppers?”
“Perfect.”
“And a bottle of Chianti Classico.”
“Better yet.”
It wasn’t until Mary had made quick work of the omelet and we were both on our third glasses of wine that she brought up the Three Stooges. I gave it to her straight, the bad with the good, and the truth was there was a lot more bad than good. For the first time I said it all aloud. I put it all out there: Larry Mac’s wheeling and dealing, his threats, his blackmail, his insatiable ambition, Rico’s using me to destroy my future father-in-law’s political career, Rico’s selling protection to drug gangs, his time in prison.
“In the end,” I said, “I guess I didn’t know them at all. They were both on the pad while we worked together and involved in the execution of a local drug kingpin named Dexter ‘D Rex’ Mayweather. Larry killed himself before it all came out, but Rico tried to set me up to be killed and then ran.”
“How awful, but there’s something in your eyes when you talk about Rico that’s different than when you talk about Larry.”
“Anger?”
“No, Moe, it’s way more than that. There’s anger, yes, but… I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it.”
“That’s because no matter what shit he pulled, I think I still love him. Even now, after all of it, his betrayal of the badge and of me, of the loan he never paid back, of the shit he put me through, I can’t say I don’t love him or miss him. A man makes and sheds a lot of friends in his life, but there are a few that leave holes when they’re gone. Like I told you, he was once like a brother to me, and you don’t stop loving a brother.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Maybe it’s just me. Part of it is that I guess I feel a little responsible for how he turned out.”
“Responsible? He was a grown man.”
“He had a good first marriage and I sort of helped him blow that apart. I was single then and introduced him to the woman who-you get the picture.”
“But you didn’t make him unfaithful.”
“No, you’re right. It’s just that Rico was like the kid on the block who never knew what he wanted, so he wanted what everyone wanted or had. It was hard to watch sometimes because he could never quite figure out how to get things. Unlike Larry, Rico had no patience. And the one thing he ever really wanted for himself that he asked for, I denied him.”
“What was that?”
“When I got hurt and forced to retire, Rico begged me to be a third partner in our first wine store. I’m not exaggerating, he begged me. And at the time, my brother and I were short and Rico had the extra money we needed, but we turned him down. I always told him that it was Aaron who didn’t want him to be a part of it, that the business was going to be dedicated to our dad who was a complete failure in business.”
“Is that true?”
“Yes and no. The part about my dad is true, but it wasn’t only Aaron who didn’t want Rico as a partner. I hid behind my brother to shield myself from the truth that I didn’t want Rico involved either. There’s been a lot of times over the years I’ve thought that things would have been very different if I’d been willing to take a chance on Rico or if I only fought a little harder for him.”
“And maybe not.” Mary stood up, put her glass down, folded me into her arms, and laid my head on her shoulder. She stroked the back of my neck. “People are responsible for their own lives, Moe.”
“I guess, but if it wasn’t for Rico, I wouldn’t have met Katy and I wouldn’t have Sarah.”
“Speaking of having someone…”
“Huh?”
“Don’t make me pay for those remedial classes,” she said, then kissed me softly on the mouth. She took me by the hand. “Show me to the bedroom.”
I did, but I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder at the picture of Larry, Rico, and me still propped up on the coffee table. Even now, I missed those guys. I didn’t suppose that was ever going to change.
EIGHTEEN
When I rolled over in bed, the first hints of sunshine coming through the bedroom window, Mary Lambert was still there. On the other side of the bed, but still there. As long as she hadn’t crept silently away in the middle of the night, I would have been okay with her sleeping on the floor. I love how in movies couples manage to sleep in perfect symmetry like synchronized swimmers and wake up folded neatly in each other’s arms. Yeah, right! Mostly, I liked the way the room still smelled vaguely of sex. The sex itself wasn’t atomic. It wasn’t disappointing. It was good. It was good because we liked each other. We didn’t like each other because the sex was good. Those things are worlds apart. It was what sex between two slightly drunk, slightly nervous adults who didn’t really know one another is like. There was a kind of innocence about it that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. Of course the real test would come when she got up and the only opinion in the room wouldn’t be mine.
