Sylvester rocked backward, squeezing his head in both hands. “That was Scooby who shot that guy.”
Ray watched Sylvester roll around on the sofa in agony for a minute. Then he said, “Tell me the whole thing, from the beginning.”
Sylvester looked up at him. “You’re gonna kill me, aren’t you?”
Ray shook his head. “Not if you tell me what I want to know.”
Sylvester stopped moving but kept his hands alongside his head. “A dude I know named Scooby-he’s the one set it up-he came to me and said he had an easy score for us. Said it was all arranged and we were gonna make big bucks off it. He even got money up front.”
“How much?”
“Five thousand. Me and Scooby took fifteen hundred apiece, split the rest between Wop and Eddie.”
“What do you mean it was arranged?”
“Somebody inside had it all set up. There wasn’t going to be no resistance. We just had to go in hard to make it look real.”
“Who set it up?”
Sylvester shrugged. “That was Scooby’s contact.”
Ray raised the pistol over his shoulder like a club.
Sylvester screamed, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I swear.”
The shitbird’s eyes said he was telling the truth. Ray lowered the gun. “What about me?”
“What about you?”
“You recognized me, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but I had no idea you were going to be there. If I had known, I swear on my momma’s life”-Sylvester made the sign of the cross-“I never would have taken the job. You think I want to pull something where a cop who arrested me is working a detail?”
“I wasn’t working a detail.”
But Sylvester hadn’t heard him. “I wouldn’t have done it if I had known you were there. I swear.”
“You tried to put a bullet in my head.”
“I’m sorry about that.” Sylvester folded his hands in front of him, pleading. “I didn’t mean it. I swear to God. The gun just went off by itself. I never hurt nobody in my life.”
“What happened after?”
Sylvester looked relieved when Ray didn’t hit him again. He relaxed, dropping his hands into his lap. “Next night we were supposed to meet the guy and give him the money. Scooby said we’d get twenty grand out of the deal. He wanted me to drop the money, take Wop and Eddie as backup.”
“If it was his contact, why didn’t he go?”
Sylvester shrugged. “Now that I know what happened, it don’t make no sense him not going. But at the time all I was thinking about was them Benjamins.”
Ray nodded. He understood doing stupid things for money.
Sylvester said, “Scooby said the guy knew exactly how much we took and not to try and short him. I was supposed to turn over all the money to him. I had it in a canvas bag. And he would count out our share and give it to me.”
Pointing to Sylvester’s bandaged stomach, Ray said, “I’m guessing things didn’t go according to plan.”
“In the back of my head I knew something wasn’t right,” Sylvester said. “We were supposed to meet at the end of Esplanade, by the dock. I was driving, Wop had the money, and Eddie had a shotgun just in case the shit went bad. When I pulled up, there was nobody there. I turned the car around so we could get out in a hurry. That’s what saved my life.
“Soon as we stepped out of the car, them dudes must have been hiding already ’cause they started shooting. I only saw one guy, but there must have been more. The one I saw had a pistol and was back up against that big cement wall they got by the river, and he just kept shooting. I got hit, fell back inside the car. That’s when I saw Wop and Eddie on the ground. I just threw it in drive and got the hell out of there.”
“What about Scooby?”
“He’s dead, too. After the shit went down, I drove home. I can’t go to no hospital. Besides that, I’m safe here. Nobody knows where I live. I just moved here, not even Scooby knew about this place. I got home, found out the bullet went right through.” He pointed to the blood-soaked bandage. “I patched it up and been here ever since. I heard about Scooby on the news.”
“The guy you saw, what did he look like?”
Sylvester shook his head. “It was dark. He was backed up to that wall.” Sylvester raised a hand like he was touching the top of something tall. “That big…”
“Retaining wall,” Ray said.
“Yeah, the retaining wall. He must have been there when we pulled up ’cause like I said, soon as we got out of the car he started shooting.”
“Where’s the money?”
“Wop had it.” Sylvester shrugged. “I guess they got it now.”
“Who are they?”
“Them guys shooting at us.”
“Why do you think there was more than one guy at the river?”
“Seemed like too much shooting, but I guess it could’ve been just one guy.” Sylvester took a deep breath, pain showing on his face. “If it was just one guy, he was a good fucking shot.”
“You sure they’re dead-Wop and Eddie I mean?”
“I seen that on the news, too,” Sylvester said.
Ray never watched the news.
“What happens now?” Sylvester asked, leaning over on the seat cushions.
Good question, Ray thought. Charlie Liuzza said to call him if Ray needed help.
I sure as hell need help now.
Ray saw a telephone on the wall in the kitchen. He backed toward it, keeping the Smith amp; Wesson aimed at Sylvester. The telephone had no dial tone. “What’s wrong with your phone?” he asked Sylvester.
“I couldn’t afford the deposit, so I never got it hooked up.”
So much for calling Charlie. As he walked back to the sofa, Ray thought of another option. He could drive Sylvester to the House. Make him repeat what he had just told Ray. But who could he tell? Vinnie? Vinnie was probably in on this, and if so, he hadn’t done it alone. The guy at the dock, the one doing all the shooting, that sure as hell wasn’t Vinnie. So who was it? Tony, Rocco, Joey? It could have been anybody. Vinnie had access to a lot of shooters. For all Ray knew, it could’ve been Hector.
Charlie Rabbit had said, Find out who really did it and get some proof. Then all Ray had to do was take the proof to the Old Man.
Dylan Sylvester was the proof.
Ray looked down. Sylvester was sitting up against the backrest with a gun in his hand. A. 25-caliber automatic. A piece of shit that cost about twenty dollars on the street.
I forgot to search the goddamn sofa.
Ray had the Smith down by his right leg. Somehow between the couch and the kitchen, he had dropped his guard. Too much thinking.
He dropped to the floor, angling left as he fell. The. 25 auto flashed and popped. Ray felt something whiz past his right ear. He raised the Smith and jerked the trigger. The heavy gun bucked in his hand. The floor knocked the wind out of him. He had to lie there for a few seconds until he caught his breath.
When Ray crawled to his feet, Sylvester was still sitting upright on the sofa. The. 40-caliber bullet had hit him just above his top lip, right below that little piece of skin that separated his nostrils. His eyes were wide-open, staring at the wall.
Dylan Sylvester was deader than shit.
Looking down at the body of the man who had tried to shoot him three times, Ray remembered what Sylvester had said about the bullet that had buried itself in the floor of the House, the one that had almost buried itself in the back of Ray’s head. “Sorry about that, Dylan. The gun just went off by itself.”
Ray tucked the Smith. 40 into his pants, then grabbed a hand towel and wiped off everything inside the
