then I’m sure Ray will have come up with something, at least a general direction for us, based on his years of investigative experience.”
Tony slid forward in his seat and rested his elbows on his knees. He fixed his eyes on Charlie. His face was hard, his tone challenging. “What’s your involvement in this?”
The older man was cool, not letting Tony get to him. His answer was like his style, slow and steady. “A tragedy happened here that involves every one of us. We’ve come together to do what’s best for the family, just like always.”
Vinnie looked at Ray. “Then I guess you have until tomorrow.” He made it sound like a temporary stay of execution.
Ray nodded.
“You played it smart in there,” Charlie said.
“What do you mean?” Ray asked, wondering why Charlie Rabbit had wanted to talk, wondering if Charlie was buying him a farewell drink before killing him, like giving a condemned man a last cigarette as he stood before the firing squad.
After the meeting in Vinnie’s office broke up, Charlie had bumped Ray’s elbow and jerked his head in a “follow me” motion. They went downstairs and out the front door of the Rising Sun without saying a word. Now they were across the street, sitting at the bar in the Hog’s Breath Saloon.
“I’m talking about that prick Tony,” Charlie said. “You didn’t let him get to you. That was good.”
Ray took a drag of his Lucky Strike, then sipped at his whiskey, wishing he knew why he was here.
“Where did you do your time?” Charlie asked.
“Terre Haute.”
“How was it?”
“Long,” Ray said, swirling his glass and watching the ice spin.
“You did about four years, didn’t you?”
Ray looked up. “Four years, three months.”
Charlie lit a cigarette. “I know what you mean about it being long. I’ve been down twice.”
“Where?” Ray asked. He was warming to the old man’s soft-spoken, easy style. Warming to it as long as it didn’t end with a bullet behind his ear.
“First stretch was state time at Angola. You talk about a miserable shit-hole. That was the worst place I’ve ever been. Got lucky, though. I drew a double sawbuck, but I beat the case on appeal and got out after three years. Later, I did nine years’ fed time in Atlanta.”
Ray stubbed out his cigarette butt in the ashtray. “I don’t think I could have done nine years.”
“I said the same thing after I did my three at Angola, but everything is relative.” Charlie took a sip of his drink. “You know the best way to do a long stretch?”
“How?” Ray asked, flicking his Zippo three times to get a flame. Then he lit another Lucky Strike.
“Just like you do the short ones…” Charlie held his glass up.
Ray smiled. He raised his glass and clinked it against Charlie’s. “Day by motherfucking day,” he said at the same time Charlie did. Then they downed the rest of their drinks.
The bartender brought a fresh round. Charlie slid a twenty across the bar. After the bartender moved away, Charlie asked Ray, “You know what’s wrong with us today?”
“Who do you mean?”
“Our thing,” he said. “ La Familia.”
Ray shook his head.
“Everything’s too easy,” Charlie said. “You take a guy like Tony. Young pretty boy, all that gel in his hair. He looks like an actor playing a wiseguy on TV, instead of the real thing. You look at him, you know right away he’s never done time. Probably the only trip he’s ever made to lockup was to bond somebody out.”
“He’d end up somebody’s bitch inside a week.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Charlie said. “You did the right thing, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“Not smacking him.”
“You talking about today, in Vinnie’s-Mr. Messina’s office?”
“He’s not the fucking pope,” Charlie said. “You can call him Vinnie, but I’m talking about yesterday, last night, this morning, whatever time it was that Tony and his boy Rocco roughed you up behind the bar.”
“You heard about that, huh?”
“I keep an eye on the place for the Old Man.”
“From what I hear that’s not all you do.”
“I eliminate problems,” Charlie said.
“Am I a problem?” Ray asked, working hard to keep the nervous tremor out of his voice.
Charlie smiled. “Not yet.” Then he took a sip of his drink. “I’m serious. You did the right thing by handling that situation the way you did.”
Ray nodded at the compliment. “He punches like a girl.”
Charlie laughed. “He’s a made man, though. I ain’t saying he ever should have been made or that he would have been made back when I was coming up. But he got his button, so you handled it the best way you could.”
“Why does he have such a hard-on for me? I get paid to stop drunks from pawing the girls and to keep strangers from going upstairs. Protecting the cage was Bobby’s job.”
“Because Tony is a fucking turd. He’s covering his own ass and Bobby’s. Bobby is on his crew, same as those other two muscle heads. Tony put Bobby in the cage, so if Bobby catches any blame, that puts blame on Tony, and he’s not going to let that happen.”
Ray took a sip of his drink. Then he said, “Tony blames me, but Vinnie trusts me to help him. Am I missing something?”
“What you said in Vinnie’s office was right. We got the captain of the Eighth District in our pocket. We’re practically sending his kids to college.”
“Then why does Vinnie need my help?”
“Because our friend the captain can’t do us any good.”
“He’s the district commander. He can do anything he wants.”
Charlie shook his head. “The Public Integrity Bureau is crawling up his ass. He’s scared.”
“I can understand that,” Ray said. “PIB crawled up my ass and sent me away for four years.”
“So the captain told Tony to pound sand.”
“I bet Tony loved hearing that.”
Charlie shrugged. “What’s he gonna do? The man’s a police captain.”
“And I’m the next best thing?”
“Believe it or not, Vinnie likes cops. If he wasn’t born a wiseguy, he probably would have been a cop, one of those fat doughnut-eating cops, but still a cop. He’s the one told his brother to bring you on after you got out of the joint. Cops got a better education than your average goombah, anyway, so Vinnie probably figures you got a better shot at catching these punks than any of our guys.”
“But I’m not a cop anymore,” Ray said. “I tried to explain that to him. I’m an ex-con. That means I’m blacklisted for life. I’m like a leper. Where I show up, other cops run so they don’t catch anything from me. All I am now is an unarmed security guard. I can’t go after a crew of armed robbers and murderers without a gun, but if I even get near one, I’m violating my parole.”
“Nobody’s asking you to take them down. Just help us find them.”
Ray steeled his resolve. “What if I say no?”
Charlie’s face got hard. “Then you’ll be a problem.”
They had another round. This time Ray paid.
As they were leaving the bar, Charlie slipped a napkin into Ray’s hand. “My number’s on it. You need help, give me a call. I’ll see what I can do.”
“You think that asshole is going to do it?” Tony asked, leaning against the wall next to one of the big windows in Vinnie Messina’s fourth-floor office.
Vinnie, his ass sunk into the sofa, munched on peanuts from a jar. He nodded as he dropped another handful
