to the kitchen window, peer nervously between the blinds at the street below. Then he?d go into the bedroom and either pack or unpack (he?d changed his mind three times) the duffel bag on his bed.
Andrew Foley was scared. It was the call from Vincent that had scared him.
Vincent had sounded out of breath, like he was in a hurry. He?d told Andrew that Marco DeLuca, the wharfmaster, had been found with a bullet hole in the base of his skull. It had been DeLuca who?d told them which container to deliver to what warehouse. More bad news. Leonard ?Juice? Luciano, the ?union representative? who pulled Marco DeLuca?s strings, was blown to bits when he opened his freezer for an ice cream sandwich.
?It?s that goddamn raghead,? Vincent had said. ?I?m telling you, we weren?t supposed to see that shit, and now somebody?s going around putting a lid on the situation. They?re cleaning house. And if Marco DeLuca opened his fat mouth before they killed him??
Andrew didn?t need it spelled out. He didn?t want to be the next one to get exploded or shot simply because he?d been in the wrong place. But what could he do? He couldn?t go to the cops. If he did, he?d have to confess he?d helped let the stowaway into the country in the first place. Those Homeland Security guys didn?t fool around. They?d probably ship Andrew to Guantanamo or something.
?Come over to my place,? Andrew had told Vincent. ?Man, we got to stick together.? And he didn?t want to be alone. He didn?t know what to do.
?Maybe,? Vincent had said. ?But right now just lay low. I?m not even sure what?s going on. I wanted to give you a heads-up. Just in case.? Vincent told him he?d be in touch if he heard anything new, then hung up.
He was fucked.
Andrew Foley knew the kind of men Anthony and Vincent associated with. If they wanted to make you gone, then you?d be gone. Hiding in a pal?s dorm room for the weekend wouldn?t cut it. They would chase him and find him and kill him. These were serious people.
Andrew knew because his father had been one of these men.
In the Foley family it was generally known, and never talked about, that Dad had been a hard man in the old days. All that had been over by the time Andrew was born. Dad had married a woman twelve years younger, but she?d been hit by a taxi when Andrew was seven. Dad had raised Andrew alone while running a bar in Queens. When liver cancer took Dad, Andrew had just turned eighteen. He hadn?t learned a damn thing about running a business. There hadn?t been any life insurance, but selling the bar had provided just enough money to fund music school if Andrew was frugal and smart.
When Dad?s cancer had been particularly savage, when the doctors told Andrew the end was only hours away, a day at most, Dan Foley sent for his son. Andrew hadn?t been far. He spent most of his time either in the waiting room or at Dad?s side. He found his father alert, if a little glassy-eyed from painkillers. His father gave him a picture, a black-and-white photo. Two men. Young. Maybe early twenties. It was an old photo from the fifties or sixties. The Statue of Liberty in the background. One of the men was his father. He looked young. So much hair. The other man had a strong family resemblance and wore the kind of hat people wore in old Frank Sinatra films. A little taller and thinner than Dad.
?That?s your uncle Mike,? Dan Foley told his son. ?Turn it over.?
Andrew looked at the back side of the photo. A phone number written in fountain pen.
Dad said, ?When you?re really in trouble, I mean really stuck, life-or-death stuff, call Mike. Don?t call to socialize or to borrow money. Don?t even call when you plant me in the ground. He won?t come. But when your ass is on the line?? he tapped the photo with a gnarled finger??that?s your ace in the hole.?
That night Dan Foley died. He left his boy a dank bar and an old photo as a legacy.
When Vincent had called with warnings of trouble, Andrew remembered the picture, dug in his closet until he found an old suitcase, birth certificates, and family papers. And the photo. He held his breath and dialed the number. Would it still be connected? It had been a few years. Andrew didn?t even know where he was calling, didn?t recognize the area code.
He picked up the phone again and called the operator, read her the area code from the back of the photo and asked her where it was. Eastern Oklahoma. Perfect. Oklahoma. Nowhere.
Would Uncle Mike even want to talk to a nephew he?d never met? The phone rang and rang, and Andrew felt so nervous in his gut he thought he might slam the phone back down on the hook and forget the whole thing.
But then there was an answer. It was Uncle Mike. And Andrew found himself talking so fast, spilling out who he was and that he was in a jam and how Dad had said to call if he was really and truly up to his eyeballs in the shit. He hadn?t been able to get into any of the details. Mike had cut him off, told him to wait by the phone.
