He?d heard his brother?s young wife had given birth to a son. Was it really twenty years ago? Had it been that long? For the past few years, Mike had been so keenly involved with the daily routine of his exile that he?d forgotten the reason for it. Dan had tried to understand but couldn?t.
Mike couldn?t find the words to explain himself, but something was definitely wrong. He was too jittery when he and Dan pulled a job. He was slow on the trigger. Tentative.
Afraid.
And eventually he would have gotten Dan killed. Maybe in a month or a year, but it would happen. Dan would need Mike to watch his back, and Mike wouldn?t be there. He?d lost it. Mike Foley wasn?t solid on the trigger anymore, and his brother was concerned but also a little angry. It was the end of an era. That was how it had seemed. That once great team, the Foley Boys, had faded into the glorious sunset.
And so had Mike.
He headed west, kept going, not really sure what he was looking for but certain what he was running from. He just drove and drove until he was too tired to go anymore, and he pulled into a Holiday Inn and flopped on the bed in the middle of the night, didn?t take off his clothes or shoes, just sank into sleep. But there?d been dreams of blood and screaming and he?d tossed and turned and woken up when the orange sun had stabbed him through the blinds and he rolled out of bed and went to the window and took a good long look at Oklahoma.
It had taken Mike years and years to push that haunted feeling deep enough into his gut that he almost believed he didn?t feel it anymore. But now, with memory, came the feeling again, that ache in his chest, the knowledge of what kind of man he was, the kind of man to make a horrible mistake and cowardly enough to run from it. To ditch his brother, the man he hadn?t talked to in forty years.
He finished spreading the soap shavings, then tried to call Andrew again. No answer. How bad could the trouble be for a New York kid to call a long-lost uncle halfway across the country?
Bad.
Mike closed the barn doors and hiked back up to the cabin. It was a single-story, five-room log home. Not real logs. Not as if he?d ventured into the forest with an axe and carved a log cabin from the wilderness. He?d purchased a kit off eBay at half price: pressure-treated, log-shaped lumber. Complete with plumbing stuff and everything. He?d put it up in five weeks, but not before blasting a ten-by-ten hole in the rocky ground. He built the cabin over the hole, then fortified the hole with concrete (so the cabin wouldn?t fall in on his head), then used it as a wine cellar. So far the wine cellar?s shelves were relatively barren. A hundred bottles of ?Scorpion Hill Special Reserve,? which might or might not turn into vinegar. The cellar was dry and cool and dusty.
But the house above was warm and inviting. When he?d first bought the property there had been only the barn and a single-wide trailer. When he finally woke up one day and realized he wasn?t going anywhere, he decided to improve his surroundings. So he had a home and a business. He had a reason to live and worked hard every day.
His nephew?s phone call made him see that it was an illusion. The vineyard, the log home, his Lowe?s charge card. A corny red pickup truck with a Sooners bumper sticker. All an act. The normality show. Like he was some kind of regular old duffer going about his business.
It was a lie.
He was a criminal. A thug. A kid killer.
He sat and stared out the window at the valley unfolding below. He thought about that day in Harlem. He took the memory out and dusted it off. Made himself take a good hard look at it. Thinking about it made a hollow ache in his chest. It hurt still after all these years. Guilt. Shame at the thing he was. At what he?d done.
The sinking sun splashed the sky orange at the horizon. Mike watched the sky grow dim, then dark, and the phone didn?t ring.
6
When the phone rang, Anthony Minelli was banging this Long Island chick up the ass, so he was way too busy to answer. He let the machine get it.
Anthony gritted his teeth, thrusting hard back and forth, his balls swinging with the same rhythm as her floppy tits. She grunted with each thrust, high-pitched, her eyes crunched shut. Anthony felt his climax build and he banged harder, groaned hoarse and loud when he emptied himself into her. They both fell forward in the tangle of white satin sheets.
He sat up, pulled out, and slapped her ass. ?Nice stuff, Melinda.?
?Melissa.? She pulled the sheet over herself, closed her eyes, and sank into the pillow. ?For Christ?s sake, I told you ten times already.?
