The Cold Spot

tradition right to the end.

Turned out Jonah’s current home base wasn’t that far away, only an hour upstate in White Plains. Chase couldn’t figure the attraction in White Plains unless Jonah was using it as a headquarters just to be close to Connecticut, maybe the Indian rez casino. It wasn’t Jonah’s usual type of score, all those people and the serious security, but Chase had no idea what kind of heists his grandfather was putting together now.

He called the Deuce and asked a lot more questions, got a few answers. He needed to scrape together whatever facts or rumors he could find out about Jonah’s dealings over the last decade. Deucie said he’d get back to him after he talked to a few other guys, but the information was going to cost and yes, he took credit cards. Chase ran off his Visa number.

A day and a half went by before Deucie phoned back. He’d talked to a lot of people who still liked Jonah and a lot more who didn’t. There was even more bad blood out there now. He told Chase what he’d wanted to know and said, “If you’re getting back into the life I think I’ve got someone who could use you.”

“No thanks.”

“He’s a don’s son, has a pretty solid crew. Good money and he likes guys who can handle cars and trucks.”

That meant the mob was back to doing a lot of big-rig hijacking. Send out crews to work the highways, the syndicate bosses robbing from each other. It was low-class, the families must be having a lot of troubles with each other lately.

Chase told him, “I’ll think about it.”

“Hey,” Deucie said. “I was sorry to hear about your wife. Really, I got to tell you. I mean, if it was my wife, it would be a blessing if she got taken out, you know? The way she’s an anchor around my neck, what with the leather shoes and the Gucci purses and the jewelry, and always with the Mexican pool boys. I turn around, there’s another fucking Mexican un-clogging the filter, she wears these guys out. Me, I let it slide, I don’t know why, maybe one day I’ll hire a torpedo to bury her in the Pine Barrens with all the goddamn shoes and purses. But you, I remember what you did when she got hurt couple years back. You, I can tell, you actually loved-”

Chase hung up.

He dreamed of his father and called out his name. Michael. Chase was nearly as old now as his dad had been when he’d offed himself. It made them brothers of a sort, a part of the same fraternity of pain. He wanted to hear his father’s voice, and more than that, he wanted his father to hear his. A powerful urge swept through him to offer whatever guidance he had to his father. Maybe it would be enough to save him, even now, fifteen years too late. Keep him from taking the boat out in a storm and capsizing this time.

The past drew at him in a way it never had before. His childhood before Jonah seemed to be swarming up, loud and prevalent, trying to yank him backward. He kept watching his father in the snow, cheek pressed to the frozen marble tombstone, wanting to be dead.

Chase knew he was dreaming because his old man suddenly entered the room. It was too dark to see but he knew the body language, the expression of sorrow in every movement. So this was his dad after his mother’s murder. He called out the man’s name again and told him to leave. He barked like a wounded dog in his sleep because his father was sitting on the end of the bed, weeping.

Chase phoned the number that Georgie had given him and got a genderless voice mail. He left his home address, set up the meet for three days from now, and named a busy family restaurant near the LIE where two parkways intersected. It would offer Jonah four directions to run in case he smelled a trap. Chase couldn’t think of anywhere safer that his grandfather might feel secure enough to meet with him after all this time. Jonah’s first thought would be that Chase was still in the life, had been arrested, and was now setting him up on a plea-bargain.

Chase wondered what else he should say-Hey, why the hell didn’t you at least send a wedding card?-but nothing sounded right. How’s it been going, you doing okay? Besides, Jonah wouldn’t want to hear any sappy shit. He’d either show or he wouldn’t.

He’d set the meet for noon, but knew Jonah would leave him sitting alone at the site, checking him out from afar to make sure it wasn’t a sting, making certain no cops had followed. Jonah wasn’t about to come out from cover here. Chase parked at the restaurant, climbed out of a beat-to-shit ’72 Plymouth Gold Duster he’d stolen that morning, sat on the hood, stretched back over the windshield and took in the sun, thinking of Lila.

Forty-five minutes later he got up, slid into the car, and started back toward his house. Jonah would’ve checked out Chase’s story and made sure he knew where Chase lived. The old man would have the route back all mapped out with a good ambush site already chosen.

Jonah never followed anyone else’s rules. He always made sure he got the drop.

It was all right. Chase knew exactly where Jonah would make his play. There was a wide exit down the parkway that opened up onto a service road near a community college, bordered by wooded acreage. Jonah would cut him off, shove him onto the shoulder, and grab him right there. Chase had planned it this way from the start.

Behind him, way back on his left but beginning to speed up now, a white van jockeyed forward. Chase slowed down right as the exit lane came into view, thinking, Here it comes, here it is.

He wondered if his grandfather would hit him. He thought the old man was going to get at least a couple of free slugs in. Jonah didn’t feel things like other people did, but somewhere inside him he must’ve still experienced a small sting of betrayal about how they’d parted.

The van tore out from behind, speeded up alongside the Duster, and crashed into the left front quarter panel, forcing Chase over the curb and into the pine trees. It was a skillfully executed move, pinning the car in the brush and giving him nowhere to run.

His jaws snapped together painfully, and his head rang. He tugged the wheel hard to the left and tried to bump back, but the Duster was already a buckling rust bucket and the crumpled metal blew the left front tire. He stabbed the gas and allowed himself to smash into a tree. The seat belt tore against his chest and he swallowed down a shout. There was an insane uproar of noise as the front end buckled and the windshield caved.

Pretending to be dazed, Chase slumped over the steering wheel, glass in his hair. He quietly un-buckled himself because his ribs hurt like hell and he didn’t want Jonah to haul him against the belt a few times before thumbing the button. The car door swung open and rough hands yanked him from the seat.

Chase offered no resistance. He went down on his back in the grass. The van door slid aside and he was yanked to his feet. Chase tightened the muscles in his belly, waiting for the old man’s fist. He raised his chin and there was his grandfather.

2

A t sixty-five Jonah remained hard and looked mostly the same as when Chase had last seen him ten years earlier. For a guy who should be on social security he was still ready to take on a brigade. His back straight, arms corded, every ridge cut to perfect definition. Same steely eyes.

There were some subtle differences. His face had eroded further, almost imperceptibly, like desert stone after ages of high wind. The seams went deeper, the mileage and wear a bit more apparent. The black hair on his arms had gone mostly white so the sprawl of muddied prison tats appeared much clearer.

Chase could finally see them for what they were now. An angel on the left forearm and a devil on the right,