it.
“Walcroft’s chest will be shaved.”
“It wasn’t on his chest. It was down his pants.”
“Then his goddamn pubes will be shaved.”
Jonah crowded him now, refusing to get out of the way.
Had this been coming for a while? Chase wouldn’t have thought so twenty minutes ago but abruptly he felt a fury asserting itself within him. As if this was the natural course for him and his grandfather to follow, the only one, and always had been. The two of them standing here together face-to-face with a dead man in the closet.
The air thickened with potential violence. Chase glanced down at Jonah’s hand to see if he was still palming the.22. Jonah had his hand cupped to the side of his leg. Jesus Christ, he was. It had really come down to this.
Time to let it go, but Chase couldn’t seem to do so. It was stupid, he could sense Jonah’s thin patience about to snap, but maybe that’s what he wanted. He wondered if his need to push the point had anything to do with his parents, with the way his father had ended up.
“Why would Walcroft suddenly start wearing a wire?” Chase asked.
“You say that like it’s an actual question.”
Maybe it wasn’t. Everybody eventually flipped. Chase moved another step forward so that their chests nearly touched. He realized there was no way he could beat Jonah, but at least the man would have to work a little harder for it than a quick tap to the temple. All these years, all the talk about blood and family, of fatherhood and childhood, the discussions about unfulfilled vengeance, going after his mother’s killer, and they’d come down to this. Two kids in a sandbox.
“Why did you really ace him?”
“We need to leave.”
“You didn’t even blink,” Chase said. “You’ve done it before.”
“You asking for any special reason?”
“I’m not asking. I can see it now. You’ve done it before.”
“Only when I had to.”
“You didn’t even let me in on it.”
“Would you have wanted to be?”
Probably not but what was he going to say?
“What if I’d hesitated? Those two would have killed me too.”
“There was no chance of you hesitating. I taught you better than that. You’re a pro.”
It was a comment meant to appeal to Chase’s vanity. There was no substance or emotion behind it. Jonah didn’t quite understand how regular people felt about things, and when he tried to play to any kind of sentiment he always wound up way off base.
“I’m through,” Chase said.
“You’re not through.”
“I’m going my own way.”
“Turning your back on blood?”
“No,” Chase told him. “You ever need me for something other than a score, let me know. I’ll be there.”
That almost made Jonah smile, except he didn’t know how to do that either. “Going to start doing scores on your own? More second-story kitten burglaries, shinnying up the drainpipe? Knock over liquor stores and gas stations? Home invasions? You’ll get picked up on your first run.”
“A minute ago I was a pro.”
Jonah stared at him, eyes empty of everything. You looked into them for too long and it would drive you straight out of your skull. “You’re a string man now. You’re part of a chain. You’re a driver. You going to start working for other crews?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll retire.”
“And deliver newspapers?”
Jonah reached out and gripped Chase’s arm, digging his fingers in deep. It hurt like hell. In the past two years Chase had grown to six feet and gained thirty pounds of muscle, but he knew he wasn’t as icy as his grandfather. He didn’t think he ever would be. He wondered for perhaps the ten thousandth time how his fatally weak father could have come from this man. Chase fought to remain expressionless.
His mind squirmed and buzzed with all his failed tasks and unaccomplished dreams. He hadn’t yet killed the man who’d murdered his mother. He’d never made a major score.
“I don’t have any answers,” Chase admitted. “I just know we’re through after this.” He tried to shrug free but couldn’t break his grandfather’s hold. “Walcroft wasn’t even dead yet.”
“Close enough.”
When you’ve got nowhere to go you go back to the beginning. “I didn’t see a wire. I don’t believe it.”
“You’ve got an overabundance of faith.”
“Not anymore. Let me go.”
“Okay, then try it on your own,” Jonah said, releasing him. “But wipe the table again before you do. You know how to get in touch with me if you need to.”
Chase ran around the block back toward the hotel. They’d forgotten or didn’t care that he had one of the room’s two plastic card keys. He intended to check Walcroft’s body to see if he’d really been wired.
A confidence man knew how to read human nature. He could see down through the gulf of complex emotion and know what people were feeling, even if he didn’t have those feelings himself.
Jonah had known he’d try it. His grandfather stood on the opposite side of the block, perched just inside a storefront. He was wearing a jacket, his arms crossed against his chest. That meant the.22 was back in its ankle holster and his.38 was on his belt, and his knife was at the small of his back.
Look at this shit, the things you’ve got to worry about now. Like wondering if Jonah or one of the others might tip the cops about the Nova. Was it possible? The fish-market goombahs wouldn’t have called the police so the car should still be clean enough to get out of New York. Unless Jonah had given Chase up directly to the mob, told the fish-market guys, Hey, you want some of your cash back, this kid right here has it.
His grandfather might ace him but would he turn rat? Chase couldn’t see it but he couldn’t see Jonah snuffing Walcroft until he’d done it.
No, the Chevy Nova he’d rebuilt from the tires up was out now.
Chase moved past the garage and caught a bus at the corner heading crosstown. He didn’t feel any fear or hope or excitement. He’d shifted gears again and now his life was on a different road.
2
Deuce had a scam going where he’d strip sports cars and dump the frames back onto the street, wait for the insurance companies to auction them off, buy them up for just a couple of bucks, then reassemble the cars with the original parts and sell them legally to the crime families. He was known as Uncle Deucie to all the Mafia
