The Cold Spot

sensed she was trying to be accommodating, maternal in whatever way she could considering the circumstances. Jonah didn’t notice. She tried to make small talk but Chase was too wrapped up in his own thoughts. He ate mechanically and tried to put his eyes anywhere except on Lila’s photos. He kept hearing her telling him not to do this.

Angie cleaned her gun again and started selecting others from Lila’s spread. Chase got out Marisa Iverson’s- no, he had to start thinking of her under her real name, Ellie Raymond, drive it in, Ellie Raymond-Ellie Raymond’s 9mm. Lila had extra ammo out in the cabinet in the garage and he pocketed two clips, and put several more in his knapsack.

He told Angie, “You don’t need to come along.”

“What?”

He said, “Stay here.”

“I’m a full partner, remember?”

“You’ll get your share.”

“Who said anything about that?” she asked.

Jonah said, “She’s coming.”

Chase shook his head. “I’m calling the play.”

“Not if you want it done right. Not this one, with my neck on the line. She comes along.”

“Your kid needs a mother.”

The fact that Chase knew about Kylie didn’t faze Jonah in the slightest. He ignored it. “We need at least a third person if we’re really going after this crew. There’s five of them. Even if we get the drop, we’re at a disadvantage. We’ll need to hit them hard and fast. We need firepower, and she’s a good shooter.”

“I am,” Angie said.

“I believe you,” Chase told her. “It’s not about that; aren’t you listening?”

Jonah stared hard and Chase knew why. It was stupid for him to have suddenly gotten soft, right now as they were heading out to finish this thing. But he couldn’t help it. He kept thinking of the two-year-old girl. There were enough lost children in his life already. His dead unborn sibling who had been taken out of the game before taking its first breath. The child he and Lila wanted and couldn’t have. The need for a kid was still all around him, rising within him. He might not have done anything else right, but he could make the effort to allow Kylie to be raised by her own mother.

Looking at Jonah he knew he might’ve already gone too far. His grandfather stood there, hard, mean, staring at Chase, who wasn’t hard enough or mean enough despite wanting to snuff the driver. He couldn’t make any sense of it himself, and Jonah, who didn’t put up with shit like this, was no more than a cunt hair away from going for his gun.

All right, maybe he’d fucked up, but he kept his eyes on the old man, letting him know, If you want it to be now, I’m ready.

Angie said, “Let’s go, it’s settled. I’m coming along.” She grabbed Chase by the arm. “You drive, it’s what you do best.”

On the Southern State Parkway, letting the Chevelle run just a little wild, shredding to ninety and then easing it back down to sixty, he asked his grandfather, “Were you really going to try to heist the rez casino?”

“You’re pretty fixated on that.”

“I can’t figure out any other reason why you’d be up in White Plains.”

“Even if the casino is owned by Indians, there’s got to be some mob kickback.”

“You were going to score some bagman? Isn’t that more trouble than it’s worth, getting on the mob’s bad side?”

“The syndicate’s been fighting among itself pretty seriously the past couple of years.”

Chase remembered thinking that after the Deuce told him a don’s son was looking for a wheelman. “Why?”

“Happens every twenty years or so, when the bosses get ready to retire and turn the reins over to their oldest sons. All their wingmen and consiglieres start feeling ripped off and make a play. Either they cap the don’s kid or they get aced after long service, which leaves the families even weaker. So the other mob crews start sniffing around, seeing if they can pick the meat from the bones, and then they start going to war over the juiciest pieces.”

“And you go in for the scraps.”

“Sure.”

The Southern State turned into the Belt Parkway and twenty minutes later they were crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. It would land them at the bottom of Manhattan practically on top of Fishman’s Loan Society and Trading Depot.

The feel of the city started to bring back memories. All the shows he and Lila had taken in. The times down at the South Street Seaport, looking out over the waves. Lila beating the crap out of the kid who’d tried to boost her wallet in the Penn Station waiting room. The hotel room where he’d helped to wipe down fingerprints, tossing butts in the john while Walcroft kicked open the closet door.

Chase said, “Tell me what happened down in Philly, with you and Rook and Buzzard Allen. How’d you get talked into trying to steal Renaissance paintings?”

Jonah’s mouth barely moved. “You’re in a talkative mood.”

“No,” Chase said. “I just want answers.”

“The Philly museum heist isn’t an answer to anything you want to know.”

“You’re right.”

You didn’t break into it slowly, there was no point. It was how normal people talked, not the way Jonah did.

“Then what are you pushing on about?” his grandfather asked.

Shutting his eyes, Chase ticked off three seconds, letting the car guide and strengthen him.

“What did Walcroft do?” he asked. “He wasn’t wired. So why’d you really ace him?”

Now, Jonah doing what he did best, giving back nothing at all unless it hurt. “He grabbed that tuna. Nobody needs a joker like that on a job.”

6

T hey sat at the curb outside the pawnshop in SoHo, watching Shonny Fishman through the bars of his front window. There were still three people in the store doing business. Shonny was smiling broadly, so something was working out for him in there.

Chase checked his watch. They still had about twenty minutes before Shonny would pack it in for the night.

Hopkins phoned and said, “I went to the Hall of Records and dug through your mother’s case. They had no serious suspects but set their sights on your dad, of course.”

“No prints or witnesses or anything?”

“No. I don’t know what you think is wrong here. I mean, I can’t find anything that sticks out. Your father was watched for a while because he acted so crazy afterward. They had surveillance on him for a couple weeks full- time, then off and on for a couple more after that. Says here he took you to your mother’s grave every day, even in blizzards? And that he actually gave you liquor. You were, what, ten years old? Jesus Christ.”

Chase thought of those long, terrible days at his mother’s grave, his father unconscious in the snow, and Chase drunk with ice in his hair, trying to keep his dad warm. The cops had been watching and nobody had bothered to help him. He tried to clamp down on the sick feeling pouring through him. “Forget that.”

“They almost dragged him in for it, but I guess they figured he’d suffered enough and wanted to cut a deal instead.”

Reaching out, Chase touched the steering wheel, finding a cool authority in it. “What deal?”