Peril

thirty grand?”

“Why is he paying that?” Mortimer asked. “It ain’t his wife skipped town.”

“Close enough,” Caruso said. “He don’t like his kid getting screwed by this broad and her getting away with it, and all that. So he’s willing to pay to get her back. But believe me, he don’t like paying that much, Morty. He don’t like it he’s got to go that deep into his pocket to get this thing done. Put all that together, it adds up to a bad mood. He’s not to be fucked with is what I’m telling you.”

Mortimer glanced about anxiously. Why couldn’t he have just worked in a goddamn factory like his father, or sold shoes, anything but this. And now cheating Stark? How fucking crazy could things get?

“And what steams the Old Man more than anything is being played for a chump,” Caruso added.

“Yeah, I understand,” Mortimer said. “But it don’t change the way it is. What I’m telling you is that if Labriola wants to meet with me, I’m willing to do it. Anytime. Anyplace. But it’s got to be with me ’cause nobody else is gonna show.”

“I don’t know if he’ll go for it, Morty.”

“It’s the best I can do.”

“Which leaves you where, exactly? If the Old Man calls off the deal.”

Mortimer felt his tough-guy act crumble beneath Caruso’s knowing gaze.

“It means you’re back to where you was, right?” Caruso asked. “With a fifteen-thousand-dollar price on your fucking head.”

“If I have to come up with the money, I’ll come up with the money.” Mortimer tried to sound confident but failed.

“But you don’t have that money, Morty,” Caruso said cannily. “If you had it, or knew where you could get it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, right? Which means if this deal don’t go through, you’re fucked.”

“Which is why I’m ready to meet with Labriola,” Mortimer said. “Jesus, Vinnie, I know I’m in a fix. But the guy I work for, he’s got nothing to do with that. He don’t even know about it. And there’s no way I can tell him, because it wouldn’t do no good, because he don’t show . . . never.”

Caruso considered this briefly. “Okay, suppose Mr. L. is willing to meet with you, when could you get together with him?”

“Whenever he says.”

“Today?”

“Today. Tonight. Any fucking time.”

“Okay, how about we make it Columbus Circle. This afternoon. Two-thirty. If I can get the Old Man to go for it, I mean.”

“Fine,” Mortimer said.

Caruso smiled. “And feel free to bring Batman if you can get him out of his fucking cave.”

Mortimer drew in a tense breath. “There’s something else. You got to supply a few details, Vinnie. Stuff about the woman. Something to go on.”

“Like what?”

“Like who she is. Background. Where she might go. What she might do. My guy’s got to have something to work on.”

Caruso smiled. “If your guy needs that, then he should meet with Mr. Labriola.”

Mortimer shook his head. “If he knew it was Labriola, he wouldn’t do the job at all.”

“Why not?”

“ ’Cause he don’t work for . . . guys like that.”

“Guys like what?”

“Guys that ain’t . . . legit.”

Caruso looked at him quizzically.

“It’s something that happened,” Mortimer said. “Long time ago. It don’t matter what it was, but the bottom line, he don’t work for . . . you know, a certain kind of guy.”

“So, who does Batman think he’s working for in this deal?”

“A friend of mine, that’s what I told him. He ever finds out otherwise, he’ll ditch the whole thing.”

“And you along with it, right, Morty?” Caruso asked with a cagey grin. He sat back, took another sip of coffee, his eyes poised like small brown marbles over the white rim of the cup. “The thing is, I don’t think Mr. Labriola knows much about that fucking broad.”

“Then maybe her husband’s got some idea about—”

“Labriola’s kid don’t know nothing about this deal,” Caruso interrupted. “And that’s the way it stays, ’cause Mr. Labriola ain’t told the kid nothing.”

“The kid don’t know Labriola’s looking for his wife?”

“That’s right.”

“Why ain’t he told him?”

Caruso’s face stiffened. “You ask a lot of questions, Morty. First it’s how come Mr. Labriola’s paying so much to find this broad. Now this thing about why he ain’t telling the kid nothing about it. A lot of fucking questions, Morty.”

Morty lifted his hands defensively. “I’m asking, that’s all. Calm down, for Christ’s sake. You don’t got to answer.”

“All I know is, Labriola wants this broad found . . . and quick. He’s got a bug up his ass about it, that’s what I’m telling you. He wants it done fast.”

“So get me the information I need,” Mortimer said. “Something for my guy to go on. He can’t do a fucking thing till he gets something to go on.”

“Okay, I’ll tell the Old Man, but between you and me, ain’t it Batman’s job to come up with this shit?”

“Yeah it is,” Morty said. “But like I just told you, Vinnie, if he comes into it at that level, it’d take him about five fucking seconds to figure out it’s Labriola pulling the strings.” He looked at Caruso piercingly. “If you can’t keep this between us, Vinnie, then I got to pull out. That means we’re back to square one with me owing the Old Man, and you having to get it out of me or he’ll get it out of you, remember?”

Caruso nodded.

“So are we good on this thing or not?” Mortimer asked.

“We’re good,” Caruso said reluctantly. He emptied his coffee cup, then crushed it. “Just make sure your guy finds this fucking bitch.”

“You get him what he needs to know,” Morty said, “and he’ll find her, believe me.”

STARK

Buenas tardes, senor.

Marisol’s voice was still as real to him as the first time he’d heard it.

Sitting in Washington Square Park, Stark watched the young woman who’d just reminded him of her in the way she moved so gracefully along the pathway, books cradled in her arms. She was dressed in a black skirt and blouse of dark red, and as he followed her progress through the park, Stark was once again impressed by the vividness of his memory of Marisol, how in an instant he could bring her fully into view, the dark oval eyes, the gleaming black hair, the elegant taper of her long brown legs. He knew that at first he’d reacted to her with nothing but unabated lust, and that if by some unimaginable circumstance she had accompanied him to his hotel room on that sweltering Spanish afternoon, he might simply have made love to her and in that sweaty union washed her forever from his mind. But she had looked up as he approached, softly uttered her “buenas tardes,” and he had sat down instead, playing the American expatriate, expecting only to confirm her identity, then notify his client that she was found. But the conversation had turned unexpectedly intimate, and he’d felt a formerly dead part of himself quicken to life, so that by the time dusk had fallen over the tangled streets of Chueca, he’d arranged to meet her the next day at the Plaza del Sol.

A breeze fingered the bare limbs of the trees across the way. He glanced at his watch, felt the crawl of time, then shifted his gaze to the right and followed another young woman as she made her way past the cement fountain at the center of the park. She did not remind him of Marisol. Instead, she directed his mind to the woman he had to find for Mortimer’s friend. He didn’t care why she’d left her husband or what she might be seeking in her flight. Such speculations were a waste of time. They contributed nothing to his search.