Peril

For a moment the two men peered silently at each other, a gaze Mortimer found uncomfortable.

“This friend of yours,” Stark said, “what does he intend to do when he finds this woman?”

Mortimer had no idea, but said, “He just wants her to come back to him.”

“Are you sure that’s all he wants?”

Mortimer knew that Stark was thinking of Marisol. “He wouldn’t hurt her. He wants her back, that’s all.”

Stark’s gaze bore into him, and he knew that if his eyes rested on him in that way just a moment longer, he’d spill his guts.

“I gotta go,” he said, then turned quickly and headed for the door.

He’d just reached it, when Stark called to him.

“Mortimer, we can trust each other, can’t we?”

Mortimer turned toward Stark, saw something unexpectedly troubled in his eyes, as if he were working hard not to believe something he couldn’t stop himself from believing.

“Yeah, sure,” he answered lightly. What else, he wondered, could he say?

EDDIE

The beer was growing warm in his hands, but there was nothing to do but wait. Vinnie Caruso had never been a stickler for getting to a place on time, and Eddie had long ago accepted the fact that he came when he came. In the meantime, Eddie tried to think of the right approach, what he’d say once Vinnie had downed a couple of beers, loosened up, dropped the wise-guy routine, and returned to the kid Eddie had known years before, a nice guy, like so many others, but with lousy parents, the mother a lush, the father missing altogether. What could you do but feel sorry for a kid like that, a little guy, picked on. Eddie had saved him from a bully once, and after that Vinnie had hung close for a few years. Then they’d gone their separate ways until one night they’d met again at the Saint Lawrence Hotel, where Vinnie ran a shylocking operation from the office of an otherwise legit car service. Vinnie had ushered him into the little cubicle he used for business, and the two of them had talked for a few minutes, Vinnie propped back in his chair, his feet on the desk, puffing a cigar that was almost as long as his arm, acting the made-man routine, though all Eddie had to do was look around to know just how little-made he was, just how low on the pecking order. But it was the moment he’d started to leave, Eddie recalled now. He’d gotten up, smiling as always, started for the door, when Vinnie, still seated, had called him back, So, Eddie.

Eddie had turned around to find the little guy staring at him intently, the cigar lowered, the old Vinnie peering at him, almost sweetly, so that Eddie knew that Vinnie was remembering how Eddie had saved him from that bully so many years before. So, Eddie, how you doing, huh?

That was the moment, Eddie thought now, his large hands wrapped around the mug, that was the moment when he could have asked anything of Vinnie Caruso. If he’d been in debt, the money would have been there. If some guy had been giving him trouble—on the job, say, or anywhere else—that guy would have been spoken to by Vinnie or some thug Vinnie sent, and the trouble would have instantly gone away. But Eddie had only shrugged and said that he was doing fine. Then they’d shaken hands, and Vinnie had tapped the side of his head, and said his parting words, You was good to me, Eddie. And when somebody’s good to Vinnie Caruso, he don’t forget.

The problem was this. Eddie didn’t like asking favors. He didn’t like doing it ever, and normally wouldn’t have done it at all. You didn’t do a guy a good turn because you expected to get something back. The priests had taught him that. If you do good to get good, they’d told him, it wasn’t really good at all. But now, as he thought about it, he hadn’t helped Vinnie Caruso all those many years before because he’d expected to get something back. So it was okay, he figured, asking Vinnie for a favor now, as long as it was just this one.

Caruso came through the door with the peculiar swagger he’d adopted over the last few years, and which Eddie thought he’d probably gotten from mob movies, especially the one where this wiry little guy talks big and screws this gorgeous blonde, and backs up everything he says with sudden bursts of annihilating violence.

“Hey, Eddie,” Vinnie said brightly as he strode up to the booth. “How they hanging?”

“I’m good,” Eddie said. “Want a beer?”

“Nah,” Vinnie said. He stripped off his jacket and hung it on the metal hanger beside the booth. “I’m a scotch guy.” He snapped his fingers and the barmaid appeared. “You got Glenfiddich, sweetheart?”

“Yeah.”

“Two cubes. Three fingers.”

The barmaid looked as if she’d just bitten into a lemon. “Okay,” she said, then turned on her heel and disappeared.

“So, how you doing?” Vinnie asked.

“Good,” Eddie said. He took a sip of warm beer.

“At the marina, right? That was the last time?”

Eddie started to answer, but the barmaid returned with the scotch, placed it on a small paper square in front of Caruso, then stepped away.

Vinnie lifted the glass. “To old times.”

“Old times,” Eddie echoed.

The glasses clinked together and each man drank.

“You been waiting long?” Vinnie asked.

Eddie shook his head.

Vinnie leaned forward. “So, what’s on your mind, Eddie?”

There seemed no way to edge around it, close in slowly, so Eddie said, “You know about Tony, right? That his wife left him?”

“Yeah, I heard about it.”

“Tony says his father is trying to find her.”

Vinnie’s fingers tightened around the scotch. “So?”

“So I was wondering if he asked you to do it.”

Vinnie took a quick hit from the scotch, then set the glass down hard. “I don’t talk about business, Eddie.”

“That means yes, right?”

“That means I don’t talk about business is what that means.”

“The thing is, Tony’s spooked,” Eddie said.

“Spooked? Why?”

“ ’Cause he don’t know what his father has in mind.”

“For that wife of his?”

“Yeah. He don’t want nobody strong-arming her.”

“Who said anybody was gonna strong-arm her?”

“He’s afraid, that’s all,” Eddie said. “You know how Labriola is.”

“Mr. Labriola just wants to find his wife for him,” Caruso said. “Then he’ll tell Tony where she is and Tony, he goes and talks to her.”

“He told you that? The Old Man?”

“Yeah,” Caruso said.

“So you’re looking for her?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Caruso admitted. “But like I said, Mr. Labriola, he just wants they should talk, Tony and his wife, work things out, you know what I mean? Make nice. He don’t like it when things don’t go smooth.”

Eddie looked at Vinnie doubtfully.

“What?” Vinnie asked crisply.

“And if the wife didn’t want to make nice, you wouldn’t do nothing to her, would you, Vinnie?”

“What would I do?”

“You wouldn’t do nothing is what I’m asking.”

“Why you asking me that, Eddie?”

“I’m asking because suppose you find Tony’s wife and she don’t want to have nothing to do with Tony. What then?”