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  “It might be,” she said. “I mean, yeah, it is. He went to Fairfield, but he dropped out this year.”

  That was the Stuart I knew. “Jesus, Grace, how did you hook up with him?” I was trying to get my head around it. Stuart Koch was the kind of kid who’d ask you how to spell DUI. A chronic underachiever if ever there was one. “Where’d you meet him?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “He’s a lost kid. Hopeless. Going nowhere. Honestly.”

  She shot me a look. “So what are you saying? He wasn’t worth saving because he’s not a girl?”

  Her aim was good with that one.

  I knew that was a reference to a student I’d had seven years ago. Jane Scavullo, her name was. A troubled kid, always getting into fights. No one on staff had any use for her. But I’d thought there was something there. It came through in her writing assignments. She had a real gift, and I ended up going to bat for her. Of course, there were some extenuating circumstances, too, but those aside, Jane had struck me as a kid who could amount to more than she herself could have imagined. She ended up going to college, and not that long ago, I’d run into her.

  I’d talked about her from time to time with Grace, so she knew the story.

  “It’s not that,” I said defensively. “Jane had . . . potential. If Stuart has any, it wasn’t evident to me at the time.” I hesitated. “If I’ve misjudged him, feel free to set me straight.”

  She had nothing to say to that, and I let it go—I sensed there was a more immediate problem involving this kid. Were they going together? If so, when had it started? How long had this been going on without my knowledge? Had they had some kind of fight this evening? A breakup?

  “What were you doing at that gas station?”

  “I walked there,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek. “I walked for, like, ten minutes or so, and when I got there I figured it would be an easy place for you to find to come get me.”

  “Was Stuart driving?” A nod. “But he left you to walk on your own at night, to that gas station? That sure as hell speaks well of him.”

  “It’s not like that,” she said. “You don’t understand.”

  “I don’t understand because you haven’t told me anything. Did Stuart hurt you? Did he do something he shouldn’t have?”

  Her lips parted, as if she was about to say something, then closed.

  “What?” I asked. “Grace, I know that maybe some things would be easier to talk about with your mother, but did he . . . did he try to make you do things that made you uncomfortable?”

  A slow, torturous nod.

  “Oh, honey,” I said.

  “It’s not what you think,” she said. “It wasn’t . . . it wasn’t that kind of stuff. He knew about this car.”

  “What car?”

  “A Porsche. He knew where there was one that he wanted to take me for a ride in.”

  “But it wasn’t his car?”

  Grace shook her head.

  “Did it belong to someone he knew?”

  “No,” she whispered. “He was kind of going to steal it. I mean, not forever, but just for a little while, and then he was going to take it back.”

  I put a hand to my forehead. “Good God, Grace, tell me you and this boy didn’t take someone’s car for a joyride.” My mind made several leaps in a nanosecond. They’d stolen a car. They’d hit a pedestrian. They’d fled the scene and—

  “We didn’t steal it,” she said. But she didn’t say it in a way that gave me any reason to feel relieved.

  “You got caught? He got caught? Trying to take the car?”

  “No,” Grace said.

  I folded the lid down on the toilet and took a seat. “You gotta help me here, Grace. I can’t play twenty questions with you over and over until we get to what happened. Tell me that when Stuart went to take this car, that’s when you walked away.”

  “Not totally,” she said, and sniffed. I handed her more tissues and she blew her nose. Even if she wasn’t sick, she looked terrible. Eyes red and bloodshot, skin pale, her hair in tangled strands. An image of her when she was five or six flashed before my eyes, when Cynthia and I took her to Virginia Beach and she was covered in sand from head to toe, building a castle at the water’s edge, flashing a smile with three missing teeth.

  Did that girl still exist? Was she still here? Buried deep inside this one curling in on herself in front of me?

  I waited. I could sense her steeling herself. Getting ready to tell me, and then face the music after I knew what she’d done.

  “I think . . .”

  “You think what?”

  “I think . . .”

  “Jesus, Grace, you think what?”

  “I think . . . I think I might have shot somebody.”

  NINE

  GORDIE Plunkett was starting to think everybody was going to be late for this meet tonight. Even the boss.

  He spoke to the guy behind the desk in the motel office, rented the room, and not for the going rate, either, since they wouldn’t be messing up the sheets. This was the kind of place many customers would take for an hour, and Gordie knew Vince wasn’t going to need it for much more than that, unless their latest customers were late.

  Even then, it wouldn’t be an issue. If people you were meeting with didn’t show up on time, you didn’t wait around. Made you look weak. Vince had taught Gordie that. You didn’t sit on your ass while someone disrespected you. You got up and you left. Besides, someone being late could mean something bad. Maybe the cops had picked them up. You didn’t wait around to find out.

  Gordie just hoped the boss, and Bert and Eldon, managed to get here before their latest clients.

  Bert Gooding showed up first.

  “Where’s Eldon the Cock?” Bert asked, getting out of his car and walking over to Gordie, who was standing on the sidewalk outside of room twelve.

  “Eldon? What about you? Where you been? And where’s Vince?”

  “I think maybe he had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and it took a lot out of him,” Bert said.

  “He looks like shit lately.”

  “Yeah. First his wife, and then he gets it. But he should be along any second. I don’t know where Eldon is.”

  “Jeez,” Gordie said. “Eldon’s supposed to be covering the front door. You’re supposed to be out back—”

  “I know where I’m supposed to be.”

  “And I’m inside. That’s the way Vince likes it.”

  “Yeah, well, Vince don’t run as tight a ship as he used to,” Bert observed.

  Gordie’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean? You mean because he’s been sick?”

  “That’s just part,” Bert said. “He’s not cracking the whip. Things are sliding. We should be out jacking cars, pulling over trucks, the kind of stuff we used to do.”

  “Vince hasn’t got the energy for that anymore,” Gordie said.

  “He should do the chemo.”

  “He doesn’t want to.”

  “He doesn’t do the chemo, he’s just hurting himself.”

  “Don’t argue with me about it,” Gordie said. “Where the fuck is Eldon?”

  “All I’m sayin’ is, I don’t like the way things are going.”

  “Then maybe you should bring it up with the boss,” Gordie said, using a tone almost daring Bert to do it, knowing he never would. Vince Fleming might not be the man he once was, but you didn’t cross him. “Anyway, what’s your excuse?”

  “For what?”

  “For being late.”

  Bert shrugged. “Jabba.” As in Jabba the Hutt, his pet name, at least away from home, for his wife, Janine.

  Gordie didn’t have to ask for details. Janine had a face that would make a Pamplona bull turn around and go back, and a disposition to match. Gordie figured it was a testament to Bert’s character that he hadn’t killed her. God knows he had the wherewithal, and plenty of experience at getting rid of bodies. He could take her up to the farm, feed the pigs for a co
uple of days. Unlike Bert, Gordie had never married. He’d always figured paying someone once a week was a simpler way to take care of one’s needs. The irony was, Bert did the same.

  “There’s Vince,” Bert said, pointing to the Dodge Ram pickup turning into the lot. He parked the truck, got out and walked over to the two men.

  “Where’s the Cock?” Vince asked. It was Eldon’s bad luck to have a last name that, while spelled differently, looked as though it would be pronounced similarly to the male member.

  “Don’t know,” Bert said.

  Vince Fleming angled his head to one side. “And why don’t you know?”

  Slowly, he said, “Because I haven’t called him.”

  “Why don’t you do that, then?”

  Bert got out his phone as Vince said to Gordie, “This the room?”

  “Yeah. I did a Dunkin’ run. There’s some coffee and shit in there.”

  Vince grumbled something unintelligible as he went into the unit. Gordie sidled up to Bert, who was waiting for Eldon to pick up, and said, “I was sure you were going to ask the boss why he was late.”

  “Fuck off.” Bert shook his head in frustration. “Eldon’s not answering. It’s going to voice—Hey, asshole, Bert here. You should already be here. If you’re not here in the next two minutes, you better call with a good reason why.” He ended the call, put the phone back into his pocket.

  “I’m goin’ ’round back,” he said. It was their standard operating procedure. Watch the meeting place from all sides.

  Gordie went into the motel room. It had all the charm one could expect for twenty bucks an hour. Vince was putting cream into one of the takeout coffees, helping himself to a strawberry-filled donut. Biting into it, he said, “They say these things’ll kill ya.”

  Gordie didn’t know whether he was supposed to laugh at that, so he played it safe and said nothing.

  “What’s up with Eldon?”

  “Bert left a message.”

  Vince went to the window, used two sugar-dusted fingers to pry apart the chipped and grimy blinds. “I need someone out there before these assholes arrive.”

  “You want me to cover the front, have Bert come inside?”

  Vince took another bite. “No, let’s wait. Hang on—someone’s coming.”

  A pair of headlights swept the lot as a car turned in off the street. It was an old, rusted VW Golf that sounded like a lawn mower, with Eldon behind the wheel. Bald as a cue ball, but a head more basketball-sized. Vince had been expecting to see Eldon in his massive old Buick.

  “I’m going out,” Vince said to Gordie, who was prying another coffee out of the cardboard takeout tray. Eldon was backing the Golf into a spot across from the unit so he’d have a good view of anything that went down. But what was going down now was Vince, and he looked pissed. He was walking toward him slowly but deliberately. Vince hadn’t been able to run for some time, not since he’d been shot seven years earlier. The bullet damaged the muscles in his gut, among other things, and made it difficult for him to move quickly.

  Eldon put down his window. Vince leaned in, his face in Eldon’s.

  “Where the fuck have you been?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I got held up. Nothing’s happened, has it?”

  “They’re not here yet.”

  “No harm, then,” he said, forcing a smile and shrugging. “I’m here. We’re good.”

  Vince pulled his head out of the car and walked back to the motel room. Gordie was exiting the bathroom as Vince came in, doing up his belt, checking his zipper.

  “Fucking gang who couldn’t shoot straight,” Vince said. The cell in his hand buzzed.

  “He here?” Bert asked.

  “He’s here,” Vince said, and ended the call. He sat wearily on the edge of the bed.

  Gordie said, “Did I hear right? Eldon’s here?”

  “Yeah. So we’re good to go.” Gordie noticed Vince was breathing heavily. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  The cell phone in Vince’s left hand buzzed yet again. “Yeah?”

  “Our boys are here,” Eldon said. “Just pulling up in a Lexus SUV.”

  “How many?”

  “Unless they got someone hiding in the back, just the two, like you said. But . . . hang on. There’s another car, a Beemer, holding back, down the street. Can’t see who’s in it.”

  “The Beemer’s just sitting there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cops?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “No, wait. It’s driving off.”

  “You sure?” Vince asked.

  “Yeah, it’s gone. Okay, and the driver’s getting out of the Lexus—now the other guy. The other guy has the bag. A black backpack. I’m getting out, will tell ’em which room.”

  Vince Fleming killed the connection, said to Gordie, “They’re here.”

  He nodded. His duties were limited, at least on this occasion, to standing, watching, and guarding. A gun that he’d tucked into his belt he now took out and held. If things got out of hand, he wanted to be ready. Gordie had hurt a lot of people in his time working for Vince, but then again, so had Vince. But the boss didn’t quite have the energy for it he once did.

  Five quick raps on the door. Knuckles on metal.

  Vince rose from the edge of the bed and opened the door. The men resembled each other. White, stocky, neither of them over five-six, both with black greasy hair, although one kept his shorter than the other. Couple of fireplugs. Looked like, if you wanted to push one of them over, you’d have to lean and put your back into it.

  “Hey,” Vince said, and closed the door once they were inside. “Which one of you is Logan?”

  “I’m Logan,” said the one with the shorter hair, who also looked about five years older. He tipped his head toward the one who was holding the backpack. “This is Joseph.”

  “You two related?” Vince asked.

  “He’s my brother,” said Logan.

  Joseph went over, uninvited, and examined the pastries in the Dunkin’ Donuts box. He selected a jam-filled one, bit into it, then frowned.

  “Shit, cherry.” He tossed the donut with the bite out of it back into the box and selected a chocolate. Bit into it, smiled. “This is better.”

  “The hell?” Gordie said.

  Vince glared but said nothing.

  After two bites, enough of the donut was gone that he was able to shove the rest into his mouth. Vince eyed the backpack he was holding and said, “So whaddya got for us?”

  Joseph’s mouth was too full to talk. His brother Logan said, “Couple things I need to get straight first. How do we know we can trust you?”

  Vince looked at him with dead eyes. “You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t checked me out.”

  Logan shrugged. “Yeah, okay, we did that.”

  “You want to do business, I’m ready. You not sure? Take your pig of a brother here and get the fuck out.”

  “Excuse me?” Joseph said, licking his fingers.

  Vince kept his eyes on Logan. “Yes or no?”

  Logan tried to meet the stare, but after five seconds looked away. “Yeah, I want to do business.”

  “You gonna let him talk to me that way?” Joseph asked his brother.

  “Shut up,” Logan said. “Give me the backpack.”

  Joseph handed it over.

  “I got a lot in here for you to look after,” Logan said.

  “Just cash?” Vince asked.

  Logan cocked his head. “I thought that was all you took.”

  “Whatever you can fit in that backpack, we’ll take.”

  “Like a head?” Joseph asked.

  Now Vince looked at him. “What?”

  “A head. A head would fit in a bag like that. Let’s say we had a guy’s head and we needed to save it for something later, could you tuck it away for us?” Joseph grinned. “If we wrapped it up, like, so it didn’t smell?”

  Logan said, “We don’t have a head.”

  Vin
ce said, “Let’s start counting.” He pointed toward the cheap dresser, the laminate on the top and drawers heavily chipped. Sitting on it, next to an old, nonflat television that had to weigh three hundred pounds, was a currency-counting machine that looked, at a glance, like an oversized computer printer.

  “Why do you need to know that?” Logan asked.

  “When you go into your local Bank of America branch with a stack of cash, do you just tell them how much it is and they say okay?”

  Logan grunted. He put the backpack on the bed, unzipped it, and reached in with both hands to bring out stacks of bills held together with rubber bands.

  “Each stack is a thousand,” Logan said. “There’s seventy of them.”

  “Seventy grand,” Vince said flatly. “I thought you said it was a lot.”

  He shook his head, grabbed three stacks at random. If they each came out to a thousand, Vince wouldn’t bother counting the rest mechanically. He slipped off the rubber bands and set the stacks, one after the other, into the machine. Once he had the bills nicely tucked in, he hit the button and the bills fanned like tall grass in the wind.

  After he’d checked the third stack, Vince said, “Okay. Now we’ll see that we have seventy of them stacks.”

  It didn’t take Vince long to count them, making them into seven piles of ten. Gordie didn’t help. As he’d been instructed, he was there to watch, and besides, it was hard to count bills with a gun in your hand.

  “Now what?” Logan asked.

  “I take my service charge,” Vince said, pocketing five thousand-dollar stacks. “That covers you for six months.”

  “Motherfucker. That’s high. What if I want it back before the six months is up?”

  Vince shook his head. “Minimum charge.”

  “Fine,” Logan muttered. “I’m outta options. The police may be watching us. Last week, they had a warrant to search our warehouse. Didn’t find anything, the fucks. But they know what properties we own. And Swiss banks aren’t what they used to be, either.”

  “No,” Vince concurred. “I think we’re done here.”

  Logan appeared uncertain. “Aren’t we supposed to get something?”

  Vince cocked his head. “A toaster?”

  “A receipt?”