The Coldest Mile Read online

  “Just see if you can track him down.”

  “Scoring the Langans, dealing with your grandfather again, it's not good business, kid. Listen to me, you don't have to do any of this. Come on in, I can give you a nice safe job, something that won't be so rough for you. I can use another good man with your skills.”

  “I think I want to see this thing through.”

  “It's all about being on the edge, right? You think your wife would want this for you? You think—”

  Chase hung up.

  Mara had started to nod off. She'd snap her chin up and murmur in Romanian and tremble as she became aware of her surroundings. Her body jerked as if being pricked with needles. She caught Chase's gaze in the rearview and gave him a true death glare. There it was, the real thing. No anger, no wanting, just bottomless human emptiness.

  The baby hiccuped. The woman unbuttoned her blouse and began to breast- feed her child, who sucked greedily. She looked out the window with stagnant eyes, and every so often she'd run her hand over the sleeping baby's hair, plucking at it, curling it around her fingers the way Lila used to do with Chase's after they'd made love.

  The dead owned him.

  The dead would always find a way to make him listen. The threefold hook twisted deep. Blood mattered, even if it wasn't his own.

  Lila said to him, Never let your heart dim, love.

  Sometime after the moon had risen, with the severe gray light rolling in across the bed like foam drifting by the Asbury Park pier, Chase came awake to find a .44 pressed to his forehead, Bishop standing there giving the friendly smile.

  “So what's this for?” Chase asked.

  “You're not even worried?”

  “Not much.” Chase tried to sit up but Bishop exerted pressure, holding his head down to the pillow. Chase very slowly reached out and pressed the gun aside, liking the way Bishop's eyes went wide like he couldn't believe Chase wasn't just going to lie there. He must've had nothing but easy kills lately. “If you were going to ace me, you'd do it on the ground floor so you wouldn't have to carry my body two flights.”

  Raising the pistol, Bishop rubbed the side of the barrel across his chin, lulling himself like a child with a blanket, loving the feel of contained murder.

  You couldn't do much with guys like this. Money was only a part of their action. They didn't get thrills the way everybody else did. Their juice was hardwired in the God complex.

  Studying Chase, Bishop pursed his lips, really trying to see who was in front of him. Chase didn't like the look.

  Bishop said, “No, that's not it at all. You're hoping someone will do it. You're a snuff case.”

  “You're trying to slur me? You nearly creamed your pants touching that Magnum the other day.” Chase swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “You pop people for pay. I think I'd hold my own against you at Sunday morning mass.”

  That got an earnest laugh out of Bishop. “What happened to the last load?”

  “The last load?”

  “The women. You came back empty- handed. Where's Ivanka? Where's the women? The kid?”

  “I dropped them off in Staten Island, like she said.”

  “They checked in but didn't stay. Where'd they go?”

  “How's that my problem?”

  “If I say it's your problem, it is.”

  “Then don't say it.”

  Dust in the moonlight looked like swirling snow drifting around them. The room a little cold now because Chase had left the window open and Bishop had left the door open when he sneaked in. Chase wondered how long he'd been in the room, watching him sleep, savoring his urge toward murder.

  “Where are the women?”

  That smile was really getting to Chase. He thought he might have to needle Bishop some, see if he could draw blood. “I sent them back.”

  “What?”

  “I sent them back home. I hate these loose immigration laws. The Mexicans and Norwegians and the Irish and all those Biafrans. They all come over and steal American jobs, put the workingman on welfare, and like that. So in the name of American values, I sent them back.”

  “You want it, don't you? You want it right in the head.”

  Stone killer eyes and flashing teeth in the silver moonshine. Chase hadn't met many hitters, but those he'd come across were just like Bishop. They liked to have a little fun before pulling the trigger. Liked to talk. These guys who were paid to kill, sometimes they'd buy their marks a beer first, pretend to meet them in a bar, get to know them a little. Spend a night talking about wives and kids and almost become friends with the patsy before putting two in the back of his head. Maybe it was instinct, a cat playing with a dying pigeon. Chase didn't know what it was all about, but he wasn't about to accept a beer from Bishop.

  “Who are you working for?” Bishop asked.

  “You people.”

  “Did you deal yourself in? Did you score the merchandise?”

  “ Black- market babies aren't a score,” he said. “And they're not merchandise.”

  “You don't think so? It's a hundred-million-dollar-a-year industry.”

  The two of them now in the dark, the wind rising outside in the frigid predawn, draft floating by, the house creaking and settling. Somewhere a tele vision was playing, the electrical hum of it working through the walls. Chase heard gruff asshole comments and low canned laughter beaming in.

  “How old are you?” Bishop asked. “ Twenty- five, six? But you've been in the life for a while, it's written right into you. That might mean your parents were on the grift, except you toss around terms like ‘strongarm.’ So maybe not your parents, more likely a grandfather. Took you on the bend early. You've been at this for a long time. But what are you doing here? If you're a driver, you ought to be crewed up with bank heisters, stickup men.”

  Chase was impressed as hell that Bishop had been able to glean all that and hit so close to home. A killer with acumen. The guy only had Chase's fake ID but maybe he'd cracked it, had asked around and found out Chase's real name, his story. That would be bad news. It would back Chase into a corner. He liked the idea that he could always fade back into his own life if he ever needed to. Not that it seemed likely to happen.

  “You don't get charming conversation like this with stickup men,” Chase said. “You've got to go all the way up to the big hitters if you want to chat about stealing babies from their mothers.”

  “Jackie said you liked to talk back.”

  Bishop brought the barrel of the .44 down hard on Chase's bad shoulder.

  Red, pulsating agony swarmed Chase's brain, but he somehow managed to swallow down a scream. The torn muscle hadn't healed yet and the hole, poorly stitched in the first place, had remained constantly infected. He felt hot fluid pulse down his back.

  Thrashing across the bed, Chase swept his hand out as if to prop himself in place, but he was actually going for the switchblade under the pillow. He'd felt a little stupid putting it there, the weight of it pressing against the side of his face while he tried to sleep, but he was glad for it now. Of course, if he'd really been smart, he would've slept with the 9mm under the pillow, instead of leaving it in the gym bag at the back of the closet. He thought he'd have to somehow get over his hatred of guns.

  Bishop was still talking. “I saw that someone was using the bandages in the bathroom up here. So, you do like to tussle, huh? That a bullet wound? You got some mean friends someplace?”

  “Don't we all?” Chase said through gritted teeth.

  He popped the blade thinking, I have to be fast.

  In a short, direct arc he slammed the point of the knife into Bishop's wrist, turned it hard, and slashed up the arm.

  Blood lunged in a short fountain. Bishop let out a laugh, the prick. You really had to worry about the guys who had fun when you hurt them. The knife hit the floor. The .44 fell on the mattress and gave a short bounce. Chase made a grab for it but Bishop elbowed him aside, leaving a swathe of blood down Chase's T-shirt. Before the pistol could hit the bed
again, Bishop made a snatch for it with his left hand. He wasn't as good with that one, Chase noticed, but he was still damn fine. He caught the gun and started to turn and point.

  Chase chopped him with a left hook under the heart. Bishop coughed up another laugh while Chase swallowed a shout, his damaged fingers flaring. The blow should've slowed Bishop down but it didn't, and the .44 continued to come around. The blood swept with it, a black pumping spray that splashed Chase's chin and made him think of the parking- lot showdown with Earl Raymond, seeing Earl's head exploding in the Roadrunner, all the weeping red on the inside of the windshield.

  Focus, Jonah said, or you're dead.

  Going in tight, Chase snapped his forearm up against Bishop's elbow, shoving the gun away again. He clamped his hand down on Bishop's wounded wrist and squeezed, digging his fingernails into the gash and listening to the slup of running blood washing over his own knuckles. Bishop didn't laugh this time. Good. Chase kicked out with his right leg trying to catch the hitter in the groin, but Bishop had started to back away, dragging Chase along. He tried to stomp Chase's left foot, doing it the right way close to the instep, just like Chase had done to the thug the other day, but in the dark Bishop missed and caught Chase on the big toe. It hurt like fuck- all, but the only thing that mattered now was trying to get the gun.

  All of this but Bishop wasn't calling to anybody else in the house. He wanted to take care of it himself.

  Chase hooked too wide with his right and Bishop stepped inside and head- butted him. He'd been going for Chase's nose but instead caught his chin. Chase's teeth snapped together painfully and he felt a small sliver of his tongue come off as his mouth filled with blood. He turned and spit and the .44 was in his face again, the moonshine glinting off the highly polished metal.

  Lila said, Love, and Jonah said, You idiot, you never should've stabbed him in the hand, you should've gone for his throat.

  When the old man was right he was right, and there was nothing you could do.

  Blood oozed across his lips.

  Backing toward the door, Bishop reholstered the pistol and said, “Don't worry about anything. I like you, I really do. Maybe you didn't have anything to do with the merchandise, maybe you did. I'll find out. We'll settle up then. I'll even save you some bandages in the bathroom up the hall, okay?” He grabbed his leaking wrist with his good hand, the smile glowing. “Hey, how about if we go out for a beer sometime?”

  At eleven in the morning, the phone rang and the same voice that Chase didn't recognize told him he was to drive Miss Sherry to her theater group, which would be meeting at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway in Manhattan. Like Chase might get it confused with another Winter Garden Theater on another Broadway in a different town.

  He was stiff as hell and the right arm was mostly useless. So was the left hand. The retaped fingers had turned a nasty purple. The piece of tongue he'd nipped off had been from the side and didn't seem to bother him much. He could talk fine and still managed to eat a late breakfast.

  Cessy saw his pain and said, “I got aspirin.” “I think I need something a little stronger.” “I got that too,” she told him, and left the kitchen to return with an unlabeled bottle of huge white pills. “Take two or three of these now. Don't take any more for at least four, maybe six hours, then you can have another two. No more than that tonight. They'll mellow you out and take away the hurt, but you'll still be able to think clearly and drive as fine as ever.”

  “Thanks.”

  She never mentioned what they were and he didn't ask. She looked at his fingers and said, “You wrapped them too tight. They must really hurt if you couldn't tell. They'll go numb and fall off.” He popped the pills and swallowed them down with a glass of milk while she cut the tape off. “You don't even have on any splints. What's the matter with you? You need a doctor, but I'll do what I can.”

  “I appreciate it. And while you're fixing me up I'll be able to drink in more of your beauty.”

  She got out more tape and bound his fingers together much better than he'd been able to do. It made him feel odd, being mothered by her, with the goofy getup on, the polka- dotted do- rag.

  “Can you get me something else?”

  “What?”

  “Antibiotics.”

  “For what?”

  “A wound that doesn't close.”

  “Let me see.”

  Chase took off his suit jacket, shirt, tie, and T-shirt. Cessy carefully peeled away the bandages and pulled a face when she got a look at the seeping gunshot wound. She probed it, and he grimaced and hissed through his teeth. She looked at the other recent damage, the pink scars and the purplish marks where the drains had been put in and taken out again. Another bullet had taken him in the right side beneath the ribs and deflated his lung. The spiderweb of mottled tissue was courtesy of Earl Raymond's sister, Ellie, who hadn't gone down easy. Raymond's whole crew had been hard.

  Washing her hands in the sink, Cessy said, “I didn't know it was that bad. Take another two pills. I've got some speed, it'll counteract the effects. Ask ing for antibiotics is like asking for medicine. There's all different kinds for different troubles. I've seen plenty of gunshot wounds before, but nobody's going to be able to help you if you keep tearing it open. Man who sewed you up the first time did a shitty job.”

  “He was a safe doctor up near the Harlem River, a cokehead burnout. I saw catgut in the bathroom down the hall from me. Can you use it?”

  “I can use it.”

  He opened his wallet and laid a couple hundred dollars on the table. She snatched it up and tucked it away in her apron.

  “See what you can do about those antibiotics too.”

  “I'll make some calls.”

  He had a large cup of coffee and drank it slowly. It reminded him of getting into the auto shop early before the kids arrived for their first class. He'd sit there staring at a couple of cars with their engines in pieces, a chalkboard full of notes behind him, and a Styrofoam cup of coffee in front of him steaming in the frigid room. The same as garages, high- school auto shops were always cold, the metal shutters never sealing properly, the cinder- block walls holding in the chill. He'd sip his coffee and wait for the first bell. The kids walking in chattering about trivial matters that weren't trivial at all. He'd never been to school and still had a romanticized notion of what it must be like, the rich complexities of such rituals. Learning about life side by side with hundreds of your peers instead of being on the grift at ten, climbing into people's bedroom windows and boosting their watches and silverware.

  Cessy returned with the catgut and another bottle of pills. The amphetamines were black, which surprised him. He'd always thought they were red. He took two more painkillers and popped two uppers. He was worried about what it might do to his system.

  Swabbing his shoulder and sewing him up, Cessy muttered to herself. “Only met a few like you in my time. Quiet but carrying thick scars. Mostly I know gangbangers, drug dealers, and pimps. They're up front with their action. Same as the hoods around here. But you, you live a different kind of life, don't you.”

  Not asking a question.

  “Where's your family at?” she asked.

  “I don't know. After this I need to go find them.”

  “You wear a wedding band on those broken fingers. Where's your wife?”

  “Dead.”

  Cessy let out a slow, lengthy breath. “Sugar, don't you think that—”

  Chase said, “What do you know about Bishop?”

  She took a second to answer. “He likes to walk around with blood on his clothes.”

  Before hitting the estate garages, Chase scoped Jackie's office and some of the other rooms again. He tried to find out where Sherry Langan was really running the show from, but it had to be the third floor, where Lenny was dying and his wife and some other old ladies were always coming and going.

  There had to be loose cash around. People like this, they might just as soon hide it in a closet as in a safe.
Thugs passed him in the corridors. Chase realized he probably should've gone about this another way. Get a string together. Two or three other second-floor men. Walk in right under everyone's noses, climb through the house checking every drawer and shelf and cupboard, just stick a gun to Jackie's temple and make him cough up the combo. Walk out while the rest of the mooks were out putting on the ninth hole.

  But Chase was still on the edge, trapped between two lives. He didn't want to call anybody in. He didn't want to have to draw down on the boss. He didn't know what he was going to do next. The three- prong hook was holding him in place as much as it was tugging him out of his shoes.

  Chase was sweating and his hands trembled. The drugs in his system hadn't found a balance yet. He felt light- headed and antsy, but at least all the pain was gone for the first time in weeks. He fought for focus. He checked his watch. He had to get ready to drive Sherry to her theater group, and who the hell knew what that was really all about.

  On his way to the limo, Moe Irvine stopped him. “You're late. Miss Sherry is waiting.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “You're not wearing the hat and gloves. I've been giving you some leeway because you're new here, but your attitude hasn't improved any.”

  “I saw what happened to your last chauffeur. Let's say I'm not feeling all that comfortable here yet.”

  That slow- burning anger leaking around Moe's eyes wasn't so slow today. Moe had problems on his hands. He knew the business was skittering out of his grasp. The number two man was going to have to hand over too much to Lenny's kids and Lenny still wouldn't drop off the cliff.

  “I was informed about some trouble last night in the servants’ quarters,” Moe said.

  Actually calling them that, the servants’ quarters.

  Chase said, “I didn't hear anything.”

  “And you weren't involved?”

  “I do what I can to steer clear of trouble.”

  “It doesn't appear that way to me.”

  “But you're just getting to know me, Moe.”

  Moe stared at the stickpin he'd given Chase, like he wanted it back, didn't want it to go to waste in the landfill. “Miss Sherry is waiting.”