The Coldest Mile Page 7

  “Yeah, you said that.”

  Chase got the limo backed out and turned around in the driveway, then smoothly sailed up to Sherry, who was waiting out front in the Jacqueline O's. A few strongarms paced around, acting tougher than usual, sort of squabbling with each other. They were trying to get a little more territorial now—show their stuff and hopefully get picked to go to Chicago.

  Chase opened the back door for Sherry, and when she took his hand she held on to it for an extra second, full of intent.

  The painkillers were starting to override the bennies. He felt a flat, heavy mellowness work through him. The heat at the back of his head began to cool. He thought he should take another upper to get back some of his step, but for the first time in weeks he was relaxed. Maybe it wasn't so bad. Maybe he should go with it for a couple hours.

  Traffic was heavier than normal but he used the limo's intimidation factor to carve access into loaded lanes. He slid the stretch toward the Holland Tunnel again, waiting for her to say something. She didn't. She appeared as calm as ever, but he kept picking up some extra vibe. He didn't know what it was. It drew his eyes to the rearview time and again, but he couldn't see anything different.

  Except maybe the vein in her throat. It throbbed. She was in a state, but didn't show it in her expression.

  So much for the mellow. He popped another bennie dry. The serene veil that had draped over him immediately shredded and fell away. His heart bucked in his chest.

  Jonah said, She's going to kill you.

  * * *

  Sherry made herself a drink and sipped it, crossed her legs and balanced the glass on her knee. Her skirt hiked back a little farther than it should, showing off the elegant and elaborate network of muscles leading to her thigh.

  “Why are you here?” she said.

  Maybe the truth—some of the truth—would be best. “I got a call that the Langan family needed a driver. A wheelman. Turns out that's not who you needed at all.”

  “Why didn't you just quit when you found that out?”

  “It was too late by then.”

  She clicked her nails against the glass. It wasn't much of a tell, but he could see she needed to do something while she worked through her thoughts. The Jacqueline O's stymied him. He wasn't going to get much more from her measured gaze, but even that was better than plastic.

  “Take off your shades,” he said.

  She turned her head to stare out the tinted window for a moment, considering. Then she took them off.

  “Maybe we can use you in some other capacity,” she said.

  “You've got too big a crew as it is.”

  “What makes you say that?” she asked.

  “Wiseguys playing golf on the job, for starters. Everyone knows the Chicago setup will be smaller. Most of the strongarms will be skipping out on you soon. They're afraid of looking weak to the other outfits. So they'll be badmouthing you when they jump. It'll cause you trouble when you get to Chi, so many of your own people disparaging you.”

  “We're working on avoiding all of that.”

  “I'm sure. But you should tell Bishop to quit advertising his messes. Brains on your tie doesn't earn you points, it just shows you're careless about forensic evidence.”

  That got to her. Sherry Langan's eyes flared for an instant. Chase got a primeval kind of joy out of it.

  They entered the darkness of the Holland Tunnel and Chase came back to himself, aware that he was driving a little slow for the pace of the place. Funny it should be like that. The amphetamines raging, his blood slamming through his body, the taxis crowding him, cops and Army everywhere as they crossed over toward Manhattan, and he didn't even have the hammer down. The last time they'd done this she'd pressed the cold gunmetal against his neck. He headed north to the theater district.

  Sherry made eye contact in the mirror and said, “I want you.”

  “You want me to what,” Chase said.

  “I want you, ” she repeated, and Chase got it as she slipped off her panties over her high heels and tossed them onto the bar.

  He thought, Oh shit.

  It wasn't a display of lust so much as a demonstration of power. She owned a lot, and she thought she owned him. “Come on,” she said, “park it and get in back with me. Let me pour you a drink.”

  He looked around at the foot traffic. Little old la dies dragging ass and pulling carts with their stockings rolled down to their ankles. Quick- stepping tourists trying to look worldly. Long Island housewives in for a day of shopping.

  These Langans, they really did like to do things fast and out in the open. “What about your theater group?”

  “They're a bunch of fatcat tristate politicians’ wives. My father always said you had to put in your time pursuing irrelevant activities with those you needed. It gives them a sense of honest bonding.”

  “Like golf.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Maybe they hate it just as much as you do.”

  “Of course they do. Those wives despise each other, and me, as much as I do them. It's all very foolish, despite its self- serving mainstay.”

  “I suppose you don't find it culturally stimu lating.”

  “Why are you still talking?”

  Lila had loved the theater. They'd tried to hit the city every couple months to take in a show—not just the musicals, but the classic plays. Chase had a fondness for Ibsen and Brecht, but you could never catch one of his pieces anywhere on Broadway. You had to go way off off and sit in a small theater of ninety seats and watch how it used to be done a hundred years ago. Up close and without an orchestra. No dancing cats, no movie stars slumming until their agents set up the next major deal. Lila would hold his hand in the dark and he'd press her palm to the side of his face.

  “I said to park it,” Sherry told him.

  “You can afford the penthouse at the Ritz and you want to make it in the back of a Chrysler on 38th Street?”

  “Yes,” Sherry said. “I like the limo. I like it dirty and I like it on the streets. It's where the action and gamble is. I want you to shove my face against the window, so I can watch them go by out there while you fuck me from behind.”

  So that was her juice. This lady, Chase thought, she had a lot of demands. “You must get interrupted by a lot of meter maids.”

  “Why are we still talking? Get back here with me.”

  He wondered if Bishop had told her about the missing women. He wondered if Sherry was only turned on because she was planning to send Bishop after him and was sniffing the death scent.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I'm married.”

  “Who gives a damn about that?”

  “She would.”

  “She's not here.”

  He wanted to tell her, Sure, she is, she's always here, but Lila was talking, saying to him, Sweetness, you need to get a move on here, no more of this lol-lygagging, there's a little girl waiting for you to pluck her out of an evil man's hands.

  “You're not going to fuck me?” Sherry Langan asked. Color bloomed in her cheeks. She didn't look shocked or surprised or even angry, just a touch puzzled and maybe a little bruised in that spoiled rich girl not getting everything she wanted way. He knew that what he was seeing in her face wasn't the truth. He knew she would harbor a deep resentment now that only blood could clear away.

  “I'm not going to fuck you. You want to talk about Ibsen I can prep you a little. You'll wow the fatcat politicians’ wives.”

  He'd made another mistake. He couldn't blame the pills. She'd even warned him. Don't screw with someone's conceit.

  Now he knew one of her secrets—that's the thing, they have a way of exposing themselves. She didn't get off on good old hot sex. She wanted it dirty and with the rest of the world going by, staring into a crowd who didn't know she was there.

  Now she wouldn't be satisfied until he was dead with her teeth in his throat.

  It was going to come down fast now. His self- imposed time limit of two weeks was nearly gone, and the
score was no closer to being in his hand. He'd made enemies of the head of the family and her right-hand hitter. He might just have to rob Sherry's jewelry box in the middle of the night and be done with it.

  Ten o'clock the next morning, Cessy brought him the antibiotics and more painkillers. He paid her another c-note and she said, “I labeled the bottle myself, with instructions. Follow them. If that shoulder doesn't close up in the next few days, you need to get to a real doctor, not some crackhead.”

  “Thanks for your help.”

  “You don't look good. You're pale.” She went down the hall to the bathroom and came back with a wet hand towel. She washed his face and ran it over his sweaty hair. “You've got a fever.”

  “I'll be okay.”

  “You take care of yourself. And when you do whatever it is you're planning to do, just don't blow up the kitchen. Not while I'm in it, anyways.” She smiled, going for the big mama loves her chillun act, but it ended abruptly. “Don't get lazy. These people seem ludicrous to street hustlers like us, but they hold on to their hatred and they never let up. They got nothing to do in life but cause others pain.”

  An hour later, while Chase finished fine- tuning the Ferrari and stood there deciding whether he wanted to escape with the suit or not, a convoy of town cars and SUVs came roaring onto the estate.

  The doctors had told the family to make any last calls because Lenny wasn't going to make it through the day. Wiseguys from all over the place showed up to Judas kiss each other on the cheeks—goombahs and blue bloods hugging it out, just waiting to clip each other and take the Langans’ East Coast pie.

  A big catered lunch was served while Lenny sucked in his last breaths. People wailed all over the house. The family wasn't Italian but these people sure knew how to act out their grief the way the Sicilians did. Every so often a few of them came outside to have a smoke and hand each other envelopes. The ME rolled Lenny away by one o'clock and the fleet vanished out the gates following the body.

  That very afternoon the Langans began to liquidate Lenny's possessions. Neither Jackie nor Sherry put much of a premium on antiques, and they considered anything over ten years old a relic. All day long appraisers came in and checked out the furniture, the crystal, the artwork.

  Then the wiseguys all went out back and played a few holes of golf. All the crying was out of their system. Lenny's demise got them two under par. Chase watched the Langan crew start packing up the necessities for their eventual move.

  Smoothing a blue ascot, Jackie strolled out to the garage and said to Chase, “I need you to take me to the city this afternoon.”

  “Sorry to hear about your father.”

  “Thanks. Not like we didn't have time to get ready. Better this than watching him lie there goddamn brain- dead, turning yellow as his kidneys shut down, tubes up his nose and down his throat and in his ass.”

  Chase had nothing to say to that.

  “Anyway, I need to get out of here and straighten my head out for a while,” Jackie said.

  “Back to the massage parlor?” Chase asked.

  Jackie bristled at the words but there wasn't much else you could call the place. “Yeah, I need to get my ashes hauled. My old man, he told me that when his father died he went to Vegas for a weekend, lost eighty g's, snorted a pound of coke, and fucked nine chink hookers, including a couple sisters.”

  “The heart wants what it wants,” Chase said.

  Jackie glanced over and saw that the Spyder had its hood open. “Are you still fucking with my Ferrari?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don't learn, do you? Why are you still messing with my car?”

  “To get it to do what it was meant to do. Get in.”

  “What?”

  “It's finished. Let's take it out and I'll show you what it can do.”

  “My father's dead.”

  “Yeah, I know. Get in. We'll take a cruise, in his memory.”

  “What?” Jackie didn't know what to do or say. “But—”

  “All the antiques will still be here when we get back.”

  “But—”

  Chase wasn't sure Jackie was going to go for it, but without his thugs around, he seemed more pliable, eager for acceptance. He was also probably a little more broken up about his father's death than he'd ever understand himself. Chase reached out and pulled the ascot off Jackie's neck and said, “Come on, it'll help you unwind.” Before they left, Chase smeared mud across the plates.

  He wanted to feel the miles whip by. It had been too long since he'd been in charge of some real horsepower. Chase knew he was making another mistake, but the heart wants what it wants.

  He decided to open it up a little on the way to Newark, down to Avenue P, where the cops had been fighting a losing battle against street racing for years. It was still early evening but there was muscle all over. GTOs, souped Mustangs, Vettes with some reinforced bodywork. The air was already thick with nitrous. Chase knew Jackie had never opened her up. He eased on the gas and let his guts lead him through the machine, inch by inch into the engine, feeling the vibrations deep within.

  Forget the skinny Jap chicks kicking the fuck out of your vertebrae, this was the way to get loose and get laid. His nuts were heating up. Jackie stuck his arms out against the dashboard like he expected to hit a wall any second. He was keeping up a steady line of chatter but Chase tuned him out and kicked it higher, up to seventy, eighty, ninety, the road wide and endless ahead of him.

  Drivers had been wiping out here for years, kids a lot younger than him, old men looking to get back their hipness, their sweet spots. Chase hit triple digits and Jackie let out a whine like a hurt dog. He flinched and writhed in the passenger seat. Maybe Chase had been thrown off his game by driving the goddamn limo. If he hadn't been so out of it he would've realized he needed muscle to really get better.

  Two cop cruisers picked them up just as Chase made a screaming left turn. Other cars flashed their lights and honked in support. The cops flipped a bitch and came roaring up behind him. Jackie looked hypnotized and started to hyperventilate. Lenny had probably owned DAs, judges, and congressmen, but Jackie was afraid of a speeding ticket. No wonder his sister was taking over the empire.

  Chase played tag with the cruisers all around Newark. Two staties joined in as he headed north up US 1 & 9, angling for Palisades Park and ripping toward Fort Lee. The Jersey Turnpike flattened out ahead and dumped traffic right into the heart of the city. Chase punched it and zagged among street-crawling suburbia. No matter how fast your car is or how big a head start you have on the cops, you can't lose them on straightaways. You need to turn off and creep around some burgh, get lost among your neighbors.

  Jackie kept leaving himself and then coming back. His eyes rolled in terror and then focused, and then immediately unfocused again. Sherry had called it— It's what they fear most. Being forced to face up to their own charade, their weakness exposed. Jackie was scared of his own car, of what it represented on the road.

  “Stop!” Jackie screamed. “Jesus Christ, stop it! Pull over!”

  “You want to give yourself over to the cops?” Chase asked.

  “You're going to crack us up!”

  “You haven't been paying attention. Aren't you impressed with how the car handles?”

  “Who the fuck cares about that now!”

  “You should.”

  “They'll get the plates!”

  “No, they won't. Jackie, didn't you ever get into any trouble when you were a kid?”

  “Christ, not like this!”

  “That's why you're a mark.”

  Jackie wasn't listening anymore. There were more Jersey cruisers around now, sirens and lights giving a nice background bloom of noise and color, trying to box Chase in. He headed to the Bridge Plaza, sped onto the Palisades, and weaved in and out of the traffic coming off 9W. One hot- dog statie hung with him for longer than the others, but Chase shook him by slicing across a shopping- center parking lot, slowing down enough so that soccer
moms in SUVs could pull out around him, clogging the aisles so the trooper got gridlocked even with his siren and lights on. You could always count on the ladies not to look in their rearviews when they wanted to get home to start dinner.

  When Jackie next came out of his stupor he looked around expecting cops everywhere and saw none. He let out a chuckle and relaxed in his seat as Chase dropped to forty- five, swung back on the Palisades, then leisurely took the next exit and drove back roads toward the Langan home.

  “Holy shit,” Jackie said, reaching around like he wanted his two ice cubes, his Vicks Vapo-Rub, teak-wood sandals, anything to fill his hand and his neediness. “You got away.”

  “It's what I do, Jackie.”

  “I can see that. You're good, you're really fucking good. But you're crazy, you rotten prick. You're supposed to be taking care of me. I finally got my inheritance, you think I want to join my old man in the ground?”

  But when they drew up to the gates of the estate, Jackie was smiling so wide he looked deranged. It wasn't a whole lot better than the lemon out of somebody's asshole look. “That was really something else. What you did with my car. Jesus.”

  “When you said you needed a driver, this is what I thought you wanted.”

  Confusion set in, Jackie's eyes wide, still smiling like he was punch- drunk. “But why would I want anybody to do that?”

  The phone call came in half an hour later on Chase's phone, the butler's voice—or whoever it was—telling him in haughty tones that Mr. Langan would be driving into the city for a chiropractic appointment.

  Uh huh. By the time Jackie was ready to start off for the Japanese massage parlor, he'd gotten into a nice, cool funky groove. He came out of the house grinning and clapped one of his thugs on the arm, even tried making a bit of small talk. His cheeks were still a little flushed and he kept running one hand through his hair, tugging at tufts like he could still feel his scalp crawling.

  In the limo he asked a lot of questions about driving. He wanted to know specifically what Chase had done to the Ferrari. He came close to apologizing for ordering the brawl on the first day but didn't quite do it. Jackie had a compadre now. Chase wondered if he'd be bumped up to strongarm or whatever the hell these people called their main crew. There might be time to hang around and figure out what happened to the cash that came in and somehow jug the safe.