Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [131]
At her funeral, Boomer stood out, a stranger among family, sitting in the back row of a candlelit church, listening to the faces who had shared decades with her talk about their memories. He only half listened, his eyes staring down the curved arms of the aisles at the closed oak coffin air-locking the body of a woman who had died for no reason.
Boomer pictured Carolyn’s easy smile and allowed his mind to drift off, to conjure up images of the life they might have had together. These images—places they would visit, dinners they would share—were fleeting.
The time for romance was over.
Other images took hold.
Boomer had never met Wilber Graves, but he knew him well. Hard-edged and soulless, a gun for hire whose thrills were fed watching a human being bleed a life away. He would soon meet up with Wilber Graves and it would end as it was destined to end, with one man standing above the other.
He and the Apaches had started the war. Lucia and her crew were now making their move. People would die. Most were deserving, some might be innocent. To win, the Apaches could no longer see themselves as ex-cops out to right a wrong. They had to dig deeper, search harder, strip away their layers of weakness and humanity, and face their foes on an equal footing.
Boomer knelt in the pew, head buried in his hands, and prayed to the God in the room to give him the strength he needed.
To destroy his enemies.
The enemies who erased Carolyn Bartlett from the center of his life.
Boomer dropped two red roses in Carolyn’s open grave, then stared blankly as four workmen guided the coffin down into the open pit. The heavy rain washed over his head and down the sides of his neck, but he stayed until there was no one left by the graveside. He didn’t exchange any words with Carolyn’s family, nor did he offer words of sympathy to the assembled women dressed in short black dresses and veils that hid reddened eyes. Boomer could think of nothing to say that would help ease their painful burden.
So he stood there quietly, head bowed, hands folded under dark and ominous clouds, letting an angry rain lash away at the guilt he carried in the caverns of his heart.
Behind him, hidden under the heavy leaves of an old tree, Nunzio and the rest of the Apaches stood in silence.
• • •
THE APACHES WERE sitting in the back room of Nunzio’s, waiting out the rain. There was an amplified energy to the room, the sense that the next hours would determine everyone’s fate.
They were all there except for Pins. His tardiness was out of character. He was usually the first to arrive. Maybe he had decided to roll a few extra games before the action kicked in. Boomer had yellow surveillance folders spread out in front of him, an illegal gift from a friend in the Washington office of the Secret Service. He had been hunting Lucia Carney for the past eight months on a money-laundering scheme.
Boomer, hands on his chin, not looking up, said, “Nunz, throw Pins another ring. This ain’t a day to call in sick.”
“I just tried him,” Nunzio said. “If he’s at the alley, he’s not pickin’ up.”
“Anybody hear from him today?” Boomer asked, scanning the faces around him.
“I talked to him last night,” Rev. Jim said. “He knew we were meeting and he knew what time.”
“It’s not like him,” Mrs. Columbo said, sipping a decaf espresso. “He’s not the kind to blow off a meeting.”
A young waiter in a white jacket and thin black tie peeked into the small, crowded room. “Excuse me,” he said, “I don’t mean to bother.”
“Whatta ya got, Freddie?” Nunzio asked.
“A phone call,” Freddie said. “Just came in. The guy didn’t stay on all that long.”
“What’d he want?” Nunzio said.
“Told me to ask if any of the guys were up for a night of bowling,” Freddie said.
“He give a name?” Boomer asked in a cold voice.
“Wilber Graves,” Freddie said.
• • •
BOOMER AND THE Apaches