Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [50]
The face he was looking for belonged to the man at the last table, whose back was to the wall. Framed pictures of Rocky Marciano, Jersey Joe Walcott, and Carmen Basilio hung just above his head. Steam from a large bowl of lentils and sausage filtered past a set of intense eyes, right hand holding a glass half-filled with San Pellegrino.
The man at the table lifted his left hand to wave him over.
“You look like you could use something to drink, Carlo,” Boomer Frontieri said.
Carlo Santori rested his hat on the counter separating table from window, took off his overcoat, and folded it over the back of a wooden chair. Boomer signaled a waiter with two fingers and a pouring gesture, and the waiter appeared immediately with a bottle of Chianti.
Boomer was happy to see his old friend and was about to make a joke, but the expression on Carlo’s face stopped him. The man had come a long way from Jersey to see him, so all Boomer said, very quietly, was “What’s the favor?”
“Jenny’s gone,” Carlo said, his voice cracking, words bursting out, hands gripping the table edge for support.
Boomer put his soup spoon down and took a deep breath, feeling the tinge of pain from the piece of metal still embedded inside a partial lung. Then he stretched out and rubbed the side of his right leg, the one with the scars from three surgeries.
“Tell me what ‘gone’ means,” he said.
“We went away, me and Annie, for the weekend,” Carlo told him, eyes welling up. “Down the shore. We left Jenny and Tony alone at the house. I didn’t think about anything going wrong. I mean, Jesus, we were only a phone call away. One call, Boomer, that’s all.”
“What did go wrong?” Boomer asked. A cop’s edge still colored the question and his eyes never left his friend’s face.
“They took a bus into the city,” Carlo said, forcing the words out. He struggled now to lift a glass of wine to his lips. “Tony’s idea. You know the routine. Check out the city, have a little fun. Not have parents on your back all the time.”
“How far’d they get?” Boomer sipped the Pellegrino, ignoring the wine.
“Port Authority,” Carlo said. “Tony went in to use a bathroom. Told Jenny not to move from her spot. When he got out, she was gone.”
“How long ago?”
“Three days,” Carlo said, biting his lower lip. “Tony raced all over the terminal lookin’ for her. When he gave up, he called me. I could barely make him out. Kept screamin’ into the phone, ‘Daddy, I lost her. I lost her.’”
“Who called the cops?” Boomer asked, finishing off the water. “You or Tony?”
“He did,” Carlo said. “By the time we got back, Tony was already over at the midtown precinct. We took him home, sat by the phone, and waited. We were still waiting when Annie told me to call you.”
“Who’s on it?”
“Maloney’s the lead guy,” Carlo said. “Somebody you know?”
Boomer shook his head. “But I’ve been away awhile.”
Carlo drained his glass of wine and sat in silence, his eyes lost in the distance. He looked over at Boomer, his face flushed. “Tell me she’s not dead, Boomer,” he managed to say. “Please, I beg you. Tell me my baby’s not dead.”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” Boomer said, reaching a hand across the table and gripping Carlo’s forearm. “I’d only be guessing.”
“Take the guess,” Carlo said, tears sliding down his face.
“You don’t have the kind of money that screams ransom.” Boomer tightened his grip around Carlo. “And Jenny’s not the runaway type. Not from what I remember.”
“Which leaves us what?” Carlo wiped his eyes with the back of a sweater sleeve. “The truth, Boomer. I want bullshit, I can get it from any other cop.”
“Raped and left for dead.” Boomer’s eyes were like hot magnets burning through Carlo