Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [96]
Jerry stood between Boomer and Malcolm, nervously shifting his brown backpack from one hand to the other. Boomer took two steps toward him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“I want a word with your client,” Boomer said, squeezing the fingers of his hand tight across the top of Jerry’s jacket. “I want that word alone. And I know you’re not going to have a problem with that. Am I right?”
“It’s a reasonable request,” Jerry said, casting a quick glance at Malcolm. “Not even you would be crazy enough to try something in passing view of the public.”
“All I see around me are skanks and ambulance chasers,” Dead-Eye said, glancing at the faces rushing by. “We ain’t exactly talking Vatican City.”
“I’ll be over by the mailbox if you need my help,” Jerry told Malcolm. He lowered his head and slowly walked away.
“I needed your help inside, Jerry,” Malcolm said, inching closer to Boomer, taking a drag on the cigarette and letting the smoke flow toward the cop’s face. “Not out here. Not up against these limpin’ fools. I got their shit down nasty.”
Boomer ignored the smoke and moved close enough to Malcolm to smell the nicotine and stale coffee on his breath and spot the marijuana seeds dotting his lower teeth.
“The court can give you all my money,” Boomer said in a low voice edged with violence. “They can give you every dime I’ve got. And you can spend it any way that you want. Gamble it, sniff it, screw it. That doesn’t mean shit to me. You walk your way, I walk mine, and we both live out our lives. But you even think about touching that girl again or taking one fucking thing from her family after all this and I will kill you in a way you never even knew existed.”
Malcolm’s eyes widened in mock incredulity. “I just hear a threat from the mouth of a cripple?”
“No,” Boomer said, standing as still as stone. “It’s no threat. It’s a promise.”
• • •
NUNZIO POURED BOOMER and Dead-Eye refills of their amaretto on the rocks, then held the bottle perched against his knees.
“He’s suing,” Dead-Eye said. “That motherfucker is suing the city!”
“And the city’ll cut a sweet deal with him for sure,” Nunzio said, sadly shaking his head. “They’ll make sure it’s kept under a tight wrap, but they want him out of everybody’s picture. The best way to do that is to cut him a check and tell him to take a walk.”
“I never had a guy look at me the way Jenny’s father did today.” Boomer gripped his glass with his right hand. “It was all there on his face. Everything that kid suffered was right there, looking back at me.”
“You did your job,” Nunzio said. “You both did. But there were other hands in this. You got no control over that. You can live with it or you can forget it. Either way, you gotta make it pass.”
Boomer said nothing, just stood and walked toward the bar, the lines on his weary face staring back at him in the large mirror hanging above the wide assortment of liquor bottles.
“He won and we lost,” Dead-Eye said. “And when he gets that fat check, we lose all over again. Every fucking day he’s alive, he wins all over again.”
“Guys like Malcolm don’t live all that long,” Nunzio said solemnly. “Things happen to people like him. Bad things. It don’t take much. A call to the right ear is all you need.”
Both Dead-Eye and Boomer stayed still and silent after Nunzio’s words. Boomer met Nunzio’s eyes in the mirror, watched his face, empty of emotion, understanding the subtle weight of his words. He saw Dead-Eye look away from the window, his eyes catching Boomer’s, his head giving a slow nod of approval.
Boomer turned from the bar and walked toward Nunzio, sitting on the edge of a stool. He stopped halfway between the bar and his two friends, picked up a hard-backed wooden chair, swung it over his head, and tossed it with a full force against the mirror above the bar. It landed in the center of the glass and shattered it, pieces large and small crashing to the wood floor and across the countertop.
“I’ll pay you for that, Nunz,” Boomer said, his hands by his sides, his head hanging low.