Hard Candy - Andrew Vachss [54]
"He's got nobody, Prof."
"Nobody dragging him down, you mean. Nobody to cry over when they're gone. Traveling light don't make it right."
"He's not a rat."
"This is true. He wanted your head, you'd be dead."
"Wesley wants his money. You know how he is. The Italians made a mistake. Torenelli's hiding. Wesley wants to know where. Settle up."
"It's over, then?"
"That's what he says."
"What do they say?"
"Who? Who should I ask? What they got, it's a big pile of cheese. They don't care which rat gets to eat. Torenelli don't make the count one morning, somebody else'll step in."
He nodded, dragging deep on his smoke. "Somebody knows where he is."
"Yeah, but who?"
"Torenelli. I remember him. A pussy in his heart. He ain't got the stones to go it alone. He was gonna kill himself, he'd use pills."
"That's the way I figure it too."
"Wesley ain't no private eye. Who's looking?"
"Morehouse."
"The reporter? That West Indian is my man! You dig his piece on that dude in Louisiana doing life in the box for a lousy stickup? Where the head of the Parole Board ended up doing time?"
"Yeah. I dealt with him before. I gave him some of the inside stuff from the Sutton Place thing. Hard stuff, right from the scene. From the horse's mouth. Got his nose wide open. He knows brass at NYPD."
"He know why you want the info?"
"He don't want to know."
The Prof dropped his cigarette, ground it out under his heel. "What's my end, friend?"
"They think I got no slack, but there's a knot in the rope. I can unravel it, I got room to breathe. There's a little girl. I need to take her to Lily, take her back when it's all done."
"That's it?"
"There's questions only Lily can get the answers to."
"You got the plan, I'm your man."
I lit my own smoke. "I thought I'd feel better after that motherfucker was gone." Belle's father.
"I know."
94
I CALLED the ex–cop who does the phone work. Met him in a midtown restaurant. Gave him an envelope full of cash and some new phone numbers to check. A new address too.
Called Lily. Waited an extra quarter's worth for them to get her to the phone.
"It's me. Could I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"If a teenage girl had a story, could you tell if it was the truth?"
She knew the kind of story I wanted her to validate. "It depends. I could probably tell if something happened, but not necessarily when. And I might have trouble identifying the source. You have a history?"
"All out of her mouth."
"I'll take a shot. Or maybe Immaculata could do it if you don't want to bring her here."
"It's not a job for Mac."
"Okay."
"Lily…I probably won't be able to make an appointment. She might be…annoyed. Not want to talk."
I could feel her shrug over the phone. "It happens."
"Thanks."
Called Davidson.
"Anything?"
"Nothing. My prediction? There'll never be a Grand Jury on this one. It's going to be marked 'closed, one arrest' and fade away. They know you had nothing to do with it."
"I owe you any money?"
"I'm good."
That was the truth.
95
I KNOW HOW to wait. When I was in prison, I never thought of going over the wall. I wasn't doing a life sentence, and I wasn't ready to go straight once I was out. I let a couple of days slide by slow. No sense pressuring Morehouse—he'd get it done or he wouldn't.
But if he didn't…
The trust–fund hippies who live underneath my office don't stir until midafternoon. I think they call getting high "performance art" now.
Mama answered herself. In rapid–fire Mandarin.
"It's me."
"Letter come for you."
"At the restaurant?" Wesley? Julio's morons telling me they knew where I lived?
"Yes. Last night."
"See you soon."
96
AS SOON AS Mama put it in front of me, I knew it wasn't from Wesley. Or Julio. Thick, cream–colored envelope, felt more like cloth than paper. Nothing on the outside. I flexed it in my fingers. Not a letter–bomb. One sheet inside, matching the envelope.
The words flowed so smoothly onto the paper they could have been squeezed from a tube. Icing on the devil's cake.
"Ask me. I know."
No signature.