The Gin Palace Read online

  He was older than I only by a few years, had dark, tightly curled hair, a flat face and a jaw square like a box. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and his eyes were bloodshot. Despite the cold he removed his leather jacket and pushed up the sleeves of his sweatshirt. His thick forearms were matted with dark hair. He’d always had a runner’s build, a sprinter’s build——flat stomach, solid torso, and thick, powerful legs. None of that had changed. A gun, a Glock semi-automatic, was holstered to his belt, just below his right kidney. Seeing it made me feel uneasy, made my gut tighten hard out of reflex. The last time I’d been in the presence of any firearms was the night Augie had been killed, the night Tina shot his murderer three times in the head. I had reason to dislike guns long before that night. I had been shot in the collarbone a few years back, while looking for the missing daughter of an ex-girlfriend. I had a half-dollar-sized scar and an ache brought on by the cold to remember it by. I would have preferred that Long had met me here unarmed. I would have preferred never to see a gun again. But this was his office, his turf. The sight of his Glock made me realize that I was back in that world again, the world of hurt. There was no kidding myself about that now. But with any luck, I’d be out of it again by morning.

  “What’s going on, Mac?” he said. “You don’t look so hot.”

  “I need your help with something.” I spoke softly. The liquor store below was still open for business. I didn’t want anyone overhearing us. He leaned forward a little, closing the distance between us. The smell of scotch and cologne filled my nose.

  “Okay,” Long said. He spoke softly, matching my tone. He was still a cop, on the inside, anyway, looking at me in the way cops do, detached but intently, searching for some giveaway, some admission of one guilt or another. “What’s going on?”

  “There’s the chance some men will be coming after me. At my place, tomorrow night.”

  Long thought about that for a moment, then nodded and said, “How do you know this?”

  I wasn’t sure what to tell him. I had promised to be discreet about what I had seen. That had been, what, fifteen minutes ago? In the end I came out with both the most and the least I could say. “Someone tipped me off,” I told him.

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know her name.”

  “Her?”

  “Look, it doesn’t matter. Will you help me?”

  “What do you need?”

  “I want to find someone.”

  “Who?”

  As much as I trusted Long, as much as his beat-up Volvo and the condition of his tiny Hampton Bays office were indications that he had yet to go the way of Frank Gannon, it wasn’t easy for me to speak the name I now needed to speak. No one, no one alive anyway, knew of my connection to him. I found significant peace of mind in that simple fact and would have preferred to hang onto it for a while longer.

  But, of course, I had no choice, not now.

  I reached into the pockets of my barn coat and searched for a pen and something to write on. Long seemed to know what I was doing and immediately opened his desk drawer, grabbed a pencil and offered it to me. I dug a piece of mail, my phone bill, out of my left pocket and turned it over, took the pencil from Long, and wrote a name on the back of the envelope.

  James Curry.

  I spun the envelope around so Long could read it. He looked back up at me.

  “Why?” His voice was almost a whisper now.

  “Because if anyone has a reason to kill me, it’s him.”

  “He’s broke, you know that, right? I’m talking down and out, everything gone. Pretty much overnight, from what I’ve heard.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “You maybe had something to do with that?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “He owes a lot of money to a lot of people,” Long said. “I mean national debt kind of money, to banks and former partners. No one’s all that sure what happened, though the rumor around town is it has something to do with the Indian reservation. I guess he had some secret land deal going with the Shinnecock and it went south the minute the FBI started digging up thirty-year-old corpses there. You maybe know something about that, Mac?”

  “No,” I said. “No, I don’t.”

  Long nodded. “A big coincidence, though, don’t you think? Your friend Augie and Frank Gannon are both killed on the reservation, along with some of Frank Gannon’s hired hands, and a few days later the FBI shows up there and starts digging up bodies no one knew were there.”

  I said nothing to that.

  “Considering how tight you and your pal Augie were, I guess it’s just dumb luck that you weren’t there the night he was killed.”

  “I guess, yeah.”

  Long waited a moment, studying me, then said, “You know, there’s another rumor around town.”

  “I’m not all that big on rumors.”

  “This one you might be interested in hearing. This one says that you killed Frank Gannon. Gannon killed Augie and you killed Gannon.”

  “I thought the police report said Frank and Augie were killed by some drug dealers. An investigation gone bad or something like that. Wasn’t it in the papers?”

  “Coy doesn’t really suit you, Mac.”

  I didn’t care what people thought happened that night, as long as what they thought was miles from the truth. No one would know what I had seen, the shit that went down, even if it meant I’d end up paying for it one way or another. It was weeks after that night before I could close my eyes without seeing Tina standing there over Frank Gannon, her father’s Colt .45 in her grip, the kick of the pistol against her sure hand as she fired three times. Eddie and I could only stand there and watch. There was nothing we could have done to stop her.

  I looked at Long but stayed silent. The Chief’s boys had investigated, had made their conclusions. It didn’t matter to me why, what the Chief had to gain by covering up. As long as there was no mention of Tina, or Eddie, I was ready to pretend to believe whatever story they put forward.

  “You know, it wouldn’t matter to me either way if you had killed him,” Long said. “Gannon deserved it. The Chief was nothing compared to him. Everyone around here is better off with him dead. Especially you, considering what the FBI found buried on the reservation.” He waited a moment, then said, “You really had no idea, did you? About your father, I mean?”

  I looked away, through the window and at the empty street beyond. I shook my head. “No.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s got to fuck a guy up.”

  I ignored that. “Will you help me, Long? Can you find this man for me?”

  “I imagine the banks and the big-deal friends he screwed out of millions and millions of dollars all have people looking for him. Not to mention a half dozen government agencies. If nobody’s turned him up by now, I doubt I can.”

  “How much for you to try?”

  “You believe this woman, whoever she was. You think she knows what she was talking about.”

  “Yeah, I do. And, anyhow, the way I see it, I have no choice.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been looking hard into every shadow big enough to hide a man for a long time now. I’ll tell you, it gets tired real fast. I’ll jump at any chance I get to put an end to this.”

  Long nodded. “Okay, yeah. I’ll give it a try, see what I can find.”

  “How much?”

  “I’ll do it as a favor.”

  “No, I’d rather pay.”

  “You have to consider something, Mac. If your friend here is broke and in hiding, he might not have the means to hire muscle. Hell, he might even be somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic for all we know. The guy didn’t only do business with banks, if you know what I mean. So if it isn’t him, if it turns out men are coming to get you but he’s not behind it, then we have to consider the other possibility.”

  “The Chief.”

  “Unless t
here’s someone else you’ve pissed off that I don’t know about.”

  “I don’t think the Chief would hire outsiders. He wants to nail me himself. Besides, he has all the manpower he needs.”

  “Maybe his patience has finally run out. You won’t come out where he can get you, so he’s sending someone in after you.”

  “I don’t know, Long. It doesn’t seem right to me. It doesn’t fit.”

  “All I’m saying is, if it is the Chief, then this could be the screw-up we’ve been waiting for. Maybe this is our chance to finally put the son of a bitch out of business once and for all. And if I’m right, if that is the case, then it’d be worth a lot more to me than anything you could afford.”

  I thought about that. I couldn’t deny that there was at least a chance of this being what Long thought it could be, what I could tell he hoped it was. Like me, Long lived with his eyes on the shadows. We had that in common, too. Both James Curry and Chief Miller had reason to want me hurt, if not dead. Last December, after I found the man who killed Curry’s teenage daughter, I had learned something about Curry that could easily ruin him. He’d made it clear that he’d have me killed if I did. For him it was just business——I knew this much about him——and a thinly veiled threat was the only way he knew of to insure that I’d keep my mouth shut. It was a threat, in the end, that I ignored, and I’d been waiting ever since for him to make good on it.

  For the Chief it was more than business, though, much more. A year ago I had maimed his only child, Tommy, in a fight, when Tommy and two of his teammates were attempting to rape Tina——a hazing gone too far. Tommy Miller was a football star, bound for the University of Michigan on a full scholarship. But he was also a wild punk, on a senior-year rampage of crime and violence. It was my belief that he had hurt others before, that what he had tried to do to Tina wasn’t an isolated incident. And it was my belief that he would hurt others still. He’d been caught vandalizing property and stealing cars but never prosecuted, not even charged. With his father, the chief of police, looking the other way again and again, it was clear that Tommy Miller had no reason to fear being arrested, or to stop. The night I caught him and his buddies, Tommy’s arrogance, the wild look in his eyes, made it easy for me to do what I needed to do. I twisted his knee to shit, putting an end to his criminal career as well as to all his hopes and dreams. Now the kid walked with a limp, hadn’t gone to any college, let alone Michigan, and the Chief had had it out for me ever since. It was basically pure luck so far that had kept me from getting picked up for something, anything, and spending a night in a cell in the basement of the Village Hall, just me and some of the Chief’s “boys” and a set of hard stairs to fall down again and again.

  I’d been hiding for three months now, hiding deep in the ritual of my lonely life, waiting for the day when either of these men, or both, made their move against me. The sooner that happened, the sooner all this ended, one way or another, the sooner all my sins would be paid for and I would at last be free.

  Long said, “Let me make some calls, see what I can find out. I know someone who used to be close to the man you’re looking for. Maybe I can find out something from her. I think the faster we know what’s going on, the better off we’ll be. I’ll call you at home in an hour or two, let you know what I’ve got, okay?”

  “Yeah. Thanks for this.”

  “Listen, I hope this woman-friend of yours, whoever she is, is wrong. But if she isn’t … I mean, what are you going to do? These men are probably coming to kill you.”

  “Maybe I can stop all this before it even starts.”

  “How?”

  “If we find the man I think is responsible, then maybe I can get him to tell me who he hired and where they are. The Feds can take care of it from there.”

  “You think he’ll just happily volunteer that information to you?”

  I said nothing to that. Long and I just looked at each other for a moment. Finally, I said, “I’ll talk to you in a little while.”

  He nodded. “Be careful, Mac.”

  I put the envelope with Curry’s name written on it back in my coat pocket, then got up and left Long’s office, walked down the stairs and out into the night. The rushing air hit me hard like a fast current of icy water. I should have anticipated it, it shouldn’t have caught me so off guard, but still I was knocked just a little off my balance and had to shoulder into it as I hurried across the empty street to my waiting cab.

  I didn’t hear a word between Eddie and Angel on the two-way radio as I rode back to Southampton. I knew it was going to be a slow night for him. Nobody came out in weather like this unless they had to. There was close to no one around this time of year to come out anyway, and few places to go, for those of us who did remain, that weren’t shut tight till spring.

  I lived above the Hansom House, a funky bar on Elm Street favored by the working-class and local artists alike. Just around the corner was the train station. It was only two blocks away from where Tina was staying with Lizzie and her family on North Main Street. When I pulled up there were only a few cars parked out front, but I didn’t expect anything more than that. Still, I studied each car before getting out, making sure it was empty, that there was no one waiting behind the wheel or even in the passenger seat, staking out my place.

  I parked at the curb directly across the street and killed my motor and lights, then got out and crossed the wide residential street and started up the pathway to the front door. Inside I could see down the short entrance hall to the door that led to the bar. There was a glass window in the top half of it, and I could see through it to a few drinkers at the bar. I saw, too, George, the bartender and my downstairs neighbor, holding court behind it. There wasn’t much to do on winter nights in Southampton but drink and gossip, and George was the man people came to when they wanted generous servings of both.

  To my immediate left was a set of steep stairs leading to the apartments above. I started up them, careful not to be seen by George or anyone else. I climbed the two flights, moved down the dark hall and entered my apartment as quietly as I was able. I had left no lights on, but the streetlights outside my three front windows cast long rectangular pockets of blue light against my living room walls, and that was more than enough. I closed the door behind me, went into my tiny kitchen and grabbed a container of leftover soba noodles and pea pods from my refrigerator. I didn’t take off my coat, I was that hungry. I started eating with my fingers, swung the refrigerator door closed with my knee, and headed back across the living room, toward my bedroom.

  My apartment was small, just three rooms, and crammed with furniture that was secondhand when I was born, most of it bought at the thrift shop in town those rare times over the years when I was flush enough to spend money on something other than food and bills. The view out my three front windows was of Elm Street below and the train station just around the corner. The entire station platform was visible through the bare trees, and even in summer I could see enough of it to observe people coming off the train.

  Normally I would have sat here at this window, if my back wasn’t too bad, and eaten my dinner and kept an eye out for strangers. When I wasn’t behind the wheel of my cab, or sacked out for a few hours on my couch or in my bed, I was here, on my hard chair, watching. But there was no need for that now. Without that particular ritual, though, I wasn’t certain exactly what to do with myself.

  I heard muffled music from the bar two floors below. It wasn’t live music, it was canned, coming from the stereo behind the bar. I heard bass and little else, but I could tell by the repeating riff, a descending arpeggio, that it was reggae. I didn’t want to go downstairs. I didn’t want to be around people——I was used to keeping myself away from people, for their safety——and I didn’t drink, not anymore. I decided the thing to do was to get ready, and walked into my bedroom, still eating as I went, and grabbed a paper shopping bag from my closet. Into it I tossed some clothes, just a few days’ worth, and my frayed toothbrush. Then I rolle
d the bag up, carried it into the living room, and tossed it onto the table by the door.

  Under a loose floorboard outside my kitchen door I kept my money. There was a little over three grand there now, in a tattered, letter-sized manila envelope. It was everything I had managed to save since partnering up with Eddie. I pried up the board with a screwdriver, removed and opened the envelope and added to it part of my haul from today. I had only made a little over hundred bucks, counting the fifty from the girl. I kept twenty and stashed the rest. As strange as it sounds, it seemed to me better to be killed, if it went that way, with empty pockets. Eddie knew where I kept my money, and that it was all his if something ever happened to me.

  I put the envelope back, then replaced the floor board and stepped on it several times to work it into place. I finished eating my noodles and pea pods with my fingers. As I did I went to my front windows out of habit. I stood there and looked out. Elm Street was a long residential street in a working-class neighborhood. The only traffic on it after dark were the cars belonging to neighbors, and to those who came to the Hansom House after work. In the summertime, at night, Elm caught some traffic when the train came in, when people drove in to pick up house guests and spouses and lovers who’d come from the city. But of course there was none of that now, and the houses that I could see through the bare trees outside my windows looked quiet, half or more of their windows dark. Everyone was locked in for the night, watching TV and minding their own business, doing what they could to deny the cold that rushed down our street.

  I checked my watch. It was almost nine, later for some reason than I had thought it would be. Liv would be coming off her shift soon, coming in out of this cold. Like me she lived alone and had seen enough of people getting killed to know that there was more to life than things like pleasure and love. There was more to life than taking and having. There was also losing and living without. She and I knew this, we knew it about each other, without having to talk about it much.