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  She said, “He’s busy,” and left him quickly.

  Vincent smoked two cigarettes and looked at the menu for something to do before the door to the kitchen opened and the owner came out followed by Ricky. Vincent believed the older man wearing a sweater over his shirt and tie, and holding a dishtowel wrapped around his right hand, was the owner. He knew the other one as Ricky Catalina because he had studied him in four different sets of pock-marked mug shots, his black hair trimmed a little shorter in each set. As the owner and Ricky came past him, on the other side of the counter, Vincent could see the owner was in pain, holding the towel-wrapped hand tenderly, raised in front of him. The owner reached the cash register and stood frowning at it as though the keys were unfamiliar. Ricky nudged him with stiff fingers in the ribs and the old man pressed a key with his left hand. The drawer of the register opened.

  Vincent got up from the stool and moved to the glass cigar counter where the register stood. He heard Ricky say, “You’re still light,” as the old man handed him money. Ricky was somewhat better looking than he’d appeared in his pictures, his complexion scarred but under control, a sallow color in this light. He was chunky, overweight, several inches shorter than Vincent who looked at his eyes now and saw the dumb glazed look of a guy who had conditioned himself to go through life pissed off. Vincent could see him swinging a hatchet at the man’s spine while his expression remained almost deadpan, showing little effort.

  Vincent laid a dollar bill on the rubber mat next to the cash register. “One coffee.”

  Ricky picked it up, dead eyes raising to Vincent, peering at him through heavy lids. Did he practice in front of a mirror? He added the dollar to the currency in his hand, folded the bills into a roll, twisted on a red rubber band and shoved the wad into the breast pocket of his jacket.

  “Where’s my change?”

  “You had a coffee? It’s a buck.”

  “The menu says fifty cents.”

  “It went up.”

  Vincent looked at the old man, saw the pain in his eyes. “What happened to your hand?”

  “He had an accident,” Ricky said. He moved around the counter to the front door and looked back. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Right?” The old man nodded, said yes, right. With some kind of accent. Ricky stared at him and seemed about to say something else, but pushed through the door and was gone.

  Vincent took a moment. Both of the waitresses were behind the counter now, coming to the old man, touching him. He was pale, perspiring and could be in shock. “What did he do to you?” Vincent asked him. But the old man didn’t hear him and one of the waitresses said, “Please—” with anguish, and Vincent left.

  He followed Ricky’s hunched figure along Boardwalk storefronts, lights showing now in the rain mist, to the end of the block and around the corner to a stairway that descended to St. James Place, where a Cadillac Eldorado was parked at the dead end of the street.

  Ricky stood at the trunk of the car getting his keys out. He looked up. Vincent was on the stairs now. Ricky paused. As Vincent came down Ricky turned and walked a short distance up the street to a bar. He paused again to look back before going in. Vincent followed.

  It was dark inside. Vincent ordered scotch. He said to the bartender, where’s everybody? The bartender shook his head, he said he only worked here; nobody wanted to come in, that was up to them. Ricky sat four stools away drinking a beer. Vincent studied the bottles on the back bar, trying to make out the labels, the brands. He could feel Ricky watching him. When Ricky got off the stool and walked to the back, into the men’s room, Vincent said to the bartender, “You got a little knife I can borrow? Like you cut lemons with?” The bartender held up a paring knife with a serrated edge. “Yeah, lemme borrow it, I’ll bring it back.” The bartender watched Vincent walk out with his knife. He didn’t seem to care.

  Vincent knew the Eldorado’s doors were locked; he tried the one on the passenger side to make sure. Then looked around, peered into dim spaces beneath the Boardwalk that were like mine shafts with supporting timbers, saw trash, empty bottles—he needed something with heft he could hold in one hand—looked around some more and saw the bulldozer, the piles of rubble, where some type of small building had been razed. Vincent went over and poked around, selected a chunk of masonry that weighed about ten pounds.

  When Ricky came out of the bar Vincent was standing close to the Eldorado’s rear deck, right hand inside his raincoat, his left arm covering it, folded across his chest.

  Ricky came along the sidewalk, wary. “The fuck you doing?”

  Vincent wondered if he was any good face to face, no gun. He wouldn’t be packing today, risk doing two years for nothing.

  “Get away from the car.”

  “Somebody smashed your window,” Vincent said.

  “Where?” He came in a hurry now. Vincent nodded toward the driver’s side and Ricky moved past him, intent. Vincent followed, walked up next to him.

  “What’re you talking about? The window’s okay.”

  Vincent looked at it, his expression curious. He brought the chunk of masonry out of his raincoat to slam it in the same motion against the tinted glass and the window shattered in fragments. He turned to Ricky and said, “No, it’s broken. See?”

  Ricky said, “You crazy?” With amazement. “You fucking crazy?”

  Vincent liked the question and liked the way Ricky stood there in a state of some kind of shock, those dead eyes showing signs of life for the first time, wondering, What is this? His expression, his pocked face made him appear vulnerable, sad, the poor guy wanting to know what was going on here, perplexed.

  Good. Vincent dropped the chunk of cement. Ricky glanced down and Vincent grabbed him by his jacket and his hair and slammed him against the car; told him to spread his legs, come on, spread ’em, and kicked his shins to make him lean, reach out. There were protests, Ricky wanting to know what the fuck Vincent thought he was doing. Vincent tightened his fist in Ricky’s hair, banged his forehead against the curved edge of the car roof and said, “Anything I want, Rick.” Reading it to him out of the unwritten manual. “Any fucking thing I want. Give me your keys.”

  Vincent handed them back when they were both inside the car, Ricky subdued, behind the wheel. He backed into the lot where the building had been torn down, came out to creep toward Pacific Avenue and began to give Vincent looks, recovering, getting the dead stare back in his eyes. Vincent brought out his gun, laid the 9-mm automatic across his lap to point at Ricky and Ricky said, “Where you want to go, Northfield?”

  “Atlantic Avenue.”

  “You’re gonna be in deep shit we get to Northfield, man. Somebody’s gonna pay for my window. What’d you bust it for? You fucking crazy or what?”

  “Take a right.”

  “That ain’t the way you go.”

  “Take a right,” Vincent said.

  “Where we going, for Christ sake? Shit, I’m getting all wet.”

  “Watch the road,” Vincent said, and listened to the beat of the windshield wipers as they followed Atlantic Avenue out of traffic, almost to its end, turned north through the rundown Inlet section, Vincent feeling his way, looking for the right kind of isolated place. He saw it finally as they approached Gardner’s Basin, entered the empty parking area that looked into the mouth of Absecon Channel. He told Ricky to keep going, right up to the breakwater and stop. There were commercial fishing boats moored in the basin, but no one around, no houses nearby or for several blocks.

  “Where does that bridge go?”

  Through the windshield, filmed with water and wiped clear, a distant arc that was barely visible in the rain came in and out of focus.

  “Brigantine,” Ricky said, “where you think?” And said, “Wait a minute—”

  “What’s that, way over there, a hotel?”

  “Harrah’s,” Ricky said. “You don’t even know where you’re at. Who’n the hell are you? You’re from Northfield, right?”

  “Think about it,” Vincent
said. “What’re we doing here?”

  Ricky narrowed his eyes, glanced down at the blue-steel Smith & Wesson. “You’re a cop. You got a cop gun.”

  “What’d you do to that old man?”

  “What old man?”

  “In the restaurant. Guy a slow pay, you put his hand on the grill?”

  “Fuck off. You want to take me in, take me the fuck in. I don’t have to talk to you.”

  “You got your mind made up I’m a cop,” Vincent shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I know goddamn well you’re a cop. Some new guy—you’re gonna show those other assholes can’t get me to say shit how it’s done . . . Right?”

  Vincent shook his head, taking his time.

  “I’m Vincent the Avenger, Ricky.”

  “The what?”

  “Just doing my job.”

  “Wait. How you know my id?”

  “I was sent for,” Vincent said.

  “I never saw you before in my life. Where you come from?”

  “Miami.”

  “You were sent for . . .”

  “I understand you fucked up, Rick. Killed some broad and then made a deal with the cops? That it?”

  “You’re crazy.” Amazed. “What’re you talking about?”

  “Threw her off a balcony, eighteen floors up?”

  “What, the Puerto Rican broad? I never went near her. I was in Brigantine, I was there almost the whole fucking night, man. I can prove it.”

  “Hey, don’t tell me,” Vincent said. “You should a straightened this out with Frank. You say you got a good story, I guess he thinks it’s a bunch a shit, or I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Frank? Wait a minute—Frank who? Who we talking about?”

  “What do you call him, Ching? Chingo? I barely met him. He told me where to find you, told me how he wanted it done.” Vincent’s left hand went into his raincoat and came out with the paring knife he’d borrowed from the bartender. “Let me ask you something . . . See, the way I ordinarily do it, I put one right here.” Vincent touched the knife point to his forehead. “But Frank wants it done, you know, according to custom. I guess set an example. So I gotta ask you something.”

  “The fuck’re you talking about?”

  “My question is, do I cut your dick off and stick it in your mouth before I shoot you—”

  “Hey—hey, listen to me a minute, no shit—”

  “Or do I shoot you and then cut your dick off? I always wondered,” Vincent said, “since I’m not up on any your quaint guinea customs you guys’re into, leaving the dead rat, any a that kind a shit. I think I know which way you’d prefer . . .”

  “There’s a mistake,” Ricky said. “Somebody’s made a big fucking mistake, man.”

  “You’re right there,” Vincent said, “you should never a copped or let ’em offer you a deal. They give you immunity?”

  “I never told ’em nothing!”

  “Or you shouldn’t a done that to the Puerto Rican broad, one. As I say, I don’t know the whole story. They never go into detail, they say here’s the name of the fink, do him.”

  “Man—listen to me. I can prove I never went near that broad.”

  “That isn’t what Frank says.”

  “Fuck him—he never even asked me about it. What’s he putting this together from? Fucking guy—he’s using this, try and take me out while Sal’s away. That’s what it is. I don’t know why the fuck I didn’t see it.” He looked at Vincent intently and said, “Listen to me, okay? You got nothing against me. Like you say, it’s a job, it’s nothing personal. It’s what you do, man, you get paid. I know where you’re at, man, but listen to me a minute. I didn’t kill the broad. It was anybody it was that fucking Colombian, Benavides, but I didn’t have nothing to do with it, man, I can prove it. There was two three other people I was with all night, five o’clock in the morning. The broad was killed like at one. See, it’s got nothing to do with that or talking to the cops ’cause I never fucking said a fucking word, man. They taped it, you can listen to it, what I said. It’s that fucking Ching, man. He wants my ass for some reason I don’t even know, so he says I dimed out on him. Bullshit. You see what I’m saying to you? You don’t give a shit one way’r the other, right? It’s got nothing to do with you. Okay, then how about this? You don’t care who pays you either, right? How much is the Ching giving you?”

  Vincent had to think about it. It was an interesting turn, new possibilities being presented.

  “Come on, gimme a number.”

  “Twenty-five,” Vincent said.

  “Bullshit. The Ching could get it done for nothing he wanted to. There guys—shit, I can name ’em, would pay him.”

  “Yeah, but he sent to Miami,” Vincent said, “and here I am.”

  “I don’t care he sent to fucking China, he’s not paying you any twenty-five. I’ll give you ten to get fucking lost, disappear. No, uh-unh—call him up. Tell him I wasn’t there, you couldn’t find me. Stall him two three days. That’s all you got a do.”

  Vincent nodded. “Okay. Give me the money.”

  “I don’t have it on me, for Christ sake. You think I walk around I got ten grand on me?”

  “What’re you gonna do, send me a check? I think I’ll stay with the deal I got.” Vincent raised the Smith. “Get out of the car.”

  “Come on, you know, for Christ sake, I don’t have it on me. We make an arrangement. I deliver it to you the next couple days, wherever you’re staying. Tell me where.”

  “That’s some arrangement,” Vincent said. “I didn’t get to be thirty-nine years old, Rick, making deals like you’re talking about. I want to see the money.”

  “I swear to God I’ll pay you. I give you my fucking word of honor, man—ten big ones, how you want it, hunnerts? Whatever you say. Two three days—I gotta get it together. I meet you . . . How’s the restaurant, the Satellite, on the Boardwalk? What a you say?”

  “Where do you live?”

  “You want a come to my house? I live on Georgia Avenue. You know where Angeloni’s is? Right near there.” He gave Vincent the number, Vincent watching, fascinated, as Ricky tried to get an expression of trust in his eyes.

  Vincent said, “You want to show your good faith?”

  “How? Tell me?”

  “Gimme the money you got in your jacket.”

  “It’s yours . . . Take it.”

  “Now get out of the car.”

  He did, but hesitantly, wary. “We got a deal?”

  Vincent dropped a piece of glass out the window and moved behind the wheel. Ricky stood with his shoulders hunched against the rain, waiting. “See you the day after tomorrow,” Vincent said, “four o’clock. If you’re still around, in one piece.”

  He drove back to St. James Place, left the Eldorado where he’d found it, key in the ignition—no hard feelings. His Datsun was in a lot up the same street. But first, back to the Satellite Cafe. The waitress behind the counter recognized him.

  “How’s your boss?”

  “He’s at the hospital.”

  Vincent handed her the wad of bills, made her take it as she hesitated. She said, “Don’t tell me anything, okay? I don’t want to know.”

  He used the pay phone to call Northfield and said to Dixie, “Ricky didn’t do it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Ninety-nine percent.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He told me,” Vincent said. “But it’s okay. You’re gonna get a chance to bring him up on attempted murder. I hope attempted. Day after tomorrow it looks like he’s gonna take a crack at me.”

  Vincent walked back to the corner, tired, till he got to the stairway, started down to St. James Place and stopped halfway, wide awake, remembering the Eldorado as he had seen it a little more than an hour ago, the same high-angle view from the stairs, Ricky standing there getting his keys out . . .

  But to open the trunk, not the door!

  Because today was collection day, right, according to Dix
ie Davies, and Ricky the bagman was making pickups from the horse books, the card-game and numbers guys, from whoever owed them a cut or a shylock payment. Vincent popped the trunk lid and there it was, the bag, a blue canvas carry-on with straps and buckles and handy pockets . . . and wads and wads of currency in the main compartment, rolled up in red rubber bands.

  The bartender at the Holmhurst said, “Well, how we doing? We still a winner?”

  Vincent was holding a double scotch to take upstairs with him. He lifted the blue canvas bag from the barstool.

  “You wouldn’t believe how much I got in here.”

  “I probably wouldn’t,” the bartender said.

  16

  * * *

  TEDDY’S MOM SAID TO BUDDY, cocking her head the same way Buddy had his green-and-orange parrot head cocked, “He don’t remember all I’ve done for him. What I went through at the hospital when he was born and I almost died of a hemorrhage, the blood gushing out a me like it would never stop.”

  Teddy said, “Aw, Mom, Jesus.”

  “He don’t remember the times I was up the night with him when he was sick.” Now she was talking to the bird in a pouty little Shirley Temple voice. “No, or he don’t remember all the meals I cooked for him.”

  “I remember how Dad use to go out in the garage where he hid his bottles and drink,” Teddy said. “I remember him leaving and never coming back. ‘Ey, let’s me and you stroll down mem’ry lane and see what else we can remember of our happy home.”

  “You love to hurt me,” his mom said. “Don’t you?”

  All he wanted was to borrow the car. He’d already heard what it was like in Camden, New Jersey, during the Depression when his mom ate ketchup sandwiches and fried mush. She still couldn’t cook for shit. Put a pork roast in the oven and every twenty minutes throw a glass of water on it. He had better chow at Raiford. When it was something he didn’t like Monroe Ritchie would get him candy bars. For his sweetie’s sweet tooth, Monroe’d say. It was funny, he sort of missed Monroe. He worked up his nerve and asked him one time, “Monroe? Are you a homasexyul?” And Monroe wrinkled his eyebrows and said, “Nooo, man, you pussy. I touch you with my wan’ you all of a sodden a magic pussy.” Really? Oh well.