there to score the joint.”
“How could you not?” Chase asked. “I'm a thief.” “You been straight for the last ten years. Now I don't know what you are.” Deuce let a few seconds go by, got rid of the cigar butt, spoke clearly into the phone. “Listen, kid, didn't you hear your own fucking story? These people aren't clean. They do things dirty and ugly. So why the hell are you even there? You don't have to be there.”
“I've got to do something with myself.” “Go back to teaching auto shop.” “I think those days are all behind me now.” “Only if you want them to be. You should cut out—they probably got nineteen hitters on the payroll.”
“Yeah, a couple live right down the hall. One just welcomed me to the family. I think he might be back soon with bundt cake.”
“At least they won't have far to walk to ice you. That outfit's got grief up to the neck. Lenny was slick, but Jackie's an apple that fell too far from thetree. His sister Sherry is sharper and nastier and being primed to take over, so that just makes for more internal trouble. Already they can't hold off the Russians and the Chinese and the feebs. RICO cases are being made. Capos flipping, all kinds of back-stabbing, taking potshots at one another in restaurants. You don't need that shit.”
In the background, the Deuce's chop shop sounded way too busy for this time of the afternoon. Deucie was getting a little sloppy too, having his crew make runs in broad daylight. “Get out of there,” he said to Chase. “Now. Just go. Don't score them. It doesn't matter if you take ten bucks or a hundred g's, it makes them look bad. You know these syndicates. They never stop looking for the people who rob them, hit them, betray them—it's their number one rule. It's what they live for. They'll come after you forever. You don't need that grief. I know you're still recuperating. Guy takes a beating like you did, bullet wounds, loss of blood, a couple cracks to the head, you gotta give yourself time to recover. You're not thinking straight. Depression, it's genetic, you got the gene. I know you're hurting about Lila, and what happened with Jonah, I know you're out there on the edge right now, and part of you wants to fall over. A lot of bodies are turning up in the Hudson, or not at all. Don't—”
“Yeah, they've got a landfill someplace,” Chase said, and hung up.
T here were fourteen cars and trucks in the estate garages, everything from a three-year-old Mercedes to an F430 Spider and a Ford pickup.
They were all in bad shape—scratched, dinged, rusted, sludge wearing out the engines. They'd been driven hard by amateurs who didn't believe in regular care. Chase was a little worried about just how well the crew had cleaned out the trunk of the Super Stretch.
Since nobody had given him anything to do yet, Chase went to work on the vehicles.
He pulled them out into the huge egg- shaped driveway in front of the main house and eavesdropped on the Langan crew as they milled about. There were supposed to be guards patrolling the grounds but everybody just stood around smoking and bullshitting.
He learned that in the six months since Lenny Langan had more or less cashed out of the game, lying in bed with tubes in his nose and down his throatand in his crank while everybody was on death watch, his son Jackie had really spiffed up the estate. The guy had added a nine- hole golf course out back and vamped the main house by stripping all the cherry paneling and painting the place a pale chamois. It was all wasted flash since they'd probably be leaving soon.
Chase picked up on the particulars. The Langans were being run out of Jersey by the Korean, Chinese, and Russian mobs, among others, and they'd soon be moving on to Chicago to start up again as a much smaller outfit. Most of the crew knew they were getting the ax and had started up little side businesses, like the chauffeur had done.
The Mercedes had a fine stereo system, and Chase climbed
Carol Gorman and Ron J. Findley