Thomas Cook - Peril

Jake swiped the counter with a white cloth. “Made it seem like only old broads could sing that song.”

“Yeah,” Abe said. Then, because he could find nothing else to do, he walked to the piano, placed his fingers on the old familiar keys. “What do you want to hear?” he called.

“That peppy one she liked. I mean, when she wasn’t in a mood.”

Abe knew the one Jake meant, and so began a bright, up-tempo version of “Your Feet’s Too Big.”

When he finished, he returned to the bar. Susanne had come in by then, another book by one of what she called “the great minds” under her arm. She was a philosophy major at NYU and peppered her drink deliveries with pithy little aphorisms from her latest readings. Abe had heard scores of them during the few months Susanne had worked for him, but the only one that had stuck came from some Greek whose name he couldn’t remember. Courage in a man, this Greek had said, was simply this, to endure silently whatever heaven sends.

He thought of Mavis, then of Lucille, and finally of that fucking cat, Pookie, the one he’d found dead on the kitchen floor three weeks after Mavis’ abrupt departure. No, he thought, that Greek got it wrong. Courage was to endure silently whatever heaven takes away.

“So, what about Lucille?” Jake asked. “You gonna put an ad in Variety, something like that?”

Abe shook his head. “Nah,” he said.

If he put an ad in Variety, he knew a thousand kids would show up, all of them scooping the notes or singing through their noses, girls with tattoos and neon hair, with pierced tongues and ears and God knows what else under their blouses or below their belts.

“How about an open mike?” he said. “We did that when Lucille left for a year. Just put a sign in the window that says Open Mike and see who drops in.”

Jake shrugged. “You’ll get that woman who makes all her clothes out of carpet remnants, remember her?”

Abe laughed. “Or the one who only sang songs with animals in the titles.”

“But changed the titles. ‘Sweet Doggie Brown,’ for Christ’s sake.”

“ ‘My Funny Butterfly.’ ”

“Jesus, what a nutbag.”

“But not as bad as the one dressed in red rubber,” Abe said. “Changed the titles too, remember. ‘I’ll Be Peeing You.’ ”

They were both laughing now, and in their laughter Abe caught a glimpse of what life had been before Mavis fled. “Yeah,” he said, the laughter trailing off now. “Open mike is the way to go.”

Mortimer rolled the coffee cup in his hand and tried to keep the pain in his belly from showing in his eyes. Only three days had passed since he’d taken the deal, and here Caruso was making changes.

“This is how Mr. Labriola sees it,” Caruso said. “Since he’s paying the bill, he’s got a right to check out the guy who’s doing the job. The guy himself, I mean. Directly.”

“No way,” Mortimer told him.

They were sitting in a coffee shop at Port Authority, the morning commuters rushing by in noisy waves, the city in full morning frenzy. Nobody smelling the roses, Mortimer thought, though he’d never stopped to smell them either. Did anyone?

Caruso sipped a hazelnut blend from a paper cup. “That could be a deal breaker, you know, if the guy won’t show.”

“He won’t show,” Mortimer said flatly. “There ain’t no give in this. He won’t show… period.”

Caruso looked offended. “So who does he think he is, fucking Batman?”

“He won’t show,” Mortimer repeated.

“You won’t even talk to him?”

“There wouldn’t be no point in talking to him, Vinnie,” Mortimer said emphatically. “The deal don’t include no meeting. He don’t meet with nobody. My guy ain’t never done that, and he ain’t gonna start now.”

Caruso leaned forward. “I just give you fifteen grand, remember?”

Mortimer remembered all too well. He could feel the envelope in his jacket pocket. The only thing, it didn’t feel like bills, all silent and crinkly. It felt like thirty pieces of silver, loud and jangling, rattling through his soul.

“You gonna give a dime of that money to Batman?” Caruso asked him.

Mortimer shrugged.

“That’s what I figured,” Caruso said. “You’re shorting him. Batman, I mean. What if he found out you was doing that, Morty?”

“He ain’t gonna find out.”

“What I’m saying is we got to have some trust here. Between us, I mean. I know you’re shorting your guy and-” Caruso stopped, looking somewhat baffled, like a man who’d started following a thought, then lost it on the way. “Trust, that’s what I’m saying. You can trust me. So your guy should show if I tell you he should show.”

Mortimer took a sip of coffee, tried to act firm, businesslike, beyond intimidation. “Look, Vinnie, if Labriola wants to have a look at me, fine. But that’s where it stops.”

Caruso regarded Mortimer warily. “You know, I’ve been thinking maybe it stops with you, period. I’ve been thinking maybe Batman is you, Morty. That maybe you’re going to grab the whole thirty grand.” He took another sip of coffee. “So is there another guy or not?”

“There is,” Mortimer said. “But what his cut is, that’s between me and him.”

Caruso shrugged. “Look, if you want to cheat your guy, so what? It’s no skin off my nose who gets what in this deal, long as you come up with this fucking broad Mr. Labriola is all lathered up about. But remember this: Labriola don’t like getting fucked.” He waited for that to sink in, then added, “The Old Man gets real pissed a guy tries to screw him. And on this deal, he’s really steaming to get the job done. Otherwise why would he be paying thirty grand?”

“Why is he paying that?” Mortimer asked. “It ain’t his wife skipped town.”

“Close enough,” Caruso said. “He don’t like his kid getting screwed by this broad and her getting away with it, and all that. So he’s willing to pay to get her back. But believe me, he don’t like paying that much, Morty. He don’t like it he’s got to go that deep into his pocket to get this thing done. Put all that together, it adds up to a bad mood. He’s not to be fucked with is what I’m telling you.”

Mortimer glanced about anxiously. Why couldn’t he have just worked in a goddamn factory like his father, or sold shoes, anything but this. And now cheating Stark? How fucking crazy could things get?

“And what steams the Old Man more than anything is being played for a chump,” Caruso added.

“Yeah, I understand,” Mortimer said. “But it don’t change the way it is. What I’m telling you is that if Labriola wants to meet with me, I’m willing to do it. Anytime. Anyplace. But it’s got to be with me ’cause nobody else is gonna show.”

“I don’t know if he’ll go for it, Morty.”

“It’s the best I can do.”

“Which leaves you where, exactly? If the Old Man calls off the deal.”

Mortimer felt his tough-guy act crumble beneath Caruso’s knowing gaze.

“It means you’re back to where you was, right?” Caruso asked. “With a fifteen-thousand-dollar price on your fucking head.”

“If I have to come up with the money, I’ll come up with the money.” Mortimer tried to sound confident but failed.

“But you don’t have that money, Morty,” Caruso said cannily. “If you had it, or knew where you could get it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, right? Which means if this deal don’t go through, you’re fucked.”

“Which is why I’m ready to meet with Labriola,” Mortimer said. “Jesus, Vinnie, I know I’m in a fix. But the guy I work for, he’s got nothing to do with that. He don’t even know about it. And there’s no way I can tell him, because it wouldn’t do no good, because he don’t show… never.”