Thomas Cook - Peril

Caruso sucked in a troubled breath, pulled himself from behind the wheel, and headed up the stairs behind Labriola. The buzzer was already ringing by the time he joined him on the landing.

The door opened and a tall man in a dark suit appeared, his blue eyes ghostly in their icy glint.

“You Batman?” Labriola laughed.

“What?”

Caruso released a nervous little chuckle. “That’s what I called you,” he explained. “Mr. Labriola don’t know you by no other name.”

The man’s eyes shifted over to Labriola. “Leo Labriola,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Labriola said gruffly. “And this is my son, Tony. It’s his wife that’s missing.”

The man in the dark suit nodded. “Stark,” he said.

“So,” Labriola said, slapping his hands together. “We gonna stand in the fucking street all night, or what?”

Stark smiled quietly. “Please come in,” he said.

Caruso trailed along, following Labriola and Tony into the shadowy interior of Stark’s apartment, where Mortimer stood silently in a far corner of the room.

“Would anyone like a drink?” Stark asked.

“We ain’t here to socialize,” Labriola said. He stepped forward, leaving a space between Caruso and Tony. “I paid you a lot of money, but you didn’t find my son’s wife.”

“No, I didn’t,” Stark replied evenly. He nodded toward Mortimer. “But my assistant, Mr. Dodge, did.”

“Mr. Dodge,” Labriola bellowed. “You trust your… assistant?”

“Yes.”

“You trust him like I trust Vinnie?”

“I would trust him with my life,” Stark said.

Labriola laughed. “Okay, so this fucking guy… Mr. Dodge… he wouldn’t short you, would he?”

Stark smiled. “I said I’d trust him with my life. Not my money.”

Labriola’s eyes seemed to leap with canine joy. “So you already know about this fucking guy? How he was gonna short you?”

“I know that he found the woman you’re looking for,” Stark said. “And I know that you’re going to forget that he found her.”

Labriola seemed unable to process Stark’s response. He glanced back and forth between Caruso and his son, then leveled his eyes on Stark. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about a woman,” Stark said coolly. “Her name is Sara, I believe. And she no longer exists for any of you.”

Tony stepped forward slightly. “I’m not looking for her,” he said. “You see her, you can tell her I’m not looking.” He turned to Labriola. “Let’s go, Dad.”

Labriola didn’t move. His eyes remained on Stark. “Who the fuck you think you’re talking to, asshole?” he sneered.

Stark’s voice turned steely. “Here’s what’s you do,” he said. “You. Leave. Sara. Labriola. Alone.”

Labriola squinted hard, as if trying to bring something very small into focus. Then he glanced unbelievingly at Caruso. “You hear this fucking guy?” he bellowed. “You hear how he talks to me?” He laughed, but edgily, as his gaze shot from Caruso to Tony, then back to Stark. “You a fag?”

Stark faced him silently.

“I asked you a question,” Labriola said. “Are you a fag?”

Stark gave no answer.

“ ’Cause you must be a fag if you think you’re gonna fuck with me. ”

Stark stared at Labriola without expression.

“Or maybe you think I’m a fag,” Labriola sneered. He stepped forward and with surprising speed yanked a thirty-eight snub-nosed pistol from his jacket pocket and aimed it at Stark. “You ready to die, fuckhead?”

Stark said nothing, but Caruso saw a dark gleam come into his eyes, as if something important had suddenly occurred to him.

“I asked you a question,” Labriola said.

Stark faced him silently.

Tony eased forward and stretched his hand toward Labriola. “Give me that, Dad,” he said.

Labriola jerked the gun from his son’s reach. “Shut the fuck up, Tony,” he barked, his eyes still on Stark. “You look a little fucked up, Batman,” he said. His eyes slid over to Caruso. “This guy look a little fucked up to you, Vinnie?”

Caruso nodded.

Labriola thrust his hand forward, snapped back the pistol’s metal cock, then stepped forward and pressed it against Stark’s forehead. “Check this asshole out, Vinnie.”

“Stop it, Dad,” Tony said.

Labriola paid no attention. “Do it, Vinnie!”

Caruso came around behind Stark and began patting him down, then suddenly stopped cold and drew a nine-millimeter automatic from beneath Stark’s arm.

“Gimme it,” Labriola snapped.

Caruso placed the pistol in Labriola’s outstretched hand.

Labriola stepped back and smiled at Stark. “Nobody fucks with Leo Labriola.”

“What now?” Stark asked coolly.

Labriola laughed. “What now?” he asked mockingly. “Now we go for a little ride.”

He waited until the lights went on in Samantha’s apartment. Then he turned and made his way back to the bar. As he walked, he replayed the events of the last few days, how she’d shown up out of the blue, the way she made him feel. He didn’t know whether anything would come of it, but who ever knew if anything would come of anything, or if what came would last, or even be all that good? But what the hell, he thought as he turned onto Twelfth Street, all life really gave you was a chance not to fuck it up.

At the bar Jake was counting the receipts and Susanne was clearing the last of the tables.

“She done good,” Jake said. “The crowd really seemed to like her.”

Abe nodded, then glanced over at the now-empty tables, recalling how conversations had trailed off during her first song, fallen silent for the last two. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, they did.”

Jake and Susanne left a few minutes later, and Abe returned to the piano and played Samantha’s closing number, remembering the way she’d sung it, how she’d made the lyrics seem like the sum total of what a person could learn.

He’d just played the final chord when he heard the door open at the front, realized that he hadn’t locked it after he’d let Jake and Susanne out.

He stood obediently behind Stark and Tony, guarding them from the back, while Mortimer and Labriola stepped inside the bar. Over their shoulders he could see the barkeep moving toward them.

“I can’t serve you, Morty,” the barkeep said when he reached them.

“We have to talk,” Mortimer said gravely.

Before the barkeep could answer, Labriola said, “You got a table for-what we got here? — four of us… plus you… so that means a table for five, right?”

The barkeep looked at Mortimer uncomprehendingly.

“Just do it,” Mortimer told him

“Yeah, just do it,” Labriola said coldly.

The barkeep didn’t move. “I think you’d better go,” he said.

Labriola laughed harshly. “Go? You don’t even know me, and you’re telling me to get out? That ain’t very nice.” He drew the pistol from his jacket pocket. “Like I said, fuckhead, table for five.”

The barkeep didn’t move, and Caruso thought it would all end at that instant, Labriola blasting the barkeep first, knocking him backward and over the nearest table, then turning to the others, dropping them where they stood, Stark and Mortimer, both of them staggering backward under a hail of bullets, geysers of blood shooting from their chests, all of it a scenario Caruso knew he was helpless to stop, the Old Man’s rage now at full throttle, hurling everyone toward disaster.

Then, suddenly, Mortimer’s voice broke the silence. “Abe,” he said quietly, “please.”

The barkeep nodded softly, then turned and headed toward the back of the bar, walking slowly, like a man to his execution.