George Pelecanos - Nick's trip

A broad-shouldered lummox stained the bare wall across from the desk. He was also wearing a suit, but the suit did not hit the intended mark. His arms barely reached past his hips, his mouth was open, and his spiky haircut was some suburban hairstylist’s idea of new wave. His eyes shifted beneath heavy lids as I entered the room.

Joey motioned me into a chair upholstered in green corduroy. I folded myp e I fold overcoat on the back of it before I sat. He took his seat at the desk. He removed a pencil from a mug full of them and tapped its eraser on the edge of the metal desk. His olive skin was lightly pocked and his sideburns reached almost to the lobes of his ears. I had seen him in May’s quite often, though we had never spoken. Usually he sat with a group of aging, scotch-drinking hipsters whose conversations ran from Vegas to “broads” to Sinatra and back again, guys who were weirdly nostalgic for a time and a place that they had never known. I placed his age at about forty-eight.

“Who’s he?” I said to Joey, jerking my head slightly in the direction of the lummox.

“Bobby Caruso. You want some java?”

“Black,” I said. “Thanks.”

Joey signaled Caruso, the first time since we entered the room that he had acknowledged his presence. Caruso left but brushed my back with his heavy arm before he did it. I pulled a business card from my inside breast pocket and slid it across the desk until it touched Joey’s fingers. He read it without lifting it off the table and then tapped the eraser on the desk as he looked back my way.

“What can I do for you, Nick?”

“I’ve been hired by Bill Goodrich,” I said, “to find his wife.” I let that hang in the air and studied his cool reaction. “He thought you might be able to point me in the right direction.”

Joey chuckled and shook his head. He made a tent with his hands and didn’t say a word, and then Caruso lumbered back into the room and set a small cup of espresso on the edge of the desk nearest my elbow. I nodded by way of thanks, and in response he tried to sneer, showing me some large front teeth that would have been attractive had they belonged to an aquatic rodent. I had a sip of the bitter coffee.

Joey said evenly, “I don’t think I can help you.”

“Bill Goodrich thinks you can.” There was more silence as Joey and I stared at each other meaninglessly and without malice. Finally I said, “Let’s talk about this, Joey. Alone.”

Joey looked over my shoulder and moved only his eyes in the direction of the doorway. I felt the heavy arm bump my back, harder this time, and then heard plodding footsteps fade. Joey used a thin gold lighter to fire up a white-filtered cigarette, then slipped the lighter into his suit pocket.

“Who’s the sweetheart?” I said.

“Bobby’s a young cousin of mine. I apologize for him. He’s very protective of me and my father. Hangs around ’cause he’s got visions of getting into ‘the business.’ Of course there is no business anymore. But I haven’t been able to convince him of that.”

“Keep him away from me,” I said.

“You said you wanted to talk,” said Joey, his dark eyes narrowing.

“Okay.” I sat back. “Goodrich thinks you were having an affair with his wife. He doesn’t seem too stoked about that, to tell you the truth. He just wane t He justs to make sure she’s all right.”

“What’s your angle?”

“No angle. It’s a job. Goodrich is paying me to locate her and that’s it. It should be very simple if we all cooperate.”

“How did you two hook up?”

“Old friends,” I said.

Joey’s eyes lingered on my wrinkled blue oxford and loosened knit tie. “I don’t make you guys as peas in a pod.”

“We were once,” I said, and killed it at that. “How about you? How did you hook up with him?”

“Your friend’s a very ambitious young man,” Joey said. “He was persistent early on, calling me every day, trying to interest me in locations for carryout shops I was thinking of opening at the time. Finally I let him drive me around to look at some spots. I could see right away he was more interested in my business than in brokering locations. I guess Goodrich bought into all that fiction they print in the newspaper.”

“It’s not all fiction.”

“No, but it is ancient history. The loan-sharking, the necessary arsons-they might as well have gone down a thousand years ago. We’re involved in a little bookmaking here and there, and that’s all-college basketball, and so on.”

“So Goodrich was ambitious,” I said, filling in the common blanks. “You met his wife over dinner, and he says you gave her the eye.”

“Listen”, Joey said, “I’ll speed this up for you.” He flicked an inch of ash to the linoleum floor and leaned forward. “I not only gave her the eye, my friend, I gave her this.” Joey grabbed his crotch for emphasis and shook its contents. “All right? I gave it to her all over her beautiful body and anywhere else I damn well pleased. And all the while I had the distinct impression that your young friend was pimping his wife to me for just that purpose.”

I shook a Camel from the deck. Joey leaned over with his gold lighter and set it on fire. I blew some smoke across the room that mingled with his. He slid the lighter back into his pocket.

“How so?” I said.

“Goodrich didn’t care about that broad any more than I did, that’s how so. I could see she had no class the first night I met her, and class is something I know a thing or two about.”

I looked at the blond mechanic on the calendar and then back at him. “A thing or two at the most, maybe.” The shot glanced off him, so I plowed on. “What was your deal with Goodrich?”

“I put him on the payroll as a real estate adviser. He was paid in cash, always in cash. It’s something he asked for, and it’s something guys like him can really appreciate. After a while their high salaries just become a blur of numbers. But cash-it’s real, you can feel it in your hand, and it’s dangerous, you know what I’m saying? Let’s face it, there’s no reason to be in business for yourself unless you can steal from the IRStenfrom th. He wanted a piece of it. I gave him what he wanted, and I took what I wanted from his wife.”

The comment lingered in the air like a bad odor. “Joey,” I said, “do you know where April Goodrich is?”

Joey DiGeordano barked a short laugh that turned into a cough. When he was finished coughing he wiped his eyes with a handkerchief that he drew from the breast pocket of his suit jacket. Then he studied my eyes and grinned. “Big private eye,” he said, and shook his head. “You really don’t know a damn thing, do you?”

“Educate me,” I said.

“I don’t know where April Goodrich is,” he said. “But I’ll give you ten grand if you find her and bring her to me.”

I considered that after a drag off my cigarette. “I thought you didn’t care about her.”

“I don’t. But she’s got something of mine.”

“What would that be?” I said.

Joey said, “Two hundred grand.”

I finished my espresso and had a last pull off my cigarette before crushing it on the floor. I heard Caruso’s heavy breathing in the hallway and below that the faint tick of my wristwatch.

“You going to tell me about it?”

“Why not?” he said. “Everybody in town knows I got took for a ride. I have an apartment I keep downtown. I take my friends, girlfriends there, for parties, whatever. I also keep my bankroll there. Being in the cash business has its disadvantages. One of them is you can’t use the banks.”

“April knew about it?”

“Yeah. She was at the apartment on a regular basis for quite a while, and occasionally she needed cash. I didn’t have a safe or anything, and I knew how much was there, so I figured it couldn’t do any harm to let her in on it.”