Mike Lawson - Dead on Arrival

And it wasn’t just his cousin’s looks that women — like Joe’s ex-wife — found appealing. There was a sparkle in Danny’s eyes that said he’d be fun , that life was his personal bowl of cherries and he’d happily share it with you. Most women, except for Marie DeMarco, it seemed, could tell that Danny was a short-term proposition, a guy who’d be great to spend a week with in Vegas but not someone who was going to be there for you when the doctor told you about that little lump in your breast.

‘You understand?’ DeMarco said.

‘Yeah,’ Danny said.

‘And you understand this guy’ll kill you if you fuck up?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And you understand you have to deliver? Giving it your best shot doesn’t count.’

‘Yeah. Do I have time to see Marie before I leave?’

An image of his ex-wife and his cousin immediately popped into DeMarco’s brain, an image he tried his best to push aside. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘but only because I have to do a couple things first. But your ass had better be on the first shuttle to D.C. in the morning. We’ll drive over to western Virginia together, but in separate cars.’

‘Who’s gonna pay for my flight?’ Danny said.

‘You’re gonna pay for your own fuckin’ flight!’

‘Yeah, okay, fine. Geez, you don’t have to be so-’

‘And I want you to bring clothes that make you look like the small-time guinea hood you are. Stupid gold chains around your neck. Loud ties. Shiny suits. Just the way you dress when you and … and her go out. Got it?’

‘Yeah, but-’

‘Just do what I tell you,’ DeMarco said. ‘And if you’re not in D.C. tomorrow morning, Danny, I swear to God, I’ll-’

‘I’ll be there, Joe. You got my word.’

DeMarco just shook his head. His word . Jesus.

‘And Joe, thanks. I mean, I just can’t believe you’re doing this for me.’

‘I’m not doing this for you, you asshole. Or for your wife. There’s a whole lot more at stake here than you going to jail, which is where you goddamn well belong.’

Jubal Pugh lived at the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley, about ten miles from the city of Winchester, Virginia, and five miles from the West Virginia state border. The area around Pugh’s farm was surrounded by apple orchards and low hills thickly covered with hickory and oak. Small creeks, no more than a couple of feet wide, seemed to be everywhere, cutting though the hillsides, running alongside the roads.

To Danny DeMarco, who rarely left New York City, the place was incredibly, hilariously rustic. He passed roads called Frog Eye Lane and Quail Run and saw at one point that he was less than ten miles from a place called Capon Bridge, West Virginia. He thought a capon was some sort of nutless chicken, but what did he know.

Following the directions given to him by his cousin, he found Pugh’s farm — estate — whatever the hell it was. He could see a house sitting back in the woods, a good two hundred yards from the gate. The house was a big white clapboard place with two chimneys and a rooster weather vane on the roof. Or maybe it was a capon. There were half a dozen outbuildings near the main house — small garages or toolsheds — and a bunch of cars, six or seven vehicles in the yard in front of the house. Old broken-down cars appeared to be some sort of redneck collector’s item; half the houses he’d seen on his way out to Pugh’s had rusted vehicles in the front yard, up on cinder blocks, the tires missing.

Danny got out of his rental car, a crummy Taurus because he couldn’t afford better. He walked up to the gate and gave a tug on the big padlock, even though he could see it was locked, then walked back to his car, planted his butt on the hood, and lit a cigarette. The DEA agent, that tough little cookie, had told him that eventually someone would come out and ask what he was doing.

Danny was wearing a camel-hair topcoat, a gray suit, a blue shirt with a big white collar, and a silk Versace tie that Marie had given him and that had cost more than a hundred and fifty bucks. He had on a pinky ring with a good-sized cubic zirconia stone, and on his feet were black Gucci loafers with tassels, the shoes already covered with a thin layer of dust just from walking from his car to the gate and back again.

Ten minutes later he saw a jeep pull away from the house and drive up the road in his direction. The jeep stopped on the other side of the gate and a man got out. The man was wearing jeans and scuffed-up work boots and, even though it was cold out, a plain dark-blue T-shirt. He was about six feet tall and not exactly skinny, but there was no extra fat on him either. His arms were corded with stringy muscles, the kind you get from doing real work and not from lifting weights to pump up for show. He had a raw, reddish complexion, as if his skin was permanently windburned, and hard high cheekbones, as if he had a walnut in each cheek. On his head was a dirty white baseball cap with the word PETERBILT emblazoned on it. Danny knew Peterbilt was a type of truck, not some kind of dick joke, but why the hell would anyone want to wear a hat like that? Lastly, Danny noticed the prison tats inked onto the knuckles of the man’s hands, a bunch of stupid little x’s, and he knew, without a doubt, that in the pen this huckleberry had belonged to the Aryan Brotherhood or some other Nazi fuckin’ gang.

‘What the hell do you want?’ the guy said to Danny.

What a friendly bastard. ‘My name’s Danny DeMarco and I’m here to see Mr Pugh. Tell him I work for Tony Benedetto in New York and I have a business proposition for him.’

The man spat, the glob of saliva coming fairly close to Danny’s right shoe. The guy had a mouth like a cannon. He stared at Danny for about thirty seconds, giving him his cell-block you’re-my-bitch glare, then finally pulled a phone out of his back pocket and made a call. A minute later, he walked slowly back to the gate, spat again, and unlocked the padlock.

Jubal Pugh’s once-red hair was beginning to turn an unattractive orange-gray color. He had small blue eyes under thick red brows, a long sharp nose with a small bump in the middle, and a weak chin that was somewhat hidden by a week’s worth of grayish-red whiskers. He was not a handsome man. He was wearing corduroy pants and a long-sleeved denim shirt. On his feet were white socks and house slippers, fluffy, comfy-looking dark blue ones.

Pugh shook Danny’s hand when Danny introduced himself, then sat down on a blue leather couch that was about ten feet long. He pointed Danny to a recliner that matched the couch; separating them was a glass-topped coffee table with legs the size of an elephant’s. They were in a room that appeared to be Pugh’s living room, filled with large expensive pieces of furniture. There was an enormous plasma-screen TV, and on the walls were paintings in ornate gilded frames. One portrait dominated the room, a picture of a stag in a forest glen with an enormous rack of antlers. Danny concluded that Pugh had spent a lot of money furnishing the room but didn’t have the good sense to hire an interior decorator.

The hard case with the Peterbilt cap took up a position against the wall near the stag picture and crossed his arms over his chest. When he’d escorted Danny to Pugh’s living room, Danny had seen an automatic — a walnut-handled.45 — sticking out the back of the guy’s jeans.

Pugh studied Danny for a moment and his lips twitched briefly as if he was amused, by either Danny or his big-city attire. ‘You told Randy you were sent here by a Mr Benny-Detto,’ he said.

Jesus, the guy talked slow .

‘Well, I don’t know no Mr Benny-Detto,’ Pugh continued. ‘I don’t think I know anybody in New York. Visited there once, though. Noisy, stinky kinda place, if you ask me, but lots of good-lookin’ women, I’ll give it that.’