Lee Vance - The Garden of Betrayal

“What’s that?” I whispered.

“Cell phone jammer,” he said, dropping the box back into his pocket. “Has an effective radius of about two hundred yards. Borrowed it from a SWAT guy.” He pointed upward. “Landline connection there. I’m going to count to three. When I get to three, you cut the line.”

“Got it.”

I extended the saw and raised it to touch the phone line. Reggie took a two-handed grip on his bat and planted himself in front of the electric meter.

“One, two, three.”

I jerked the saw downward as Reggie swung the bat overhead. The phone line parted and the electric meter crashed to the ground. Every light on the lot extinguished simultaneously. I was blind in the sudden darkness and could hear my heart thumping wildly.

“Now what?” I hissed.

“Shh. Now we wait.”

My eyes adjusted enough to see. Reggie glanced at me and offered the bat.

“Take it and give me the saw,” he murmured. “Don’t make any noise.”

We completed the exchange silently. Reggie leaned the saw against the cinder-block wall of the booth. Another minute passed. My palms were damp on the handle of the bat.

“What if he doesn’t come?”

“He’ll come.”

I heard the door of the attendant’s booth open. Reggie pulled his gun and pointed it skyward. A gray figure shambled around the right-hand side of the booth, an open cell phone held in his hand for illumination. Reggie caught him by his collar and swung him in a wide circle, smashing him into the cinder-block wall.

“What the fuck?” Vinny yelped.

Reggie jammed the gun under his chin, and Vinny got quiet. Close up, I could see that he was chubby and had bad skin. He was wearing sneakers and ratty jeans and a brown or black leather coat. He looked terrified.

“Vinny Santore,” Reggie said. “Seven years ago, you made a bad mistake. You fucked with the wrong people. It took us a while to find you, but now you have to pay.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Reggie banged him against the wall.

“You been inside, Vinny. You understand how things work. It doesn’t matter what you know. It only matters what you did.”

Vinny’s eyes slid in my direction and then dropped to focus on the bat.

“Whatever it was,” he stammered, “I can make it right.”

Reggie banged him against the wall again.

“Too late to make it right. But you might be able to make it better. And if you make it better, there’s a chance you get to go home in one piece tonight.”

Vinny nodded as much as he could with the gun to his throat.

“What do you want from me?”

“Seven years ago, you swiped a red BMW M5.”

“I swiped a lot of fucking cars. How am I supposed to remember that one?”

Reggie banged him against the wall more forcefully. Vinny’s head bounced off the cinder blocks and onto the barrel of the gun, the impact to his larynx making him choke.

“There was something special about that car. You remember.”

Eyes wild, Vinny looked back to me, maybe searching for an ally. I hoisted the bat to waist level.

“Diplomatic plates,” he said.

“Good,” Reggie said. “Where’d you grab it?”

“One hundred twenty-fifth and the river, on the West Side. There’s a parking lot. I used to get high there sometimes before I went cruising, to calm myself down a little bit. Fucking car was just sitting there, man, totally cherry. I watched for a while to make sure it wasn’t a setup and then figured what the fuck, you know? Fucking key was even in the ignition. It was weird.”

“You put the car on the truck and did what?”

“Took it straight to Frank’s.”

“Was Frank there?”

“No. Frank only ever worked days. I drove the truck into his garage and left it there with the car still on top. Then I went out and got fucked up.”

“And you’re sure the key was in the ignition.”

“One hundred percent.”

Reggie released Vinny to rack the slide on his gun. He elevated the barrel and touched it to Vinny’s forehead. Vinny’s eyes crossed.

“First you don’t remember anything, and now you’re remembering too much,” he said. “You must think I’m stupid.”

“I swear,” Vinny squeaked. “I remember. Frank called the next morning. I had a monster fucking tequila headache, and Frank was screaming at me. Calling me a stupid motherfucker and saying he didn’t want to work with me no more. I didn’t know what was going on. Frank was fucking fierce. I was scared. I thought he was going to fuck me up good.”

“And did he?”

“No, man. He came around later that day, all fucking strange and spooky. Told me to keep my mouth shut about that car, forever. And I did, until right now. Never talked about it again.”

Reggie lowered the gun and nodded thoughtfully.

“I reckon you’ve told me about half the truth, Vinny, and I appreciate it. So I’m not going to shoot you in the head.” He lifted the gun again and pressed it to Vinny’s chest. “I’m going to shoot you in the heart, so your mother can send you off in an open casket.”

“I told you everything,” Vinny wailed.

“You didn’t. You saw what was in the trunk of that car, or Frank told you. You know why we’re here.”

Vinny looked as if he might pass out.

“I don’t. I swear. I don’t know anything about anything in the trunk.”

“You’re lying,” Reggie insisted. He took a half step backward, extending his arm more fully. “I hate to shoot you like this, Vinny, because I’m wearing my favorite coat, and I’m going to get blood all over my sleeve when your heart explodes.”

Vinny moaned, tears running down his face.

“Last chance,” Reggie said.

A surge of furious despair brought me to life as I realized what was going to happen next. Vinny wasn’t going to admit to knowing what was in the trunk, and Reggie wasn’t going to shoot him. Vinny would realize that Reggie had been bluffing, and we’d never learn whatever else he might know. I remembered what Claire had said about our being together.

I swung the bat. I swung it as hard as I could, catching Vinny on the inside of his right knee. He crumpled to the ground, screaming. I drew it back to take a second swing and Reggie grabbed me by the shirtfront, his body interposed between me and Vinny.

“Where’s my son?” I yelled, struggling to get past Reggie. “What did you do with him? Tell me, you little motherfucker, or I’ll kill you.”

Joe came running around the corner, flashlight in one hand and gun in the other.

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

Reggie wrenched the bat from my hands and shoved me toward Joe.

“Get him out of here,” Reggie barked. “Now. I’m going to clean this mess up as best I can.”

Reggie and I didn’t talk much on the ride back to Manhattan. He kept his police radio on and tuned to the Staten Island frequency. I heard the call for a patrol car to the gas station where we’d left Vinny, and a follow-up call for an ambulance. I rode with my head tipped against the passenger window, too emotionally spent to care. Reggie hung a left into Battery Park City after we emerged from the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, hopping the curb at the end of Liberty Street and following the footpath toward the North Cove marina. We parked shy of a flight of stairs, with a view of the river. He turned off his headlights and lit a cigarette.

“You and me have a problem.”

I watched the lights of the Financial Center play on the water, listening.

“I’ll admit I screwed up tonight. I shouldn’t have let you come. That makes me stupid, because I let you get mixed up in something you shouldn’t have been mixed up in. But you crossed a line back there. I’m not a goon, and I don’t work with goons. I scare people, and I slap them around sometimes, but I don’t ever hurt anyone unless they’re trying to hurt me, and never if they’re defenseless.”