Tom Piccirilli - Headstone City

But this was different. She relaxed and stared out the window while Phil Guerra drove up through Wisewood and out the gates, making a wide left for the Danetello house without slowing down or looking both ways. They cut off an oncoming Miata and the blaring horn made Phil giggle.

Halfway up the block, he pulled to the curb in front of the house and put his hand on Dane's leg, gripping pretty hard. Dane got the point and didn't get out of the car. Grandma must've seen the move. She shoved the seat forward and crushed Dane against the dash while she climbed out. He grunted, staring into the dust that had gathered there and thinking, Christ, it's never easy.

“I'm going to talk to Johnny a little longer,” Phil said.

“You sure you don't want to come in for coffee and biscotti ?”

“I wish I could, Lucia, but I need to get home soon.”

“Say hello to the wife for me.”

“I'll do that.”

“Always nice to see her at bingo!”

Phil drew away from the curb without checking his mirror and nearly took out a Chinese delivery kid on a bicycle. The kid screamed and almost flopped off the bike but managed to keep from going down.

Phil looked over and stared through the yellow lenses of the aviator glasses. The hell kind of statement was he trying to make wearing those things? “It true that you and Big Tommy Bartone had a shoot-out in a hospital in Bed-Stuy?”

“No,” Dane said.

Phil was connected and had the story down. Big Tommy wouldn't have lied about the specifics, not even to save his ass. He'd play it up that Dane had spent time in the army, knew all kinds of Special Forces moves. He had a reputation firm enough to bear up under the brunt of that, and it would make the rest of the crew that much more reluctant to deal with Dane.

“It's not true? That's all anybody's been talking about in Headstone City the last couple days. You're saying it's a bunch of lies?”

“It wasn't a shoot-out. I got the drop on him and let him go.”

“That was stupid! He'll just come at you twice as hard next time.”

“I think we reached a general understanding.”

“Which was?”

Dane still didn't know where Phil fit into it all. Sometimes you had to make yourself extremely clear so nobody misunderstood your position on a particular issue. “That I'd kill him if he took another run at me.”

Phil cut loose with a jolly laugh, genuinely tickled. It almost made Dane smile. He hadn't heard the man's honest laughter in years. Phil touched him on the knee. “You think that'll scare him off?”

“It doesn't matter. If he tries again, I'll clip him.”

“And anybody else who makes a run at you?”

“Yeah, and anybody else.”

“You've got a dangerous view of the world, Johnny. I don't know how you've survived this long. Acting like everything is a joke. A silly game.”

He probably did, Dane knew, but it was the only way to make it through the day.

They circled the area, and Phil drove past his own house, like he might be checking to see if his wife was on the front step making a nasty face. Waiting for him, expecting him home to clean out the garage. He circled Wisewood and drove under the highway, jamming the brakes to avoid hitting other cars, cruising through intersections just as the lights turned red. Talk about dangerous.

“You shouldn't be hanging around this part of the neighborhood, Johnny.”

“You already told me that.”

“It's not the safest place for you.”

“You said that too.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah. Relax yourself about it. Nobody's going to get the drop on me.” Dane thought that maybe Phil had fallen back into his cop role, reading his script to the punks on the street. He seemed a little lost, unsure of where he was supposed to be now. No longer a cop, no longer a real player. Sitting comfortably in the pocket of the Don, but only because he was a neighborhood boy and was content to play fetch.

Phil took the next turn so sharply they wound up bumping over the curb. Dane reached into the glove compartment and pulled out Phil's thick glasses. “How about you take off those aviators and put these on now.”

“I see fine.”

“Really, you might at least consider it. You don't have to wear them all the time. Maybe just now and again, you know? On cloudy days. At night.”

“I don't need them.”

Dane put the glasses back, waiting for whatever was going to happen next.

Phil started to screw around some more. He honked the horn and waved at people on the street. They stared at him in terror. Dane tried hard not to fidget but all he wanted to do was grab hold of the wheel, show him how to really groove with a '59 Caddy.

“I've got some money I could give you,” Phil said. “It might help you to make a fresh start. So you can get away from here.”

“Where'd you get the money?”

“I earned it on the job. It's not much. Maybe five grand. But enough for you to have a stake and move to a new city. Somewhere warm.”

Dane still couldn't come to a decision on where Phil stood. The man was actually much more perplexing than he should be. Was Phil trying to get rid of him because he realized Dane knew what had really happened to his father? Or because he had orders from the Montis to make a show of friendship?

“Just think about it,” Phil told him, and pulled up in front of Grandma's house again.

Dane looked at him and asked, “Where were you that night, Phil? When my mother died.”

Phil scowled, his lips tugged back in a near pout. “What do you mean?”

Some guys could play dumb with a real tact and delicacy, and then others, they just looked at you, frowning, trying to make it seem like your question made no sense.

“I phoned you from the hospital. I called the precinct, remember? You were supposed to come by at the end of your shift, but you never showed up.”

It didn't really matter, but Dane couldn't control his need to confront the man and hear some kind of answer. It should all be secondary to hearing him admit to killing Dad, but he'd always known his priorities were fucked.

“You accusing me of something?” Phil asked, his eyes appearing jaundiced behind those lenses.

“I'm asking a question.”

“Well, I don't like it.”

“I didn't think you would.”

“You got something to say, you just say it.”

“I already did. I want to know where you were that night.”

“Who the hell do you think you are? Asking me that! In my car! In my Cadillac while I'm driving. After I just been to the graves of your parents! And you're asking me that? You got something to say to me? You accusing me of something? This I want to hear! This I really want to hear!”

“It should be easy to answer, don't you think? It's not like you could forget a night like that, right? Or could you?”

“You got some nerve, Johnny! You got some goddamn frickin'-”

“I've got nerve, we both know that. What I don't have is an answer. You want to give me one?”

“Get out of my car.”

“Can I still have the money? Five g's. Maybe I'll invest it.”

“Get out of my car, you strunzo prick!”

“Sure,” Dane said, and slid out of the Caddy. He smiled and let his cigarette hang loose from the corner of his mouth, hitting his father's pose.

Phil Guerra knew he'd messed up, showing heat like that. He sat looking at the dash for a minute, calming down. Then he held his index finger out, cocked his thumb like it was a gun, pretended to shoot Dane again, the same way he had the other day. Sometimes it felt like you were onstage all the time, in a very old play, hitting your mark and saying lines you'd said a thousand times before.

Dane walked inside and went to the kitchen junk drawer, grabbed a screwdriver and needle-nose pliers. Grandma was at the counter cooking ziti. She said, “You two have a good talk?”