John Lescroart - The Vig

Moses went to pour a drink.

Hardy fingered his darts, sipped his coffee. Tried to picture Rusty Ingraham at the bottom of the ocean.

Couldn't do it. Not anymore.

Lace removed a board from the side of the stoop at the place Samson mostly stayed. The sun wasn't quite up yet, but he hadn't been getting any sleep to speak of anyway, and he wanted some darkness.

Jumpup, he'd gone 'til things chilled out over to his cousins at Hunter's Point, but Lace lived here and he wasn't leaving. This be his home turf and, he starting to think, woe betide the man who fucks with it.

Fighting his fear of rats and whatever else might live in there, Lace reached his hand far into the dark hole under the steps. He patted the ground inside, his teeth chattering. He hoping nobody hears it inside.

Nothing.

He sat, arms now tucked into his pits, huddled in the jacket, letting the fear subside.

It wasn't possible. He couldn't be wrong.

The shaking still there, he forced his hand again into the cold and silent space. Retraced what he'd just done, making himself feel the stones, the chunks of rotting wood, a piece of moldy cloth that felt like a dead animal. Reaching back, up, to the front, seeing the yellow rat eyes about to snap at him, take a finger, give him the rabies. He closed his eyes, feeling.

Way in, up in the front, wrapped in the freezing oily animal cloth, he felt the package. The gun felt heavy in his hands.

The strip of light in the east hadn't widened by a hair and he was walking now, the board back over the hole, in place, his pocket heavy, shoelaces trailing around by his feet.

Over to the Mama's, around to the front door by the street, away from the view of the cuts. No one around. Nothing moving.

After some knocks he heard somebody moving inside. Then, enormous in a white housecoat, Mama opened the door a crack. Seeing it was Lace, she let him in.

"What time it, child? You all right?"

Lace closed the door behind him and waited for Mama to sit on the couch next to the dim light before he came over and sat at the other end. He noticed that the window over the couch had been covered over again with cardboard. She pulled a knitted cover up over her body, tucking her feet under her giant thighs.

"Now," she said, "what you doing?"

Lace took the gun, still wrapped in an old shirt sleeve, out of his pocket. He started pulling it out from the cloth. "We gotta tell somebody," he said.

The Mama wasn't taking her eyes from the gun.

"This the piece killed Dido, Mama," Lace said. "Ain't no Louis Baker kill him. This Samson's piece."

The Mama nodded. "Who we fixin' to tell about it? You want to put it down?"

Lace had it unwrapped. "It's loaded still," he said. He turned the barrel toward himself.

"Don't!"

He froze. "What?"

"Just put it down! Put it down! Thing go off by itself then what? Put that thing down! On the floor!"

He leaned over and laid it down.

The Mama let out a breath, another one. "They're dangerous, guns. Where you get that one?"

"It's Samson's. It was Samson's."

"You said that."

"And that means Louis, he didn't kill Dido."

"Child, I knew that. Louis never hurt nobody anymore. He just want to set up house. 'Til they don't leave him alone."

"But he run."

"You run, too, child, they come after you."

Lace put his back up against the cushions. His red-rimmed eyes suddenly burned-up all night waiting for his chance, light enough to see where he's going, dark enough to get away.

He was safe here with Mama now, and Samson didn't have the gun. He had it. Seemed that ought to change the way things felt.

"You know, Mama, runnin'. Don't that make them think you did it, too?"

Bundled in her blanket, her big head bobbed. "That's right."

"So Louis run and he saying he did it?"

"But he don't run and they take him down for it."

"But now he run and they got him anyway."

"That often the way, child." She made a clucking noise, shifting her bulk, impatient. "This ain't be the news. You go bad with the law, he keep you bad. Don't matter what you do, you the first body they come at."

"But they got Louis for Dido, and he don't kill Dido. This gun prove that."

"All right," the Mama said. "What?"

"So we let it on to the Man."

She labored to pull herself up. "Here's what happens then. You listen up now. The Man come here and you talk about Louis and that gun there. Then he say, 'Interesting, and how come it be you now holding this piece?' And next you know you down there next to Louis. You like that?"

"It won't be…"

She leaned forward and rested a meaty hand on his thin leg. "There ain't nobody with Louis more than me. He don't kill Dido and maybe it come out, but it don't come out with you going to the Man. He just resent you interferin'. You got a problem, you best take care of it yourself."

"And Louis…?"

"Louis take care of hisself, too."

"Seem like I ought to talk to someone. Get some help. Help Louis out."

She gently tightened her grip on his thigh. "I know it seem like that," she said, "but that ain't be how it works."

It wasn't that Abe didn't believe coincidences occurred. You could be humming a song and have it turn up on the radio. Somebody's on the phone when you were just about to call them. That kind of thing.

But when you mentioned, say, a Johnny LaGuardia to a potential suspect in a murder investigation like, say, Hector Medina, one day, and the next day you find yourself at a dumpster behind the Wax Museum in Fisherman's Wharf, looking at the holes in Johnny's head, it made you wonder.

Two holes. One in the back and one at the temple. Either one would've done the job fine by itself.

Abe wondered if Medina's logbook showed that he'd worked a double shift all last night. He wondered if he had some extra money lying around, if he were at work today.

Maneuvering through the techs, Abe cleared the morning shade in the alley and stood on the sidewalk in the bright sun. Knowing that Glitsky had interviewed Johnny recently, Batiste had called Abe at home as soon as the call with the tentative I.D. came in. Abe had called Hardy out of courtesy. Hardy had been groggy, perhaps hungover, but he said he'd be here.

Now he was walking up wearing corduroys, hiking boots, a 'Members Only' jacket over a turtleneck. Abe cocked his head back toward the alley and started walking. Hardy fell in beside him. They lifted the yellow tape.

"Johnny LaGuardia?" Hardy said.

"The late great."

They both studied the body, still uncovered, now laid out on a stretcher. One tasseled brown loafer was still on. His sport coat hung open revealing a salmon-colored shirt half-tucked into some stylish pleated Italian trousers. His shoulder holster was empty.

"The gun was on him when we got here," Abe said, "in case you were wondering."

"So he knew whoever it was."

Abe nodded. "Safe bet."

Johnny's face, surprisingly to Hardy, showed no sign of exit wounds. "Small caliber, huh?"

"Must have been," Abe said. "Looks like twenty-two or twenty-five."

"Again," Hardy said.

"I noticed. And it didn't go down here either," Abe said. "He was dumped." He motioned to the dumpster. "Symbolism, yet."

Hardy looked another minute. "You had coffee yet?"

A black Chrysler LeBaron pulled into the mouth of the alley. A chauffeur stepped out and walked around the front of the car. Abe waited, watching.

"Who's that?" Hardy asked.

The Angel sat in the back seat, holding hands with Doreen Biaggi. She had been staying in his upstairs room since Sunday, taking meals with the family. Now she wore sunglasses to cover her black eye. The swelling on her cheek was still visible. Tortoni squeezed her hand. "Va bene?"