Russell Andrews - Hades

"You should get the hell out of here," Bruno said, looking up at Justin.

"I think you have it backward," Justin said. "I'm the cop."

"Not from what I hear. I hear you're a suspended cop."

"I can wait until Billy's guys get here. Suspended or not, they'll want to hear what happened from another cop."

"Billy's guys aren't gonna get here," Bruno said quietly. "Nobody's gonna call 'em. So there ain't gonna be nothin' for anyone to tell or anyone to hear."

Justin looked around, realized that the place had emptied out. The only ones left in the restaurant were him and Bruno, the man in the Bermuda shorts, and the two men pinning the guy in shorts to the floor. Justin also realized that the curtains had magically been drawn along all the windows. Nothing happening in the room could now be seen from the street. The guy on the floor was conscious, but he wasn't saying a word, wasn't struggling. Justin realized he was looking at a pro. A pro who knew what was about to happen. "What the hell is this?" Justin said. "What the hell is going on?"

Bruno made sure the two men had the situation under control, then he stepped over to Justin, steered him a few feet away, and spoke quietly so no one else could hear what was being said.

"I told you I couldn't help you, Jay. Especially not here."

"Then where?"

"When you goin' home?"

"Home to East End?" And when Bruno nodded, Justin said, "I don't know."

"I'll find you in a few days. Somewhere. It'd be better there."

"And when you find me, what are you gonna tell me?"

Bruno looked down at the man in shorts, still lying motionless on the floor. "I don't know," he said. "Part of it depends on what I find out here."

"Bruno," Justin said, "you switch jobs? Or at least change bosses?"

"No," the big guy said. "I wouldn't screw around with my pension like that."

"Then who the hell is gonna mess around with you?"

"I told you I had a few things to work out. I'm not as popular as I used to be, hard as that is to imagine."

"Tell me why this guy was trying to kill you."

"That's where it gets a little tricky," Bruno said.

"Tricky how?"

"You gonna see Billy DiPezio while you're up here?"

"Yeah."

"How 'bout your girlfriend in the FBI?"

"Wanda Chinkle? I wasn't planning on it."

"What happened here stays here. You don't pass it to either of 'em. No matter what you think."

Justin thought about whether he was capable of keeping quiet about what he knew was about to turn into a murder. The skinny guy on the floor knew what he was doing. He knew the risk he was taking. And he was willing to commit a murder of his own, if he was quick enough and good enough. He wasn't. So he had to suffer the consequences. That was the world he'd chosen to live in. But Justin was a cop. He wasn't supposed to allow that world to exist in quite those terms. But then Justin thought, I'm not a cop at the moment. Larry Silverbush took care of that. Bruno's right-I'm a suspended cop. So he nodded at Bruno, decided he and his conscience could live with the choice, and said, "If that's what it takes."

"That's what it takes."

Justin waited, but Bruno didn't speak. "Bruno," Justin said, staring at the man pinned to the floor, starting to get impatient and sounding it, "why was this pasty-faced asshole trying to kill you?"

Bruno let his teeth show, something akin to a smile. "There are a few possibilities," the big man said. "One is he may think I've got somethin' he wants back."

"What?"

"This ain't a quiz show, you know. I'm tellin' you what I can tell you. And it don't matter what it is. All that matters is he's wrong, I don't got it."

"What's the other possibility?"

"Two others. And one is simple: he's pissed at something I did."

"But you won't tell me what."

"Again, it's on a need-to-know basis."

"What's the third choice?" Justin asked.

"You ain't gonna like this one, Jay. The third choice is that he didn't want me talkin' to you."

"What? Talking to me about what?"

"You're gonna have to wait a little bit on that one."

And when Justin looked at him, a what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about look, Bruno said, "You might wanna be a little careful while you're up here in friendly New England, pal. You might want to think about watchin' your back."

Justin thought about watching his back the whole time he was walking out of Dolce. He was thinking about it when he passed by the table where the skinny would-be assassin had been sitting, and he was thinking about it when he surreptitiously used a napkin to scoop up the Fodor's Guidebook the skinny guy had been reading. And he thought about it the entire twenty minutes it took him to drive to his next destination. He thought about nothing else.

But it still didn't make any sense to him.

Justin had not seen Victoria LaSalle since Alicia's funeral, and he was startled when she opened the door to let him into her home. She was as beautiful as ever. Her thick, dirty-blond hair fell down to her shoulders in waves, perfectly framing her pale face. Her skin was smooth and unlined, unmarred by contact with the sun. She was tall and slim and wiry; in her jeans and tucked-in collared shirt, she revealed the body of a teenage girl. And her hands were exactly the way he remembered them-long, tapered fingers; no polish on her perfectly manicured nails; hands that were delicate and gentle but also strong. In the more than seven years since he had last seen her, she had aged not a bit. But that was not what startled him.

What threw him, and what rendered him momentarily speechless, was that as she'd gotten older she'd come to look more and more like her sister. His wife. When he stepped into her foyer, it was as if he were staring at Alicia.

Victoria's neck was taut, and her eyes were angry. Those were the only indications of the strain she was under and the unhappiness that had to have enveloped her.

She made no movement to kiss him hello or even shake his hand. Just a curt nod and-ever polite in the way of all Providence upper-class housewives-a murmured "Thank you for coming."

She was alone, which surprised him. No one around to comfort her. As if she could read his mind, as they reached the living room she said, "There were several people here. I asked them to leave."

He nodded and said, "Okay."

Feeling the need to elaborate, she went on: "I didn't feel comfortable talking to you in front of them. And some of them wouldn't have felt comfortable having you here." She hesitated; and he got the strong sense it wasn't a polite hesitation, it was meant for emphasis, meant to be harsh. "My parents."

"I understand."

They reached the sofas. She sat first, directly in the middle of one couch, making it clear he was meant to sit opposite her, on the other side of the fabric-covered ottoman that served as coffee table. He did.

They sat in silence until he said, "I'm sorry about Ronald."

And almost instantaneously she replied, "I don't really know why you're here."

"I'm here because my father thought I could help you."

"Yes, he told me. And how is it he thinks you can help?"

"Well… at first he thought I could help find Ron."

"He's been found."

"Yes," Justin said. "I think the idea is that now I might be able to find out what happened to him. And why. If you want me to."

Victoria didn't answer. He didn't mind; he was content just to look at her, to fool himself for these few moments that he was looking at Alicia. As hard as he tried to resist, his mind drifted away into the past. To the day he'd met Alicia on campus. It was summer and her legs were bare. But it had also turned cool, and she had goose bumps running up and down her calves. It was the way he had always thought of her, for years, if they were apart and he conjured up her image: tanned, bare legs, a line of goose bumps. That ended when she killed herself. Since then, when he thought of her, the image he conjured up was of his wife sprawled on the floor, bloody, one side of her face gone from the self-inflicted gunshot wound.