Ice Blues - Stevenson Richard - Страница 46

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"What the fuck is this?" Fay whined. "Narcs? You guys are fuckin' narcs?

What is this fuckin' shit?"

Someone read Fay his rights and made reference to a glassine bag of white powder under the seat of a truck parked outside and registered in Fay's name. The discovery was made, Fay was told, as a result of an anonymous tip. Fay's parole officer-one of the six armed men who had entered through the front door-had a legal right to enter Fay's vehicle to investigate, and he had done so. He said he was surprised and disappointed that Fay had taken up this new line of criminal endeavor, but there it was.

Fay repeatedly cried, "Setup! Setup!" and demanded access to a telephone so that he could arrange for an attorney.

Timmy, who had placed atop the mantel the sawed-off shotgun previously aimed at his gut, asked, "It's not a toll call, is it?"

Kevin Clert, drooling and trembling, said, "Hey, I didn't off that faggot!

Shoot, I wasn't even there. I was at work that night."

Terry Clert, mum until now, found his voice. "I didn't hit him. Mack hit him!"

"Hit who?" said a narc.

"Hey, man, let's you and me go someplace and talk, huh? How about it, huh? We can deal, huh? How about it?"

At that point somebody suggested that Ned Bowman be called, and I volunteered to wake him up. Out of habit, Bowman spewed forth a stream of sour invective, but then I got a word in and he became quietly alert.

TWENTY-TWO

Timmy said, "My bed. I am actually lying in my own bed again. Oh, this is sweet."

"You sound as if you doubted you ever would."

"There have been times in the past week when I wondered if I'd ever lie in any bed again."

"I'm sorry you got dragged into this. I probably should have sent you off to Poughkeepsie after I got the first call from Hankie-mouth-Fay."

"What do you mean, 'sent me off'? What am I, your foster child?"

"I hope not."

"Well, there wouldn't have been any problem if I hadn't stopped by here this morning. That was my own fault and I feel pretty dumb about it."

"Good."

"To tell you the truth, the whole time they had me in that motel with the shotgun aimed at me, I never really believed they were going to hurt me. I was outraged and my pride was offended, and I was nervous about the gun going off accidentally. But I kept telling myself it was the money they wanted and they wouldn't shoot me as long as they didn't have it and could still use me for making you lead them to the money. That's why I didn't tell them where it was hidden."

"Oh? I thought you were just being loyal to me."

He laughed. "You would think that, wouldn't you? Hell, it was all enlightened self-interest. I didn't give a crap about the two and a half million and your big plans for it. Not at that point. I was interested in staying alive, period. Anyway, the subject of the suitcases full of money is all academic now. When you went downtown with the feds, did you stop off at the hotel and hand the money over to them?"

"No, I told them I didn't know what had become of it. That Fay was mistaken in his assumption that I had it."

A little silence. We'd been lying belly-to-belly, but now he backed off and stared at me big-eyed. "No."

"Sure, why not? The governor says the state is running a surplus this year, so he won't need it. And if the feds ended up with it, it'd just go for a lid on another MX silo. Hell, the money can be put to better uses than that."

"But it's evidence. It turned out Fay and Clert were dope dealers."

"Yes, it's true that they were in the narcotics business." I looked away and would have lit a cigarette if I had not recklessly quit smoking six years and two months earlier. "But the point is, the two and a half million had nothing to do with that probably. You heard it all-the money was Pug Lenihan's, illegally obtained in some manner."

"Sure, dope trafficking. It was a family operation. Pug, Jack, maybe even Dreadful Ed. Fay heard about it at Sing Sing from Jack's former associates who were caught, and they got Mrs. Clert positioned as Pug's nurse so that she could tip them off on large amounts of money moving through the house. They were going to steal it-probably to finance a big buy of their own-but Jack grabbed it for his civic-reform program. It's all as plain as day. The feds will piece it together and they'll start searching for that money methodically and relentlessly. And guess who they'll come to first asking about it. You. Don, hand it over now, or-God, you could actually end up in prison. Really.

Don't you understand that?"

"That's the tenth or twelfth most ridiculous story I've ever heard. Pug Lenihan dealing drugs? To him, dope is a Commie conspiracy. You might as well accuse him of shipping spare parts for MIGs to the Sandinistas."

"But look at the evidence. Tonight the narcs found fifty thousand dollars' worth of cocaine in Mack Fay's truck. Jack Lenihan dealt drugs in a big way and just barely escaped going to jail for it. Everywhere you turn in this thing, it's drugs, drugs, drugs. From some of the things Mack Fay said tonight, it even sounds as if Joan Lenihan was in on it. I mean, think of Hollywood and what's the first thing that comes to mind after movie-making? No wonder she was so wrought up and closemouthed about the whole thing. Joan is probably in it herself up to her teeth. Listen, lover, forget the money. Turn it over to the cops and extricate yourself from this mare's nest before it's too late. I know how badly you want to diddle the Albany machine, and, God knows, I sympathize, I understand. But using a dope ring's boodle is not the way to go about it. It is dangerous, it is wrong, and it won't work."

I said, "There is a certain logic to your conclusions, but they are the wrong conclusions. Of that I am certain."

"How do you know?"

I figured if I told him I had planted the coke in Fay's truck he would (a) have me arrested and testify against me, or (b) pack his bags and enter a monastery in the morning, or, at the very least (c), recite to me long passages from Cardinal Newman and then sleep on the couch.

I said, "There are no Irish dope dealers. You should know that. Narcotics is not as satisfyingly depraved as prostitution, it's not as socially useful as bootlegging, and it's not as lucrative as owning city hall. The Irish don't need it and they don't want it. Dope is for the blacks, the Italians, the Jews, and the go-for-it WASPs. The Lenihan family wouldn't be interested in it."

He let his head fall back on the pillow and gave me one of his full-body deep sighs. "So what are you going to do next? Have the Mafia launder the money so that you can turn it over to Sim Kempelman?"

"I've considered that, but I've decided the risks are too great. Anyway, that would be immoral. I'm not sure yet how I'll clean up the money for Kempelman. I'm determined to find a way, but first I have to take a trip."

"Another one? How come? Where to this time?"

"LA again. Want to come along?"

"I'd like to, but I'm still a public servant on the state payroll, as far as I know, so I'll pass. Who are you going to see out there, Joan Lenihan?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"To threaten her. I'm going to threaten her with a proposition she's going to hate."

News reporters from eight radio stations, three television stations, and two newspapers phoned between six and eight in the morning. I told them Mr.

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