Salamanders
by Pete Murphy
Chapter 2
The promise
Billy and Freddie drove to a single-story clapboard house set back
among the trees off an unlit blacktop road near Morrisville. They were a
quarter-mile into Pennsylvania across a little border bridge in the woods,
still a good forty miles from Philly. For now this was safe. The rendezvous
point. Out of the way and quiet.
Billy stood at the kitchen table fiddling with the suitcase latches,
checking out the canvas straps and locks all over it. "Man! More straps
than suitcase here. I thought, jeez, they won't ever get it over with, get out
of that lot. I mean, man! The guy took so long handing it over, and I kept
watching those tires, man, thinking pssht, there they
go any minute now -- how you open this thing? Need a degree to open it --
thought, jeez, I put too many nails under there and we're sitting there dead.
Oh, them Simplexes. Love them Simplex nails. Sit on the ground and just point
straight up. How you open this thing?" He giggled.
The toilet flushed and Freddie stepped into the living room, zipping
up. "You should've got on the highway. Scared the shit out of me."
"Man, I couldn't reach the pedal real good with the seat back so
far. Long-legged sumbitch. Had to sit on the edge and hug that wheel. Had no
control at all once we got going, keep it straight
ahead is all. And you pushing me with that old Pontiac? Jeez-o-man. Scared?
Whoo!" Billy giggled again, looked for something in the drawers.
"Gotta pick these locks."
"Cut 'em off."
"That's a real nice suitcase. Canvas. Heavy duty. Use it when I go
to Sea-Isle."
"Cut the fucking straps. Buy another one."
"Hate to ruin it." Billy got a knife from the drawer.
Freddie was in the living room checking out the TV, turned it on.
"Who belongs to this place?" he called.
"Friend of mine's in Atlantic City. Stays there a lot. Said I
could use it anytime I wanted. Man, this is good material. Hate cutting
it..." Billy's voice broke off. "Freddie?"
Freddie was in the bedroom now, checking everything out.
"Freddie?"
"What?" Pulling drawers open.
"C'mere. Look at this."
Freddie ambled back into the living room, looked around. The Three
Stooges were bouncing around in the TV. He stopped to watch.
"C'mere, Freddie. Look at this."
He came into the kitchen. Billy had backed away a little and was
pointing at the canvas suitcase, spread open now on the table.
"Christ." Freddie said. He picked up two of the little
bundles and flicked through them with his thumbs. All twenties.
"Christ," he said again, "must be...I don't know."
"How much?"
"I don't know, a lot." He was getting it all together,
counting the stacks.
"Too much." Billy groaned. "Who'd we hit?"
"Jesus. Fuckin' Onassis. Must be...a hundred biggies I'd
say."
Billy had his mouth open. He didn't speak. Freddie shoved the empty
suitcase onto the floor and played with the neat piles he'd made. Billy sat
close to the table and stared at them, his hands in his lap, shoulders hunched,
his nose at the tabletop, closer to the stacks. He glanced up at Freddie, then
back to the stacks.
Freddie rubbed his face with both hands, hard. "I think we got
something here," he said.
Billy blinked at him. "You look at that, all you say is you think
we got something here?" He giggled and grinned at Freddie. Not the boyish
grin now. Pain. "We got to get this back where it belongs."
"Are you nuts? Look at that. That's what we've been looking
for."
"It's...too big, Freddie. This is death here. We've got to get it
back."
"Get it back where? Whose is it? Where does it belong? It's here
now. This is it. Make us rich."
"Make us dead."
Freddie had the suitcase back on the table, packing the stacks neatly
into place.
Billy said, "Suppose they followed us?"
"Christ. How'd they do that? They run behind the car twenty miles?
Road fuckin' runners?"
"Well how about..."
"Look. He said it was safe. Safe on both ends. That's what he
said. We keep the plan. He'll be here."
Billy sat very still.
Freddie pulled the zippers shut. He propped the suitcase up, fluffed it
a little and laid it flat and propped it up again, then cut off the straps and
stared at Billy. "You don't look too good."
Billy was silent.
Freddie shook his head. "Okay, here's what we do. You keep the
meeting. I'll run this into Philly and stash it someplace. Nobody finds it,
nobody gets hurt. You make the rendezvous and we get together at my place
later, decide what to do, vote on it."
Billy was silent.
"Okay Billy?"
Billy nodded.
"Good." Freddie grabbed the suitcase. "I won't go back
to the highway. I'll cut over to Bristol, go down that way, take the Drive.
Safer that way." He turned at the kitchen doorway. "Look. Don't be
scared. We been through scary shit before."
"Fun scary. Not like this."
"It's the same. Just a little bigger. He said it was safe."
Freddie shot him a grin. "Gonna work, Billy?"
"Yeah...gonna work." Billy didn't smile. Freddie left him
there, sitting alone, wondering. He didn't move for a long time. He went into
the living room, sat on the couch and stared at the TV. "Leave It To Beaver" was playing.
He wanted to think Freddie was right, that it was safe.
It was going to work.
Maybe a little while longer...
#
The tall man made it back to Long Island
and past Huntington in less than two hours. Everything was going to work. It
was already after three. Brody would soon get his photo of the suitcase
exchange and pay him and he'd get the hell out of there, go meet Billy in
Morrisville. Back down that road for the third time, the last time. Six, seven
hours of driving back and forth for five hundred bucks. Not bad. Plus
whatever's in the suitcase they'll split up. Couple thousand maybe. Maybe
another seven, eight hundred for each of them. A good night's work. He didn't
feel bad at all about ripping Brody off.
Brody was FBI, sure, but crooked as they
come. Brody had explained it himself. "My own business. Not the
Bureau's." Brody had been playing buddy-buddy with him for two weeks now,
setting him up to do this. Well, Brody was in for a surprise. If Billy pulled
it off right, Brody wouldn't know what, or who, hit him. Let him fight it out
with his own people.
He pulled the Jeep around behind the hotel
and onto the beach, near the water's edge, then stretched out on the sand
thinking about it all.
The surf slipped in, up to his feet, and
eased back out. He breathed deeply. The salt air felt clean and cold in his
lungs and seemed to clear his head of the fog that had settled there from the
long drive. He closed his eyes, listened to the tiny waves approach him, sneak
up, hiss and steal away, crawl up...
"You awake, Sport?"
He sat up quickly. It was Brody. He'd made
no sound on the wet sand. He wondered if he'd dozed off. The sun had not yet
come up.
"Hello, Jimmy."
"How did it go?"
"Went fine. No problems." He
leaned back on his elbows. "What time is it?"
"Almost four-thirty. Come up to the
bar." Brody turned, headed for the hotel.
The
tall man watched him move away in the darkness. Brody walked with a limp. It
seemed worse in the moonlight. "You got the photo?" he called.
Brody didn't look back. "It's on its
way, Sport. Come up. Buy you a drink. We'll settle things."
"Yeah, Jimmy." He watched Brody
maneuver up the high wide steps, grab the railing for support and kick his bad
leg away from his body and up to the next step awkwardly as he climbed to the
porch. Brody wore his usual red baggy Bermudas with the yellow and blue flowers
and the oversized orange sport shirt to hide the gun. No shoes. The porch light
cast his jerky, grotesque shadow across the sand below. The higher he got, the
more elongated and misshapen the shadow became. It zipped back into nothing
when he entered the hotel. The screen door banged shut behind him.
Hey now, Jimmy, the tall man thought, not
so palsy-walsy tonight. After all these weeks? After all we've meant to each
other, huh?
He got up, strode to the hotel and went in.
The bar was dimly lit. He joined Brody in his booth. They were alone. Brody
poured him a Bloody Mary from a pitcher and pushed the Tabasco toward him.
"You plan to hang on here a while,
Sport?"
"I don't know. Getting tired of the
lobster-diving. Good money, but...getting tired."
"You made good money last night."
"Yeah. FBI pays good,
huh?"
"You were working for me."
"Yeah. I remember you said that,
Jimmy."
They drank in silence for a while. Two of
Brody's buddies came through the upstairs hallway door and down the white
wooden steps. They both wore Bermuda shorts and baggy shirts and sat at the
bar.
Brody said "Guess you want your money,
huh Sport?"
"Sure. Like to get the business done,
get back to a little more partying."
"Before you go?"
The
tall man looked at him. "Yeah. I might go. Unless you've got something
else for me. You have more work for me, Jimmy?"
"No."
"Didn't think so. Something bothering
you, Jimmy? You got the photo?"
"On its way, Sport." Brody stared
at him.
"Then pay me. I'll buy another pitcher.
Get rid of this business, your buddies can join us."
"They didn't get the suitcase."
"Jimmy. Look at the photo when it
comes."
"What happened after that was
taken?"
"I came back here."
"Who hijacked them?"
The
tall man stared at him. "I don't know anything about that."
"I hope not, Sport."
"Just give me my money. I did my job.
Aren't we pals anymore, Jimmy?"
"Where'd the suitcase go?"
"Look. I'm tired. You're the fucking
FBI. You find it."
"Your old pals from Philly got
it?"
"Haven't seen them in years."
Brody got quiet again. The two goons got up
from the bar, came over. Brody motioned them away. They went out to the porch.
The screen door banged shut.
"I'm disappointed in you, Sport. Got
to like you these past couple weeks. Thought maybe you'd work out for me. I
know all about you. More than you remember. You know that. So," he leaned
closer, put his arms on the table, "I'll tell you what I know. It's out of
my hands now. You're in over your head. You've never been into anything this
deep."
"I've taken care of myself all my
life. I know how to do it."
"No. No. You don't get it, sport.
Listen, this isn't going to be like anything you've ever seen. Believe
me."
"A couple thousand bucks? What's the
deal? I don't know where that bag is but I can't see it being worth a whole lot
of aggravation."
"Now you're thinking. It's not worth
getting killed over."
He became quiet with that, letting it
linger. He emptied the pitcher into the tall man's glass and went to the bar,
waited while the bartender mixed more and filled the pitcher. When he returned,
he filled both glasses, set the pitcher down and picked up his glass.
"Let's take a walk," he said.
They went out to the beach and sat at a table under a huge white umbrella. Crab
and lobster carcasses and clam shells littered the sand around them.
"First, Sport, I have to say again I
like you. Otherwise I'd leave you hanging. I'll say this quick so you can go do
whatever it is you've got to do." He took a drink, wiped his mouth with
his hand. "It's not a couple thousand, it's a hundred thousand."
They looked at each other.
"You want me to flinch?"
"No, Sport. I knew you wouldn't."
"Who belongs to the hundred
thousand?"
"A guy I'm doing a little research
for. Well, not his. Not anymore. He probably won't worry about it. He gave it
to me, I gave it to you. You gave it to his messenger in Jersey. The messenger,
the guy who'll be in the photo with you, was supposed to deliver it to a guy in
Philly who did a lot of work for my guy. This guy down there in Philly's got a
little business, a partner, expenses. He expects to get paid. Now, believe me
when I say this. He's a mean motherfucker when he gets pissed. And I'd guess
about now his bowels are in an uproar. Whoever's got that money's in for a
rough time of it."
The
tall man listened, looked past Brody at the piers, visible now, the creosote
steaming. The sun crawled across the sand toward them.
"Even if they could get that money
back to him, I'm not sure it'd help. I don't know. But whoever's got that money
is not going to hide from him. Whoever's got that money, Sport, is dead."
Terns gathered around them, pecked at the
scrambling sand crabs, sucked the beach. The tall man watched them, listened.
"They'll be found. Now, I know you
don't know anything about it. But if you did, and you could help somehow, maybe
get that money back up here to me in, say, a few hours, by noon let's say, give
you a chance to freshen up a little before you go down there, maybe that'd
settle it all. Can't be sure, you understand. I don't really ever get near the
guy. You see my point?"
"This guy you work for, what do you do
for him?"
"I find people. I'm good at it."
The
tall man looked out over the ocean. Brody emptied his glass, got up. "Use
that phone over by the beach house, the one you used last night to call your
friends and set it up," he said, and patted the tall man on the shoulder.
"Think you better do it, pal."
He turned and walked back toward the hotel.
The
sun began to bake the shore and the piers. The decaying clams and crabs under the
table and the acrid creosote smell of the piers began to stink and foul the
air. Flies sucked the sand and old fish scales at his feet. A grey-white tern
wandered alone among them. Its feathers seemed broken, chewed on, pecked at.
Blood had dried around its sores. The water's edge had moved farther away. Its
thin line of foam hissed and disappeared into the sand. The sky across the
ocean began to shed its blackness, turn to silver-gray. He saw tiny soundless
flashes of lightning far off, but the horizon had no shape.
The
tall man got up and walked toward the beach house phone.
#
The phone rang at five in the morning. Scared him. Billy jumped from
the couch. The TV station had signed off hours before, and now only loud silver
static filled the dark room. He had not slept. He'd tried. He wanted to sleep.
He wanted it to be over, done with, wanted to feel safe. None of it would get
out of his head.
He went to the wall phone in the kitchen, knowing who it was.
"Hello...Yeah. We got it...No...Worked out okay. Man there's a lot
of money in that...Man I know it...We gotta get it back...No. No, don't tell me
who. I'll just get sick. Can't help it, man. How you think I feel? ..Shitless.
...No. Freddie took it...Ran it into Philly...Yeah. Said we had to get it hid...Yeah...No.
I won't...Where'm I gonna go?...Okay,
YEAH...Good...Thanks, man...I'll be here...Jeez...Hurry."
He hung up, left his hand on the receiver for a long time, took a deep
breath, went back to the couch, stared at the loud silver screen and waited
again. Waited for the tall man, trusting him. Trying not to think.
Not sure if any of it was ever going to work now...
#
The tall man was pissed. He'd learned long ago not to be afraid. Nobody
ever got hurt, physically, with their scams. It was always just talk and
movement, fast talk, fast moves, a couple guys shuffling the scene the way they
wanted, keep the ace on top, keep in control, so nobody ever saw how fast the
scene had changed. It'd always been easy, often laughable. And you played by
rules. Never take anything the pigeon can't afford to lose. Steal from other
thieves. Never do an old lady, even if she's trying one on you. She'd lived a
whole life, worked hard to get there. Let her alone. She's somebody's mother
trying to stay alive. But, goddammit, never ever even try
to scare anybody. That wasn't in the rules.
Brody was doing it wrong, starting to play dirty. For all Brody knew,
his own men could've had the suitcase highjacked. He'd not even waited for the
photo. He wanted the money back "by noon, Sport". Or else. By
God tried to scare him. Whether or not he'd keep promises was
anybody's guess now.
I'll do it right, Brody. By noon. Then get you alone and kick your ass
all over the fuckin' beach, just for thinking you can fuckin' scare me. Sport.
One thing was certain to the tall man now: nothing was working. He had
no problem believing that. They'd cleaned the wrong fish and Brody didn't seem
a bit excited or the type to take chances he couldn't easily control. That was
a little scary. But it’d work out. Pick up Billy, go to Philly, find Freddie
and try to get the suitcase back to its proper owner, whoever that was. He
wasn't afraid.
Freddie was a missing piece. He knew trouble was coming and ran from
it, left Billy never believing things'd work out.
Bullshit. Freddie knew Billy was scared and ran, took the money with him. An
easy piece to track, even though he's no doubt hidden in a hole now. He'll have
the money or know where it is.
Brody was bigger, no telling about him. An uncertain piece too deep to
know, nothing cut and dried. A lot of bullshit maybe coming down and no way to
see it coming, that was sure. Who's he working for? That may not matter yet. He
gave us till noon to get the money back. Time is on our side. No need to be
afraid.
A scam went wrong. No big deal. It'd happened before, though never like
this. Their old hustles in Philly were always small enough nobody ever got
hurt. They did the magic and disappeared, got into the wind so fast some never
noticed they'd been grifted. This scene was too big and going wrong too fast,
that's all. No big deal. He could handle that. Maybe.
Maybe.
This time Billy was going to fucking pieces.
It was almost nine in the morning before he got down to Morrisville. He
pulled the jeep up into the trees. The house looked dark, empty. He knocked. No
answer. He knocked harder. Nothing. Silver light flickered through the front
window. He looked in. The TV was on, the room dark.
"Billy?"
No answer. He wondered about Brody second-guessing him, tracing his
phone call from the beach, getting here first. Not possible so fast.
He walked around the house, knocked on a couple unlocked windows,
called Billy's name.
Nothing. He stepped away from the house, crossed the road, looked back.
Everything seemed quiet. No cars visible.
Something felt wrong. Billy wouldn't have run. He'd have kept the
meeting, too scared to do anything else.
He's in the house.
Breaking through the front door seemed the best approach.
It wasn't, or didn’t seem to matter now. Maybe terrified Billy even
more, made him crumble. The tall man found him shriveled in the bedroom closet.
"Billy?"
He was trembling, starting to cry, his nose against the wall, his head
bent awkwardly, staring at the ceiling as if looking for a way out, his mouth
rubbery.
"It's okay now, Billy." The tall man put his hand out. Billy
cringed, tried to crawl into the wall.
"I've got it all worked out now, Billy. It's okay. We're taking
the money back."
Billy looked up at him, tried to work his mouth.
The tall man smiled. "It's okay. We're safe."
"You told me that before."
"We always were. We still are. Promise. Everything's okay. We're
just taking the money back. Easy. Promise."
"You know where to take it?"
"Sure. Come on. Help me find Freddie. I need you. You can drive
the jeep."
That was the easy part, getting Billy up and moving. He went to the
front door.
"Who are the other guys?"
The tall man spun around. "What other guys?"
Billy turned white. He stared at the tall man. His lips quivered.
"They've been here for hours," he said. "Didn't know I was here.
I hid when they came. I waited for you."
"Jesus...Billy..."
"I trusted you."
"Billy, nobody's in the house. I looked."
Something was wrong about that. He'd stopped looking when he found
Billy. He looked around, saw nothing yet, took a breath, put his arm around
Billy's shoulders.
"Go start the jeep," he said. "Everything'll be okay.
I'll be there in a minute."
Billy nodded, seemed to feel better, went to the front door. The tall
man stepped into the other room, looked around.
Nothing.
He heard Billy open the front door, waited, looked toward the bathroom,
waited, watched the bathroom door, waited, didn't hear the jeep starting up,
waited, watched the bathroom door, spun back into the main room. Everything had
seemed so easy...
It got harder when he opened the front door and saw Brody's goons. He
slammed the door and turned back into a shotgun, a couple guys he'd never met
behind it.
"How you doin', Sport?"
#