“Yeah.”
“How much did you have to drink?”
“Two beers.”
“Everyone says one or two.”
“I would have had three, but the punch to the face kept me from finishing it.”
Traffic slowed near a shopping area. They got caught at a red light. People sat outside a Starbucks sipping coffee. A few others stared at mannequins in a GAP window. Donne felt the drowsiness in his eyes, and he leaned back in the passenger seat.
“You think I’m going to let you sleep in my car? Jesus, you probably have a concussion and you can’t think straight.”
Donne couldn’t help it. His eyelids drooped and he fell asleep.
***
Bryan Hackett answered his cell phone. It was Delshawn. “I beat the shit outta that motherfucker.”
“Is he dead?”
“Nah, fuckin’ bartender had a shotgun. So I shot the motherfucker’s tires and windows out.”
“Good. How bad is he hurt?”
“I hit him with a stool. He was bleeding all over the bar. I don’t know if he was knocked out or whatnot, but he was hurtin’.”
Hackett rubbed his chin. Donne was only momentarily out of the picture, which meant he couldn’t slow any of this down. And while Carter might not be willing to pay up, Hackett was pretty sure he could break Carter’s wife. Hackett was glad Delshawn had listened and didn’t kill Donne. This was turning into a game. And the best games involved challenges. Donne would be a good challenge.
He hung up the phone. This whole business venture might actually be fun.
1938
Joe Tenant sat with two police officers. Cigarette smoke layered the air, and the sweet smell made Tenant wish he hadn’t quit. But when he’d gotten back in the boxing ring to spar with a friend a few months back, he realized he couldn’t breathe as well anymore. This was the first time he’d had a craving since then, even though the thickness of the smoke caused him to wheeze a bit.
“So, since you found the body you’ve had a knife held to your throat, you’ve been followed in a car, and been threatened by phone?”
Detective Lacey was heavyset. Too many snacks, too many drinks. Tenant could take him easily, a jab to the gut, right cross to the chin. And the guy’s condescending tone was causing Tenant to seriously consider doing just that.
“That’s what I said.” Tenant balled his fists at his thighs. The detective wouldn’t be able to see that under the table.
“And you just decided to contact us now. The last time you saw us, you didn’t say anything.”
“I was worried before. About my family.”
“Why aren’t you worried now?”
“He threatened my family anyway. He said he was going to kill me.”
Lacey nodded and wrote something on a piece of paper. “Can you describe the man?”
“There were two of them. One I only saw from behind on the docks.”
“What did the other one look like? The one in your car?”
Tenant described the pale man he had seen on the docks the other night one more time. Said the one from the backseat had an Irish accent but he didn’t see his face. And then he talked about the crowbar incident.
Lacey rubbed his face. Took a deep breath. “You smashed his car? Why?”
“He threatened my family.”
The detective referred to the paper. “I thought he threatened your family by phone.”
“Following me in a car while I’m walking my daughter home from school is a threat.”
Tenant’s nails were digging into his palms. This guy Lacey was the kind of guy who’d get his ass beat if he didn’t have a badge. And a gun.
“Did you know the deceased?”
“If I didn’t see the guy getting the shit kicked out of him, I would have thought it was just a body floating in the river. They show up from time to time. Sometimes someone decides to commit suicide. I’ve never been threatened over it before.”
“Does the name Maxwell Carter mean anything to you?”
“No. Never heard of it.”
Lacey tapped his pen on the table. “That’s the man whose body you found the other day. You’ve never heard the name before.”
Tenant spread his hands. He wondered if Lacey could see the nail marks on his palms.
“You don’t read the newspapers? Listen to the radio?” This was infuriating. “What the hell are you getting at?”
“Maxwell Carter is—I should say was—probably the richest businessman in Northern New Jersey.”
Tenant smiled. Then he started to laugh.
Lacey waited. Didn’t say a word, but Tenant could tell the detective didn’t understand.
“Well, then,” Tenant said, “I wish I hadn’t found him dead. If he was alive, I could have asked him for a loan.”
He stood up. The cops weren’t going to help. All they were going to do was throw the names of the dead at him.
Like he wanted a hand in any of this.
It was all being forced on him. He just wanted protection for his family.
But what was it his old boxing trainer had told him? The best protection is a good attack?
Yeah. Tenant liked the sound of that.
Jackson Donne woke up in a bed and immediately asked where he was.
“You’re an asshole. And you’re at Mountainside Hospital. You have a knock on the head, but they want to check you out, make sure it doesn’t get worse. Plus you were drinking, so they want to hydrate you.” The white room came into focus. Donne was in a bed, slightly inclined. Then he realized he wasn’t in a room at all, but instead a cubicle-like area enclosed in a white curtain. Iapicca was the only one with him.
An IV tube extended from Donne’s left forearm. It pinched his skin, and pain stabbed up his arm into his shoulder. He didn’t want to move it.
“Gotta be honest,” he said. “I’m starting to believe you.”
“What are you talking about?”
Donne’s head throbbed, and he wanted to go back to sleep.
“I think there really was another guy in there with your aunt and uncle. We found some fingerprints that aren’t yours. The lab guys found tire tracks by the curb that aren’t matched up with your car.”
As if the gods had been watching, a nurse came through the partition in the curtain, holding a clipboard. She smiled at him, then turned to the detective.
“Would you mind excusing us for a moment?”
He grinned back at the nurse, then shot Donne with his thumb and forefinger.
“We’ll talk about this later, buddy,” he said, and disappeared through the partition.