Back Story

61

I was on the front porch of Susan's apartment when Sonny Karnofsky got out of the backseat of a black Mercedes sedan with tinted windows. Behind him was the Cadillac Escalade, also black and tinted. Menacing. Sonny stood alone next to his car and looked at me. On the porch behind me, Vinnie sat on the railing. Ty-Bop and Junior lounged in elaborate boredom next to him. Junior had a shotgun.

I walked down the steps to the sidewalk, and Sonny crossed the yard toward me. He looked old and tired in the bright sunlight.

"Where is she?" he said.

"Inside."

"Bring her out," he said.

"No. You come in."

Sonny was silent. I waited.

"Let me see her," Sonny said.

I nodded and waved my hand above my head. Susan's front door opened and Hawk stood in the doorway with Bonnie. Sonny looked at her silently for what seemed a long time. It was a hot day, I realized. There was a persistent locust hum high up above us. The trees were still and full of substance in the windless heat.

"What's the deal?" Sonny said.

"You come in. We talk. You and Bonnie leave and we're square."

"What do we talk about."

"We got problems to resolve," I said.

Sonny was an ape. But he wasn't stupid. And he loved his daughter. He had no leverage and he knew it. We went into Susan's house and sat with Bonnie and Hawk in the downstairs study across from her office. Susan was downstairs. Bonnie didn't say anything, and after his first look Sonny didn't look at her again. He focused on me and waited.

"When Bonnie was eighteen," I said to him, "you sent her to college so she'd get an education and become a lady and be something besides the daughter of a thug."

Sonny's gaze was steady. The skin under his chin had sagged into a wattle, and his eyelids were so droopy that his eyes were slitted.

"But she fell in with the wrong crowd and turned into a hippie and dropped out. She got involved with drugs and sex and revolution. She had a fling with a black man and had a baby. She gave the baby away to some other hippies named Emily and Barry Gordon. Later, she killed Emily during a bank robbery because she was jealous of her. Then she came back home in a panic."

Sonny's chin rested on his chest. He had his hands folded across his stomach. There were liver spots. His eyes were expressionless beneath the drooping lids. It was like being stared at by a turtle.

"Fortunately, the FBI had an informant involved in the bank robbery and didn't want it known. So they buried it. The people in the bank didn't see who did the shooting. The FBI informant was out in the getaway car. So only three people knew who shot Emily. Bonnie, a white guy named Rob, and a black con named Abner Fancy, who called himself Shaka."

"If it's true, I know all this," Sonny said. His voice sounded thick to me and kind of hoarse. "If it's not true, why are you telling me?"

"I want you to know what I know," I said. "Rob, the white peacenik, got shot as a precautionary measure by Shaka. And you had Shaka killed because he was the only one who knew that Bonnie killed Emily."

Sonny seemed to drop his chin farther. But his gaze, now peering out from under his eyebrows, didn't falter. With his head down, I could see his pale scalp through the thin, white hair on top.

"And probably because he was a black ram, and he'd shtupped your white ewe."

"I don't know what the white ewe shit is all about," Sonny said. "But it don't matter. If what you're saying ain't true, then we got nothing to talk about. But say it is, then what?"

"That's what we have to work out. You got a granddaughter who doesn't know any of this and might not benefit from finding it out. She thinks she's the daughter of Emily and Barry Gordon. If she does find this stuff out, she shouldn't find it out in the context of her mother's trial for the murder of her stepmother, and her grandfather's trial for the murder of her father."

Bonnie sat completely still, staring at her father. It was a complicated look. Fear, dependence, maybe even affection, maybe some loathing, too.

"You can prove this?"

"That Bonnie killed Emily?" I said. "Hell, yes. But I don't see why I have to."

"Meaning?"

"Your daughter's been safely installed with the lovely and charming Ziggy. If I could nail you with it I would, but that's not likely. Nobody's nailed you yet."

For a moment, Sonny almost looked pleased. But he recovered and gave me more of the flinty stare.

"So here's the deal. You see to it that no one bothers Susan, and I forget about Bonnie."

"I could kill you," Sonny said.

"And Martin Quirk gets this whole story," I said. "You know Quirk?"

"I know him."

"Anything happens to Susan, he gets the whole story."

"I agree to this and Bonnie walks," Sonny said.

"She does," I said. "Ziggy is punishment enough."

Sonny looked at his daughter. His look was probably as complicated as hers had been, but Sonny was used to not showing much, and it was hard to tell.

"Daddy?" Bonnie said in the kind of plaintive little girl voice that only a woman in her late fifties could actually produce.

Sonny nodded slowly to himself. He looked at Bonnie some more. Then he looked at me.

"Deal," he said and stood up.

He looked at his daughter again. "Come on," he said.

She looked at me. I made a be-my-guest gesture with my hand. She hesitated another moment, glanced at Hawk, and stood.

"Before you go," I said. "Just an idle question?"

Sonny stood and waited.

"Evan Malone," I said. "The FBI guy, retired in New Hampshire."

"Yeah?"

"You know where he is?"

"Yeah."

"Will I ever find him?"

"No."

I nodded. Hawk reached over and opened the study door. Sonny looked at his daughter and jerked his head.

"Have a nice life," I said.

And the Karnofskys walked out.