Ice Blues

TWENTY-ONE

The temperature had dropped back to three degrees and was headed, the radio said, down to eight below. For once, that was good. I picked up two friends at their house on Chestnut Street and drove them over to Rensselaer and back. Then I drove them over to Rensselaer and back a second time.

"On the phone you said you needed our help, but all we're doing is riding back and forth across the river. What is it we're supposed to do?"

"Pant."

"No, really."

"I want rapid breathing. Pant for me."

Casting nervous glances at each other, they panted until I dropped them back at their house.

"Thanks for your moisture."

"Don, are you okay?"

"My feet are cold, but my faculties are intact."

"Why don't you try turning the heater on?"

"Ah, but then I wouldn't have your frozen breath preserved on my window glass."

"You aren't going to go somewhere and lick it off, are you? I would consider that low-risk sex, but I suppose the ultra-cautious might insist it constituted an exchange of body fluids."

I shoved them out into the cold night and drove over to Crow Street, peering through the peepholes I had scratched in the film of ice. No lights were on in the house and Mack Fay's truck was nowhere on the street. With one window rolled down I backed into a space half a block from the house.

I turned off the ignition, shut the window, and waited invisibly. It was 11:26.

Two cars rolled by in the next twenty-four minutes, their headlights brightening the icy opalescence in front of me, but neither car stopped nor even slowed. At ten till twelve a third vehicle moved slowly up the street with a fourth close on its tail. Through the peepholes I made out Fay's green pickup, which backed into the last available space on the block, forcing the car behind it-the beige Buick I'd seen in front of my office the week before-to park alongside a fire hydrant.

One man emerged from the truck and three from the car. Of the three, the one in the middle-Timmy's height and build, and wearing Timmy's coat wore something that covered his face and head, possibly a pillowcase. The two others were leading him by the arms. The party of four met in front of the house and moved up the front steps. The door was unlocked and they entered, shutting the door behind them. After a moment, lights went on behind the living room draperies.

At three minutes till twelve I retrieved a bundle from under the car seat and, moving quietly, attentively, walked down the block. I opened the door of Fay's truck and inserted the bundle under the driver's seat. I thought, this is not perfect justice, but in an imperfect world, it will serve, it will serve.

At midnight precisely I walked up the front steps of my home and stomped the snow off my feet. I glanced up and down the street and, satisfied that no one had observed my recent odd actions, entered the house.

The four of them were seated around the picture of the fire. Two stood up as I entered. "I'm glad you got my message," Timmy said, remaining seated. "It's been an unusually long day." His smile was sincere but lacking in joie de vivre.

"Did they mistreat you?"

"Not to any lasting effect. I'll have to have these pants cleaned and pressed."

"We didn't want to mess him up too bad," Fay said. "Not with him being worth two and a half million. You got an expensive little girlfriend here, Strachey. Hey, you didn't know that before, did you?"

Fay had a two-day stubble of beard, nicotine-stained teeth, and dead black eyes. He grunted smugly and glanced at the other two to see if they were having a good time too. The younger Clert, Kevin, I figured, was a chunky gimlet-eyed youth who closely resembled a kid I knew in the eighth grade who sat in the back row sticking a pencil in his ear. The older Clert, Terry, was taller, rangier, better-looking and twitchier, and he kept his finger on the trigger of a sawed-off shotgun aimed at Timmy's midsection.

"You two must be the Clert brothers," I said, "Bert and Ernie. And I guess you're Mack Fay. It was hard to recognize your voice without a six-pound pile of shit stuffed in your mouth."

They all made stunned, ugly faces at me, and Timmy winced.

"What's in your coat pocket?" Fay snarled. "Kevin, shake him down."

I lifted my arms as Kevin removed my Smith amp; Wesson and examined it as if it were a moon rock. He carried it away dumbstruck.

"See," I said, "I didn't have an erection, I was just glad to see you guys."

More stunned, ugly faces. Timmy gave me a pleading look.

"Where is it?" Fay snapped.

"Not far from here."

"For your girlfriend's sake, hopefully it's in your car."

"The money is in a hotel room downtown."

"This asshole told you to bring it with you, you dumb fuck! I was right there when he said it on the phone. Now you get your ass downtown and bring it back here! You got fifteen minutes, you hear me?"

I checked my watch. Timmy was looking increasingly distraught, but this wasn't going to last much longer. I said, "I can have it back here in ten minutes. But first I want an explanation in return for the money. Why did you have to kill Jack Lenihan?"

A dumb coy look. "Who says I did?"

"You found out about the existence of the money in Pug Lenihan's house from Mrs. Clert-or was it from your father? — and you were planning to make off with it, but Jack stole it first. You grabbed him when he came back from LA, but he didn't have the money with him. You took him over to Flo Trenky's place Tuesday night to try to force him to get it for you. But why did you have to kill him? I want to know that."

Fay shrugged and grinned stupidly. "He told us you had it," he said mildly.

"The dumb fuck wasn't gonna tell us anything, but he changed his mind when we told him some things we knew about his mom-some interesting shit I picked up over on Pearl Street. Then he spit it out real fast, oh yes, he sure did. He told us you had the money. And then he started thinking and putting two and two together and getting very pissed off and mad at the world and going kind of nuts on us and-shit, we had to protect ourselves, didn't we? I mean, shit, that guy was fuckin' apeshit. I suppose you could say it was too bad what happened had to happen, but I think you have to admit, Jackie was kind of a weirdo anyways. He could have been a real pain in the ass if he was around. So, what can I tell you, good buddy?" He shrugged again and looked at me with his lifeless eyes while the other two stood around looking bored. Kevin was picking his nose and sticking the produce behind his ear.

I said, "How did you know I wouldn't arrive here with the cops? Why were you so sure of that?"

The dead eyes watched me. '"Cause then the cops would know you had the money and you wouldn't get to keep it. You'd lose it too."

"Maybe I'd rather see it go back to Pug than turn it over to you."

"Hey, did you hear that one, Terry? Shit, Pug can't take that money back from the cops, and you know it. Old Pug can't say it's his cause old Pug can't explain where it came from, right? The state would keep it. You aren't such a dip-shit you didn't figure that one out the same as we did. And if you were gonna bring in the cops, you'd've done it right away. But you didn't, did you, Strachey? Shit, mister, I had your number from the day one."

I said, "The money properly belongs to Jack Lenihan's estate. He inherited it from Al Piatek. There's a legal will. The money is Jack's, and with him gone, his mother, his legal heir, gets it. The cops would have to turn it over to her."

He sneered. "Shit, Joanie'd just give it back to Pug. He'd end up with it for damn sure."

"Why?"

"Hey, just ask her, good buddy. My dad told me the dirt on Miz Joanie. Oh yes, Miz Joanie would have that two and a half million back on Pearl Street in no time at all. Hey, just ask her if she wouldn't do that."

I looked at my watch again. "The money is in a room at the Hilton. The desk clerk will hand over a key to either Timmy or me. One of us can drive over and pick it up, or we can all go over there together. However you want to do it."

"We'll just hang around here," Fay said. "You got fifteen minutes. Miss Timothy here can bring out some liquor if you got any in the house, and when you get back we can all celebrate."

"And then what happens to Timmy and me?" I said.

"Hey, friend, what can I tell you? Look at some TV? Call an ambulance? It's none of my business, right?"

My watch now said it was twelve-fifteen. I walked to the front door and opened it. Six clean-shaven men in flak jackets strode in wielding automatic weapons of assorted shapes and sizes. Two others came in the back door simultaneously and moved rapidly across the kitchen, through the dining room, and up behind Terry Clert, who spun around a couple of times but didn't shoot anybody. Fay and the Clerts made more ugly faces, out of which came vulgar protestations. Shiny DEA badges flashed in the light of the picture of the fire.

"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.