Night Passage

Chapter 66

Jo Jo recognized the voice on the phone. It belonged to the pretty young man who worked for Gino Fish.

“Mr. Fish asked me to tell you that the product you asked for is now available.”

“How do we pick it up?” Jo Jo asked.

“Go to the information booth at the South Shore Plaza with the correct amount of money, in cash, as specified. Someone will meet you and tell you the rest. You’ll be expected at two o’clock today.”

“I gotta talk to my guy,” Jo Jo said.

“You can talk to anyone you want,” the pretty boy said. “But you’re there at two or the deal is canceled.”

“For crissake,” Jo Jo said.

But the pretty boy had hung up.

“Faggot bastard,” Jo Jo said aloud.

Then he called Hasty Hathaway and at 12:30 they were in Hasty’s Mercedes, with a suitcase full of small bills, heading for the South Shore.

“It’s right there where Route Three splits off from the expressway for the Cape,” Jo Jo said.

“Well, how are we to transport the arms?” Hasty said. “Didn’t they say anything?”

“Just what I told you,” Jo Jo said.

They parked near the entrance to Macy’s and walked through the mall, it was busy in the early afternoon. The stores were already pushing Christmas. There were Christmas trees and pictures of Santa Claus, and miniature village scenes and railroad trains that circled endlessly through the fake snow. There were Salvation Army troopers with their bells and buckets, and tinsel and shiny ornaments and a lot of people, mostly women, often with small bored children dressed too warmly. Jo Jo and Hasty stopped beside the information booth. Jo Jo was carrying the money in a green sports equipment bag that said Adidas on it in white letters. The women behind the information desk were wearing Santa Claus hats. There was a big clock on the booth. It read ten minutes of two.

At 2:15 a smallish man in a longshoreman’s cap and a Patriots warm-up jacket walked up to Hasty and said, “I’m from Gino.”

“Money’s in the bag,” Jo Jo said.

With the bag still on Jo Jo’s shoulder, the smallish man zipped it open enough to peer in. He nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “You give me the bag. I give you the keys to the truck and tell you where it’s parked.”

“You don’t get the dough until we see the product,” Jo Jo said.

“Nope, deal goes down like I said, or it don’t go down at all.”

“And maybe I grab your scrawny little fucking neck and squeeze it until you tell me where the truck is,” Jo Jo said.

The smallish man shrugged, and glanced over toward a bookstore fifty yards down the mall. Vinnie Morris was leaning against the wall outside the bookstore with his arms folded across his chest.

“Maybe not,” the smallish man said.

“You know if you double-cross us,” Hasty said, “I can bring an army down on you.”

“Sure,” the smallish man said. “You want the deal or not?”

“Give him the money, Jo Jo.”

Jo Jo shrugged. The sight of Vinnie Morris had taken a lot of the ferocity out of him. He took the bag off his shoulder and handed it to the smallish man. The smallish man handed him a set of two keys on a small orange plastic key tag.

“It’s a Penske rental truck,” the smallish man said, “Mass plates 354-6AV. It’s parked outside the entrance next to Charlie’s Saloon.”

Then the smallish man turned and walked away down the mall. Jo Jo and Hasty looked after him for a time then looked back at Vinnie Morris, but Morris wasn’t anywhere in sight. They turned then and headed back down the mall toward the parking lot outside of Charlie’s. Hasty could feel the excitement in his stomach. Things had gone badly for a while. This was a good thing. They’d be armed properly. They could hold off anyone. State police, ATF, FBI, Marshals, anybody. At 2:35 in the afternoon, the parking lot was full. By 2:45 they hadn’t found the truck. By three o’clock they realized they weren’t going to.

There was no truck.