Love or Honor (27 page)

In fact, Marty didn't seem to want to know much about what was going on.

“Where did you and Daddy go today?” she asked him one evening.

Chris just shrugged. “Oh, here and there, no big deal,” he said. “What do you want to know for?”

“Oh nothing, I just wondered,” she said.

Chris thought maybe John had put her up to it, and had asked her to ask Chris that question, to see whether Chris was a talker. Then he dismissed that thought as unworthy—not of him, not of John, but of her.

Chris could tell that Anna was pleased when he stayed on Sundays until all the others had gone. Marty must have thought so, too.

“Let's not go out tonight,” she said, one Sunday after dinner. “Let's play cards.”

She and Anna cleared the dishes, then Marty brought cards and they took places on opposite sides of the dining table. John stayed seated at the head of the table, skimming through the Sunday
News,
while Anna sat at the other end, watching. Chris and Marty played War, just throwing down cards and high card takes them, a game that goes on forever. John was watching as he read through the paper, talking to Anna, nothing much, regular husband-and-wife small talk. Then he interrupted.

“You play gin rummy?” he asked Chris.

“Yes, I do,” Chris said.

“I'll play you, penny a point,” John said.

Chris was a very good player because of his splendid memory, but John was better. John won every time, one hundred points. He seemed to enjoy winning.

It was a very pleasant evening. Although Anna wasn't doing any mending, Chris was reminded of his mother, on Sunday evenings when he was a kid. People didn't watch TV then; they played cards and checkers at the table. Finally, reluctantly, Chris looked at his watch.

“I'd better be going,” he said.

But Marty stopped him. “Oh no you don't,” she said. “This is family night. Do you play pool?”

“Sure I play pool,” Chris said. “I used to cut school and go to a poolhall at Sixty-third and Third. But not very often,” he added hastily, glancing at Anna, who laughed.

“You mean you want to go play pool?” Chris asked. “Now?”

“Not far,” Marty said. “Just downstairs.”

When Chris looked doubtful, Anna spoke.

“We'd like for you to stay, Chris, if you can.”

“Oh yes, I can stay,” Chris said.

He followed Marty down the stairs to a huge recreation room that looked like a clubhouse, with a pool table, a player piano, a croquet set, and stacks of games in boxes. The minute Marry picked up the cue, Chris knew he was in trouble, from the way she handled it and from the way she grinned at him. “You're a poolshark,” he moaned. She proceeded to run the rack; she didn't miss a shot.

When they got upstairs, John wasn't around. But Anna was sitting in the living room, reading. With the lights on, and with Anna in the room, the living room didn't seem so stiff and formal. Chris walked over to her to say goodnight. She reached up and drew him near her, with her hands on the sides of his face.

“I'm very glad you stayed,” she said softly. “We like having you with us. I hope you had a good time.”

“I sure did,” Chris said. “Thank you.”

As he drove away, Chris felt great, for a minute or two. Then, as he pulled out onto the road, he tensed. He looked into his rearview mirror. Was anybody behind him? What about the van? He'd seen a van parked in the neighborhood, a long job with grayish windows that you couldn't see into. The lettering said
GREENTHUMB LAWNKEEPERS,
but Chris knew a police van when he saw one. He knew there were cameras behind those windows, maybe forty thousand dollars' worth of surveillance equipment.

He didn't want to think about the van. He just wanted to feel the way he'd felt briefly, that first night, that he was just a regular guy having dinner at his girl's house.

Now it was a full-blown feeling.

He didn't feel like a wiseguy when he was with Marty and her parents, and he didn't feel like an undercover cop, either. He felt like himself. Anna was a wonderful lady. She was devoted to her husband; she'd been married to the man for thirty years. If John got hurt, Anna would be hurt too. Chris didn't want to be the one to hurt her. He didn't want her name, or Marty's name, in the Intel files; he didn't want their house targeted.

Chris had already begun to edit his reports. He never lied to the department, and he always gave his location, but he didn't give the address anymore; he would say he was “in the vicinity of …” Harry seemed satisfied just knowing where Chris was driving John, during the week, knowing who he was meeting and where, and how he was greeted. Chris described that as best he could; if John was greeted with a lot of respect, that guy was a nothing guy.

Other than that, Chris didn't want to send in more detailed reports that might involve Anna and Marty. He just wanted to feel the way he felt tonight, relaxed and at ease, happy to have just spent a perfectly normal evening, with people he liked to be with, in a perfectly normal way. It was an illusion, of course. But undercover work, by its very nature, was an illusion of one kind or another. This one was just more comforting, and it was beginning to seem more real.

Solly told Chris The Daily Planet was closing. Somebody would stay around to manage the pross part, which was still flourishing, with plenty of customers from about four to seven
P.M.
But the gambling part had died out. “We shot our load there,” Solly said. “We'll look around and open someplace fresh.” Chris hoped Solly wouldn't find a new job for him right away. He wanted to spend as much time with Marty as he could.

On his own, he'd cut back his games at Waterside, from once a week to once a month. He was getting edgier about the men who were coming. Not because of their numbers—he was averaging eight to ten men a night, now that the games had settled into expert affairs—but because of their backgrounds. These were professionals, men who were more likely to spot one of the electronic devices and finger him as an informer. He had to watch carefully who sat where, and what that guy might be watching—was he going to use the phone and quickly unscrew the mouthpiece? Did that guy really have to go to the bathroom? and if he did, why was he staying in there so long? One man who came to Waterside regularly was a close associate of a Luchese capo who was involved with the Purple Gang, a network for narcotics distribution. The young members of the Purple Gang had been errand boys in East Harlem for the established OC chiefs there, the men whom George had despised. “I spit on them!” George had said. Then the errand boys had grown up. They continued to work for some of the bosses, including that Luchese capo, but they also liked doing things on their own initiative. They especially liked fingering informers. One informer whom they found was left in pieces—his lacerated torso on a side street in Queens, his head on the 97th Street entrance to the Grand Central Parkway, eastbound.

Sometimes Chris and Marty got out of the city, when she left work on Friday, and drove upstate.

Even with the heavy Friday evening traffic, they liked to leave then, so that when they woke up on Saturday, they'd be in the country. Chris had another new car—he got a new car from Harry about every year to keep up appearances. After the Buick he'd had an Oldsmobile, then had moved up to a white Lincoln. The car was so flashy it almost hurt your eyes, so big you could have put a bathtub in it. Chris had a lot of fun driving that car, and he loved going to the country in upstate New York. The only thing that bothered him was a pain he was beginning to feel in his groin. Well, considering his life-style, all the running around, not sleeping much, why wouldn't his body rebel in some way? He took a lot of aspirin, and tried not to think about it.

Marty knew a little inn, a hideaway, where they always stayed. Their room had a fireplace; one chilly night, Chris made a fire. “Where did a musician who grew up in New York City learn to make such a good fire?” Marty asked. She was teasing, but he could tell that she really was interested, and a bit puzzled. Chris mumbled something vague and changed the subject quickly.

With less to do in Manhattan, at least temporarily, Chris went back to Astoria more often to keep his hand in. By now, he knew everybody who came in to the club. He knew Rudy well. Since the early days when Rudy saw him as a cigarette hustler, Chris's reputation had soared, thanks to his association with Solly, mostly. Chris thought that buying the guns from Rudy had probably helped, too. Chris had seen Rudy from time to time, off and on, usually in Astoria, and Rudy had always been agreeable. He didn't look all that agreeable—Rudy was a big guy, about six one, two hundred and fifty pounds—but Chris had no reason to think otherwise, when Rudy came in around two
A.M.
and sat at the bar with a scotch.

“I used to do undercover work,” Rudy said.

Chris just looked at him. Everything in his head was going BOING! BOING! BOING! as he tried to think how he should react. Do I look straight ahead? Do I look away? Do I look surprised? Do I look nonchalant? Do I look interested?

Chris figured he probably reacted in all those ways. “Oh, yeah?” he said.

“Yeah,” Rudy said. “I used to work for the CIA. So I know what it's like to work undercover.”

Rudy said something about the CIA and Cuba, but Chris wasn't paying close attention. What is he getting at? Chris was thinking. “C'mon, Rudy, you're bullshitting me, aren't you?” he asked.

“No, no,” Rudy said. “I was with the CIA, and I know all about working undercover.”

“So what are you telling me for, Rudy?” Chris asked.

Rudy gave him a long, level look. “I just felt like telling you,” he said.

When Rudy left, Chris was relieved. As bizarre as it seemed, maybe the guy
had
worked for the CIA. Chris had reached the point where he could believe almost anything. On the other hand, he doubted that a guy who had worked for the CIA was going to come right out and say so. He was still mulling it over when Rudy returned. He sat at the bar and had another scotch.

“I have to go over and see a guy on Roosevelt Avenue,” Rudy said. “I want you to come with me.”

“Hey, sorry,” Chris said, “I got a place to run here, I can't leave.”

“Sure you can,” Rudy said. “Gene is here. C'mon, do me a favor, go with me to see this guy. It won't take long, maybe an hour.”

Something told Chris not to go. It would be a mistake to go. But something else said, go with him, see what he's up to. Chris thought that if he didn't go, it might reinforce whatever ideas Rudy had about him. Then Rudy would just come back another time. Better to see it through now. If I don't go, and he doesn't come back, I'll always wonder what this was all about.

He remembered clearly what Big Lou had said: “Rudy's good with a gun.” But Chris thought that as long as he stayed alert, remained aware, he'd be okay. You had to be aware on the streets of New York, anyway; everybody did. If you weren't aware, on the street, you might get hit by a bus, or somebody would bump into you and pick your pocket.

“Okay,” Chris said, “gimme a minute.”

Chris went into the bathroom. He made sure his gun was loaded. He chambered one round, so he wouldn't have to cock it. All he would have to do was pull the trigger.

“Okay, let's go,” he said to Rudy, as he took his overcoat from the office. “But I gotta be back in an hour.” He swung the coat around and transferred the gun to its pocket, making a small production of putting it on as Rudy got up.

“Yeah, an hour,” Rudy said. “Don't worry about it.”

Rudy drove a red Cadillac with a white leather interior. The car was immaculate, gleaming, which didn't surprise Chris. When wiseguys parked their cars on Mulberry Street, or out by the Bergin club, it was like pulling into a service station, with half a dozen guys swarming all over the vehicle—washing, waxing, buffing.

Chris had spent more than twenty years in Queens, both in the outside world and in the OC world. He could have found his way around these streets blindfolded. As they drove east on the Grand Central Parkway, he knew the exit for Roosevelt Avenue was the exit for 111th Street and Shea Stadium, then a right, under the El.

Rudy drove past the exit.

“What are you doing, Rudy?” Chris said. “That was the exit.”

“I'm going on a little farther,” Rudy said. “There's another exit.”

That's right, Chris thought. There
is
another exit, for the Long Island Expressway. It's a little out of the way, but Rudy could turn off there and double back.

Rudy passed that exit, too.

“What are you doing, Rudy?” Chris asked again.

“Don't worry about it,” Rudy said. “I'll take the next one.”

Rudy took the next exit. But instead of turning back, he continued to drive east on Parsons Boulevard.

“Hey, you're going the wrong way, Rudy,” Chris said. “Roosevelt Avenue is back there, the other way.”

Rudy laughed. “Maybe we'll just take a little ride,” he said.

“Hey”, I gotta be back in an hour,” Chris said. “I got some people to see, back at my place.” He tried to keep his voice low and growly, sort of aggravated, rather than shaky.

Rudy laughed again. “What's the matter? You worried about something?” He turned off Parsons onto a side street. He was still driving fast, over fifty. The minute he slows down, Chris told himself, the very minute, I have to shoot.

Chris reached into his overcoat pocket. He gripped the little automatic, held it for an instant, then eased it up out of his pocket. Keeping his left arm bent and slightly raised, as a shield, he slid the gun noiselessly up his right side and across his chest, under his coat. He aimed the gun directly at Rudy's head.

Chris could feel his heart thumping, right under the gun. He'd never shot anyone. He'd pulled it often, but in all these years, in all these situations, he'd come close to using it only once or twice. The first time was way back, when he was a rookie, on his first post in Rockaway. It was a summer evening, just getting dark. He was standing on a street corner, feeling bored, when a big guy in a T-shirt and shorts came running toward him. The man was yelling, and as he got closer, Chris could understand the words. “I'm going to KILL you!”