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  Finally, Connie had left a message saying she needed to see him ASAP about Maggie. She wanted to take him to lunch, somewhere private. They arranged to meet at the boat basin.

  A few minutes before eleven, Connie climbed out of a yellow taxi, dressed in snug jeans and sneakers and a white tank top, her hair piled high, her face shielded behind a pair of big dark sunglasses.

  “I’m glad you called,” Connie said, attempting to kiss Bobby on the lips. He turned his face and caught the kiss on his cheek as her braless left breast pressed against his right arm. It sent a shock to the center of his body.

  “I’m glad you came,” Bobby said.

  “You sure don’t act it,” Connie said, wiping lipstick from his cheek.

  Under overcast skies, Connie climbed on board The Fifth Amendment, and Bobby took her over to Arthur’s Landing, a waterside bar-restaurant in Weehawken, New Jersey, where he tied up, telling the kid at the fuel dock to fill the tank. Gas for boats was thirty-cents-agallon cheaper one mile across the Hudson River than it was in Manhattan.

  “You always took me to the hippest places,” Connie said with disdain. “Brooklyn. Jersey. S’matter, couldn’t you get a reservation in the Bronx?”

  “Screw you,” Bobby said.

  “I wish . . .”

  “Don’t get angry,” Connie said after ordering drinks from a college-aged waitress. “As soon as summer school ends next week, I’m taking Maggie away until this is over. You can see her this weekend, and that’s it until after the trial.”

  “Please, Con . . .”

  “I’ve had the tabloid press outside my goddamn building for the last week,” Connie said. “I’m afraid some sicko will try swiping Maggie for ransom. I don’t want her exposed to questions like the one the great intellect from Front Page TV asked last night: ‘Are you ever afraid your daddy will cut your throat, Maggie?’ ”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Bobby said.

  “I want her to see you, Bobby,” she said, putting her hand on top of his, her ring finger displaying the big stone Trevor Sawyer had given to her. She quickly changed hands, putting the ringed one under the table.

  “Where are you planning to go?” Bobby asked, his eyes drifting to a Japanese tourist with a video camera shooting tape of the Manhattan cityscape. The tourist turned, and his camera panned amateurishly around the restaurant.

  “Southampton,” Connie said. “Where we have electrified fences and German shepherds who can eat tabloid TV reporters like Gravy Train.” She saw the disappointment in his face. “You can visit Maggie there. I’ve told Trevor. He said it was fine for you to stay in our guesthouse.”

  “Very nineties of him,” Bobby said, then sighed. “I’m sorry. Tell him I said thanks, but if I do visit, I’ll come on the boat and sleep on board.”

  Connie looked him in the eyes. “Trevor has to go to London next week,” she said softly, stroking his hand. “I’ll be there alone with Maggie. Maybe we could have dinner together . . .”

  “Send the servants home for the night and all that?”

  “Up yours,” Connie said, squeezing his callused hand as hard as she could to hurt him. “I was trying to be nice.”

  Bobby noticed the Japanese with the video camera taking a seat and ordering a Coke and resting his camera on its side on the tabletop. The red light on his camera was on. Bobby made him for a dunce. But there was always the possibility he was working for Tuzio or Barnicle. Or tabloid TV. Paranoia was rampant in him. He looked around the restaurant, checking out the other customers. Three different couples sat at window tables looking out at the river.

  Connie wove her fingers through his now, looking to make deeper contact. “Sometimes I do regret breaking up with you, Bobby,” Connie said.

  “It wasn’t a breakup,” he said. “It was a divorce, and it’s still painful. At least Maggie seems to be getting over it.”

  Connie looked off at the skyline of New York, and Bobby followed her eyes, realizing again that the best part of living in Jersey was the view of Manhattan. The Japanese tourist with the camera wasn’t so dumb after all. But why was he taking footage of the restaurant? Looking to buy?

  “I’ve been totally faithful to Trevor,” she said, toying with Bobby’s thumb and then kneading his palm and tracing all his finger joints and the gullies between the fingers. Connie’s hands were soft and smooth and skilled and familiar, and Bobby could feel himself getting hard. “As I was faithful to you. But I don’t know what he does on these business trips.”

  “I’m sure he takes care of business,” Bobby said, feeling his penis growing along his thigh.

  “All kinds of business,” she said. “A man with his wealth attracts babes like flies to sugar. I’ve watched how some women look at men with money. Like hunters, killers.”

  “He adores you,” Bobby said.

  “And I’m free all afternoon,” Connie said. “Maybe you could show me the harbor. Looks like a storm’s coming. I’ve never been on a boat in a storm with you, Bobby. Alone . . .”

  He was hard as an oar handle now and staring at her lips, at the cleavage exposed when she leaned closer. The air-conditioning in the restaurant had hardened her bra-free nipples, and they pushed against the white tank top. Bobby squirmed in his chair, remembering her small, firm breasts, the flat belly, tight, soft behind, the smell of her hot sweaty skin when she was aroused. He had once loved this woman completely. John Shine was wrong. You could have more than one great love in your life. Just not at the same time.

  “Did anyone get it yet?” she whispered.

  “Get what?”

  “That first post-jailhouse tumble?”

  Her smile always made his heart leap, the perfect teeth, the moist full lips. “Just a couple of guys who came on board in an unfriendly kind of way.”

  “No man has ever known how to take care of me the way you did,” she whispered. “And I know how to take care of you.”

  Suddenly, after those eighteen months, looking at Connie made him very uneasy.

  “You always did,” Bobby said, his groin throbbing.

  “Then to hell with lunch,” she said. “Let’s set sail.”

  Bobby took a sip of his coffee and cleared his throat, shifting in his seat as guilt melted his boner.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I . . . I just can’t, Con.”

  “Because of Dorothea?” Connie asked.

  He faked a cough, looked away, then met her eyes again.

  “Maggie,” Bobby said.

  “Maggie!” Other patrons glanced over.

  “You look too much like Maggie now for me to make love to you, Con,” he said.

  Connie withdrew her hand from his, her mouth open, her eyes narrowed. Aghast.

  “You are one sick fuck, Robert Emmet,” she said.

  The waitress came over to ask if they were going to eat.

  “I think we’ll skip lunch,” Connie said, and the disappointed waitress walked away.

  Connie shook her head, took a sip of her soda. They sat in silence for another minute.

  “I want you to see our daughter,” she finally said, after composing herself. “I just won’t let you expose her to the media madness. Understood?”

  “Understood,” Bobby said. “We better get going before the storm hits.”

  Connie tried to pay the bill, but Bobby insisted, saying, “I owe a lot of back child support.” As they went down to the dock and climbed aboard The Fifth Amendment, Bobby noticed the Japanese guy with the video camera taking pictures of Manhattan again. Then he swung the camera down at them and waved. Bobby still didn’t trust the man and cast off quickly from the restaurant dock.

  “I guess I made a fool of myself,” Connie said as they moved across the river through snarling whitecaps.

  “I’m the fool for saying no,” Bobby said.

  “You don’t think I’m slutty?”

  “I think you’re one of the classiest women I’ve ever known,” he said as he worked the helm, guiding the boat through the an
gry swells that were not much different from his short-circuited emotions.

  “Do me a favor, will ya?” she said as Bobby docked at his slip in the boat basin less than ten minutes later.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Go and get this nasty murder business over with,” she said. “Maggie needs you back in her life in a normal situation. If I can do anything, let me know. Be careful. Be smart. But close the deal, Bobby.”

  Through binoculars, Trevor Sawyer watched his wife, Constance, kiss Bobby Emmet good-bye. He had watched them both since her arrival at the boat basin almost two hours earlier. He had watched the Japanese man pull away in the other boat, the one he’d hired to follow them. He dialed a cell phone, and after a brief pause he said, “Hello, is Mr. Gleason there please?” He paused a moment, watching Connie walk down from The Fifth Amendment. Then he spoke back into the phone: “Hello, Izzy? It’s Trevor. We need to talk. . . .”

  30

  As the rain fell hard, Bobby parked the Jeep in the gravel parking lot and stepped into The Central Booking Saloon through an aluminum-clad side door. The bar was loud, smoky, dark, and crowded. A Yankees game blared from the TV, and Waylon Jennings howled from the juke, and the rain drummed on the tile roof. The neon of the jukebox, computer games, and the beer signs blinked on and off.

  Bobby saw at least six three-quarters cops at the bar and one behind it: Kuzak, Zeke, Lebeche, Daniels, Flynn, and Levin. O’Brien was behind the stick, pulling foamy Bud into frosted mugs. Funny, Bobby thought, how O’Brien’s bad back never seemed to bother him when he stooped to the back-bar refrigerator for freshly frosted mugs.

  Lou Barnicle was seated at a cocktail table near the front door, with two drinks on the table in front of him. Bobby walked directly to Barnicle, who looked up at him, his arms folded across a black-and-red shirtfront that was silk-screened with a map of all the Hawaiian Islands. Neither said a word. The rain pounded. Now the other cops noticed Bobby, and they moved slowly from the bar toward the table.

  “Jesus, Lou, look at all these invalids,” Bobby said as he looked from the three-quarters cops to Barnicle. “Real walking wounded. Here for the physical therapy, boys?” Bobby smiled. “But, Lou, how come they move like the Giants backfield all the way to the bank with the three-quarters checks the first of every month?”

  Flynn started taking off his jacket with a saloon brawler’s flourish, as if looking for the chance he never got in the Gibraltar Security office the day he and Bobby first met.

  “Easy, guppy, I’m here to see the kingfish,” Bobby said to him.

  “Come on,” said Flynn. “One on one. Just you and me.”

  “I really don’t feel like hurting my hands,” Bobby said. “And now that I’m out of the job, I can’t even get three-quarters.”

  Flynn bull-charged Bobby, who very calmly stepped to the side, like a matador. Flynn stumbled past, and as he did Bobby blasted a right hand into his lower spine, certain he heard a couple of discs crunch. The big kid dropped to all fours.

  “Eyyyaaaaaghhhhh!” Flynn screamed and tried to straighten but couldn’t.

  “S’matter?” Bobby said, circling to the front of him. “Having trouble? Back problem?”

  Flynn writhed on the wooden plank floor, screaming in pain.

  “Geez, I think he might really qualify for three-quarters now,” Bobby said. “That’s if he was on duty for NYPD. But since he was on duty for a bag of shit named Barnicle, I’m not so sure they’d be so sympathetic.”

  Kuzak and Zeke now lurched toward Bobby. Lebeche and Daniels pulled out their Glock 9 mm pistols. Barnicle stood, raising his right hand, freezing them. Bobby cleared his throat and said, “I know your game, Lou. I know how low it starts and how far up it goes. It’s a great racket. But I’m telling you, Lou, these morons you have working for you are going to be your downfall. Like those two Nobel Prize candidates.”

  He pointed at Lebeche and Daniels, who still held their pistols on Bobby. “They couldn’t find a hot dog in Coney Island, and yet they find, what, fifty large apiece, give it to Kuzak and Zeke here to buy a three-quarters pension?” He turned to them. “What did you do, boys? Rob a drug dealer?”

  Lou Barnicle appeared concerned for the first time since Bobby started his spiel. But Bobby was careful not to tell him how much he actually knew.

  “Lou,” Kuzak said. “Just give me the word, and he disappears.”

  “Heel,” Bobby said, snapping his fingers twice, without looking at Kuzak. He was aware that every eye in the place was on him and that for every set of eyes, there was a gun. But he had to humiliate these guys in front of each other to make them overreact. To do this he knew he had to stand erect, cool, jitter free, in control.

  “I have it all planned out how I’m gonna take you apart,” Kuzak said.

  “You’d need instructions to eat soup,” Bobby said. He kept looking Barnicle deep in the eye, leaned closer, exploring the iris for flaws. He found a few, like little signs of mounting fury.

  “I don’t know who gets all the money,” Bobby said. “Yet. But I’ll find out . . .”

  Bobby didn’t mention Moira Farrell.

  “Why don’t you take a hike, Bobby. There’s no priest or John Shine around this time . . . .”

  Barnicle was distracted by the tap, tap, tap of high heels on hard wood. Sandy Fraser walked from the ladies’ room to the table with a hip-swinging stride as Barnicle ordered her to keep walking out the front door.

  “Something I did or said?” Sandy asked.

  “Yeah,” Bobby said. “Excuse my language, but you have too many balls for this crew.”

  Sandy paused, smiled, assessed the strained situation. One of the Yankees hit a home run, and from the TV Bobby could hear the crowd at the stadium cheering wildly. Sandy picked up an oversized umbrella, then stepped out into the storm.

  “No way to treat a lady,” Bobby said to Barnicle. In back of him, Flynn made little yelping sounds as Levin helped him to a chair.

  “I think you better leave, too,” Barnicle said.

  “Don’t you want to hear the end of the story?” Bobby asked. “About how I’m gonna make the bad guys lose in the end?”

  Barnicle glared at him.

  “Look around you, Lou,” Bobby said, his voice now very cold. “Then look at yourself. You were a real cop once. You had a reputation once for being brave, ballsy, by the book, honorable. Now you wind up with these pathetic scum. Where did you go wrong, Lou?”

  Barnicle just stared at him, his lower lip trembling.

  “Go, while the getting is good,” Barnicle said.

  “When I’m ready,” Bobby said, walking closer to Barnicle, eye to eye now. “But let me ask you something. When it was still good, when ‘The Job’ was still The Job, the greatest show on earth, the noblest way to earn an honest dollar and still count for something in your lifetime, when you were actually catching bad guys and protecting the citizens, doing God’s work, when you were the legendary cop you truly once were, would you have ever let any one of these pukes take your back? Would you have run into an alley or across a rooftop with Kuzak or Zeke, these two mama’s boys? With any of these guys who have balls like Raisinets?”

  Barnicle remained mute as Bobby pointed to Lebeche and Daniels and shook his head.

  “If some skells had broken into your house and were after your sister or your old, gray mother,” Bobby asked, “and they called nine-one-one, would you want these blue mice to be the first line of defense? These guys would show up after the dirty deed was done and steal the goddamned silverware, Lou.” O’Brien shut off the TV and the jukebox went mute. The rain continued to hammer the roof tiles. “These aren’t cops. These are skells. These are the bad guys, the mutts we joined the force to put away. No different than the bastard who killed my own father.” Bobby’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Jesus Christ, Lou, what was it that happened to you to make you become one of them?”

  There was a fragile moment of silence as the rain pelted the tile roof
when Bobby thought he detected a scribble of shame in Barnicle’s eyes.

  “Go,” Barnicle said softly.

  Flynn continued to moan in agony.

  “I’m leaving here,” Bobby said. “But I’m back to stay. And I’m gonna bring you all down.”

  Bobby now knew that Barnicle would have to act.

  He drove along the coast road of Rockaway, past the wild reeds and the lumpy dunes where you could still see the abandoned, half-buried nuclear-missile silos of the paranoid fifties peeking through the dirty wet sand. To his right, five hundred feet up the beach, was a wooden walkway leading to the main road. The windshield wipers slapped in the pounding rain, and he could not see very far ahead of him in the gray wash that blew in off the Atlantic.

  He hoped that if any of Barnicle’s goons pursued him, they’d look for him on the highway, while he took this back road off of the peninsula. If they were going to come after him, he wasn’t going to let them turn him into a simple highway accident.

  No, if they were going to try to whack him, they’d have to do it up close and personal. It could be nothing but murder.

  He thought he had some time. He was fairly certain that Barnicle wouldn’t risk going after him so close to Windy Tip. If Bobby was miles away when it happened, Barnicle would have a perfect alibi. Watching a Yankee game. With a priest and fifteen other witnesses. But the goons would come. It might take as long as a day or a week, Bobby thought.

  He was wrong.

  Suddenly out of the gray blank of the storm, a white van appeared in front of him in a wild wet skid, lashing a spray of sand across Bobby’s windshield. His wipers scraped at the clumps of gritty sand as Bobby hit his own brakes and spun the wheel of the Jeep to the right to avoid hitting the van. Adrenaline sizzled in his veins and his chest swelled and his heart began to pound. Bobby floored the gas pedal and mounted a small dune to avoid the white van. But the going was slow in the four-wheel gear, the tires chewing at the softer sand under the wet, hard-packed top layer. He picked up momentum as the Jeep rumbled downhill from a higher dune-covered silo, sending an explosion of seagulls into panicked flight. Because of the rain and the sand and the birds, he could see nothing. But he kept the accelerator floored.