One thing was certain: I needed to get the hell out of here. Somebody would come looking for the coroner eventually, and I might get blamed for-
Wait a minute. What could they do to me? I was already dead. A ghost, a zombie, an angel, something. Okay, probably not an angel, not with the life I’d led. But whatever the explanation, nothing worse could happen to me. Right?
Still, I didn’t want to get caught. I didn’t know how long this situation would last. I had things to do.
I searched the room, but couldn’t find my clothes. The cops must’ve taken them as evidence, along with my wallet and my keys and whatever gun I’d been packing. Christ, I was starting from scratch.
A hat and overcoat hung on pegs next to the door. I reached for them, then stopped. It was a knee-length coat, but I couldn’t go around without pants or shoes. It was winter, I remembered that much.
The dead coroner and I were about the same size. He was a little taller, a little leaner, but close enough.
I checked the mirror to make sure my bandage wasn’t leaking light, then went to work, stripping the doctor of his clothes. The checked shirt he wore under his smock fit pretty well. The gray slacks were only a little long. Best of all, the wingtip shoes were my size. His wallet contained forty-seven dollars and a couple of credit cards. I took it-hell, he didn’t need it anymore-and I pocketed his keys. Finally, I lifted the overcoat off the peg. It was an expensive coat, dark brown wool with a nice drape. The felt hat was brown, too, what they used to call a porkpie. I faced the mirror and gave the hat brim a rakish tilt to hide the bandage above my ear. I looked like a gangster in an old movie.
I picked up the scalpel from the floor and put it in my coat pocket. I always feel a little naked without a gun on me, but a blade was better than nothing.
Then I slipped out of the clinic, into the frigid night, with one mission in mind: to find the son of a bitch who killed me.
THE coroner’s keys fit a late-model Buick. After a few blocks, I reached the main road and recognized where I was: a little upstate burg called LaPorte. Picture postcard of a place, with evergreens and little cottages and an icy river snaking through the middle. Patches of snow glowed under the streetlamps.
Gino D’Ambrozio had a clapboard cabin near here, overlooking a small lake. Never could understand why a Brooklyn boy like Gino would love a place as rustic as a summer camp. He and his pals often spent weekends there, playing cards and drinking beer without their wives ragging them.
I must’ve come up here to meet with Gino. No other reason for me to be in LaPorte. I still couldn’t recall what had happened to me, but I remembered the way to Gino’s house. I pointed the Buick north and zoomed out of town.
I was never one of Gino’s boys, though I’d dealt with him off and on over the years. Always freelance, always for decent money. I was never going to be on the inside, not with a name like Mercer. The Guidos only embrace guys whose names end in vowels. But sometimes they need a go-between.
You can’t put competing gangs in the same room without the tension getting to somebody and guns being pulled. The Guidos hate the Ivans and the Jamaicans hate the Puerto Ricans and the fucking Colombians hate everybody. But they need to do business occasionally or discuss territorial issues. Then they need a guy like me-tough, practical, unaffiliated, expendable-to occupy the middle ground and sort shit out.
Nobody owns me, but they all know they can trust me. I never talk to the cops. I keep their secrets. I’m a pro.
I’d been doing some work lately for this fat-ass vodka slurper named Dmitri Godunov. Everybody called him Good-Enough, which was a pretty apt description of his business practices, but his money was green. Had Dmitri sent me up here to see Gino? About what? I intended to find out.
A mile outside of town, I passed the Shady Rest Motor Inn. The concrete-block building formed an L around a potholed parking lot, with the office at the end nearest the road. The green VACANCY sign reflected on the office windows, but inside I could see a doe-eyed woman with dark, wavy hair.
I slowed at a twinge of memory. The woman’s face in close-up. I’d met her before. She’d moved here from the city. Dmitri bought the motel so he and his boys would have a place to stay during summit meetings, thumbing his nose at Gino, and he made her the manager.
She was connected to Dmitri’s gang in some way. Somebody’s sister. I couldn’t remember exactly. I drove on.
I didn’t have any trouble finding the turnoff to Gino’s hideaway. My headlights sliced through the frosted evergreens that grew close to the paved road. The beams reminded me of my gunshot wound. I checked the rearview, but the bandage and the hat were doing the job. No sign of my strange internal light.
Halfway to the lake, the usual black SUV was parked on the shoulder. The driver’s door opened as I approached, and one of Gino’s sentries, a muscle boy named Chuck Graziano, climbed out from behind the wheel. He held up a gloved hand to shield his eyes from my headlights. The other hand was inside his leather coat, going for a shoulder holster.
What the hell, I had a deadly weapon of my own. I was driving it.
I gunned the engine, and the Buick lunged forward. Chuck tried to jump out of the way, but he was too slow. The heavy car knocked him down, and the tires went ka-thump, like I’d gone over a speed bump. I braked and, for good measure, backed over him. Bump-thump. When I could see his flattened form in the headlights, I put the car in park and got out.
The tires had squashed his head, and it wasn’t pretty. No open-casket service for Chuckie. I dipped a hand in his jacket and came out with a heavy Colt.45 with a chrome finish. I checked the magazine, then stuck the flashy gun in my belt. I immediately felt better.
I dragged Chuck into some weeds at the side of the road, then got back in the Buick and drove to the cabin. I killed the headlights as I reached the clearing. A round moon was rising, and its liquid light rippled on the lake.
I sat in the car a few minutes, watching the house. Lights glowed in several windows, but I couldn’t see anybody moving around inside. I got out of the Buick and gently closed the door.
A thick bed of pine needles cushioned my steps. Pistol in hand, I circled the cabin, peeking in windows.
In the living room, four of Gino’s boys sat wreathed in cigar smoke, deep in concentration over their poker hands. Gino wasn’t among them. I figured I’d find him in his “study,” a small bedroom where he went to be alone. He liked to sit behind his secondhand desk, poring over his papers and counting his money.
I checked all the other windows first, then poked my head up outside of the study’s single window. Gino’s back was to me, but there was no mistaking the meaty neck or the black pompadour. Gino had the tall, thick mane of a televangelist, hair of biblical proportions.
The back door was locked, but I used the blade of the scalpel to slip the latch. I crossed the kitchen to the central hallway. The boys in the poker game roared with laughter, and I used the noise as cover as I tiptoed past their open door. I froze, listening, but they kept laughing over their cards. Idiots.
I stepped inside Gino’s study and shut the door behind me. He looked up, annoyed at the interruption, but when he saw it was me, his fleshy face went slack and his mouth gaped.
“What’s the matter, Gino? You act like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“You, you-”
“I’m what? Dead?”
He looked past my shoulder, like he’d remembered the boys in the other room. Before he could shout, I showed him the shiny gun.
“The cops said you were DOA-”
“Somebody got it wrong, Gino. I’m still kicking. And I want to know who shot me.”
“You don’t know?”
“Was it you?”
Gino arched a thick eyebrow. “You think I had you shot?”