"Car's like my life," he said as we caught a light atTenth Avenue.
"A comfortable mess.What do we do, take the same route we worked out forKasabian?"
"No."
"You know a better way?"
"Not better, just different. Take the West Side Drive for now, but instead of the Belt we'll take local streets throughBrooklyn."
"Be slower, won't it?"
"Probably.Let them get there ahead of us."
"Whatever you say.Any particular reason?"
"Might be easier this way to see if we're being followed."
"You think we are?"
"I don't see the point offhand, not when they know where we're going. But there's no way to know whether we're dealing with one man or an army."
"That's a point."
"Take a right the next corner, pick up the Drive atFifty-sixthStreet."
"Got it.Matt? You want something?"
"What do you mean?"
"You want a pop? Check the glove box, there ought to be something there."
There was a pint of Black amp; White in the glove compartment. Actually it wouldn't have been apint, it would have been a tenth. I remember the bottle, green glass, curved slightly like a hip flask to fit comfortably in a pocket.
"I don't know about you," he said, "but I'm kind of wired. I don't want to get sloppy, but it might not hurt to have something to take the edge off."
"Just a short one," I agreed, and opened the bottle.
WE took the West Side Drive toCanal Street, crossed into Brooklyn via theManhattanBridge, and tookFlatbush Avenue until it crossedOcean Avenue. We kept catching red lights, and several times I noticed his gaze fixing on the glove box. But he didn't say anything, and we left the bottle of Black amp; White untouched after the one short pull each of us had taken earlier.
He drove with his window rolled down all the way and his left elbow out the window, his fingertips resting on the roof, occasionally drumming the metal. Sometimes we made conversation and sometimes we rode along in silence.
At one point he said, "Matt, I want to know who set this up. It'sgotta be inside, don't you think? Somebody saw an opportunity and took it, somebody who took a look at the books and knew what he was looking at. Somebody who used to work for me, except how would they get back in? If I fired some asshole, somedrunk bartender or spastic waitress, how do they wind up prancing into my office and waltzing out with my books? Can you figure that?"
"Your office isn't that hard to get into, Skip. Anybody familiar with the layout could head for the bathroom and slip into your office without anybody paying any attention."
"I suppose. I suppose I'm lucky they didn't piss in the top drawer while they were at it." He drew a cigarette from the pack in his breast pocket, tapped it against the steering wheel. "I owe Johnny five grand," he said.
"How's that?"
"The ransom.He came up with thirty and I put up twenty. His safe-deposit box was in better shape than mine. For all I know he's got another fifty tucked away, or maybe the thirty was enough to tap him." He braked, letting a gypsy cab change lanes in front of us. "Look at that asshole," he said, without rancor. "Do people drive like that everywhere or is it justBrooklyn? I swear everybody starts driving funny the minute you cross the river. What was I talking about?"
"The moneyKasabian put up."
"Yeah.So he'll cut a few bills extra per week until he makes up the five-grand difference. Matt, I had twenty thousand dollars in a bank vault and now it's all packed up and ready for delivery, and in a few minutes I won't have it anymore, and it's got no reality. You know what I mean?"
"I think so."
"I don't mean it's just paper. It's more thanpaper, if it was just paper people wouldn't go so nuts over it. But it wasn't real when it was locked up tight in the bank and it won't be real when it's gone. I have to know who's doing this to me, Matt."
"Maybe we'll find out."
"I fucking have to know. I trustKasabian, you know? This kind of business you're dead if you can't trust your partner. Two guys in the bar business watching each other all the time, they'regonna go flat fucking nuts in six months. Never make itwork, theplace'll have the kind of vibe a Bowery bum wouldn't tolerate. On top of which you could watch your partner twenty-three hours a day and he could steal you blind in the hour he's got open.Kasabian does the buying, for Christ's sake. You know how deep you can stick it in when you're doing the buying for a joint?"
"What's your point, Skip?"
"My point is there's a voice in my head saying maybe this is a nice way for Johnny to take twenty grand off me, and it doesn't make any sense, Matt. He'd have to split it with a partner, he has to put up a lot of his own cash to do it, and why would he pick this way to steal from me? All aside from the fact that I trust him, I got no reason not to trust him, he's always been straight with me and if he wanted to rip me off there's a thousand easier ways that pay better and I'd never even know I was being taken. But I still get this voice, and Ifuckin ' bet he gets it, too, because I caught him looking at me a little different earlier, and I probably been looking at him the same way, and who needs this shit? I mean this is worse than what it's costing us. This is the kind of thing makes a joint close up overnight."
"I think that'sOcean Avenue coming up."
"Yeah?And to think we've only been driving for six days and six nights. I hang a left at Ocean?"
"You want to turn right."
"You sure?"
"Positive."
"I'm always lost inBrooklyn," he said. "I swear this place was settled by the Ten Lost Tribes. They couldn't find their wayback, they broke ground and built houses. Put in sewer lines, ran in electricity. All the comforts of home."
The restaurants onEmmons Avenue specialized in seafood. One of them, Lundy's, was a great barn of a place where serious eaters would tuck themselves in at big tables for enormous shore dinners. The place we were headed for was two blocks away at a corner. Carlo's Clam House was its name, and its red neon sign winked to show a clam opening and closing.
Kasabianwas parked on the other side of the street a few doors up from the restaurant. We pulled up alongside him. Bobby was in the front passenger seat. Billie Keegan sat alone in the back.Kasabian, of course, was behind the wheel. Bobby said, "Took you long enough. If there's anything going on, you can't see it from here."
Skip nodded. We drove a half-block farther and he parked next to a hydrant. "They don't tow you out here," he said. "Do they?"
"I don't think so."
"All we need," he said. He killed the engine and we exchanged glances, and his eyes moved to the glove compartment.
He said, "You see Keegan?In the back seat there?"
"Uh-huh."
"You can bet he's had a couple since they left."
"Probably."
"We'll wait, right? Celebrate after."
"Sure."
He shoved the gun into the waistband of his pants, draped his shirt to conceal it. "Probably the style here," he said, opening the door, hefting the attaché case."SheepsheadBay, home of the flapping shirttail.You nervous, Matt?"
"A little."
"Good. I don't want to be the only one."
We walked across the wide street and approached the restaurant. The night was balmy and you could smell the salt water. I wondered for a moment if I should have been the one to take the gun. I wondered if he'd even fire the pistol, or if it was just there for comfort. I wondered if he'd be any good with it. He'd been in the service, but that didn't mean he was proficient with a handgun.
I'd been good with handguns.Barring ricochets, anyway.
"Catch the sign," he said. "Clam opening and closing, it's a goddamned obscenity. 'C'mere, honey, let's see you open your clam.' Place looks empty."
"It's Monday night and it's getting late."
"Midmorning's probably late out here. Gun weighs a ton, you ever notice? My pants feel like they'regonna get dragged down around my knees."
"You want to leave it in the car?"