River of Salt Read online

  ‘I’m serious.’ Jimmy was hunched in his big overcoat, hands jammed into the pockets. ‘I’m sick of this. Let’s get the fuck out of here, go live on Redondo Beach.’

  ‘You don’t swim.’

  ‘Yet.’

  ‘We need a car. They say in California you have to have a car.’

  ‘We’ll get one. Play me something.’

  ‘The only thing I can play is “Silent Night”.’

  The guitar was only one or two years old. Blake had spied it in a pawnbroker’s window. He didn’t know any musicians but he saw there were a lot of musical instruments in the shop and figured the old Jewish guy who ran it might be able to suggest somebody who could teach him from his list of musician clients.

  ‘You don’t want those guys. Nice young kid like you. They’re all black, all addicts. My sister’s kid has been learning guitar. I’ll give you the address.’

  Blake had thought the guy meant ‘kid’ the way everybody called him kid. It turned out though that Arnold Schleider really was a kid, thirteen years old. He charged Blake a buck for two one-hour lessons a week. They sat in Arnold’s bedroom beneath a Yankees banner. Arnold’s mom brought them cups of cocoa. A Mob triggerman being schooled in guitar by a thirteen-year-old Jewish kid taking cocoa breaks … the weirdness wasn’t lost on Blake. Arnold wasn’t exactly a prodigy, so his method was to teach Blake just how he’d been taught. That meant ‘Silent Night’, which was still fresh in Arnold’s memory from the recent Christmas.

  Blake didn’t want to play it now but Jimmy was so eager, like a big puppy waiting for you to toss a ball.

  Hesitatingly, he fought his way through it, only having to go back twice.

  ‘That’s great. That is really fucking good. You’re a talent. You don’t have to do that other shit.’

  Blake thought, no, seriously, we both know I do.

  Jimmy was walking around in circles now, head bowed. ‘Leave it with me. This is going to happen. Trust me.’

  The main thing occupying Blake’s mind as he sat in the broken chair in the basement of the parking lot, the wall behind him smeared in blood, was Jimmy saying, ‘Trust me.’ Even if the waitress at the diner hadn’t very carefully slipped him the address and whispered, ‘Your brother says you’ll give me five bucks for this,’ those words still would have been the steaming dog turd in the dining room of his mind. He’d tried to not look hurried, finished his coffee in his own good time and pushed out into the sleet. As if he had confirmed an appointment, the Mercury slid along the snow-flecked tar and stopped in front of him. Marcello and Vincent. Marcello told him to get in.

  He acted dumb. ‘What’s wrong? Is Jimmy okay?’

  ‘The boss wants to see you.’

  That was all Marcello had said. Vincent had said nothing, tight-lipped, strained. You didn’t have to be a genius: Jimmy says ‘trust me’, then he doesn’t come home — okay, that in itself is not unusual — but the waitress with the address written on her pad, and then the Mercury and the guys … what the fuck had Jimmy done? The second thing occupying his mind was not the cold — that was just a harsh fucking reality, Vincent was stamping his feet and Marcello was kicking a radiator that clearly wasn’t working because it was an icebox down here — the second thing he was thinking about, way back there, was that this chair once occupied a place in a fine dining room. Maybe a hotel, or a large house where dinner guests dressed in black ties and tails, and ate sliced beef off silver platters. It was now a piece of junk, creaky, sloping to the right, cut adrift from its family and left here in this freezing basement lit by a single bulb. The splatter on the wall behind suggested the last person it had supported had not left the room in the same health in which he had entered. Another chair was placed right opposite him but not matching, a bentwood, better condition. Somewhere a pipe dripped. The rumble of the freight elevator descending turned all their heads. It was one with wire mesh in front. Eventually Blake could make out the Don, Franco Repacholi, or rather his cashmere coat. His cadaverous face was in shadow. His personal fixer, ‘Peste’, was at his side as always. Blake remembered asking Vincent what the name meant, pest?

  ‘The plague, silent and deadly,’ Vincent replied. ‘You see him outside your house, you’re already dead.’

  An outsider might have found it amusing, a little stagey even, but it was all too fucking real to Blake.

  Trust me.

  The elevator jolted to a halt. Repacholi yanked open the grille himself. Blake noticed little things like that. The Plague couldn’t defend his boss if he had one hand on the grille. The Don clipped over on his leather shoes and sat on the bentwood. He wore leather gloves to match the tan coat.

  ‘What the fuck. It’s fucking freezing in here.’

  It was the first time anybody had spoken since Marcello had said the same thing ten minutes earlier and just like then it made mist when Repacholi opened his mouth.

  ‘The radiator’s not working, boss.’

  Marcello gave it a kick to prove the point. The Don shook his head as if to ask the Lord to give him strength. Then his eyes fixed on Blake and Blake felt his insides turn to soup.

  ‘You’re not in trouble, kid. I like you. Jesus Christ, it’s cold down here. You do a good job. You keep your head down. You don’t make trouble. So, I want to assure you I’m genuine. We can put this behind us, move on. Where is he?’

  Repacholi pulled a cigarette case from his inner jacket pocket, flipped it open, offering one to Blake who shook his head. Blake had never smoked. People who smoked always had their hands occupied with lighters or matches or tearing cellophane and he wanted his hands to always be ready.

  ‘Where is your brother?’

  The words ‘I don’t know’ had pushed their way to the door of the moving bus but before they could ring the bell, Repacholi pointed a bony finger at him.

  ‘Before you tell me you don’t know, which I understand, he’s your brother …’ Repacholi put the cigarette between his lips then produced a smooth little silver lighter and fired up, inhaling, ‘… I must warn you, this is a very serious situation for you.’

  Somehow Blake found words. ‘What do you think he did?’

  ‘I don’t think, I know. Same as I know you weren’t involved. Eighteen top quality furs. Mink, sable …’ he waved his cigarette, ‘… gone. I busted my balls to boost those. Flew in this shit-hot alarm guy from … where the fuck was he from?’

  Even though his boss kept his gaze on Blake, the bodyguard knew he was the one being asked. ‘Detroit.’

  ‘Flew him in.’ Repacholi took another drag as if the memory pained him. ‘More fucking planning than D Day. And to have that taken from me, by someone in my own family, that’s like … fucking Eskimo would freeze to death in here … it’s like a knife going into my own nuts. That’s what it’s like.’

  Marcello gave the radiator another kick to show he was trying something.

  ‘Your brother knows I use the Margolis warehouse.’

  ‘Maybe it was Margolis? Jimmy didn’t come home. He probably figures you’ll think it’s him.’

  ‘It is him.’

  ‘It could be Margolis.’

  Peste spoke. ‘It was not Margolis.’

  Blake now knew whose blood was on the wall behind him but kept swinging, his desperation palpable. ‘What about the Feds? Maybe they have a wiretap. All cops are dirty. They heard about the furs …’

  The boss held up his palm: desist. ‘You are not guilty but because the guilty party is not here and you are family, you are responsible. However, you can discharge that responsibility. I need to know where he is. Half of those furs belong to New York. You see what I’m dealing with, son? This is an extra-jurisdictional situation. Things happen on my patch, I become responsible even though I am not guilty. There is nothing I can do for him. I won’t pretend otherwise. It’s too fucking cold. I can only protect you from New York if you give me your fuck-up brother. You’re loyal. I like that. Don’t be stupid here. We’ll find him. Your brother�
��s not that smart. But you know what, he loves you. If he were in this room right now freezing his nuts off, he would tell you, save yourself. And I promise you absolutely, this will be no impediment to you going forward. The opposite. No-one will harm you. I give you my word. Now I am going to ask you, and I want you to think very carefully before you answer. Where is Jimmy?’

  Under the illumination of the headlights you could see snowflakes falling. They look like lost souls, thought Blake. He remembered a picture of a painting he had seen in a book once, scared and tortured humans falling into hell’s belly. He was numb, had been on the ride over, sitting in the back alongside Vincent. Pennsport: he hadn’t been in this neck of the woods for a while but it figured. Jimmy used his Irish pals for the job. They got drunk. Or their women did. Somebody blabbed. They must have been damn near caught in the act because Jimmy hadn’t even made it home. He’d obviously cut out and gone to ground. And all to get him to California and a bullshit dream that was never going to happen now. It was silent in the car. They had cruised into the street, headlights off. Row houses. The address was across the way, plain brick, a jaundiced light in a second-floor apartment. Blake looked across at Vincent, stretched back, eyes closed, a revolver sitting in his shoulder holster. There for the taking. He could do it. He could …

  ‘Time.’

  It was Marcello. He had driven. Peste was beside him, a sawed-off shotgun across his lap. Blake’s heart was galloping now, his cheek cold against the passenger window, his breath misting it up.

  He’ll know I’ve betrayed him, he thought. The Don sold me some candy, a way out. I took it. Jimmy will look down from a grimy window and through the descending snow he’ll see legs in dark trousers striding his way and he will know.

  The click of the car doors closing, quiet as it was, made him jump. He snuck another look at Vincent, the gun still within reach. Still time. No sounds except their breathing, the others’ footsteps had been snuffed already.

  ‘You didn’t do anything wrong, kid. You had no choice.’ Vincent sounded resigned, like he was talking to himself. Then his voice changed a gear. ‘You need to get out. I know what the Don said. I think he believes it. Now. But sooner or later he’ll doubt. They always do. They should be there now. Marcello the front, Peste the back. Take my gun, hit me across the head with it and get the fuck outta here.’

  Vincent’s words were like a child’s fist beating on the window of a car sinking in the river. They couldn’t break through.

  ‘Blake, listen to me. Jimmy is my best friend. This is the only thing I can do for him. Take the fucking gun.’

  Blake snapped the pistol from the holster and backhanded Vincent across the forehead. He thought he heard the crack of bone but it was lost as he shoved open the door and jumped out, skidding on the sidewalk. For an instant he stood looking up at the window, suspended the way a tiny leaf gets snagged in a spider web. Then he started moving quickly away in a hunched run. Something made him turn and look back up. Two bright muzzle flashes lit the window. He ran.

  Going back to his apartment was too dangerous. They could put a call through, send somebody. Or they might not. Who would they send? The Pest? Would the Don risk him knowing Blake was armed? But maybe there would be somebody waiting anyway. Somebody out of New York, sitting there in the dark. He couldn’t risk it. But he had to. That’s where the guitar was.

  The cab took the last of his cash. He had it drop him a block away. He couldn’t afford to think of Jimmy, not yet. He cut through a back alley. Nobody obvious at the rear of the building. The front clear too. If it was him he’d be waiting in the vestibule or the apartment, give the target two steps inside then open up. Blake could wait for some other tenant, come in with them but nobody was out. It was too cold. He pushed the door open into the gloomy vestibule tensing for shots, the pistol gripped in his right hand down by his leg. Nothing except the familiar smell of soup, and the mutter of faint television. He took the stairs carefully. The muzzle flashes snapped in his head like rim shots. Down the dark corridor now, pitch black, past Lanscombe’s, with some kind of quiet jazz playing tonight. He stood outside the door to his apartment, pistol still in his right hand, key now in his left. He sniffed, inhaled. A good killer, you’d never hear a breath, waste of time trying, but tobacco, cologne … he could smell nothing. Pistol gripped and ready for action, he slid the key in the lock began to turn it. That’s when he heard the door to Lanscombe’s apartment open and knew he’d fucked up. He’d been bested. He was a dead man. The killer had taken out Lanscombe first. There was a gun probably with a silencer pointing at the back of his head right now. He’d betrayed Jimmy for noth—

  ‘Hey, Blake.’

  He swung around, pistol pointing, found the will to not depress the trigger. He saw Lanscombe’s hands go up.

  ‘Easy, man.’

  He dropped his hand back down. The light from Lanscombe’s apartment was backlighting him. He had his hand out, something in it.

  ‘Some woman knocked on my door. Irish. She said Jimmy said to give this to you.’

  It was a brown paper package, small, wrapped in string and tape. Blake took it.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Lanscombe retreated towards his flat. ‘Oh, and she said Jimmy said, “Get a suntan.” ’

  Lanscombe’s door closed behind him and Blake was alone again with that odour of mutton fat. He ripped open the package. Cash, several hundred by the looks. He felt shame. He had thought his brother dumb. Jimmy had known all along how it would play out if things went awry. This cash must be some advance he’d negotiated. He knew they would grab Blake. He knew the deal they’d put to him, he knew Blake would take it and would come back for his guitar.

  Trust me.

  River of salt, flowing from my eyes. Blake tasted it, couldn’t stop it.

  2. Twang

  His belly pressed flat into the board which gently rose and fell like a crumb on the chest of a snoozing giant. Blue as far as the eye could see, above, out yonder, all around. Not a day went by Blake didn’t pinch himself that this was his new reality, the sun burning into his shoulders, his legs dangling in the mighty Pacific.

  And all of it because of Jimmy.

  He could talk to him out here where there were mostly only seagulls for company, other surfers few and far between.

  ‘We’re goin’ in, Jimmy,’ he would say as he felt the ocean draw in its breath. He would turn to spy a cliff of water building further out to sea. ‘Come on, this is ours.’ And he would smile as he imagined Jimmy pulling back, trying to get away because he always hated water and sky and open air. As he stood, he felt Jimmy with him, felt him finally giving in, standing with him, right in front, the wind ruffling his hair, a giant smile creasing his face as the power of something so much bigger than the Mob, than the whole of Philly, carried them towards the shore.

  Blake had never cried since about what happened. He was too empty for that. But if he could, he still wouldn’t have because he didn’t want to let Jimmy down, wanted him to know he was thankful for every minute. And Jimmy was always with him, he knew that, so why cry?

  As he rode to shore, he caught sight of the Surf Shack billboard and, as always, it made him swell with pride.

  ‘We made good, Jimmy, you and me,’ was his silent thought until the slope of the wave fell away and the big sign was no longer visible. He dropped down onto the plank and rode into the shallows. There were a handful of swimmers to the south. The beaches were unbelievable here, miles of them and next to nobody else. He could have chosen any of them to settle but he picked this one because it was pristine and even more deserted than most. Some kids ran by calling to their dog running behind them, a collie, they were popular here. He plucked the board from the ocean and stared east. Thousands of miles thataway was where he might have been but for fate. However, he never regretted the decision made initially with safety in mind. LA hadn’t been far enough. Wise guys were always heading to California to grab some sun and bikini bait. But that had become
a secondary consideration. He loved it here. It was undiscovered. He felt like a Conquistador except even better, he didn’t have to learn Spanish because the locals already spoke English — well, kind of, but he liked that too, the junky way they talked.

  He loved everything about Australia.

  The Coral Shoals forefathers were smart. They’d not allowed anybody to build on the beach. The closest you could be was across the other side of the coast road, which was where he’d spotted the Steak Cave nearly two years ago. Later, when he knew what he wanted to do and exactly the sort of bar he wanted to own, he had remembered this location and bought the licensed restaurant.

  Even though the board was a heavy fucker, he could have walked to the beach from his house, less than half a mile north, but the sand was hot under the January sun and so he had driven. He slung the board into the back of the ute. It was pretty much like a pick-up truck, useful to transport the kegs to parties around the hinterland. In the early days the hire business had been his saviour. After buying the Steak Cave, even though it was a steal, he had no cash left to do it up but Blake had spied an opportunity in hauling kegs out to private parties: weddings, engagements; twenty-firsts especially, for twenty-one was the legal drinking age and the youngsters always figured they could put away more beer than they really could. You added in the hire of glassware and coloured lights and the whole thing was lucrative enough to pay for the furnishings of the Surf Shack — which had to be exactly how Blake wanted — plus enough left over to rent a house. The best thing was, there was absolutely no competition apart from the golf club and it was harder to become a member of that than the Mob. He’d heard they balloted prospective members out with a black ball. So, unless you were over forty and well-heeled, you had to head twenty miles south before you would find another place to drink. To the north was more populated. The Ocean View Motel served dinners and had a small bar but it was a good forty-minute drive. That was the closest liquor outlet. Another forty minutes north, you hit a strip of coastal bars and pubs and then things got busier up to the sea aquarium by the Queensland border. Here at Coral Shoals, his only competition for the entertainment dollar was the drive-in, minigolf and an open-air movie theatre. The drive-in was pretty much exclusively teenagers taking the chance to grope one another away from the family house and Blake didn’t serve teens anyway. There was no way he would jeopardise his licence. Sergeant Leslie Nalder had made it abundantly clear that’s what would happen if Blake transgressed, even if it meant Nalder temporarily having a drop in his income. Nalder wasn’t cheap, twelve pounds a week, but he was worth his weight in gold because he opposed every application by every prospective business that wished to sell liquor.