“Mr. Vincent,” she said, and smiled.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
She frowned. “You don’t remember me?”
“Sure, I remember you,” he replied, and even he could hear the uncertainty in his own voice.
Now she would want him to say her name. Madigan racked his brain. But she merely smiled a little wider and said, “Uncle’s inside . . . He’s watching a game.”
Okay, so she was one of the nieces. Good enough. Virago had five sisters, all of them with a billion kids.
“How’s your mom doing?” he asked the girl.
“Moaning, as ever. She wants me to stay on and do more school. I want to get a job. You can understand that, right?”
“Sure, I can.”
“I want to do hairstyling. I want my own shop. Maybe more than one. I could have a chain and call them Caterina’s. That sounds good, no?”
Right, it was Caterina. Madigan still couldn’t remember her from Eve, but at least he had her name.
“That would sound great, sweetheart, but you know, sometimes moms have a point. The better your education, the better your chance of making the business work. You know how to fill out the tax forms, right?”
Caterina frowned.
“See, right there you got a problem. You don’t know how to fill out your tax forms then the IRS’ll be all over you like a bad rash, and they can just snatch your business right out from under you. They’re a bunch of mean bastards, Caterina, and you gotta have some smarts to deal with all that shit.”
“Caterina!” Virago hollered from the back of the apartment.
“Caterina . . . tell that lazy bastard to get his ass in here and shut the damned door!”
Madigan smiled. He stepped on inside the hall and closed the door behind him. He followed Caterina into the kitchen, where Virago was seated at the table, a plate of something in front of him, the small TV on the top of the refrigerator playing some rerun of a baseball game.
“Hey, Madigan, what the hell? You want some mystery meat?”
Caterina playfully smacked the back of her uncle’s head.
Virago laughed. “This girl is the best damned cook in the whole city, let me tell you.” He turned around and grabbed her, hugged her around the waist. “I’m just teasin’ you, honey. You know that.”
“I’m good,” Madigan said. “I got dinner waiting for me when I get back.”
“That’s bullshit,” Virago said. “Last time you had dinner waiting for you is when someone left what they didn’t want in a diner.”
“Seriously, I got some dinner . . .” And then he stopped. If he had dinner, who was making it? That would be the next question. Virago—loyal though he might once have been—was a man with a past. If Sandià got word that Madigan had visited, well, he just might come over and visit Freddy himself. Half an hour and Freddy would give Madigan up, tell Sandià every word that Madigan had uttered.
“Okay,” Madigan said, “but just a little. I don’t have much of an appetite these days.”
“You look a little better than last time I seen you. You know that?” Virago said as Caterina fetched a plate for Madigan. “You staying off the sauce?”
“Yes, sure I am,” Madigan said. “This is the new and improved me.”
Virago smiled. He pushed his plate away and reached for his cigarettes. “You don’t need no one to tell you anything, Vincent. That’s the way it always has been. That’s the way it always will be, right? You’re a smart guy, you know? You know the inside and the outside, and all of it from three fucking miles away—”
“Uncle . . .” Caterina said. She put a plate of chili in front of Madigan, a tortilla on the side. There were some slices of avocado, a quarter of lemon.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Virago told the girl. “She says I curse too much.”
“You do,” Madigan replied. He picked up the spoon and started eating. The meat was good—rich and fresh. He squeezed lemon over the avocados. He had been utterly unaware of his own hunger. He would eat this, and then eat again when he got home.
“You have some reason for being here aside from my Caterina’s cooking?” Virago asked.
“I do.”
“You want a barley pop or something?”
“Sure.”
Virago turned to Caterina. “Sweetheart, get us a coupla beers, would you, and then maybe go watch a bit of TV for a while. Me and Vincent here got something to discuss.”
Caterina brought the beers. She seemed to appreciate that some things were not for her to hear or understand. Madigan figured her smart enough to appreciate the kind of conversations her Uncle Freddy had in the kitchen; smart enough not to get involved.
She shut the door behind her and Virago leaned forward. “So, what you doing here?”
“Valderas,” Madigan said. “David Valderas.”
“What about him?”
“He’s dead.”
“You don’t say?”
“Freddy, don’t be a wiseass . . . What was the deal with him?”
“You really wanna know?”
“No, I guess I don’t. Thanks for dinner an’ everything and I’ll be on my way.”
Virago leaned back, lit a second cigarette in as many minutes.
Madigan looked down. He’d cleaned off the plate. He could’ve eaten the same again.
“Valderas went bad,” Virago said. “He did a thing with one of Sandià’s nephews. A bank thing. They came away with three, maybe four hundred grand.”
Madigan—thankfully—had already swallowed the mouthful of beer. Otherwise it would have sprayed all over Virago’s lap. The bank job. This was it. This was the real deal. Where the money came from originally.
“Anyways, they did this thing, all fine and dandy . . . Came away with however much. But it seemed that Valderas approached the nephew with an idea to scam Sandià, like they should run away with the money. Dumb, dumb motherfuckin’ son of a bitch thought that Sandià’s own freakin’ nephew was gonna go turncoat on Sandià. What an asshole that boy was.”
“The nephew tells Sandià, and Sandià deals with Valderas, right?”
“Sure he does, as anyone would. But the irony, the real irony of this, is that some other crew muscles in on the proceeds, and they take this bank money off of this nephew in one of Sandià’s houses. The nephew is dead . . . Hell, man, everyone who showed up is dead. Even three of the perps that did this are found like mystery meat in a storage unit someplace, and it seems there’s a fourth guy and he got away clean with everything. Now Sandià is ready to bite his own freakin’ arm off to get this guy. He doesn’t give a crap about the money . . . Hell, to him it’s only spare change. But someone has come down to his yard and screwed him good, made him look like an asshole, and he isn’t gonna sleep well until he knows who the guy is and he has his head in a bag.”
“Well, whoever the guy is, he better get a long way away pretty fast.”
“Ah hell, Sandià ain’t that smart and you know it. Problem with these guys is that they run these operations with fear. Everyone’s terrified, everyone’s scared outta their minds and they do whatever they’re asked. The problem is that sometimes the little guys wind up more scared of what happens if they rather do than what happens if they don’t. Then the big boss comes tumbling down and the whole thing has to start all over again. I’ve seen too many Sandiàs come and go to be worried about people like him anymore. A year, five, maybe ten, and there’ll be someone else in that tenement on Paladino. It’s the nature of things, Vincent.” He smiled sardonically. “This too shall come to pass an’ all that, right?”
“You know the nephew’s name . . . the one that got killed in the house robbery?”
“Calvo, Alex Calvo.”
Madigan was silent for a time. He took one of Virago’s cigarettes from the packet and lit it.
“How are you involved in this?” Virago asked him.
“I’m on it, officially,” Madigan replied. “Not the Valderas killing, but the robbery of S
andià’s house, the three dead guys in the storage unit . . . the little girl in the hospital. You know about that, right?”
“That Arias girl? Sure, I know about it. I also know that Sandià is after the girl’s mother, and that the aunt was Valderas’s lover.”
“Jesus, Freddy, is there anything you don’t know?”
“Not really,” Virago replied. “Oh, yeah, maybe there is one thing I don’t know. I don’t know why the hell you’re here asking me about it. That one is still a mystery to me.”
“I’m here for the reason I said . . . To find out about Valderas.”
“Sure you are. But nothing is ever simple with you, Vincent. You say one thing, you mean another. You do one thing, well, it’s always to facilitate something else. If I were you, I’d be surprised every morning I woke up and found out someone hadn’t put a bullet in my head.”
“I am, Freddy. Believe me I am.”
“So whatever else might be going on, I think you need to slow down some.”
Madigan frowned.
“You have always drank too much. And you were always chuggin’ pills like there’d be none left for tomorrow. If I know you, then you don’t got a woman. You’re all a-freakin’-lone as usual, and the world still owes you a living. Your age . . . Christ, man, I’d start getting wise.”
“A lesson in survival skills I do not need, Freddy, especially from the likes of you.”
“Well, fuck you very much, asshole,” Freddy replied. “I’m doing okay here. I got nothing going on that would interest the PD. I got enough money. I got Caterina and a whole bunch of other daughters and nieces coming over to get me dinner and fetch me some beers, and I take care of all of them. I don’t have a family, Vincent. I have a real honest-to-God dynasty. I sleep good, and I don’t spend all my time wondering who the hell is behind me. I guess you don’t even know what that feels like.”
Madigan shook his head. “Haven’t a clue, Freddy. Haven’t a clue.”
“That’s what I’m saying, Vincent. It doesn’t do you any good to be living like this. I’ve done it both ways, my friend, and this is one helluva lot better.”
Madigan finished his cigarette. He ground the butt into the ashtray and pushed his plate aside.
“So you got anything else for me on any of this?” he asked.
Freddy shook his head. “What else is there? David Valderas was a dumb, greedy son of a bitch. Alex Calvo was loyal to his family. Both of them are dead. There’s a bunch of other guys that got wasted in the house robbery, another three guys dead in a storage unit. There’s a fourth man for sure, and he got away clean, and I doubt he’s within a five-hundred-mile radius right now. If he is . . . well, if he is, then he’s either really freakin’ dumb, or he has stainless-steel cojones the size of City Hall. Valderas’s girlfriend got chopped up and stuck in a Dumpster, the little girl wound up in hospital, and now Sandià has the whole world looking for two people—the dead girl’s sister, and the guy who offed his delivery boys in that house and ran away with the cash. Real simple.”
Madigan nodded. Freddy Virago had the thing nailed to a tee. What he didn’t know was that one of those people was sitting right there ahead of him, and the other was in Madigan’s house making dinner.
“This is the war we fight,” Virago said.
“We go to the mattresses, right?” Madigan said, and he smiled ruefully.
“You’re going now?” Virago asked as Madigan started to get up.
“I am, yes.”
“Good to see you. Like I said, it always surprises me how you’re still alive.”
“Surprises me too, Freddy.”
Virago walked Madigan to the door. Caterina appeared. Madigan wished her farewell. “Do good,” he told her. “Try not to give your mom too much heartache . . . You gotta save all of that for the men in your life.”
“Bye, Mr. Vincent,” she said coyly, and she smiled like the little girl she once was.
Madigan shook hands with Virago. Virago gripped his shoulder.
“You take care of yourself,” he told Madigan, “because sure as shit no one else is going to. You know that, right?”
“I know that, Freddy.”
Freddy Virago closed the door and went back to the kitchen.
Madigan walked the block to his car and got in. His conversation with Freddy had done exactly what he’d hoped: confirmed that there was no part of this that he didn’t already know. Before he pulled away and headed home he thought about the hole he’d dug for himself.
This really was it. This really had to be the end of everything. This was not a life he could go on living forever.
44
MY DREAMS
Isabella was waiting for him. That’s how it felt. It felt like she was waiting for him, and it felt like he was coming home to Ivonne. He remembered that feeling, and it was good.
She had gone through all the clothes he’d bought her, and she smiled and said, “You had someone get these for you, right?”
“I did, yes.”
“I can tell.”
Madigan smiled. He shrugged off his jacket. His shoulders ached. He took off his holster and set it atop the refrigerator. “You can tell, how?”
“Because you don’t seem like a man who’s used to dealing with anyone but yourself.”
He didn’t respond, didn’t know how to respond, so he reached for a glass, the bottle of Jack, got some ice cubes from the freezer drawer. “You want one?”
She shook her head. “Some of this will be fine,” she said, holding up the bottle of rosé. She opened it, poured a glass, set the bottle aside.
“Whatever you made smells good,” Madigan told her. He sat down with his drink, lit a cigarette.
“You shouldn’t smoke.”
“So the world keeps telling me,” he replied.
She sat facing him. Her hands cupped the glass, as if she wanted to feel the coolness radiate through her. “Today has been a little better. When you told me Melissa had been moved, that she was going to be fine, I started to feel a little less scared.”
“Don’t do that yet.”
“What?”
“Get less scared. Sandià is looking for you. He will keep on looking until he finds you, or until someone stops him looking.”
Isabella closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Madigan saw her cheeks color up.
“Your sister,” he said.
She nodded.
“Sandià is a truly, truly dangerous man. You know why he has this name, right? Sandià? The Watermelon Man?”
“I know the story.”
“Well, then you know that exactly what they say he did, well, he did it.”
“He killed my sister . . . He just murdered David, and then he killed my sister . . .”
“David tried to cross him. David was stupid. You get involved with someone like Sandià, then you are already in trouble . . .” Madigan hesitated; he was speaking of himself. He was in trouble, had been in trouble the entire time he’d known the man. He also knew that he was speaking to Melissa Arias’s mother. This terrible irony did not escape his attention. Her daughter, the daughter she now felt so much better about, would never have been in the hospital had it not been for Madigan. He imagined Isabella’s reaction if she were to ever discover the truth. She was seeking refuge in the house of a man responsible for the near-fatal wounding of her only child, a man so closely associated with Maribel’s murderer that Sandià himself may just as well have shared dinner with them. Was he—Madigan—not just as evil as any of them?
“Doesn’t matter how stupid he was . . .” she started, and then she caught herself. “People like Sandià take as much as they can and they hurt people as much as they can. Maybe they think this will proof them against the hurt and pain caused by others, or maybe it is all they can do, and they do it because if they don’t have this then they have a life of nothing.”
“People like Sandià are just plain evil,” he said, aware of the fact that he could so e
asily replace Sandià with us.
“You believe that?” she asked.
“It is necessary for me to believe it.”
“I don’t.”
Madigan frowned. “What? Even after what happened to David and Maribel . . . after what happened to Melissa?”
“I think people start out good,” she said, “and then every time they do a bad thing a little of their inherent goodness is taken away. Eventually there is nothing left but the bad. Like when you hurt someone, you give them the power to steal your dreams, and eventually all that remains are the nightmares.”
“That’s a very beautiful concept,” Madigan said, “but somehow it seems a little innocent and naive.”
“So what do you think?”
Madigan swallowed most of his drink. He reached for the bottle and refilled his glass a good two inches. On his own it would have been three inches, maybe four, but for some reason he was concerned with her impression of him. He had nearly killed her daughter, but he was worried she might think him an alcoholic? Madigan was losing it—he knew it—but there was nothing he could do about the way he felt. Later, he would go upstairs and drop a couple of Xanax.
“What do I think?” he echoed. “I think some people are just born bad, and once they start out that way, there’s very little you can do for them. People around them spend their whole lives in chaos. Everything is damage control. Everything is geared toward minimizing the destruction. You speak to some of these people out here, the junkies, the dealers, guys who were in juvy before they were out of diapers, guys who are gonna spend more years of their lives inside than out, people who are going to die in prison . . . Hell, speak to some of these people and tell me that people are basically good.”
“You need to be reminded of the basic goodness of humanity.”
“I need to be reminded that there’s a reason to get up and go to work each day. Things have gotten worse, no question. It’s not that people do more bad. It’s just that more people are doing bad than ever.”