CHAPTER TEN
THE RIDE
Danny got into the Pontiac. The man beside him closed the door. Nobody said anything.
The driver pulled away from the curb and joined traffic as though he had been doing nothing more suspicious than waiting for his wife outside Macy’s.
Danny sat in the back with the second man. He smelled cigarettes, wool, and something medicinal. The man beside him was perhaps forty-five. Dark suit. White shirt. Plain tie. No jewelry. His shoes were polished but not new.
Danny looked at his hands. No ring. No scars. Clean nails.
“You always inspect people?” the man asked.
“Only when they’re sitting next to me.”
The man almost smiled.
The Pontiac turned west. Danny watched the streets. Nobody had told him where they were going. That was beginning to happen a lot.
The driver said, “You know Salvatore Rizzo?”
Danny looked at the back of his head. “I’ve met him.”
“That wasn’t the question.” Danny waited.
The driver waited too.
“I know who he is.”
“Better answer.”
They drove through SoHo rather briskly for a crosstown jaunt, with hardly any traffic at that hour.
The man beside Danny took out a pack of Camels and offered him one. Danny shook his head. The man lit one for himself.
“You know Nicky Bellomo?”
“Unfortunately.”
That got a laugh from the driver. Not much of one. But enough.
“Everybody knows Nicky,” the driver said.
“That must be hard on everybody.”
The man beside Danny looked out the window. Danny could see the corner of his mouth move.
Good. They had senses of humor. That didn’t make them harmless. It made them harder to classify. The Pontiac stopped at a light. A delivery truck pulled alongside them. The driver glanced at it once. The man beside Danny glanced at it once. Danny glanced at both men.
Interesting. The light changed. The truck went straight. The Pontiac turned.
“Where are we going?” Danny asked.
“Uptown.”
“I figured that out,” Danny replied.
“Then you’re doing fine.”
They drove another ten blocks, and by now Danny started keeping track of the turns.
Left. Right. Straight for six blocks. Another right. The man beside him said, “You don’t have to remember the route.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you?”
Danny looked at him. “Something to do.”
This time the man smiled openly. The driver didn’t. “You’ve been asking questions,” the driver said.
“No I haven’t,” Danny said in a flat tone.
“People say you have.”
“People say a lot of things.”
“That’s true.”
Danny waited. He had learned something since entering Tony Spada’s world. Silence was free. Most people couldn’t stand getting something for nothing. Eventually somebody paid. This time the driver paid first. “Somebody thinks there’s a package in New York.”
Danny said nothing.
“A special package maybe?” he insisted.
Still Danny said nothing. The driver looked at him in the mirror.
“You don’t seem curious.”
“I’m in a car with two men who won’t tell me their names. I’m saving my curiosity.”
The man beside him laughed.
“He’s all right.”
“We’ll see.”
They continued north. Danny watched the buildings change. The man beside him flicked ash into the ashtray.
“Ever hear of Oak Ridge?”
“Sure. Who hasn’t?”
“What do you know about it?”
“It’s somewhere in Tennessee, I think.”
“What else?”
“They make things.”
“What kind of things?”
Danny looked at him.
“The kind of things you don’t discuss in Pontiacs.”
The cigarette stopped halfway to the man’s mouth. The driver looked into the mirror again. For the first time, neither man seemed amused. Danny filed that away.
The Pontiac turned onto a quieter street. A black sedan was parked half a block behind them. Danny had seen it before. Not the car. The pattern.
Two men in front. Nobody moving. Nobody looking at anything. Danny turned his eyes forward again.
The driver said, “Problem?”
“No.”
“You looked back.”
“I’ve been looking everywhere.”
The man beside him shifted slightly.
Not much. Just enough to put his right hand slightly closer to the front of his coat.
Danny noticed. So did the driver. The Pontiac accelerated. The sedan behind them pulled away from the curb. There it was. Danny settled deeper into the seat.
“Friends of yours?” he risked. Neither man answered. That was an answer.
The driver made a sudden right. The sedan followed. Another right. It followed again.
The man beside Danny reached inside his coat.
Danny said, “Don’t.”
The man’s hand stopped.
He looked at Danny.
“Why?”
“Because they haven’t done anything yet.”
“They’re following us.”
“So am I.”
For half a second there was silence.
Then the driver laughed.
A real laugh this time.
“Kid’s got a point.”
The man removed his hand from his coat. The Pontiac slowed. So did the sedan. Then something unexpected happened. The sedan passed them. Nobody inside looked over. It continued up the street and disappeared around the corner.
The driver watched it go.
“Well,” he said, “that happened.”
Danny said, “Maybe they were just going somewhere.”
The man beside him crushed out his cigarette.
“No.”
Danny looked at him.
The man’s face had changed.
Not fear. Recognition.
“Who were they?” The man didn’t answer.
Danny tried another question. “Mob?”
“No.”
“Police?”
“No.”
“Government?”
The man looked at Danny.
“I truly don’t know.”
The Pontiac moved again.
Three blocks later it stopped in front of an ordinary brownstone. No guards in front. No obvious sign of anything. No parked Cadillacs. Nothing to distinguish it from twenty other buildings on the block.
The driver turned around.
“You’re going inside.”
“Who’s inside?”
“Somebody who wants to meet you.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Everybody has a name.”
Danny opened the door.
The man beside him said, “Marino.”
Danny stopped.
It was the first time either of them had used his name.
“Yeah?”
“If anybody asks, we never picked you up.”
Danny looked at him.
“Who would ask?”
The man reached across and pulled the door shut.
The Pontiac drove away.
Danny stood on the sidewalk.
He looked at the brownstone.
Then he looked down the street.
The black sedan was parked at the corner.
The two men were still inside.
Watching him.
Danny sighed.
“Everybody knows where I am except me.”
He climbed the steps and rang the bell.
The door opened almost immediately.
A man Danny had never seen before stood inside. Sixty, perhaps. Gray hair. Shirtsleeves. No tie. He looked Danny over carefully. Then he stepped aside.
“Come in, Mr. Marino.”
Danny entered.
The door closed behind him.
The man said:
“We need to talk about the bomb.”
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CHAPTER TEN — THE RIDE
BREAKDOWN
Chapter Ten puts Danny inside the mystery instead of merely looking at it.
He gets into the black Pontiac with two men whose identity remains deliberately unclear. They know about Salvatore Rizzo, Nicky Bellomo, and Oak Ridge. They know Danny’s name. They may be government agents, mob-connected operators, private investigators, or something else entirely.
Then another black car begins following them.
The important point is that the Pontiac men don’t seem to know who the other men are either.
That changes everything.
Danny is no longer caught between two clearly defined sides. There may be several groups operating at once, each watching the others and each possessing only part of the information.
The conversation introduces the possibility of a mysterious “package” connected somehow with Oak Ridge. Nobody actually establishes that the package exists or says exactly what it contains.
Danny continues doing what he does best: listening, watching, joking just enough to make people underestimate him, and noticing what frightens people who are supposed to know what’s going on.
The chapter ends at an ordinary brownstone, where yet another unidentified man tells Danny:
“We need to talk about the bomb.”
That sounds like an answer.
It isn’t.
It’s another question.
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Here’s the Bardo bus now!!!
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See You At The Top!!!
gorby