"Death Vows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stevenson Richard)

Chapter Twenty

I picked Timmy up, and on the way back to Great Barrington I told him, “I want you to take a separate room at the motel. Somebody might be coming after me there.”

“Coming after you? What’s that supposed to mean?”

I explained that Johnny Montarsi, one of the well-informed local goons Thorne Cornwallis had referred me to, seemed to know who Michael Sturdivant and a dubious character from Schenectady named Cheap Maloney were, and Montarsi seemed inordinately interested in where I was staying and the fact that I was somehow connecting these two men to the Sturdivant killing.

“Jeez, Don!”

“And the thing is, this might be my most direct route to these two bozos. That is, baiting them.”

“Baiting them to do what?”

“To show up. So I can talk to them. It’s Cheap Maloney who’ll have some insights to offer, I’m willing to bet.”

“What if Cheap’s most insightful expression comes by way of a lead pipe?”

“I can still handle situations like that. Are you suggesting that I’m over the hill, Timothy?”

“You? Oh, honey, never. Just because the AARP has your mailing address doesn’t mean the Cosa Nostra does.”

“This is not Cosa Nostra, not that big, I don’t think. But I do believe Jim Sturdivant was involved in something that made some branch of organized crime want him eliminated.

The hot-tub loans? No, I don’t think it’s connected to that. That was just some weird perversion Sturdivant enjoyed. Getting off by humiliating gay men because he was so ashamed of being gay himself. This is something else he did that got him killed, and there’s circumstantial evidence that his brother, Michael – who may have mob connections in both Providence and Schenectady – is somehow involved.”

“What evidence is there besides the fact that Michael was in the area earlier in the week before the murder?”

We were attempting to pass through the charming town of Stockbridge, with its Norman Rockwell Main Street and SUV gridlock. The rain had let up, and I could make out blue sky off to the west. As we sat stalled in the cloud of carbon monoxide that provided a cheap high for the tourists in rocking chairs on the front porch of the Red Lion Inn, I said, “Michael was here just before the murder. He’s a wiseguy. The killing has the earmarks of a mob hit. This Montarsi mob guy seemed freaked that I was making the connection.”

“Oh.”

“Of course, what I’m saying here is, a man may have been involved in the murder of his own brother. I hate to think that.”

Timmy said, “It does sound pretty biblical for Berkshire County.”

“Not so Tanglewood-on-Parade, no.”

“But Shakespeare and Company is just up the road in Lenox. That’s a Berkshire institution, and there’s plenty of fratricide in Shakespeare. In Lear, Richard the Third, Macbeth. And of course Claudius and Hamlet the father.”

We edged forward another eight feet, and I said, “And Michael Corleone had Fredo shot.”

“That isn’t so Berkshires, except for the operatic score.”

“I’m beginning to think the Sturdivants might be even worse in their own way than the Corleones,” I said, as the car inched past the Red Lion and around the corner onto the road to Great Barrington. “Which would make sense. In my limited experience, real-life mob guys are much dumber and meaner than the Puzo-Coppola crowd, entertaining though they were. That’s why mobsters love the Godfather movies. The films make them look tragic instead of like the worthless narcissistic twits they really are.”

Timmy said, “What about Barry Fields’ family, the ones he was so worried would show up? He insists they’re not criminals, you said. Where do they fit in?”

“That I haven’t figured out. Or the place in all this of Bill Moore, the assassin, who is in Washington supposedly being helpful in his very odd way.”

“Or Bud Radziwill, the Kennedy cousin.”

“I need to talk to Bud again. He knows too much about Fields to be getting off the hook so easily. This guy needs to be pressed a little.”

“Pressed?”

“Persuaded.”

“How would you do that? I mean, in a way that isn’t hurtful.”

“His friend Barry is a mental wreck. When I saw him in jail, Fields looked like he could be crushed for life by Thorne Cornwallis’s idiocy. If Radziwill wants to help get Barry out of this, he has to tell me everything he knows. I’ll appeal to his conscience. He especially has to tell me all he knows about Bill Moore – whose pal Jean Watrous, I found out, worked in the counterterrorism division of the FBI. Was Moore assigned there too? And if so, what does that mean, if anything?”

We were cruising south now on Route 7, the sun breaking through the clouds over Monument Mountain, its piney crags looming ahead of us. Timmy said, “I thought Moore was going to talk to you himself when he gets back from Washington.”

“So he says.” My cell phone twittered. “This is Strachey.”

“I’ve got news about Mr. Maloney.” It was my Albany cop friend.

“Is he bad?”

“Very. Horace Maloney, known as Cheap, did eight years in Dannemora on attempted murder, plus lots of mean, petty stuff as a youngster. My information is, Cheap is currently a mob enforcer and probably whackman. Cheap is an hombre to steer clear of, Donald, if that’s your question.”

“This is helpful. Thanks, pal.”

“No trouble.”

Timmy looked over at me warily and said, “Was that about Cheap Maloney?”

“It was.”

“And is he a bad man?”

“You could say so.”

“Are we still going back to the motel?”

“Yes and no.”

Timmy said, “Let me think about that.”

“Timothy, you’re going to take your car and spend the night at home in Albany. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“And I’m going to park my car with the New York tags registered in my name in front of our room. But I’m going to rent another car and spend the night in it at a spot in the motel parking lot with a good view of my car and the door to our room. I’ll be armed and I’ll be careful.”

“How will you stay awake? You’ll doze off.”

“Coffee. Excedrin. I’ll manage.”

“Fear should help.”

“That too.”

“Is this guy Cheap really dangerous?”

“I’m told he is, yes. I’m going to call Joe Toomey, the State Police dick, and fill him in. Cornwallis is stuck on the wrong track, but Toomey may have an open mind.”

“Yeah, and an arsenal bigger than yours.”

I said, “Timmy, in all the years we’ve been together, this is the first time you’ve seen fit to denigrate my arsenal. I’m hurt.”

“Better your feelings be hurt than your kneecaps, or your skull. Be careful, Don.”

“That’s my plan,” I said, and truly believed at the time that I knew how to be.