Текст книги "The Long Game"

Автор книги: J. Fynn

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 12 страниц)

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE SHRIEK OF the teakettle startled me as it filled the tiny carriage house. I turned the burner off and poured the steaming water into the mug I’d already prepared. I’d been lost in thought, staring through the window above the sink that looked out over a line of trees separating my landlord’s property from its neighbors. I’d never quite understood why country people always insisted on cutting themselves off from one another when being part of a community offered so many comforts.

Comforts like Maggie’s tea. I smiled to myself as I took a sip, but even the connection to her wasn’t enough to lift my spirits for long. I sighed and carried the mug to the table. A matchbook from some two-bit motel was still on the tabletop, apparently abandoned by Judd in his rush to clear out last night. I swiped it aside and set my mug down, then flopped onto the chair to continue my wallowing in relative comfort.

I’d fallen in love with Spencer, lost her, and still managed to screw up a con twenty years in the making. Things couldn’t possibly have gone worse. My chest felt heavy as I allowed a moment for that bitter reality to sink in.

This con would’ve meant finally gaining the status I’d always wanted. It would’ve meant a whole new life for me and for my family. But now we’d be worse off than we’d been before. I’d be lucky if I could even go back after Judd got done running his mouth. But it was the thought of Spencer that really killed me. By now, Tommy would’ve told her everything, and she’d never forgive me.

I’d been up most of the night, and it was Spencer my thoughts kept returning to over and over. I was afraid of what Pop might do when I got home, of how I’d be treated by the rest of the clan, but none of it seemed to matter when the image of Spencer’s face appeared. I sighed heavily and pushed back from the table again. I took the mug to the sink and poured out most of the tea.

I glanced at the clock. Ten in the morning. My bus home didn’t leave until tonight, but I was already packed, thanks to a sleepless night, and the bustle of 30th Street Station might be enough to take my mind off the mess I’d gotten myself into. At least for a while.

I pulled a hooded sweatshirt over my head and sat down to put my sneakers on. As I laced them, my phone started to dance across the coffee table. I jogged across the room to answer it before the buzzing stopped. It was probably Judd calling to yell at me again now that he was halfway home and clear of any potential run-in with the law. The phone’s display glowed, and the buzzing persisted as I fumbled to answer it before he hung up. Travelers, as a rule, didn’t use cell phones because they were too easy to trace, but I had to admit they did come in handy for this job, particularly when you were trying to blend in with a bunch of college students.

I didn’t recognize the number on the phone’s display. Only a handful of people had my number, and this call wasn’t coming from any of them. Jimmy Boy and I had both gotten burner phones before I left. He was even more opposed to the idea than I’d been, but he’d promised to keep his phone with him day or night in case I needed to get a hold of him fast. But this wasn’t his number.

I pressed the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

Tommy’s stony voice came through the speaker. “I need to speak with you.”

“I’m listening,” I said.

“Not on the phone,” Tommy answered. “Can you meet me in the city?”

I thought for a long time before answering. What could Tommy possibly want to meet me for after last night? He must’ve gotten my number from Spencer, which meant this was about her. If it was, did I want to hear what he had to say? In the end, curiosity and the fleeting hope I might be able to salvage the situation—whether with Spencer or Tommy—got the better of me. “Name the place.”

* * *

Tír na nÓg had heavy oak doors that creaked as I pushed through them. I glanced around and squinted in the dim light. It was fairly crowded considering it was a bit early for the lunch rush, but there were still plenty of empty seats. The bar—a mammoth construction of deeply stained wood and gleaming brass fixtures—dominated the room. I scanned the patrons scattered around its edge. Two young women talked animatedly to one another over their salads. They ignored a second pair of well-dressed businessmen across the bar who appeared to be long past their first drinks of the day. The men waved and winked at the girls, who, in turn, erupted into stifled giggles but otherwise pretended not to have noticed. An old man, who looked as if he’d been in the same spot for so long he’d begun to grow roots, nursed a pint of thick, brown liquid and grumbled occasionally at one of the televisions mounted above the bar.

“Welcome! Can I help yah?” I turned my attention to the source of the familiar accent and met the eyes of a pretty brunette. She beamed at me, her hands splayed over the swollen belly that strained the fabric of her cableknit sweater. I’d known Tír na nÓg was an Irish pub but hadn’t expected to be greeted by an actual Irish lass. I returned her broad smile with one of my own.

“I’m supposed to be meeting someone,” I told her. “So I think I’ll sit at the bar if that’s all right?” I pointed in the direction of the seat I intended to occupy.

She nodded. “Right, of course. Help yerself to it.” She handed me a thick menu. “You can have a look at this while you’re waiting.”

I thanked her and made my way to the far side of the bar where fewer people sat and where I would have a clear view of the door. I set the menu aside and ordered a soda, though what I really wanted was a pint to steady my nerves. I planted my elbows on the bar and pressed my mouth and nose into my clasped hands, watching the door over the top of my knuckles. Ignoring the soda that had been placed in front of me, my feet toyed with the bottom rung of the barstool, my eyes trained on the doors. My nerves jumped each time they swung open, only settling again when it wasn’t Tommy who walked through them.

As I began to wonder if the man had changed his mind, the doors swung again, and Tommy Costello appeared. His black overcoat hung open, revealing an expensive charcoal suit and a lavender silk tie that reminded me of Maggie’s herb garden. I watched as Tommy chatted with the pretty brunette, who laughed when he patted her belly. Still smiling, Tommy glanced up, but as he met my gaze, his expression changed. He set his mouth in a hard line, and his eyes narrowed. Tommy turned his attention back to the hostess and smiled again, but it was strained this time. He said something, she nodded, and then he made his way down the broad side of the bar. I lifted my drink to take a sip as he slid into the seat next to me and laid his soft leather briefcase on top of the stool on his other side.

“Tommy!” The bartender, a hulking man with a thick brogue, flung a dirty towel over his shoulder and lumbered toward us. He slapped his hand on the bar, his broad palm thumping on the careworn wood. The sound made me jump—my nerves were still a little raw, apparently—and I sputtered as the carbonated liquid burned my windpipe.

The bartender chuckled. “Sorry, lad.” He reached his long arm around my shoulder to clap me on the back. “Didn’t mean to startle yeh. I haven’t seen this fella in a donkey’s year.”

I nodded and cleared my throat a few times. I held up a hand to indicate I was all right, and the man could quit patting me now before he left a bruise.

“Been pretty busy, Ian,” Tommy offered by way of explanation. He smiled, but it was the same tense and humorless smile he’d given the hostess.

“Sure, sure.” Ian nodded, accepting the weak excuse. “What’ll it be then?” he asked but immediately supplied the answer himself. “A pint of plain. Done.” He tapped the bar to punctuate the decision and left us to fetch the drink.

“It’s a nice place, isn’t it?” Tommy said without turning to look at me. I was surprised by the small talk but nodded in agreement. “You know,” Tommy continued, “I first came in here because of Maggie.”

Confused, I turned my head to look at him. “Maggie?”

Tommy nodded. “She told me this old story about Tír na nÓg a long time ago. She called it an island off the edge of the map where the fairies live and said you can only get there if you’re—”

“Invited by them,” I finished for him. “Yeah, that was my favorite bedtime story when I was little. Oisín was invited there by ‘Niamh of the Golden Hair,’” I said in my mam’s breathy lilt.

Tommy smiled to himself. “That’s the one,” he said. “She talked about the place as if she’d grown up there. Your mother was quite the storyteller.”

“Still is.”

Tommy chuckled, but then his expression turned dark. “I have to say, I’m pretty surprised Maggie let you come up here and do this.”

“She couldn’t have stopped me if she wanted to,” I said.

Tommy nodded but said nothing. Ian returned, carrying a pint of the same thick, dark liquid the old man had been drinking and set it down in front of Tommy. “Can I get you lads anything else?” We shook our heads, and he shrugged. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

Tommy thanked him and took a large swig of the stout. Ian hesitated a moment. He looked first at Tommy, then at me before shrugging again and moving back to the other side of the bar where a new group had just sat down.

I waited for a moment before I spoke again. “Can I ask you something?” There was no response from Tommy, so I continued. “What did Spencer say when you told her about me?”

Tommy’s brow knitted, and his jaw tightened. “I didn’t.”

It wasn’t what I’d expected, and I gaped at him in open-mouthed shock.

“I didn’t tell her for her sake, not yours, so don’t get any ideas,” Tommy hastened to add. “If you try to contact her again, it’ll be the first thing I do.”

“For her sake or yours?” I asked. “Telling her who I am would raise a few questions about who you are.”

“She knows who I am,” he said and took another swig of his drink.

“She doesn’t know where you came from.”

“Would you have preferred I told her?” Tommy turned to look at me for the first time since he’d sat down.

“Maybe. She deserves to know the truth, but I don’t want her to get hurt.”

“Enough.” Tommy dropped the pint back onto the bar. The dark liquid sloshed but didn’t spill. “I’m not here for your advice on how to deal with my daughter. I managed to protect her for nineteen years before you showed up, and I’ll do it long after you’re out of her life.”

“Fine,” I said. “Then why did you want to meet me?”

“Because I want you—all of you—out of her life now. For good,” Tommy said. “And I think there’s only one way I’ll get what I want.” He shifted on his stool and reached into the briefcase. When his hand reappeared, he was holding a battered old book with a leather cord wrapped around its thick middle. “Here.” He dropped the book on the bar between us, and it landed with a dull thud. “Take it and get the fuck out of my city.”

Tommy’s abrupt demand stung more than I would’ve expected. Despite the situation and despite what Tommy had done to my da, I realized I actually respected the man. The idea unsettled me a bit, but I tried not to show it as I put a hand on the book to slide it my way. Tommy watched me, stone-faced.

“What’s the big deal about this thing anyway?” I lifted it and turned it over in my hands. There were no markings on the faded green cover, nothing impressive about the binding or the outside edge of the yellowing pages.

“You mean you don’t even know what you came all this way for?” Tommy scoffed. “So you’re just Michael’s errand boy.”

I scowled at him. Truth was, though, he wasn’t too far off. Pop had sent me to get his book back, but I wasn’t even allowed to open the damn thing. I wasn’t good for more than playing fetch, just like Judd had said. “He trusted me to get something he’s been waiting on for twenty years. I think that makes me a little more than an errand boy.”

Tommy considered this for a moment. “Open it.”

My fingers hesitated over the leather cord. I had my instructions, but then, I’m pretty sure Pop hadn’t intended me to fall in love with Tommy’s daughter and get caught trying to break into a safe either, so what was one more screw up? I hooked a finger through the cord and undid the loose knot. I unwound the cord and let it drop into my lap. The book fell open to a page marked with a green ribbon. A list of company names ran down one column of the ledger’s page, and dollar amounts—big ones—were written in another. I scanned the page, frowning at the familiar names. I’d seen them before, but where?

“They’re shell companies. Michael used them to launder the money he and his sons bring in, along with the percentage he takes from other clan members. A lot of them don’t exist anymore, but there are a handful he still uses and a few more that may still be operating under a different name. It only takes a little paperwork to have a brand-new company.”

The list in Tommy’s notebook. Names with asterisks, questions marks, lines slashed through them. He’d been trying to follow the money. Trying to figure out how Pop’s operation really worked. I flipped through a few more pages, found more names—both for companies and individuals. This ledger was a record of every shady transaction Pop had made for years before Tommy stole it, and there was enough there to earn him and several others a lot of prison time. No wonder he’d pursued Tommy for twenty years. I snapped the book shut and wrapped the leather cord around it again, then laid it on the bar.

I jutted out my chin and pushed it toward him, not wanting to touch it again. “Why are you giving this to me?”

“Like I said before, every decision I make is to protect Spencer. If I thought there was another way to keep her safe, I’d do it, but Popisn’t going to stop coming after me until he gets this book back, and I’m done running.” It was obvious it annoyed Tommy to give in to blackmail. “But let me be very clear. If you so much as think about my daughter again and I catch wind of it, I will devote the rest of my life to ruining the rest of yours. Understood?”

I nodded, believing him to be a man of his word. I looked down at the ledger on the bar, thinking about what all this meant. I had what I’d come for, but taking it back to Pop meant betraying Spencer all over again. Tommy had taken this ledger as protection for himself and his daughter. It was his only bargaining chip to halt the wrath of Pop Sheedy.

“They’re going to come after you,” I said. I hadn’t realized what the ledger really meant until that moment, but now I was sure what I said was true.

“Probably,” Tommy said. He stared down into the wide mouth of his glass.

“There’s nothing to stop Pop from killing you for what you did to him.”

“Not a damn thing,” Tommy said.

I pushed the ledger to him with my fingertips. “I can’t take it.”

Now it was Tommy’s turn to gape at me. “What do you mean you ‘can’t take it’? You came all this way, tricked my daughter into thinking she was in love with you, then tried to break into my safe in the middle of a dinner party to get it. Now I’m handing it to you, practically giftwrapped, and you ‘can’t take it’?”

The bartender glanced our way, and I gave him an easy smile. Nothing to see here, Ian. He watched us for a second longer, then went back to wiping glasses with his grungy towel.

“I can’t take it,” I repeated, leaning a little closer so I could speak in a quieter voice. “I may have tricked her into thinking she’s in love with me, but I know I’m in love with her. I can’t take this book because it’s the only thing protecting you from Pop. Something tells me he wants more than just that book. If you give it back to him, it won’t be the end. Only the beginning.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you care what happens to me?”

“Whatever Pop does to you, it’ll hurt her. You forget, I know what it’s like not to have a father around. I’m not going to let that happen to her.”

Tommy stared at me as if he couldn’t decide whether to kick my ass or write me into his will. After a few seconds, he slid the ledger back into the briefcase. “This doesn’t mean I’m going to let you see Spencer,” he said, securing the brass latch on the front flap of the case.

“I know. I can’t keep lying to her, and if I tell her the truth, she wouldn’t want to see me anyway. That’s not why I’m doing this.”

“Why are you doing this?”

I slid from the barstool. “I told you. Whatever happens to you hurts Spencer. I’m not going to be a part of that. No matter what you did to my da.”

He frowned skeptically. “And that’s it. That’s all you’re after?”

“Well, there is something I was wondering about.”

“What’s that?”

“You said I’d never be able to guess the combination to your safe, but it’s a number I should know. I just wondered what it was.”

“You want me to tell you my safe combination?” Tommy laughed.

“Hey, you just handed me the book, and I gave it back. I’d say the chances of me trying to get into your safe again are pretty low.”

“Fair enough,” Tommy said. “It’s 1031.” Tommy stood and grabbed his suitcase. He fished a ten-dollar bill from his coat pocket and tossed it onto the bar. “Have a good trip home, Shay. I look forward to never seeing you again.”

Without a backward glance to me, Tommy waved his goodbye to Ian and the pregnant hostess, then pushed through the heavy doors and disappeared. I stood next to my own stool, rolling the numbers around in my head. 1031. Ten thirty-one. The numbers were definitely familiar, as Tommy’d predicted, but damned if I could figure out why.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE THUNDERING KNOCK jarred me from the sleep I hadn’t meant to fall into. I sat bolt upright on the sofa where I’d dozed and blinked, trying to figure out what had woken me. The pounding came again, rattling the door in its frame. I rubbed my eyes and squinted in the dim light.

Apparently, it had gotten dark sometime between leaving Tommy at the bar and now. Shit. I was going to have to hurry if I was going to make my bus.

Another knock.

“I’m coming! Christ.”

I reached for the knob and had barely turned it when the door burst open and Tommy barreled through, knocking me into the wall as he went past.

“Where is she, you lying sack of shit? I can’t believe I bought all that crap about how much you cared about her.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I tried to play catch up. Nothing about this made sense.

“Why didn’t you take the book when I offered it to you? Isn’t that what you came for?”

“It was, but—”

“What do you think you’re going to get out of me by taking her?”

I shook my head. I had to be dreaming. “Tommy, what are you—”

“What kind of coward kidnaps a nineteen-year-old girl? Goddamn it, Shay, tell me where she is. Now.” Tommy turned on me suddenly and grabbed my shirt in both hands. He slammed my back against the wall, and only the tips of my toes scraped the floor. “Tell me.”

I couldn’t do more than blink at him. She? Kidnap? “Tommy, I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did something happen to Spencer?”

“Like you don’t know.”

My mind switched from blank to panicked in under a second. I shoved him back and heard my shirt tear as patches of the fabric went with him. “I don’t. I left you at the bar and came straight back here. My bus leaves for New Orleans—” I checked the wall clock. “—in one hour.” I pointed to the ticket still on the table where I’d dropped it.

Tommy glanced down at the ticket, then back up at me. “Is that supposed to prove something?”

“I’m not sure what you want me to prove. Tear the place apart if you want, but she’s not here. What’s this shit about kidnapping?”

“What do you think? I got the voicemail message your friend left,” Tommy said. He shoved a hand into the pocket of his suit jacket and pulled a thin, black phone from inside. He slid his thumb across the screen, flicked at a small green icon, and held the phone up for me to hear. Judd’s voice was gleeful as it played through the speaker: “Well, hey there, Saint Thomas. I’d say it’s a pleasure, but to be honest, it makes me sick even to be talking to the recording of a dirty snake like you. But I guess sometimes we all gotta get down on our bellies, don’t we? See, the thing is, you have something I want, and now I have something you want. I would suggest you call me back at your earliest convenience. Assuming you ever want to see this tasty little daughter of yours again.” Judd paused. There was the unmistakable sound of a woman—of Spencer—sobbing. Then it was muffled again by a closing door. I was sure then that I would kill him. I didn’t care if it took me the rest of my life; I would snap his neck with my bare hands before I took my last breath. The message continued. “But Tommy, no rush. I’m sure Cherry and I can do something to pass the time.” I could practically feel his windpipe collapse under my fingers.

“You’re telling me you had nothing to do with this?” Tommy asked, though he’d clearly made up his mind already.

“Tommy, I swear I didn’t.”

“But you know who did.”

I hesitated. I might not have directly helped Judd, but I was the reason he was here. “Judd Sheedy,” I said. “He came up a few weeks after me to make sure I got the job done.”

“Michael’s youngest boy?” Tommy sounded incredulous. “You’re telling me he pulled this off on his own? That little asshat couldn’t keep the drool in his mouth the last time I saw him.”

“Still can’t. But he’s crazy as hell, and there’s no telling what he’ll do to Spencer if we don’t find him fast.”

“Do you have any idea where he might have taken her?” Tommy looked sick at the idea of asking me for help, but he was out of options.

“I don’t—” I stopped. My eyes flickered to the matchbook still on the table where Judd had left it.

Telling Tommy where Judd had taken Spencer was as good as drawing a line in the sand and then doing the long jump right over it, but I was out of options too. Spencer’s safety was the only thing that mattered. I walked to the table and slid the matchbook off of it, then turned it over in my palm. I tossed it to Tommy, and he caught it in one hand and looked down at it.

“How fast can you get us there?”