Jerry answered the phone with, “Yo.”
“Where’s Julio?”
“Working the crowd outside this church, place used to be a warehouse. You oughtta see him. Got the ladies all cackling, crowding around like he’s giving away candy. What’s up with you?”
“I’m sitting in a tree watching the Neally house. Tatyana just left, following the maid. She took off in a brand-new canary-yellow Escalade.”
“Must be the wife’s car.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. I’m hoping she’ll stop at the market or someplace and let Tatyana in on what’s happening.”
“I don’t like you sitting surveillance with no backup. You keep your phone on. We’ll get back over to you soon as we can.”
Wayne cut the connection, then checked to ensure the cell phone’s ringer was set on silent buzz. He slapped the lid shut, stowed it in his pocket, and lifted his head just in time to watch a limo pull into the Neally drive.
The stretch Lincoln had all its windows down. There was just the driver and one man in back. Wayne knew it was a man because of the jacket sleeve and the edge of starched white French cuffs and flash of gold cuff links. The man was hidden behind a newspaper. Another day, another deal. Wayne’s perch was a live oak whose branches grew out and over and dug back into the earth again, following the wall that fronted the Neally estate. Unless someone looked straight up, Wayne was invisible.
Wayne waited until the limo purred up the long drive and disappeared around the side of the house. He waited until the silence took charge once more. The street was empty save for the wavy heat rising off the asphalt and the golden rivulets of afternoon sunlight lancing through the higher limbs.
Wayne rose from his crouch and climbed up one level. A bough thicker than his waist extended a full thirty feet into the Neally front yard. Wayne scampered out to where the limb began rocking under his weight. He crouched and readied himself to drop to the ground. The house was just visible through the foliage, about seventy yards to his left.
He stopped.
The sprinkler system for the house next door switched on. Wayne listened to the metallic rush and smelled the wet. He swiveled slightly and studied the Neally house. The yard and the home looked utterly empty. A squirrel leapt from the ground onto the tree about fifteen feet from where he crouched. Wayne listened to the squirrel’s claws scramble across the bark and felt a rising sense of dread.
He crawled back along the tree limb to his lair. Far more than the surrounding leaves blocked his vision. Wayne pulled out his phone. He stopped in the process of opening it. He did not bow his head so much as curl his entire body around the apparatus. What was it Victoria had said he needed? His chest quivered with a laugh that was far more irony than humor. If gut-level truth counted for anything, he had prayed more in the past twenty-four hours than in the past two dozen years.
When he dialed, Jerry answered with, “You missing me?”
“Where are you now?”
“Ten minutes out. Less. Why?”
“Something’s happened. A limo just pulled in the drive.”
“Who was it?”
“Couldn’t tell you.” Wayne realized then what had been bothering him. “What kind of guy rides in the back of a smoked glass limo with all the windows down?”
“Is this a trick question?”
“Think about it.”
“So the dude’s a fresh air freak.” But more serious now.
“The driver too?” Wayne said. “Both of them in suits? On a day this hot and muggy? The newspaper he’s holding rattling in the wet wind?”
Jerry took his time, came back with what was already rocking Wayne’s brain. “They wanted you to see inside.”
Wayne nodded enough to make the limb creak. “One man and his driver.”
“Which means they got a welcome committee waiting for us.” Jerry was talking to himself as much as to Wayne. “How’d they do that? The place is one way in, one …”
Wayne supplied what Jerry had already realized. “They came by boat.”
“Worked for us.”
Wayne was very pleased he had a sudden reason to grin. “I’ve got an idea.”
Jerry stayed trapped inside his thoughts as they drove toward Lantern Island. He had to hand it to the kid. While Jerry had remained in the truck, the kid had glad-handed his way through three churches, trading jokes with the ladies, coming out with everything he could possibly hope for. Call it fifteen minutes for each, start to finish. The kid would make a good undercover cop. Which was not why Jerry was glum. He felt let down by his own side, Mehan giving him “chain of evidence.” Jerry knew exactly what had been going down and he didn’t like it. Mehan was resisting a handover to the Naples white-collar crime unit. Maybe he was worried the white-collar crew would ridicule his lack of solid evidence. But Jerry had started case files with less to go on. He was thinking either Mehan feared losing control of the case or he was just plain lazy. And neither of these was a good response to a request from another cop.
But that wasn’t the real reason Jerry burned inside his own skin.
As they approached the final stoplight before the turn to Lantern Island, Julio shifted in his seat and said, “What about you, bro?”
“Don’t call me bro.”
“You been around Miss Victoria for years, right? How come you’re not saved?”
Jerry stopped at the light and looked over. It was the exact sort of conversation he’d be having with a long-time partner. The two of them easy in silence until one gave voice to a thought, usually starting midway through the concept. Like they were so in tune with one another they could assume the other would understand everything that went before.
Only this was with a barrio kid, him of the low-rider pants and the juvie sheet sixteen pages long.
Even so, Jerry hated how Mehan had treated Julio. The sneer, the suspicion, his ready attitude to slap on the cuffs first and search out the reason after.
Which was exactly how Jerry had acted.
That was what burned his craw.
Jerry said, “Who says I’m not saved?”
The kid shrugged. “The smell of this pizza is killing me. Okay if I have some?”
“Wait till we’re through the gate. The guard sees you chomping down and smeared with tomato sauce, he’s gonna know something ain’t kosher.”
“What, you think I can’t eat and stay clean?”
“Just hang on a sec, we’re almost there.”
“I know how to eat, man. I ain’t no animal.” Julio turned glum. “I know some, though. Animals.”
“So how come you’re not a banger? Last I checked, the Churos still had your area locked up tight.”
“Them and the Black Hands, yeah.”
“So you never joined?”
“They started on me. I talked to Eilene.”
“And?”
“She never said. But I think she phoned my old man.”
It made sense. “That was smart.”
“Or my brother. One or the other. I think. They never said. All I know is, one day they were on my case, the next and I had this bubble around me—they see me coming, they cross the street.”
Jerry made the turn. He glanced over, saw how the kid had gone morose on him. Amazing how the simplest question could rake across old wounds. “I asked for a miracle once. God said no. I got mad. End of story.”
“You don’t believe in miracles?”
“I didn’t say that.” He slowed for the guard station. The guard checked their day pass and opened the gate. Jerry waved his thanks and said, “But no. Matter of fact. I don’t.”
Julio grinned. “We’re sitting here, talking like two normal people. That’s a miracle in my book, man.”
Jerry rolled his window back up. “You got me there.”
The first thing Jerry said when Wayne opened the truck door was, “How’d you do that?”
“Move over.” When Julio shifted Wayne climbed in. “Did the guard call through?”
“Checked our day pass and license number is all. Now answer the question. I was watching all the angles, I glide the street, I park a block away, then poof, up you come.”
Julio said, “Man don’t need no cape to be super bad. But if you got one of them Bat-cars, I’m claiming shotgun.”
“Dude don’t need a black car with fire out the back end. Man’s already got hisself a Ferrari. That ride and that lady, I’d say the combo’s good for a shiver.”
Wayne took note of the change in the truck’s atmosphere, the easy grin the two men shared, but decided there was nothing to be gained by asking about it. “Where’s the pizza? I can smell it but I don’t see it.”
“What Julio didn’t scarf is behind the seat.”
“Right. Like you didn’t hose down five slices.”
“Two. I ate two.”
“Whatever. Man looks at me holding the box—don’t touch that, don’t touch, then whoosh. The box is empty.”
Wayne asked, “You ate all the pizza?”
“We got two more, don’t worry.”
“And a Coke, you get thirsty eating yours.” Julio twisted around, came up with a pungent box and a can. “The driver there, he can talk your head off, going on ’bout how hungry you get on stakeouts. Like sitting in a hot car watching an empty street is something I need to know about.”
Wayne ate a slice, drank, asked Julio, “Tell me what you’re going to do.”
“Man, there you go with the rocket science again. Jerry already melted my brain with all his orders. You want a blue-print, call NASA.”
“Got to admit, the kid has a point,” Jerry said. “Julio carries the pizza boxes to the door and rings the bell. How hard is that?”
Wayne selected another slice. “You’re taking his side now?”
“Whatever gets this show on the road.”
“You’ve got your gun, right?”
Jerry lifted his shirt. A snub-nosed revolver was attached to his belt. “Haven’t taken it off since they nabbed Foster.” He watched Wayne eat, and asked, “You phone the lady and tell her what you’ve cooked up?”
Wayne took another bite, shook his head.
“No, best not. She’d probably go all lawyerly on you, want you to sign some release or something.”
Wayne finished his slice and the Coke, then slid from the truck. He stood holding the door and said to Julio, “Just don’t go scouting the terrain looking for me or Jerry.”
Jerry opened his door. “And don’t go inside the house, whatever they tell you.”
Julio looked from one to the other. “I been thinking. Miss Victoria, I know she’d like it if we prayed first.”
Jerry’s eye found Wayne’s across the truck. His eyebrows were high enough to dig furrows across his forehead. “That a fact.”
Julio nodded, said to the former cop, “You want, you can say the words.”
“I told you already. God don’t pay any attention to me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Kid.” But the heat wasn’t there. “You started this motor. You drive the car.”
The men got back in the truck. When Julio was done praying, Jerry gave Wayne another look, as in, You believing this? He climbed out, watched Julio slide behind the wheel, and said, “Tell me you’ve driven a truck before.”
“Man, who you talking to?” Julio fired the engine. “I been boosting cars for years.”
“Of course. Silly me.” When the kid drove off, Jerry said, “Having a barrio kid talk to God on a cop’s behalf, this day is already beyond strange.”