She heard the wind in the corn, felt her body pushed into the enveloping green, Sheriff Caulfield behind her, telling her she had to play along, keep her mouth shut, which she might as well do anyway, since he ran things in Cumberland County, and who would listen to a white-trash tenant farmer’s daughter?
And so she’d played along and kept her mouth shut, and the thing was done, and she’d pulled herself from the ground and staggered back toward her car, the voice screaming in her ear,
She closed her eyes and tried to squeeze all that had happened after that from her mind. When she opened them again, the sign shone dully before her.
Last chance, she thought, though she wasn’t sure it was even that. Still, it was a job, if she could get it, and at least there’d be no more searching the paper and going on interviews and sitting silently while they looked at her from across their polished desks.
Okay, she decided, why not, and on the wave of that decision walked to the door.
THREE
Mean to Me
TONY
Tony snapped the cell phone closed and looked at Eddie. “He won’t tell me a thing,” he said.
They had been driving aimlessly for an hour, through a string of Long Island towns, Tony talking to his father, trying to get some idea of who he’d put on Sara. “He just says he’ll find her, and when he does it’s up to me.”
“Up to you?” Eddie asked.
“What I want to do about it.”
“So, what you want to do, Tony?”
“I don’t know,” Tony admitted. “Talk to her, I guess.”
They rode in silence for a time, before Eddie said, “So, what will you talk to her about, Tony?”
“I don’t know.” Tony pulled down the visor to shield his eyes from the bright midmorning sun. “There’s something eating at him,” he said. “My father.” He considered his father’s gruff, angry tone, the spiking rage he seemed to feel at the mention of Sara’s name. “Maybe I should just tell him to pull this guy off, you know.”
“She could come back any minute,” Eddie said consolingly. “Like that aunt of mine.”
Tony stared out at the dull suburban landscape. “She never liked it here,” he said. He tightened his grip on the wheel and shook his head. “I don’t know what I want anymore, Eddie. I mean, what’s the good of her coming back if she can’t be happy?” He thought a moment, then shrugged. “But I don’t think she was ever happy. Except maybe right at the beginning, before—”
“Before what?”
“Before the Old Man started coming over all the time. Always beefing about this or that.”
Eddie nodded silently.
“I don’t want him to find her,” Tony continued. “Him, or some guy he’s got looking. It would scare her, you know? Some goon coming up to her, telling her she’s gotta come with him, maybe grabbing her arm, pushing her into a car.” A scene from his boyhood sliced through his brain, his mother on her knees in the kitchen, holding a bloody cloth to her mouth. A terrible dread seized him, and he suddenly steered the car off the main road and brought it to a halt on a secluded beach. “I got to find her before this goon does,” he said emphatically. He studied the empty expanse of the sea briefly, then turned to Eddie. “I figure it’s Vinnie Caruso that’s looking for her. Who else would my father use for something like this?”
Eddie nodded heavily. “Yeah, it’s probably Vinnie.”
Tony studied Eddie’s doughy features a moment, then said, “You go back a while, right? You and Caruso? I noticed it. When he shows up at the marina, he always says hello to you.”
“We go back, yeah. High school.”
“You were friends?”
“We hung out together,” Eddie said. “Weekends, you know? Over at Buddy’s Grill, with other guys that didn’t have no dates.”
Tony tried to imagine Eddie and Caruso in Buddy’s Grill on a listless Saturday night, both of them losers, no girls in sight, staring at each other over chili dogs and Cokes, two guys without prospects, two of life’s innocent bystanders, dodging stray bullets, getting hit or not, but always and forever within the line of fire.
“Vinnie wasn’t a bad guy back then,” Eddie added. “But he got picked on. Stuart Brock used to beat him up.”
Tony guessed what Eddie had left out. “Until you made him stop, right?”
Eddie nodded silently.
“So Caruso owes you,” Tony said.
Eddie looked at Tony without comprehension.
“He owes you a favor,” Tony explained.
“I guess.”
“Do you think he’d be willing to tell you if he found Sara? Before he told my father, I mean.”
“I don’t know, Tony. Vinnie’s real tight with your father.”
“But it wouldn’t hurt to ask him, right? At least I’d find out if he’s the guy my father has looking for her.”
“No, it wouldn’t hurt to ask,” Eddie said.
Tony touched Eddie’s shoulder. “I won’t forget this, Eddie.” He hit the ignition. “Believe me, I won’t forget.”