“Go on,” Caruso said, his voice still weirdly mechanical, like some human part of him had dropped away so that he was now flying on autopilot.
“Something wrong, Vinnie?” Mortimer asked.
“Get to the point, Morty,” Caruso told him.
“The point is, I figure your friend is still alive,” Mortimer said. “ ’Cause my guy, he wants to know who sent him, you know?” Again he expected Caruso to react strongly to this, but he could sense no reaction at all. It was as if Caruso had taken some kind of pill that numbed him somehow.
“It goes back to this thing that happened years ago,” Mortimer said, keeping Caruso on the hook while he looked for a way to get to his point. “Another missing woman. He found her, but somebody was following him when he found her, and the way it worked out, this woman he found, she ended up dead.” He waited for a response, but none came. “So he maybe figures the same thing here. That this woman might get hurt. He’d try to stop it, Vinnie, is what I’m saying.”
“He can’t stop nothing if he ain’t found her.”
“No, but that guy he has, this friend of yours, you’re worried about him, right?”
“If he got nabbed, he got nabbed. Nothing I can do about it.”
Mortimer felt the door close on his first idea of getting to Caruso; then he grasped for another. “Well, if you ain’t worried about that guy, there’s another guy you should be worried about.”
“Who?”
“You, Vinnie,” Mortimer said, now desperately trying to keep one step ahead. “Because if this friend of yours breaks, he could connect you to this woman. And if she gets hurt, my guy would—”
“What happens to her is none of Batman’s business,” Caruso said sharply.
“He’s already made it his business, Vinnie,” Mortimer said emphatically. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. That woman gets hurt, there ain’t nothing he wouldn’t do. He ain’t sane when it comes to shit like this. On account of what I told you, is what I’m telling you. He ain’t . . . rational is what I mean. So, the way I figure it, we got to make sure nothing happens to that woman once I find her.”
“Once you find her?” For the first time, Mortimer heard something spark in Caruso’s tone.
“Yeah.”
“You looking for her, Morty?”
“Huh?”
“You said once
Mortimer swallowed hard. “Yeah, right.”
“What makes you think you can find her?”
“Nothing,” Mortimer said. “No reason.”
Caruso’s tone grew hard. “Bullshit.”
“What?”
“You know where she is, don’t you?”
“Vinnie . . . look . . .”
Caruso’s voice grew strangely urgent. “You know where she is, Morty.”
Mortimer knew he’d inadvertently dug a hole he couldn’t get out of, one that suddenly seemed deeper and darker than he’d guessed. “Maybe.”
“Don’t tell me maybe,” Caruso barked. “You know where she is, Morty.”
“I think I know,” Mortimer answered softly, stalling for time. “Which means that we could be out of the woods on this thing, providing.”
“Providing what?”
“Providing she don’t come to no harm,” Mortimer said. He waited for Caruso to react but again found only silence. “So what I figure is, I’ll check her out, this woman I’m thinking about, and if it’s her, then maybe we could come up with some way to make sure nothing happens to her.”
“I got to see her myself,” Caruso said.
“Why?” Mortimer asked.
After a pause, Caruso said, “So I can tell Labriola you done your job. That way, you keep the money. And you and me, we make sure the woman ain’t hurt, so Batman’s satisfied, and everybody wins, right?”
“So, where is she?” Caruso asked.
Suddenly Mortimer felt something tighten around his brain, a leather strap going dry.
“Where is she?” Caruso repeated.
“Vinnie, you won’t tell the Old Man, right?” Mortimer asked.
“No, I won’t.”
“Because you do, and something happens to her, my guy’ll—”
“I told you I wouldn’t tell Labriola,” Caruso said sternly.
“You gimme your word on that?”
“My word.”
“Okay,” Mortimer said, then stopped, desperately trying to think the whole thing through again.
“Well?” Caruso snapped.
Mortimer started to give Caruso Lucille’s address, then stopped again and drew in a deep breath. Not there, he thought, someplace public, so he could get a good look at Caruso when Caruso got a good look at Sara Labriola. “Okay, this woman that could be her, she’ll be at that bar you followed me to. McPherson’s. She’s supposed to do a little act or something. Sometime tonight. I don’t know when exactly.”
“Okay,” Caruso said.
“I’ll meet you at the bar around seven,” Mortimer said. “We can wait around till she shows up.”
Caruso’s response fell like a dead man’s hand. “No, you don’t need to be there, Morty.”
A bell went off in Mortimer’s head, a warning that whatever dead end his own fucked-up life had led him to, there were now other people with their backs to the same dark wall. “What’s going on, Vinnie?”
“Nothing,” Caruso said quickly. “If it’s her, it’s over.”