Billy Povich: Loot The Moon Part 23

He smiled at Billy.

"Ive been coming to this spot for nine years," Glanz said. "Watch this ... ." He fished a hand inside his coat pocket, pulled it out, and showed Billy a few kernels of dried yellow corn. He held the kernels to the sky in his open hand, and whistled twice between his teeth.

Then he balanced the kernels on his shoulder. "Dont move," he whispered.

Within a few seconds, a crow swooped down to a nearby headstone. It hopped from stone to stone, eyeing Glanz, feinting toward him and then backing away. Then suddenly it flapped to his shoulder, landed there, pecked at the corn for a few seconds, and flapped off. Glanz laughed in delight, dug more corn from his pocket, and spread the kernels over the ground. The seed drew a dozen crows that cawed and pecked at each other in compet.i.tion for the prize.

"Do you know what a group of crows is called?" Glanz asked.

"A murder."

"Ah, very good. Its not a flock, as most people think; its a murder of crows. Because crows sometimes gang up and kill a dying cow." He sighed and rubbed his hands together. "I did not pay that kid to kill Gil Harmony."

"I dont believe you."

Glanz shrugged. "Who cares?"

"Take off your gla.s.ses," Billy ordered.

Glanz hesitated. Then he nodded and pushed the gla.s.ses up on his head, and turned pale green eyes to Billy.

"Can you see the truth now in my eyes?" Glanz asked, mocking him. "Can you see what youre looking for? Or do you see only the crimes of a young man, and the regret and the pain of an old one? Can you see my soul, Povich?"

Billy turned away. "I see nothing." He dropped to the ground, dejected. "I had expected you wouldnt see me as a threat, and wouldnt care enough to lie. I want the truth, even if it cant stand up in court."

Glanz rubbed his hands together again in the cold. He folded himself down, sat on the thick bluegra.s.s, and leaned back against his own tombstone. After a few moments, he said to Billy, "This is going to be my eternal view. I can see the marsh from here. I like that. The crows will keep me company. Margery has lain here alone for a long time. But not much longer. Im dying, Povich."

"Dying? Dying how?"

"The cancer in me is as malignant as my nightmares." He smiled sadly at Billy. "Six months, give or take, is the time I have left."

What to say?

Im sorry didnt fit the moment. Billy had just accused him of ordering a murder. He said nothing.

"Im about to meet the real Judge face-to-face," Glanz said, casting his eyes skyward, "the one who doesnt need testimony to know everything youve ever done. He has felt every drop of blood I spilt in my life, and will hold those crimes against me. I did not increase my burden, this close to my judgment, by killing Gil Harmony."

"But he put your son away. You threatened him."

Glanz grimaced at a painful thought. He said, "Davids sentence is an agony in my heart, second only to Margerys death. My greatest regret is that he took after me, and not his mother. But I cant say the sentence was unjust, and I told Gil Harmony that."

"What you told him," Billy corrected, with anger rising, "is that youd have your revenge."

"In the restaurant, yes, thats what I said," Glanz conceded. "Gil and I had arranged that encounter over the telephone."

"I dont believe you."

He shrugged and gazed over the marsh. "Who cares?" he said again. But the tone was too soft; it seemed he did care if Billy believed him. "I had to make a show of it to avoid looking weak to my employees. I need their loyalty. Forever. The men I employ must take care of Robbie after Im gone."

"And Gil agreed to go along with this?"

"Gil Harmony was a father. He understood what fathers must do."

What Glanz claimed was outrageous, though in a funny way it made sense. Gil told Kit not to report the threat to the police. The judge had not taken it seriously. All for show, he had told her. Maybe that wasnt bl.u.s.ter; maybe the judge with the double life had told the truth. All for show.

Glanz stroked his wifes tombstone. "She could have been canonized, this woman."

Billy felt a crack in his hatred of Rhubarb Glanz. The mobster had all but admitted being a murderer in his youth, so why lie about killing the judge? Even if he suspected Billy wore a wire, Glanz would be dead from cancer before a trial.

"Youll see your wife, soon, I guess," Billy offered.

"Naw, not me; Ill not see heaven," he said, sounding matter-of-fact about it. "Not after the life Ive lived."

"What about redemption? Youve got six months to repent. Youre lucky, in a way. Most people have no idea when the end will be."

"Its too late," Glanz said. "To plead for forgiveness now, as cancer eats me from the inside out, would be disrespectful." He shut his eyes for a moment and seemed suddenly exhausted. "Id be embarra.s.sed to ask. No, Povich, Ill take whats coming. Its what I deserve." A crow hopped near his feet. Glanz drew a few more seeds from his pocket and scattered them on the road.

Then he pulled up his sleeve and checked his wrist.w.a.tch. "You were truthful about keeping Robbie busy," he said. "Smart on your part-Robbie would shoot you where you sit." His eyes narrowed. "He better d.a.m.n well be okay."

"Were not murderers, sir."

Glanz looked at him with tight lips, and seemed to accept the explanation. "Dont judge Robbie too harshly," he advised. "What he did to you in that sandpit, he did to protect me. Are you a father, Povich?"

"I have a son."

"Do you know whats the strongest and most complicated bond in the universe, by my experience?"

"Tell me."

"The bond between father and son. No other relations.h.i.+p provokes such intense loyalty and pride. Or disappointment, compet.i.tion, and even rage."

"Rage?" Billy challenged.

"At a failure or a betrayal-rage, absolutely," Glanz said. He tapped the back of his head against his own tombstone. "These feelings are larger than any individual. They go back a long way, not to our births-but to the birth of mankind. They are complicated feelings. Men dont talk about them; we speak through action." He pointed at Billy. "Would you kill to save your son?"

"Of course," Billy said. He surprised himself by how reflexively he had answered, and added, "If he were threatened."

Glanz smiled. "You didnt even think about it. By instinct you know the relations.h.i.+p may require a moral man to kill."

Billy picked at some gra.s.s and tossed the blades away. "My father is trying to kill himself."

Did I just say that out loud?

"How so?"

"Hes skipping his blood treatments. Hes bored with his life, and with being too old and too sick to chase women in short skirts."

"Hes not bored with life," Glanz said. "He is convinced of his own uselessness. Convince him otherwise and he will claw the earth to live."

They sat together a few more minutes, watching the crows pick at the ground.

"I believe you," Billy admitted.

"Who cares?" Glanz said weakly.

"But that leaves me further from the truth. I have no idea who paid Adam Rackers to kill the judge."

"Rea.s.sess your a.s.sumptions," Glanz advised. "One of them is wrong. When you find out which one, the truth will be obvious."

twenty-seven.

The kitchen floor felt tacky under Billys bare feet. "Somebody spilled something and didnt wipe it up," he complained, though he had no mind to do anything about it at the moment. The cabinet had no clean mugs. Neither did the drying rack in the sink. He poured himself coffee in an old mason jar.

"You slept in," the old man said. He had parked his wheelchair at his traditional place at the table. The newspaper comics lay spread before him.

"Ive been awake in bed for a while, thinking about things." Billy slurped ancient coffee and grimaced at the bitterness. At Bos place on the table, disintegrating cornflakes floated in a bowl of milk.

"Bo at school?"

"I got him out the door, but that dont guarantee he got on the bus."

"Thanks, Pop."

The old man looked up in surprise from the funnies. "Youre welcome."

Billy pulled a chair from under the table, and found it occupied by Mr. Albert Einstein. "Good morning, Al," he said to the doll. "You had an IQ of a hundred eighty-five, but its not smart to hide where you might get sat on."

"We should talk about the doll," the old man said.

Billy tossed Albert on the table and plopped down. "The way Bo was speaking, I thought wed never see old Albert again," he said. "I figured the kid had graduated to some new security blanket. Whered you find Mr. Einstein?"

"Charlie Metts brought him up this morning after Bo left for school."

"Hmm?"

The old man dithered with the newspaper for a few moments. He said, "Uh ... Metts wanted to know how the twentieth centurys greatest scientist wound up inside the casket of a nine-year-old boy who died of leukemia."

"Oh, Jesus, Bo," Billy whispered. He grabbed his own head ... before it could explode.

"Charlie found the doll tucked shoulder to shoulder with the body, as if little Mr. Einstein here was keeping the dead boy company. Charlie loves Bo-as you know. So he aint mad. But Id say hes worried."

This was Mr. Einsteins new mission. Top secret. Keep a dead boy company in a cold, dark grave.

Billy smeared tears on his palm. The kids gesture was more giving to a family obliterated by disease than anything Billy could have done, despite Billys grown-up mind and grown-up paycheck. He turned away from his father. "Whens the funeral?"

"This afternoon."

"Call Metts," Billy directed. "Ask him to put the doll back in the casket, if the family doesnt mind. Tell him Mr. Einstein was a gift, from one lonely little boy to another."

"Fine, Billy."

"I have to meet Martin," Billy said. "Ive struck out on this case. I followed a one-way street to a dead end, and now theres no place to go. Rhubarb Glanz didnt pay to kill the judge." He threw his head back, let out a long breath, and wrestled control of his tears. "Its over. Some truths are just unknowable. Harmony was Martins friend. He wont be happy."

"Im taking the senior van to the hospital today," the old man said. "Not for treatment-Im done with that s.h.i.+t."

Billy lacked the spirit to argue.

The old man explained, "But I thought, you know, I should say good-bye to Stu Tracy. I like the kid, and hes had a rough go of it. But he gets the bandages off his eyes in a few days ... . At least he has a chance to get better and have a normal life, unlike some of us."

The old man was trying to draw Billy into a conversation about speeding his death.

Suicide by inaction and procrastination.

"Not now," Billy said. He left the table, adding ruefully on his way to the shower, "Stus the one guy in this mess who cant see that I failed. But hes getting better, so even thats about to change."

twenty-eight.

The restaurant on the first floor of a triple-decker house in a remote corner of Providence was smaller than the kitchens being installed in the new McMansions all over the southern half of the state. The diner mostly fed people who smelled like hard work and cigarettes. With just a lunch counter and two tables, no more than eight or ten could eat here at one time, yet over his years of sneaking here for long home-cooked lunches, Martin never had to wait for a table. The place sent him back in time to his grandmothers kitchen: he loved the faint odor of cooking gas, the clang of indestructible iron pans seasoned black by a million meals, the lack of any printed menu-you ate what was on the stove; the choice was take it, or leave it-and the fawning service that reminded a nostalgic middle-aged lawyer of love.

"Im meeting somebody today, Phyllis," Martin told the cook. "h.e.l.l probably want coffee."

"Ill make a fresh pot," she said. "Something while you wait?"

"Ill grab myself a soda. Theres nothing like sugar-free root beer and the obituaries on a sunny day."

"Help yourself, young man."

Martin smiled. This was the only restaurant in town where Martin could still be called young, though Phyllis was probably no more than ten years older than he. He grabbed a root beer from the cooler and settled into a chrome and vinyl kitchen chair near the window. Billy Povich had sounded distraught on the phone, and it would be up to Martin to absolve him.

Povich arrived ten minutes late, after Martin had already eaten his fried eggplant.

Billy dropped into the chair. "Sorry," he said. "I walked and got lost. Been doing a lot of that lately."

Martin forgave him with a smile and called to Phyllis. "Can my friend have some coffee and some of this terrific eggplant?"

"Mm-hm!"